The 250 Best Films of All Time

23 thoughts on “The 250 Best Films of All Time”

1. Killer job Declan!! I’m estastic to see 1900, Lost Highway and Hero make this list.

   I will definitely have to revisit Mirror if you have it at #77.

   Our top 100’s have 62 films in common.

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   1. Thanks Harry! Hero especially is a film I think about often, I definitely couldn’t keep it out of my top 100.

      Mirror is still very fresh in my mind, but watching it right next to The Sacrifice (a relatively low level masterpiece) I was a lot more swept away. I just finished writing my review on it and even though it’s not necessarily my longest, it might be among those I’ve spent the longest working on. Same goes for The Sacrifice. Tarkovsky is not easy to write about – it almost feels a bit pointless trying to capture his images in words.

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      1. Looks like The Tenant might have just missed this cut…

         Also I’ve been thinking about that moratorium/10 year limit. For me I have seen most of the films I have seen since 2020/2021 so I feel I am mostly immune to that recency bias but I could see how it would affect someone who has been tracking along all that time.

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      2. I also think it’s a matter of a film earning its place among the greats with time to settle in the culture. Like I feel that I may have a fairly good estimate of where a film like Oppenheimer might end up here, but at the same time it is far too fresh to say it is on the level of bona fide classics like the Umbrellas of Cherbourg or The Graduate.

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2. Great, great job, Declan! So many awesome choices and so many absurd ones (Notorious at 150?) – I am obviously kidding, it’s these differences of opinions that make ranking films so much fun. It takes some courage to put out such a massive list like this, so kudos!

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   1. Thanks so much Pedro, it means a lot! 100% agree with you there – and who knows, Notorious could rise higher on future updates.

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3. An extremely impressive list Declan! We have a lot in common in our top 250 but, I’ve also included a few newly released masterpieces like Oppenheimer and Dune. Also, just wanted to know how frequently you update your list and how do new films improve their standings on the list or get included in the first place?

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   1. Thanks Parmeet! This list is almost a year old now so a fair few films have shifted around after some reflection or rewatches, and there are a lot of others I hadn’t seen at the time which would certainly make it today. I have lots of plans for next year though, and part of that is expanding this list to 500 with all those updates. With the ten year limit I have on my list, that will also include films from 2014 and 2015 that aren’t currently on it. Have you got a link to your film list somewhere?

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      1. 
         Sure, man. I don’t have a website like you but, I’ve made a list on my Letterboxd account. It’s new though and I haven’t reviewed most of the top ones as I haven’t rewatched them yet. https://boxd.it/xWd9u
         

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4. https://boxd.it/xWd9u

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5. @Declan, where do you think Dunkirk would land up on this list?

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6. Do you think this might get a 2024 update? Interested to see where some 2014 MP’s like Birdman and Budapest might land….

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   1. I’ve got lots of big plans for next year including expanding this to 500, so it will include both 2014 and 2015 films as well.

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7. I think you’re kind of overrating Malick and PTA. They’re extremely good but not very movie of theirs needs to be so high. The New World, Boogie Nights, Punch Drunk-Love and The Tree of Life (it needs a lot more time to be considered top 10 worthy but it’s still a top 100 contender) are lower in my opinion.

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   1. I agree that films need some time before settling into the canon, but that’s why I set the moratorium at 10 years. Once that time is up, I don’t see any reason to grade it on a curve – that’s something the TSPDT consensus list does which I’m not a fan of. I’d rather just focus on ranking according to a film’s stylistic and formal qualities.

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8. Declan, I just finished updating my top 250 films today after some rewatches and reflections on the films. I tried to be less biased and more subjective and I think It now shows my knowledge and tastes much better. Would you mind going through it and giving your valuable insights? https://boxd.it/xWd9u

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   1. Excellent list, lots of crossover between ours! I love seeing Persona so high and the abundance of Ingmar Bergman films in general. Lots of Indian cinema on there I still need to get to myself, but I am planning to clear some of that up with a Satyajit Ray study next year, and I very much appreciate the Guru Dutt recognition.

      I can’t complain too much about The Passion of Joan of Arc at 15, even if I feel it deserves a top 10 spot. I also probably wouldn’t put Inception so high up on my own list, but it’s a masterpiece nonetheless.

      I see you’ve got two of Bela Tarr’s three big masterpieces on there – have you considered tackling Satantango at some point?

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      1. Yeah, I know some people might be surprised with Inception so high but I have studied it to death and am also higher on it than most people. I don’t think that it’s wrong for you to have Inception at #135 because you still consider it a masterpiece too.

         Joan of Arc is one that i hope to rewatch sometime early next year so I think I might appreciate its achievements a little more the next time nad hopefully go higher on it.

         Also, Satatango is too long for me to take out time right now so, I’m just waiting for any long vacation to come around. Do you plan on updating your list though?

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      2. I’m hoping to update it in maybe the second half of next year, along with the decade lists and some pages for the individual 2000s years.

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9. Do you plan on seeing Jeanne Dielman in the near future? It’s a monumental achievement of formal rigor, easily a MP and a top 200 film at least as far as I’m concerned.

   Strict rule of static shots to box a character in her trapped routine, carefully organized mise-en-scene of objects to reflect her neat and very planned out psyche (not Ozu tier or even Wes Anderson, but very good still), clear deliberate use of green/teal in the mise-en-scene throughout almost all the sequences (a “stable and grounded” color in color theory), spans three days and close to all in real-time IIRC, the film’s whole thing is repetition and introducing more and more slight variations in that repetition from an initial deviation and gap in the real-time of the narrative. I don’t want to say too much but there’s a certain point where Akerman cleverly cheats the box form without formally breaking the rule, and it ties completely into the narrative. Absolute dedication to a concept as form.

   Seyrig also pulls an all-time (mostly quiet) performance IMO, the camera never lets her breathe to focus on anyone else and she has no close ups filled with pathos to lean on either. Completely deglamorized from her Marienbad character.

   Real shame the Sight&Sound-gate muddled discussion on the film’s cinematic merits in favor of culture war monkeys.

   Les Rendez-vous d’Anna is good too, a better photography overall I’d say, but more conventional and without the conceptual greatness of Jeanne. I’d have it as a MS. You could even push this into a short study if you wanted to, like Eustache, as Akerman’s fiction body of work is quite small because she worked in documentaries a lot.

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   1. Thanks for the recommendation, I’ve got this lined up on my watch list for next year. Could be worth doing that study you mentioned as well – I’ve got similar plans for Jean Vigo’s two films.

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      1. That’s a good one. I think the only more succinct study of a Great you could do is Laughton lol.

         Don’t skip À propos de Nice with Vigo, it’s like a short and sweet western version of The Man With a Movie Camera, only 20 minutes or so. Worth it.

         You’ve already covered three of my favorite directors, the ones I look forward to the most would be Dreyer, Kubrick, Welles and Antonioni now. I still need to read the Fellini.

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10. My personal 25 but I can change my mind when I sneeze.
    In chronological order:

    Sherlock Jr. – Keaton 1924
    Passion of Joan of Arc – Dreyer 1928
    Man with a Movie Camera – Vertov 1929
    Rules of the Game – Renoir 1939
    Ivan the Terrible – Eisenstein 1944
    Spring in a Small Town – Fei Mu 1948
    Letter From An Unknown Woman – Ophüls 1948
    Late Spring – Ozu 1949
    Life of Oharu – Mizoguchi 1951
    Voyage To Italy – Rossellini 1954 *
    Floating Clouds – Naruse 1955
    All That Heaven Allows – Sirk 1955
    Au Hasard Balthazar – Bresson 1960
    Mothlight – Brakhage 1963
    Pierrot Le Fou – Godard 1965
    PlayTime – Tati 1967
    Death by Hanging – Oshima 1968
    Wanda – Loden 1970
    Celine and Julie Go Boating – 1974
    Sans Soleil – Marker 1983
    Yellow Earth – Chen 1984
    The Terrorizers – Yang 1986
    Mauvais Sang – 1986
    My Neighbor Totoro – Miyazaki 1988
    Life, and Nothing More… Kiarostami 1992

    * I hate that they changed its original English title of Voyage To Italy that lasted for decades to the new Journey To Italy. The original Italian title is Viaggio in Italia and it suggest the main characters are IN Italy already.

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