Film Ranking – Scene by Green

The Best Films of 2023

Top 10 of the Year

1. Oppenheimer	Christopher Nolan
2. Poor Things	Yorgos Lanthimos
3. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse	Joaquim Dos, Santos Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson
4. Asteroid City	Wes Anderson
5. John Wick: Chapter 4	Chad Stahelski
6. The Zone of Interest	Jonathan Glazer
7. The Killer	David Fincher
8. Killers of the Flower Moon	Martin Scorsese
9. Beau is Afraid	Ari Aster
10. Saltburn	Emerald Fennell

Best Film

Oppenheimer. After briefly faltering in 2020 with Tenet, Christopher Nolan delivers another masterpiece in a similar vein to Dunkirk, intensively studying two alternate sides of World War II with magnificent pacing. If Dunkirk constructed a pure exercise in visual storytelling by stripping back dialogue and applying an intensive focus to a pivotal point of history, Oppenheimer conducts a dense character study of substantial psychological weight across multiple decades, interrogating the guilt of a scientist whose intelligence and ambition destroyed the lives of millions. The formal structure is an intricate as ever, intertwining two distinct perspectives that bounce back and forth between the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer’s 1954 security hearing, and Lewis Strauss’ 1959 Senate hearing confirmation, and yet a sense of dramatic urgency persists throughout. Nolan’s usual mastery over establishing shots is present, but for the first time in his career, close-ups are also used with a shallow focus to reveal the haunted terror in Cillian Murphy’s glassy blue eyes. The 2020s have had few true masterpieces so far, but it shouldn’t be a surprise that a Nolan film belongs among them.

Oppenheimer continues Christopher Nolan’s fascinations in significant historical moments, epic narratives, manipulating time through editing – and yet it also feels entirely fresh in his filmography as a character study of immense proportions, making potentially dry subject matter incredibly thrilling to watch onscreen.

Most Underrated

Beau is Afraid. Neither this nor John Wick: Chapter 4 appeared on the TSPDT top 50 films of 2023 list, but at least Chad Stahelski’s film was enthusiastically greeted by the critics and is justly recognised as the best in the series. On the other hand, Beau is Afraid polarised audiences and critics alike with a 63 on Metacritic, and is widely considered a disappointing follow-up to Ari Aster’s tremendous one-two punch of Hereditary and Midsommar. The reason for its divisiveness is clear, given that its lengthy odyssey into one man’s Freudian shame keeps its audience at an inscrutable distance. With some hindsight though, a re-evaluation will be inevitable. Aster’s swerve away from straight horror and into psychological comedy-drama will seem less jarring, and more like an extension of his storytelling interests – isolated protagonists trapped in absurd worlds that follow their own bizarre set of rules.

Beau is Afraid is a Kaufmanesque odyssey into the mind of a delusional, nervous wreck. It is formally adventurous with its flashbacks, surreal tangents, and absurdist world building, marking a major departure from the horror films that Ari Aster had become known for, even as he continues to weave in a perpetual feeling of dread throughout Beau’s Freudian journey.

Most Overrated

Anatomy of a Fall. Justine Triet’s courtroom drama is the #5 film of 2023 according to TSPDT and won the Palme d’Or, but falls outside my top 10. The strength of its screenplay and acting is undeniable, conducting a chilling autopsy of a broken marriage after the husband was discovered dead outside his French chalet. There is not so much to admire here from a formal standpoint though. Anatomy of a Fall joins the list of Palme d’Or winners more praised for their engaging intellectual substance than their cinematic craft.

2023’s winner of the Palme d’Or is an intellectual exercise in narrative ambiguity, and boasts a very solid screenplay that carefully balances suspicions of the accused murderer’s guilt and innocence.

Best Directorial Debut

Reptile. For the record, I’m not counting any of the directors who worked on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, as it is the rare film to crack a year’s top 10 that isn’t particularly director-driven. Meanwhile, Grant Singer displays a great deal of potential in his crime thriller Reptile, following in the footsteps of David Fincher on both a visual and narrative level. He is methodical in his editing, unfolding a lethal conspiracy stretching across the real estate industry and police force with careful, deliberate pacing, and sinking us into an unsettling atmosphere with beautiful golden lighting.

Barbenheimer’s cultural phenomenon draws masses to the theatre for an unlikely pairing of blockbusters, the animation industry soars on a string of creative triumphs, and Yorgos Lanthimos crafts a surreal, absurdist odyssey into the heart of womanhood. — Reptile doesn’t quite touch the top 10 of 2023, but with Fincher-like lighting and compositions such as these I wouldn’t bet against Grant Singer becoming a director to keep an eye on in coming years.

Gem to Spotlight

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More. In a year that saw Wes Anderson come out with the extraordinarily self-aware Asteroid City, it is easy to miss the anthology of short films he released on Netflix, each adapting short stories from Roald Dahl. They all work in magnificent formal harmony together, using a rotating troupe of actors to narrate and play multiple roles as if reading tales from a storybook. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is the longest and the best of the four, but The Swan, The Rat Catcher, and Poison are also excellent treatises on outsiders being driven from society, strengthened by the classic Anderson style of pastels and dioramas.

A film, a miniseries, an anthology of shorts – however you consider Wes Anderson’s adaptation of Roald Dahl stories, they make up a superb cinematic pop-up storybook narrated by a troupe of very fine actors. Anderson lays the artifice on even thicker than usual, arranging every shot to a level of symmetrical perfection that keeps us at a Brechtian distance from any impression of reality.

Best Male Performances

Cillian Murphy gives one of the best performances of the decade in Oppenheimer, earning Christopher Nolan’s close-ups that stare right into his glassy blue eyes stretched wide open with the guilt of knowing what he has done, and what he is about to do. His performance is incredibly studied, adopting the physicist’s deep voice and clipped intonations in his speech, and ageing from an idealistic student into a middle-aged man stalked by regret. Murphy has been acting in Nolan films since Batman Begins in 2005, but mainly in supporting roles, so it is about time he is given a role substantial enough to show off his incredible talent.

After Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. is the Salieri to Oppenheimer’s Mozart, revealing a petty man torn apart by contempt and envy. In an ensemble loaded with big names and completely dominated by Murphy, Downey Jr. remarkably makes a significant impact, becoming the vessel upon which much of the narrative hinges.

*Cillian Murphy’s glassy blue eyes and lined face wears a lifetime of regret, making the most of his first lead role in a Nolan film.*

Joaquin Phoenix packs on a great deal of weight in Beau is Afraid, but the way he carries it is feeble and lethargic. He is anxiety and self-loathing distilled in human form, desperately desiring the approval of his mother yet constantly falling short. His performances makes for a fascinating contrast to the next best performance of the year too – Michael Fassbender in The Killer. Both characters are caught up in chaotic circumstances far beyond their control, and yet Fassbender hides his concern behind a cool, stoic façade, trying to convince himself that everything is under control. It is a welcome return to more arthouse fare after a four-year hiatus and an extended diversion to mainstream movies.

After an excellent run from 2011 to 2015, Michael Fassbender spent a few years doing lesser quality films and then took a break – so his return to form in The Killer with the stoic voiceover and intensive focus is incredibly welcome.

Much like Murphy, Barry Keoghan is another talent whose time spent in supporting roles has prepared him to lead an entire film. His acting in Saltburn goes beyond those shocking scenes that were passed around on social media. He conceals Oliver Quick’s true nature behind cold enigmatic eyes, and makes for an unfathomably unreliable narrator. Thanks to his impeccable comic timing, buoyant slapstick, and purposefully overwrought line deliveries, Mark Ruffalo also gives one of the best performances of the year as rakish cad Duncan Wedderburn in Poor Things, while Robert de Niro rounds up the list with an incredible return to form playing William Hale in Killers of the Flower Moon.

*Like Murphy, Barry Keoghan has been doing solid work in films for years but only in 2023 was given a lead role with plenty to chew on, concealing a disturbed psyche behind cold, enigmatic eyes.*

Best Female Performances

Standing at the top of the women’s category this year is a huge performance from Emma Stone in Poor Things that quite easily ranks among her very best. While she has explored Yorgos Lanthimos’ eccentric black wit before in The Favourite, her evolution from incoherent infancy to young adulthood as Bella Baxter is an entirely different beast, awkwardly spinning in uncoordinated motions and later dealing out eloquent dismissals of high society. The slapstick is a new addition to repertoire as well, embodying a being of pure impulse who pursues whatever momentary sensory pleasures come her way.

Emma Stone has developed an impressive resume over the past decade with directors like Alejandro Iñárritu and Damien Chazelle, but it is her collaborations with Yorgos Lanthimos which may end up defining her career, especially with her marvellous physical comedy work as Bella Baxter.

Lily Gladstone has put together a solid resume in her collaborations with Kelly Reichhardt, and so it is very satisfying to see her reach another level as the unfalteringly resilient Mollie Kyle in Killers of the Flower Moon, beating out acting titans Robert de Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio with the best performance of the film. She is softly spoken, resilient, and intellectual, but also trusting to a fault.

Between the two big films that Sandra Hüller was in this year, Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest, the former features the showier, more talkative role, while the latter poses a trickier challenge in its quiet, subdued nuances. Hedwig Höss will go down as one of the great cinema villains of this decade for everything she represents – vanity, apathy, spoiled privilege, and a soullessness that bears absolutely no guilt over the source of her wealth.

Asteroid City features a number of solid performances in its enormous ensemble, but it is Scarlett Johansson who stands out in the most substantial role of Midge Campbell — or Mercedes Ford depending on which way you look at her character. Lastly, Natalie Portman slides in for her psychologically rich performance in May December, playing a method actor who loses herself in the identity of the manipulative predator she is researching, while revealing the absolute artifice of her own apparent empathy.

*Scarlett Johansson gives the best performance within Asteroid City’s loaded ensemble, matching her husky voice and subdued facial expressions to Anderson’s deadpan dialogue.*

Best Cinematography: Poor Things

Film	Cinematographer
1. Poor Things	Robbie Ryan
2. Asteroid City	Robert Yeoman
3. John Wick: Chapter 4	Dan Laustsen
4. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More	Robert Yeoman
6. El Conde	Edward Lachman
7. The Zone of Interest	Łukasz Żal
8. The Killer	Erik Messerschmidt
9. Oppenheimer	Hoyte van Hoytema
10. Killers of the Flower Moon	Rodrigo Prieto
11. Saltburn	Linus Sandgren

For the first time in Yorgos Lanthimos’ career, soundstages are used in place of real locations, allowing for a level of visual control and curation in Poor Things that his previous budgets could not afford. Traces of Terry Gilliam’s eccentric surrealism can be found everywhere, adopting avant-garde camera angles that warp insanely constructed set pieces beyond any hint of realism, while tracking shots and zooms navigate these scenes with a steady fluidity.

Best Editing: Oppenheimer

Film	Editor
1. Oppenheimer	Jennifer Lame
2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse	Michael Andrews
3. John Wick: Chapter 4	Nathan Orloff
4. The Killer	Kirk Baxter
5. The Zone of Interest	Paul Watts
5. Killers of the Flower Moon	Thelma Schoonmaker
6. Beau is Afraid	Lucian Johnston
7. Saltburn	Victoria Boydell
8. El Conde	Sofía Subercaseaux

Christopher Nolan is one of our great contemporary editors, and his work in Oppenheimer is specifically impressive on multiple levels – the Tree of Life-style cutaways to quantum reactions, the parallel editing across three time periods, and the remarkable momentum that keeps the narrative moving forward for three incredibly brisk hours.

Best Screenplay: Oppenheimer

Film	Screenwriter
1. Oppenheimer	Christopher Nolan
2. Poor Things	Tony McNamara
3. Beau is Afraid	Ari Aster
4. Asteroid City	Wes Anderson
5. The Killer	Andrew Kevin Walker
6. May December	Samy Burch
7. Killers of the Flower Moon	Eric Roth, Martin Scorsese
8. Fallen Leaves	Aki Kaurismäki
9. Saltburn	Emerald Fennell

Christopher Nolan has always been a strong screenwriter, even if he has gotten bogged down in the past by heavy exposition. That is not an issue in Oppenheimer. Despite the sheer density of its dialogue, his writing remains magnificently compelling and economical, covering an enormous span of time that offers insight into Robert J. Oppenheimer’s mind beyond the pivotal Manhattan Project.

Best Original Music Score: Oppenheimer

Film	Composer
1. Oppenheimer	Ludwig Göransson
2. Poor Things	Jerskin Fendrixistor
3. Killers of the Flower Moon	Robbie Robertson
4. Beau is Afraid	Bobby Krlic
5. John Wick: Chapter 4	Tyler Bates, Joel J. Richard
6. Saltburn	Anthony Willis
7. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse	Daniel Pemberton
8. May December	Marcelo Zarvos
9. Asteroid City	Alexandre Desplat
10. The Killer	Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross

Ludwig Göransson’s score plays a crucial part in maintaining Oppenheimer’s kinetic momentum, barely pausing long enough to allow us any breathing space in our rush towards total annihilation. The track ‘Can You Hear the Music’ used in film’s final scene especially builds to an ominous climax, revisiting the strings motif once used to represent scientific inspiration, before accelerating it into a pounding electronic rhythm signalling an apocalyptic end.

Year Breakdown

Even with the Actors and Directors Guild strikes pushing some big films into the following year, 2023 saw a giant comeback for cinema, with two full masterpieces sitting at the top and one huge cultural event defining the summer season of moviegoing. Barbenheimer emerged as an unlikely pairing of two big blockbusters with the only thing in common being their release date – July 21^st. Audiences flocked to theatres and records were broken, seeing Barbie become the highest grossing film of the year and Oppenheimer claiming third place (the less said about The Super Mario Bros. Movie in second the better).

Both films met at the intersection of critical and audience acclaim, affirming the two directors as a pair of unstoppable, dominant forces in the film industry – even if Christopher Nolan’s cinematic achievement far outweighs Greta Gerwig’s. Oppenheimer swept awards season and rightfully walked away with Best Picture at the Oscars, giving Nolan a fantastic comeback after Tenet. A little further down the box office list, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse were also notable financial successes, keeping comic book movies afloat next to some pretty major flops.

Barbie sits at the top of 2023’s box office as the fourth-highest grossing movie since the COVID-19 pandemic. Its screenplay lacks the sharpness of Lady Bird, and its form isn’t quite as dazzling as Little Women, but it is still a solid achievement for Greta Gerwig who is basically guaranteed a blank check for her next project.

Speaking of which, the quality of animations this year can’t go ignored either. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a surprisingly avant-garde experiment in visual style from Sony Pictures, while Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem followed in its creative footsteps, and Hayao Miyazaki came out of retirement (again) to direct The Boy and the Heron – all films worthy of the year’s top 10, or at the very least its fringe.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse isn’t just one of the great animations of recent years. Its creative innovations push the medium into places that have never been explored before, morphing the visual style from comic book graphics to watercolours, punk magazine collages, and so on. Colours, shapes, and textures shift with the characters’ journeys, radiating out across the frame, and turning every scene into a visual feast.

The Spider-Verse series may be leading the way, but this new blend of computer and traditional animation has caught on, giving us the grungy sketchbook aesthetic of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem – another fine accomplishment in animation.

Miyazaki’s brief venture out of retirement meanwhile delivers an animation that doesn’t follow new trends, but further builds on the worlds of surrealism and fantasy that he has refined throughout his long career, creatively considering the act and value of worldbuilding in The Boy and the Heron.

Along with Nolan and Miyazaki, the old guard of directors came out in full force this year. Scorsese doesn’t show signs of slowing down in his old age, and though he is much younger, neither does Wes Anderson who released two major projects in 2023. Asteroid City is the greater success, but his anthology of Roald Dahl short films marks a strange curiosity in this era of streaming, making the most of Netflix’s flexible business model by experimenting with the very format of cinema itself. It is difficult to classify this as either a movie or a miniseries, but it is undoubtedly a collective work of cinematic art. David Fincher meanwhile not only released a marvellous hitman film, but also indirectly proved his continued influence in films like Boston Strangler and Reptile that emulate his ambient atmospheres, and others like BlackBerry and Oppenheimer that follow in the footsteps of The Social Network.

Compare the above shot from Fincher’s The Killer to this frame from Boston Strangler. Both are 2023 films, but the low-key lighting and methodical crime narratives that Fincher has been innovating for almost thirty years has reached the point of mainstream influence now. With that said, Fincher’s style and storytelling still retain a freshness that keeps The Killer leagues ahead of its competition.

2023 also bore witness to the continued ascension of a younger filmmaking generation, featuring the talents of Ari Aster, Emerald Fennell, and Chad Stahelski who brought the John Wick series to soaring new heights in Chapter 4. With Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos has officially graduated this class and taken his place next to the modern masters of the artform, now laying claim to two masterpieces under his belt and a solid depth to his filmography.

The cinematic grandeur of John Wick: Chapter 4 was heavily underrated by critics this year. It has been fascinating to watch this series evolve from well-executed action movies into an avant-garde examination of mortality, guilt, and atonement through violence, complete with theological symbolism. There are many artistic influences here, but the senseless revenge and temporary circumvention of death in John Boorman’s psychological crime film Point Blank has to be one of the most integral texts.

Over at Cannes Film Festival, an impressive array of films made the debut including Killers of the Flower Moon, The Zone of Interest, Fallen Leaves, May December, and Asteroid City, so Anatomy of a Fall clinching the Palme d’Or this year is a little disappointing. Justine Triet’s screenplay is extremely admirable, and her direction even stands out in parts, but as a visual and formal artist her work does not warrant a great deal of praise.

A mighty year at Cannes Film Festival, with Killers of the Flower Moon marking Scorsese’s 26th feature film. This is his historic western, examining the incredible injustice that was inflicted upon the native people of the Osage Nation for their oil. There are many cinematic highlights here – the slow-motion oil blowout, the sweeping establishing shots, and of course this Days of Heaven-inspired fire scene that razes fields to burnt embers and ash.

The Zone of Interest is Jonathan Glazer’s first film in ten years, his last being Under the Skin. The quality of his work is consistently high, even if he doesn’t work as regularly as so many other auteurs of his generation, but if we keep getting huge successes like these then perhaps it is worth the wait. The sound design, use of backgrounds, and wide shot compositions in The Zone of Interest are all worth marvelling, even as they collectively chill us to the bone.

May December probes the minds of a method actor and a pedophile, two predators who thrive on the tragedy of others, as Todd Haynes brings compelling form to his psychological drama with his butterfly motif and a mirrored duality between the two women.

Wes Anderson’s style of symmetrical sets, rigorous blocking, and pastel colours remains as consistent as ever in Asteroid City, but this film is also part of a new trajectory in his work moving further away from the mainstream, formally layering the narrative’s explorations of grief and healing through the ‘televised play’ section of the film and its real life, behind-the-scenes drama.

Film Archives

Film	Director	Grade
A Haunting in Venice	Kenneth Branagh	R
Afire	Christian Petzold	R
All of Us Strangers	Andrew Haigh	R
American Fiction	Cord Jefferson	R
Anatomy of a Fall	Justine Triet	R
Asteroid City	Wes Anderson	MS
Barbie	Greta Gerwig	R
Beau is Afraid	Ari Aster	MS
BlackBerry	Matt Johnson	R
Boston Strangler	Matt Ruskin	R
Bottoms	Emma Seligman	R
Dream Scenario	Kristoffer Borgli	R
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves	Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley	R
El Conde	Pablo Larraín	HR/MS
Evil Dead Rise	Lee Cronin	R
Extraction 2	Sam Hargrave	R
Fair Play	Chloe Domont	R
Fallen Leaves	Aki Kaurismäki	HR
Ferrari	Michael Mann	R
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3	James Gunn	R
Infinity Pool	Brandon Cronenberg	R/HR
John Wick: Chapter 4	Chad Stahelski	MS
Killers of the Flower Moon	Martin Scorsese	MS
Knock at the Cabin	M. Night Shyamalan	R
Maestro	Bradley Cooper	R/HR
May December	Todd Haynes	HR
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning	Christopher McQuarrie	R
Napoleon	Ridley Scott	R
Nimona	Nick Bruno, Troy Quane	R
Nyad	Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin	R
Oppenheimer	Christopher Nolan	MP
Past Lives	Celine Song	R
Poor Things	Yorgos Lanthimos	MP
Priscilla	Sofia Coppola	R/HR
Reptile	Grant Singer	R
Saltburn	Emerald Fennell	HR/MS
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse	Joaquim Dos, Santos Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson	MS/MP
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem	Jeff Rowe, Kyler Spears	R/HR
The Boy and the Heron	Hayao Miyazaki	R/HR
The Creator	Gareth Edwards	R
The Holdovers	Alexander Payne	R
The Iron Claw	Sean Durkin	R
The Killer	David Fincher	MS
The New Boy	Warwick Thornton	R
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More	Wes Anderson	HR
The Zone of Interest	Jonathan Glazer	MS
Wonka	Paul King	R

For Pablo Larraín, El Conde is a break from his biopic trilogy that previously featured Jackie and Spencer, choosing to go down the route of supernatural historical fiction with a vampiric allegory of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The black-and-white photography is among the year’s best, and Carmen’s flying scene is a transcendent moment of filmmaking lifting from The Tree of Life.

The 250 Best Films of All Time

Films from the last 10 years have not been included on this list, and will be eligible in future updates when the moratorium has passed.

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey	Stanley Kubrick	1968
2. The Passion of Joan of Arc	Carl Theodor Dreyer	1928
3. Apocalypse Now	Francis Ford Coppola	1979
4. Stalker	Andrei Tarkovsky	1979
5. Citizen Kane	Orson Welles	1941
6. Blade Runner	Ridley Scott	1982
7. 8 1/2	Federico Fellini	1963
8. Vertigo	Alfred Hitchcock	1958
9. The Tree of Life	Terrence Malick	2011
10. Tokyo Story	Yasujirō Ozu	1953
11. The Searchers	John Ford	1956
12. In the Mood for Love	Wong Kar-wai	2000
13. Lawrence of Arabia	David Lean	1962
14. La Dolce Vita	Federico Fellini	1960
15. The Godfather	Francis Ford Coppola	1972
16. Raging Bull	Martin Scorsese	1980
17. Persona	Ingmar Bergman	1966
18. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans	F.W. Murnau	1927
19. Breathless	Jean-Luc Godard	1960
20. Taxi Driver	Martin Scorsese	1976
21. The Godfather Part II	Francis Ford Coppola	1974
22. Battleship Potemkin	Sergei Eisenstein	1925
23. Bicycle Thieves	Vittorio de Sica	1948
24. Seven Samurai	Akira Kurosawa	1954
25. Last Year at Marienbad	Alain Resnais	1961
26. Pulp Fiction	Quentin Tarantino	1994
27. Rashomon	Akira Kurosawa	1950
28. Barry Lyndon	Stanley Kubrick	1975
29. The Rules of the Game	Jean Renoir	1939
30. Days of Heaven	Terrence Malick	1978
31. High and Low	Akira Kurosawa	1963
32. I Am Cuba	Mikhail Kalatozov	1964
33. Nostalghia	Andrei Tarkovsky	1983
34. Psycho	Alfred Hitchcock	1960
35. The Third Man	Carol Reed	1949
36. There Will Be Blood	Paul Thomas Anderson	2007
37. Goodfellas	Martin Scorsese	1990
38. Andrei Rublev	Andrei Tarkovsky	1966
39. Children of Men	Alfonso Cuarón	2006
40. The Seventh Seal	Ingmar Bergman	1957
41. Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages	D.W. Griffith	1916
42. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover	Peter Greenaway	1989
43. Fanny and Alexander	Ingmar Bergman	1982
44. Grand Illusion	Jean Renoir	1937
45. Touch of Evil	Orson Welles	1958
46. Jules and Jim	François Truffaut	1962
47. Napoleon	Abel Gance	1927
48. Breaking the Waves	Lars von Trier	1996
49. Pierrot Le Fou	Jean-Luc Godard	1965
50. Metropolis	Fritz Lang	1927
51. Ikiru	Akira Kurosawa	1952
52. A Clockwork Orange	Stanley Kubrick	1971
53. Chungking Express	Wong Kar-wai	1994
54. Rear Window	Alfred Hitchcock	1954
55. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly	Sergio Leone	1966
56. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari	Robert Wiene	1920
57. The Thin Red Line	Terrence Malick	1998
58. Gone With the Wind	Victor Fleming	1939
59. L’Avventura	Michelangelo Antonioni	1960
60. Sátántangó	Béla Tarr	1994
61. Once Upon a Time in the West	Sergio Leone	1968
62. Cries and Whispers	Ingmar Bergman	1972
63. The Turin Horse	Béla Tarr	2011
64. The Shining	Stanley Kubrick	1980
65. Magnolia	Paul Thomas Anderson	1999
66. The Leopard	Luchino Visconti	1963
67. The Master	Paul Thomas Anderson	2012
68. Werckmeister Harmonies	Béla Tarr	2000
69. Do the Right Thing	Spike Lee	1989
70. Mulholland Drive	David Lynch	2001
71. Hero	Zhang Yimou	2002
72. The Trial	Orson Welles	1962
73. The Conformist	Bernardo Bertolucci	1970
74. Casablanca	Michael Curtiz	1942
75. The 400 Blows	François Truffaut	1959
76. A Brighter Summer Day	Edward Yang	1991
77. Mirror	Andrei Tarkovsky	1975
78. Brazil	Terry Gilliam	1985
79. The Magnificent Ambersons	Orson Welles	1942
80. Rocco and His Brothers	Luchino Visconti	1960
81. The Wizard of Oz	Victor Fleming	1939
82. Heaven’s Gate	Michael Cimino	1980
83. Aguirre, the Wrath of God	Werner Herzog	1972
84. The Human Condition	Masaki Kobayashi	1959-61
85. Nosferatu	F.W. Murnau	1922
86. Early Summer	Yasujirō Ozu	1951
87. Paths of Glory	Stanley Kubrick	1957
88. Yi Yi	Edward Yang	2000
89. The Wild Bunch	Sam Peckinpah	1969
90. Boogie Nights	Paul Thomas Anderson	1997
91. Stagecoach	John Ford	1939
92. Annie Hall	Woody Allen	1977
93. M	Fritz Lang	1931
94. Manhattan	Woody Allen	1979
95. The Double Life of Veronique	Krzsyztof Kieslowski	1991
96. Lost in Translation	Sofia Coppola	2003
97. JFK	Oliver Stone	1991
98. The New World	Terrence Malick	2005
99. Lola Montes	Max Ophüls	1955
100. It’s a Wonderful Life	Frank Capra	1946
101. Blue Velvet	David Lynch	1986
102. The Blue Angel	Josef von Sternberg	1930
103. Nashville	Robert Altman	1975
104. Rome, Open City	Roberto Rossellini	1945
105. Umberto D.	Vittorio de Sica	1952
106. Children of Paradise	Marcel Carne	1945
107. City Lights	Charlie Chaplin	1931
108. Chinatown	Roman Polanski	1974
109. Punch-Drunk Love	Paul Thomas Anderson	2002
110. Gertrud	Carl Theodor Dreyer	1964
111. Ran	Akira Kurosawa	1985
112. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford	Andrew Dominik	2007
113. The Deer Hunter	Michael Cimino	1978
114. Sunset Boulevard	Billy Wilder	1950
115. North by Northwest	Alfred Hitchcock	1959
116. The French Connection	William Friedkin	1971
117. The Red Shoes	Michael Powell	1948
118. A Short Film About Killing	Krzysztof Kieslowski	1988
119. Dead Man	Jim Jarmusch	1995
120. Dekalog	Krzysztof Kieslowski	1989
121. Heat	Michael Mann	1995
122. The Big Sleep	Howard Hawks	1946
123. Once Upon a Time in America	Sergio Leone	1984
124. Modern Times	Charlie Chaplin	1936
125. Contempt	Jean-Luc Godard	1963
126. Don’t Look Now	Nicolas Roeg	1973
127. Ida	Paweł Pawlikowski	2013
128. Fargo	The Coen Brothers	1996
129. Double Indemnity	Billy Wilder	1944
130. L’Eclisse	Michelangelo Antonioni	1962
131. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg	Jacques Demy	1964
132. Hiroshima Mon Amour	Alain Resnais	1959
133. Three Colours: Blue	Krzysztof Kieslowski	1993
134. The Social Network	David Fincher	2010
135. Inception	Christopher Nolan	2010
136. Fitzcarraldo	Werner Herzog	1982
137. Naked	Mike Leigh	1993
138. Three Colours: Red	Krzysztof Kieslowski	1994
139. The General	Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman	1926
140. McCabe & Mrs. Miller	Robert Altman	1971
141. Black Narcissus	Michael Powell	1947
142. The Birth of a Nation	D.W. Griffith	1915
143. Autumn Sonata	Ingmar Bergman	1978
144. 2046	Wong Kar-wai	2004
145. The Royal Tenenbaums	Wes Anderson	2001
146. The White Ribbon	Michael Haneke	2009
147. Jaws	Steven Spielberg	1975
148. Syndromes and a Century	Apichatpong Weerasethakul	2006
149. The Scarlet Empress	Josef von Sternberg	1934
150. Notorious	Alfred Hitchcock	1946
151. The Lord of the Rings	Peter Jackson	2001-03
152. Singin’ in the Rain	Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly	1952
153. Suspiria	Dario Argento	1977
154. Shoot the Piano Player	François Truffaut	1960
155. A Matter of Life and Death	Michael Powell	1946
156. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie	Luis Buñuel	1972
157. Inside Llewyn Davis	The Coen Brothers	2013
158. Rosemary’s Baby	Roman Polanski	1968
159. Winter Light	Ingmar Bergman	1963
160. Kill Bill	Quentin Tarantino	2003-04
161. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance	Park Chan-wook	2002
162. Schindler’s List	Steven Spielberg	1993
163. PlayTime	Jacques Tati	1967
164. Malcolm X	Spike Lee	1992
165. Le Plaisir	Max Ophüls	1952
166. Chimes at Midnight	Orson Welles	1965
167. The Graduate	Mike Nichols	1967
168. Melancholia	Lars von Trier	2011
169. Sweet Smell of Success	Alexander Mackendrick	1956
170. The Grapes of Wrath	John Ford	1940
171. Dancer in the Dark	Lars von Trier	2000
172. The Exorcist	William Friedkin	1973
173. Viridiana	Luis Buñuel	1961
174. Point Blank	John Boorman	1967
175. Cache	Michael Haneke	2005
176. Sherlock Jr.	Buster Keaton	1924
177. Harakiri	Masaki Kobayashi	1962
178. Requiem for a Dream	Darren Aronofsky	2000
179. Written on the Wind	Douglas Sirk	1956
180. Red River	Howard Hawks	1948
181. Performance	Nicolas Roeg	1970
182. Black Swan	Darren Aronofsky	2010
183. The Virgin Spring	Ingmar Bergman	1960
184. Flowers of Shanghai	Hou Hsiao-hsien	1998
185. Alien	Ridley Scott	1979
186. Moonrise Kingdom	Wes Anderson	2012
187. Laura	Otto Preminger	1944
188. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance	John Ford	1962
189. Distant Voices, Still Lives	Terence Davies	1988
190. The Conversation	Francis Ford Coppola	1974
191. Mean Streets	Martin Scorsese	1973
192. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp	Michael Powell	1943
193. The Big Lebowski	The Coen Brothers	1998
194. All That Heaven Allows	Douglas Sirk	1955
195. Dead Ringers	David Cronenberg	1988
196. La Strada	Federico Fellini	1954
197. Irreversible	Gaspar Noé	2002
198. The Bridge on the River Kwai	David Lean	1957
199. Germany Year Zero	Roberto Rossellini	1948
200. Fight Club	David Fincher	1999
201. The Age of Innocence	Martin Scorsese	1993
202. The Empire Strikes Back	Irvin Kershner	1980
203. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre	John Huston	1948
204. Inglourious Basterds	Quentin Tarantino	2009
205. Zodiac	David Fincher	2007
206. Le Samouraï	Jean-Pierre Melville	1967
207. No Country For Old Men	The Coen Brothers	2007
208. Johnny Guitar	Nicholas Ray	1954
209. Late Spring	Yasujirō Ozu	1949
210. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb	Stanley Kubrick	1964
211. Yojimbo	Akira Kurosawa	1961
212. The Dark Knight	Christopher Nolan	2008
213. A Zed and Two Noughts	Peter Greenaway	1985
214. 1900	Bernardo Bertolucci	1976
215. Imitation of Life	Douglas Sirk	1959
216. The Silence of the Lambs	Jonathan Demme	1991
217. Atonement	Joe Wright	2007
218. The Sacrifice	Andrei Tarkovsky	1986
219. Raiders of the Lost Ark	Steven Spielberg	1981
220. Pan’s Labyrinth	Guillermo del Toro	2006
221. Bonnie and Clyde	Arthur Penn	1967
222. Pickpocket	Robert Bresson	1959
223. Amadeus	Miloš Forman	1984
224. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind	Michel Gondry	2004
225. La Notte	Michelangelo Antonioni	1961
226. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest	Miloš Forman	1975
227. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul	Rainer Werner Fassbinder	1974
228. Unforgiven	Clint Eastwood	1992
229. Shame	Steve McQueen	2011
230. The Silence	Ingmar Bergman	1963
231. It Happened One Night	Frank Capra	1934
232. Star Wars	George Lucas	1977
233. White Heat	Raoul Walsh	1949
234. Love Me Tonight	Rouben Mamoulian	1932
235. Rushmore	Wes Anderson	1998
236. The Night of the Hunter	Charles Laughton	1955
237. Blow Out	Brian de Palma	1981
238. Midnight Cowboy	John Schlesinger	1969
239. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid	George Roy Hill	1969
240. A Woman Under the Influence	John Cassavetes	1974
241. Out of the Past	Jacques Tourneur	1947
242. Moulin Rouge!	Baz Luhrmann	2001
243. Mon Oncle	Jacques Tati	1958
244. Greed	Eric von Stroheim	1924
245. Bringing Up Baby	Howard Hawks	1938
246. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days	Cristian Mungiu	2007
247. Network	Sidney Lumet	1976
248. Lost Highway	David Lynch	1997
249. Before Sunset	Richard Linklater	2004
250. MAS*H	Robert Altman	1970

The Best Films of the 2020s Decade (so far)

Last updated 24 September, 2023.

1. Oppenheimer	Christopher Nolan	2023
2. Tár	Todd Field	2022
3. The French Dispatch	Wes Anderson	2021
4. Decision to Leave	Park Chan-wook	2022
5. The Green Knight	David Lowery	2021
6. Babylon	Damien Chazelle	2022
7. I’m Thinking of Ending Things	Charlie Kaufman	2020
8. The Tragedy of Macbeth	Joel Coen	2021
9. Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths	Alejandro Iñárritu	2022
10. Dune	Denis Villeneuve	2021
11. Asteroid City	Wes Anderson	2023
12. Everything Everywhere All at Once	The Daniels	2022
13. John Wick: Chapter 4	Chad Stahelski	2023
14. The Card Counter	Paul Schrader	2021
15. The Batman	Matt Reeves	2022
16. Nomadland	Chloé Zhao	2020
17. Mank	David Fincher	2020
18. Beau is Afraid	Ari Aster	2023
19. The Underground Railroad	Barry Jenkins	2021
20. Avatar: The Way of Water	James Cameron	2022
21. Small Axe	Steve McQueen	2020
22. The Northman	Robert Eggers	2022
23. Spencer	Pablo Larraín	2021
24. Promising Young Woman	Emerald Fennell	2020
25. Copenhagen Cowboy	Nicolas Winding Refn	2022
26. Pieces of a Woman	Kornél Mundruczó	2020
27. Blonde	Andrew Dominik	2022
28. Nightmare Alley	Guillermo del Toro	2021
29. C’mon C’mon	Mike Mills	2021
30. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse	Joaquim Dos, Santos Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson	2023
31. The Hand of God	Paolo Sorrentino	2021
32. The Power of the Dog	Jane Campion	2021
33. West Side Story	Steven Spielberg	2021
34. A Hero	Asghar Farhadi	2021
35. After Yang	Kogonada	2021
36. Belfast	Kenneth Branagh	2021
37. The Banshees of Inisherin	Martin McDonagh	2022
38. All Quiet on the Western Front	Edward Berger	2022
39. Tenet	Christopher Nolan	2020
40. Memoria	Apichatpong Weerasethakul	2021
41. Passing	Rebecca Hall	2021
42. Last Night in Soho	Edgar Wright	2021
43. Elvis	Baz Luhrmann	2022
44. The Worst Person in the World	Joachim Trier	2021
45. The Father	Florian Zeller	2020
46. Licorice Pizza	Paul Thomas Anderson	2021
47. Men	Alex Garland	2022
48. Possessor	Brandon Cronenberg	2020
49. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio	Guillermo del Toro	2022
50. The Wonder	Sebastián Lelio	2022

The French Dispatch *(Wes Anderson, 2021)*

The Best Films of the 2010s Decade

1. The Tree of Life	Terrence Malick	2011
2. Roma	Alfonso Cuarón	2018
3. Dunkirk	Christopher Nolan	2017
4. The Turin Horse	Béla Tarr	2011
5. The Master	Paul Thomas Anderson	2012
6. The Revenant	Alejandro Iñárritu	2015
7. La La Land	Damien Chazelle	2016
8. Birdman	Alejandro Iñárritu	2014
9. Cold War	Paweł Pawlikowski	2018
10. Mad Max: Fury Road	George Miller	2015
11. The Grand Budapest Hotel	Wes Anderson	2014
12. Vitalina Varela	Pedro Costa	2019
13. Ida	Paweł Pawlikowski	2013
14. The Social Network	David Fincher	2010
15. Inception	Christopher Nolan	2010
16. The Favourite	Yorgos Lanthimos	2018
17. Inside Llewyn Davis	The Coen Brothers	2013
18. Midsommar	Ari Aster	2019
19. Melancholia	Lars von Trier	2011
20. Moonlight	Barry Jenkins	2016
21. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood	Quentin Tarantino	2019
22. Black Swan	Darren Aronofsky	2010
23. About Endlessness	Roy Andersson	2012
24. Moonrise Kingdom	Wes Anderson	2016
25. Parasite	Bong Joon-ho	2019
26. Shame	Steve McQueen	2011
27. Ad Astra	James Gray	2019
28. Blade Runner 2049	Denis Villeneuve	2019
29. Columbus	Kogonada	2017
30. The Irishman	Martin Scorsese	2017
31. Burning	Lee Chang-dong	2018
32. Waves	Trey Edward Shults	2019
33. Phantom Thread	Paul Thomas Anderson	2017
34. Whiplash	Damien Chazelle	2014
35. First Reformed	Paul Schrader	2017
36. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence	Roy Andersson	2014
37. A Hidden Life	Terrence Malick	2019
38. 1917	Sam Mendes	2019
39. We Need to Talk About Kevin	Lynne Ramsey	2011
40. Mr. Turner	Mike Leigh	2014
41. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives	Apichatpong Weerasetkul	2010
42. Enemy	Denis Villeneuve	2013
43. Gravity	Alfonso Cuarón	2013
44. Paterson	Jim Jarmusch	2016
45. Little Women	Greta Gerwig	2019
46. Marriage Story	Noah Baumbach	2019
47. Hereditary	Ari Aster	2018
48. Holy Motors	Leos Carax	2012
49. Son of Saul	László Nemes	2015
50. The Great Beauty	Paolo Sorrentino	2013
51. 12 Years a Slave	Steve McQueen	2013
52. Call Me By Your Name	Luca Guadagnino	2017
53. Good Time	The Safdie Brothers	2017
54. Django Unchained	Quentin Tarantino	2012
55. Only God Forgives	Nicolas Winding Refn	2013
56. Certified Copy	Abbas Kiarostami	2010
57. Drive	Nicolas Winding Refn	2011
58. The Dark Knight Rises	Christopher Nolan	2012
59. The Neon Demon	Nicolas Winding Refn	2016
60. Mommy	Xavier Dolan	2014
61. Victoria	Sebastian Schipper	2015
62. The Assassin	Hou Hsiao-hsien	2015
63. The Lighthouse	Robert Eggers	2019
64. The Shape of Water	Guillermo del Toro	2017
65. Laurence Anyways	Xavier Dolan	2012
66. Widows	Steve McQueen	2018
67. Climax	Gaspar Noé	2018
68. The Grandmaster	Wong Kar-wai	2013
69. Gone Girl	David Fincher	2014
70. Before Midnight	Richard Linklater	2013
71. Spring Breakers	Harmony Korine	2012
72. Blue Valentine	Derek Cianfrance	2010
73. Under the Skin	Jonathan Glazer	2013
74. The Ghost Writer	Roman Polanski	2010
75. Boyhood	Richard Linklater	2014
76. Portrait of a Lady on Fire	Céline Sciamma	2019
77. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse	Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman	2018
78. The Lobster	Yorgos Lanthimos	2015
79. Interstellar	Christopher Nolan	2014
80. Carol	Todd Haynes	2015
81. Only Lovers Left Alive	Jim Jarmusch	2013
82. Swallow	Carlo Mirabella-Davis	2019
83. Jackie	Pablo Larraín	2016
84. A Separation	Asghar Farhadi	2011
85. Frances Ha	Greta Gerwig	2012
86. Tale of Tales	Matteo Garrone	2015
87. If Beale Street Could Talk	Barry Jenkins	2018
88. The Deep Blue Sea	Terence Davies	2011
89. Skyfall	Sam Mendes	2012
90. Her	Spike Jonze	2013
91. You Were Never Really Here	Lynne Ramsey	2017
92. The Souvenir	Joanna Hogg	2019
93. Nightcrawler	Dan Gilroy	2014
94. Shutter Island	Martin Scorsese	2010
95. Submarine	Richard Ayoade	2010
96. Sunset Song	Terence Davies	2015
97. Sicario	Denis Villeneuve	2015
98. The Big Short	Adam McKay	2015
99. The Immigrant	James Gray	2013
100. Get Out	Jordan Peele	2017

The Revenant *(Alejandro Iñárritu, 2015)*

The Best Films of 2019

Pedro Costa’s meditative camera lingers in the decaying home of a recent widow, Bong Joon-ho takes a scalpel to South Korea’s class system, and Martin Scorsese’s epic gangster film wrestles with his long-time fascinations of sin and guilt.

The Best Films of 2018

Alfonso Cuarón cements his status as an all-time great director with a black-and-white memory piece, Ari Aster takes the horror genre to a new level with fresh artistic sensibilities, and a hyper-kinetic animation deconstructs decades of superhero stories.

The Best Films of 2017

Christopher Nolan shakes up the war genre with his tremendous editing, Denis Villeneuve astoundingly builds on a decades-old classic with a phenomenal sequel, and Paul Schrader’s theological character study features Ethan Hawke in a self-destructive spiral.

1. In the Mood for Love	Wong Kar-wai	2000
2. There Will Be Blood	Paul Thomas Anderson	2007
3. Children of Men	Alfonso Cuarón	2006
4. Werckmeister Harmonies	Béla Tarr	2000
5. Mulholland Drive	David Lynch	2001
6. Hero	Zhang Yimou	2002
7. Yi Yi	Edward Yang	2000
8. Lost in Translation	Sofia Coppola	2003
9. The New World	Terrence Malick	2005
10. Punch-Drunk Love	Paul Thomas Anderson	2002
11. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford	Andrew Dominik	2007
12. 2046	Wong Kar-wai	2004
13. The Royal Tenenbaums	Wes Anderson	2001
14. The White Ribbon	Michael Haneke	2009
15. Syndromes and a Century	Apichatpong Weerasethakul	2006
16. The Lord of the Rings	Peter Jackson	2001-03
17. Kill Bill	Quentin Tarantino	2003-04
18. Dancer in the Dark	Lars von Trier	2000
19. Sympathy for Mr Vengeance	Park Chan-wook	2002
20. Caché	Michael Haneke	2005
21. Requiem for a Dream	Darren Aronofsky	2000
22. Irreversible	Gaspar Noé	2002
23. Inglourious Basterds	Quentin Tarantino	2009
24. Zodiac	David Fincher	2007
25. No Country For Old Men	The Coen Brothers	2007
26. The Dark Knight	Christopher Nolan	2008
27. Atonement	Joe Wright	2007
28. Pan’s Labyrinth	Guillermo del Toro	2006
29. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind	Michel Gondry	2004
30. Moulin Rouge!	Baz Luhrmann	2001
31. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days	Cristian Mungiu	2007
32. Before Sunset	Richard Linklater	2004
33. Memento	Christopher Nolan	2000
34. Amores Perros	Alejandro Iñárritu	2000
35. The Aviator	Martin Scorsese	2004
36. The Departed	Martin Scorsese	2006
37. A History of Violence	David Cronenberg	2005
38. Spirited Away	Hiyao Miyazaki	2001
39. Platform	Jia Zhangke	2000
40. Amelie	Jean-Pierre Jeunet	2001
41. The Fountain	Darren Aronofsky	2006
42. Valhalla Rising	Nicolas Winding Refn	2009
43. Synecdoche, New York	Charlie Kaufman	2008
44. You, The Living	Roy Andersson	2007
45. Enter the Void	Gaspar Noé	2009
46. Marie Antoinette	Sofia Coppola	2006
47. Hunger	Steve McQueen	2008
48. Fantastic Mr. Fox	Wes Anderson	2009
49. The Piano Teacher	Michael Haneke	2001
50. Antichrist	Lars von Trier	2009
51. Avatar	James Cameron	2009
52. Code Unknown	Michael Haneke	2000
53. Lady Vengeance	Park Chan-wook	2005
54. Bad Education	Pedro Almodóvar	2004
55. I Killed My Mother	Xavier Dolan	2009
56. WALL-E	Andrew Stanton	2008
57. Still Life	Jia Zhangke	2006
58. Talk to Her	Pedro Almodóvar	2002
59. Million Dollar Baby	Clint Eastwood	2004
60. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon	Ang Lee	2000
61. Oldboy	Park Chan-wook	2003
62. A.I. Artificial Intelligence	Steven Spielberg	2001
63. Dogtooth	Yorgos Lanthimos	2009
64. American Psycho	Mary Harron	2000
65. Brokeback Mountain	Ang Lee	2005
66. Far From Heaven	Todd Haynes	2002
67. 25th Hour	Spike Lee	2002
68. Wendy and Lucy	Kelly Reichhardt	2008
69. The Hurt Locker	Kathryn Bigelow	2008
70. Donnie Darko	Richard Kelly	2001
71. Pride and Prejudice	Joe Wright	2005
72. Millennium Actress	Satoshi Kon	2001
73. Match Point	Woody Allen	2005
74. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button	David Fincher	2008
75. Polytechnique	Denis Villeneuve	2009
76. Hot Fuzz	Edgar Wright	2007
77. Dogville	Lars von Trier	2003
78. Gangs of New York	Martin Scorsese	2002
79. Russian Ark	Alexander Sokurov	2002
80. The World	Jia Zhangke	2004
81. Mother	Bong Joon-ho	2009
82. Babel	Alejandro Iñárritu	2006
83. Reprise	Joachim Trier	2006
84. Gladiator	Ridley Scott	2000
85. Sweeney Todd	Tim Burton	2007
86. The Squid and the Whale	Noah Baumbach	2005
87. Casino Royale	Martin Campbell	2006
88. Let the Right One In	Tomas Alredson	2008
89. The Prestige	Christopher Nolan	2006
90. 24 Hour Party People	Michael Winterbottom	2002
91. Into The Wild	Sean Penn	2007
92. Eastern Promises	David Cronenberg	2007
93. Shaun of the Dead	Edgar Wright	2004
94. A Prophet	Jacques Audiard	2009
95. Collateral	Michael Mann	2004
96. Inland Empire	David Lynch	2006
97. Panic Room	David Fincher	2002
98. The Incredibles	Brad Bird	2004
99. Adaptation	Spike Jonze	2002
100. Saraband	Ingmar Bergman	2003

The Best Films of the 1990s Decade

1. Pulp Fiction	Quentin Tarantino	1994
2. Goodfellas	Martin Scorsese	1990
3. Breaking the Waves	Lars von Trier	1996
4. Chungking Express	Wong Kar-wai	1994
5. The Thin Red Line	Terrence Malick	1998
6. Sátántangó	Béla Tarr	1994
7. Magnolia	Paul Thomas Anderson	1999
8. A Brighter Summer Day	Edward Yang	1991
9. Boogie Nights	Paul Thomas Anderson	1997
10. The Double Life of Veronique	Krzysztof Kieslowski	1991
11. JFK	Oliver Stone	1991
12. Dead Man	Jim Jarmusch	1995
13. Heat	Michael Mann	1995
14. Fargo	The Coen Brothers	1996
15. Three Colours: Blue	Krzysztof Kieslowski	1993
16. Naked	Mike Leigh	1993
17. Three Colours: Red	Krzysztof Kieslowski	1994
18. Malcolm X	Spike Lee	1992
19. Schindler’s List	Steven Spielberg	1993
20. Flowers of Shanghai	Hou Hsiao-hsien	1998
21. The Big Lebowski	The Coen Brothers	1998
22. Fight Club	David Fincher	1999
23. The Age of Innocence	Martin Scorsese	1993
24. The Silence of the Lambs	Jonathan Demme	1991
25. Unforgiven	Clint Eastwood	1992
26. Rushmore	Wes Anderson	1998
27. Lost Highway	David Lynch	1997
28. Casino	Martin Scorsese	1995
29. Seven	David Fincher	1995
30. Saving Private Ryan	Steven Spielberg	1998
31. Days of Being Wild	Wong Kar-wai	1990
32. Reservoir Dogs	Quentin Tarantino	1992
33. The Piano	Jane Campion	1993
34. Run Lola Run	Tom Tykwer	1998
35. The Matrix	The Wachowskis	1999
36. Lovers on the Bridge	Leos Carax	1991
37. A Taste of Cherry	Abbas Kiarostami	1997
38. 12 Monkeys	Terry Gilliam	1995
39. La Haine	Mathieu Kassovitz	1995
40. Trainspotting	Danny Boyle	1996
41. Out of Sight	Steven Soderbergh	1998
42. Fallen Angels	Wong Kar-wai	1995
43. American Beauty	Sam Mendes	1999
44. Orlando	Sally Potter	1992
45. Three Colours: White	Krzysztof Kieslowski	1994
46. Terminator 2: Judgment Day	James Cameron	1991
47. Happy Together	Wong Kar-wai	1997
48. The English Patient	Anthony Minghella	1996
49. L.A. Confidental	Curtis Hanson	1997
50. Groundhog Day	Harold Ramis	1993
51. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me	David Lynch	1992
52. The Usual Suspects	Bryan Singer	1995
53. Funny Games	Michael Haneke	1997
54. Delicatessen	Jean-Pierre Jeunet	1991
55. Forrest Gump	Robert Zemeckis	1994
56. Being John Malkovich	Spike Jonze	1999
57. The Fisher King	Terry Gilliam	1991
58. The Shawshank Redemption	Frank Darabont	1994
59. Safe	Todd Haynes	1995
60. The Lion King	Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff	1994
61. Jurassic Park	Steven Spielberg	1993
62. Titanic	James Cameron	1997
63. The Virgin Suicides	Sofia Coppola	1999
64. Bad Lieutenant	Abel Ferrara	1992
65. Carlito’s Way	Brian de Palma	1993
66. Husbands and Wives	Woody Allen	1992
67. Slacker	Richard Linklater	1991
68. Pi	Darren Aronofsky	1998
69. Before Sunrise	Richard Linklater	1995
70. The Player	Robert Altman	1992
71. Howard’s End	James Ivory	1992
72. Europa	Lars von Trier	1991
73. Ed Wood	Tim Burton	1994
74. My Own Private Idaho	Ridley Scott	1991
75. Dances With Wolves	Kevin Costner	1990
76. Good Will Hunting	Gus van Sant	1997
77. Topsy-Turvy	Mike Leigh	1999
78. Ratcatcher	Lynne Ramsay	1999
79. All About My Mother	Pedro Almodóvar	1999
80. A Little Princess	Alfonso Cuarón	1995
81. King of New York	Abel Ferrara	1990
82. Light Sleeper	Paul Schrader	1992
83. Dazed and Confused	Richard Linklater	1993
84. Sleepy Hollow	Tim Burton	1999
85. Philadelphia	Jonathan Demme	1993
86. Ghost in the Shell	Mamoru Oshii	1995
87. Election	Alexander Payne	1999
88. Total Recall	Paul Verhoeven	1990
89. Romeo + Juliet	Baz Luhrmann	1996
90. Toy Story	John Lasseter	1995
91. Thelma and Louise	Gus van Sant	1991
92. The Truman Show	Peter Weir	1998
93. La Promesse	The Dardenne Brothers	1996
94. Jackie Brown	Quentin Tarantino	1997
95. The Fugitive	Andrew Davis	1993
96. Bound	The Wachowskis	1996
97. Xiao Wu	Jia Zhangke	1997
98. The Godfather: Part III	Francis Ford Coppola	1990
99. Dreams	Akira Kurosawa	1990
100. Beauty and the Beast	Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise	1991

The Thin Red Line *(Terrence Malick, 1998)*

The Best Films of the 1980s Decade

1. Blade Runner	Ridley Scott	1982
2. Raging Bull	Martin Scorsese	1980
3. Nostalghia	Andrei Tarkovsky	1983
4. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover	Peter Greenaway	1989
5. Fanny and Alexander	Ingmar Bergman	1982
6. The Shining	Stanley Kubrick	1980
7. Do the Right Thing	Spike Lee	1989
8. Brazil	Terry Gilliam	1985
9. Heaven’s Gate	Michael Cimino	1980
10. Blue Velvet	David Lynch	1986
11. Ran	Akira Kurosawa	1985
12. A Short Film About Killing	Krzysztof Kieslowski	1988
13. Dekalog	Krzysztof Kieslowski	1989
14. Once Upon a Time in America	Sergio Leone	1984
15. Fitzcarraldo	Werner Herzog	1982
16. Distant Voices, Still Lives	Terence Davies	1988
17. Dead Ringers	David Cronenberg	1988
18. The Empire Strikes Back	Irvin Kershner	1980
19. A Zed and Two Noughts	Peter Greenaway	1985
20. The Sacrifice	Andrei Tarkovsky	1986
21. Amadeus	Miloš Forman	1984
22. Raiders of the Lost Ark	Steven Spielberg	1981
23. Blow Out	Brian de Palma	1981
24. Hannah and Her Sisters	Woody Allen	1986
25. Mon Oncle d’Amerique	Alain Resnais	1980
26. Back to the Future	Robert Zemeckis	1985
27. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters	Paul Schrader	1985
28. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown	Pedro Almodóvar	1988
29. Stranger Than Paradise	Jim Jarmusch	1984
30. Stardust Memories	Woody Allen	1980
31. Thief	Michael Mann	1981
32. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial	Steven Spielberg	1982
33. Blood Simple	The Coen Brothers	1984
34. Crimes and Misdemeanours	Woody Allen	1989
35. The Last Emperor	Bernardo Bertolucci	1987
36. Broadway Danny Rose	Woody Allen	1984
37. Videodrome	David Cronenberg	1983
38. The Elephant Man	David Lynch	1980
39. Full Metal Jacket	Stanley Kubrick	1987
40. Manhunter	Michael Mann	1986
41. The Fly	David Cronenberg	1986
42. Reds	Warren Beatty	1981
43. The Thing	John Carpenter	1982
44. Scarface	Brian De Palma	1983
45. Who Framed Roger Rabbit	Robert Zemeckis	1988
46. Come and See	Elem Klimov	1985
47. Platoon	Oliver Stone	1986
48. Die Hard	John McTiernan	1988
49. Damnation	Béla Tarr	1988
50. Aliens	James Cameron	1986
51. Body Heat	Lawrence Kasdan	1981
52. The Terminator	James Cameron	1984
53. The King of Comedy	Martin Scorsese	1982
54. Dressed to Kill	Brian De Palma	1980
55. Withnail and I	Bruce Robinson	1987
56. The Untouchables	Brian De Palma	1987
57. The Draughtsman’s Contract	Peter Greenaway	1982
58. My Dinner with Andre	Louis Malle	1981
59. Paris, Texas	Wim Wenders	1984
60. Batman	Tim Burton	1989
61. Mauvais Sang	Leos Carax	1986
62. Body Double	Brian de Palma	1984
63. After Hours	Martin Scorsese	1985
64. Francisca	Manoel de Oliveira	1981
65. My Neighbour Totoro	Hayao Miyazaki	1988
66. A Short Film About Love	Krzysztof Kieslowski	1988
67. The Dead	John Huston	1987
68. The Right Stuff	Philip Kaufman	1983
69. Something Wild	Jonathan Demme	1986
70. Raising Arizona	The Coen Brothers	1987
71. The Purple Rose of Cairo	Woody Allen	1985
72. Drugstore Cowboy	Gus Van Sant	1989
73. Akira	Katsuhiro Otomo	1988
74. Sophie’s Choice	Alan J. Pakula	1982
75. When Harry Met Sally	Rob Reiner	1989
76. Escape From New York	John Carpenter	1981
77. As Tears Go By	Wong Kar-wai	1988
78. White Dog	Samuel Fuller	1982
79. The Breakfast Club	John Hughes	1985
80. Tootsie	Sydney Pollack	1982

The Best Films of the 1970s Decade

1. Apocalypse Now	Francis Ford Coppola	1979
2. Stalker	Andrei Tarkovsky	1979
3. The Godfather	Francis Ford Coppola	1972
4. Taxi Driver	Martin Scorsese	1976
5. The Godfather Part II	Francis Ford Coppola	1974
6. Barry Lyndon	Stanley Kubrick	1975
7. Days of Heaven	Terrence Malick	1978
8. A Clockwork Orange	Stanley Kubrick	1971
9. Cries and Whispers	Ingmar Bergman	1972
10. The Conformist	Bernardo Bertolucci	1970
11. Mirror	Andrei Tarkovsky	1975
12. Aguirre, Wrath of God	Werner Herzog	1972
13. Annie Hall	Woody Allen	1977
14. Manhattan	Woody Allen	1979
15. Nashville	Robert Altman	1975
16. Chinatown	Roman Polanski	1974
17. The Deer Hunter	Michael Cimino	1978
18. The French Connection	William Friedkin	1971
19. Don’t Look Now	Nicolas Roeg	1973
20. McCabe & Mrs. Miller	Robert Altman	1971
21. Autumn Sonata	Ingmar Bergman	1978
22. Jaws	Steven Spielberg	1975
23. Suspiria	Dario Argento	1977
24. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie	Luis Buñuel	1972
25. The Exorcist	William Friedkin	1973
26. Performance	Nicolas Roeg	1970
27. Alien	Ridley Scott	1979
28. The Conversation	Francis Ford Coppola	1974
29. Mean Streets	Martin Scorsese	1973
30. 1900	Bernardo Bertolucci	1976
31. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest	Miloš Forman	1975
32. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul	Rainer Werner Fassbinder	1974
33. Star Wars	George Lucas	1977
34. A Woman Under the Influence	John Cassavetes	1974
35. Network	Sidney Lumet	1976
36. MAS*H	Robert Altman	1970
37. The Parallax View	Alan J. Pakula	1974
38. The Long Goodbye	Robert Altman	1973
39. Carnal Knowledge	Mike Nichols	1971
40. Dog Day Afternoon	Sidney Lumet	1975
41. Solaris	Andrei Tarkovsky	1972
42. Badlands	Terrence Malick	1973
43. The Holy Mountain	Alejandro Jodorowsky	1973
44. The Man Who Fell to Earth	Nicolas Roeg	1976
45. Eraserhead	David Lynch	1977
46. All the President’s Men	Alan J. Pakula	1976
47. Cabaret	Bob Fosse	1972
48. Le Cercle Rouge	Jean-Pierre Melville	1970
49. Death in Venice	Luchino Visconti	1971
50. Scenes from a Marriage	Ingmar Bergman	1973
51. Lenny	Bob Fosse	1974
52. Face to Face	Ingmar Bergman	1976
53. Patton	Franklin J. Schaffner	1970
54. The Sting	George Roy Hill	1973
55. Five Easy Pieces	Bob Rafelson	1970
56. Deliverance	John Boorman	1971
57. Halloween	John Carpenter	1978
58. Harold and Maude	Hal Ashby	1971
59. The Last Picture Show	Peter Bogdanovich	1971
60. Ludwig	Luchino Visconti	1973
61. 3 Women	Robert Altman	1977
62. Nosferatu the Vampyre	Werner Herzog	1979
63. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre	Tobe Hooper	1974
64. Duelle	Jacques Rivette	1976
65. Day For Night	François Truffaut	1973
66. Love and Death	Woody Allen	1975
67. American Graffiti	George Lucas	1973
68. El Topo	Alejandro Jodorowsky	1970
69. Klute	Alan J. Pakula	1971
70. Tristana	Luis Bunuel	1970
71. The Man Who Would Be King	John Huston	1975
72. Husbands	John Cassavetes	1970
73. Life of Brian	Terry Jones	1979
74. The Last Detail	Hal Ashby	1973
75. California Split	Robert Altman	1974
76. Deep End	Jerzy Skoliomowski	1970
77. Being There	Hal Ashby	1979
78. Monty Python and the Holy Grail	Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones	1975
79. The Wickerman	Robin Hardy	1973
80. Rocky	John G. Avildsen	1976

The Best Films of the 1960s Decade

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey	Stanley Kubrick	1968
2. 8 1/2	Federico Fellini	1963
3. Lawrence of Arabia	David Lean	1962
4. La Dolce Vita	Federico Fellini	1960
5. Persona	Ingmar Bergman	1966
6. Breathless	Jean-Luc Godard	1960
7. Last Year at Marienbad	Alain Resnais	1961
8. High and Low	Akira Kurosawa	1963
9. I Am Cuba	Mikhail Kalatozov	1965
10. Psycho	Alfred Hitchcock	1960
11. Andrei Rublev	Andrei Tarkovsky	1966
12. Jules and Jim	François Truffaut	1962
13. Pierrot le Fou	Jean-Luc Godard	1965
14. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly	Sergio Leone	1966
15. L’Avventura	Michelangelo Antonioni	1960
16. Once Upon a Time in the West	Sergio Leone	1968
17. The Leopard	Luchino Visconti	1963
18. The Trial	Orson Welles	1962
19. Rocco and His Brothers	Luchino Visconti	1960
20. The Wild Bunch	Sam Peckinpah	1969
21. Gertrud	Carl Theodor Dreyer	1964
22. Contempt	Jean-Luc Godard	1963
23. L’Eclisse	Michelangelo Antonioni	1962
24. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg	Jacques Demy	1964
25. Shoot the Piano Player	François Truffaut	1960
26. Rosemary’s Baby	Roman Polanski	1968
27. Winter Light	Ingmar Bergman	1963
28. Playtime	Jacques Tati	1967
29. Chimes at Midnight	Orson Welles	1965
30. The Graduate	Mike Nichols	1967
31. Viridiana	Luis Buñuel	1961
32. Point Blank	John Boorman	1967
33. Harakiri	Masaki Kobayashi	1962
34. The Virgin Spring	Ingmar Bergman	1960
35. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance	John Ford	1962
36. Le Samouraï	Jean-Pierre Melville	1967
37. Dr. Strangelove	Stanley Kubrick	1964
38. Yojimbo	Akira Kurosawa	1961
39. Bonnie and Clyde	Arthur Penn	1967
40. La Notte	Michelangelo Antonioni	1961
41. The Silence	Ingmar Bergman	1963
42. Midnight Cowboy	John Schlesinger	1969
43. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid	George Roy Hill	1969
44. Alphaville	Jean-Luc Godard	1965
45. West Side Story	Robert Wise	1961
46. Cleo from 5 to 7	Agnès Varda	1962
47. Peeping Tom	Michael Powell	1960
48. The Apartment	Billy Wilder	1960
49. Army of Shadows	Jean-Pierre Melville	1969
50. Easy Rider	Dennis Hopper	1969
51. Cool Hand Luke	Stuart Rosenberg	1967
52. The Servant	Joseph Losey	1963
53. Hour of the Wolf	Ingmar Bergman	1968
54. A Woman is a Woman	Jean-Luc Godard	1961
55. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors	Sergei Parajanov	1964
56. The Birds	Alfred Hitchcock	1963
57. The Haunting	Robert Wise	1963
58. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?	Mike Nichols	1966
59. Ivan’s Childhood	Andrei Tarkovsky	1962
60. The Young Girls of Rochefort	Jacques Demy	1967
61. My Fair Lady	George Cukor	1964
62. Vivre sa Vie	Jean-Luc Godard	1962
63. The Manchurian Candidate	John Frankenheimer	1962
64. The Battle of Algiers	Gillo Pontecorvo	1966
65. Kes	Ken Loach	1969
66. Lola	Jacques Demy	1961
67. Shame	Ingmar Bergman	1968
68. My Night at Maud’s	Eric Rohmer	1969
69. Bande à Part	Jean-Luc Godard	1964
70. Marnie	Alfred Hitchcock	1964
71. The Color of Pomegranates	Sergei Parajanov	1969
72. The Damned	Luchino Visconti	1969
73. Au Hasard Balthasar	Robert Bresson	1966
74. All These Women	Ingmar Bergman	1964
75. Night of the Living Dead	George A. Romero	1968
76. The Great Silence	Sergio Corbucci	1968
77. Seconds	John Frankenheimer	1966
78. The Hustler	Robert Rossen	1961
79. Spartacus	Stanley Kubrick	1960
80. Charade	Stanley Donen	1963
81. Hud	Martin Ritt	1963
82. Blood and Black Lace	Mario Bava	1964
83. Through a Glass Darkly	Ingmar Bergman	1961
84. Funny Girl	William Wyler	1968
85. To Kill a Mockingbird	Robert Mulligan	1962
86. Goldfinger	Guy Hamilton	1964
87. Ride the High Country	Sam Peckinpah	1962
88. If….	Lindsay Anderson	1968
89. Mary Poppins	Robert Stevenson	1964
90. In the Heat of the Night	Norman Jewison	1967
91. Splendor in the Grass	Elia Kazan	1961
92. The Sound of Music	Robert Wise	1965
93. The Producers	Mel Brooks	1967
94. The Passion of Anna	Ingmar Bergman	1969
95. La Chinoise	Jean-Luc Godard	1967
96. Planet of the Apes	Franklin J. Schaffner	1968
97. Made in USA	Jean-Luc Godard	1966
98. A Hard Day’s Night	Richard Lester	1964
99. Black Girl	Ousmene Sembène	1966
100. Fando and Lis	Alejandro Jodorowsky	1968

The Best Films of the 1950s Decade

1. Vertigo	Alfred Hitchcock	1958
2. Tokyo Story	Yasujirō Ozu	1953
3. The Searchers	John Ford	1956
4. Seven Samurai	Akira Kurosawa	1954
5. Rashomon	Akira Kurosawa	1950
6. The Seventh Seal	Ingmar Bergman	1957
7. Touch of Evil	Orson Welles	1958
8. Ikiru	Akira Kurosawa	1952
9. Rear Window	Alfred Hitchcock	1954
10. The 400 Blows	François Truffaut	1959
11. The Human Condition	Masaki Kobayashi	1959-61
12. Early Summer	Yasujirō Ozu	1951
13. Paths of Glory	Stanley Kubrick	1957
14. Lola Montès	Max Ophüls	1955
15. Umberto D.	Vittorio de Sica	1952
16. Sunset Boulevard	Billy Wilder	1950
17. North by Northwest	Alfred Hitchcock	1959
18. Hiroshima Mon Amour	Alain Resnais	1959
19. Singin’ in the Rain	Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly	1952
20. Le Plaisir	Max Ophüls	1952
21. Sweet Smell of Success	Alexander Mackendrick	1957
22. Written on the Wind	Douglas Sirk	1956
23. All That Heaven Allows	Douglas Sirk	1955
24. The Bridge on the River Kwai	David Lean	1957
25. Johnny Guitar	Nicholas Ray	1954
26. Imitation of Life	Douglas Sirk	1959
27. Pickpocket	Robert Bresson	1959
28. The Night of the Hunter	Charles Laughton	1955
29. Mon Oncle	Jacques Tati	1958
30. The Band Wagon	Vincente Minnelli	1953
31. Strangers on a Train	Alfred Hitchcock	1951
32. Ordet	Carl Theodor Dreyer	1955
33. High Noon	Fred Zinnemann	1952
34. Rio Bravo	Howard Hawks	1959
35. Wild Strawberries	Ingmar Bergman	1957
36. Pyaasa	Guru Dutt	1957
37. Man of the West	Anthony Mann	1958
38. Shane	George Stevens	1953
39. Anatomy of a Murder	Otto Preminger	1959
40. On the Waterfront	Eliza Kazan	1954
41. Some Like it Hot	Billy Wilder	1959
42. Ben-Hur	William Wyler	1959
43. A Streetcar Named Desire	Elia Kazan	1951
44. In a Lonely Place	Nicholas Ray	1950
45. 12 Angry Men	Sidney Lumet	1957
46. Detective Story	William Wyler	1951
47. Track of the Cat	William A. Wellman	1954
48. Pickup on South Street	Samuel Fuller	1953
49. Nights of Cabiria	Federico Fellini	1957
50. The Man With the Golden Arm	Otto Preminger	1955
51. A Star is Born	A Star is Born	1954
52. Night and the City	Jules Dassin	1950
53. The Asphalt Jungle	John Huston	1950
54. Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday	Jacques Tati	1953
55. Gun Crazy	Joseph H. Lewis	1950
56. Rebel Without a Cause	Nicholas Ray	1955
57. Bob le Flambeur	Jean-Pierre Melville	1956
58. Kaagaz Ke Phool	Guru Dutt	1959
59. All About Eve	Joseph L. Mankiewicz	1950
60. Forty Guns	Samuel Fuller	1957
61. Sawdust and Tinsel	Ingmar Bergman	1953
62. A Place in the Sun	George Stevens	1951
63. Stalag 17	Billy Wilder	1953
64. Throne of Blood	Akira Kurosawa	1957
65. The Naked Spur	Anthony Mann	1953
66. Bad Day at Black Rock	John Sturges	1955
67. Summer with Monika	Ingmar Bergman	1953
68. An American in Paris	Vincente Minnelli	1951
69. Smiles of a Summer Night	Ingmar Bergman	1955
70. The Killing	Stanley Kubrick	1956
71. Ace in the Hole	Billy Wilder	1951
72. Magnificent Obsession	Douglas Sirk	1954
73. The African Queen	John Huston	1951
74. Dreams	Ingmar Bergman	1955
75. Aar Paar	Guru Dutt	1954
76. Invasion of the Body Snatchers	Don Siegel	1956
77. The Man From Laramie	Anthony Mann	1955
78. Sabrina	Billy Wilder	1954
79. Roman Holiday	William Wyler	1953
80. From Here to Eternity	Fred Zinnemann	1953

Category: Film Ranking