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The 100 best movies of all time to watch right now

Silent classics, noirs, space operas and everything in between: Somehow we managed to rank the best movies of all time

How do you know you’re watching a truly great movie? Trust us: if there were a formula for determining if a film deserves to be considered one of the best ever, it’d make putting together lists like this one much easier. But the truth is, greatness is highly subjective, and one person’s Citizen Kane is another’s Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo , or vice versa. (Hey, it’s possible.) Everybody has different criteria, determined by individual taste, personal experience and that intangible feeling that comes when a piece of art puts a dent in your soul. 

If there is any one thing that delineates a great movie from an all-time classic, though, it’s rewatchability. The best movies never get stale, no matter how many times you see them, and even the oldest films on this list will seem as fresh watched today as the day they first premiered. It’s a point that underscores the importance of repertory cinema – seeing a movie on the big screen, decades or even a century after its initial release, is a crucial element in film appreciation. Once you finish perusing our selection of the greatest films ever made, consider seeking them out at one of the world’s legendary cinemas, whether it’s the New Beverly in Los Angeles , Le Champo in Paris or Prince Charles Cinema in central London . You won’t regret it.

Been there, done that? Think again, my friend.

The best movies to watch

1.  2001: a space odyssey (1968).

• Science fiction

The greatest film ever made began with the meeting of two brilliant minds: Stanley Kubrick and sci-fi seer Arthur C Clarke. ‘I understand he’s a nut who lives in a tree in India somewhere,’ noted Kubrick when Clarke’s name came up – along with those of Isaac Asimov, Robert A Heinlein and Ray Bradbury – as a possible writer for his planned sci-fi epic. Clarke was actually living in Ceylon (not in India, or a tree), but the pair met, hit it off, and forged a story of technological progress and disaster (hello, HAL) that’s steeped in humanity, in all its brilliance, weakness, courage and mad ambition. An audience of stoners, wowed by its eye-candy Star Gate sequence and pioneering visuals, adopted it as a pet movie. Were it not for them, 2001 might have faded into obscurity, but it’s hard to imagine it would have stayed there. Kubrick’s frighteningly clinical vision of the future – AI and all – still feels prophetic, more than 50 years on.

2.  The Godfather (1972)

From the wise guys of Goodfellas to The Sopranos , all crime dynasties that came after The Godfather are descendants of the Corleones: Francis Ford Coppola’s magnum opus is the ultimate patriarch of the Mafia genre. A monumental opening line (“I believe in America”) sets the operatic Mario Puzo adaptation in motion, before Coppola’s epic morphs into a chilling dismantling of the American dream. The corruption-soaked story follows a powerful immigrant family grappling with the paradoxical values of reign and religion; those moral contradictions are crystallized in a legendary baptism sequence, superbly edited in parallel to the murdering of four rivaling dons. With countless iconic details—a horse’s severed head, Marlon Brando’s wheezy voice, Nino Rota’s catchy waltz— The Godfather ’s authority lives on.

3.  Citizen Kane (1941)

At this point, Orson Welles’ epochal masterpiece exists in the same sphere as ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, ‘The Great Gatsby’ and any other piece of art referred to as an ‘epochal masterpiece’ so pervasively that younger generations increasingly feel the need to poke holes in its greatness. But here’s the thing about Citizen Kane : it’s still pretty damn great, and might be more relevant now than it has ever been – after all, power-hungry tycoons with populist leanings have sort of been in the news lately. If it’s harder to recognise its stylistic and narrative innovations, that’s only because they’re now part of the common language of cinema. But it still has the capacity to dazzle modern audiences, whether through Gregg Toland’s otherworldly cinematography or its engrossing story of the American Dream in freefall.

4.  Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

Long considered a feminist masterpiece, Chantal Akerman’s quietly ruinous portrait of a widow’s daily routine—her chores slowly yielding to a sense of pent-up frustration—should take its rightful place on any all-time list. This is not merely a niche film, but a window onto a universal condition, depicted in a concentrated structuralist style. More hypnotic than you may realize, Akerman’s uninterrupted takes turn the simple acts of dredging veal or cleaning the bathtub into subtle critiques of moviemaking itself. (Pointedly, we never see the sex work Jeanne schedules in her bedroom to make ends meet.) Lulling us into her routine, Akerman and actor Delphine Seyrig create an extraordinary sense of sympathy rarely matched by other movies. Jeanne Dielman represents a total commitment to a woman’s life, hour by hour, minute by minute. And it even has a twist ending.

5.  Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

• Action and adventure

Starting with a dissolve from the Paramount logo and ending in a warehouse inspired by Citizen Kane , Raiders of the Lost Ark celebrates what movies can do more joyously than any other film. Intricately designed as a tribute to the craft, Steven Spielberg’s funnest blockbuster has it all: rolling boulders, a barroom brawl, a sparky heroine (Karen Allen) who can hold her liquor and lose her temper, a treacherous monkey, a champagne-drinking villain (Paul Freeman), snakes (“Why did it have to be snakes?”), cinema’s greatest truck chase and a barnstorming supernatural finale where heads explode. And it’s all topped off by Harrison Ford’s pitch-perfect Indiana Jones, a model of reluctant but resourceful heroism (look at his face when he shoots that swordsman). In short, it’s cinematic perfection.

6.  La Dolce Vita (1960)

Made in the middle of Italy’s boom years, Federico Fellini’s runaway box-office hit came to define heated glamour and celebrity culture for the entire planet. It also made Marcello Mastroianni a star; here, he plays a gossip journalist caught up in the frenzied, freewheeling world of Roman nightlife. Ironically, the movie’s portrayal of this milieu as vapid and soul-corrodingly hedonistic appears to have passed many viewers by. Perhaps that’s because Fellini films everything with so much cinematic verve and wit that it’s often hard not to get caught up in the delirious happenings onscreen. So much of how we view fame still dates back to this film; it even gave us the word paparazzi .

🇮🇹   The 50 greatest Italian films of all time .

7.  Seven Samurai (1954)

It’s the easiest 207 minutes of cinema you’ll ever sit through. On the simplest of frameworks—a poor farming community pools its resources to hire samurai to protect them from the brutal bandits who steal its harvest—Akira Kurosawa mounts a finely drawn epic, by turns absorbing, funny and exciting. Of course the action sequences stir the blood—the final showdown in the rain is unforgettable—but this is really a study in human strengths and foibles. Toshiro Mifune is superb as the half-crazed self-styled samurai, but it’s Takashi Shimura’s Yoda-like leader who gives the film its emotional center. Since replayed in the Wild West ( The Magnificent Seven ), in space ( Battle Beyond the Stars ) and even with animated insects ( A Bug’s Life ), the original still reigns supreme.

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8.  In the Mood for Love (2000)

Can a film really be an instant classic? Anyone who watched In The Mood for Love when it was released in 2000 may have said yes. The second this love story opens, you sense you are in the hands of a master. Wong Kar-wai guides us through the narrow streets and stairs of ’60s Hong Kong and into the lives of two neighbors (Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung) who discover their spouses are having an affair. As they imagine—and partly reenact—how their partners might be behaving, they fall for each other while remaining determined to respect their wedding vows. Loaded with longing, the film benefits from no less than three cinematographers, who together create an intense sense of intimacy, while the faultless performances shiver with sexual tension. This is cinema.

9.  There Will Be Blood (2007)

On the road to becoming the most significant filmmaker of the last 20 years, Paul Thomas Anderson transformed from a Scorsesian chronicler of debauched LA. life into a hard-nosed investigator of the American confidence man. The pivotal point was There Will Be Blood , an epic about a certain kind of hustler—the oil baron and prospector. Daniel Plainview is, in the final analysis, an ultra-scary Daniel Day-Lewis who will drink your milkshake. Scored by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood (himself emerging as a major composer), Anderson’s mournful epic is the true heir to Chinatown ’s bone-deep cynicism. As Phantom Thread makes clear, Anderson hasn’t lost his sense of humor, not by a long shot. But there once was a moment when he needed to get serious, and this is it.

10.  Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

MGM’s glorious epitaph to cinema’s silent era remains the purest kind of serotonin rush. Its trio of dancers—rubber-faced Donald O’Connor, sparkling newcomer Debbie Reynolds and co-director and headline act Gene Kelly—are a triple threat, nailing the stellar songs, intricate and physically demanding dance routines and selling all the comic beats with consummate skill. But kudos also belongs to Betty Comden and Adolph Green, whose effervescent screenplay provides the beat for the spectacle to move to, and Jessica Hagen, whose often-overlooked turn as croaky silent star Lina Lamont is the movie’s funny-sad counterpoint. Not forgetting co-director Stanley Donen, who was always happy to let his stars take the credit but deserves an equal share for a musical that never puts a foot wrong.

11.  Goodfellas (1990)

‘As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.’ Ray Liotta’s opening line is the crime movie equivalent of ‘Once upon a time…’, and what follows is Martin Scorsese’s version of a fairy tale – the story of a starry-eyed Brooklyn kid who realises his boyhood dream and still comes out a schnook in the end. Based on the true life of mobster Henry Hill, Goodfellas was born in the shadow of The Godfather , but as the years go on, the question of which is more influential becomes mostly a matter of generation. Certainly, the former is more easily rewatchable, owing to its breakneck pacing – its two and a half hours (and three decades) just whiz by. And for a movie about violent career criminals, it’s also strangely relatable. Where Coppola went inside the walls of organised crime’s one percent, Scorsese’s gangsters are more blue collar. And as it turns out, working for the mafia isn’t much different than any other job - you spend 30 years busting your hump to climb the ladder, only to end up face down on a bloody carpet in some tacky house in the burbs.

12.  North by Northwest (1959)

Identifying Hitchcock’s most ‘Hitchcockian’ film is largely a matter of personal preference, but North By Northwest  best   encapsulates his particular ability to appeal to mass audiences, critics and cineastes – all in the same moment. It’s also his most compulsively watchable, a caper that is at once suave, sexy, genuinely suspenseful and frequently, joyfully ridiculous. Cary Grant cranks the Cary Grantness to 11 as Roger Thornhill, a New York ad man mistaken for a spy and pursued across America by a shady cabal, sending him scurrying through cornfields, scaling Mount Rushmore and flirting royally with femme fatale Eva Marie Saint. It ends with a juvenile visual pun, involving a train entering a tunnel, which in the context of the time period plays like Hitch sticking a thumb in the eye of the prudish studio system. In other words, it really might be his defining film – certainly, it’s his most fun.    

13.  Mulholland Drive (2001)

Not many movies are known equally for a genuinely erotic lesbian sex scene and a heart-stopping jump scare involving some kind of terrifying trash witch. Then again, this is David Lynch we’re talking about: the man’s entire career is dedicated to doing things most other filmmakers wouldn’t even consider. But Mulholland Drive is where the phrase ‘Lynchian’ earned its definition. What appears, at first, to be a relatively straightforward noir about a gorgeous amnesiac (Laura Harring) trying to piece together the mystery of her own identity plunges, in its third act, into a hallucinatory dream world, effectively undoing everything that came before. The hairpin turn frustrated some critics, who apparently anticipated a movie that would explain itself in the end. Fans knew better – and for those willing to accept the movie as an experience, rather than a riddle to be solved, it’s a gift that reveals new pleasures (and nightmares) with each viewing. — Matthew Singer

14.  Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Vittorio de Sica’s Neorealist masterpiece is set in a world where owning a bicycle is the key to working, but it could just as easily be set in one where the absence of car, or affordable childcare, or a home, or a social security number are insurmountable barriers in the constant slog to put food on the table. That’s what makes simultaneously it a film for postwar Italy and modern-day anywhere-at-all. That’s what makes it such a powerful, enduring landmark in humanist cinema. You can feel it in virtually every social drama you care to mention, from Ken Loach to Kelly Reichardt.

15.  The Dark Knight (2008)

There’s a new Batman in Gotham, in the shadowy form of Matt Reeves’s The Batman – and this is the bar it has to clear. The middle entry in Christopher Nolan’s Bat-trilogy is an almost flawless case study of how to do a sophisticated superhero epic for modern audiences – and the ‘almost’ is only because the final act refreshingly tries to cram in almost too many ideas, much moral arithmetic. Heath Ledger’s Joker, meanwhile, redefines big-screen villainy: It’s not enough to be sinister, you need a party trick now too.

16.  City Lights (1931)

Charlie Chaplin’s total vision remains awe-inspiring: He wrote, directed, produced, edited and starred in his own movies, which he also scored with an orchestra. And when those cameras were rolling, they captured a self-made icon with a global audience. Still, City Lights was something else. Chaplin, reluctant to give up the visual techniques he’d mastered, insisted on making his new comedy a silent film even as viewers were growing thirsty for sound. As ever, the star had the last laugh: Not only was the film a huge commercial success, it also ended on the most heartbreaking close-up in cinema history—the peak of the reaction shot (since cribbed by movies from La Strada to The Purple Rose of Cairo ), no dialogue required.

17.  Grand Illusion (1937)

There’s never a bad time to revisit one of Jean Renoir’s great masterpieces (along with The Rules of the Game ), but this current era of populists, nationalists and shouty rabble-rousers feels like a particularly good one. Set in a German POW camp during World War I, the film lays bare the fault lines of class and nationality among a group of French prisoners and their German captors and comes to the conclusion that all that really matters is man’s nobility toward his fellow man. 🪖  The 16 best World War I movies of all time

18.  His Girl Friday (1940)

Calling this one the peak of screwball comedy may be too limiting: Among the many topflight movies directed by journeyman filmmaker Howard Hawks, His Girl Friday is his most romantic and most verbose (the constant banter feels like foreplay). Though the laconic Hawks would downplay his own proto-feminism throughout his life, the film is also his most liberated; strong women who had jobs and ran with newshounds were simply what he wanted to see. Most wonderfully, this comedy best celebrates the rule of wit: He—or, more often, she —with the sharpest tongue wins. If you love words, you’ll love this movie.

19.  The Red Shoes (1948)

You could stick nearly every Powell and Pressburger film on this list; such was the dynamic duo’s stellar output. But for our money—and that of superfan Martin Scorsese—this dazzling ballet-set romance is first among equals. It's a perfect expression of artists’ drive to create, set in a lush Technicolor world shot by the great Jack Cardiff. Scorsese describes it as “the movie that plays in my heart.” We’ll take two seats at the back.

20.  Vertigo (1958)

A sexy Freudian mind-bender that’s often considered Alfred Hitchcock’s finest triumph, Vertigo is pitched in a world of existential obsession and cunning doubles. Shape-shifting her way through Edith Head’s transformational costumes, Kim Novak haunts in two roles: Madeleine Elster and Judy Barton, both objects of desire for James Stewart’s curious ex-cop. Completing this vivid psychodrama is Bernard Herrmann’s alarmingly duplicitous score, which twists its way to a towering finale.

21.  Beau Travail (1999)

Increasingly a giant of world cinema, France’s Claire Denis continues to confound expectations, making movies in sync with her own offbeat rhythms and thematic preoccupations (colonialism, power, repressed attraction). This one, her celebrated breakout, is something of a spin on Herman Melville’s Billy Budd —but that’s like calling Jaws something of a spin on Moby-Dick . The genius is in Denis’s technique, manifesting itself in images of shattering emotional precision: sinewy silhouettes of soldiers, abstract tests of will in the desert and, most ravishingly, the euphoria of breaking into dance, courtesy of a loose-limbed Denis Lavant and Corona’s ‘Rhythm of the Night’.

22.  The Searchers (1956)

Showing some personal growth as well as filmmaking craft, John Ford makes some amends for his appearance in DW Griffith’s virulently racist The Birth of a Nation with this landmark western. It’s a story of hatred slowing giving way to compassion that strips away the toxic myths of the old frontier via the swaggering but broken-down figure of Ethan Edwards (John Wayne). Edwards is no white-hatted Shane type, but an embittered war veteran who hunts his own niece (Natalie Wood) with the intention of killing her for the crime of have been assimilated with the Comanche. The shot of Edwards framed in that doorway is one of the most famous – and most mimicked – in cinema .

23.  Persona (1966)

Back when David Lynch was still saving up money to buy his first camera, Ingmar Bergman was figuring out how to transmit the vagaries of the subconscious mind to the screen. Persona is a nightmare in the dreamiest and most confounding sense. In terms of plot, it involves two women, one an actress suffering from an unknown affliction (Liv Ullmann), the other her live-in nurse (Bibi Andersson), who retreat to an isolated seaside cabin in order to treat the latter’s disorder and who possibly, maybe start fusing into the same person. But whatever linear narrative exists is consistently upended by seemingly random images – a dead lamb, a crucifixion, a flash of a sudden erect penis – and meta-cinematic references, including a shot of cinematographer Sven Nykvist filming the movie itself. Critics have been dissecting its meaning ever since. But Persona doesn’t exist simply as a challenge to film scholars. If you give up any hope of literal understanding and give yourself over to it, you’ll experience a sense of unease few movies before, and hardly since, have managed to achieve. 

24.  Do the Right Thing (1989)

Spike Lee’s bitterly funny, ultimately tragic fresco of a Brooklyn neighborhood during one sweltering summer day was hugely controversial at the time: Critics dinged Lee for his depiction of an uprising in the wake of a police killing. The movie has lost none of its relevance or power; if anything, it’s gained some. But the filmmaking is what makes this a classic, particularly the energy, wit and style with which Lee presents this microcosm and the social forces at play inside it.

25.  Rashomon (1950)

It’s no exaggeration to say that Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon redefined cinematic storytelling. With its shifting, unreliable narrative structure—in which four people give differing accounts of a murder—the film is remarkably daring and serves as a reminder of how form itself can beguile us. Flashbacks have never been so thrillingly deployed; nearly 70 years after its release, filmmakers are still trying to catch up to its achievements.

26.  The Rules of the Game (1939)

Jean Renoir cemented his virtuosity with this pitch-perfect study of social-strata eruptions among the ditzy, idle rich, about to be blown sideways by WWII. Affairs among aristocrats and servants alike bloom during a weeklong hunting trip at a country manor, where the only crime is to trade frivolity with sincerity. Renoir captures his sparklingly astute ensemble cast with fluid, deep-focus camera movements, innovations that inspired directors from Orson Welles to Robert Altman.

27.  Jaws (1975)

Steven Spielberg’s immortal blockbuster doesn’t need political prescience to stay relevant: it’s a movie about a big-ass shark eating people. Thanks in large part to the film itself, that’s one irrational fear the public is never letting go of. Over the last two years, though, whenever some elected official has argued against mask mandates and said it’s time to reopen schools, it’s been hard not to think about Mayor Vaughn in his goofy anchor-print suit telling the citizens of Amity Island that it’s safe to go back in the water. And that element – along with the masterful pacing, the get-you-every-time jump scares and that banger of a third act – is what really makes Jaws forever frightening: sharks are scary, but greed and incompetence are far more likely to get you. 

28.  Double Indemnity (1944)

The deliciously dark, stylish genre of film noir simply wouldn’t exist without Double Indemnity . This one truly has it all: flashbacks, murder, shadows and cigarettes galore, and, of course, a devious femme fatale (Barbara Stanwyck). As one of the great directors of Hollywood’s golden age, Billy Wilder excelled across a variety of cinematic types, but this hard-boiled gem is his most influential work.

29.  The 400 Blows (1959)

The first in a five-film autobiographical series, Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows is the story of Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud)—stuck in an unhappy home life but finding solace in goofing off, smoking and hanging with his friends—and it’s cinema’s greatest evocation of a troubled childhood. Plus, it’s the perfect primer to get kids into subtitled movies.

30.  Star Wars (1977)

Popcorn pictures hit hyperdrive after George Lucas unveiled his intergalactic Western, an intoxicating gee-whiz space opera with dollops of Joseph Campbell–style mythologizing that obliterated the moral complexities of 1970s Hollywood. This postmodern movie-brat pastiche references a virtual syllabus of genre classics, from Metropolis and Triumph of the Will to Kurosawa’s samurai actioners, Flash Gordon serials and WWII thrillers like The Dam Busters . Luke Skywalker’s quest to rescue a princess instantly elevated B-movie bliss to billion-dollar-franchise sagas.

31.  The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

Carl Theodor Dreyer’s classic tale of the trial of Joan of Arc is somehow both austere and maximalist. The director shows restraint with setting and scope; the film focuses largely on the back-and-forth between Joan and her inquisitors. But the intense close-ups give free reign to Maria Falconetti’s marvelously expressive turn as the doomed Maid of Orleans. Made at the close of the silent era, it set new standards in screen acting.

32.  Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

The ultimate cult film, Leone’s spaghetti Western is set in a civilizing America—though mostly shot in Rome and Spain—but the real location is an abstract frontier of old versus new, of larger-than-life heroes fading into memory. It’s a triumph of buried political commentary and purest epic cinema. Henry Fonda’s icy stare, composer Ennio Morricone’s twangy guitars of doom and the monumental Charles Bronson as the last gunfighter (“an ancient race…”) are just three reasons of a million to saddle up .

33.  Alien (1979)

If all it did was to launch a franchise centered on Sigourney Weaver’s fierce survivor (still among the toughest action heroines of cinema), Ridley Scott’s claustrophobic, deliberately paced sci-fi-horror classic would still be cemented in the film canon. But Alien claims masterpiece status with its subversive gender politics (this is a movie that impregnates men), its shocking chestburster centerpiece and industrial designer H.R. Giger’s strangely elegant double-jawed creature, a nightmarish vision of hostility—and one of cinema’s most unforgettable pieces of pure craft.

34.  Tokyo Story (1951)

Simply spun, Yasujiro Ozu’s domestic drama is small but perfectly formed. Chishu Ryu and Chieko Higashiyama are dignified and moving as parents who visit their children and grandchildren, only to be neglected. Delicately played, beautifully shot (often with the camera hovering just off the ground), Ozu’s masterpiece is the family movie given grandeur and intimacy. If you loved last year’s Shoplifters , you’ll love this.

35.  Pulp Fiction (1994)

Quentin Tarantino’s second feature still feels like an explosion of everything we thought we knew about film. A gangster flick where the gangsters chat about cheeseburgers? Where the narrative is like a smashed jigsaw puzzle put back together out of order? With the guy from Look Who’s Talking  as a slick-talking hitman? That can make money, win Oscars and spin off so many imitators it’s practically a genre unto itself? It just took an over-caffeinated ex-video store clerk with the right amount of chutzpah to make it happen. When the aliens pick over our decimated planet and discover a VHS copy among the rubble, they’ll agree that John Travolta was the perfect casting choice, Samuel L Jackson is the baddest motherfucker on the planet, and the true contents of the briefcase really don’t matter. 

36.  The Truman Show (1998)

The late ’90s spawned two prescient satires of reality TV, back when it was still in its pre-epidemic phase: the underrated EDtv and, this, Peter Weir’s profound statement on the way the media has its claws in us. In some ways a kinder, gentler version of Network , The Truman Show is a TV parable in which a meek hero (Jim Carrey) wins back his life. It can also be considered an angrier film, slamming both the controlling TV networks (represented by Ed Harris’s messiahlike Christof) and us, the viewing public, for making a game show of other people’s lives. 

37.  Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Notions of masculinity, conflicted sexuality and tribal identity (or lack of it) boil beneath the surface of David Lean’s historical epic like magma. They seeps through the cracks of its depiction of iconoclastic Edwardian nomad and Arab leader T E Lawrence (Peter O’Toole), locating its huge set pieces within the megalomaniac compass of its hero and lending depth to its intimate moments when the cost of all is laid bare. Amid its sweeping Arabian landscapes, famously captured by cinematographer Freddie Young’s cameras, it’s the interior landscape of Lawrence himself that this great biopic maps out so memorably.

38.  Psycho (1960)

Alfred Hitchcock had made a few scary movies earlier in his career, but Psycho was something completely different – not just for his personal oeuvre, or the horror genre, but movies in general. It invented the modern slasher flick. It anticipated the moral ambiguity that would become de rigueur in the New Hollywood of the ‘70s. It upturned the established rules of narrative, killing off the supposed heroine midway through, in unprecedentedly shocking fashion. Sure, there are other filmmakers who can claim to have covered some of that ground first; Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom , in fact, arrived a few months earlier and hit on many of the same themes. The difference with Hitch is he knew how to transmit new ideas to the widest possible audience. He didn’t just break the rules – he rewrote the manual. And horror directors are still reading from it today. — Matthew Singer

39.  Sansho the Bailiff (1954)

Japanese cinema has produced no shortage of heavy hitters, but director Kenji Mizoguchi may deserve prime of place. He was able to turn out impeccable ghost stories ( Ugetsu ) and backstage dramas ( The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums ), but his greatest trait was a deep, unshakable empathy for women, beaten down by the patriarchy but heartbreaking in their suffering. These women are central to Sansho the Bailiff , a feudal tale of familial dissolution that will wreck you. Make no apologies for your tears; everyone else will be crying, too.

40.  Andrei Rublev (1966)

Mournful, challenging and mesmerizing, Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky’s epic portrait of the life and times of one of Russia’s most famous medieval icon painters foregrounds qualities such as landscape and mood over story and character. Ultimately, it’s the tale of a man’s attempt to overcome his crisis of faith in a world that seems to have an endless supply of violence and strife—and it’s a remarkable testament to the persistence of artists working under oppressive regimes.

41.  The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

The melancholy of Michel Legrand’s glorious score washes over viewers’ hearts from the first moment of Jacques Demy’s nontraditional, sung-through musical. One of the most romantic films ever made about the pains and purity of first love, the immaculately styled The Umbrellas of Cherbourg challenged the lighter Hollywood musicals of the era (like The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady ) and launched the sensational Catherine Deneuve into international stardom. Later, it would be a major influence on La La Land.

42.  Chinatown (1974)

Director Roman Polanski and screenwriter Robert Towne took a modestly sleazy noir setup and turned it into a meditation on the horrors of American history and rapacious capitalism. The film also sports a perfect cast, with a top-of-his-game Jack Nicholson as a cynical private eye, an impossibly alluring Faye Dunaway as the femme fatale with a past so dark her final revelation still shocks, and the legendary John Huston as the monstrous millionaire at the heart of it all.

43.  The Seventh Seal (1957)

Not just any film gets homaged by Bill and Ted. But Ingmar Bergman’s great treatise on mortality isn’t just any film. Despite becoming somehow synonymous with “difficult art-house statement,” it’s not all weighty themes, plague-strewn landscapes and chess games with the Grim Reaper. As Max von Sydow’s medieval knight travels the land witnessing the apocalypse, loads of life-affirming moments lighten the load. Of course, it’s a work of profound philosophical thought, too, so you’ll feel brainier for having seen it.

44.  Lost in Translation (2003)

Sofia Coppola’s second film feels like one of cinema’s great romances, despite nothing traditionally romantic happening in it. Bill Murray is a washed-up American actor reduced to shooting ads for Japanese whisky in Tokyo while his marriage grows cold back home. One jetlagged night in the hotel bar, he meets a young newlywed (Scarlett Johansson) already growing disillusioned with her own marriage. They bond over their shared alienation, have some drinks and spend one eventful evening out on the town, singing karaoke. Then they part, presumably forever. And yet, the film communicates more about the power of human connection than just about any other whirlwind dalliance you’ve seen in a capital-R movie romance. That’s thanks to Murray and Johansson’s subtle, sad-but-hopeful performances, but also Coppola’s framing of Tokyo as a gauzy, neon-lit dreamscape. If you’ve ever felt lonely, it’s impossible to resist. 

45.  Taxi Driver (1976)

A time capsule of a vanished New York and a portrait of twisted masculinity that still stings, Taxi Driver stands at the peak of the vital, gritty auteur-driven filmmaking that defined 1970s New Hollywood. Martin Scorsese’s vision of vigilantism is filled with an uncomfortable ambience, and Paul Schrader’s screenplay probes philosophical depths that are brought to vicious life by Robert De Niro’s unforgettable performance.

46.  Spirited Away (2001)

The jewel in Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli’s crown, Spirited Away is a glorious bedtime story filled with soot sprites, monsters and phantasms—it’s a movie with the power to coax out the inner child in the most grown-up and jaded among us. A spin on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (with the same invitation to follow your imagination), Spirited Away has been ushering audiences into its dream world for almost two decades and seems only to grow in stature each year, a tribute to its hand-drawn artistry. Trivia time: It remains Japan’s highest-grossing film ever, just ahead of Titanic . 

47.  Night of the Living Dead (1968)

The first no-budget horror movie to become a bona-fide calling card for its director, George A. Romero’s seminal frightfest begins with a single zombie in a graveyard and builds to an undead army attacking a secluded house. Most modern horror clichés start here. But nothing betters it for style, mordant wit, racial and political undertow, and scaring the bejesus out of you, all some 50 years before Us .

48.  Battleship Potemkin (1925)

This rousing Russian silent film was conceived in the heat of Soviet propaganda and commissioned by the still-young Communist government to salute an event from 20 years earlier. It tells of a sailors’ revolt that morphs into a full-blown workers’ uprising in the city of Odessa; the movie is most famous for one breathtaking sequence—much copied and parodied since—of a baby carriage tumbling down a huge flight of steps. But Battleship Potemkin is full of powerful images and heady ideas, and director Sergei Eisenstein is rightly considered one of the pioneers of early film language, with his influence felt through the decades.

49.  Modern Times (1936)

The only Charlie Chaplin movie to see the Little Tramp go on a massive cocaine binge, this relentlessly inventive silent classic hardly needs the added kick. The gags come almost as fast as you can process them, with the typically pinpoint Chaplin slapstick conjured here from scenarios that seem purpose-built to end in disaster. The sight of Chaplin literally feeding himself into a massive machine offers a still-revelant satire on technological advancement.

50.  Breathless (1960)

Film critic Jean-Luc Godard’s seismic directing debut is a bravado deconstruction of the gangster picture that also reinvented moviemaking itself. It features Cubistic jump cuts, restless handheld camerawork, location shoots, eccentric pacing (the 24-minute centerpiece is two lovers talking in a bedroom), and self-conscious asides about painting, poetry, pop culture, literature and film. A sexy fling between petty thief Jean-Paul Belmondo and Sorbonne-bound gamine Jean Seberg morphs into an oddly touching, existential meditation. It’s pulp fiction, but alchemically profound.

51.  Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

So much of Stanley Kubrick’s genius was conceptual, and this one asks his most audacious question: What if the world came to an end—and it was hilarious? Nuclear annihilation was a subject in which Kubrick immersed himself, reading virtually every unclassified text. His conclusion was grim: There would be no winning. Via darkest comedy (the only way into the subject) and an unhinged Peter Sellers playing three separate parts, Kubrick made his point.

52.  M (1931)

One of those epochal films—there’s only a handful—that sits on the divide between silent cinema and the sound era but taps into the virtues of both, Fritz Lang’s serial-killer thriller burns with deep-etched visual darkness while perking ears with its whistled “In the Hall of the Mountain King” (performed by a purse-lipped Lang himself; his star, Peter Lorre, couldn’t whistle). The movie’s theme is vigilance: We must protect our children, but who will protect society from itself? M is like a sonar listening to a pre-Nazi Germany on the cusp of shedding its humanity.

53.  Blade Runner (1982)

Set in (eek!) 2019, Ridley Scott’s vision of a dystopian future is one of the most stylish sci-fi films of all time. With a noir-inspired aesthetic and a haunting synth score by Vangelis (a massive influence on Prince), Blade Runner is iconic not just for its era-defining look, but also for its deeper philosophical examination of what it means to be human. Many have tried to imitate the film’s uncanny vibe, but these rain-slicked streets and seedy vistas possess a singular menace.

54.  The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)

The creative fecundity of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, dead from an overdose at age 37 after completing more than 40 features, deserves enshrinement by a new generation. This film is arguably his sharpest and most psychologically complex; inarguably, it’s his bitchiest. There is so much to love in Fassbinder’s shag-carpeted showdown, which goes beyond the spectacle of two dueling fashionistas into a profound exploration of aging and obsolescence.— Joshua Rothkopf

55.  Rome, Open City (1945)

Few film movements can boast the hit rate of Italian neorealism , a post-World War II wave dedicated to working-class struggle that seems to comprise only masterpieces. Robert Rossellini was responsible for a few of them, including Germany Year Zero and this earlier drama of repression and resistance, which boasts not one but two of the most memorable death scenes in all of cinema.

🇮🇹  The greatest Italian films ever made

56.  Nosferatu (1922)

Brace for the land of phantoms and the call of the Bird of Death: One of the earliest (though unauthorized) adaptations of Dracula is still the most terrifying. Max Schreck’s insectlike performance as the bloodthirsty Count Orlok is just as transfixing and repulsive as it was almost a century ago. German Expressionist director FW Murnau’s haunting images of a crepuscular world set the chilling standard for generations of cinematic nightmares.

57.  Airplane! (1980)

Should a movie whose primary function is to make fun of other movies be allowed inclusion on a list of the greatest movies of all time? When it’s as deliriously anarchic, sublimely silly and just plain hilarious as Airplane! , well, surely it should. In their first true feature, directors David and Jerry Zucker, along with partner Jim Abrahams, take aim at the disaster movies that were all the rage at the multiplex in the 1970s, and machine-gun jokes at the screen at such a pace that it requires multiple screenings just to catch them all. The context of the spoof is somewhat lost to time, and its progeny isn’t exactly illustrious – although the first Naked Gun  is a classic in its own right – but that’s only helped the movie stand on its own as a truly transcendent laugh riot.

58.  Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Both a sequel and a reboot, the fourth entry in director George Miller’s series of post-apocalyptic gearhead epics fuses death-defying stunts with modern special effects to give us one of the all-time-great action movies. This one is a nonstop barrage of chases, each more spectacularly elaborate and nightmarish than the last—but it’s all combined with Miller’s surreal, poetic sensibility, which sends it into the realm of art.

59.  Apocalypse Now (1979)

Francis Ford Coppola’s evergreen Vietnam War classic proves war is swell, as assassin Martin Sheen heads upriver to kill renegade colonel Marlon Brando. En route, there’s surfing, a thrilling helicopter raid, napalm smelling, tigers and Playboy bunnies, until Sheen steps off the boat and into a different zone of madness—or is it genius? Who knows at this point?

60.  Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Forget what the Oscars crowned as the Best Picture of 2005: Ang Lee’s tragic gay romance is the nominee that stands the test of time. Anchored by Rodrigo Prieto’s swoonworthy cinematography and a wistful Heath Ledger (whose performance toppled societal perceptions of masculinity), Brokeback Mountain is a milestone in LGBTQ art-house cinema. It reimagined the Western genre and became a part of the zeitgeist.

61.  Duck Soup (1933)

Biting political satires don't have to be long and complicated: This 68-minute masterpiece is perfectly pithy, exposing the absurdities of international politics with swift wit and spot-on slapstick. Often regarded as the funniest of the Marx Brothers’ oeuvre, the film is also—sadly—timeless, as its portrayal of a war-mongering dictatorship remains relevant to this day.

62.  The Blair Witch Project (1999)

In 1997, a group of no-name actors went into the Maryland backwoods with some handheld cameras, a loose script and a budget that wouldn’t cover the catering on most of the other films on this list, and emerged with a blockbuster. For years, though, The Blair Witch Project was discussed as a triumph of marketing more than anything else. It was pushed by an ad campaign that played coy with the veracity of the allegedly ‘found footage’: did an amateur documentary crew really disappear in the woods while investigating a local myth? Twenty-plus years and an oversaturation of lesser imitators later, it’s easier to appreciate Blair Witch as a master class of low-budget cinema. Honestly, if there’s a scarier scene in the last two decades than when those children’s hands imprint on the crew’s tent in the middle of night, it surely cost a hell of a lot more to make. 

63.  All the President’s Men (1976)

Vanishingly few movies get journalism right, and even fewer manage to convey the obsessiveness, the anxious frustration and the exhilaration of chasing a big story. Alan J Pakula’s movie about two reporters chasing the biggest story in American political history nails every beat. The achievement is especially remarkable considering that Nixon had resigned from office not even two years prior. But that nearness lends the film a living energy. Even with its unspoilable ending, Pakula and screenwriter William Goldman still managed to build an uncommonly nervy thriller that never digresses from the central narrative. No, you won’t get much of an idea of who Woodward and Bernstein (played with typical ’70s naturalism by Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford) are apart from their work. Instead, you just see the work – and in this case, that’s more than enough. 

64.  The Apu trilogy (1955, 1956, 1959)

We’re cheating by including all three films ( Pather Panchali , Aparajito and The World of Apu ), but really, how do you separate the installments of Satyajit Ray’s magnificent coming-of-age trilogy? The Bengali great follows young Apu (Apurba Kumar Roy) from boyhood to adult life via schooling and a move from his remote village to the big city, as well as loves and losses. Some of the most intimate Indian cinema ever captured, it’s also completely relatable, whether you hail from Kolkata, Kansas or Camden Town.

65.  The General (1926)

Boy meets train. Boy loses train. Boy chases Union forces who stole train, wins back train and fires off in the opposite direction. It may not sound like your average love story, but that’s exactly what Buster Keaton’s deadpan and death-defying silent comedy is: a majestic demonstration of trick photography, balletic courage and comic timing, all underpinned by genuine heart. Trust us, it’s loco-motional.

66.  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

There are countless movies about romantic relationships, yet few explore the subject more creatively than Michel Gondry’s breakthrough, scripted by Charlie Kaufman (who was then becoming a household name with Being John Malkovich and Adaptation ). The sci-fi–inflected tale of two halves of a broken-up couple going through a memory-erasing procedure takes many surprising, poignant turns; the film’s impeccably executed combination of authentically quirky imagery and philosophical inquiry has become a signpost of modern independent cinema.

67.  The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

The title is still a killer piece of marketing, suggesting something much gorier than what you get. That’s not to say Tobe Hooper’s masterpiece doesn’t deliver. A grungy vision of horror captured during a palpably sweaty and stenchy Texas summer, the film has taken its rightful place as a definitive parable of Nixonian class warfare, eat-or-be-eaten social envy and the essentially unknowable nature of some unlucky parts of the world.

68.  Come and See (1985)

As unsparing as cinema gets, the influence of Elem Klimov’s sui generis war movie transcends the genre in a way that not even Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan can match. At its heart it’s a coming-of-age story that follows a young Belarusian boy (Aleksei Kravchenko) through unspeakable horror as Nazi death squads visit an apocalypse on his region. Alongside its historical truths, the film’s grammar and visual language—there are passages that play like an ultra-violent acid trip—are what truly elevates it. Like an Hieronymus Bosch masterpiece, the images here can never be unseen.

69.  Heat (1995)

Writer-director Michael Mann’s heist masterpiece put two of our greatest actors, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, together onscreen for the first time—one as a stoic master criminal, the other as the obsessive cop determined to bring him down. In weaving their stories together, Mann presents dueling but equally weighted perspectives, with our allegiance as viewers constantly shifting. The last word on cops-and-robbers movies, it’s suffused with a magic that crime thrillers try to recapture to this day.

70.  The Shining (1980)

Our list doesn’t lack for Stanley Kubrick movies (nor should it). Still, it’s shocking to remember that The Shining —so redolent of the director’s pet themes of mazelike obsession and the banality of evil—was once considered a minor work. It’s since come to represent the most concentrated blast of Kubrick’s total command; he’s the god of the film, Steadicam-ing around corners and making the audience notice that he was born to redefine horror. Even if we can’t roll with the crackpot fan theories about how Kubrick allegedly faked the Apollo moon landing, we’ll readily admit that this film contains cosmic 

71.  Toy Story (1995)

With its debut feature, Pixar changed the game for major animated films. Emotional, exciting and funny as heck – and definitely not just for kids – the introduction to the world of Woody the Cowboy and Buzz Lightyear tells a fairly simple story, of how these two tiny rivals (voiced by Tom Hanks and Tim Allen) went from frenemies to friend-in-mes, but touches on themes of growing up and letting go that would mature as the series progressed. Some of the CGI looks dated, but every character, from the big names to the supporting comic relief, came fully realised. Four films later, we know them as intimately as some of our own flesh-and-blood buddies.  

72.  Killer of Sheep (1977)

Shot on 16-millimeter film in sketchy light, Charles Burnett’s UCLA graduate thesis film stitches together seemingly mundane vignettes to form a compelling mosaic of late-’70s African-American life. A landmark of independent black cinema, it’s set to a great soundtrack ranging from blues and classical to Paul Robeson. Poetic, compassionate, angry, ironic: All human life is present here.

73.  A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

There’s a tendency in these greatest-of-all-time exercises to prioritize the director, the camerawork or the screenplay. But respect must be paid to the performer, too: In a decade of brilliant acting, no turn was quite as galvanizing as the one given by Gena Rowlands in this stunning peek into a fraying mind. A fluky Los Angeles housewife and mother who’s constantly being told to calm down, Rowlands’s Mabel is the apotheosis of John Cassavetes’s improvisatory cinema; our concern for her never flags as she teeters through excruciating scenes of breakdown and regrouping.

74.  Annie Hall (1977)

Quotable, endearing and bursting with creative moments, Annie Hall is one of the most revolutionary of romantic comedies. This quintessential New York movie turned countless viewers on to the joys of verbose dialogue (and experimentation in menswear for women), and has long been lauded for both its accessibility and its poignancy, a balance that few movies have since achieved so memorably.

75.  Some Like It Hot (1959)

Clocking it at number 15 on our list of the 100 Greatest Comedies Ever Made , Billy Wilder’s classic gangster farce plays like Scarface on helium. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon make one of cinema’s most delightful double acts as a couple of musicians on the run from the Mob, but Marilyn Monroe steals the picture as the coquettish, breathy and entirely loveable Sugar. Nobody’s perfect but this movie gets pretty darn close.

76.  Metropolis (1927)

Hugely expensive for its time, Metropolis is Blade Runner , The Terminator and Star Wars all rolled into one (not to mention 50 years prior). Fritz Lang’s silent vision of a totalitarian society still astounds through its stunning cityscapes, groundbreaking special effects and a bewitchingly evil robot (Brigitte Helm). It’s science fiction at its most ambitious and breathtaking — the not-so-modest beginnings of onscreen genre seriousness.

77.  The Maltese Falcon (1941)

The accepted wisdom is that the noir era really kicked off during the hard-bitten post-WWII years, which makes John Huston’s adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's detective novel a real trailblazer. It’s a template for the swathe of noir flicks that would follow, offering up a jaded-but-noble gumshoe in Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade, a femme fatale (Mary Astor), a couple of shifty villains (Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre) and a labyrinthine plot that drags you around by the nose. If the movie were any more hard-boiled, you’d crack your teeth on it.

78.  This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

Exploding drummers, amps that go to 11, tiny Stonehenges, ‘Dobly’: This spoof rock documentary — rockumentary, if you must — is monumentally influential on cinema, cringe comedy and, possibly, the music industry itself. (There’s not a band out there without at least one Spinal Tap moment to its name.) Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer are comic royalty, and we can only genuflect in their presence; shortly after this film, Guest kicked off his own directorial brand of humor, directly inspired by Rob Reiner’s heavy-metal satire.

79.  It Happened One Night (1934)

If only Hollywood made ’em like they used to: crackling romantic comedies that conquered the Oscars. Frank Capra’s hilarious hate-at-first-sight love story is still one of the fastest movies ever made. Claudette Colbert’s spoiled heiress and Clark Gable’s opportunistic reporter hit the road and bicker their way toward a happily-ever-after ending, class barriers be damned. Not only did this smart and suggestively sexy pre-Code screwball shape every rom-com that followed, it still has a leg up on most of them.

80.  Die Hard (1988)

Let’s get this out of the way: Die Hard is a Christmas movie . Deal with it. Another, less controversial statement about John McTiernan’s blockbuster: it’s the platonic ideal of an action movie, and Bruce Willis as wiseass New York cop John McClane is the coolest action hero of all-time. The sequels would stretch the limits of his charisma by getting bigger and stupider, but the original hits the perfect amount of big and brash, as McClane attempts to thwart the plans of a European terrorist group that’s seized an LA high-rise and taken his wife hostage. And  McClane has the ideal foil in Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber, who might also be the best action movie villain of all-time: an erudite pseudo-revolutionary who makes it clear that he reads Forbes and doesn’t much care for garrulous American cowboys.

81.  The Conformist (1970)

Is it sacrilege to declare that the best-looking film set in Paris was shot by a couple of Italians? Bernardo Bertolucci and his cinematographer Vittorio Storaro bathe the French capital – as well as the neoclassical edifices of Mussolini’s Rome – in cool blues and shards of light as sharp as the knives wielded against the left-wing professor that Jean-Louis Trintignant’s fascist assassin, Clerici, is ordered to kill. Given a murkier, darker ending than Alberto Moravia’s source novel, it’s an electrifying thriller full of shadowy figures, sex and betrayal. But it’s as a highly charged political screed where its real power lies. A weak, cynical man with repressed desires, Clerici is powerless to resist the violent orthodoxy of fascism. The poisonous allure of authoritarianism has never been so chilling – or stylishly – rendered as this.

82.  The Thing (1982)

Neither audiences nor critics were ready for John Carpenter’s remake of 1951’s The Thing from Another World , and who could blame them? Its special effects were next level, but even if you appreciated Rob Bottin’s innovative gore, there was a lingering sense that they overshadowed the rest of the film. Decades on, it’s easier to see all the other things that make The Thing not just Carpenter’s masterpiece but one of the greatest achievements in horror: the snowbound claustrophobia; the overwhelming paranoia; Ennio Morricone’s pulsating synth score; the terrific ensemble cast. And yes, the effects remain eye-popping and stomach-turning – in the end, though, it’s the final, quiet image, of two men locking eyes, unsure if the other is actually a human being at all, that lodges deepest in your memory.

83.  Daughters of the Dust (1991)

Writer-director Julie Dash should have become an Ava DuVernay-level success after her poetic feature debut, an achievement of otherworldly beauty. The first film made by an African-American woman to receive theatrical distribution, Daughters of the Dust is permeated with pride, history and matriarchal wisdom. Set in 1902, it follows the Gullah, descendents of slaves living off the coast of South Carolina, who painfully reckon with their fading traditions. Singularly ahead of its time, Daughters mourns the enduring tragedy of enslavement. Its tranquil strength later found an echo in Beyoncé’s Lemonade .

84.  The Zone of Interest (2023)

What could movies still have to tell us about the Holocaust in the 2020s? In director Jonathan Glazer’s view, the better question is: what can the Holocaust tell us about ourselves – and the world right now? A lot, it seems, though many of us probably don’t want to hear it. In his depiction of the Nazi Höss family living in domestic idyll a stone’s throw from Auschwitz, Glazer dismantles the notion that the perpetrators of mankind’s greatest atrocity were a historical aberration; they could be anyone, so ordinary is their home life, which means they could be all of us. What is abnormal are the sensorial details on the film’s edges: the glimpses of a smoking chimney just beyond the family garden; the horrific sound design, an incessant white noise of gunshots, whirring machinery, and not-so-distant screams; the dreamlike scenes of a young girl hiding food for prisoners at night, shot using infrared cameras. It’s a chilling mood piece few are likely to bear revisiting, but that everyone should experience.

85.  Barry Lyndon (1975)

Back in 1975, Stanley Kubrick’s somber adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel about a young Irishman’s journey from lovestruck exile to cynical grifter in 18th-century Europe seemed out of step with the gritty, intense output of contemporary cinema. Years later, it’s considered by many to be Kubrick’s masterpiece, and its deliberate, highly aestheticized approach has influenced everybody from Ridley Scott to Yorgos Lanthimos.

86.  Raging Bull (1980)

Martin Scorsese’s hallucinogenic biography of the tenacious boxer Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro) is a bold mash-up of neorealist grit and hyperstylised, gossamer beauty. Put on the gloves and LaMotta is in his element; take them off and he’s an insecure sociopath consumed by sexual jealousy. De Niro’s monstrous portrayal is miraculously empathetic, but what’s truly revolutionary is Scorsese’s technique: Like a modern-day Verdi, the Italian-American auteur elevates the profane to the operatic.

87.  Seven (1995)

David Fincher is the most signature director of his era: a crafter of iconic music videos and decade-defining dramas like Zodiac and The Social Network . But his transition to Hollywood was rocky; it was a town that barely understood him. The turning point was Seven , the first time that Fincher’s fearsome vision arrived uncut. Stylistically, the dark movie (shot by an inspired Darius Khondji, working with a silver-nitrate-retention process) has proven more durable than even The Silence of the Lambs , but it’s that meme-able sucker punch of an ending that still rattles audiences. 

88.  Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)

Ever-overshadowed by the Herculean feat that was Fitzcarraldo , Werner Herzog’s other exploration of male vainglory in the remotest parts of South America applies another coolly obversational lens to the malignant madness of out-of-control obsession. It’s colder, greedier here: Klaus Kinski’s conquistador craves gold, not culture. Featuring a river journey, a haunting, synthy Popul Voh score and a bunch of taunting monkeys, it’s Herzog’s Apocalypse Now .

89.  The Battle of Algiers (1966)

Political thrillers still owe a debt to Gillo Pontecorvo’s ever-timely tour de force. Recounting the Algerian uprising against French colonial occupiers in the 1950s, The Battle of Algiers boldly examines terrorism, racism and even torture as a means of intelligence-gathering. Screened at the Pentagon for its topical significance during the early phases of the Iraq War, Algiers has its rebellious legacy vested in numerous politically charged epics, from Z to Steven Spielberg’s Munich .

90.  No Country for Old Men (2007)

Cormac McCarthy and the Coen brothers are a match made in the driest, most violent corner of heaven. The filmmaking duo’s fixation with choice, chance and fate reaches its apex with their adaptation of the late author’s 2005 novel – which began life as a screenplay – an existentialist neo-Western that still functions as a gripping piece of entertainment. A hunter in a West Texas border town circa 1980 stumbles upon the aftermath of a botched drug deal in the desert, decides to take off with a satchel full of money, pursued by both a relentless hitman (Javier Bardem) and an exhausted sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones). An otherworldly sense of mystery hangs over the entire film, while Roger Deakins’ cinematography makes its dusty trailer towns feel like the edge of the Earth. It’s the Coens’ most frightening movie, thanks to Bardem’s psychopathic Anton Chigurh. Behind that pageboy haircut, he gives one of the great villain performances of all time.

91.  Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)

Pedro Almodóvar broke into the mainstream with this gloriously colorful ensemble comedy, an entry point for many into a style of smart, sexually liberated European cinema. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown offers juicy roles for a range of Spain’s finest female actors (plus a charmingly baby-faced Antonio Banderas) and consistently delights with its creative choices in costuming and interior design. The combination of screwball dynamics and the garishness of the 1980s is perfectly calibrated and fun.

92.  The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)

Movies have always been a gateway into radical art; Hollywood may have made them sleek and accessible, but experimentation was there from the start. Luis Buñuel counts among the top rank of dreamers to ever grace the field of filmmaking. Without him, there’s no David Lynch, no Wong Kar-wai—even Alfred Hitchcock was a fan. Of Buñuel’s many seismic features (don’t skip his slicin’-up-eyeballs short, Un Chien Andalou ), begin with this radical satire of class warfare, which sums up everything he did well. It even won him an unlikely Oscar.

93.  Paths of Glory (1957)

An antiwar movie, a courtroom thriller, an upstairs-downstairs study of social status, a religious critique, an absurdist satire and, finally, a heartbreakingly futile plea for compassion in the face of destruction, Stanley Kubrick’s humanist masterpiece dissects all the delusional facets of the male psyche. Battlegrounds abound – psychological, emotional, physical – making the bleakly entrenched soldiers of 1916, and the officers who confuse folly for fame, still feel painfully relevant.

94.  Secrets & Lies (1996)

Actors are the lifeblood of director Mike Leigh’s famous process, a much-discussed method of workshopping, character exploration, group improvisation and collaborative writing. It can often be months before the camera rolls. The results have been consistently exquisite over the years, funneled into period musical-comedies ( Topsy-Turvy ) and brutal contemporary dramas ( Naked ) alike. We recommend Leigh’s critical breakthrough, featuring nervy turns by Brenda Blethyn and Timothy Spall, as the perfect place to begin your deep dive.

95.  Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Gossip columnists have mostly gone the way of, well, everything else in media. At one time, though, the most powerful of them could make careers and ruin lives. In Alexander Mackendrick’s singular noir, Tony Curtis is a low-level publicist in thrall to Burt Lancaster’s influential newspaperman, whose quid pro quos in exchange for coverage range from shady to downright illegal. Playing out in the corner booths and smoky back rooms of mid-century Times Square, it depicts showbiz rumour-peddling as every bit amoral and corrupt as politics or organised crime. But it’s still vicious, delicious fun, with some of the most delectable dialogue in all of movies.

96.  The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

This German Expressionist masterpiece came out in 1920, a long time before the invention of the spoiler warning. We only hope that audience members instinctively knew not to give away cinema’s first ever twist ending and ruin the sting of this fractured horror-fable for their pals. Director Robert Wiene conjured up something truly dark and lingering from its shadows: You can feel Dr. Caligari ’s influence in everything from Tim Burton’s movies to Shutter Island .

97.  Nashville (1975)

This multilayered epic of country music, politics and relationships is Robert Altman’s signature achievement. With its overlapping dialogue and roving camera, Nashville created an earthy, idiosyncratic panorama of American life, featuring many of the most memorable actors of the decade. The 1970s were US cinema’s most exciting period, and Nashville –  broadened by its admirable scope and freewheeling energy – is emblematic of that creativity.

98.  Don’t Look Now (1973)

Nicolas Roeg influenced and inspired a generation of filmmakers, from Danny Boyle to Steven Soderbergh – and here’s why. Roeg shrouds Daphne du Maurier’s short story in an icy chill, seeding the idea of supernatural forces at play in a wintry Venice through sheer filmmaking craft and the power of his editing. He finds a deep humanity in the horror, too, with Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland’s grieving parents reconnecting and drifting apart like flotsam on some invisible tide. His masterpiece, Don’t Look Now remains a primal cry of grief that shakes you to the core.

99.  Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Arthur Penn’s game-changing heist movie  was made in the same spirit of the revisionist Westerns of the ’60s and ’70s—irreverent, fun, morally all over the place, and unafraid of blood and bullets. The movie takes us back to the 1930s during the legendary crime spree of lovers Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty), careening around Depression-era America and robbing it blind. Why did this film resonate so well at the end of its decade? With the Vietnam War, inner-city rioting and Nixon on the rise, all bets were off. Add the swoony pair of Beatty and Dunaway, and you’ve got a classic on your hands: a revolution in period dress.

100.  Get Out (2017)

Watch this space: Jordan Peele’s newly minted horror classic is sure to rise in the rankings. Taking cues from grand master George A. Romero and his counterculture-defining Night of the Living Dead , Peele infused white liberal guilt with a scary racial subtext; the ‘sunken place’ is precisely the kind of metaphor that only horror movies can exploit to the fullest. During its theatrical run – which stretched into a summer that also saw the white-supremacist Charlottesville rally –  Get Out felt like the only movie speaking to a deepening divide.

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The Best Movie Reviews We’ve Ever Written — IndieWire Critics Survey

David ehrlich.

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Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?”, can be found at the end of this post.)

While this survey typically asks smart critics to direct readers toward good movies, we hope that the reverse is also true, and that these posts help movies (good or bad) direct readers towards smart critics. 

In that spirit, we asked our panel of critics to reflect on their favorite piece of film criticism that they’ve ever written (and we encouraged them to put aside any sort of modesty when doing so).

Their responses provide rich and far-reaching insight into contemporary film criticism, and what those who practice it are hoping to achieve with their work.

Siddhant Adlakha (@SidizenKane), Freelance for The Village Voice and /Film

Let’s cut right to the chase. Christopher Nolan is probably my favourite working director, and going five thousand words deep on his career after “Dunkirk” was an itch I’d been waiting to scratch for nearly a decade. “The Dark Knight” was my dorm-room poster movie — I’m part of the generation that explored films through the IMDb Top 250 growing up — though as my cinematic horizons expanded and my understanding of storytelling grew, I didn’t leave Nolan’s work behind as I did the likes of “Scarface” and “The Boondock Saints.” What’s more, each new film by Nolan hits me like a tonne of bricks. I’m waiting, almost eagerly, for him to disappoint me. It hasn’t happened yet, and I needed to finally sit down and figure out why.

In “Convergence At ‘Dunkirk,’” by far the longest piece I’ve ever written, I’d like to think I unpacked a decade worth of my awe and admiration, for a filmmaker who uses the studio canvas to explore human beings through our relationship to time. Tarkovsky referred to cinema as “sculpting in time.” Time disorients. Time connects us. Time travels, at different speeds, depending on one’s relationship to it, whether in dreams or in war or in outer space, and time can be captured, explored and dissected on screen.

What’s more, Nolan’s films manipulate truth as much as time, as another force relative to human perception, determining our trajectories and interpersonal dynamics in fundamental ways. All this is something I think I knew, instinctively, as a teenage viewer, but putting words to these explorations, each from a different time yet connected intrinsically, is the written criticism that I most stand by. It felt like something that I was meant to write, as I interrogated my own evolving emotional responses to art as time went on.

Carlos Aguilar (@Carlos_Film), Freelance for Remezcla

At the 2017 Sundance premiere of Miguel Arteta’s “Beatriz at Dinner,” starring Salma Hayek, I found myself in shock at the reactions I heard from the mostly-white audience at the Eccles Theatre. I was watching a different movie, one that spoke to me as an immigrant, a Latino, and someone who’s felt out of place in spaces dominated by people who’ve never been asked, “Where are you really from?” That night I went back to the condo and wrote a mountain of thoughts and personal anecdotes that mirrored what I saw on screen.

This was a much different piece from what I had usually written up to that point: coverage on the Best Foreign Language Oscar race, pieces on animation, interviews with internationally acclaimed directors, and reviews out of festivals. Those are my intellectual passions, this; however, was an examination on the identity that I had to built as an outsider to navigate a society were people like me rarely get the jobs I want.

My editor at Remezcla, Vanessa Erazo, was aware of the piece from the onset and was immediately supportive, but it would take months for me to mull it over and rework it through multiple drafts until it was ready for publication in time for the film’s theatrical release. In the text, I compared my own encounters with casual racism and ignorance with those Hayek’s character faces throughout the fateful gathering at the center of the film. The reception surpassed all my expectations. The article was shared thousands of times, it was praised, it was criticized, and it truly confronted me with the power that my writing could have.

A few months later in September, when Trump rescinded DACA, I wrote a social media post on my experience as an undocumented person working in the film industry, and how difficult it is to share that struggle in a world were most people don’t understand what it means to live a life in the shadows. The post was picked up by The Wrap and republished in the form of an op-ed, which I hope put a new face on the issue for those who didn’t directly knew anyone affected by it before. Once again that piece on “Beatriz at Dinner” regained meaning as I found myself filled with uncertainty.

Ken Bakely (@kbake_99), Freelance for Film Pulse

Like many writers, I tend to subconsciously disown anything I’ve written more than a few months ago, so I read this question, in practice, as what’s my favorite thing I’ve written recently. On that front, I’d say that the review of “Phantom Thread” that I wrote over at my blog comes the closest to what I most desire to do as a critic. I try to think about a movie from every front: how the experience is the result of each aspect, in unique quantities and qualities, working together. It’s not just that the acting is compelling or the score is enveloping, it’s that each aspect is so tightly wound that it’s almost indistinguishable from within itself. A movie is not an algebra problem. You can’t just plug in a single value and have everything fall into place.

“Phantom Thread” is Paul Thomas Anderson’s dreamy cinematography. It is Jonny Greenwood’s impeccably seductive, baroque music. It is Vicky Krieps’s ability to perfectly shatter our preconceptions at every single turn as we realize that Alma is the movie’s actual main character. We often talk about how good films would be worse-off if some part of it were in any way different. In the case of “Phantom Thread,” you flat-out can’t imagine how it would even exist if these things were changed. When so many hot take thinkpieces try to explain away every ending or take a hammer to delicate illusions, it was a pleasure to try and understand how a movie like this one operates on all fronts to maintain an ongoing sense of mystique.

Christian Blauvelt (@Ctblauvelt), BBC Culture

I don’t know if it’s my best work, but a landmark in my life as a critic was surely a review of Chaplin’s “The Circus,” in time for the release of its restoration in 2010. I cherish this piece , written for Slant Magazine, for a number of reasons. For one, I felt deeply honored to shed more light on probably the least known and least respected of Chaplin’s major features, because it’s a film that demonstrates such technical virtuosity it dispels once and for all any notion that his work is uncinematic. (Yes, but what about the rest of his filmography you ask? My response is that any quibbles about the immobility of Chaplin’s camera suggest an ardent belief that the best directing equals the most directing.) For another, I was happy this review appeared in Slant Magazine, a publication that helped me cut my critical teeth and has done the same for a number of other critics who’ve gone on to write or edit elsewhere. That Slant is now struggling to endure in this financially ferocious landscape for criticism is a shame – the reviews I wrote for them around 2009-10 helped me refine my voice even that much more than my concurrent experience at Entertainment Weekly, where I had my day job. And finally, this particular review will always mean a lot to me because it’s the first one I wrote that I saw posted in its entirety on the bulletin board at Film Forum. For me, there was no surer sign that “I’d made it”.

Richard Brody (@tnyfrontrow), The New Yorker

No way would I dare to recommend any pieces of my own, but I don’t mind mentioning a part of my work that I do with special enthusiasm. Criticism, I think, is more than the three A’s (advocacy, analysis, assessment); it’s prophetic, seeing the future of the art from the movies that are on hand. Yet many of the most forward-looking, possibility-expanding new films are in danger of passing unnoticed (or even being largely dismissed) due to their departure from familiar modes or norms, and it’s one of my gravest (though also most joyful) responsibilities to pay attention to movies that may be generally overlooked despite (or because of) their exceptional qualities. (For that matter, I live in fear of missing a movie that needs such attention.)

But another aspect of that same enthusiasm is the discovery of the unrealized future of the past—of great movies made and seen (or hardly seen) in recent decades that weren’t properly discussed and justly acclaimed in their time.”. Since one of the critical weapons used against the best of the new is an ossified and nostalgic classicism, the reëvaluation of what’s canonical, the acknowledgment of unheralded masterworks—and of filmmakers whose careers have been cavalierly truncated by industry indifference—is indispensable to and inseparable from the thrilling recognition of the authentically new.

Deany Hendrick Cheng (@DeandrickLamar), Freelance for Barber’s Chair Digital

It’s a piece on two of my favorite films of 2017, “Lady Bird” and “Call Me By Your Name”, and about how their very different modes of storytelling speak to the different sorts of stories we tell ourselves. Objectively, I don’t know if this is my best work in terms of pure style and craft, but I do think it’s the most emblematic in terms of what I value in cinema. I think every film is, in some way, a treatise on how certain memories are remembered, and I think cinema matters partly because the best examples of it are prisms through which the human experience is refracted.

Above everything else, every movie has to begin with a good story, and the greatest stories are the ones that mirror not just life, but the ways in which life is distorted and restructured through the process of remembering. Every aspect of a film, from its screenplay on down, must add something to the film’s portrayal of remembering, and “Lady Bird” and “Call Me By Your Name” accomplish this organic unity of theme with such charm yet in such distinct ways, that they were the perfect counterpoints to each other, as well as the perfect stand-ins for cinema as a whole, for me.

Liam Conlon (@Flowtaro), Ms En Scene

My favorite piece of my own work is definitely  “The Shape of Water’s” Strickland as the “Ur-American.”  I’m proud of it because it required me to really take stock of all the things that Americans are taught from birth to take as given. That meant looking at our history of colonialism, imperialism, racism, anticommunism and really diving into how all Americans, whether they’re liberal or conservative, can internalize these things unless they take the time to self-examine. Just as “Pan’s Labyrinth’s” despotic Captain Vidal was a masterful representation of Francisco Franco’s fascism, Richard Strickland represents a distinctly American kind of fascism. Writers Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor took great care in Strickland’s creation, and my piece was my own way of self-examining to make sure I never become or abide by a person like Strickland ever again.

Robert Daniels (@812filmreviews), Freelance

This is tricky, but “Annihilation” is definitely my favorite piece of film criticism that I’ve written. My writing style is a combination of criticism and gifs, and sometimes the words are better than the gifs, and the gifs are better than the words. With “Annihilation,” I thought the balance was perfect . My favorite portion: “Lena is just an idea, part of an equation that’s been erased from a chalkboard and rewritten with a different solution. The shimmer is part of her, even down to the DNA” is up there as one of my best. It was also a struggle to write because that film had more wild theories than the Aliens in Roswell. Also, the amount of research I had to do, combining Plato’s Ideal Forms, Darwin, the Bible, and Nietzsche, was absurd. However, it did make it easier to find matching gifs. The result made for my most studious, yet lighthearted read.

Alonso Duralde (@ADuralde), The Wrap

I’m the worst judge of my own material; there’s almost nothing I’ve ever written that I don’t want to pick at and re-edit, no matter how much time has passed. But since, for me, the hardest part of film criticism is adequately praising a movie you truly love, then by default my best review would probably be of one of my favorite films of all time, Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York.”

David Ehrlich (@davidehrlich), IndieWire

I can’t summon the strength to re-read it, but I remember thinking that my piece on grief and “Personal Shopper” was emblematic of how I hope to thread individual perspective into arts criticism.

Shelley Farmer (@ShelleyBFarmer), Freelance for RogerEbert.com and Publicist at Film Forum

My favorite piece is a very recent one: For this year’s Women Writers Week on Roger Ebert, I wrote about “Phantom Thread”, “Jane Eyre,” and twisted power dynamics in hetero romance . I loved that it allowed me to dig deep into my personal fixations (19th century literature, gender, romance as power struggle), but – more importantly – it was exciting to be part of a series that highlighted the breadth of criticism by women writers.

Chris Feil (@chrisvfeil), Freelance for The Film Experience, This Had Oscar Buzz Podcast

My answer to this would be kind of a cheat, as my favorite work that I do is my weekly column about movie music called Soundtracking that I write over at The Film Experience. Soundtracks and needle drops have been a personal fascination, so the opportunity to explore the deeper meaning and context of a film’s song choices have been a real labor of love. Because of the demands and time constraints of what we do, it can be easy to spend our all of our energy on assignments and chasing freelance opportunities rather than devoting time to a pet project – but I’ve found indulging my own uncommon fascination to be invaluable in developing my point of view. And serve as a constant check-in with my passion. Pushed for a single entry that I would choose as the best, I would choose the piece I wrote on “Young Adult”‘s use of “The Concept” by Teenage Fanclub for how it posits a single song as the key to unlocking both character and narrative.

Candice Frederick (@ReelTalker), Freelance for Shondaland, Harper’s Bazaar

“ Mother ” written for Vice. It’s one of my favorites because it conveys how visceral my experience was watching the movie. It’s truly stifling, uncomfortable, and frantic–and that’s what my review explains in detail. I wanted to have a conversation with the reader about specific aspects of the film that support the thesis, so I did.

Luiz Gustavo (@luizgvt), Cronico de Cinema

Well, I recently wrote a piece for Gazeta do Povo, a major outlet at Paraná state in Brazil, about Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” (it is not on their site, but they were kind enough to let me replicate on my own website ). I don’t know the extent of the powers of Google Translator from Portugese to english, so you have to rely on my own account: is a text in which I was able to articulate de cinematographic references in the work of Mr. Del Toro, as well his thematic obsessions, the genre bending and social critique. All of this topics were analyzed in a fluid prose. On top of that, it was really fun to write!

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• Screen Rant compiles the definitive list of the best movies of all time, based on critical scores and audience opinions.
• The list includes a diverse range of films, from classic dramas to animated favorites.
• These movies are highly acclaimed for their storytelling, performances, and significant contributions to cinema history.

Here are the Best Movies of all time, as evaluated by Screen Rant. Covering Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth to Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller Rear Window , with cartoon rats, gangsters and superheroes in between, it’s the perfect list for emerging cinephiles or checking off essential watches.

Deciding the best movies ever takes a balance of objective and subjective preference, which can differ for industry professionals and general viewers. Something as important as the greatest movies of all time requires some advanced thinking, beyond the opinion of a single writer. With that in mind, Screen Rant's ranking collates critical scores and the opinions of movie lovers to compile the definitive list of the most highly rated movies of all time.

The Best TV Shows Of All Time, Ranked

The best TV shows of all time will be debated forever, but there are clear contenders. These are the very best TV shows of all time, ranked.

60 The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Classic adaptation of a depression-era story of heroism.

The Grapes of Wrath

Not available

After serving time for murder, Tom Joad returns to find his family's farm abandoned. With former preacher Casy, they join the exodus to California for work. Along the journey, they face loss, exploitation, and violence. Tom defends his family but knows he must continue fighting for justice, leaving his worried mother behind as they seek a better future up north.

An incredibly important moment in the history of the United States of America, The Grapes of Wrath began life in 1939 as John Steinbeck's Pulitzer prize-winning novel . A year later, legend of cinema John Ford took the reins of an adaptation that stars Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, a recently released prisoner who leads his family across the States to California after the Great Depression robs them of their farm and livelihood.

One of the greatest realist movies ever made, Ford's take on the novel is a haunting look at a dark time in the country's early history, buoyed by excellent performances - particularly from Fonda - and one of the earliest examples of Hollywood giving its platform to the voice of the working class.

59 The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

A high-fashion flick that became an icon.

The Devil Wears Prada

Based on Lauren Weisberger's novel, The Devil Wears Prada stars Anne Hathaway as Andrea Sachs, an aspiring journalist who, after landing a job with top New York fashion designer Miranda Priestly, gets drawn deeper and deeper into the cutthroat world of the fashion industry. Meryl Streep stars alongside Hathaway as Miranda Priestly, with a further cast that includes Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, and Simon Baker. 

It's hard to define The Devil Wears Prada , as it seems, at times, to have the energy of a great rom-com, but romance is far from the central plot of this iconic 2000s film. Instead, the movie looks at the fashion industry, at ambitious women and the sacrifices that they make to be successful, and at female friendships (even if they do not start out as friendships at all). It's a movie that defies easy categorization because it refused to play by the rules of drama, with a style and brightness more fitting a comedy, but is too sincere to truly be considered a comedy. Instead, it stands entirely on its own - and is stunning for knowing exactly what it is, and refusing to apologize for it. Miranda would be proud.

The Devil Wears Prada has also had an impressively lasting impact on pop culture - it was nominated for two Oscars, parodied by The Simpsons and The Office, and even referenced in politics, when Senator Amy Klobuchar was compared to Miranda Priestly while she was seeking the Democratic Presidential Nomination. It has become entrenched in the pop culture language of memes and gifs, and has become the defining portrayal of over-demanding bosses and of overworked assistants. And now, almost two decades after the original release, a sequel has been announced as on the way. Whether it can find the same success of the original, of course, is yet to be seen.

58 Ratatouille (2007)

Pixar's beautiful story of talent in unexpected places.

Ratatouille

Remy the rat dreams of becoming a great chef despite the world's anti-rodent bias. After moving to Paris to follow his dream, he teams up with kitchen assistant Linguini and shows off his culinary skills in a professional kitchen. But can the pair convince the world's most notorious food critic that anyone can be a chef?

After convincing the world's children that their toys were alive, and painting imaginative worlds for insects, cars, the monsters under their beds, fish, and superheroes, Pixar took their boldest step by telling the story of a gourmet rat. As perverse as the idea might have appeared, Ratatouille — directed by Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava — is a gentle meditation on following dreams and the wholesome pursuit of art.

Patton Oswalt is the rat, Remy, who commandeers the career of aspiring chef Alfredo Linguini (Lou Romano) to explore his passion. It's a joyous, heart-filled, and personal comedy-drama that deserves to rank alongside Pixar's best , with an infamous reflection on the nature of criticism as a great stinger.

Ironically, marketing proved an issue for Pixar, as no food company wanted to be associated with a rat.

The Highest-Grossing Pixar Movies Of All Time

The highest-grossing Pixar movies include Toy Story and Inside Out, but which movie from the studio comes out on top?

57 12 Years A Slave (2013)

Best picture winning story of stolen freedom.

12 Years a Slave

Directed by Steve McQueen and based on the 1853 memoir by Solomon Northup, 12 Years a Slave tells the story of Northrup, a free black man from New York who, in 1841, is captured and sold into slavery in the south. Separated from his family, and forced to endure intense brutality at the hands of his new masters, Northrup works tirelessly to stay alive and regain his freedom. The film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Northrup, with a cast that includes Lupita Nyong'0, Michael Fassbender, Paul Dano, and Benedict Cumberbatch.

The 2013 biographical drama is based on the 1853 memoir by Solomon Northup , a free Black man kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1941. Northup is forced to work on Louisiana plantations with varying cruelties for 12 years before being released. The Steve McQueen-directed drama 12 Years a Slave isn't easy to watch, but it’s an important and crucial piece of filmmaking that tells the honest, painful stories that need to be told.

It’s an upsetting portrait of the lows of humanity and a deeply emotional exploration of what it means to live, which is enhanced by the brilliant performances of Chiwetel Ejiofor and Lupita Nyong’o in her Oscar-winning feature film debut. 12 Years a Slave is also a triumph in cinema for its cinematography, moving score, and McQueen’s direction.

56 The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948)

Humphrey bogart's dark performance leads this tale of greed.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

In this classic adventure, Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) and Curtin (Tim Holt) team up with an experienced prospector Howard to hunt for gold in Mexico's Sierra Madre mountains. Amidst treasure and peril, they confront ruthless bandits and inner demons fueled by greed, risking conflict and betrayal in their quest for riches.

John Huston’s Western tells the story of two men who unite with an old prospector to search for gold in Mexico, only to face trouble from themselves and bandits after striking rich. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a thrilling portrait of greed and corruption, with the character of Fred Dobbs being one of the best performances of the legendary Humphrey Bogart’s career .

It’s an exciting Western and adventure film that uses dark humor to tell its moral lesson, with superb direction by master filmmaker John Huston and a screenplay that uses the magical presence and wit of a haggard Bogart to its greatest extent.

The 25 Best Westerns on Netflix

Netflix has plenty of great films and shows available, and many of them are in the Western genre. These are the 25 best Westerns on the platform.

55 Jaws (1975)

An epic battle between one man and the shark terrorizing his community.

Steven Spielberg's legendary tale of one man's desperate battle with a killer Great White shark on his small seaside community. Faced with a mounting list of victims and a local authority dead-set against causing panic or destroying the tourist economy, he assembles a team to tackle the shark head-on.

Jaws is the ultimate expression of the power of suggestion in cinema. Partly out of necessity, thanks to a notoriously bumpy production, Spielberg's big fish movie conspicuously chooses to show Bruce the shark, as he was affectionately known, very little. In place of showing him, his presence was anxiously felt thanks to perfect camera trickery that put the audience in the perverse position of underwater attacker, and a couple of notes on a tuba. And that was more than enough.

The film isn't really about a shark, as much as it's about paranoia and how humans react to startling tragedy. Roy Scheider is the everyman and the stand-in for the audience, equally as appalled by his community's wilful ignorance to the shark as he is terrified by its threat. He takes it upon himself to deal with the situation, with a sceptical scientist type (Richard Dreyfus), and a walking-talking caricature in Robert Shaw's Quint. And it's their fight for survival that becomes the most compelling part of Jaws , to the point that the final triumph is a true air-punching moment. - Simon Gallagher, Executive Editor

DID YOU KNOW: The shark is only on-screen for 4 minutes in Jaws .

Steven Spielberg's classic Jaws birthed a franchise consisting of four movies to date, but not all of them matched the quality of the first movie.

54 City Lights (1931)

A silent and romantic charlie chaplin adventure.

City Lights

Charlie Chaplin's tramp falls for a blind flower girl facing eviction. Despite repeated failures to help, a chance encounter with a drunken millionaire offers hope. Rewarded for his heroism, the tramp can finally alter the flower girl's fate, in this heartfelt tale of love and resilience on the city streets.

The wide-eyed Tramp recruits the help of an alcoholic millionaire to raise money to restore the eyesight of a blind flower seller with whom he has fallen in love. City Lights is the greatest use of filmmaker Charlie Chaplin’s iconic character The Tramp , with the actor-director continuing to delight critics and audiences with a silent picture four years after “talkies” began.

The film features some of the Tramp’s funniest sequences and a touching pathos as he attempts to romance a blind flower seller and earn money to restore her sight. City Lights is the genius intersection of Chaplin’s inimitable humor and sentiment, which proved that he didn’t need sound to craft a wonderful story in the new Hollywood.

53 Three Colors: Red (1994)

The highlight of the art-house trilogy.

Three Colors: Red

After accidentally hitting his dog, part-time model Valentine meets a retired judge. Initially gifted the dog, her possessive boyfriend forces her to return it. Returning to the judge's home, she discovers his habit of eavesdropping on neighbors' calls. Initially appalled, their ensuing debates about privacy and morality create an unexpected connection between them, despite their differences, in this compelling exploration of human relationships.

Three Colors: Red follows a model who meets a retired judge with an interest in listening to others’ private moments, after which time the two form an unexpected bond. The brilliant 1994 film is a quintessential example of art-house cinema that provides a warm and contemplative narrative of fate and human connection.

The final installment in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colors trilogy about French ideals , Red is celebrated for its beautiful depiction of camaraderie, bonds, and the interconnected lives of people who seemingly share little in common or represent opposing personalities and outlooks on the world.

DID YOU KNOW: This was also the final movie of Krzysztof Kieslowski's career - he announced his retirement immediately after.

52 Touch Of Evil (1958)

A b-movie crime plot told by a master filmmaker.

Touch of Evil

After a car bomb detonates at the U.S./Mexico border, Mexican agent Miguel Vargas and American captain Hank Quinlan investigate. As Vargas uncovers corruption within Quinlan's team, his pursuit of justice jeopardizes his safety and his wife's, in this tense thriller.

Orson Welles’ film noir centers on a murder mystery at the US/Mexico border. As a Mexican drug enforcement agent suspects an American police captain of planting evidence, the investigation places himself and his wife in danger. The twists and turns of Touch of Evil are a masterpiece in film noir and depict the grayness of good and evil.

Welles’ style, the performances of himself, Charlton Heston, and Janet Leigh, as well as the poignant music combine to form a vividly entertaining unorthodox pulp. As one of the best movies of all time, Touch of Evil is an essential viewing for film noir in the classic era and Welles’ filmography.

51 Pinocchio (1940)

Disney magic brings the fairy tale to life.

Jiminy Cricket narrates the story of Geppetto, a woodworker who creates Pinocchio, a puppet brought to life by the Blue Fairy. Pinocchio faces trials guided by Jiminy's conscience, encountering deceitful characters like Honest John and a cursed Pleasure Island. When Pinocchio saves his father from a whale but sacrifices himself, his selflessness earns him real boyhood. Celebrating his transformation, Jiminy receives recognition for his guidance from the Blue Fairy.

Adapted from an 1883 Italian children’s story, Disney’s Pinocchio is about a wooden puppet who must prove himself worthy to become a real boy. Following Snow White (1937), Pinocchio is the second animated feature made by Disney, which was an ambitious venture with an emotional core that has stood the test of time.

Still culturally relevant today, the film was a brilliant technical achievement for Disney that set the tone for the enchanting nature, beautiful visuals, and storytelling power that became the golden standard for animation. Pinocchio was also the first animated feature to win a competitive award at the Oscars, including Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

From the whimsical Strange World to the Toy Story prequel Lightyear, Disney and Pixar have some exciting animated movies coming in the near future.

50 Hoop Dreams (1994)

A documentary about aspiring basketball stars.

Hoop Dreams

Hoop Dreams is a 1994 sports documentary film by director Steve James. The film follows the high school years of two young African-American men from Chicago pursuing their dream of being in the NBA despite the physical and social challenges they had to overcome during their era.

The groundbreaking sports documentary depicts the stories of two aspiring inner-city Chicago basketball players, following them through high school as they work toward college scholarships and their dreams of playing professionally in the NBA. Proving the emotional power of documentary filmmaking, Hoop Dreams remains one of the most inspiring films of all time as a sobering portrait of social inequality with high school basketball as the backdrop.

Hoop Dreams looks at the impacts that race, class, uncontrollable hurdles, and education inequality have on the players' experiences and goals. The teens’ heartbreaking adversity and well-earned victories yield rewarding results that will appeal to even the most cynical of viewers.

DID YOU KNOW: Over 5 years, the filmmakers shot 250 hours of footage, which was edited down to the final 3 hours run time.

49 The Rules Of The Game (1939)

An examination of class in wartime.

The Rules Of The Game

The Rules of the Game is a satirical, dramedy film by director Jean Renoir that was released in 1939. A satire of the upper class, the film follows members of the bourgeois and their servants as they arrive at the beginning of World War II and presents a darkly comedic perspective of the upper class's moral indifference to the plights of the lower class during the era.

The 20th-century French movie directed by Jean Renoir surrounds members of upper-class French society and their servants as they gather in a château in the time leading up to World War II. The Rules of the Game was generally dismissed by critics and audiences upon release but has gained a more positive and influential legacy over time .

The social satire has since been lauded for its biting satire of the upper class and criticism of social pretenses, with the film also being important for its early use of deep-focus cinematography and complex sound. Its influence can also be seen in films like The Big Chill and Gosford Park.

48 Playtime (1967)

A sci-fi comedy masterpiece.

In bustling Paris, clumsy Monsieur Hulot navigates a maze of gadgetry, getting lost on his way to a business meeting. Alongside an American tourist, their paths intertwine in the city's inventive chaos, sparking mutual intrigue. Their journey culminates in a chaotic restaurant encounter, where they, along with other eccentric characters, find connection amidst the commotion.

Set in a hyper-consumerist, futuristic Paris, the comedy surrounds a Frenchman lost in the high-tech city who continues to encounter a young American woman visiting Paris with a tourist group. Playtime has been celebrated as Jacque Tati’s masterpiece, with pioneering sight gags that provide brilliant satire and praise of modernization.

It’s a playful comedy with ambitious, complex craftsmanship marked by its visuals and ability to turn daily minutiae into grand spectacles. A true example in the art of filmmaking, Playtime is playing with paradoxes of simplicity and complexity throughout to make a wonderfully enjoyable satire.

WHERE TO WATCH PLAYTIME

47 Notorious (1946)

Hitchcock's gripping spy thriller.

U.S. agent T.R. Devlin enlists Alicia Huberman, daughter of a German war criminal, as a spy to infiltrate Nazi circles in Brazil. As Alicia and Devlin develop feelings, her mission to seduce Alexander Sebastian, a high-ranking Nazi, intensifies. However, Alicia's growing involvement with Sebastian complicates matters, forcing Devlin to watch her descend deeper into danger undercover.

The daughter of a convicted Nazi is requested by American agents to take on the dangerous task of gathering information from Nazi scientists in South America. Featuring compelling performances by Ingrid Berman, Claude Rains, and frequent Hitchcock collaborator Cary Grant , Notorious ushered the director into a crucial new era of sophisticated filmmaking by utilizing his talents with espionage thrillers to craft a fatal love triangle full of twists and deception.

In addition to the timely political themes in a post-WWII society, Notorious succeeds in its emotionally romantic story and visual elegance on behalf of Hitchcock’s style and the lead characters.

46 Singin’ In The Rain (1952)

One of the greatest musicals of all time.

Singin' in the Rain

Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 romantic-comedy musical by directors Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly. Centering on the 1920s era of Hollywood, Singin' in the Rain follows two movie stars forced to adjust to the talking pictures era of films. When the film's leading man realizes his on-screen partner's voice is less than pleasing, a young singer is brought in to dub her lines - including her singing, causing a mix of joy and chaos behind the scenes.

The musical romantic comedy depicts Hollywood in the late 1920s, following three performers who traverse the transition from silent pictures to “talkies.” With dazzling performances by Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor, Singin’ in the Rain is a charming and humorous musical that ironically uses the glamour and style of movie-making to lightheartedly pull back the curtain on Hollywood's deceptions.

The movie features entertaining banter between the characters, iconic song and dance sequences like the famous title number, and a good-spirited story that rewards those who love the movies and the process behind them. It's also a callback to a Hollywood that simply doesn't exist any more, and the nostalgia factor works very hard here.

DID YOU KNOW: Despite a popular industry myth, milk was not added to the rain to make it stand out on camera better.

45 The Lady Vanishes (1938)

A disappearance aboard a train leads to intrigue and humor in the early hitchcock thriller.

The Lady Vanishes

Trapped by an avalanche, Iris befriends Miss Froy on a train to England. But when Miss Froy vanishes and fellow passengers deny her existence, Iris investigates with a fellow traveler, sparking romance amid mystery.

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes follows Iris, a young English tourist traveling through Europe by train, who awakens to discover that her elderly companion has inexplicably disappeared. After other passengers deny the lady’s existence, Iris works with another traveler to solve the mystery. The Lady Vanishes is early British Hitchcock at his finest, renowned as an unconventional and sophisticated comedy-thriller that stands as one of the director’s wittiest films .

It arrived amid the popularity of train movies in the 1930s, though Hitchcock’s entertaining direction, the chemistry between the leads, and the clever construction of the mystery make it an unmissable example of its genre and certainly one of the best Alfred Hitchcock movies .

Netflix has loads of great movies from all genres, including mystery movies, and these 10 mystery flicks are the best Netflix currently has to offer.

44 Moonlight (2016)

A coming-of-age story about self-acceptance won best picture.

Written and directed by Barry Jenkins, Moonlight follows Chiron (Trevante Rhodes, Ashton Sanders, and Alex Hibbert) during three stages of his life, starting in childhood and progressing all the way up through adulthood. The film explores themes of identity and sexuality, chronicling Chiron's life as a gay black man growing up in Miami to an abusive, drug-addicted mother. 

Moonlight follows the journey into manhood of a young Black man who explores his identity and sexuality with the kindness and support of his community raising him. While Moonlight may always be associated with the Oscars flub that mistakenly announced La La Land as the Best Picture winner instead, the film is truly a gripping emotional journey of a boy’s life that is depicted with caring empathy and humanity.

Told in three parts of Chiron’s life, Moonlight is a quiet, visually engrossing experience that’s both tender and tough in how it addresses its heartfelt themes. It’s the type of story that’s rarely depicted on-screen in Hollywood, with Moonlight demanding that more be told.

DID YOU KNOW: The three actors who play Chiron never met during production, because director Barry Jenkins wanted their performances to be distinct.

43 Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

The russo brothers shake up the superhero genre for cap's espionage drama.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the ninth entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After being awoken from cryosleep in the previous film, Steve Rogers struggles to embrace his role in the modern world. As he adjusts, he must battle a new threat from old history: the Soviet agent known as the Winter Soldier.

With Captain America: The Winter Soldier, directors Anthony and Joe Russo not only elevated the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but superhero movies as a whole. The second in Chris Evans' Captain America trilogy is an exciting and emotionally compelling story that challenges the idea of what a superhero movie can be. The movie has some of the best action scenes in not only the Captain America trilogy, but the MCU as a whole, from Steve Rogers' elevator fight scene against SHIELD's Strike Team to his hand-to-hand combat scene with Sebastian Stan's Winter soldier.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier excels because it combines blisteringly realistic and brutal fight scenes with an espionage storyline ripped right out of the best spy thriller. But what makes it so compelling is that at the heart of the story is Steve Rogers' vulnerabilities. He's faced with a villain who used to be his best friend and confronted by the knowledge that the institution he trusted was infiltrated by his worst enemies. Thanks to this throughline, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is not just a fun action movie, it's an emotionally rich story of betrayal and moving forward. - Molly Freeman, Superheroes Lead Editor

DID YOU KNOW: The Winter Soldier is Chris Evans' favorite Marvel movie role.

42 Pretty Woman (1990)

A defining rom-com for a generation.

Pretty Woman

Directed by Gary Marshall, Pretty Woman stars Julia Roberts and Richard Gere as Vivian Ward and Edward Lewis. Lewis is a wealthy New York businessman who hires Hollywood sex worker Ward to accompany him during his stay in Los Angeles. Initially wary of each other, the couple's relationship grows steadily deeper over Lewis' stay, causing Ward to begin to rethink her career path.  

The '90s were a wonderful time for romance, and rom-coms found a level of success in this decade that hasn't been recovered since - and Pretty Woman is one of the most iconic of them all. The pygmalion story of a sex worker (Vivian, played by Julia Roberts) who falls in love with her rich client (Edward, played by Richard Gere), this movie is a lesson in romance tropes done well, from the rich leading man who can't fall in love (and does), to the fake-dating-adjacent scenes of Vivian accompanying Edward to fancy events, and of course, the grand gesture at the end.

It is still rare, in film, to see sex workers portrayed as nuanced heroines, and Pretty Woman was ahead of its time in its handling of Vivian's story - and it is impossible to imagine anyone other than the incomparable Julia Roberts bringing her to life. However, it's not just the bigger picture of the film that makes it so incredible.

The costuming is impeccable, and the writing is so good that lines from the film have become entrenched in pop culture. Roberts was even nominated for Best Actress for the role, which, for a rom-com about a prostitute, is incredible. Although the award went to the incredible Kathy Bates for Misery , there's little doubt that if Vivian herself was asked about it, she would call it a mistake. A big mistake, even. Huge.

41 Apocalypse Now (1979)

Francis ford coppola's surreal ventures into the madness of the vietnam war.

Apocalypse Now

In Francis Ford Coppola's classic Vietnam War film, loosely based on Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness, an army Captain is tasked with assassinating a rogue Colonel who has created a cult-like compound in the Cambodian jungle and is currently waging his own war outside the army's purview. Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando star as Captain Willard and Colonel Kurtz respectively, with an ensemble cast that includes Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, and Dennis Hopper. 

The war epic Apocalypse Now follows a group of American soldiers traveling dangerous rivers in Vietnam as they embark on a secret mission to assassinate a renegade officer. It’s not an exaggeration to deem this one of the greatest war films ever created, with Francis Ford Coppola’s hallucinatory visuals , a modern soundtrack, and the haunting ways that war brings out of the horrors of humanity make it a unique, engrossing staple of the genre.

In addition to the sobering performances of Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando, Apocalypse Now is a cinematic achievement in thematic paradoxes and visuals reflecting the darkness of humanity and war. It is still the standard against which more cerebral war movies are judged almost 50 years later.

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Hollywood reporter critics pick the best films of 2023.

A romantic collision of past and present, a subversive feminist fairy tale, a metaphysical ghost story, an epic retelling of a horrific footnote in American history and a sublime anti-rom-com are among this year’s highlights.

By David Rooney , Jon Frosch , Lovia Gyarkye , Sheri Linden December 13, 2023

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Any year in which an unlikely summer double bill became a global moviegoing event — with one film soaring toward $1.5 billion in worldwide grosses and the other closing in on $1 billion — can’t be considered bad news for Hollywood. But the Barbenheimer phenomenon aside, bad news plagued the film industry for much of 2023.

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Theatrical grosses remained inconsistent, struggling to regain pre-pandemic momentum for most genres except horror (all hail, new scream queen M3GAN ; a big hand for Talk to Me ), and even the once-reliable cash cow of the superhero blockbuster sputtered more often than not.

The Marvels was a major flop for the MCU, as was The Flash for DC, and although many of us found Blue Beetle an unexpected delight that overcame our weariness with folks in spandex and capes, the movie’s considerable charms failed to translate into healthy ticket sales.

No one knows what’s a safe bet at the box office anymore.

Still, the annual task of whittling down the year’s releases to a Top 10 was more challenging than ever. As is invariably the case, the best of them were festival discoveries. My list is bookended by Sundance premieres, with titles from Cannes, Venice and Telluride occupying every spot in between.

This was a year to celebrate auspicious debuts by women filmmakers whose command of the medium was matched by thematic maturity and an ability to coax transfixing performances from their female leads. In addition to Celine Song’s Past Lives and Savanah Leaf’s Earth Mama , both of which appear on my list, that includes Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt , Georgia Oakley’s Blue Jean , A.V. Rockwell’s A Thousand and One and Tina Satter’s Reality .

The documentary field delivered too many highlights to name, but the nonfiction films that stayed with me included Wim Wenders’ visually seductive Anselm ; D. Smith’s intimate portrait of Black trans sex workers, Kokomo City ; Maite Alberdi’s shattering glimpse into one couple’s lives together, The Eternal Memory ; and Jesse Shortbull and Laura Tomaselli’s searing indictment of the theft of sacred land from its Indigenous owners, Lakota Nation vs. United States .

Two music docs were among my most exhilarating viewing experiences this year — Lisa Cortes’ rip-roaring bio of a singular rock pioneer, Little Richard: I Am Everything ; and Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s you-are-there account of a sui generis marathon concert by one of our most original performers, Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music .

Finally, seasoned documaker Roger Ross Williams segued into narrative features with the uplifting Cassandro , giving Gael García Bernal his best role in years, as a trailblazing queer lucha libre wrestler.

Read on for my ranked Top 10, plus 10 honorable mentions, followed by those of my brilliant comrades in the THR critics’ trenches, Jon Frosch, Lovia Gyarkye and Sheri Linden. I know I speak for all of us in saying 2023 was such a stellar year for movies that our lists could easily have been twice as long. — DAVID ROONEY

2. Poor Things Yorgos Lanthimos has been irreverently thumbing his nose at genre constraints since his Greek Weird Wave breakout with Dogtooth . But nothing in his unique filmography can compare with the fantastical flights of this inspired riff on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein . Led by a spectacular high-wire act of physical comedy, intellectual curiosity and gleeful licentiousness from a never-better Emma Stone, this adventurous adaptation of Scottish cult author Alasdair Gray’s novel is part absurdist comedy, part picaresque feminist Candide and 100 percent breathtaking original. There’s not a weak link in a supporting cast that includes Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Kathryn Hunter and Christopher Abbott.

3. All of Us Strangers There was no tighter ensemble this year than Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell and Claire Foy in Andrew Haigh’s dreamy metaphysical ghost story. While it’s a companion piece of sorts to the Brit writer-director’s 2011 breakthrough, the instant queer classic Weekend , the new film mirrors its contemplation of romantic love with an equally thoughtful probe into familial love. Imaginatively adapted from a Japanese novel, this emotional depth charge plumbs the complex relationships between gay men and their parents with uncommon compassion, while also reflecting on the scars of a generation that came of age during the AIDS crisis.

5. Fallen Leaves Six years after Finland’s poet of the proletariat murmured about retirement following his typically idiosyncratic Syrian refugee story, The Other Side of Hope , Aki Kaurismäki returns with an expertly chiseled tale of romantic missteps that lead — with patience, playfulness and humor simultaneously deadpan and steeped in melancholy — to the exultant possibility of love. Laced with winking cinephile references to the director’s auteur heroes, this deceptively modest film is both dour and droll, every frame finding beauty in a dingy milieu that seems frozen in time. As the lonely souls fumbling for connection, Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen are gloriously attuned to Kaurismäki’s wavelength, while his own dog nails a scene-stealing supporting role.

7. Showing Up Comedy has not factored much in the films of Kelly Reichardt, but the director’s latest collaboration with frequent muse Michelle Williams and Pacific Northwest author Jon Raymond has a low-key vein of humor that often recalls the eccentric American microcosms of vintage Robert Altman. Set around the now shuttered Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland, it tracks the frantic preparations of Williams’ flinty sculptor for a solo gallery show as she deals with the headaches of her messy family, her fellow artist landlord (a hilarious Hong Chau) and a wounded pigeon. Rich in seemingly casual but telling observations, the film is equal parts funny and affecting; it might be Reichardt’s most personal work in its depiction of the challenges of making art amid chaos.

9. Perfect Days A serene film for chaotic times, Wim Wenders’ best narrative feature in years returns to the Japanese capital, almost four decades after he retraced the footsteps of Ozu in the documentary Tokyo-Ga . The great Kōji Yakusho plays a middle-aged man living a life of monastic austerity, greeting each new day with gratitude in his morning routine and approaching his job of cleaning restrooms in the city’s public parks with almost religious devotion. Little by little, hints are dropped of the more complicated earlier existence he left behind, as the rewarding drama becomes a poetic, unexpectedly moving account of one man’s hard-earned peace and contentment.

10. Passages Another German actor, like Hüller, who had a major breakout year is Franz Rogowski, playing the narcissistic film director at the center of Ira Sachs’ bruising Paris-set drama. Rogowski’s Tomas is an emotional wrecking ball, blithely beginning a relationship with Adèle Exarchopoulos’ French schoolteacher without anticipating the wedge it will drive into his marriage to Ben Whishaw’s seemingly more mild-mannered English printmaker. Caustically amusing, sexy, sad and unflinchingly intense, this is an intimate study of the formation and collapse of a romantic triangle, played with an invigorating absence of sentiment by three actors at the top of their game.

Jon Frosch’s Top 10

1. Killers of the Flower Moon 2. Anatomy of a Fall 3. Passages 4. Afire 5. May December 6. Fallen Leaves 7. Showing Up 8. The Zone of Interest 9. Kokomo City 10. All of Us Strangers

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order): Asteroid City ; The Holdovers ; Maestro ; Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros ; Oppenheimer ; Other People’s Children ; Past Lives ; Poor Things ; Totém ; You Hurt My Feelings

Lovia Gyarkye’s Top 10

1. Showing Up 2. All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt 3. Earth Mama   4. Passages     5. Our Body 6. Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros   7. Anatomy of a Fall   8. Fallen Leaves 9. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret 10. Totém

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order): The Boy and the Heron ; Fair Play ; Killers of the Flower Moon ; May December ; Monster ; Oppenheimer ; Orlando, My Political Biography ; Our Father, the Devil ; A Still Small Voice ; A Thousand and One

Sheri Linden’s Top 10

1. Showing Up 2. May December 3. Anatomy of a Fall 4. Killers of the Flower Moon 5. Past Lives 6. Oppenheimer   7. Pacifiction 8. Asteroid City 9. Passages 10. The Disappearance of Shere Hite

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order): The Boy and the Heron ; A Compassionate Spy ; The Delinquents ; Maestro ; Occupied City ; The Peasants ; Rodeo ; The Taste of Things ; The Teachers Lounge ; The Unknown Country

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The 10 Best Movie Titles of All Time

The title of a film is perhaps its most important marketing tool. How many times have you wanted to watch a film solely based on its cool, mysterious, or unforgettable title? Even if you aren’t that adventurous, there’s no denying that the title of a film plays a part of importance. Of course, a terrible title won’t deter anyone from watching, but a good name does help, especially when studio executives are concerned.

Naming a film is like naming a child. Unless you want the kids in the schoolyard to forever be taunting your child, you must choose wisely. A great title not only sums up the themes, story, or location or characters of its film perfectly, but it also makes a bold statement.

With so many awesome film titles to choose from, it’s somewhat of a fool’s errand to just pick 10. As a way to compensate for whatever incompetence in this list, please do check out the honorable mentions at the end.

10. The Phantom of Liberty (1974)

“I experience in every event that my thoughts and my will are not in my power. And that my liberty is only a phantom” – The Milky Way 1964

“The Phantom of Liberty” comprises multiple characters and short stories that are loosely linked by encounters and interactions of a wide array of characters. Inspired by incidents throughout Buñuel’s life over the years, the film is a surrealist’s wet dream taking us from one interesting yet unfinished story to the next.

Taking its title from the Communist Manifesto as a reference as well as a line of dialogue from Buñel’s “The Milky Way,” “The Phantom of Liberty” is simply about the illusion of freedom. Even when we think we’re free and in control, there are always unseen forces influencing our fates. Throughout history, conflict always arises out of the need for freedom or the need to suppress it.

The characters in the film are from all walks of life and find themselves at the mercy or benefit of coincidence, chance, or fate. The various episodes flow like a stream of consciousness involving people from the middle class where the notion of liberty seems assured, but is always a phantom whether they’re aware of it or not.

9. 8½ (1963)

Few films have portrayed the director’s process as well as Federico Fellini’s highly influential “8½.”Putting his struggles with director’s block onscreen after the pressure of following up the immense success of “La Dolce Vita,” Fellini put actor Marcello Mastroianni as his stand-in as a director aimlessly wandering about while the world waits for his widely anticipated next film.

With six feature films under his belt plus two short films and a collaborative effort with another director, which Fellini referred to as “half” films, “8½” served as his eighth and half film in general. A title that perfectly parallels Fellini’s own personal challenges with creativity and the story of the film.

While not an autobiographical film in the slightest, it’s easy to look at the director’s personal life and compare them to many aspects of the film. Like many of the titles of Fellini’s films, “8½” has gone on to become an iconic title that’s gone on to have a life of its own, particularly in the restaurant business.

8. I Was Born, But… (1932)

Need we say more on why this is one of the greatest film titles ever? It’s an instantly memorable title with a hint of cynicism that says everything it needs to without finishing its point.

“I Was Born, But…” is a black-and-white silent film about two young brothers who skip school because of bullies. They go on to lose respect for their stern father when they see him playing the fool for his boss. Filled with slapstick humor and genuine moments of emotion, the kids in the film are the real stars, going from one crazy antic to another. It’s a rich coming-of-age story that shows the different values of the different generations when confronted with the same scenarios.

No filmmaker has ever been able to effectively portray the conflict of family and intergenerational tension like Yasujiro Ozu. He takes intimate stories of ordinary people and crafts something uniquely important. In retrospect of viewing the film, the title seems to point at how we’re forced to sell out our beliefs and self-respect as we grow older.

Ozu would later remake the film as a talkie with the 1959 “Good Morning.” However, “I Was Born, But…” is a charming silent film that stands next to the best of them.

7. The Mother and the Whore (1973)

Running well over three hours with no apparent plot to speak of, Jean Eustache’s meditation on love, sex, gender, and the aftermath of France’s civil unrest during May 1968 is a masterpiece of note about a complex and doomed love triangle.

Set in the summer of 1972, “The Mother and the Whore” follows an unemployed intellectual who spends his time chasing women and doing nothing of importance. He soon becomes entangled in a relationship with his live-in girlfriend and young promiscuous nurse. Labeled by some critics as a misogynistic work, the female characters in the film are more independent than the male protagonist. Although the story is told from a male perspective, the women have their own unique voices.

“The Mother and the Whore” is not a title that one would link to a dialogue-heavy romantic French film such as this. Aside from being a great title for a film that would arouse anyone’s interest in watching it, the title comes from a memorable monologue as the characters realize that their three-way love affair is reaching its end. Veronika, played by Francoise Lebrun, notes how “love is meaningless unless you want to make a baby together.”

It points to how women are viewed as whores, even with the sexual revolution that seems to liberate them, only to take advantage of that same liberation.

6. Lost in Translation (2003)

The title of Sofia Coppola’s romantic comedy-drama about two people at opposite ends of their lives sharing a connection in a foreign country is as simple yet as powerful as it gets. It’s a genius title that links a well-known phrase with the state of mind of its characters. Sometimes that’s all you need for a great title.

There are a few obvious scenes where things are lost in translation because of language barriers. One memorable scene has the aging American actor being given a lengthy and passionate direction by a Japanese director, only for the interpreter to give a short and incomplete translation. But the real heart of Coppola’s story is how the two characters are lost in their own lives.

One character is in the twilight of her youth and is trying to figure out the rest of her life and exactly what she wants, while the other is in the tail end of his life and career and tries to make sense of it all. Aside from being aliens in a foreign country where nothing makes sense, nothing in their own personal lives makes sense either. Everything and everyone they know seems to be lost in translation to them. Not just the country they’re in. Everything and everyone except their special connection.

50 of the funniest, most searing movie reviews ever written

• Movie reviewers have had some pretty scathing takes on films throughout the years. 
• One reviewer referred to a film as like "Grease: The Next Generation" acted out by the food-court staff at SeaWorld.
• Another riffed "Some movies leave a bad taste in the mouth. This one causes full-on halitosis."

For many viewers, a movie can simply exist as something to fill a void of upwards of 90 minutes. Film critics, who spend their lives scribbling notes in dark theaters, ask for a little more.

" I have a colleague who describes his job as 'covering the national dream beat,' because if you pay attention to the movies they will tell you what people desire and fear in their deepest secrets," the late Roger Ebert wrote in 1992 . "At least, the good ones will. That's why we go, hoping to be touched in those secret places. Movies are hardly ever about what they seem to be about. Look at a movie that a lot of people love, and you will find something profound, no matter how silly the film may seem."

Sometimes the best thing to come out of a movie is a blistering review. INSIDER rounded up 50 of the funniest, most searing movie reviews ever written.

Critics said that heartbreak was preferable to watching "Valentine's Day."

"'Valentine's Day' is being marketed as a Date Movie. I think it's more of a First-Date Movie. If your date likes it, do not date that person again. And if you like it, there may not be a second date." —   Roger Ebert , Chicago Sun-Times.

Critics eviscerated "Twilight," but the movie still made more than $390 million at the box office.

"I've had mosquito bites that were more passionate than this undead, unrequited, and altogether unfun pseudo-romantic riff on 'Romeo and Juliet.'" — Marc Salov , The Austin Chronicle.  

"The Other Woman" wasn't a hit with critics.

"I know what you're thinking ... 'Enough beating around the bush. Just tell us whether you liked it.' Consider this, which I will say in terms this movie would understand, if you were on an airplane, 'The Other Woman'   might not be preferable to simply staring into your empty airsick bag, but it has enough nicely executed physical comedy that in the event you become ill, it is definitely preferable to staring into your occupied airsick bag." — Linda Holmes , NPR.

"The Emoji Movie" has an 8% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

"This is a movie about how words aren't cool, but you can still expect a girl to fall at your feet in response to mild wordplay. Please keep up. Or throw whatever device you’re reading this on into the ocean. Send me a postcard ... tell me what it’s like to be free." — Kaitlyn Tiffany and Lizzie Plaugic , The Verge.

Netflix is making a sequel to "Bright" despite the fact it was totally panned by critics.

"While I had the misfortune to see 'Bright' in a theater, most people will simply press 'play' out of curiosity on their Roku remote. I am willing to concede that this might elevate the experience a little ... the ability to take a quick trip to the kitchen or restroom after shouting 'no, don't pause it' to your partner on the couch will be liberating." — Jordan Hoffman , Vanity Fair.

"Battlefield Earth" was a box-office bust and a critical failure.

"'Battlefield Earth' saves its scariest moment for the end: a virtual guarantee that there will be a sequel." — Desson Howe , The Washington Post.

The basic plot of "Milk Money" perplexed critics.

Roger Ebert imagined what the conversation between studio executives would have looked like when they greenlit the movie:

"Studio Executive A: Kind of like 'Working Girl Turns a Trick?'

"Studio Executive B: Cuter than that. We start with three 12-year-old boys. They're going crazy because they've never seen a naked woman.

"Studio Executive A: Whatsamatter? They poor? Don't they have cable?"

Even fans of the HBO series prefer to pretend "Sex and the City 2" doesn't exist, according to critics.

"When viewed as a rom-com, 'Sex and the City 2' is terrible and crappy and a horrific inversion of everything the show once was. But when viewed as a science fiction film, 'SATC2' is subversive, stylish and chilling. Like The Island from 'Lost,' we may never know The City's true identity — Is it a VR computer program? A malevolent interdimensional god? Satan?" — Cyriaque Lamar , i09.

Making fun of "Gigli" became a national past-time.

"Even making a little game of it, and trying to pinpoint the exact moment when Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez fell in love, stops being fun after a while. Perhaps it's when he says, in an attempt to seduce her, 'I'm the bull, you're the cow.' Or when she beckons him into foreplay by lying back in bed and purring, 'Gobble, gobble' — which could forever change the way you view your Thanksgiving turkey." — Christy Lemire , The Associated Press.

"The Adventures of Pluto Nash" wasn't a hit with critics.

"It's good to know that, if we have to leave Earth someday, we won't have to go without our kitsch. Forensics experts will be digging through the rubble of this fiasco for a long time, trying to reconstruct the accident. How did so many lines fall flat? Why were the action scenes so corny and unconvincing? Who put the stink on this?" — Jack Mathews , New York Daily News.

"Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2" has a 2% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

" At its best/worst, 'Superbabies' hallucinatory idiocy inspires open-mouthed horror at what happens when an ill-conceived premise leads to even more jaw-droppingly misguided execution." — Nathan Rabin , AV Club.

Critics thought "Gotti" was so bad it was almost criminal.

"I'd rather wake up next to a severed horse head than ever watch 'Gotti' again. The worst movie of the year so far, the long-awaited biopic about the Gambino crime boss' rise from made man to top dog took four directors, 44 producers and eight years to make. It shows. The finished product belongs in a cement bucket at the bottom of the river." — Johnny Oleksinski , New York Post.

Critics got personal with their contempt for "Jaws: The Revenge."

"In the just-released 'Jaws: The Revenge' the shark's main course is intended to be Roy Scheider's widow, Ellen Brody, a frumpy middle-aged woman played by boring actress Lorraine Gary, who happens to be married to the president of MCA Universal, which finances the 'Jaws' films and which explains her lead role. Let's put it this way: When you see and hear the nasal Lorraine Gary on screen you want the shark to eat her." — Gene Siskel , Chicago Tribune.

"One Missed Call" didn't warrant anyone's attention, according to critics.

"The kid in front of me spent most of the movie playing Tetris on his phone. I didn't care enough about the movie to ask him to stop, or to find a cooler game." — Wesley Morris , The Boston Globe.

The critical response to "Jack Frost" was icy.

"With emotions as sincere as the soap flake snow on its sets, 'Jack Frost' goes on to show how much fun it is to have a snowman as a loving, though dead, father … As one more Hollywood effort to look on the sunny side of fatality, 'Jack Frost' is so sugarcoated that it makes other recent efforts in this genre look blisteringly honest." — Janet Maslin , The New York Times.

"The Snowman" left critics cold.

"'The Snowman' is like if aliens studied humanity and tried to make their own movie in an attempt to communicate with us. This simulacrum contains all the requisite pieces of a movie, but humanity got lost in translation." — Barbara VanDenburgh , The Arizona Republic.

Critics saw "Batman & Robin" as more of a cash-grab than a movie.

" The people who made this movie — which, as always, is set up for a sequel — will be laughing all the way to the bank. But isn't there someone in that bank who can lock them all inside a safety-deposit vault and throw away the key?" — Peter Rainer , The Phoenix New Times.

"Cool World" was almost universally hated by critics.

"The plot of Michael Grais' and Mark Victor's screenplay is even more nonsensical than it needs to be, revolving around frequent unmotivated trips between parallel cartoon and live-action universes, and around the question of whether cartoon women will have sex with human men." — Janet Maslin , The New York Times.

"Titanic" won 11 Academy Awards, but critics thought it took its sweet time getting to the point.

"'Titanic' is a good, often stunning movie caught in a three-and-a-half hour drift. As we marvel at the physical spectacle of the Titanic's last few hours, we're left staggeringly untouched by the people facing their last moments. This movie should have blown us out of the water. Instead, we catch ourselves occasionally thinking the unpardonable thought: 'OK, sink already.'" — Desson Howe , The Washington Post.

"Howard The Duck" was a one-note movie that prompted critics to question for whom exactly the movie was made.

"The story has no center; the duck is not likable, and the costly, overwrought, laser-filled special effects that conclude the movie are less impressive than a sparkler on a birthday cake. George 'Star Wars' Lucas supervised the production of this film, and maybe it's time he went back to making low-budget films like his best picture, 'American Graffiti.'" — Gene Siskel , The Chicago Tribune.

"Catwoman" is considered by critics to be one of the worst superhero movies ever made.

"The film could have turned out worse, but only via the addition of a Tom Green cameo, or an accident in which the actors caught on fire." — Keith Phipps , The AV Club

Critics thought "Mac and Me" was a discount version of "ET: The Extraterrestrial."

"'Mac and Me,' which opened yesterday at the Guild and other theaters, has a final police shootout and a fiery explosion in which Eric is the victim. When a doctor announced that Eric was gone, a small boy behind me said, 'He ain't dead,' with all the calm assurance of an experienced moviegoer who knows perfectly well that if E.T. came back, so would Eric. Cloning is a dangerous thing." — Caryn James , The New York Times.

Only a sucker would bother watching "Sucker Punch" after reading reviews.

"In the end, though the metaphor of mental institution as battleground is an interesting one to explore, that is not the analysis at the heart of this movie. Nope, 'Sucker Punch' is a two-hour $82 million fetish film examining how hot sad schoolgirls look when holding weapons. Snyder should have just made a porn movie — it might have been better, and it definitely would have been cheaper and more honest." — Dodai Stewart , Jezebel.

"Movie 43" prompted devastating reviews.

"It's as if 'Movie 43' was itself a feature-length f--- you to Hollywood, a movie made simply to show how bad a movie a studio could be induced to make and actors could be persuaded to act in." — Richard Brody , The New Yorker.

The best thing critics could say about "Fifty Shades Freed" was that the trilogy was finally over.

"Universal has had some fun with its marketing campaign, using the tag-line, 'Don't miss the climax.' It's a shame, though, that the posters exhibit considerably more ingenuity than the film itself." — Brian Lowery , CNN.

"A Christmas Prince" falls squarely in the category of "so bad it's good."

"It's a Netflix original movie, but it feels like a violation of nature that it somehow isn't from Lifetime or the Hallmark Channel. Nathan Atkins is credited with the screenplay, but this film is such a perfect amalgam of established tropes that I am not entirely convinced that isn't a pseudonym to keep us from discovering that Netflix has created the artificial-intelligence technology to generate a script using auto-complete." — Dana Schwartz , Entertainment Weekly.

"A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding" seemed to revel in shoddiness.

"It plays like a piece of Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan fan fiction, written by a child who actually doesn't know who they are but has watched the 'Princess Diaries' films." — Carly Mallenbaum , USA Today.

Critics thought "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" was far too depressing for a superhero movie.

"An even less charitable way to put it is that a clearly excited 7- or 8-year-old kid sitting in front of me busted out crying and had to be whisked out of the theater by his father within the first five minutes. Perhaps he was unnerved by the harsh, operatic violence of Bruce Wayne's parents getting murdered — the mom's pearls get tangled around the gun, somehow, which allows for some very tight and poignant slow motion — or maybe he was offended by the notion that a 2016 Batman movie felt it necessary to depict Bruce Wayne's parents getting murdered. Either way, this kid bounced." — Rob Harvilla , Deadspin.

Critics thought "Transformers: The Last Knight" was simply too incoherent to describe.

"I'll admit, I've been dreading the thought of trying to at all explain the plot of this movie — even in broad, simple terms. I honestly had anxiety dreams last night about this moment. It's like staring at a projected kaleidoscope for two and a half hours and then trying to tell someone about the plot." — Mike Ryan , Uproxx.

Many thought "The Brown Bunny" was tedious and only remembered for its inclusion of one explicit scene.

"It's not really a movie. I suppose it's what could be called a recorded behavior. It simply reproduces, with some crude fidelity, the hapless anguish of a grieving man as he copes with his loss. It has no characters, it has no conflict, it has nothing that could be called a plot. It offers no reason to watch it — that is, no reason within the picture." — Stephen Hunter , The Washington Post.

Critics were thoroughly disgusted by "The Human Centipede," but they were also bored by it.

"This is one of those movies where victims repeatedly have opportunities to escape but choose not to, guaranteeing still more grotesque degradation, full of gore, torture, and sexual humiliation — and contains not an iota of wit or intelligence to justify any of it." — Michael Ordoña , The Los Angeles Times.

"Avatar" is still the highest grossing movie of all time, but not everyone was a fan.

"' Avatar' isn't about actors or characters or even about story; it's about special effects, which is fine as far as it goes. But for a movie that stresses how important it is for us to stay connected with nature, to keep our ponytails plugged into the life force, 'Avatar' is peculiarly bloodless. It's a remote-control movie experience, a high-tech 'wish you were here' scribbled on a very expensive postcard. You don't have to be fully present to experience 'Avatar'; all you have to do is show up." — Stephanie Zacharek , Salon.

Critics thought "I Know Who Killed Me" was embarrassing for everyone involved.

"Pretentious and inane, 'I Know Who Killed Me' arouses unexpected sympathy for its embattled star. 'Should we populate the movie with competent, strong performances, or were we looking for stars?' asks the producer, Frank Mancuso Jr., in the film's production notes. Out of the mouths of producers." — Jeannette Catsoulis , The New York Times.

Critics thought there was nothing redeeming about "Sorority Boys."

"I'm curious about who would go to see this movie. Obviously moviegoers with a low opinion of their own taste. It's so obviously what it is that you would require a positive desire to throw away money in order to lose two hours of your life. 'Sorority Boys' will be the worst movie playing in any multiplex in America this weekend, and, yes, I realize 'Crossroads' is still out there." — Roger Ebert , The Chicago Sun-Times.

"Forrest Gump" won multiple Academy Awards, but it still prompted some biting reviews.

"With two decades of perspective on 'Forrest Gump's triumph, you get the sense that '90s audiences were relieved to see a film that said it was OK — even honorable — to ignore all the bad stuff about war. So, too, was the Motion Picture Academy, which 12 months after lauding 'Schindler's List'   decided, 'Screw it, let's give the awards to the movie that sells cookbooks.' — Amy Nicholson , LA Weekly.

Critics absolutely hated "Life Itself."

"'Life Itself' thinks you're stupid. Or, if not stupid, unable to understand how a movie should work. It's a movie made for people who can't be trusted to understand any storytelling unless it's not just spoon-fed but ladled on, piled high, and explained via montage and voiceover" — Kate Erbland , IndieWire.

"Ridiculous 6" felt intentionally offensive.

"There's the broad racism and misogyny of the piece. After the controversial walk-offs, Netflix claimed that this was 'satire.' It's not. There's nothing satirical about Sandler's bad Native American accent, which totally comes and goes, by the way, or Schneider's Hispanic caricature. Saying that this is satire is like the drunk guy at the bar telling you how many black friends he has after telling a racist joke. Don't fall for it." — Brian Tallerico , RogerEbert.com.

"The Village" felt like a waste of time to some.

" [M. Night Shyamalan] directs the material as if he'd written it (which he did), and not a single friend dared tell him the truth." — Mick LaSalle , SFGate.

The extreme level of product placement in "Crossroads" was an issue for critics.

"It turns out that 'Crossroads' is not a music video, not yet a movie, but more like an extended-play advertisement for the Product that is Britney." — Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post.

Critics thought "Grown Ups" was a lazy attempt at comedy.

"The movie is symptomatic of a social attitude that might be called the security of incompetence. There's something reassuring about a bad movie that doesn't ask you to think or feel or even pay attention ... we can all be happy D-minus students huddled together in communal self-disgust in a D-minus world." — Stephen Holden , The New York Times.

Critics thought "Grown Ups 2" was so bad that it made them appreciate the first movie.

"In 'Grown Ups 2,' which is set on the last day of school, our heroes are now all living in the same small town together, and everybody's pretty happy, so there's little to motivate the action. It makes the first movie look like 'The Maltese Falcon.'" — Bilge Ebiri , Vulture.

Some thought "Suburbicon" was too smug for its own good.

"You absolutely can fault [George Clooney] for wrongheadedness in making a movie that condemns racism, and specifically segregation in the postwar housing boom, albeit in the most broad, perfunctory, awareness-ribbon-wearing way while barely allowing its black characters to speak. 'Suburbicon' might be the biggest embarrassment to pious Hollywood liberalism since 'Crash' won best picture in 2006." — Chris Klimek , NPR.

"Mother!" may not have been enjoyable, but it certainly was memorable.

"I admired the camerawork, the wide-angle close-ups of flaring nostrils, and the pandemonium of the crowd scenes in the second half of the film when it goes haywire and insanity reign. It's an odd sensation to still remember moments of technical brilliance in a movie I never want to see again." — Rex Reed , The Observer.

Some thought "Freddy Got Fingered" was an embarrassment for everyone involved.

" This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels." — Roger Ebert , Chicago Sun-Times.

Critics thought there just wasn't anything funny about "Joe Dirt."

"Why do American audiences accept the stance that silly movies have to be terrible by definition? There's nothing enjoyable about 'Joe Dirt.' Absolutely nothing. Spade's generic nonperformance is the centerpiece of a very wobbly story, and he simply isn't enough of an actor to keep you interested." — Paul Tatara , CNN.

Critics thought "Fantastic Four" was the opposite of fantastic.

"My notebook usually remains near my lap, but at this movie, it made involuntary trips over my mouth to cover all of my gasping. The entire experience is shameful — for us, for the filmmakers, for whoever at the studio had the job of creating the ads, in which the cast appear to be starring in hostage posters." — Wesley Morris , Grantland.

"From Justin to Kelly" was embarrassingly amateur, according to critics.

"How bad is 'From Justin to Kelly?' Set in Miami during spring break, it's like 'Grease: The Next Generation' acted out by the food-court staff at SeaWorld." — Owen Gleiberman , Entertainment Weekly.

"National Lampoon's Gold Diggers" has a 0% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

"Just how repellent is 'National Lampoon's Gold Diggers?' So stupefyingly hideous that after watching it, you'll need to bathe in 10 gallons of disinfectant, get a full-body scrub and shampoo with vinegar to remove the scummy residue that remains. Some movies leave a bad taste in the mouth. This one causes full-on halitosis." — Jen Chaney , The Washington Post.

"Venom" was a tonally-uneven, muddled mess, according to most critics.

"For all of its cult potential, and my God, is this film rife with it, it is 'Venom's' insidious political intonations, which were entirely avoidable, that become the least palatable aspect of the film. And this is a movie where you see Tom Hardy eat out of a garbage can." — Sarah Tai-Black , The Globe and Mail.

"North" almost universally disliked by critics and prompted one of Roger Ebert's movie memorable reviews.

"' North' is one of the most unpleasant, contrived, artificial, cloying experiences I've had at the movies. To call it manipulative would be inaccurate; it has an ambition to manipulate, but fails … I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it." — Roger Ebert , Chicago Sun-Times.

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‘A Missing Part’ Review: Tender Drama Showcases a Nuanced Performance From Romain Duris

Roman Duris plays a French driver in Tokyo, mired in Japan’s unusual child custody legislation as he seeks contact with his 12-year-old daughter.

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And what a system it is. Jessica is plausibly incredulous and despairing as she’s told that her ex is well within his rights to simply cut her out of her son’s life. The theory, according to Japanese law, is that it’s best for the children to have one home and one parent, and in cases where one of the parents is Japanese and the other isn’t, the foreigner has an uphill struggle on their hands. Duris does a tremendous job in scenes where Jay attempts to help Jessica come to terms with her new reality: Jay’s advice is all based on how he should have behaved and didn’t, and Duris conveys that sense of wisdom hard-earned with naturalism and grace.

It’s exactly the kind of part actors take on with half an eye on their awards cabinet, but Duris does a decent job of focusing on inhabiting the role rather than showboating during the close-ups. Jay’s predicament is a tough one, but the meeting with Lily and subsequent events give plenty of scope for light and shade, and if the film does gain any awards traction, it’s likely to recognize the performances as the stand-out here. One obstacle may be that as a character, Jay is necessarily fairly passive, at least during the period of his life covered by the film, mostly boxed in by the need to obey the rules.

Still, there’s a painful sense of passion all-but spent, of love almost smothered by despair, in his portrayal of Jay. His performance inspires tremendous compassion for the character, though he also admits vaguely to having behaved very poorly back in France, acting out and allowing anger to drive him. The role of his wife is a minor one, but Yumi Narita plays her as fragile and visibly frightened, which hints at a version of the story where his tenacious pursuit has darker qualities. But this is not that film.

As on-screen barriers to happiness go, manifestly unfair legislation is a pretty good screenwriting choice, giving characters a seriously difficult opponent to wrangle with. The only problem is that unless you’re writing about a landmark case that changed the law, the legislation that obstructs the character is likely to remain defiantly unconquered by the time the credits roll, and that’s inevitably the case here. Still, the screenplay does what it can to find a lighter grace note in its closing minutes, though to any parents contemplating divorce in Japan, it’s the country’s forthcoming legal reforms that will offer the more substantive hope.

Reviewed online, Sept. 8, 2024. In Toronto Film Festival. Running time: 98 MIN. (Original title: “Une part manquante”)

• Production: (Belgium-France) A Be For Films presentation of a Les Films Pelléas, Versus production. (World sales: Be for Films, Brussels.) Producers: Jacques-Henri Bronckart, David Thion.
• Crew: Director: Guillaume Senez. Screenplay: Guillaume Senez, Jean Denizot. Camera: Elin Kirschfink. Editor: Julie Brenta. Music: Olivier Marguerit.
• With: Romain Duris, Judith Chemla, Mei Cirne-Masuki, Tsuyu, Shungiku Uchida, Yumi Narita, Patrick Descamps, Shinnosuke Abe. (French, Japanese dialogue)

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100 Best Movies on Netflix Ranked by Tomatometer (September 2024)

In our world of massive entertainment options, who’s got time to waste on the below-average? You’ve got a subscription, you’re ready for a marathon, and you want only the best movies no Netflix to watch. With thousands of choices on the platform, both original and acquired, we’ve found the 100 top Netflix movies with the highest Tomatometer scores! Time to get comfy on the couch!

New top movies this month: Field of Dreams , Jaws , Midnight Run , Stand by Me , Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Edge of Tomorrow, Rebel Ridge

Coming up: Grave of the Fireflies (September 16)

Leaving this month: Bodies Bodies Bodies  (September 19), Back to the Future , The Breakfast Club , Clerks , The Conjuring , The Lego Movie

His House (2020) 100%

Miss Juneteenth (2020) 99%

The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020) 99%

Under the Shadow (2016) 99%

Godzilla Minus One (2023) 98%

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020) 97%

Dolemite Is My Name (2019) 97%

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) 97%

Mudbound (2017) 97%

Jaws (1975) 97%

I Lost My Body (2019) 97%

Roma (2018) 96%

The LEGO Movie (2014) 96%

Tangerine (2015) 96%

Atlantics (2019) 96%

Monty python and the holy grail sing-along (1975) 96%.

Life of Brian (1979) 96%

To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018) 96%

Outside In (2017) 96%

The Irishman (2019) 95%

Marriage Story (2019) 95%

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) 95%

Hit Man (2023) 95%

It Follows (2014) 95%

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) 95%

They Cloned Tyrone (2023) 95%

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023) 95%

Klaus (2019) 95%

Rebel Ridge (2024) 95%

Midnight Run (1988) 95%

Call Me by Your Name (2017) 94%

The Power of the Dog (2021) 94%

The Woman King (2022) 94%

The Lost Daughter (2021) 94%

X (2022) 94%

Emily the Criminal (2022) 94%

The Sea Beast (2022) 94%

Private Life (2018) 94%

Captain Phillips (2013) 93%

Hustle (2022) 93%

Back to the Future (1985) 93%

Enola Holmes 2 (2022) 93%

Cam (2018) 93%

Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical (2022) 93%

Baby Driver (2017) 92%

Da 5 Bloods (2020) 92%

American Hustle (2013) 92%

Pearl (2022) 93%

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017) 92%

The White Tiger (2021) 92%

The Squid and the Whale (2005) 92%

Nimona (2023) 92%

The Little Prince (2015) 92%

Stand by Me (1986) 92%

Set It Up (2018) 92%

Uncorked (2020) 92%

1922 (2017) 92%

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) 91%

Crazy Rich Asians (2018) 91%

Phantom Thread (2017) 91%

May December (2023) 91%

The Gift (2015) 91%

The Spectacular Now (2013) 91%

Beasts of No Nation (2015) 91%

Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood (2022) 91%

High Flying Bird (2019) 91%

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) 91%

Happy as Lazzaro (2018) 91%

Gerald's Game (2017) 91%

You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (2023) 91%

Orion and the Dark (2024) 91%

Edge of Tomorrow (2014) 91%

The Willoughbys (2020) 91%

The Imitation Game (2014) 90%

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) 90%

Society of the Snow (2023) 90%

The Kindergarten Teacher (2018) 90%

On Body and Soul (2017) 90%

Bonnie and Clyde (1967) 90%

Clerks (1994) 90%

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) 89%

The Big Short (2015) 89%

Zombieland (2009) 89%

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) 89%

The Two Popes (2019) 89%

Oxygen (2021) 89%

Always Be My Maybe (2019) 89%

Mary and The Witch's Flower (2017) 89%

I Am Mother (2019) 89%

I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017) 89%

The Breakfast Club (1985) 89%

Paddleton (2019) 89%

1917 (2019) 88%

Fear Street Part Three: 1666 (2021) 88%

My Father's Dragon (2022) 88%

Field of Dreams (1989) 88%

Donnie Brasco (1997) 88%

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017) 87%

Fear Street Part Two: 1978 (2021) 87%

Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) 86%

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