496.

Superman Returns (2006)

Director: Bryan Singer It may have been a slighter return than some people had hoped for,
but Singer's vision of the Man Of Steel is an heroic effort. Plenty of spectacle and a lot of
heart helps Kal-El soar.
Read our Superman Returns review

495. Jailhouse Rock (1957)

Director: Richard Thorpe Elvis plays up to his rock 'n' roll bad-boy image as a former lag
who gets into the music biz, becomes famous and grows a hell of an ego. Featuring a bunch
of classic tunes, it's The King's best movie.

494. Sideways (2004)

Director: Alexander Payne Wine, women and a right old ding-dong are the driving forces
behind this excellent midlife-crisis road movie, so impactful it put millions off Merlot
forever. Read Review

493. In The Company Of Men (1997)

Director: Neil LaBute Squirmy satire abounds in LaBute's all-too-recognisable tale of two
corporate men's bullying of a deaf female colleague. Read Review

492. Amores Perros (2000)

Director: Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu It's a dog-eat-dog world in this superb, multistranded drama. Man's best friend (and one car crash) may provide the connection between
three disparate people, but it's the director's assured control that keeps it all together. Read
Review

490. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet

Street (2007)

Director: Tim Burton The Gothic sensibilities of Tim Burton meet the musical mastery of
Stephen Sondheim for a demented Grand Guignol spectacular, which finds Johnny Depp in
bloody fine singing voice. Read Review

489. Brick (2005)

Director: Rian Johnson Johnson's impressive debut finds Hammett-style P. I. stories restaged in a high school as the superb Joseph Gordon-Levitt sets about investigating the
suspicious death of a former girlfriend. Read Review

488. Princess Mononoke (1997)

Director: Hayao Miyazaki The Studio Ghibli head honcho weaves a tale of swords and
sorcery with his trademark stunning style. He intended this to be his swansong; thankfully,
it wasn't. Read Review

487. Superbad (2007)

Director: Greg Mottola This coming-of-age tale from the Judd Apatow school of comedy
succeeds by genuinely caring for its lovable loser heroes - doesn't stop it from hilariously
putting the pair through the wringer, though. Read Review

486. Breakfast At Tiffany's (1961)

Director: Blake Edwards While it has its flaws, there's no denying that Audrey Hepburn
still looks ravishing and Henry Mancini's score still makes us swing. Read Review

485. The Wicker Man (1973)

Director: Robin Hardy A movie about the evil that men (and women) do in the name of
religion, Hardy's horror gets closer than most to exposing our own dark nature, all while
creeping us out with a bunch of freaky folkies, led by Christopher Lee. Read Review

484. The Fountain (2001)

Director: Darren Aronofsky Despite splitting audiences right down the middle, there's no
mistaking the conviction that drives this deceptively simple fable about love and death.
Read Review

483. The Big Red One (1980)

Director: Samuel Fuller Sam Fuller had brought leather-tough visions of war to the big
screen before, but The Big Red One is his hard-nosed masterpiece, based largely on the
former crime reporter's own experiences battling across North Africa and Europe during
World War II, and the project he'd held close to his heart for most of his filmmaking career.
Legend has it that one studio wanted Fuller to cast John Wayne as the growling, indurate
sergeant who, along with four privates (ultimately to include Mark Hamill), is one of the
division's few survivors. Fuller opted not to make the movie rather than have the Duke
headline it - which sums up exactly what kind of war movie this is. When, eventually, he
rolled, the part went to Lee Marvin, who carries the movie to its devastating concentrationcamp-liberation conclusion without breaking a sweat. One suspects, also, that Steven
Spielberg took notes during the gut-wrenching Omaha beach sequence. Read Review

480. The Son's Room (2001)

Director: Nanni Moretti A heartbreaking look at a father's grief after the death of his son,
Moretti's Palme d'Or winner is lifted from the maudlin by his thoughtful and tender
treatment. Read Review

481. Topsy-Turvy (1999)

Director: Mike Leigh Stepping away from the kitchen sink, Leigh gave us this fabulous
study of theatrical types as they create the first-ever production of Gilbert and Sullivan's
The Mikado. Read Review

479. The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty (1947)

Director: Norman Z. McLeod The story of a mild-mannered accountant and the imaginary
fantasy world he visits every time reality gets too tough, this Danny Kaye vehicle plays like
a Technicolor version of Billy Liar. Read Review

478. Flesh (1968)

Director: Paul Morrissey Produced by Andy Warhol and taking place in a New York awash
with free love and free-flowing drugs, this tale of hustlers, dealers and sexual adventurers is
frank, absorbing and surprisingly amusing.

476. Santa Sangre (1989)

Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky Sick, twisted and very, very bloody, Jodorowsky's tale of
madness, revenge and hacked-off limbs draws from a variety of inspirations, culminating in
an influential freakshow of a movie. Read Review

475. Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

(2006)
Director: Gore Verbinski While it's confused and bloated, the first Pirates sequel pleased
crowds by giving them exactly what they wanted: more Captain Jack. Read Review

474. Enter The Dragon (1973)

Director: Robert Clouse The movie that introduced the wider world to the bone-cracking
kung fu icon that was Bruce Lee, Clouse's martial-arts funhouse - hall of mirrors and all still sets the benchmark for all chopsocky actioners. Read Review

473. Into The Wild (2007)

Director: Sean Penn Penn's fourth feature takes him into previously uncharted territory
with a true-life tale about a young hobo explorer and his quest to truly escape modern life
in America. Using the entire country as his backdrop, this is Penn's most ambitious movie
yet. Read Review

472. Le Doulos (1962)

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville French director Melville did for gangsters exactly what the
Italian Sergio Leone did for cowboys, creating a distinctively European take on a
predominantly American form by focusing on details of props and costume in hyper-realist
manner, spinning familiar B-plotlines into fable-like miniature epics of betrayal and
revenge, and stressing brutally professional violence to an almost existential degree (albeit
with a distancing Gallic shrug rather than Italianate close-up leering). In Le Doulos - slang
for accuser, as in police informant, but also vengeance-seeker - Jean-Paul Belmondo is the
underworld icon in fedora and collar-upturned trenchcoat, donning white editor's gloves
whenever he shoots anyone and, in an astonishing sequence, tying a woman to a radiator to
batter information out of her. His middleman, Silien, is presented as the rat who squealed
on jewel thief Maurice (Serge Reggiani), but, of course, things are far from being that
simple. Read Review

471. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (2004)

Director: Alfonso Cuarn The point at which the books started to take a darker turn - the
arrival of the soul-sucking Dementors, a troubled werewolf, death sentences for hippogriffs.
Cuarn's tenure as Hogwarts caretaker has yet to be outdone. Read Review

470. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

Director: James Foley David Mamet's pungent chronicle of real-estate hustling is a modern
Death Of A Salesman and makes one of the great ensemble films. Pacino, Lemmon,
Spacey, Baldwin, Harris, Arkin - 'nuff said. Read Review

469. Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (1998)

Director: Terry Gilliam Johnny Depp channels Hunter S. Thompson and consumes
inhuman amounts of drugs, while Gilliam shows that the straight, Nixon-voting world
outside Thompson's head - represented by Vegas at its most hideous - is scarcely less
insane. Read Review

468. The Crow (1994)

Director: Alex Proyas Dripping with stormcloud-moody teen-Goth cool, Proyas'

Hollywood debut brought glumster J. O'Barr's culty comic book to action-packed life.
Infamous, of course, for the tragic death of star Brandon Lee. Read Review

467. The Deer Hunter (1978)

Director: Michael Cimino Cimino's bold, powerful 'Nam epic goes from blue-collar macho
rituals to a fiery, South?East Asian hell and back to a ragged singalong of America The
Beautiful. De Niro holds it together, but Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep and John
Savage are unforgettable. Read Review

466. Snatch (2000)

Director: Guy Ritchie Surprising that this should make the 500 when Lock, Stock hasn't.
Still, this is the more proficient film, and particularly laudable for having both Brad Pitt and
Frank Butcher from EastEnders on the same cast list. Read Review

465. 12 Monkeys (1995)

Director: Terry Gilliam Here's a crazy theory for you - maverick genius Terry Gilliam,
untameable and outspoken, a thorn in Hollywood's precious derrire since the last days of
Python - is a director who works best beneath studio colours. Take 12 Monkeys, with its
weird-fangled, time-tripping script from David 'Blade Runner' Peoples. Here, with a strong
producer, big stars (Bruce Willis and a potty Brad Pitt) and a medium budget, was a film
delivered on time, on budget, and which became a sizeable hit. Yet, it lost none of its
necessary Gilliamness - its dystopian Philadelphia underworld glistens with his classic
Hieronymus Bosch-meets-Heath Robinson fabulation. It's worth thinking about just picking
up those studio offers once in a while, Terry... Read Review

464. Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (1954)

Director: Stanley Donen A rip-roarin' CinemaScope Western musical, which needs its
widescreen to encompass all 14 leads. The dubious storyline is redeemed by Michael Kidd's
astounding choreography. Read Review

462. Dead Man's Shoes (2004)

Director: Shane Meadows Meadows' small-town vigilante movie restages Get Carter with
pathetic rural crooks harried by Paddy Considine's vigilante in a gas mask. "What are you
looking at?" "You, you cunt!" Read Review

460. Crash (2004)

Director: Paul Haggis A multi-stranded LA story about the challenges of multiculturalism

and the woes of miscommunication. Haggis' debut lays the message on thick, but boy, does
he know how to pack an emotional punch. Read Review

459. Ikiru (1952)

Director: Akira Kurosawa A dying man tries to get a playground built, and Akira Kurosawa
demonstrates his range by segueing from acidic dissection of Japanese office workaholism
to understated, uplifting tragedy. If you don't cry at the end, you need a new heart. Read
Review

458. Batman (1989)

Director: Tim Burton Burton's noir nightmare re-established the franchise for the '90s.
Nicholson and Keaton are a star turn as freak villain and Gothic hero. Full of imaginative
violence, clever rethinkings of familiar characters, astonishing sets and witty lines. Read
Review

457. Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Director: Stanley Kubrick After 50 minutes of R. Lee Ermey shouting at Marine recruits
during basic training, the Vietnam scenes of Stanley Kubrick's brutal war film are almost a
relief. Read Review

452. Unbreakable (2000)

Director: M. Night Shyamalan Shyamalan's understated, creepy-affecting, powerful take on
the superhero story has arguably Bruce Willis' best screen performance, and a twist which
is cleverer than the end of The Sixth Sense. "It was the children... they called me Mr.
Glass." Read Review

451. Speed (1994)

Director: Jan De Bont "There's a bomb on the bus!" The acme of high concept and the
best-ever red-wire-no-the-blue-wire film, irresistibly combining action with suspense. Read
Review

450. King Kong (2005)

Director: Peter Jackson Most remakes are exercises in money-grubbing cynicism, but Peter
Jackson's King Kong is all about love - for a film, a monster, a style of cinema and a child's
instant bonding with a screen icon. Read Review

448. A History Of Violence (2005)

Director: David Cronenberg Family man Viggo Mortensen reveals his inner psychopath,
and creepily his wife and children like him even more. David Cronenberg twists minds
rather than flesh in this spare, classic modern Western. Read Review

447. Ten (2002)

Director: Abbas Kiarostami A kind of Iranian Marion And Geoff, Abbas Kiarostami's Ten
is as minimalist as it is thrilling. The conceit is simple: ten conversations between Mania
Akbari, a twice-married Iranian woman taxi driver, and her passengers over 48 hours,
captured in long static shots from a digital camera secured to the dashboard. As Akbari
traverses the city streets, she converses with, among others, her wilful son, a jilted bride, a
local prostitute and a woman travelling to prayer. What emerges is a fascinating mosaic of
the role of women within a repressive regime. Yet, through the accumulation of telling
details, a rounded backstory for Akbari slowly starts to coalesce. Brilliantly performed, the
effect is as direct and intimate as a confession, a halfway house between fiction and
documentary. However you label it, it remains leagues ahead of Dudley Moore perving
over Bo Derek. Read Review

446. High Fidelity (2000)

Director: Stephen Frears Nick Hornby's North London discomaniac memoir makes as
much sense in Chicago, thanks to John Cusack's unique mix of geekiness and appeal. Read
Review

445. Dumb And Dumber (1994)

Directors: Peter and Bobby Farrelly A high (or low) watermark in the history of gross-out,
scrambling the frenzied talents of Jim Carrey and the Farrelly brothers, with Jeff Daniels
gamely pitching in. Read Review

444. Hairspray (1988)

Director: John Waters Waters delivers a garish but affectionate Baltimore flashback with
"pleasantly plump" teen Ricki Lake doing a mean twist and ending racial segregation on
local TV as well. Read Review

443. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Director: Sidney Lumet A riveting character study (Pacino makes his bank robber fuck-up
extraordinarily moving), a penetrating expos of a media feeding frenzy, or just a great
heist-gone-wrong flick. Any way, it's brilliant. Read Review

442. Atonement (2007)

Director: Joe Wright Ian McEwan's devastating war romance is masterfully conveyed to
screen by Joe Wright, whose taut stylistics, from the telling typewriter-clack of the
soundtrack to that one-take, Steadicam Dunkirk shot, can't fail to impress. Read Review

441. Being John Malkovich (1999)

Director: Spike Jonze A weird premise, courtesy of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, is spun
into the archetypal 'quirky' indie hit, with major stars geeking out, accessible in-jokes and a
plot that surprisingly makes sense. Malkovich won major points for caricaturing himself as
'John Horatio Malkovich'. Read Review

440. Akira (1988)

Director: Katsuhiro tomo Hyperviolent. Apocalyptic. Kinetic. Lurid. Akira is the

definitive anime classic. Read Review

439. Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)

Directors: George Armitage A disappointingly low showing for one of the best comedy
thrillers of the '90s. Great cast (John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Dan Aykroyd as a professional
hitman!), great script, killer soundtrack. Read Review

436. Beauty And The Beast (1991)

Directors: Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise Disney's 30th animated feature well and truly
announced that the studio's doldrum years of the '80s were now over, and that The Little
Mermaid was no fluke. Read Review

435. American Psycho (2000)

Director: Mary Harron The appalling violence of Bret Easton Ellis' supposedly unfilmable
early '90s novel was understandably toned down, but Christian Bale's Bateman (his arrival
as a grown-up star) remains terrifying, and the critique of '80s avarice remains undiluted.
Read Review

434. The Cat Concerto (1947)

Directors: William Hanna, Joseph Barbera The 29th Tom And Jerry one-reeler is one of
only three shorts to make the 500, and it's easy to see why. Eschewing the domestic setting
of most T&J efforts, The Cat Concerto takes a simple, daft premise - Tom is a concert
pianist trying to play Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No.2; Jerry, attempting to sleep in the
piano, stops him - and milks it for every last drop of comedy and invention. As ever, the
violence is mouth-wateringly brutal, but there is a real playfulness here, too; watch Tom's
pinkie elastically elongate to reach a top note. The key to its greatness, though, is the
exquisiteness of the animation, be it realising the snobbishness in Tom's maestro or
perfectly matching the mayhem to music. The funniest, most beautifully realised seven
minutes and 49 seconds you could ever have the good fortune to see. Bravo!

433. Good Will Hunting (1997)

Director: Gus Van Sant A rare mainstream outing for Van Sant, it was Oscars all round for
surprise screenwriters Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and supporting actor Robin Williams
in his best performance since Dead Poets Society. Read Review

431. Electra Glide In Blue (1973)

Director: James William Guercio The other great bike movie alongside Easy Rider, this
mini-epic of counterculture Arizona cops on a murder investigation is gradually
accumulating the reputation it deserves.

430. Big Trouble In Little China (1986)

Director: John Carpenter Dismal box office sent a disillusioned Carpenter back to indie
filmmaking, but this colourful action-fantasy remains a fan favourite. Kurt Russell is
hilarious as one of cinema's least heroic heroes. Read Review

429. Danger: Diabolik (1968)

Director: Mario Bava Meet Diabolik (John Phillip Law), masked super-criminal, highliving sensualist and unmatchable pop-art icon. An archly eyebrowed, unrepentant thief,
Diabolik is equally opposed to a bureaucratic government (on a whim, he destroys a
country's tax records) and the Mafia, and addicted to risk when it comes to stealing
fabulously valuable items (eg a 20-ton gold ingot) which are also useless. Director Bava, a
cult hero on the strength of Gothic horror films (The Mask Of Satan, Black Sabbath), was
persuaded by Dino de Laurentiis to step away from the crypt for this one psychedelic
masterpiece. It's as thin as a poster, but still amazing cinema - a succession of striking,
kinetic, sexy, absurd images accompanied by a one-of-a-kind Ennio Morricone score that
revels in its casual anarchy. Imagine if The Dark Knight were The Joker.

428. The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser (1974)

Director: Werner Herzog The haunting story of a foundling - apparently raised alone in a
cellar and released in adulthood only to then be murdered - is an enigma indeed. Don't
expect any answers from Herzog. Read Review

427. Spring In A Small Town (1948)

Director: Mu Fei This tale of a woman's emotional journey in re-encountering an old flame
languished in Communist archives - deemed reactionary - for decades, and was only
rescued for re-appraisal during the 1980s. Read Review

426. Enduring Love (2004)

Director: Roger Michell Rhys Ifans is beyond creepy as a disturbed stalker harassing
Daniel Craig following a chance meeting. It differs substantially from Ian McEwan's novel
but is almost unbearably tense. Read Review

425. Wonder Boys (2000)

Director: Curtis Hanson A failure at the box office despite being released twice, Hanson's
adaptation of Michael Chabon's novel found acclaim in later life, with Michael Douglas
and Robert Downey Jr. on top form. Read Review

424. To Have And Have Not (1944)

Director: Howard Hawks Simply an impeccable pedigree: Hawks directing a Hemingway
novel, the screenplay written in part by William Faulkner, and the birth of the onscreen
chemistry between Bogart and Bacall. Read Review

422. A Man Escaped (1956)

Director: Robert Bresson A magnificent prisoner-of-war drama, directed with spare
economy by a director who was himself an ex-POW. Tense and un-schmaltzy, Shawshank
fans would do well to seek it out. Read Review

421. Lethal Weapon (1987)

Director: Richard Donner The high watermark of '80s cop movies, Lethal Weapon is
harder-edged than its sequels, which upped the humour quotient at the expense of the
'lethality'. Read Review

420. Jerry Maguire (1996)

Director: Cameron Crowe Crowe's feel-good hit took his easygoing romantic indie
sensibilities to the mainstream with dazzling effect, making a star of Rene Zellweger and
giving Cruise one of his best roles. Read Review

419. Days Of Heaven (1978)

Director: Terrence Malick Malick's astonishing tone poem is a jewel of minimal dialogue
and astonishing cinematography. Two years in the editing, the film exhausted Malick to the
extent that he didn't direct again for 20 years. Read Review

418. V For Vendetta (2005)

Director: James McTeigue This Wachowski-produced adaptation of Alan Moore's hefty
graphic novel may be a bit adolescent in its politics, but it delivers on the pyrotechnics.
Read Review

417. Lords Of Dogtown (2005)

Director: Catherine Hardwicke The fictionalised companion-piece to the documentary
Dogtown And Z-Boys makes a surprise appearance here. Clearly the sk8er boi community
got its act together. Read Review

416. Bad Taste (1987)

Director: Peter Jackson Filmed during four years' worth of weekends by Jackson and his
mates, this cheerfully psychotic tale of human-eating aliens had its micro-budget funded in
part by a New Zealand government grant. Read Review

415. Dawn Of The Dead (1978)

Director: George A. Romero Inventive splatter and a savage political message make
Romero's zombies-in-a-shopping-mall epic the most extraordinary of his initial trilogy.
Watch out for FX genius Tom Savini as one of the bikers. Read Review

414. The Double Life Of Vronique (1991)

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski Post-Dekalog and pre-Three Colours, Kieslowski turned in
this fantastical stand-alone doppelgnger tale. Irne Jacob is stunning in the dual role of
Weronika/Vronique, and Zbigniew Preisner's haunting score is simply breathtaking. Read
Review

413. Finding Nemo (2003)

Director: Andrew Stanton Pixar's fifth feature is remarkable for being both cute and, at
times, surprisingly harsh. Also, it's time to reconsider Ellen DeGeneres' memory-lossplagued Dory as one of the studio's finest creations. Read Review

412. Heathers (1989)

Director: Michael Lehmann Dark-as-you-like high school comedy with Christian Slater
and Winona Ryder, pre their respective meltdowns, giving the performances of their
careers. Bullying and murder were never so much fun. Read Review

410. A Hard Day's Night (1964)

Director: Richard Lester A life in the day of the Fab Four. Mixing documentary stylings,
Fellini-esque fantasy, Dal-esque surrealism and Nouvelle Vague. Read Review

409. Men In Black (1997)

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld A comedy hit that slyly spoofs that X-Files mix of government
conspiracy, secret agents and E. T.s on Earth. Read Review

408. Zelig (1983)

Director: Woody Allen Woody's human chameleon meets the great, the good and Hitler. As
much as it is a technical triumph (pre-Forrest Gump), it is also a celebration of wit, satire,
great conceits and human nature. Read Review

407. The Jungle Book (1967)

Director: Wolfgang Reitherman The last film personally supervised by Uncle Walt, this has
a strong shout for being Disney's most gloriously entertaining film. Great characters, genius
songs and rich animation. Read Review

405. Dirty Dancing (1987)

Director: Emile Ardolino Let's see if we can get through this without any mention of
"Baby" and "corner". Oh, bollocks. Great tunes, romantic wish-fulfilment and a '60s
innocence make this an evergreen populist classic. Read Review

404. RoboCop (1987)

Director: Paul Verhoeven Part man. Part machine. All brilliance. Verhoeven's Hollywood
debut balances futuristic cop action with a skewed sense of subversive satire. We'll buy this
for a dollar. Read Review

403. Do The Right Thing (1989)

Director: Spike Lee A Molotov cocktail of a movie, this long hot summer's day in Brooklyn
has it all: energy, comedy, great tunes and a simmering sense of anger that boils over. Still
Spike's best joint. Read Review

401. Batman Returns (1992)

Director: Tim Burton Easily the better of the two Burton Batmans, Returns was most
notable for a certain feline, figure-hugging costume... Read Review

400. The Incredibles (2004)

Director: Brad Bird One of the best superhero movies of recent years - a kind of Watchmen
with gags - this fizzes by on pure invention, great jokes and a real affection for the retro
'60s stylings it's aping. Read Review

399. Greed (1924)

Director: Erich von Stroheim Von Stroheim's silent masterpiece - an honest dentist becomes
obsessed with money after winning the lottery - is as obsessive as Kubrick, as epic as Lean
and as powerful as Scorsese. Read Review

398. Killer Of Sheep (1977)

Director: Charles Burnett A landmark in both black and indie cinema, this is a plotless
portrait of an African-American LA family, built around mundane activities but told with
wit, pathos and stunning black-and-white imagery. Read Review

397. Night Of The Living Dead (1968)

Director: George A. Romero The greatest zombie movie ever made. Stripped of the cackle
and glee of modern horror, this plays its emotions and viscera straight, the lo-fi feel adding
to the unease. Read Review

396. The Assassination Of Jesse James By The

Coward Robert Ford (2007)
Director: Andrew Dominik The kind of satisfying, elegiac Western you thought died out
with the '70s. Great performances by Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, but this is truly its
director's work. Read Review

395. Casino (1995)

Director: Martin Scorsese Originally dismissed as a GoodFellas retread, Scorsese's
gangsters-in-Vegas chronicle has improved with age, a complex, terrifying, virtuoso look at
Mob minutiae. And Sharon Stone upstages De Niro. Fact. Read Review

394. Cloverfield (2008)

Director: Matt Reeves If this were the 500 Greatest Viral Marketing Campaigns, this would
be number one. As it is, this most modern of monster movies is brilliantly handled handheld
fun. Read Review

392. Paris, Texas (1984)

Director: Wim Wenders It's Kramer Vs. Kramer on wheels as Harry Dean Stanton's Travis
goes on the road with his son to find his ex. Emotionally restrained, beautifully shot and
memorably scored by Ry Cooder. Read Review

391. Mulholland Drive (2001)

Director: David Lynch Lynch's best work for 15 years, a dark look at the underbelly of
Hollywood with enough impenetrability to support 1,000 theories. Hot girls get it on, too!
Read Review

390. 2 Days In Paris (2007)

Director: Julie Delpy Owing as much to Woody Allen as Richard Linklater, Delpy's French
gal-Yank guy relationship piece is less earnest and funnier than the pleasures of Before
Sunset/Sunrise. For romantic cynics everywhere. Read Review

389. Election (1999)

Director: Alexander Payne Is it strange to see this as Payne's highest entry on this list?
Surely one would have expected the broader, more audience-friendly Sideways to have
snagged that spot. In retrospect, perhaps not. A film that manages the gargantuan task of
goosing both the Darwinian proving ground of high-school USA and the Byzantine
machinations of the American political system, Election is satire masquerading as quirky
comedy. A canny adaptation of a Tom Perrotta novel, it was initially inspired by the BushClinton election of 1993 and the infamous case of a pregnant prom queen denied her title
after staff rigged the vote. Regarding the latter, it's possible to view Election - in which
teacher Matthew Broderick attempts to sabotage monstrously ambitious student Reese
Witherspoon's bid for student body president - as not merely bang on target but also, in the
light of the Florida 2000 fiasco, remarkably prescient. Read Review

388. The English Patient (1996)

Director: Anthony Minghella If the late Minghella's best film is ladled with a Dullsville,
awards-bait reputation, it shouldn't be, as it is a complex, ferociously intelligent, hugely
emotional work - a true testament to a lost talent. Read Review

387. Rain Man (1988)

Director: Barry Levinson The best film about a slickster and his autistic brother ever made,
the unsung hero here is Levinson, who tells the tale in crisp, confident beats. Tom Cruise
also knocks it out of the park. Read Review

386. The Great Silence (1968)

Director: Sergio Corbucci A critics' favourite, this classic Spaghetti Western sees JeanLouis Trintignant's mute gunfighter take on Klaus Kinski's bounty hunters. Also boasts one
of the bleakest endings ever mounted.

385. Ace In The Hole (1951)

Director: Billy Wilder Billy Wilder gives free reign to his legendary cynicism in this, his
first film as writer-producer-director, a caustic tale of media exploitation with Kirk Douglas
on top, sleazy form as ruthless journo Chuck Tatum. It's a film that gets more relevant with
every passing year. Read Review

384. The Shop Around The Corner (1940)

Director: Ernst Lubitsch The inspiration for You've Got Mail. Margaret Sullavan and James
Stewart fall for each other via letters in a wry, winning rom-com that stays just the right
side of sentimental. One of the best from the grandmaster Lubitsch. Read Review

383. Serenity (2005)

Director: Joss Whedon Out of the ashes of Firefly came Serenity, a great space-cowboy
romp. Its appearance on the list speaks volumes about the loyalty of those Browncoats.
Read Review

382. Cach (2005)

Director: Michael Haneke Haneke's clinging paranoid thriller is that rare beast - an
arthouse crowdpleaser. Austere but virtuoso, the real achievement is exploring issues of
guilt and complacency without stinting on the suspense. Read Review

381. Monty Python And The Holy Grail (1975)

Directors: Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam The knights who say "Ni" + the killer bunny
rabbit + the extraordinarily rude Frenchman + The Bridge Of Death over The Gorge Of
Eternal Peril + the three-headed knight = genius. Read Review

380. Children Of Men (2006)

Director: Alfonso Cuarn Grown-up sci-fi in a morass of kiddie blockbusters, Cuarn's

chilling vision of a dystopian London is gripping and original. If nothing else, see it for the
barnstorming single-take action sequence. Read Review

379. Ratatouille (2007)

Director: Brad Bird Pixar's rat-in-the-kitchen masterwork combines perfectly orchestrated
slapstick with a self-portrait about the challenges of being an artist in a sea of mediocrity. In
an age of fast-food animation, this is a three-Michelin-star experience. Read Review

378. The Goonies (1985)

Director: Richard Donner Every generation has a film that will always be carried in its
heart. This madcap, Spielberg- produced adventure about a gaggle of treasure-hunting brats
stuck in booby-trapped mazes is that film for anyone born around 1980. Read Review

377. Mean Streets (1973)

Director: Martin Scorsese Try to watch this remembering that, at the time, nobody had
heard of Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro or Harvey Keitel. You're watching the start of a
new cinematic era. Read Review

376. Zodiac (2007)

Director: David Fincher How do you turn the serial-killer thriller on its head? Never catch
the killer. Fincher's true-life tale is not about grabbing the bad guy; it's about the nature of
obsession. Read Review

375. Four Weddings And A Funeral (1994)

Director: Mike Newell The film that established Richard Curtis as a brand is often unfairly
mocked. The truth is that all rom-com writers are aiming for this mix of sly wit, genuine
feeling and farce. Read Review

374. Hot Fuzz (2007)

Director: Edgar Wright Wright's skill is in taking the gloss and whizz-bang illogic of
Hollywood and applying it to quintessentially English situations. But we'll never
understand his affection for Bad Boys II. Read Review

373. Wall-E (2008)

Director: Andrew Stanton Pixar's bravest picture is virtually a silent movie, a showcase of
perfect sound design and peerless animation. It pushed the boundaries of not just style but
storytelling technique as well. Read Review

371. Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The

Black Pearl (2003)
Director: Gore Verbinski Remember when the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise wasn't
misguidedly obsessed with character depth and darkness, and was just plain old fun? Read
Review

370. Rocky (1976)

Director: John G. Avildsen One of the finest ever sporting movies, a celebration of the cando spirit - all the more important when it becomes clear that he can't. Read Review

368. Airplane! (1980)

Directors: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker The greatest spoof ever made,
taking every disaster-movie clich and twisting it until all the comedy is extracted. All the
more ingenious in comparison to the lame mess of sketches that is 'spoof' today. Read
Review

367. Cabaret (1972)

Director: Bob Fosse Fosse's Oscar-winner is about as far from the MGM tradition as you
can get. The wartime Berlin setting and flawed characters makes the swaggering
desperation of the tunes all the more powerful. Read Review

364. Natural Born Killers (1994)

Director: Oliver Stone What do you get when you cross combustible provocateur Oliver
Stone and (the then) enfant terrible of Hollywood Quentin Tarantino? Answer: Natural
Born Killers, a volatile re-working of the Badlands/Bonnie And Clyde couple-on-a-killingspree formula that (predictably) shocked the system, and (predictably) had Tarantino

throwing a creative huff over Stone's liberal changes. The film is all the more fascinating
for being a product of its time, strobing through the mid-'90s zeitgeist (from daytime soaps
to news docs), and populated with such (as of then) wild children as Robert Downey Jr.,
Tom Sizemore, Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson. The mystical mumbo-jumbo harks
back to Stone's predilection for '60s motifs, making it half-crazed, but iconic all the same.
Read Review

363. Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

Director: Barry Levinson Robin Williams off the Richter scale, as his jabber-mouthed DJ
stirs up the Vietnam troops until the authorities pull the plug. The political framework at
least gives more purpose to the freeforming comedian's verbal torrents. Read Review

362. The Elephant Man (1980)

Director: David Lynch Easily Lynch's most sympathetic and outwardly 'gettable' movie
tells the tragic 19th-century tale of John Merrick, hideously disfigured by a congenital
disease, and taken in by a kindly doctor who sees the human beneath the freakshow. Read
Review

361. Clerks (1994)

Director: Kevin Smith The no-budget, ber-indie convenience-store comedy that struck
gold and made Smith the man he is today - the heartfelt if profane chronicler of America's
slacker belt. Read Review

360. The Return (2003)

Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev Family drama in the Russian wilds as an estranged father
returns to his two teenage sons: this simple premise emerges as a stunning, near-mythic tale
of emergent manhood in the hands of a director fast becoming Russia's premier filmmaker.
Read Review

359. The Lady Eve (1941)

Director: Preston Sturges The irrepressible Sturges takes another bow in the 500, with this
familiar mix of rich characters and madcap plotting, as spurned con-woman Barbara
Stanwyck disguises herself as an English lady to romantically torment dotty professor
Henry Fonda. Read Review

358. Russian Ark (2002)

Director: Aleksandr Sokurov The film that famously involves one single shot, floating
through the halls of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg during 19th century Russia. It's a
virtuoso piece of directing, but can't quite escape the nagging sensation of stunt over
content. Read Review

357. The Long Goodbye (1973)

Director: Robert Altman Robert Altman's languid, freeform version of Raymond Chandler's
last great novel relocates the 1953 story to 1973, critiquing the out-of-time values of Elliott
Gould's Philip Marlowe - a slobby, unshaven, chain-smoking all-time loser introduced in a
brilliant sequence which has him try to pass off inferior pet food on his supercilious cat.
John Williams' superb score plays endless variations on a title tune and many sequences are
astonishing: a violent gangster making a point by smashing a Coke bottle in his mistress'
face ("That's someone I love; you I don't even like") and an invigoratingly cynical
punchline ("... and I lost my cat") that turns Marlowe into a sort of winner, after all. Altman
puts vital action into the corners of the frame, almost unnoticed, and highlights tiny
moments of weirdness in a sun-struck tapestry of Los Angeles sleaze. Arnold
Schwarzenegger, no less, has an unbilled cameo as a minor thug. Read Review

356. Napolon (1927)

Director: Abel Gance At its restored length, Gance's silent masterpiece runs to five-and-ahalf hours. It was designed as a gigantic biopic in six 90-minute parts, but ended up this
magnificent giant (about a shortarse) with groundbreaking visuals, literate captions and
pulsating energy. Read Review

355. Sunshine (2007)

Director: Danny Boyle Boyle followed his re-invention of zombie horror (in 28 Days Later)
with this visually enthralling space shocker, gesturing heavily (and successfully) to 2001,
Alien, even Event Horizon. The wacky ending, however, divides people. Read Review

354. Un Chien Andalou (1929)

Director: Luis Buuel No-one will ever out-weird Buuel's team-up with 'tache-twiddling
Surrealism supremo Salvador Dal, resulting in this 17-minute phantasmagoria featuring
severed hands, rotting donkeys, ants squeezing out of human skin and the infamous eyeslitting. Read Review

353. Bugsy Malone (1976)

Director: Alan Parker It sounds ghastly - a gangster-themed musical populated entirely by
kids - but care of Parker's natty visuals, decent songs, splurge guns, pedal-powered sedans
and, most remarkably, a non-revolting gaggle of kids, it remains a favourite. Read Review

352. Unfaithfully Yours (1948)

Director: Preston Sturges Sturges, it transpires, has fared well in this top 500. Justly so.
He's on sparkling form again with this pacy mix of literate dialogue and bold slapstick, with
Rex Harrison's troubled symphony conductor contemplating the murder of his possibly
philandering wife, Linda Darnell. Read Review

351. Zulu (1964)

Director: Cy Endfield In the face of much parody, it is easy to forget how stirring Zulu
actually is. Glorious to gaze upon, the battle scenes have an almighty clamour, but never at
the expense of the characters, which include a posh Michael Caine. Read Review

350. Planet Of The Apes (1968)

Director: Franklin J. Schaffner This trippy piece of new-Hollywood sci-fi mixes in issues
of race, science, even politics, with its tetchy dystopian thrills and Charlton Heston's
bronzed chest. The twist ending alone lands it on this list. Read Review

349. Arthur (1981)

Director: Steve Gordon This daft odd-couple routine - boozy aristo Dudley Moore
romances flighty Liza Minnelli, while John Gielgud's starchy butler makes acidic

comments - proves surprisingly resilient. The answer could be in the delightful chemistry
that all three very diverse actors cook up. Read Review

348. Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)

Director: Robert Bresson It's proof of Bresson's power as a filmmaker that this, the tale of a
donkey (albeit paralleled with that of a girl), says more about humanity - our vices, our
trials, our self-examination - than a dozen Hollywood pictures. Read Review

347. All About Eve (1950)

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz Sparkling dialogue and brilliant turns (All About Eve holds
the record for the most female Academy Award nominations - four) mark out this indelible
tale of a sly ingnue (Anne Baxter) who latches on to a successful theatre actress (Bette
Davis). Read Review

346. Leave Her To Heaven (1945)

Director: John M. Stahl A smart, flashback-driven noir-melodrama charting a marriage
swept to hell on a dark wave of jealousy. Championed by Scorsese, who discovered it on
TV after a midnight asthma attack. Read Review

345. Fatal Attraction (1987)

Director: Adrian Lyne The movie that gave us the phrase "bunny-boiler", Lyne's cautionary
anti-romance was a phenomenon at the time. It's not aged too well (terrible ending), but its
influence is still felt. Read Review

344. The Last Waltz (1978)

Director: Martin Scorsese If Woodstock (co-directed by Scorsese) marks the beginning of
an era, The Last Waltz appropriately and sensitively captures its end, as Scorsese
documents the last gig by former Dylan backing-act The Band. Read Review

343. Monsters, Inc. (2001)

Director: Pete Docter Another Pixar charmer that zips along on a buddy-movie premise,
most notable for the novel concept that the horrors slithering under your bed are nothing
more than regular working schmoes. Read Review

342. The Gold Rush (1925)

Director: Charlie Chaplin Masterfully recreating the freezing wastes of Alaska on his
Hollywood backlot, Chaplin keeps his notorious sentimentality in check and offers up one
of the most durable gems of the silent era, following the Tramp's varying fortunes as a gold
prospector. Read Review

341. The Passenger (1975)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni Many would argue that Jack Nicholson has yet to better
his lead performance in Michelangelo Antonioni's complex, disquieting thriller as a
frazzled reporter who assumes the identity of a dead gun-runner. Read Review

340. High And Low (1963)

Director: Akira Kurosawa Kurosawa's contemporary crime thriller is one of his relatively
lesser-known efforts. Don't let the absence of swords and samurai armour put you off abetted once again by Toshiro Mifune (here a businessman whose son is kidnapped),
Kurosawa proved himself a master of any genre he deigned to tackle. Read Review

339. Spirited Away (2001)

Director: Hayao Miyazaki For too many, this was an overdue introduction to the crazybeautiful delights of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli - and also a reminder of the wonderful
mythologies that thrive far beyond the boundaries of Disney's magic kingdom. Read
Review

338. Jules Et Jim (1962)

Director: Franois Truffaut Truffaut's deeply affecting love-triangle drama came at (or
rather, helped form) the crest of the revolutionary French New Wave, and its zest remains
untainted. Read Review

337. 300 (2006)

Director: Zack Snyder Falling just 37 places short of its ideal spot, Snyder's buff, beefy
comic adaptation slammed Sparta onto the cinematic map. With help, of course, from
Gerard Butler's very shouty grasp of the obvious ("This is... SPARTAAAA!"). Read
Review

336. Titanic (1997)

Director: James Cameron Camerons ship-meets-iceberg magnum opus was talked up as a
disaster in the making. Of course, he proved us all wrong, the clever bastard. Read Review

335. The Seventh Seal (1957)

Director: Ingmar Bergman Bergman's challenging medieval masterpiece is one of cinema's
most satisfying works - visually, intellectually, spiritually. It also showcases movies'
greatest ever chess game... Read Review

334. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Director: Orson Welles Welles' family drama is of the greats somehow, despite the fact that
it was infamously molested by the studio while Welles holidayed. The suits blamed Pearl
Harbour for the insertion of an upbeat ending. Read Review

333. Grease (1978)

Director: Randal Kleiser Still lovingly mocked for featuring the oldest high-schoolers ever,
Grease coasts on a double-dose of nostalgia: for the '50s as reminisced during the '70s.
Read Review

331. The Green Mile (1999)

Director: Frank Darabont Darabont's other Stephen King prison movie is not entirely
successful at carrying its own weight, but with the heft comes a certain raw emotional
power. Contains cinema's most disturbing execution scene. Read Review

329. The Lives Of Others (2006)

Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck One of the all-too-few films that resists
subtitle-prejudice, this character-driven Stasiland drama beautifully affirms that we can find
colour in even the greyest of places. Read Review

328. The Truman Show (1998)

Director: Peter Weir One of Weir's talents is that he can turn A-list stars into proper actors.
Here, he turns crazy gurner Jim Carrey into a heartbreaking everyman trapped on TV. Read
Review

327. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Director: Henry Selick What's this? What's this?! A spindly, stop-motion delight,
ingeniously entwining the appeal of Hallowe'en with Jesus' birthday. Read Review

326. Out Of Sight (1998)

Director: Steven Soderbergh So smart, so sexy. Soderbergh returned from the indie
wilderness with this snappy Elmore Leonard adaptation - the best yet made, with only the
possible exception of Jackie Brown - precipitating tingly chemistry between then-on-thecusp George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. Playing charismatic bank robber Jack Foley,
former TV doctor Clooney finally arrived as a bona fide movie star, and has hardly broken
his stride since. Playing spunky US Marshall Karen Sisco, Lopez revealed promise as an
actress that you wish she'd since lived up to, rather than going off and swishing her curves
as J-Lo. As for Sodey, while Out Of Sight wasn't a smash, it got critics gushing enough for
him to bag the projects that rocketed him to the A-list. Without this, we might never have
seen his Erin Brockovich, Traffic or Ocean's Eleven. Read Review

324. Lone Star (1996)

Director: John Sayles Sayles specialises in deliberately paced, ensemble, slice-ofAmericana dramas, and bolstered by a flashback-driven mystery element (featuring

Matthew McConaughey's best performance), this bordertown saunter is one of his finest.
Read Review

323. The Last Seduction (1994)

Director: John Dahl Dahl and Linda Fiorentino crafted a bitch for the ages in crafty femme
Bridget Gregory - but then, why should it always be the men who get all the fun in noir?
Read Review

322. Aladdin (1992)

Directors: Ron Clements, John Musker Heartland Disneytainment, best-loved by boys for
having a rogueish bloke rather than a princess at the centre of things, best-loved by
everyone for Robin Williams' show-stealing vocal whirl as the genie. Read Review

321. Funny Face (1957)

Director: Stanley Donen Audrey Hepburn has rarely looked better, and Fred Astaire's still
on fine, toe-tapping form in this chic Parisian romp - so who cares about the gaping age
difference between them? A fine showcase for both stars' talents.

320. Braveheart (1995)

Director: Mel Gibson Historically suspect, but so what? Gibson wrenches out all the thrills
and bloodspills he can in this rowdy medieval epic, featuring one of cinema's most stirring
battle scenes (The Battle Of Stirling Bridge). Rousing stuff. Read Review

319. The Lion King (1994)

Director: Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff It's not hard to see - or indeed hear - why this is one of
the Mouse House's hugest movies. Its formula (hit songs, big sequences, comedy sidekicks,
tear-jerking tragedy, cute baby animals) has rarely worked better. Read Review

318. Rebecca (1940)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock As his first Hollywood movie, Hitch was pressed to adapt
Daphne du Maurier's fraught classic of timid new brides tormented by tyrannical
housekeepers and distant husbands. It's all a bit melodramatic for the master, but he did to
win the Best Picture Oscar. Read Review

317. Midnight Run (1988)

Director: Martin Brest Quietly, hilariously, this odd-couple thriller was one of the films of
the '80s. The teaming of a droll but square Charles Grodin (as the dodgy accountant on the
lam) and a restrained and likable Robert De Niro (as the bounty hunter sent to retrieve him)
proved perfect. Read Review

316. Trainspotting (1996)

Director: Danny Boyle There's no doubting the jump-start Boyle's Scorsese-styled
adaptation of Irvine Welsh's drug odyssey gave to the stuffy home-grown industry, not to
mention the career of one Ewan McGregor. Read Review

315. Sense And Sensibility (1995)

Director: Ang Lee Lee, with his keen eye for the foibles of human behaviour, was a perfect
fit for Jane Austen's silken satire. It's hardly a radical adaptation, but with decent
performances, it remains popular. Read Review

314. Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)

Director: Alexander Mackendrick An extraordinary, unrivalled, utterly cynical piece of
Hollywood noir, as Tony Curtis' sleazoid press agent rubs up against Burt Lancaster's

formidable J. J. Hunsecker, the Broadway columnist who can make or break careers. Read
Review

313. Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Director: Sergei Eisenstein Eisenstein's dramatisation of the Russian naval mutiny, cited as
the kick-off point for the revolution itself, put down a breathtaking blueprint for what
cinema could do. Read Review

311. American History X (1998)

Director: Tony Kaye Hugely controversial in its day, Kaye's black-and-white tale of neoNazi redemption has, scarily, only grown in relevance. Edward Norton, who re-edited amid
a directorial spat lends chilling reality to the idea of the intelligent brute. Read Review

312. Suspiria (1977)

Director: Dario Argento All of the Italian horror maestro's Gothic flamboyance is on
display in this operatic horror set in a ballet school run by homicidal witches, draping his
bodily carnage in the gloss of art. Best death: the girl who plunges into a pit of barbed wire.
Read Review

309. Transformers (2007)

Director: Michael Bay This first live-action outing for the complicated Japanese toy line
comes undercooked in the plot department, but ILM's quick-changing robots are
unbeatable. Is it really a comedy? Read Review

307. Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Director: John Schlesinger Bittersweet, Oscar-winning drama with Jon Voight's cowboy
hustler struggling to make it in the Big Apple, only to find a weird kind of solace in the
company of showstealing Dustin Hoffman as shrewish bum Ratso Rizzo. John Barry's
music injects memorable pathos. Read Review

305. The Prestige (2006)

Director: Christopher Nolan In the wake of The Dark Knight, this twisted tale of warring
Victorian magicians appears more of a side attraction on Nolan's grim canon. Still, it's

gorgeous to look at, even if the 'cleverness' of its ending remains open to debate. Read
Review

304. Radio Days (1987)

Director: Woody Allen Made towards the end of Allen's early, funny phase, this is a sweetnatured homage to the big-band days of early radio, beamed across America through tubsized Magnavox radios. Slight, by his early standards, but evocative and lovable all the
same. Read Review

303. Together (2000)

Director: Lukas Moodyson The film that made Moodysson the hip kid of new Swedish
cinema is anything but Bergman reinvented. Set in a '70s Stockholm commune, it's light on
its feet: an endearingly fizzy picture of the struggle for human expression in a crowd of
'individuals'. Read Review

302. The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946)

Director: William Wyler This prescient drama tackles the re-adjustment of returning
servicemen. Perhaps a little dated in its pressed emotions, Gregg Toland's Kane-like deep
focus still gives it a wonderfully memorable look. Read Review

301. Love And Death (1975)

Director: Woody Allen Woody in his comedic prime exits New York for the verdant
battlefields of Russian literature in this hilarious mash-up of Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky
and Allen's plaintive Jewish one-liners. Read Review

300. Sawdust And Tinsel (1953)

Director: Ingmar Bergman Through the structure of a travelling circus, Bergman

preoccupies himself with the torments of marital jealousy how a partners sexual past
can cast shadows on the present. The Swedish auteur rather living up to his mordant
clich...

299. The Palm Beach Story (1942)

Director: Preston Sturges This bit of screwball Sturges magic concerns itself with marital
fidelity beneath the lure of money. An improbable inspiration for Indecent Proposal. Read
Review

298. Le Cercle Rouge (1970)

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville Melville, that beloved master of French noir, delivers a
morally murky crime story of honour among poker-faced thieves, and corruption among
hardened cops. Read Review

297. It Happened One Night (1934)

Director: Frank Capra Another justly celebrated Capra fable has snappy heiress Claudette
Colbert, on the run from her cosseted life, hit it off with cynical reporter Clark Gable in
search of just this kind of story. Read Review

296. All The Presidents Men (1976)

Director: Alan J. Pakula The Watergate scandal told with razor-sharp intelligence from the
perspective of Woodward and Bernstein (realised via the opposing styles of Dustin
Hoffman and Robert Redford) arguably the best film about the Fourth Estate. Read
Review

295. The Untouchables (1987)

Director: Brian De Palma Made with all of De Palmas stylistic brio, but anchored by
David Mamets steely script, this is the gangster epic as comic-book fable. Read Review

294. The Red Balloon (1956)

Director: Albert Lamorisse One of the worlds most famous shorts, echoing Jean-Pierre
Jeunets fairy-tale style, as a small boy is strangely pursued by the balloon hes forced to
abandon.

293. La Maman Et La Putain (1973)

Director: Jean Eustache Navel-gazing Parisian types puff on Gauloises in murky cafs
while taking the Freudian route through life falling in and out of their complex love
lives. If it sounds irritating, its actually lovely. Read Review

292. La Belle Et La Bte (1946)

Director: Jean Cocteau Perhaps anticipating his adult audiences suspicion of a fairy-tale
adaptation, poet/artist/director Jean Cocteau opens his surreal (in the true sense) take on the
Beauty And The Beast fable with a reasonable enough request: I ask of you a little
childlike simplicity. If that seems unnecessary to modern viewers long-familiar with
Burton, Gilliam or indeed Disneys smarter output (including its own version of the story,
which owes much to this), consider that Cocteau was addressing a populace only recently
liberated from Nazi rule in a country devastated by war. Of course, La Belle Et La Bte
itself is neither childlike nor simple. Cocteaus fairy-tale world is rendered with baroque
opulence (a young Pierre Cardin worked on the costumes) and breathes a creepy,
nightmarish atmosphere. Ingenious trick-shots conjure such unsettling wonders as selflighting hand-candles and eye-rolling statues then theres the lionesque Beast himself
(the astonishing Jean Marais), whose hands eerily smoke when hes drawn blood. It also
tingles with sexual energy throughout, packed with enough hints and winks to have made
even Dr. Freud himself blush. Certainly not one for all the family. Read Review

291. Rocco And His Brothers (1960)

Director: Luchino Visconti Italian neo-realism a-go-go as a widow and her petty brood try
to eek out a new life in Milan. If low on orderly plot, it bursts with rich characters and
turbulent emotions. Read Review

289. John Carpenters The Thing (1982)

Director: John Carpenter Perhaps it was Carpenters fusion of sci-fi and horror, or Rob
Bottins body-shock FX, or spiky Kurt Russell, or the prediction of the AIDS epidemic in
the alien virus plotline, but this remake gets in your head and never budges. Read Review

288. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

Director: Robert Zemeckis A technical marvel, but we just love it for putting Daffy and
Donald in the same scene... Read Review

287. Secrets And Lies (1996)

Director: Mike Leigh Leighs adoption drama is full of native wit (Youve got a face like a
slapped arse), great performances (especially Brenda Blethyn), and a touching sense of the
ebb and flow of real life. Read Review

286. LAvventura (1960)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni The ultimate arthouse flick. A couple go in search of a
missing girl, but the mystery becomes an excuse to explore alienation, cracking psyches
and barren landscapes in slow, striking images. Masterful.

285. Solaris (1972)

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky Like Event Horizon, Solaris sees a space station crew go
doolally with hallucinations. Unlike Event Horizon, it is painfully slow, beautiful, and
perhaps the closet sci-fi cinema has come to the profundity of sci-fi literature. Read Review

284. Scarface (1983)

Director: Brian De Palma De Palmas hymn to gangster excess (violence, swearing, white
suits) is taken to even further heights by Pacino on barnstorming form. It is also the de
rigueur favourite film of any premiership footballer. Read Review

279. National Lampoons Animal House (1978)

Director: John Landis The gross-out comedy, but still with a keen sense of satire for US
campus rituals. Lets face it: this is why toga parties, food fights and road trips are so
damned attractive. Read Review

278. Carlitos Way (1993)

Director: Brian De Palma Pacino shines as the eponymous ex-con, De Palma mounts
another terrific railway station set-piece and David Koepps script throws such cool lines
as, "You think youre big-time? Youre gonna die big-time!"

277. On The Town (1949)

Director: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly Sailors on 24-hour shore leave. The pursuit of a pinup girl. New York in the 40s. If On The Town isnt the most famous musical, it is perhaps
the most archetypal. Created by the musical galcticos (Kelly, Donen, Sinatra, Bernstein),
the classic premise is embroidered with great numbers (New York, New York, Prehistoric
Man, the title song), ballsy innovation (it was the first musical to partly shoot on location)
and some of the most muscular, inventive choreography ever committed to celluloid in
Ann Miller, Kelly found that rare thing: a dancer who could match him step for step.
Between the songs Kelly makes the central romance affecting, Betty Comden and Adolph
Greens script sparkles (Did you see The Lost Weekend? Yes, Im living through it!),
and forget New York the whole thing has enough energy to get to the moon. And back.
Read Review

276. Layer Cake (2004)

Director: Matthew Vaughn The film that made the Brit gangster genre respectable once
more turned the world on to Daniel Craig, who plays its nameless drug dealer, and marked
Matthew Vaughn as a cinematic talent beyond the producers chair. All that, and Sienna at
her sexiest. Read Review

275. My Neighbour Totoro (1988)

Director: Hayao Miyazaki Two girls move to the country and have magical encounters with
wondrous forest sprites. Miyazaki in genteel and languid mode, but deeper and without the
familiarity factor of Spirited Away.

274. Sin City (2005)

Director: Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller Forget Chaucer this Millers tale is black and
white but blood-red all over, as his bone-crunching, boner-inducing, morally bankrupt
hyper-noir universe is realised like a comic book at 24fps. Read Review

273. The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Director: John Huston Hustons first film as a director and still his best, in which Bogarts
Sam Spade slaps dames, cracks wise and solves crimes in a plot that is gloriously
unfathomable. Read Review

272. The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970)

Director: Dario Argento Features a gloved murderer, kinky sex, lurid colours, politics and a
great set-piece involving a glass cage. Vintage Argento, then.

271. Pee-Wees Big Adventure (1985)

Director: Tim Burton Burtons debut is a Bicycle Thieves for the 80s, as Paul Reubens
man-child quests for his missing bike. A live-action, eye-popping cartoon. Read Review

270. The Death Of Mr. Lazarescu (2005)

Director: Cristi Puiu If Die Hard has explosions, this Romanian masterpiece has faltering
bureaucracy and stomach pains, as a dying OAP is refused admittance to numerous
Bucharest hospitals. Black, bleakly funny, brilliantly Kafkaesque. Read Review

269. A Place In The Sun (1951)

Director: George Stevens Not the Channel 4 foreign property show but George Stevens
character study of the American male in meltdown (a superb, poignant Montgomery Clift),
underpinned with masterly filmmaking control. Read Review

268. The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock An old dear goes missing onboard a Balkan Express, setting in
motion cinemas greatest railway romp. Making the most ridiculous plot engaging,
Hitchcock has rarely been more blissfully entertaining. Read Review

267. Crimes And Misdemeanors (1989)

Director: Woody Allen Woody's best since his Manhattan heyday, it's a sophisticated,
ambitious, dark meditation on murder and guilt that still manages to be uproariously funny.
To wit: "A strange man... defecated on my sister." "Why?" Read Review

265. A. I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Director: Steven Spielberg Spielberg channelling Stanley Kubrick does Pinocchio in a
dystopian future. A challenging hybrid of sentiment and wonder (SS) and coldness and
perversity (SK). Perhaps the most fascinating film of Spielberg's career. Read Review

264. American Graffiti (1973)

Director: George Lucas Lucas' love letter to cruising, rock 'n' roll and growing up is the
first and best Four Friends At A Crossroads movie. Warm, funny, wise, and light years away
from Star Wars. Read Review

263. Das Boot (1981)

Director: Wolfgang Petersen The most claustrophobic film on this list, charting the
adventures of German U-boat U-96. A superbly crafted exercise in nerve-shredding tension,
compelling characterisation and the minutiae of submarine life. Read Review

262. The Virgin Suicides (1999)

Director: Sofia Coppola Debutante Coppolas retelling of Jeffrey Eugenides novel five
sisters engage in a suicide pact is the perfect calling card for her dreamy, lyrical style.
Great Air score, too. Read Review

261. Roman Holiday (1953)

Director: William Wyler The movie that gave the world Audrey Hepburn, this charming tale
of a European royal going AWOL in Rome and falling for Gregory Peck is invested with
maximum magic. Read Review

260. Field Of Dreams (1989)

Director: Phil Alden Robinson A beguiling, Capra-esque baseball fantasy that gets its
sentiment just right, anchored by Kevin Costner on top form. If you build it, we will come.
And cry buckets. Read Review

259. Groundhog Day (1993)

Director: Harold Ramis The greatest high-concept comedy of the modern era. Ramis, Bill
Murray and co. mine the simple idea of having to repeat a single day over and over for all
its worth. "People are morons." Read Review

258. The Blues Brothers (1980)

Director: John Landis The best in rhythm and blues meets the best in spectacular car-crash
action meets the best in cult sunglass-wearing characters. Read Review Pick up the issue
for Philip Wilding's track-by-track breakdown of the Blues Brothers soundtrack

257. The Black Cat (1997)

Director: Edgar G. Ulmer Two of horrors most looming icons, Bela Lugosi and Boris
Karloff, united for this post-World War I commentary wrapped in a cloak of terror.

256. Le Quai Des Brumes (1938)

Director: Marcel Carn So pervading is the gloom in Carns chronicle of a doomed

French army deserter that he was partly blamed for France failing to fight occupation
during the war. Read Review

255. Ninotchka (1939)

Director: Ernst Lubitsch "Garbo laughs," said the tag of this rom-com. And it was the
relaxing of her usually haughty faade that made this cement an icon. Read Review

254. The Verdict (1982)

Director: Sidney Lumet Lumets return to the courtroom works as a companion to 12 Angry
Men. Where the first simmered, this releases all the tension in bombastic trial scenes,
played with gusto by Paul Newman Read Review

253. First Blood (1982)

Director: Ted Kotcheff Before Rambo became about gore and sport with goat carcasses, it
was a portrait of a man who only knows how to be a warrior, even when nobody wants one.
Read Review

252. The Leopard (1963)

Director: Luchino Visconti Its tempting to wonder how Viscontis epic masterpiece might
have turned out had Laurence Olivier, the directors first choice of leading man, met with
his producers approval. Probably no better than it already does, which is to pay an
enormous compliment to Burt Lancaster who, against all expectations, brings a wealth of
dignity and pathos to the title role of Prince Don Fabrizio Salina, a Sicilian aristocrat and
patriarch striving to preserve his familys prosperity in the face of approaching revolution
and the impending death of the old order. Not all the plaudits belong to Lancaster, of
course. Viscontis direction is as ambitious and visually inspired as ever, particularly in the
45-minute ballroom scene that acts as the films elegiac coda. Read Review

251. Darling (1965)

Director: John Schlesinger This bitchy Julie Christie vehicle flagged up the shallowness of
celebrity long before Paris Hilton. Read Review

250. Sunrise (1927)

Director: F. W. Murnau A standard potboiler about a man pushed to bump off his wife by a
seductress is elevated to dreamlike intensity by the visual brilliance of Murnau. Read
Review

249. My Darling Clementine (1946)

Director: John Ford Fords take on Wyatt Earp with Henry Fonda as the legendary
Tombstone sheriff is unapologetically poetic, concerning itself less with the O. K. Corral
than Earps friendship/rivalry with Victor Matures Doc Read Review

248. Pandoras Box (1929)

Director: Georg Wilhelm Pabst Even if you dont know the film, youll know the image of
pouting, bob-haired Louise Brooks. This story of a doomed woman is a symphony of style.
Read Review

247. All That Jazz (1979)

Director: Bob Fosse Fosse was one of the most exciting talents in musicals, and this is none
more Fosse, giddy with invention and taking as many liberties with the genre as Moulin
Rouge!. Read Review

246. The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Director: George Cukor The quintessential movie they dont make anymore. Can you
imagine three better people for a love triangle than Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and
Jimmy Stewart? Even if you think you can, you cant. Read Review

245. Downfall (2004)

Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel With his feature debut, the shocking Das Experiment,
German director Hirschbiegel arrived as the European filmmaker to get excited about. Not
one to steer clear of controversy, implicitly Das Experiment was about the rise of the Nazis,
and for his next trick he went the whole hog depicting Hitlers final days in his Berlin
bunker, the Fhrer tipped into a hyperbolic frenzy by the fall of his kingdom. Giving evil a
human face, Hirschbiegel dares us even to sympathise with the collapsing Reich. That is,
until you see Frau Goebbels icily poison her own children. It makes Hirschbiegels crashand-burn in Hollywood The Invasion all the more galling. Read Review

244. Dazed And Confused (1993)

Director: Richard Linklater The plot, such as it is, concerns the last day of school in 1976
Texas, but its Richard Linklaters capturing of teenage hang-ups that gives this eternally
likable film cult classic status. Read Review

243. Heimat (1984)

Director: Edgar Reitz The running time is 924 minutes. It takes that long to tell the story of
20th century Germany through one family drama. Part One was said to be one of Kubricks
favourite films you wont be bored. You might, however, need the toilet. Read Review

242. King Kong (1933)

Director: Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack A pioneer in special effects, it's also
an argument that effects dont matter. Yes, the ape is clearly, to the modern eye, a crudely
animated doll, but youre too convinced by Kong as a character to notice. Read Review

241. Brighton Rock (1947)

Director: John Boulting If you think of Richard Attenborough as that avuncular whitebearded gent, watch him in this seedy adaptation of Graham Greenes novel about a two-bit
crim going to dastardly lengths to conceal a murder. Genuinely terrifying. Read Review

240. Forrest Gump (1994)

Director: Robert Zemeckis One mans heartwarmer is another mans schmaltz, but its
impossible to deny the craft on show in Zemeckis story of a simpleton who cant help but
succeed. Read Review

239. Cinema Paradiso (1988)

Director: Giuseppe Tornatore This sauntering chronicle of a boys love for cinema and a
local projectionist should quiver the lip of any true-blue movie-lover, particularly in its
montage of banned kisses. And then the wonderful ending should leave you a wreck. Read
Review

238. Requiem For A Dream (2000)

Director: Darren Aronofsky If Pi showed that Aronofsky was full of ideas, his follow-up
showed we didnt know the half of it, with the directors toy-box of technical tricks
providing the films big buzz amid a gripping pessimism. Read Review

237. Delicatessen (1991)

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro Jeunet and Caro are, of course, very odd, but
their attention to detail in this tale of love and cannibalism is wonderful. Like Terry Gilliam
with more heart and a brighter palette. Read Review

236. Black Narcissus (1947)

Director: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger The plot concerns a group of nuns in the
Himalayas, toiling against cold forces without and lusty forces within, but its the images
that make this essential. Astonishing visual storytelling. Read Review

235. Battle Royale (2000)

Director: Kinji Fukasaku Schoolkids wearing explosive collars forced to fight to the death?
Fukasakus pic is a forceful comment on adolescent alienation. Read Review

232. Jurassic Park (1993)

Director: Steven Spielberg Sod the effects. Groundbreaking as ILMs dinosaur work might
be, it would matter little if Spielberg hadnt engineered a fearsomely tense, white-knuckle
ride around Isla Nublars main attractions. Read Review

231. Shaun Of The Dead (2004)

Director: Edgar Wright Its rare for a comedy horror to be both funny and frightening, but
Edgar Wright managed it in his wildly popular debut. A British film that shows weve got
far more than bonnets and gangsters to offer the world. Read Review

230. Howls Moving Castle (2004)

Director: Hayao Miyazaki A surprising Miyazaki to have in the list, given those that didnt
make it. But even second-tier Miyazaki outdoes most other animation, and the mysticism of
Diana Wynne Jones novel perfectly fits the directors dream logic. Read Review

229. Festen (1998)

Director: Thomas Vinterberg The Dogme manifesto is perfectly applied in this lean story of
dark family accusations at dinner. Stripping everything back to its bare bones pulls focus
onto the smallest action. Read Review

228. No Country For Old Men (2007)

Director: Joel and Ethan Coen A ruthlessly efficient thriller, and proof that no-one makes
crime movies quite like the Coens. How many other directors could make an assassin in a
Delia Smith wig terrifying? Read Review

227. Lon (1994)

Director: Luc Besson Familiar territory for Besson, but made into something special due to
a certain child performance... Read Review

226. Romeo + Juliet (1996)

Director: Baz Luhrmann Its clear that generations have been immunised against
Shakespeare in dull English lessons, given that this dizzily paced romantic epic is the only
Shakespeare on the list (Ran doesnt use the Bards dialogue, even in translation). It clearly
takes a lot to get people past that prejudice, but, by recolouring the action in Mexican kitsch
and filming with the frantic energy of infatuation, Luhrmann managed it. He made
Shakespeare cool, reminding us that this is a story about teens in love, defying their parents
and picking fights. His interpretation opened the way for Shakespeare productions both
more faithful to the original text and more outrageous in their staging. Perhaps for our next
list, people will allow another couple of the Bards works into the fold Read Review

225. Get Carter (1971)

Director: Mike Hodges Bleak and brutal, the iconic and archetypal Brit-grit thriller retains a
grubby authenticity. Michael Caine shows admirably little regard for his image, playing an
anti-hero whos the epitome of hateful cool. Read Review

224. Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)

Director: Terence Davies Sounds like kitchen-sink miserablism, but Davies
autobiographical tale of family life in 50s Liverpool is unmatched in its visual lyricism
with a ferocious performance from Pete Postlethwaite.

223. Safe (1995)

Director: Todd Haynes Julianne Moore is a woman who could be allergic to her
environment... Safe isnt just about her condition, though; with themes of loneliness,
dissatisfaction and fear of the modern world, its about ours. Read Review

222. Mother And Son (1997)

Director: Aleksandr Sokurov A Russian cine-poem meditating on maternal love, the
transience of existence and the bonds of time. Stuck between Animal House and South
Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut on most critics lists. Read Review

221. McCabe & Mrs Miller (1971)

Director: Robert Altman So unconcerned with Western tropes of glamour, excitement and
gunfights, and yet one of the most engaging portraits of frontier life on celluloid... Youve
embraced Altmans America. Read Review

220. Far From Heaven (2002)

Director: Todd Haynes Best appreciated by admirers of Douglas Sirks 50s melodramas,
Haynes homage is more explicit but still emotional: a story of repression, desire and hope
for fractured lives. Read Review

219. The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

Director: Clint Eastwood Its not hard to argue this is Clints finest behind-camera work;
were just surprised many of his movies didnt make the 500. Here, Eastwood makes his
Man With No Name persona truly human, while offering (he says unintentional) involving
critique on Vietnam. Read Review

218. Mr. Hulots Holiday (1953)

Director: Jacques Tati Like Mr. Beans Holiday. But in French. And without Rowan
Atkinson. And its really funny. Okay, not like Mr Beans Holiday at all. Except it has
holiday in the title; give us that. Read Review

216. Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)

Director: John Schlesinger Charting the end of an unconventional affair Peter Finch and
Glenda Jackson are in love with the same man Schlesingers picture is gently tragic: an
uncompromising vision of compromised lives.

215. Jackie Brown (1997)

Director: Quentin Tarantino Underrated on release, QTs third has aged beautifully
appropriate given its characters are facing middle age, regret and last chances. Read
Review

214. Army Of Shadows (1969)

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville Melville recounts everyday heroism and horrors in a unique
World War II thriller. Feels true because it is. Read Review

213. Songs From The Second Floor (2000)

Director: Roy Andersson A critics favourite four years in the making and virtually
impossible to describe, though slapstick Ingmar Bergman comes close... Can you imagine
such a thing? No? Then go see it for yourself.

212. M (1931)
Director: Fritz Lang A German city is terrorised by Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre), a pudgy
young man who compulsively whistles Griegs Hall Of The Mountain King as he
approaches the children he murders (and, it is implied, molests). Fritz Langs first sound
film is an incredibly influential psycho-thriller, establishing conventions still used by serialkiller movies as it intercuts the murderers pathetic life with the investigation of his
outrages. While Lorre provides a horribly sympathetic focus for the film, Lang shows how
his crimes affect the entire city even prompting professional criminals to track him like
an animal through the streets after Beckert draws an inconvenient police presence.

211. Moulin Rouge! (2001)

Director: Baz Luhrmann A whirligig of song, dance and romance. The skill with which
Luhrmann stitches together bizarre but effective cover versions of pop classics is
extraordinary; the shock is still the way that Kidman and McGregor anchor the theatricality
with emotion. Read Review

210. Platoon (1986)

Director: Oliver Stone Born out of his own experience, Stones searing expos of the
Vietnam War remains the most authentic picture to come out of the conflict. "Y'all know
about killing? I'd like to hear about it." Read Review

209. Local Hero (1983)

Director: Bill Forsyth The theme of capitalism versus community means Forsyths flick
retains its relevance today, while the talented ensemble cast never let quirks overcome their
characters, ensuring this small-town comedy is charming without being twee. Read Review

208. The Departed (2006)

Director: Martin Scorsese Remakes are often infernal affairs this one literally so,
smartly casting Jack Nicholson as a mobster Mephistopheles in a picture that finally
snagged Scorsese an overdue Oscar. Your votes prove it wasnt purely a sentiment-driven
award, though. Read Review

207. The Misfits (1961)

Director: John Huston Perhaps a surprise inclusion, given its not generally considered
Hustons best picture, but holds a place in hearts as the final film of both romantic leads:
Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable. Read Review

205. The Addiction (1995)

Director: Abel Ferrara Christopher Walken is a vampire; vein-draining is a drug metaphor;
Abel Ferrara is an art-house and exploitation auteur. Read Review

204. The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935)

Director: James Whale Boris Karloff returns as The Monster in Whales expressionisminflected horror: as iconic and distinctive as its anti-heroines lightning-streaked hair, and
way better than the original. Read Review

203. Life Of Brian (1979)

Director: Terry Jones The Pythons originally intended to skewer Christianity until they
read the gospels and decided "we have no quarrel with Mr. Christ". Their second feature
actually eviscerates religious bigotry and hypocrisy. And is funny as hell. Read Review

202. The Killer (1989)

Director: John Woo Action at its most extravagant and impactful, triggering an Eastern
influence on Hollywood. Apologies, but Empire is legally obliged to note its spectacular
"bullet ballets". Read Review

201. JFK (1991)

Director: Oliver Stone Stones dissection of the assassination that scarred the 20th century
feels nutritious but never didactic. The "magic bullet" monologue delivered masterfully
by Kevin Costner obliterates the Warren Commission. Conspiracy? You better believe it.
Read Review

200. Before Sunrise (1995)

Director: Richard Linklater The soppy/sophisticated two-hander plays as affecting tribute

to young love, lent real emotional heft in retrospect by the nine-years-later sequel. Read
Review

199. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Director: Tobe Hooper A DIY shocker that prefigured torture porn by 30 years...Less
blood and butchery than you actually think, but its how the tone and texture make you feel:
violated, terrified, exhilarated. Read Review

198. Fargo (1996)

Director: Joel & Ethan Coen The homespun murder story that finally wrought the
Brothers Kook Oscar recognition, and though their "its true" claims proved mischievous,
Frances McDormand's warm, up-the-duff rozzer makes it feel real. Read Review

197. Point Break (1991)

Director: Kathryn Bigelow Before Neo there was Johnny Utah: young, dumb and full of
come-on, cant-you-spot-the-subtext? beauty. Surfin and stealin, buddy beefcakes Keanu
Reeves and Patrick Swayze forge the ultimate bromance. Read Review

195. Its A Wonderful Life (1946)

Director: Frank Capra** The ultimate Christmas movie, and Capras most enduring
even if it was a flop on release. Read Review

194. Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Director: Vittorio De Sica An impoverished fathers job depends on his bicycle, which
some street-bastard steals. On an increasingly desperate Sunday, trailed by his young son,
he tries to get the bike back. De Sicas neo-realist breakthrough is as much weepie as social
drama. The climax still makes strong men cry buckets...Read Review

193. Ed Wood (1994)

Director: Tim Burton Burton and Johnny Depp collaborate to tell the story of the worlds
worst filmmaker, but elevate him to heroic status by exploring his world of misfits and cutprice magic. Read Review

192. Eraserhead (1977)

Director: David Lynch A rare 70s film completely divorced from its times the solemnly
lost Henry (Jack Nance) would be as out of place anywhere as he is in the industrial pocketuniverse of the film. Read Review

191. Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Director: Ang Lee Gay love story, end-of-the-trail Western, auteur work from Lee, faithful
literary adaptation and showcase for two hot male stars of 2005. Not bad. Read Review

190. Big (1988)

Director: Penny Marshall These days, when a Tom Hanks film comes with a) an Academy
Award win, b) a Directed By Steven Spielberg credit, and c) Meg Ryan, its easy to forget
what a great comedic actor the man is. And perhaps the standout of his comedy canon is
Big, the best 80s body-swap movie, directed by Marshall and written by another Spielberg
(sister Anne). Hanks beautifully plays Josh as a kid playing an adult, never losing sight of
the childish delights and insecurities of being young. These days, he may specialise in
everymen under enormous duress (Cast Away, The Terminal) but here he is deft, lightfingered and ultimately extraordinarily moving. Read Review

189. Ghostbusters (1984)

Director: Ivan Reitman Imagine National Lampoon doing H. P. Lovecraft, with a hit theme
song. This sees Bill Murray at his driest, Sigourney Weaver in a slit, red evening dress, and
the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man invading New York. Read Review

188. School Of Rock (2003)

Director: Richard Linklater Linklaters most commercial outing to date is, appropriately,
his most popular mainly thanks to his surprisingly unannoying school-kid cast and the
fact that he allows Jack Black loose in the actor/comedian/ musicians comfort zone. Read
Review

187. The Big Country (1958)

Director: William Wyler A cowboy epic, memorable for Gregory Pecks lengthy fist-fight
with Charlton Heston (in a rare, interesting bad- guy role) and expansive visions of wide,
open spaces accompanied by a memorable hit theme tune. Read Review

186. United 93 (2006)

Director: Paul Greengrass The simplest and most affecting 9/11 film. Paul Greengrass
recreates the events, focusing on the fourth plane which didnt strike its target, in an
austere manner as a thrum of tension builds. Read Review

185. Paths Of Glory (1957)

Director: Stanley Kubrick With recent events in Iraq, the relevance of Paths Of Glory
grows year on year. Kirk Douglas excels as Colonel Dax, defending three soldiers up for
court martial, to cover up a military mistake on World War Is Western Front. The film was
banned in France until 1975, yet is far more anti-establishment than it is anti-war or antiFrance. If unsung Kubrick, its the first movie to reveal the directors true colours, blessed
with a cool, intellectual thrill, spare economical characterisation and precise tracking shots.
Cementing Kubricks relationship with Douglas, it led to him taking over Spartacus, but
more importantly, in the small role of German Singer, Kubrick found Christiane Harlan,
who became his wife up until his death. Sometimes, war is swell. Read Review

184. Dirty Harry (1971)

Director: Don Siegel The great Clint cop picture, introducing soulless San Francisco dick
Harry Callahan, only bearable because the guy he is after is even worse. Features the best
badge-tossing since High Noon. Read Review

183. Le Samourai (1967)

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville La Samourai is the figurehead of Melville's career, the story
a lone assassin (Alain Delon) whose rigid code is undone by the unforeseen arrival of love.
It's a stalwart theme now, but no film has done it so sparely and tragically.

182. Performance (1970)

Director: Donald Cammell, Nic Roeg Roeg and Cammell fused sensibilities as much as
gangster James Fox and rocker Mick Jagger do in this acid-tinged freak-out. Read Review

181. Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (1970)

Director: Russ Meyer Nudie-filmmaker Meyer runs riot with a studio budget, assaulting
Jacqueline Susann's trash novel with demented brio and kookily square psychedelia. Read
Review

180. To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)

Director: Robert Mulligan A quiet, careful, affecting adaption of Harper Lee's nostalgic
novel. Robert Duvall made an unforgettable debut as neighbourhood bogeyman Boo
Radley. Read Review

179. Toy Story 2 (1999)

Director: John Lasseter One of the best sequels ever, it has more action, spotlights fresh
new characters while taking the established ones into new territory, and discovers
something tragic in a child growing out of toys. Read Review

178. Hellzapoppin' (1941)

Director: H.C. Potter One of the darnedest films ever made, and a template for the whocares-if-it- makes-sense-so-long-as- it's-funny? mode of comedy. Read Review

177. City Of God (2002)

Director: Fernando Meirelles, Ktia Lund A confident, complicated epic following

decades of criminal life in a Rio de Janeiro favela, this is considerably more than 'the
GoodFellas of Brazil'. Read Review

176. A Canterbury Tale (1944)

Director: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger Powell and Pressburger's least-understood,
most magical film. Its story may be incoherent and 'unpleasant', but its characters and
moods are unforgettable and endlessly mysterious. Read Review

175. Rushmore (1998)

Director: Wes Anderson Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) is the sort of kid every school
has, but who was hitherto unseen in teen movies - a smart, semi-geeky boy who polarises
the school by being at once disturbingly weird and a fashion leader. Read Review

173. Memento (2000)

Director: Christopher Nolan That rare thing, a truly original thriller. Told backwards, a
device which Nolan - already working with dark detectives and conjuring tricks - handles
with flair. Read Review

172. The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

Director: Victor Fleming Forget the no-place-like-home cop-out at the end and enjoy Judy's
heartbreaking Over The Rainbow, the many classic characters and the "horse of a different
colour". Read Review

171. Brief Encounter (1945)

Director: David Lean One of the movies' greatest romances is understated and
unconsummated. Writer Noel Coward camps slightly, but David Lean and the stars mean
every perfectly enunciated syllable. Read Review

170. La Haine (1995)

Director: Mathieu Kassovitz Kassovitz's debut, and his moment of glory: a fantastically
shot tale of friendship and violence on the streets of suburban Paris. You'd never have
guessed he'd go on to make silly Vin Diesel films... Read Review

169. Viridiana (1961)

Director: Luis Bunuel A striking exercise in blasphemy, down to the sacrilegious recreation
of Leonardo's Last Supper. Read Review

168. Tootsie (1982)

Director: Sydney Pollack Dustin Hoffman makes a great statement for feminism by
dressing up as a woman and realising that they don't have a great time in the entertainment
industry. Read Review

167. Don't Look Now (1973)

Director: Nic Roeg Arty, scary, sexy. An air of dread, unrelieved by the famous sex scene,
paid off with one of the scariest serial killers in cinema. Read Review

166. Goldfinger (1964)

Director: Guy Hamilton Goldfinger gets Sean Connery's 007 away from the Cold War to
play with gonad-targeted lasers, gilded girls, mad millionaires, killer bowler hats and Honor
Blackman's Pussy. Read Review

165. Partie De Campagne (1936)

Director: Jean Renoir A brief feature, abandoned by Jean Renoir during the 1930s but
revisited and edited together after the War a trifle, perfectly played and with a lovely,
riverside feel. Renoir claimed he made it solely to take close-ups of lead actress Sylvia
Bataille.

164. The Searchers (1956)

Director: John Ford John Waynes magnificent and terrifying obsession is to track down
his kidnapped niece. Ford's is to turn the Western into American poetry. Read Review

163. The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)

Director: David Lean An intelligent tale of misguided pride among a group of British
POWs who have been co-opted into building a railway bridge for the Japanese army, this is
Lean mixing epic visuals with true complexity. Read Review

161. The Year Of Living Dangerously (1982)

Director: Peter Weir Its testament to the power of Weirs superior political thrillerromance that it was banned in Indonesia, where its events take place, until 1999. Starring a
never-more-dashing Mel Gibson as foreign correspondent Guy Hamilton and Sigourney
Weaver as British Embassy official Jill Bryant, its set during an attempted 1965 coup
against the brutal Sukarno regime. Often compared to Costa-Gavras Missing, released the
same year, it brilliantly captures the knife-edge tension of its setting. It is also notable for
one of the most extraordinary performances of the 80s actress Linda Hunts portrayal of
a male Chinese-Australian dwarf named Billy Kwan. It was a role that, quite rightly, won
her an Oscar. Read Review

160. Being There (1979)

Director: Hal Ashby Heartfelt comedy and biting social satire with Peter Sellers (in his last
role) as Chance, a guileless child-man whose simple pronouncements on tending a garden
are taken as profound insights into the nature of the world.

159. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Director: Wes Anderson And you thought your family was crazy Andersons eccentric,
hilarious and moving dramedy about the worlds most dysfunctional clan is almost too
quirky for its own good. Almost. Read Review

158. Unforgiven (1992)

Director: Clint Eastwood Clint had been messing with the Western myth since he first
chewed a cigar for Sergio Leone, but here he exploded it, his moody, complex masterpiece
dealing unblinkingly with the frontiers ugliest, most violent side. Read Review

157. True Romance (1993)

Director: Tony Scott Working from Quentin Tarantinos script and surrounding himself with
the cream of Hollywoods hip elite, Scotts eye for visual tomfoolery has never had a better
fit than with this delirious crime/love story. Read Review

156. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Director: Steven Spielberg From the shockingly visceral Normandy Landings opening to
the final devastating battle in a destroyed French village, Spielbergs epic redefined how
cinema should interpret the battlefields of history. Read Review

155. Badlands (1973)

Director: Terrence Malick Loosely based on the real-life murder spree of Charles
Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, Malicks debut is a tribute to the untamed wilderness
and a hazy ode to crazy love. Read Review

154.Betty Blue (1986)

Director: Jean-Jacques Beineix The original title for this steamy Gallic thriller
translated as 37C, Two In The Morning sums it all up. Hot, sweaty and passionate, it
couldnt be more French if it tried. Read Review

153. The Innocents (1961)

Director: Jack Clayton Based on Henry James The Turn Of The Screw, Claytons
psychological Gothic horror is a masterpiece of subtle implication over blatant gore. This
has a strong shout as Blighty's best chiller.

152. Boogie Nights (1997)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson The rise-and-fall of a skin-flick entourage is explored in
intimate detail in Andersons star-studded homage to the success and excesses of the 70s
porn industry. More a film about family than rutting on celluloid. Read Review

151. Gladiator (2000)

Director: Ridley Scott "Are you not entertained?" With Russell Crowe in full-on wrongedwarrior mode, Scott evoking the lost majesty of ancient Rome and more bloody violence
than you can shake a trident at. Yes, we are. Read Review

150. The French Connection (1971)

Director: William Friedkin Based on the infamous drug trafficking case of the same name,
Friedkins electric, documentary-style thriller is a gritty triumph of style and intelligent
plotting bolstered by a career-defining turn from Gene Hackman as committed narc Popeye
Doyle. Read Review

149. The Red Shoes (1948)

Directors: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Based on the story by Hans Christian
Andersen, P&P's tale about a woman born to dance and the various tragedies that befall her
is as beautiful as it is heartbreaking. A true British masterpiece. Read Review

148. Z (1969)
Director: Costa-Gavras A thinly fictionalised account of the assassination of a democratic
Greek politician in 1963, Costa-Gavras' respected film takes a swipe at Greek politics and
the military dictatorship that ruled the country.

147. Notorious (1946)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock Hitchcock's saucy (for the time) thriller stars Cary Grant and
Ingrid Bergman, who excel as a government agent and a socialite who become entangled
during an espionage operation. Read Review

146. Shampoo (1975)

Director: Hal Ashby While it was set during a period of extraordinary governmental strife,
this Nixon-era satire is more concerned with the arena of sexual politics, as Warren Beatty's
cocky hairstylist shags his way around the wives of the rich and famous.

145. Sophie's Choice (1982)

Director: Alan J. Pakula A difficult story told with suitable reverence, Pakula's tale of the
ultimate Catch-22 scenario may be difficult to watch, but it sure is rewarding. Not least for
some solid-gold Streeping.

144. There Will Be Blood (2007)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson Very loosely based on Upton Sinclairs novel Oil!, this
tale of greed and religion is all about one man. Daniel Day-Lewis performance is a
powerhouse strong enough to clear out all them thar hills... I drink your milkshake. I drink
it UP! Read Review

143. Cyrano De Bergerac (1991)

Director: Jean-Paul Rappeneau Theres a moment in this sumptuous 17th century
swashbuckler that sums up why the doughy-faced Grard Depardieu is a star and a sex
symbol. Blessed with a fierce talent for both war and words, his Cyrano is also cursed with
a nose that precedes him by 15 minutes so he dares not confess his love for the beautiful
Roxane (Anne Brochet). After she asks his help to protect the gorgeous boy she loves, and
commends his bravery in recently defeating 100 men, as she rushes out, he mutters, Oh,
Ive been braver since then, with such quiet heartbreak in his voice that itd make a stone
weep. The storys been told many times as Steve Martins Roxanne, The Truth About
Cats & Dogs, even Ratatouille but Rappeneaus epic is the truest take on Edmond
Rostands famous play. It may be melodrama, sweeping rather than creeping in its
conclusions, but its a thing of brash, glorious, poignant emotion. Read Review

141. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Director: David Hand Hollywoods first full-length animated feature, Snow White still
works and still whistles. Enough to make ol Uncle Walt proud. Read Review

140. As Good As It Gets (1997)

Director: James L. Brooks With a catalogue of misanthropes and psychopaths filling up his
rsum, Jack Nicholson fits the role of brash obsessive-compulsive Melvin Udall like a
glove, and its his winning depiction of a man fighting his own neurosis that actually
humanises it.

139. Blow Out (1981)

Director: Brian De Palma Playing like The Conversation with added sound effects, De
Palmas paranoia-packed piece finds John Travoltas movie-effects technician accidentally
capturing audio evidence of an assassination plot. Read Review

138. Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Director: Stuart Rosenberg While cinema history is chock-full of renegade types who love
to buck the system, none are as cool as Luke. Paul Newman at his charismatic, blue-eyed
best. Read Review

137. Dances With Wolves (1990)

Director: Kevin Costner Initially thought to be a costly folly, Costner put his career on the
line for this frontier epic and was justly rewarded. It is a Western, certainly, but also a
romance between a man and an idea of lost America. Read Review

136. Amadeus (1984)

Director: Milos Forman The genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a bumptious rube, which
is agony for the lesserly gifted but oh-so-aware composer Antonio Salieri. Read Review

135. Duck Soup (1933)

Director: Leo McCarey The Marx Brothers took their anarchic comedy to a whole new
level with this delirious blend of physical foolishness and astonishing wordplay. It marked
the end of their time at Paramount, but what a way to bow out. Read Review

134. Seven (1995)

Director: David Fincher Fincher went from the man-who-ruined-the-Alien-franchise to the
darling of shock cinema, with this extraordinary serial killer hit. It wasnt just the amoral
jolt of the twist ending this was a tableau of Gothic horror and spiritual unease. Read
Review

133. Double Indemnity (1944)

Director: Billy Wilder Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck plot murder, but Billy
Wilder makes sure they suffer for it with Stanwyck at her sexiest, crackling Raymond
Chandler dialogue, and a perfect mix of scalding sunshine and the shadowed L.A. night.
Read Review

132. Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

Director: Guillermo del Toro Guillermo del Toro fuses personal and commercial interests
with a tale of the power of fairy tale, even against the grimmest of political settings: the
Spanish Civil War. Read Review

131. The Last Of The Mohicans (1992)

Director: Michael Mann Lush historical adventure with Daniel Day-Lewis something
between noble savage and a 17th century Rambo as trapper hero Hawkeye. Mann gets an
authentic feel and real excitement out of canoe chases, woodland dashes, swooning
romance, tomahawks, bloody scalping, and firework-display battles. Read Review

130. The Man Who Would Be King (1975)

Director: John Huston In Huston's steady, calloused hands, this Rudyard Kipling yarn
becomes a rip-roaring adventure, its central buddy-buddy dynamic as entertaining as you
could expect from the pairing of Brit stalwarts Connery and Caine. Read Review

129. Harvey (1950)

Director: Henry Koster James Stewart's genial alcoholic talks to an invisible six-foot
rabbit, but seems the only sane person in the film. Harvey the rabbit entered pop culture,
and Stewart rated this his best role - if not best film. Read Review

128. Lost In Translation (2003)

Director: Sofia Coppola Coppola, Murray and Johansson gain enough goodwill to sustain
their careers through rocky decisions in this perfect almost-romance about a fading star and
a neglected wife bonding in a Japanese hotel. Read Review

127. The Sting (1973)

Director: George Roy Hill A wholly delightful romp, with crisp '30s fashions and Scott
Joplin's ragtime music setting off the '70s glamour of Redford and Newman as two archgrifters pulling an elaborate con to get revenge on scowling Robert Shaw. Read Review

126. Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid (1973)

Director: Sam Peckinpah Arguably Peckinpah's masterpiece. Sequences of violence are
interspersed with tenderly beautiful, melancholy moments, scored by Bob Dylan songs.

125. A Bout De Souffle (1960)

Director: Jean-Luc Godard Godards seminal Nouvelle Vague movie. Jean-Paul Belmondo
cops Bogart attitude as a cool, vicious petty crook; Jean Seberg models a major haircut as
his American girlfriend, and Paris just shines. At once clever and exuberant. Read Review

123. A Woman Under The Influence (1974)

Director: John Cassavetes A housewife cracks up and makes appalling, random verbal
attacks on family and friends. The camera hovers so close that you emerge with an
uncomfortable idea of what it must be like to live with this woman. Read Review

122. The Princess Bride (1987)

Director: Rob Reiner This may be the most widely quoted obscure film in history, because
its the one that even your sister can recite at length. William Goldmans perfectly parodic
script both nails the adventure and romance of heroic adventures while ripping the piss out
of them. Its funny, its smart, its perfectly cast, and has immense, unstoppable charm.
Without this, no Shrek, no Enchanted. Director Rob Reiner mentioned on a recent
commentary that one of New York kingpin John Gottis gangsters once walked up to him
and quoted the never-bettered, You killed my father, prepare to die nearly giving the
director a heart attack. As he says, When one of Gottis wiseguys is quoting your lines,
you know youve penetrated the culture. Indeed. The only question is, how on Earth is this
outside the top 100? Read Review

121. Los Olvidados (1950)

Director: Luis Buuel Once deemed a French surrealist, Buuel re-established himself as a
Mexican realist though this tale of slum delinquents, which makes Eden Lake look like
The Railway Children, is as much horror story as social document.

120. The Battle Of Algiers (1966)

Director: Gillo Pontecorvo A rare triumph of political cinema, depicting colonial

oppression, terrorist strikes against civilians, Western occupying forces resorting to torture,
and a general uprising without apparently taking sides. Still vivid and relevant.

119. The Wages Of Fear (1953)

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot Four losers drive trucks loaded with unstable nitro across
treacherous jungle roads. It takes a full hour to introduce its characters, before turning the
screws unbearingly, twisting round hairpin bends, over rocky ground, and into oil slicks.
Read Review

118. Withnail And I (1987)

Director: Bruce Robinson Truly funny, truly cult: fans can mouth the words of Richard E.
Grants speeches along with him, relishing every viperish turn of phrase and perfectly
pronounced curse. A beloved British oddity never repeated. Read Review

117. Miller's Crossing (1990)

Director: Joel and Ethan Coen The Coens in Dashiell Hammett gangster territory,
recounting the near-tragedy of an honourable crook undone by a single gesture of mercy.

Finney sees off hitmen with a Thompson while smoking a cigar and listening to Danny Boy
in a bravura sequence of Coen magic. Read Review

116. Rio Bravo (1959)

Director: Howard Hawks Hawks Western is at once roundabout with time-outs for
songs and Angie Dickinson in tights and a model of suspense, as John Wayne, Dean
Martin and Walter Brennan hole up in a town jail besieged by the bad hats. Read Review

115. Blazing Saddles (1974)

Director: Mel Brooks Brooks invented scattershot movie parody with this cowboy outrage
(we get less grateful everytime a Meet The Spartans or Disaster Movie opens). Highlights:
a classic theme song and the Ben-Hur chariot race of flatulence scenes. Read Review

114. The Conversation (1974)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola A Watergate-era analysis of paranoid high-tech
eavesdroppers, its also a great thriller with a clever plot twist and a riveting, underplayed
central performance from Gene Hackman. Read Review

113. Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy (2004)

Director: Adam McKay Will Ferrells breakout vehicle homages the fashion, music and
sexual politics of the 70s, with a smarmily self-confident TV newsreader threatened by a
female rival. Major plus its not about a stupid sport. Read Review

112. I Am Cuba (1964)

Director: Alexander Payne Russian helmer Kalatozov unsurprisingly reveals the source of
Cubas ache for revolution via a quartet of stories set in Batistas Cuba. Yes, its Communist
propaganda, but also a technical marvel. Read Review

111. Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Director: Werner Herzog A crazed Klaus Kinski brings opera to the jungle by pulling a
steamer over a mountain, obviously. As ambitious, visually stunning and plain old insane as
cinema gets, this is Herzogs masterwork. Read Review

110. Before Sunset (2004)

Director: Richard Linklater Before Sunrise, ten years on. Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse
(Ethan Hawke) meet again, briefly, getting another chance to talk about love. How many
sequels are made for artistic reasons and add meaning, rather than strip it away? Read
Review

109. Touch Of Evil (1958)

Director: Orson Welles A grimy border noir toplining Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh, but
showcasing director Orson Welles in his greatest acting role as a gross, doomed, crooked
cop who is still a titan hobbled by lesser men. Read into that what you will. Read Review

108. The Tree Of Wooden Clogs (1978)

Director: Ermanno Olmi A masterpiece among 'suffering peasant' films. Various farmers in
Lombardy have a hard time, tinged by everyday wonder, as they work the land in the early
20th century. Mike Leigh's favourite. Read Review

106. A Man For All Seasons (1966)

Director: Fred Zinnemann Henry VIII (Robert Shaw) slaps his thigh and barges about the
Thames trying to get a divorce, while conscience-stricken Thomas More (Paul Scofield)
lumbers tragically towards an appointment with the axe. Read Review

105. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Director: Milos Forman Repression and rebellion set in a mental hospital, adapted by
Czech director Milos Forman with a cool, near-documentary look. Nicholson gives a key
nicholsonian role, taking on softly-spoken sadist Nurse Ratched. Read Review

104. The Rules Of The Game (1939)

Director: Jean Renoir Banned on its original release, Renoir's cutting, supremely
entertaining dissection of class and love (the title refers to romance, as much as anything) is
just about perfect. Pick up the issue for film critic Jonathan Romney's piece on The Wages
Of Fear

103. Rear Window (1954)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock A simple technical exercise making a whole film in one
room is given ballsy bravura by Hitchcock as a terrific James Stewart witnesses a
murder through his, um, rear window. Read Review Pick up the issue for our profile on
Rear Window actress, Grace Kelly

102. The Hustler (1961)

Director: Robert Rossen A cautionary tale masquerading as a sports movie, this is what
legends are made of especially considering Paul Newmans turn as Fast Eddie Felson
provided his breakthrough to the big-time. Read Review

101. Raising Arizona (1987)

Director: Joel and Ethan Coen For their sophomore effort, those versatile Coen boys
swung from the stark chills of Blood Simple into screwball territory with this hyperactive
comedy of apocalyptic bikers, serial robbery, infant kidnap, and the value of family. Read
Review

100. Network (1976)

Director: Sidney Lumet Lumets satire of televisions morals has grown more chillingly
relevant with age. Peter Finchs on-air breakdown, screaming at the cameras, entices the
audience rather than repels them. Read Review

99. Toy Story (1995)

Director: John Lasseter A landmark in animation as beautiful and significant as Snow
White. The point wasnt just art-by-computer, but a storytelling of wit and humanity that
translated to seemingly everyone alive. Read Review

98. North By Northwest (1959)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock A droll and debonair Cary Grant slaloms between spy rings,
suspicious blondes, mother issues and a psychopathic cropduster. Read Review

97. Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Director: Quentin Tarantino Tarantino mixed noir staples with spasms of ultraviolence and
a whirr of meta-dialogue where everything was game, from Madonna to The Great Escape,
to create the pop-cultural movie event of the '90s. Read Review

96. American Beauty (1999)

Director: Sam Mendes An intricate, brilliantly acted dissection of dysfunctional family life,
wunderkind Mendes first movie was well-rewarded with a hatful of Oscars. Read Review

94. The Wild Bunch (1969)

Director: Sam Peckinpah Peckinpahs lament for the dying West plays on his favourite
theme men out of step with their time and embroiders it with the most memorable
bloodshed imaginable. John Woo owes his career to this. Read Review

93. Spirit Of The Beehive (1973)

Director: Vctor Erice A story of a young Spanish girl, the aftermath of the civil war,
Frankensteins Monster and a fathers obsession with bees, this is a triumph of dreamlike
style. And one of Guillermo del Toros faves. Read Review

90. When Harry Met Sally (1989)

Director: Rob Reiner Reiners rom-com is sweet-natured and old-fashioned, yet with a
deliciously dirty streak and game performances from Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. Read
Review

89. Magnolia (1999)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson An ensemble piece about the bonds that bring a disparate
group of Los Angelinos together, its no coincidence that Andersons instant classic is loved
by so many. Read Review

88. Ferris Buellers Day Off (1986)

Director: John Hughes The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids,
dweebies and dickheads all adore him, and so do we. John Hughes righteous dude is
unquestionably too cool for school. Read Review

87. The King Of Comedy (1983)

Director: Martin Scorsese De Niros Rupert Pupkin is the self-deluded ying to Travis
Bickles sociopathic yang. Scorseses satirical and deeply discomfiting black comedy
deserves its place in this list for its dangerously desperate protagonist alone. Read Review

85. Blue Velvet (1986)

Director: David Lynch Never have Lynchs beautiful and bizarre visions been more
unsettling than here, as he unearths the dirt that lies beneath a seemingly genteel American
suburbia. At a stretch its a form of neo-noir. Then again, this is Lynch, and definitions
never stick. Read Review

84. L. A. Confidential (1997)

Director: Curtis Hanson James Ellroy equally known as the demon dog of crime
fiction and the author of L. A. Confidential once admitted that if hed had his way, the
movie of the third entry in his darkly magnificent LA Quartet (or the second entry in his
Dudley Smith Trio, if you prefer) would have been shot in black-and-white and been four
hours long. Which, as intriguing as that sounds, only goes to show that sometimes its a
good thing creators maintain a (dis)respectful distance from adaptations of their output.
After all, Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgelands well-oiled retool of Ellroys devilishly
manifold tale of police corruption in 40s Hollywood should be held up as the very pinnacle
of novel-to-script revisualisation: a robust reworking with an eye on the beats that give
every good mainstream drama its pulse, while sensitively embracing the originals bitter
core. Read Review

83. Brazil (1985)

Director: Terry Gilliam While the Orwellian influences are plain, the heart of this dystopian
comedy is pure Gilliam. The desire to fly free of oppressive bureaucracy is the crux of this
story and who cant empathise with that? Read Review

82. The Great Escape (1963)

Director: John Sturges An all-star cast, a true-life tale and one of the most memorable
theme tunes of all time, Sturges beloved entertainment somehow combines Boys Own
thrills with the harsh bite of wartime truths. Dig it. Read Review

80. The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp (1943)

Director: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Slated on its original release for being
decidedly unpatriotic, Powell and Pressburgers satire has now been rightfully re-assessed
as a classic which couldnt be more British if it tried. Read Review

79. The Thin Red Line (1998)

Director: Terrence Malick Malicks stunning return to filmmaking after a 20-year absence
is beautiful, thoughtful and admirably uncommercial. And Hans Zimmers haunting theme
has been used for a dozen trailers since including, incongruously, that for Pearl Harbor.
Read Review

78. Rosemarys Baby (1968)

Director: Roman Polanski Still creepy after all these years, Polanskis efficiently cold and
calculating tale of devil- worshipping, nasty neighbours and labour pains should be
mandatory viewing for all sex education classes thatd cut down on the Juno effect.
Read Review

77. Spartacus (1960)

Director: Stanley Kubrick Kirk Douglas failure to win the title role in William Wylers
Ben-Hur spurred him on to make his own Roman epic. His influence in hiring Kubrick was
rewarded with a rousing, action-packed and iconic sword n sandaller, now the unmatched
emperor of the genre. Read Review

76. Manhattan (1979)

Director: Woody Allen A black-and-white love letter to New York, Gershwin and the mess
of relationships, this is Allen at his most poignant but funny. Read Review

75. A Matter Of Life And Death (1946)

Director: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger David Niven is wonderful as a young
pilot who avoids death due to a celestial bureaucratic cock-up, while Powell and
Pressburgers vision of heaven is still cinemas greatest. Read Review

74. The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948)

Director: John Huston John Hustons mano-a-mano thriller (loaded with stark Western
overtones), starring Humphrey Bogart as the grizzled gold prospector who lets greed
swerve his moral compass, is back in fashion thanks to Paul Thomas Anderson. He very
publicly cited Hustons gritty classic as an inspiration for his masterful There Will Be
Blood. Thus it has now become open season on citing just how many films Treasure has
influenced, from City Slickers to Trespass, from The Wages Of Fear to the work of Sam
Peckinpah, and theres plenty of Bogarts cynical Dobbs in Indiana Jones. Not to forgo the
pleasures of Hustons powerful film in its own right studio boss Jack Warner considered
it the best film they had ever made. Read Review

72. 12 Angry Men (1957)

Director: Sidney Lumet Where it all started for one of Americas most enduring directors,
tapping his TV roots for a claustrophobic courtroom thriller with Henry Fonda standing up
for the best of America. Read Review

71. The Night Of The Hunter (1955)

Director: Charles Laughton The sole behind-the-camera gig of character actor Laughton, a
psycho-thriller shrouded in spectral majesty, with a mesmerising act of evil from another
underrated actor, Robert Mitchum. Chilll... dren? Read Review

70. Stand By Me (1986)

Director: Rob Reiner A coming-of-age classic crucial to the making of many of us, with
one-time multi-genre master Reiner coaxing a wonderful performance from River Phoenix,
and Stephen King providing the truthful source material. Read Review

69. Three Colours Red (1994)

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski Interlocking lives and loves, the nature of chance, the
unlikelihood of happiness... Kieslowski retired in his early 50s after this final entry in
his Colours trilogy; perhaps he knew hed never equal it. Read Review

68. Annie Hall (1977)

Director: Woody Allen A thriller named Anhedonia transformed into a rom-com where the
antagonist is the leads own neurosis. More daring than Allen is usually given credit for. Its
other alternative title? It Had To Be Jew. Read Review

67. Tokyo Story (1953)

Director: Yasujiro Ozu Much more soulful and engaging than its arthouse rep suggests. A
tender, tragic and transcendent picture of old age ignored. Watch it with someone you love.
Read Review

66. Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Director: Tim Burton After he busted blocks with Batman, Burton broke hearts with
perhaps his most personal picture. The romance of a razor-fingered recluse is given
irresistible internal strength by a breakout performance from Johnny Depp. Read Review

65. Harold And Maude (1971)

Director: Hal Ashby Wonderful to see this bizarre, bittersweet love story in the top ton,
with Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort soulmates separated by a mere, um, 60 years. The most
unlikely romance youll ever see.

64. Oldboy (2003)

Director: Park Chan-wook Popular with readers, critics and the most unlikely of
filmmakers Cameron Crowe loves it this ferocious thriller explores the appeal and
futility of revenge. And how to eat a live octopus. Read Review

63. Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Director: Billy Wilder The writer-director tears off the hand that feeds, attacking emptyheaded and -hearted Hollywood with devastating satirical savagery. A beautiful turn, too,
from the forgotten man of the Golden Age, William Holden. Read Review

62. The Graduate (1967)

Director: Mike Nichols Captured an age of simultaneously emerging and demolished ideals,
as Dustin Hoffmans lovelorn outsider discovers the discontent and sexual simmer in
suburbia. Read Review

61. The Usual Suspects (1995)

Director: Bryan Singer Elegantly unspooling Christopher McQuarries labyrinthine script,
its a none-more-deft deconstruction of storytelling that somehow retains emotion. Read
Review

60. Come And See (1985)

Director: Elem Klimov Under-seen but riding high on critics and filmmakers lists, this is
the Russian Apocalypse Now, a dizzying, terrifying portrayal of brutality and genocide
during the Nazis scorched-earth campaign through Belorussia.

59. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)

Director: Steven Spielberg The mashed-potato masterpiece, with Richard Dreyfuss Roy
Neary one of Spielbergs most complicated creations a family man whose selfishness is
out of this world. Love it? You are not alone. Read Review

58. His Girl Friday (1940)

Director: Howard Hawks Rat-a-tat-tat romance as Cary Gary and Rosalind Russell trade
come-ons and put-downs at an extraordinary screwball pace, for a film as fresh now as it
was wow 68 years ago Read Review

57. Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)

Director: David Lean Leans monumental epic remains a triumph of repeated discovery. Its
dark, complicated heart will confound and inspire you everytime. Read Review

56. Casino Royale (2006)

Director: Martin Campbell The ballsiest make-over any saga has ever undergone, this goes
back to Bonds beginnings, finding previously skimped Ian Fleming elements, and fits the
hero into a modern, post-Jason Bourne world. Read Review

55. La Dolce Vita (1960)

Director: Federico Fellini Marcello Mastroianni looks better in sunglasses than anyone else
ever and Anita Ekberg wades in a fountain in a spectacular evening dress, embodying the
decadence Fellini so enjoys condemning. Read Review

51. 8 1/2 (1963)

Director: Federico Fellini A film about a director who can't make a film, this mixes
childhood flashbacks, doomed relationships between Marcello Mastroianni and gorgeous
women, and Fellini's love of circus-style bizarros.

47. E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Director: Steven Spielberg Spielberg turns his parents' divorce into a magical slice of sci-fi
as autobiography. Subtle kid performances (especially Henry Thomas) make a great
animatronic creation even more affecting. Read Review

46. On The Waterfront (1954)

Director: Elia Kazan Brando's Terry Malloy maybe a landmark in screen acting, but Elia
Kazan's still stunning hymn to individualism set new levels of realism, finding enough
gritty atmosphere and street poetry to power 1,000 episodes of The Wire. Read Review

45. Psycho (1960)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock "We all go a little mad sometimes." Hitchcock claimed this was
a comedy - it does make cruel fun of everything Americans were supposed to take seriously
in 1960: psychology, cleanliness, money and mothers. Read Review

44. Schindler's List (1993)

Director: Steven Spielberg Spielberg's Oscar breakthrough strives hard for its masterpiece
status, with masterful work from Liam Neeson and extraordinarily complex villainy from
Ralph Fiennes. If it had subtitles, you'd swear it were a Polanski or Andrzej Wajda film.
Read Review

43. The Big Lebowski (1998)

Director: Joel and Ethan Coen The Coens' colourful take on Raymond Chandler's LA noir
is the shaggiest of shaggy dog stories, and evidently Joel and Ethan's most enduring by a
long shot. Jeff Bridges' White Russian-downing 'Dude' is an iconic hero.Read Review

42. Kind Hearts And Coronets (1949)

Director: Robert Hamer Ealing at its most entertainingly contradictory a film of style,
charm and Victorian literary elegance about (frankly) a social-climbing serial killer. An
exemplar of British good taste built on corpses, snobbery and sex. Read Review

41. The 400 Blows (1959)

Director: Francois Truffaut Jean-Pierre Leaud is Truffaut stand-in Antoine Doinel, here an
unhappy child taking refuge in the freedom of the cinema and the bleakness of petty crime.
Thematically grim, but joyous moviemaking. Read Review

40. Vertigo (1958)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock A mystery which takes such a sidetrack that the unmasking of
the villain is an irrelevance. Beautiful Kim Novak is mysteriously haunted, while neurotic
'tec James Stewart turns worryingly obsessive. Read Review

38. Heat (1995)

Director: Michael Mann Mann directs one of the best shoot-outs in the history of cinema
and guides an outstanding supporting cast (remember when Val Kilmer was this good?)
through an intricate crime plot. But the showstopper is simply two major screen actors
Al Pacino, Robert De Niro facing off over a coffee. Read Review

37. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Director: Stanley Kubrick Kubricks dystopia of bowler-hatted glam yobbos is as scarily
relevant in an era of ASBOs and no-go council estates as in the time it was made. Read
Review

36. Andrei Rublev (1969)

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky This Soviet-era Russian epic, which made Andrei Tarkovskys
international reputation, dramatises episodes in the life and times of a medieval monk with
a gift for painting icons. Uniquely among artist biopics, there are no scenes of the hero at

the easel and we dont see his work in radiant colour after three hours of black-andwhite until the very end of the film. Indeed, Rublev (Anatoli Solonitsyn) tends to fade
into the bearded, weatherbeaten crowd (for much of the running time hes under a vow of
silence) as various holy fools command attention. If Tarkovskys intense argument about
God, talent and the human condition is as chilly as the steppes, the pre-CGI widescreen
spectacle, depicting crowds of people and animals, is often breathtaking: the screen fills
with Kurosawa-like action as Tartars sack a cathedral or a mad waif bosses a more
experienced crew as they forge a church bell. Read Review

32. Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)

Director: George Roy Hill The cuddliest downbeat Western succeeds on canny miscasting.
Newman and Robert are dead wrong as ageing outlaws, but perfect as 1969 defiant youth.
Read Review

30. Aliens (1986)

Director: James Cameron Where Ridley Scott was all about slow-building tension, James
Cameron creates a whirlwind of pure panic and violence. Probably the most exciting film
ever made. Read Review

29. Die Hard (1988)

Director: John McTiernan Is it yippee-kay-yay or yippy-kay-yay or yippy-ki-aye? The

argument rages on and on. Motherfuckers. Read Review

27. Some Like It Hot (1959)

Director: Billy Wilder Tony Curtis in a dress. Is this the original gross-out comedy? Hardly,
though the Curtis/Jack Lemmon drag-act has its share of goofball gags. Only number 27?
Well, nobodys perfect. Read Review

21. The Third Man (1949)

Director: Carol Reed Unjustly overshadowed by Orson Welles showboating, Reed
constructs a claustrophobic, thoughtful thriller from Graham Greenes trawl through
occupied territory and moral murk. Read Review

18. Casablanca (1942)

Director: Michael Curtiz Bogey and Bergmans wartime dalliance somehow emerged as
one of Hollywoods most loved and misquoted movies aided considerably by Claude
Rains wonderfully cynical humour. Read Review

17. Taxi Driver (1976)

Director: Martin Scorsese Played no, lived by De Niro, Travis Bickle remains a
frighteningly identifiable outsider icon stalking Scorseses slick, sick NYC. Read Review

12. The Apartment (1960)

Director: Billy Wilder One of the fascinating quirks of the list is the higher placing for this
darker-veined comedy than the bewigged flamboyance of so-called funniest film of all
time Some Like It Hot. To argue between them rather misses the point (both are excellent
and must be seen) what stands out is how The Apartment has grown in stature as one of
the diminutive Hungarian migrs finest films. On the surface, its the straight
downtrodden-boy-meets-indifferent-girl formula, but Wilder, who skipped Berlin as the
Nazis took power, came possessed of a more savage view of the worlds workings. Jack
Lemmons hypochondriac Baxter is a friendless corporate climber; the object of his
affection, Shirley MacLaine, an unstable lift girl having an affair with the CEO. Their
meandering path to romance twists between notions of prostitution (corporate and real) and
even suicide. Meet-cute it is not. Yet, somehow, the film remains optimistic about their
chances. Read Review

10. Fight Club (1999)

Director: David Fincher It could have just been pre-millennial angst, but Finchers grimly
ironic epic of maladjusted masculinity shows no sign of fading. Read Review

9. Pulp Fiction (1994)

Director: Quentin Tarantino Perfectly encapsulating the absolute-zero cool of the

Indiewood scene. QT has yet to better its excessive appeal. Read Review

4. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Director: Frank Darabont A perennial readers fave, Shawshank has clearly maintained its
resounding emotional throb. Its a rare one, alright: a blokes weepie. And also the movie
that spawned a thousand Morgan Freeman voiceovers. Read Review