200 Best Movies, Ranked

1 CODA

CODA stands for Children of Deaf Adults, and it’s a glorious film. Written and directed by Sian Heder, starring Emilia Jones as Ruby and Troy Kotsur and Marlee Matlin as her deaf parents, it was the first streaming film to win Best Picture, as well as the first male Best Actor award for Kotsur and Best Screenplay for Heder. Emilia Jones studied Sign for a year during filming, and grew close to Troy Kotsur, both of whom were away from their families for the filming and learned a great deal about the challenge of mixing deaf and hearing people.

If you only watch one film from my list, choose this one.

2 Kill Bill

Uma Thurman wakes up in a hospital. Years earlier, Bill had ordered his team of Deadly Vipers to find and kill Beatrix (The Bride), because she was pregnant with his child and had run away. She survived the assassination attempt, but spent the next four years in a coma, and awakens to find that she is about to be raped because the orderly has been selling access to her unconscious body for years. She has almost no body control, yet finds a way to kill them, starting by willing one toe to wiggle. From that moment, we know that she can do almost anything, and is committed to vengeance. She’s out to Kill Bill.

3 The Shawshank Redemption

The idea of an unfairly-convicted prisoner, a corrupt prison warden, and a daring escape is not new. But everything about this film feels original, exhilarating, and ultimately heartwarming. It’s Tim Robbins’ greatest role, and he plays it with incredible humility and acceptance, despite the barbarity and injustice.

Andy (Robbins) and Red (Morgan Freeman) are prisoners together at Shawshank State Prison, both serving life sentences. They help each other, and Andy also befriends a guard, the prison librarian, and other prisoners.

Meanwhile, the warden is accumulating stolen money and blackmailing Andy into laundering it.

4 Spotlight

Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, and Rachel McAdams are superb as Michael Rezendes, Robby Robinson, and Sacha Pfeiffer. Liev Schreiber (playing Marty Baron) is also powerful, but while his character is technically more important to the story (since he’s the one who challenged everyone and pursued the story), his role is smaller than the other three. Spotlight is named after The Boston Globe’s famous investigative division, which generally works in secrecy and pursues stories for months or years. I lived in Boston while this story broke, so I knew the big picture; but I knew so very little of the full story.

The Spotlight team (Ruffalo, Keaton, McAdams, and Brian d’Arcy James) wants to investigate one story about a pedophile priest in Boston, but the powerful Roman Catholic Church, the courts, a couple of somewhat-corrupt lawyers, and a large group of church supporters conspire to keep the story secret and the many court documents sealed.

5 The Silence of the Lambs

Jodie Foster has been in many excellent films. Her performances in Flightplan, Inside Man, Panic Room, The Accused, The Mauritanian, and True Detective: Night Country were exceptional. (I haven’t seen Nyad yet.) However, while her acting is perfect, it sometimes feels like there’s a little space between Jodie the person and the characters she’s playing. It’s like watching a superb performance: you can applaud the acting while still knowing it’s a role.

That’s not the case with The Silence of the Lambs. Jodie Foster is the person she’s playing. There’s no separation, no reason to notice the performance; the character she’s playing exactly matches who she is. I can’t pay any higher compliment to an actor. Despite all her great work in other pieces, The Silence of the Lambs is Jodie Foster incarnate; it’s Jodie Foster unleashed.

6 Spiderman: No Way Home

Peter Parker’s secret identity as Spider-Man has been revealed, and he is now threatened by half the people who know him. (The other half are on his side.) He and MJ flee. Peter, MJ, and Ned all lose their MIT acceptances because of the controversy surrounding him. He gets Doctor Strange to cast a mind-wiping spell, but then repeatedly interrupts, asking for more and more favors, until he corrupts the spell.

Spider-Man’s enemies from other universes appear. He doesn’t know who they are, but they know who he is (or think they do, since they actually know the Peter Parkers from their own universes), and they are after him. Doctor Strange sends MJ, Peter, and Ned to find and capture the villains.

7 Official Secrets

This is one of the most important stories ever told. It received popular and critical acclaim, but as an independent Sundance Film Festival release, it did not reach a wide audience. I was surprised, shocked, horrified, and ultimately slightly relieved when I first saw it (only because they dropped the charges, not because the government ever apologized or corrected its lies and corruption).

Kiera Knightly plays Katharine Gun, a real-life British intelligence analyst, which meant she had signed a document committing to keeping all the monitored intelligence secret. As part of her normal duties, she finds a memo about a joint effort between the United States and British governments to spy on foreign diplomats and blackmail them into supporting George Bush’s resolution to invade Iraq. She now realizes this proposed invasion is based on false information, and secretly gives the memo to an anti-war activist, who tells her the government will call it treason. Katharine responds, “I work for the British people. I do not gather intelligence so that the government can lie—to the British people.”

8 Avengers: Endgame

This is the only Avengers movie on my 5 Stars list, and the reason is obvious to me: no other movie has so many incredible highs and incredible lows. Some movies have a really deep tragic low and two triumphant highs (one early and one at the end). This movie just keeps them coming. I saw it in a theater with sixteen family members, on its second day, so no one knew what was coming. The entire audience had moments of sustained applause, too loud to follow the next few words; of loud gasps; and of sobbing, again loud enough to obscure some of the dialogue. When Thanos is killed early in the film, it seemed like a complete letdown: why are we here? Little did we know that a different Thanos would soon appear, with an alternate universe Gamora; or that Nebula would save Iron Man and Gamora; or that Hulk would confront the Ancient One and she would give him the Time Stone; or that Steve Rogers would find his lost love in the past and Thor his deceased mother.

9 Aliens

“Get away from her, you bitch!” - Ripley’s (Sigourney Weaver) most memorable quote, as she rescues Newt (yet again) from the alien queen.

I first saw this movie in a theater, and in the parking lot ten minutes later, I realized I was taking what felt like my first breath in an hour. Years later I saw it on streaming, and realized that yet again, I didn’t feel like I was breathing until minutes after it ended. Aliens really is that good. The evil corporate agent Burke (Paul Reiser) sets Ripley up in the beginning, claiming to be her advocate, then tries to kill her and smuggle the alien eggs home. The child Newt (Carrie Henn) is in constant terror but stands by Ripley, and when she is (yet again) rescued by Ripley, says she knew that Ripley would find her. For all that the original Alien (“In space, no one can hear you scream”) was a riveting story, a monumental change in cinema as important to the genre evolution as Star Wars had been just two years earlier, its sequel, Aliens, is better. Sigourney Weaver has played a lot of great roles; I think this is her best.

10 The Imitation Game

Is this Benedict Cumberbatch’s best performance? Despite his ongoing run in the Avengers universe (already being on this list twice in Avengers: Endgame and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness), and his work in The Courier, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Hawking, Patrick Melrose, and his unceasing perfection in Sherlock, I think this is his best and most important role. He plays Alan Turing: brilliant, aloof, confrontational, and gay, and when his capabilities are questioned at Bletchley Park during World War II (by Alastair Denniston, playing the nasty elite aristocrat he often plays), he refuses to back down, forces them to hire a female genius for his cryptography team (Keira Knightly, in what might also be her best performance), and insists on creating a machine that could break the Enigma code used by the Nazis. He and his team are eventually credited with saving millions of lives. This movie is almost superbly triumphant, and is one of the most important stories in modern history, partly because of Turing’s work enabling the Allied victory, but also because —spoiler here—the last minute of the film is horrifyingly tragic, evil, and mean, as his life ends because he was exposed as being gay, despite what he’d done for his country and the world.

11 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Four different versions of Doctor Strange (all played by Benedict Cumberbatch). Two Scarlet Witches (Elizabeth Olsen, as Wanda Maximoff). One Sorceror Supreme (Benedict Wong). An alternative Avengers-like team, the Illuminati (with Haley Atwell playing Peggy Carter/Captain Carter, in the role that the MCU should bring back and highlight over and over). Three different Christine Palmers (Rachel McAdams), who is Doctor Strange’s beloved ex in most of these universes. America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), with powers she doesn’t understand, and the Scarlet Witch hunting her. A non-stop fast-paced chase through battles on Earth, in different locations; an all-powerful Scarlet Witch who attacks Kamar-Taj and then uses the Darkhold to travel the Multiverse to claim “her” lost boys; an alternate universe Wanda begging the Scarlet Witch not to steal her boys; Doctor Strange, America, and Wong uniting to fight the Scarlet Witch, and Strange deciding that he can’t take over the battle, that only America knows what to do; battles in four different multiverses. Does all this sound a bit silly? It is not. It is glorious.

12 You’ve Got Mail

How many great movies has Tom Hanks made? I have Apollo 13, Captain Phillips, Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, and Sully on my 4.5 Stars list.

You’ve Got Mail gets 5 stars.

Meg Ryan is Kathleen, and Tom Hanks is Joe. Meg runs a wonderful independent bookstore that is about to be put out of business by Joe’s large bookstore chain. They meet each other at Kathleen’s bookstore, but Joe does not admit who he is. Kathleen disparages the bookstore chain and what it’s about to do to her life and her customers. Joe leaves.

They meet again at a book party, where she learns who he really is. She is furious, and accuses him of spying, while he belittles her small store. Eventually, we see the most beautiful and heartfelt ending to a movie I’ve ever seen, a scene that has never left my mind.

13 Winter’s Bone

Winter’s Bone is the movie that quietly launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career, with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 94. It was a low budget independent Sundance Film release and on almost every Top 10 list that year (2010). One reviewer wrote that “Her performance is more than acting; it’s a gathering storm. Lawrence’s eyes are a roadmap to what’s tearing Ree apart.”

She plays a teenager named Ree, who is taking care of her disabled and destitute mother and her two young siblings, while looking for her missing meth-addicted father. She is trying to take care of her family, protect them, and teach them, with no income and no support from anyone else; while at the same time, the local crime mob beats her up and tells her to stop looking. This is the deep, honest, conflicted, vulnerable, terrified, and committed version of Jennifer Lawrence, the truly unforgettable one. To this day, it is her best performance. I will never stop watching this film, despite the trauma and the anguish.

14 Kimi

Kimi is not a movie that most people would expect to see on a list like this, since it was released straight to streaming on HBO Max and focused on a young woman who avoids interacting with people. But Steven Soderbergh directed and Zoe Kravitz stars; that was enough to get my attention. It’s a superb film—and has a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Zoe plays Angela, a brilliant tech engineer who works from home because a previous assault has left her agoraphobic (afraid to go out in public). Mostly this doesn’t affect her life, since she spends all her time on her elaborate computer systems. Angela is constantly monitoring and improving an AI system (“Kimi”) that is about to go public, but she overhears what appears to be a sexual assault. As she investigates, she finds that it is an ordered assassination, and her bosses want her dead. But they weren’t expecting Angela.

15 Hidden Figures

This movie surprised me. I knew it covered some famous Black female mathematicians who worked at NASA; I did not realize how powerfully it would detail the racism and segregation of that time period (the early 1960s).

The lead character, Katherine Goble, has been a remarkably talented mathematician since third grade, and she is the first Black woman given a prominent role at NASA. The other two key figures are her supervisor, Dorothy Vaughan, and her colleague Mary Jackson. They work at NASA, despite the overt racism and scorn, because there’s nowhere else that would employ such talented mathematicians.

When the Space Task Group, headed by Al Harrison, finds that none of his team can do the analytic geometry that he needs to safely launch John Glenn into space, Katherine is brought over to that campus (from her segregated West Area), where they immediately create a separate coffee table for “coloreds”. Harrison sees that she can do things the others can’t, so he gives her bigger and harder assignments, but fails to notice, that they have created segregated spaces for black people. When he finally confronts her over disappearing for forty minutes each day, she explains that she has to walk half a mile to get to the segregated bathroom. He is stunned. The next two minutes are perhaps the most dramatic moments of the film.

16 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This incredible film shows a version of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet that we haven’t seen before: she’s a wild uncontrollable extrovert, and he’s confused and adrift. They’re a new couple (Joel and Clementine) who met recently on a train back from Montauk. She thinks she knows him, but he doesn’t agree. They don’t remember previously being a couple—and we don’t know they were—because they both agreed to a procedure that would erase their memories of each other (the “spotless mind” of the title). Clementine did it first, without telling Joel. When he finds out that she no longer remembers him, he can’t live with that devastation, so he decides to undergo the same procedure. But it goes wrong. Joel is left with one last memory, the day that he met Clementine in Montauk. Somehow, in his mind as it is being erased, Clementine tells Joel to meet her there. At the start (which is also essentially the ending), you have no idea how much is going to be dredged up through these memories. And as it comes up, and they learn about their past, you don’t expect them to end up together. You can’t do anything but applaud (or cry) when they choose to try again. It’s the eternal sunshine caused by a spotless mind.

17 Nobody

“Nobody” is Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk), a supposedly-ordinary office worker: taking out the trash, getting flak from his kids, ignored by his wife, laughed at by the executives at his job (his father-in-law and brother-in-law). Thieves break into Hutch’s house and his son attacks them, but Hutch stops his son and lets them go with whatever they stole. The family is disappointed that Hutch let them go.

Hutch privately tells his brother that he let the thieves go because he knew the gun wasn’t loaded. That’s the first indication that Hutch might be more than he seems. He tracks the thieves to a tattoo parlor, where they realize he has unique talents and special intelligence training. Some of them flee in fear. We’re getting more signs that Hutch is not just a “nobody”.

18 The Lion in Winter

Roger Ebert wrote, “One of the joys which movies provide too rarely is the opportunity to see a literate script handled intelligently. The Lion in Winter triumphs at that difficult task.” The movie is a joy throughout, whether King Henry II (Peter O’Toole) is being abusive towards his sons, endlessly jousting with his estranged and sometimes-imprisoned wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katherine Hepburn), plotting to imprison and then kill his sons (including a young Anthony Hopkins), sword fighting with all three sons at once, falling into Eleanor’s arms or kneeling at her feet, or at various times laughing with her. Hepburn casually throws out the line, “Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It’s 1183 and we’re barbarians.” Later, she says to King Henry, “I adored you. I still do.” He replies, “Of all the lies you’ve told, that is the most terrible.” She replies, “I know. That’s why I’ve saved it until now.” Both were nominated for Academy Awards; Hepburn won. I’ve watched this three times even though I know everything that’s coming.

19 Silverado

This movie is just plain fun. Unrelenting fun. Probably the most fun movie on my list. Lawrence Kasdan wrote and directed, and Scott Glenn, Kevin Kline, Danny Glover, Linda Hunt, a young Kevin Costner, Brian Dennehy, and Jeff Goldblum are all superb. A cast like this ought to produce excitement and connection among the characters, and it does.

The characters don’t know each other. One by one, they stumble into tricky situations: Glenn is ambushed but escapes; then he finds Kline, who has been robbed, stripped, and left to die. They encounter Glover, who is being threatened and hassled by racists in a bar. Glenn breaks his younger brother out of jail. All hell breaks loose. They’re random strangers; they could split up and leave, and for a time they almost do, but when they need to rescue the hostages in the town and take down the corrupt sheriff and the rich rancher, they come together in a wild gallop and then head to town to stop this once and for all.

20 Pale Rider

Pale Rider is a return to Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name character from the 1960s spaghetti westerns, but at a significantly deeper level, and with a more triumphant ending. Eastwood is the mysterious stranger who rides into LaHood, a western mining town controlled by a corrupt baron. He immediately saves an innocent man, Hull, who is being beaten by the mining baron’s thugs. We see that he has six bullet wounds in his back; his unexpected fighting talents, and his bullet scars, echo the mysterious character from Eastwood’s earlier westerns. He is next seen wearing a clerical collar, causing the locals to call him Preacher. The mining baron’s son attacks the Preacher, but loses; the baron himself tries to bribe and threaten the Preacher. When that fails, he hires a marshal to run all the miners out of town, and though the Preacher warns them about the baron and the marshall, they ignore his advice and refuse to leave. The townspeople see the mining operation and realize they’re in trouble.

Meanwhile, the Preacher has left town without explanation, seeming to abandon the residents, but we see that he has actually ridden to a nearby town, removed his clerical collar, and collected his guns.

21 Captain Phillips

Captain Phillips is an extraordinary true movie about an equally-extraordinary man, played by a version of Tom Hanks that is human, relatable, scared, humble, courageous, and willing to do the right thing, even if it means sacrificing himself. It takes the horror of the Somali pirate attacks on merchant ships in the 2000s and 2010s and makes them personal and intimate. There’s never a moment when you feel like you’re watching a show, or have any distance from the horror. You’re there with the ship and the crew and even the pirates. Even until the last minute, even sort of knowing the true story, I thought Phillips was going to die.

This film belongs in my Top 20. I just haven’t figured out what to rearrange to make space for it.

22 Erin Brockovich

Julia Roberts brings an awkward and vulnerable role to life in a way that leaves no space between her and the character. There’s no hint of stardom about her; she’s challenging, tricky, sometimes unpleasant, and incredibly persistent. (There are video clips with her “master negotiator” scenes, the challenged, disrespected underdog without formal training or authority who repeatedly steps on the more-important people and shuts them up by proving her ability. She won the Best Actress Oscar for playing the real-life Erin Brockovich, a single mom and paralegal desperate for a job and prone to explosive outbursts. She stumbles into records about cover-ups by PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric), who have been making very minor payments to people damaged by their illegal dumping in Hinkley, California. As she visits more residents, she finds the case is much wider than believed, while PG&E continue to stall and obstruct her. She and her attorney can only sue if a large majority of the 634 plaintiffs agree to a class action suit. Brockovich has won their trust by this point, and all 634 agree to join the suit. That’s the first or second amazing moment, followed soon after by a man admitting that he’d been fired by PG&E and kept the secret documents proving that PG&E knew about the pollutants all along. These documents come out, they win a $333 million judgement, PG&E is put under regulation by a state board, and Brockovich is paid an astounding fee of $2 million. She has since gone on to become a frequent and prominent activist on other anti-pollution suits, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.

23 Apollo 13

Apollo 13 is an extraordinary and mesmerizing movie. Starring Tom Hanks (Commander Jim Lovell), Kevin Bacon (backup Command Module Pilot), Ed Harris (NASA Flight Director Gene Krantz), Bill Paxton (Lunar Module Pilot), Gary Sinise (the primary Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly), Kathleen Quinlan (Lovell’s wife Marilyn), and a small role for Joe Spano, it is clear from the beginning that this movie is serious and the stakes are high. Ron Howard, the director, did not choose this cast lightly. To take just one example, he reunited Sinise and Hanks from Forrest Gump, but there’s never a moment in Apollo 13 that seems fanciful, unrealistic, or far-reaching: we’re here for one purpose, to watch this stellar cast in the most challenging mission that NASA has ever faced. The early scenes have a little background that is not necessary to the plot (Lovell’s daughter wearing a hippie costume, Marilyn losing her wedding ring in the shower drain and having a nightmare about Lovell dying in space, a congressman questioning why they should continue funding these flights now that the moon has been reached), they are more than offset by other little touches: Lovell’s mother saying that he can “land anything” safely, and a pre-recorded interview with Lovell explaining how when his fighter jet lost power in the Sea of Japan during WWII, he followed bioluminescent algae in the “battle dark” aircraft carrier’s wake to safely land.

All the little details disappear early in the film, when there is an unexplained explosion about the Apollo 13 craft. They can’t see or find the source of the explosion, but they quickly realize that they’ve lost most oxygen and power. From that moment on, you never feel like you’re watching a movie: Ron Howard stuck to the actual events, and you’re a fly on the wall watching as these real people, both the astronauts and large staff in Mission Control, create a rescue plan that has never been tried before. They jury-rig solutions to each problem, but new ones keep coming. Ken Mattingly, who was displaced on the crew due to fear of measles, is awakened and brought to Mission Control to figure out how a crew without light, with minimal power and oxygen, with no computer control, can make it through a narrow re-entry window. The solutions keep coming but so do the problems. (I did not know the full story of Apollo 13 so I did not know if they would make it back safely, and there was never a moment when I was sure.) The two hours of this recovery operation fly by, with rarely a breath and never a break. It is as realistic, engaging, and scary as any film I’ve ever seen. I challenge anyone to watch the last two minutes without crying.

24 Notting Hill

I have You’ve Got Mail ranked #12 in this list, in part because the ending is so wonderful and Meg Ryan so completely inhabits her character. Notting Hill’s ending is even better, but it doesn’t quite match You’ve Got Mail because it gets a little silly at times. Hugh Grant doesn’t believe that Julia Roberts could fall for him? He is an independent bookstore owner (just like Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail) who accidentally meets a famous actress, and somehow she falls for him. She meets his family, the press swarms all over her, her movie star boyfriend is outraged, and the bookstore owner overhears her dismissing him (which was only meant to keep their life private). He decides it just won’t work, but at the last moment, realizes how wrong he is not to try. His family races through London, breaking laws, and lies to get into her farewell press announcement, where he hears her say that she is leaving London for good. In front of everyone, he asks if she would give “that man” another chance if he begged forgiveness. The audience starts to realize that he’s that man. Then she replies. Those last five minutes are as perfect an ending as you’ll find in a movie.

25 Alien

It’s a bigger rush than Aliens, but I can watch Aliens many times, and now that I know Alien and have seen it twice, I’m not sure I want to watch it again. It’s science fiction and horror combined, and once you know the jump scares, and what Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) does each time, and how they keep coming, it loses that big piece of suspense. It’s a great movie, but I can’t pretend that I don’t know what’s coming. “They don’t make movies like this anymore” is a cliche, but Alien changed all the rules. They really don’t make movies like this anymore.

26 Wind River 

It’s great to see Elizabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner together outside of the Marvel universe, as people who don’t know each other, and challenge each other because they have such different approaches to chasing a fugitive. He’s a tracker, she’s an FBI agent; he knows the wintry wilderness and Native land and she is not prepared for any of it. As she pursues the murderer, he has moments when he can turn away or get in deeper to help her. When things get rough, they’re there for each other. It’s disturbing at times but immensely satisfying. Elizabeth Olsen plays her role as perfectly as Jodie Foster ever played any of her roles; Olsen might as well be Foster in this film.

27 Moon

This movie snuck up on me, as an independent Sundance Film release, but there’s a reason it’s got a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I loved it. You think you’re watching Sam Bell (played by Sam Rockwell) as the only operator on a lunar base, overseeing harvesters and shipping the collected minerals to Earth on a three-year contract. His only contact is the AI running the base, and occasional pre-recorded messages from his wife; direct contact with Earth appears to be unavailable for mechanical reasons. But that’s not the true story. Sam’s situation is much worse, and much less honest, than we’re led to believe. As he starts to learn more, and the AI tries to stop him, he realizes that he’s not the original Sam, and he’s been there far longer than three years; there’s a reason he can’t communicate with his wife or daughter on Earth, because that was in the past, and they don’t know he’s “alive”. Once Sam understands this, we assume he’s doomed, but he decides to find a way to get back to Earth and expose this long-running deception.

28 Room

Brie Larson’s most incredible role (so far) won her first Academy Award. Forget every other role you’ve seen her in (I love her as Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, and in Short Term 12 and the violent and satisfying Free Fire). You won’t see that Brie Larson in Room. Here, she is Joy, locked in a tiny shed raising her five-year old son, Jack; she was kidnapped seven years before and the boy is the result of her abductor’s frequent rapes. The boy has never seen life outside this one room, and he is locked in a closet whenever Joy is raped. The abductor tells her that things will have to change, and her long-standing depression turns to fear. She develops a plan to Jack away (faking his death and telling the abductor to drop his body somewhere), even knowing that she will likely be killed as a result. Jack has never seen the outside world, and doesn’t know how to communicate with the people he meets, or tell them where his mom is held captive, but in a thrilling scene, the police don’t give up and find Joy and arrest the abductor. The final half hour is almost as traumatic, as Joy’s parents, shocked that she is still alive, don’t know how to accept Jack, and she attempts suicide, but gradually, Jack and Joy learn to make a place for themselves in what is still a very foreign world.

29 Barbie

I saw this in a theater when it first came out, and I applauded several times and stood up for a long round of applause at the end. (I also saw I’m Just Ken when it was broadcast at the Academy Awards; prior to that dramatic live performance, my favorite Oscars moment was Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga doing Shallow. I’m Just Ken beats that handily.) Barbie is complex; watching the women (the “Barbies”) live in Barbieland, believing that the world is like this, and they have power, is interesting, but it goes up a huge level when they realize that the real world is misogynistic and not friendly to them. Then the men (the “Kens”) decide to rebel and claim power, and we see so many different responses, women who go along, women who show them how to change; and we see Barbie leave her land, find supporters (America Ferrera), escape the corporate powers, and unite the Barbies. Greta Gerwig took all the simple things about Barbie (the fake houses and food, feet permanently on tiptoes, pretend beaches), and created a deep and moving story using these characters and props so the impact creeps up on us. Margot Robbie and America Ferrera shine, and Ryan Gosling brings complexity and vulnerability to his unexpected role as Ken.

30 Once Upon a Time in the West

This movie is so much more than a Western, covering many characters and plots; the Western element is just the background, except for the occasional short scenes and then the ending. It starts with three gunfighters in a bar; one is standing under a slow water drip, flinching a bit, but never moving, and another one is sitting in a chair as a fly keeps landing on his face. We don’t know why the man doesn’t move away from the water drip (is he afraid of making a sound?), but eventually when they head out to confront the arriving train, he drinks the water from the brim of his hat! The other one catches the fly with the tip of his gun, holds it there, then eventually lets it go. It’s riveting, and from that first scene, you know things are going to be complex and suspenseful. They’re there to catch and kill Harmonica (Charles Bronson), but he kills them all; yet it turns out he isn’t the bad guy at all. Frank (Henry Fonda) shows up soon, and he IS the bad guy, completely against type. There’s even a moment, after he’s killed most of a local farming family, when he seems to smile gently and lets the youngest son go; but no, that’s not what happens. Cheyenne (Jason Robards is blamed for these attacks, and he is a bad guy, but he’s not the bad guy here; he and Harmonica end up fighting for the right side. Jill (Claudia Cardinale) is the new wife of the farmer who was just murdered, and that makes her arrival in town traumatic for everyone. Eventually Frank sends men to kill her. Harmonica and Cheyenne never explain why they’re three, but they keep helping Jill. (This is one of the relatively uncommon Western movies from the 60s where the femme fatale is actually a deep and fully involved character. The movie is long for a reason: so many different things happen, different confrontations, scenes, behind-the-scenes challenges, financial plots. The shootouts are almost always quick and incidental. Finally the long-brewing confrontation between Harmonica and Frank occurs, and we learn how it all started, who Harmonica really is, and why he came to town. It’s ranked in the top 50 movies of all time, and the #3 western. (Unforgiven is the #2 western.)

31 50 First Dates

I knocked Notting Hill down a little because it gets silly at times, even though the ending is as good as an ending can be. You could say the same of 50 First Dates, which can be even sillier and more crude, but the actors make it work; you’re left feeling like it’s real, and possible, and even true. Drew Barrymore, in a mind-boggling performance, wakes up every day not remembering all that has happened since an accident years ago, while her family and friends try to protect her from the truth, and from everyone else, even fabricating false details and news so every day looks like the last (first) day she remembers. Adam Sandler, showing his dramatic depth, learns about her story and will not go away. He convinces the family that she deserves the truth, and commits to being with her; he eventually shows them how to start every day by showing her what happened, in a gentle and loving way, and then convinces her that he is in fact her boyfriend and eventually her husband, even though she doesn’t remember him. It is incredibly heartwarming to see her family accept that she can live in the real world, accept what has happened to her, and create a new family of her own, even though every day starts without her knowing any of it. And the ending is so unexpected and perfect, when you see them as a family, with kids, having left Hawaii to travel the world on their sailboat, still starting every day with her family, her husband, and her kids gently showing her what has happened in all the years since that accident.

32 Dirty Dancing (the original)

This has long been one of my favorite movies, but when I created this list, and then updated it over time, I kept finding other movies to rank higher. On any given day, I could move Dirty Dancing back into the top 20. Since Road House, Ghost, and Red Dawn are further down, this must be Patrick Swayze’s best performance. Seeing him stand up for Baby (Jennifer Grey), taking her from her parents’ table to a big finale of the talent show in front of everyone, is wonderful; seeing him tell the other guests that he won’t fall for their games or date them because of Baby, and tell the camp director Kellerman that they’re going to end this night differently, with a song he chooses; seeing her mother tell her father to sit down; seeing Swayze and Grey take on the big lift and then the whole staff and audience join them in a massive dance; all adds up to the celebration this movie, and the weeks leading up to this moment, deserve.

33 Unforgiven

Purely on its merits as a western, this would rank above Pale Rider and Silverado. It’s powerful and compelling, as bad people and a bad sheriff in a town allow too much violence against women. Clint Eastwood plays a retired gunfighter and outlaw who comes to this town to help the threatened women and an old friend (Morgan Freeman), and to get a bounty that will save his farm and his children. It is the top-rated and most-awarded Eastwood film, and seeing him bring out his old talents to destroy the corrupt sheriff and his team is powerful and satisfying. But Freeman is killed by the sheriff, and while Eastwood “wins” and moves away with his family, I have trouble ranking it as high because Freeman is killed. I like good endings, even if there’s a lot of violence along the way, and this movie left me just a little bit disturbed (as opposed to Pale Rider or Silverado, which are not as complex but leave all the good guys alive and the bad guys dead).

34 John Wick: Chapter 4

This is the best John Wick film by far (and I like all the John Wick movies). It feels like two or three movies: the High Table goes after Wick, destroying several Continental hotels in the process, even killing Wick’s oldest and closest friend; they force another old friend, Caine (Donnie Yen) back out of retirement to fight Wick, who kills several different groups of mercenaries as he goes after the High Table; he defeats hundreds of assassins who have been sent to kill him, before his final fight for his life against Caine and the Marquis. We’re used to seeing him win every battle, no matter how hard, no matter how bloody and damaged he gets. Even this one, he wins the final battle, achieving victory and freedom for himself, for Winston (the excommunicated hotel manager), and for Caine and his family, and it is the most triumphant victory we’ve seen in a John Wick movie. But he was wounded in the battle, and he dies. Just like Unforgiven, this is lower than its action and drama and triumph deserves because of the final death.

35 Hacksaw Ridge

Andrew Garfield is perhaps best known for his role as SpiderMan in the second series of SpiderMan films, and he plays that role with compassion and depth. He has also starred in Tick Tick BOOM!, Silence, Angels in America, The Social Network, and other films, but Hacksaw Ridge is his best and most compelling performance. I was completely surprised by it. He plays Desmond Doss, a real-life Seventh Day Adventist who joins the Army during World War II, but his unwillingness to carry a weapon causes much dissension within his unit. He is tormented, teased, and beaten up, and his bosses try to force him out, but he is defended by his father (a World War I veteran) and his father’s previous commander, who argue that he can’t be discharged for pacifism. He is brought with his unit to an attack on Hacksaw Ridge, where they have repeatedly failed in the past. As the men try to climb the cliff and are repeatedly shot or sent scrambling back, he hears some wounded soldiers at the top of the cliff. He disobeys orders and climbs the cliff, up and down all night long, bringing men back. He ends up saving 75 soldiers, which shocks the troops when they arrive the next morning. That day, his unit is again going to attack the cliff, but his captain apologizes for the way Desmond was treated before, and says they will not attack unless Desmond goes with them, because he’s proven how critical he is to their safety. Desmond won’t go until he finishes his prayers, and they wait. Credits at the end show Harry Truman awarding Desmond Doss the Medal of Honor for the lives he saved.

The movie feels like several different stories, about Desmond’s pacifism, his unit’s brutality towards him, his family history, but it’s all the backdrop to an amazing, tear-filled struggle to keep going, back up the cliff one more time, then one more time, over and over, until he’s rescued every wounded soldier stranded at the top. Watching this movie, you don’t see Andrew Garfield; you see this otherworldly, committed pacifist who doesn’t care what’s in his way or the risk to his own life; he’s going to keep saving wounded soldiers. It’s an extraordinary tale, made even more potent by being true.

36 Arrival

Denis Villeneuve has made some very good movies, including Dune, Dune: Part Two, Prisoners, and Blade Runner 2049, but Arrival is on a different level entirely. Because it’s a Denis Villeneuve movie, it’s complex, never clear about why things are going the way they’re going, and with an ending that is not quite complete. But along the way, the interactions among the military, the CIA, other nations, and the aliens all serve as both backdrop and encouragement for Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and Dr. Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) to keep pushing, persevering, challenging orders, and getting more engaged and forceful as the whole world gets more scared. Amy Adams has also been in lots of interesting and good shows and films, including Sharp Objects, The Fighter, Julie and Julia, Her, and as Lois Lane in the Justice League movies, but the Amy Adams we see here is a work of art, a gift, an embodiment of vulnerability and self-confidence. No one believes she can translate the aliens’ non-verbal speech but she makes rapid progress, even though she is stymied by the lack of cooperation among the other nations. Jeremy Renner is also great, better than in the Avengers or Mission: Impossible movies (but perhaps not as good as in Wind River). While everyone keeps trying to give up, and in fact we get to within literally seconds of war being declared, the aliens have learned to speak to Dr. Banks through her waking dreams, and while she is seeing things in the future, it suddenly becomes clear that she alone has the critical information necessary to stop the war and create true peace and cooperation. It’s suspenseful, a bit scary, and complicated—and for me, it’s an absolute joy to watch.

37 She Said

She Said is the powerful and important story that created the Me Too movement (and it’s the ninth true story on this list so far, after four in my top 15 plus Captain Phillips, Erin Brockovich, Apollo 13, and Hacksaw Ridge). New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey (who wrote the book She Said) start out covering various sexual abuse reports, including from women who were assaulted or harassed by Trump, but they pivot to Harvey Weinstein as they find unreported and covered-up settlements with actresses and assistants he’d assaulted. In terms of major events in history, it’s hugely important, and the work the reporters do (supported by their husbands who take on more and more parenting duties), while being threatened by formidable lawyers and entrenched institutions, is heroic. (Learning that the EEOC refused to release records of harassment, and even when women applying for jobs asked if there had been previous reports against the boss or the company, their “policy” forbid them from admitting these complaints existed, is horrifying.) Watching the movie, the word “beautiful” kept coming to mind, which is an odd word for such a traumatic film about evil men, but it’s the right word for watching Kantor and Twohey do their jobs so thoroughly. This story is similar to Spotlight and Official Secrets, but I ranked it lower because those other films were about underdogs and whistle blowers and buried secrets coming to light with the support of others; most of the victims in She Said stay off the record until the last minute, so the reporters are going to press with a story supported by deep background, rather than actual quotes. It doesn’t quite feel like an uprising to defend justice. Kantor and Twohey deserve huge credit for going forward anyway, and three victims finally agreed to be quoted; the New York Times story resulted in 82 other victims coming forward publicly over the next few weeks, creating the viral #MeToo movement and its beautiful slogan: We Were Never Silent. We Were Silenced.

38 Jason Bourne 3: The Bourne Ultimatum

The first three Jason Bourne movies are all good. The Bourne Ultimatum is the best of them. Each of the movies has violent scenes, an underlying plot of CIA corruption, and Jason Bourne remembering the people he’s killed, but not his past. They’re all suspenseful and engaging, but this one is more suspenseful, more frightening, and ultimately more heartwarming. It’s the only one that has a good ending: the CIA director and deputy director are both exposed by Bourne (and Pam Landy, with help from Nicky Parsons), and criminal charges are filed against them. The action scenes are great, the “asset” who lets Bourne go at the last moment is doing the right thing, and the last ten seconds are fantastic. (Nicky Parsons, now on the run because she helped Bourne, is watching a newscast where she learns that Bourne’s body has not been recovered. She smiles a slow grin that lights up her face and everything around her. It’s the triumphant ending we’ve waited to see through all these movies.) I liked the books, but they were complex, wordy, and at times hard to follow. These three movies are the way a book series should be translated to film, and this last one is, as far as I can tell, perfect. The chase never stops, Bourne’s commitment to ending the lies and secrecy never wavers, and we are never stop being afraid that he (and Pam and Nicky) won’t make it—until the last moment.

39 Silkwood

Silkwood is the tragic story of the well-known whistleblower Karen Silkwood (played by Meryl Streep, in what was called “the year’s most astounding performance”, joined by Kurt Russell and Cher, who combined play completely normal, everyday people, despite the awful circumstances). It is powerful and painful, most significantly because after all her work to uncover and document the Kerr-McGee radiation “leaks” that have contaminated many workers, including intentionally exposing Silkwood on at least three occasions, and the false safety records that deny it, she is killed while driving those documents to a New York Times reporter. No one is ever found guilty of her murder and the documents mysteriously disappear. Kerr-McGee has denied wrongdoing, but they did eventually agree to a settlement with Silkwood’s estate.

40 Remember the Titans

This is an amazing mostly true movie. (They took some liberties with the timeline and the scores in games.) I watch it every few years and am never disappointed. When it starts out with tension between the newly-integrated black and white players on a high school football team (the Titans), you think you know where it’s going; when the school board places the new black coach (Denzel Washington) above the veteran white coach, you’re even more sure you know where it’s going. And you’re wrong. As this movie goes along, the team learns to work together; the couple who won’t, who are smug about their talents, are removed. The coaches work together. The team realizes how good they can be if they work together and create a goofy song and dance, which baffles the other teams. (“We are the Titans, the mighty mighty Titans.”) When the school board conspires to throw the final game, as a pretext to fire the black coach, the white coach challenges the referees, threatening to expose the whole plot, and the Titans go on to win. The closing captions show what happened to all the players and coaches in the following years, and it’s uplifting. It might seem a little silly, and it didn’t get all the attention it deserves, but I don’t think anyone could watch it without liking it a lot, or without watching it again.

41 Casablanca

42 Top Gun: Maverick

43 The Matrix

44 The Matrix Resurrections

45 Working Girl

I named my first child after Melanie Griffiths in this movie. Does that tell you everything you need to know about it? Griffiths is tired of being denigrated and ignored by her male colleagues, despite having a business degree and repeatedly fixing problems for them, so she quits. She is then hired by a respected and accomplished female executive (Sigourney Weaver in the nastiest role of her career); Griffiths thinks that because Weaver has succeeded, she’ll help her along. But Weaver steals ideas from Griffiths and secretly holds her back. Griffiths decides to proceed with a recommendation for a big acquisition on her own, while Weaver is out injured; she meets Harrison Ford, and convinces him that her idea will work. It turns out that Ford has been in a relationship with Weaver and was hoping to end it before he met Griffiths, but Weaver’s injury put that on hold. At the climax, as the deal is going forward, Weaver reappears and accuses Griffiths of stealing the idea, and being a secretary rather than a business associate. Griffiths leaves in disgrace. But as she is cleaning out her office, Ford comes to her, asks some questions, and then drags her back into the conference room, where she explains the flaw in the deal. Weaver tries to deny it. Griffiths asks her to prove how she came up with the idea. She can’t. The board asks Griffiths and Ford for their version, and Ford steps back, offering to let Griffiths prove herself. She does. She gets put in charge of the acquisition, gets a massive promotion—and Sigourney Weaver gets fired. It is exactly the right ending for the horrible person she has been all along. I saw this film while my wife was pregnant, so yes, I named our daughter after Melanie Griffiths.

46 Lake House

A lot of viewers and reviewers have been confused by the time element, even saying it doesn’t make sense, but it’s a wonderful movie. Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock are in totally unexpected roles, with an astounding time distortion element as he gradually realizes that the letters they’re exchanging are not in the same time period; he’s sending letters that she’s reading in his future, and she’s replying to him in his past. He uses that knowledge to meet her in her past, where he sees her with her partner. He doesn’t tell her who he is, that she will eventually meet him when their timelines align. But we soon find that in her time, he has died, and the recent trauma of her life has caused her to abandon her life’s goals. Her last letter to him is when she is packing up and moving, away from the house that he will soon live in. He promises to meet her on a specific date, at a nice restaurant, but he doesn’t show up. She is angry, but as she tries to find out where he is, who he is, what happened, she realizes that he died. And there might be something she can do about it. It’s got all the drama of You’ve Got Mail, where they each so want to find the other. I’ve watched it three times, and I’ll watch it again. While some people say the time element just can’t work, I don’t agree. Given what they are both learning throughout the film, they absolutely can put the pieces together and change what’s “supposed” to happen. They get rewarded for caring and trying, as they very much should. I applaud the struggle and triumph in this movie just as much as I do with Working Girl.

47 The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King)

48 Dune: Part Two

49 Promising Young Woman

50 Captain Fantastic

51 Sully

52 The Thomas Crown Affair (1999, with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo)

The first one, from 1968, is silly and not particularly credible; there’s no way the main characters, the rich investor and the insurance investigator pursuing him, would actually fall for each other, nor would he make the mistakes he makes. The remake fixes all those problems with a flourish, including some clever homages to the original film: the glider plane he flies her in, a short laugh when he completes a theft (much much better than the goofy long forced laughs from the first film), even the Oscar-winning song from the original version (The Windmills of Your Mind) is played during the closing credits. It’s all clever, but also completely credible: you believe that the rich investor Brosnan (Thomas Crown, of Crown Acquisitions) would let Russo (Catherine Banning, the insurance investigator) into life, and dance with her, and find a path out of his criminal past to be with her. You also believe that he would steal the paintings that he does, because he’s not doing it to sell them, but to keep them privately; he even steals her favorite painting to give to her (but she sends it back). The burglaries he sets up are exciting and superb; he returns the most important painting that he stole, despite the museum being on total lockdown, even telling Russo that he will return the painting at a specific time; she thinks she’s found evidence that he’s cheating on her with a forger; she is conflicted about what to do with this information, but her feelings are hurt and she decides her job is to capture him and the forger. But he is actually the forger’s guardian, and has protected and cared for her all her life; he gets her away safely and successfully returns the painting. Russo realizes that she has been wrong, and no longer has any reason to pursue him, leaving both of them free to move forward, but she is devastated (and crying) that she’s wrecked her chance at a life with him. And then the final scene happens, in a plane, as she is leaving the country to fly home, heartbroken. Sitting quietly behind her, he offers her a handkerchief. She leaps up and over the seat, attacking him, and just as the flight crew rushes over, they realize that Brosnan and Russo are in fact crying, kissing, and hugging desperately, the prelude to starting their new lives together.

53 Superman (the original, it launched with the tagline “you’ll believe a man can fly”, and it makes your heart fly)

54 The Map of Tiny Perfect Things

This is one of my favorite movies. It’s not ranked higher because a lot of people think the time loop element is silly or far-fetched, but just like Lake House, it makes everything work.

55 Road House (the original, not the silly Amazon remake)

56 The Warriors To people who saw this when it was new, or have seen it since, it’s a classic, but most people have never heard of it.

57 Rob Roy

58 The Avengers The one that started everything

59 The Italian Job (2003)

60 Dead Poets Society (despite the ending, which is tragic enough that it might wreck the movie)

61 Saving Private Ryan

There are (long) stretches of this movie where it’s superb, starting with the horrifying D-Day launch on the beach in Normandy, where many soldiers died. It then turns into a different movie, when Army Ranger Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) is sent to find James Ryan (Matt Damon), the only surviving brother of the four who went to fight in World War II. Miller handpicks a small crew to accompany him on a dangerous journey through Nazi-occupied territory; most of them do not support putting their lives at risk to save one lost paratrooper. (General George Marshall had ordered this search, quoting a passage from Abraham Lincoln, in order to avoid Ryan’s family losing their last son.) After more battles and several more deaths, they finally find Ryan—who refuses to abandon his post and go home. There’s uncertainly and argument, and eventually Captain Miller decides that his remaining team will stay to protect the Merderet River bridge (and James Ryan). Unfortunately, while Ryan does survive and return home, Miller and his team do not. Much of the movie is suspenseful, chaotic, and compelling, but much of it also tragic, traumatic, and painful.

62 State of Play

This is a great movie, with excellent acting from Russell Crowe and Rachel McAdams, a challenging story about several innocent people being killed and a developing connection between a congressman (Ben Affleck) and a defense contractor. Crowe and McAdams are two investigators working separately on two different stories, and they each find information that can help the other. As they share information, other witnesses are killed. They get closer to the assassin and realize it’s not all pointing back to the defense contractor; yes, the defense contractor is corrupt, and Affleck is trying to expose them; but Affleck has a deeper, hidden connection to the assassin, and to the victims. This film is a beautiful homage to the old days of investigative journalism, and when Crowe decides at the end to give credit and the lead byline to McAdams, you feel like they have both played their part with commitment and integrity. This film would be ranked higher, but it’s not a true story and therefore doesn’t have the same historical impact.

63 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

64 Lawrence of Arabia

65 Mad Max: Fury Road

66 Interstellar

67 Deadpool and Wolverine

I never thought a Deadpool movie could make it into my recommended list, but this one popped out of nowhere to fly up this list. It’s a Deadpool movie, so there’s no surprise when the movie opens with extreme gore and violence. (Deadpool and Wolverine are both nearly invulnerable and have regenerative healing.) But the violence alone would not put it on this list. There are just so many clever scenes, tributes, and homages to other characters, starting with Logan (who died in the movie Logan) being found in multiple different universes, and the “right” Logan joining Deadpool to help him get back to his family and universe. The Time Variance Authority is terrible and pointless, as it always is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (I hope they kill the TVA soon.) On the other hand, this is by far the best treatment of the multiverse in any MCU film or show: there are sound reasons for the travel between dimensions, some interesting universes explored, and it never feels forced or false. But the real highlights are the surprising appearances by other characters: Elektra, Gambit, Sabretooth, Blade, the Human Torch (played by Chris Evans, who Deadpool assumes is actually Captain America from his universe), and most importantly, X-23/Laura (Dafne Keen), in scene after scene. When Wolverine first sees her, he tells her he is the wrong man for the job, and she says he was always the wrong man, until he wasn’t. She decapitates Juggernaut. She takes his protective helmet to Wolverine. When it seems like she, Elektra, Gambit, and Blade have lost to overwhelming odds, we forget just how talented they are, and some minutes later we see they have survived and won. When Wolverine and Deadpool make it back to Paradox and the TVA, they find that Cassandra Nova is about to destroy the universe. They work together to stop her, and we think that they have died (and that Paradox has successfully lied about his role in all this, claiming the role of the hero who saved the sacred timeline). But yet again, we have underestimated Logan and Deadpool, and they come back to expose Paradox, who is arrested, and they negotiate for the return of their friends from the “Void”. In almost the last scene, we see them all reunited with family in Deadpool’s universe—and we see that X-23 has joined the family. (It was and is very easy to root for her to be the new Wolverine, and soon.)

As I said at the top, I never thought a Deadpool movie could be this good: not just fun, not just violent, but a clever and rewarding romp with wonderful and important characters as they hit dead ends, find new paths, reunite joyously, and prevail.

68 Brubaker

69 Unstoppable

70 The Last Castle

71 Walk the Line

72 Dune

73 Mamma Mia

74 The Sound of Music

75 The Outfit

76 The Natural

77 Ghost

78 Good Night, and Good Luck

79 The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

80 The Thing

81 Die Hard 

This was the first film in the franchise, and one of the two best. (The third one, Die Hard with a Vengeance, is the other great one.) This movie doesn’t have the complexity or depth of many other films on my list; it’s just a lot of fun. Bruce Willis (playing John McClane) is estranged from his wife, trying to put one foot in front of another, confused and adrift, when thieves (posing as terrorists, led by an incredible Alan Rickman) break into the building where McClane is waiting for his wife. McClane is not sure why he’s been invited to this “Christmas” event. Next thing you know, McClane is in way over his head, everyone else is captured or dead, and Willis gets broken, tortured, and bloody before escaping through a window. He then realizes they’re not actually terrorists, but thieves with a grand plan, which includes blowing up the building—and all the remaining hostages—to cover their tracks. So what is a police detective with bloody bare feet supposed to do on Christmas Eve? Save the hostages. Stop the thieves. Take them all down.

82 Die Hard With a Vengeance

This is probably better than the first one, but this one doesn’t exist if not for the first one—and that first one holds up to endless rewatching, while this third one is not quite as engaging once you’ve seen it once or twice.

83 Avengers: Infinity War

84 The Trial of the Chicago 7

85 Terminator 2: Judgment Day

86 Snowden

I started donating to The Guardian after watching this film when it came out in theaters, and I’ve been donating ever since. It’s a vital and important story. I “knew” about the mostly-illegal FISA surveillance from the 2000s, the secret courts authorizing this surveillance without ever disclosing it or the information collected, and Edward Snowden having leaked some information before being forced to flee to Russia. What I did not know is that all of this was exposed by Snowden; that he is the only reason the American public found out about FISA and the secret courts. I stood up and applauded at the end; only two or three other people applauded. It’s a disturbing film, and Snowden’s legacy remains mixed, but the work he and The Guardian did exposing these illegal activities is much more important than his technical “crime”.

87 Coherence

88 A Simple Favor

89 Les Miserables

90 Thor: Ragnarok

91 Zodiac

92 The Truman Show

93 Star Trek: First Contact

94 Star Wars: A New Hope

95 Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

96 The Princess Bride

97 Jurassic Park

98 The Hunt for Red October

99 Crimson Tide

100 The Iron Giant

This is the only animated film on my list. All my kids watched it with me years ago, and kept it on their favorites list. Some, like me, go back to watch it again regularly. It’s rated #7 on the Top 100 Animated Films. In the 1950s, a young boy finds a robot (The Iron Giant) and, after initially running away, he finds himself helping the giant robot and, as the government hunts for it, helping to hide it. Gradually, the boy learns that the robot is friendly, curious, but also has automatic defense and self-repair capabilities. After an accident, the robot realizes he almost killed the boy and runs away in despair. The boy, his mother, and a local “beatnik” follow and protect the Iron Giant, who in turn saves some local townspeople, causing them to join his side. The government keeps coming and, for mixed reasons, ends up firing a missile to destroy the town. The Iron Giant saves them, sacrificing himself. Just as we are reeling from that tragic ending, we remember (and see) that the Iron Giant had self-repair capabilities, and realize that he might be coming back. It’s both amazing and satisfying when a film brings you on its side, crushes you with a tragedy, and then offers hope.

101 The Equalizer 1

102 The Fugitive

This movie does in two hours what the TV series took four seasons and umpteen hours to do: wraps it all up successfully. Despite having chased and caught him (Harrison Ford), the Marshal (Tommy Lee Jones) recognizes that the fugitive is innocent and, once they are safely in his car, takes his handcuffs off. While the TV show was one of the best ever, and its ending episode was the most-watched episode for years, until the M*A*S*H finale, it also hit us too many times with the fugitive being caught, not believed, mistreated, and escaping again. The episodic nature and long-running nature of the show lost too much of the suspense and joy. The Fugitive movie delivers on both the suspense and the joy, in a somewhat breathless and fast-paced format. The movie would not exist if the show had not been so successful in the sixties, but the movie delivers on the promise that the show dangled.

103 Avatar

104 The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

105 The Usual Suspects

106 The Terminator

107 Edge of Tomorrow

108 Baby Driver

109 High Plains Drifter

110 Knives Out

111 All the President’s Men

112 Pig

113 Raiders of the Lost Ark

114 Forrest Gump

115 Causeway

116 Silver Linings Playbook

117 E.T. the Extra Terrestrial

118 Moneyball

119 Witness

120 Michael Clayton

121 Knight and Day

122 Free Guy

123 Taken

124 Rocky

125 The Sixth Sense

126 Brooklyn

127 Hoosiers

128 Ford v. Ferrari

129 Captain America: The First Avenger

130 Avatar 2: The Way of Water

131 Batman Begins

132 Good Will Hunting

133 Warrior

134 Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

135 Inside Man

This movie is so close to being perfect, so close to being in my top 50. Clive Owen is wonderful, presenting himself as a bank robber, but it takes almost the entire movie before we realize that he’s really out to expose and bring down Christopher Plummer for being a war criminal. He organizes a gang of seemingly-random people to help him with the burglary, and it is again only late in the movie before we realize that several of the “hostages” interrogated by the police are in fact part of his crew. Jodie Foster is the “fixer” hired by Plummer and working with the mayor of New York City; her acting is great, but her character is too questionable, too unreliable, for me to root for her. (She is, after all, a rich fixer working for questionable rich men.) Denzel Washington is the police detective trying to apprehend Owen. If the movie was shorter, if it didn’t have some odd tangents about translators and random strangers, if it didn’t have Owen successfully eavesdropping on the detectives (and Foster), if Foster had not gotten in so deep with Plummer—in short, if it stayed focused on the clever misdirections and the extremely clever robbery and the ultimate exposure of Plummer, it would be 100 spots higher on this list.

136 Ip Man 1, Ip Man 2

The Ip Man series is the best action series other than John Wick and The Equalizer. These are the two best in the series. It is loosely based on the true story of Ip Man, the legendary Wing Chun martial arts master who taught Bruce Lee, among others. Note that Ip Man is a Chinese name, so Ip is his last name and Man is his first name. I only knew Donnie Yen from Rogue One and as the mentor to Mulan in the wonderful live action version of Mulan, so I was blown away when I saw him as Ip Man. (I had not seen his Chinese martial arts movies or Jackie Chan movies.) When John Wick 4 came out, with Yen as a co-star, his performance as Caine was the same as his work as Ip Man: extraordinary, synchronized, immaculate.

137 Inglourious Basterds

This Tarantino film has so many fun moments (and several excruciating scenes of abuse), an almost failure, an activist group succeeding in their uprising, and a final success when the bad guy, granted a pardon by the Allies and promised a life of freedom, is captured and branded (against orders) with a large Nazi swastika, by the men who have been hunting him and decide they won’t accept his freedom without some touch of vengeance. The only problem is that Hitler wasn’t actually killed in real life, so when he is killed in the movie, it feels like a Twilight Zone episode, and I never got past that feeling of disconnection and dishonesty.

138 Captain America: The Winter Soldier; Captain America: Civil War

These are two different movies. The problem is that neither one is quite complete on its own. The Winter Soldier has some amazing scenes, and perhaps the best fight scene (the elevator scene) in any Marvel movie, but the ending is far-fetched and almost tedious. Civil War has some fantastic moments, and deep emotional pull, but it basically wrecks the Avengers team. If these two movies had been combined and shortened (by reducing several unnecessarily long scenes), it might be in my top twenty.

139 Do Revenge

This movie drags a bit in the beginning, seeming to involve irrelevant points and characters, but it all happens for a reason. It’s totally worth the confusion, as it gets more twisted, adds a lot of backstory, puts both good and bad characters in unexpected places, challenges the one you think is the hero, finally explains how we got here, and ultimately creates an alliance of students who will change everything. It’s a lot of fun; I got to the end wanting to watch it again (which I did, grinning off and on, now that I knew what was coming).

140 Gladiator

141 Hamilton

142 Logan

143 1917

144 The Outlaw Josey Wales

145 Signs

146 Tombstone

147 Amadeus

148 Godzilla Minus One

149 Equalizer 3

150 The Beekeeper

Jason Statham has made many action films, some of them silly, many with good fight scenes, and some with unnecessarily dramatic interventions by outside agencies. This one surprised me; it’s his best, and even though there are strained moments (the President’s son is truly evil, his agency has destroyed the lives of thousands of innocent people, she is oblivious, the deputy director of the FBI is not credible, the mercenaries hired by Lazarus are somehow allowed to protect the President, despite their obvious violence and criminal past), the good guys do the right thing at every choice point, Statham is exactly as clever and almost-indestructible as he’s supposed to be, and the innocent victim who started the whole thing with her death is avenged. This might be better than Equalizer 3 and John Wick 3; but it might not be.

151 John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

152 Batman (1989, with Michael Keaton)

153 Witch

154 Independence Day

155 Captain Marvel

156 The Verdict

157 Groundhog Day

158 Duel

159 Mississippi Burning

160 Jaws

161 A Quiet Place

162 Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

163 The Batman

164 Pretty Woman

165 Cast Away

166 Source Code

167 The Day After Tomorrow

168 12 Angry Men

169 All is Lost

170 Argo

171 Big

172 Red Dawn (the original, still fun even though it’s dated)

173 Sisu

174 Frost/Nixon

175 Greyhound

176 Mary Poppins

177 True Grit (2010, the original one is also fun and lively, but this remake is twice as good)

178 Vesper

179 Footloose

180 Minority Report (this movie, with about thirty silly minutes edited out, would be superb, certainly in my Top 100)

181 Old Guard (except for the ending)

182 The Martian

183 Contact

184 Hunt for the Wilderpeople

185 Hustle

186 The Peanut Butter Falcon

187 Prey (Predators prequel, the best of the Predator films)

188 Palm Springs

190 Rambo

191 Lucy

192 Django Unchained

193 Carrie (the 1976 original)

194 Dunkirk

195 Something Wild

196 Speed

197 Cool Hand Luke

198 True Romance

Other Comments

These films would all have been ranked high on this list except for the specific flaws noted below

A Star is Born - 2018 (Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper)

Bradley Cooper produced and directed this film. Lady Gaga wrote or co-wrote the main songs. Cooper, Lady Gaga, and Sam Elliot are extraordinary throughout the story. This could be near the very top of my list, but the story takes a bad, dark turn (the same dark turn that previous versions took, but that doesn’t make it right).

Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper), is a famous singer, and also an alcoholic no longer at the top of his game, although his fans still fall over for him at every show. He meets Ally (Lady Gaga) at a drag bar, where she is performing that night. (That’s not normal at a drag bar, but they all love her and make a permanent exception for her.) Jackson Maine is blown away by her performance, and she is shocked to meet him. They wander out together, where she spontaneously writes a song that is more-or-less about him. Next thing we know, he sends his driver to pick her up and fly her by charter flight to his performance. She resists, but ends up going. She is brought backstage and he tells her he’s going to sing her song and wants her onstage with him. She resists again, and he says he’s going to sing it with or without her, but it would be better with her.

He starts singing, she joins him, she takes over the mic, her vocals swell and rise and soar, and the audience goes wild. Those five minutes are perhaps the best five minutes ever in any film. I sing this song out loud any time I hear it played; I don’t care who is looking at me. It’s pure brilliance.

This movie is on many Top 10 lists. It would be near the top of my list as well, except for the dark turn: Jackson Maine kills himself. Worse, he does so because Ally, once she becomes famous, is lied to by her agent, who then blocks and misrepresents the communication between she and Jackson. Before this happen, Jackson has helped make Ally famous, and she has rescued, rehabilitated, and married him. For a good chunk of the film, they perform together. They’ve brought out the best in each other. Her three best songs in this film are among the best ever performed in any movie. This could so easily have been a triumphant, joyous success story, easily the best version of this tale. But that’s not the way A Star is Born ever works: the lead singer always brings along the novice singer, she saves him, something nefarious happens, and he kills himself. This time, it is horrifying.

Any little change could have saved it: the agent didn’t have to lie, Jackson could have told Ally what he’d been told by the agent, either one of them could have answered the freaking phone. Instead, everything goes wrong, and Jackson Maine kills himself. Ally is heartbroken, and then sings the amazing song, “I’ll Never Love Again”, at his funeral service. But instead of appreciating the perfect song, we’re furious that they forced this death to happen.

The need to have the story go bad ruins what would otherwise be an almost-perfect film. How can I recommend a film that passes up so many opportunities to end well, in a concerted effort to make sure Bradley Cooper kills himself and Lady Gaga’s life is torn apart?

Bohemian Rhapsody

This film has a problem similar to that of A Star is Born, though even without the dark part, it would not have been at the top of my list the way A Star is Born would have been. The third quarter of the movie ruins it. It starts with a struggling band losing their singer, and then Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek, Farrokh, not yet calling himself Freddie Mercury) talks his way into their group. They work together for a bit, write some songs, get a producer, and suddenly they are Queen. The band in the film is every bit as good as the real-life Queen. They don’t back down for anyone; they create their own path, their own music, and reinvent new approaches, new ways of reaching their audience. When their producer refuses to release Bohemian Rhapsody (how stupid do you have to be not to recognize Bohemian Rhapsody for the masterpiece that it is?), Freddie tells him that he will forever be known as the man who lost Queen. The first half, watching them come together and light the entire world with their performances, is gorgeous. Then Freddie goes down a bad path, with drugs and sex, and leaves the band. That quarter of the movie is terrible to watch and completely unnecessary. Freddie finally realizes that he has ruined his life, his marriage, his band, and humbly asks them to take him back. They aren’t sure, but he agrees to everything they ask. And then, for the last twenty minutes, they perform at Live Aid.

If you didn’t have the chance to see Live Aid when it was streamed live in 1985, the twenty minutes of it in this movie are even better. Queen was the best part of the show then and clearly is now; the audience knows it, contributions come pouring in, the whole audience screams, and cries, and dances. You see old people, young people, young people with their parents, singing along to all the words. When I saw it live, back in 1985, I donated money when Queen came on. If you watch the end of this movie, over and over, you’ll want to support Live Aid and Queen and the Freddie Mercury foundation.

The film version of the band Queen is spectacular. Rami Malik is spectacular.

But the third quarter of the movie is so grotesque that I can’t recommend the film (unless you fast forward as soon as Freddie is corrupted by Paul and don’t watch again until he kicks Paul out and asks Queen to take him back).

Braveheart

For most of the film, Braveheart is superb. But how can I recommend a movie where the hero is captured and dies painfully at the end?

Buried (Ryan Reynolds, in an amazing performance)

I watched my daughter watch this film, gasping and crying and holding tight to our kitchen countertop. It’s a suspenseful, dramatic, heart-pounding movie, but throughout, you think they’ll keep persevering until they rescue the man who is buried alive. Things go wrong, but they keep trying. He’s on the phone with a State Department hostage rescue team, and he’s begging, while they keep saying they’re getting close. (His employers have already disowned him, and canceled his family’s pension and benefits, to separate themselves from responsibility for his capture. The FBI has refused to help.) They finally break into the coffin where he’s buried, while talking to him on the phone, as he’s down to his last breaths. Just wait, they say, we found you.

Except he’s not in that coffin. They’re “rescuing” someone who’s already dead. No one knows where he is, and he dies.

If you’re going to show a powerful, suspenseful movie where the rescuers keep trying and the hero keeps begging and crying and they’re in communication the whole time, and throw in some corporate dishonesty and corruption as well, then rescue the frigging guy at the end.

Identity

This movie was nearly perfect throughout. It is spooky and mysterious, with layer upon layer. We don’t know if what we’re seeing is true. (Spoiler: it’s not.) Characters come together to help each other, to investigate things, to dig for the truth, but we’re always wondering why so many odd things are happening, and who the culprits really are. We gradually see more parts of the backstory revealed, as the show keeps switching between the present and the past. Some characters make us uncomfortable. We cheer for some.

But throughout it all, there’s a building sense that someone with dissociative identity disorder plays a role here. And when that finally comes fully out into the open, and we see the various parts come into conflict and then come together, and we finally see it resolved, with the character “healed” in a satisfying way. At this point, I thought it was one of the best movies ever.

But then there’s a little extra piece at the end. There’s another character underneath, and he/she is now free, and she’s on the loose killing people. Take away that last minute, it’s a fantastic movie. With that last minute, I wanted to throw up. I’ve watched it twice, fearing the ending, then hating the ending. It’s hard to recommend, but I added the spoiler so if you’re comfortable with that ending, you might really love this film.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978 remake, with Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, Jeff Goldblum, and Veronica Cartwright)

I was captivated throughout this movie, despite watching character after character captured and turned into “pod people” (emotionless creatures who take over the life and form of the humans they replace). Despite the obstacles, it kept seeming that some would eventually escape and the government would learn about and stop the pod people (as in the 1956 version). This version had more suspense, better characters, better acting, more escapes, more successes (and more deaths); in every way it felt like a hero’s journey against mounting odds. Even in the last minutes, we think the final two surviving characters have made it, with Sutherland burning down a warehouse full of pods. In the next scene, he sees Nancy, the last surviving character, and she runs to him, at which point he points to her and emits the piercing scream of the pod people. The pod people had won. I no longer cared how good the movie was; I wanted to scream and throw things.

King Kong (2005) (Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, Jack Black)

Peter Jackson created his dream movie here, and both Naomi Watts and Adrien Brody are incredible. Jack Black, who is usually a fun and engaging person, here plays the most despicable, self-centered, greedy lout I’ve ever seen (despite which, the other characters keep saving him, until Watts finally turns down a huge fortune he offers her because she won’t have anything to do with him anymore). It’s almost two movies (it’s more than three hours long), with the first two thirds an incredible adventure, race, discovery of a prehistoric island, battles against huge creatures, and eventualy capture of the terrifying King Kong (“the eighth wonder of the world), and the last piece of the movie the display of Kong, his escape, his romance with Watts, and her deep devotion to him. In many ways, this is a great film, but being a Kong movie, the corporate interests will of course find a way to kill him. If Jackson had resisted that urge and found a way to let Watts and Brody save Kong and take him to safety and freedom, this would be one of my favorite movies (despite how horrible Black’s character is). But I can’t recommend a movie that comes so close to being humane and loving, and then kills Kong anyway.

Se7en (Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt)

Similar in many ways to Identity, this movie is suspenseful throughout, with layer upon layer, as two detectives (Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt) following false trails but keep getting back on track, until they finally find the guy, “John Doe”. It’s called Se7en because Doe has played a cat-and-mouse game with clues leading to murders based on each of the seven deadly sins. And it’s all ruined in the last minute, when the villain, codenamed John Doe, delivers his last “clue”, the severed head of Pitt’s pregnant wife (Gwyneth Paltrow), leading to Pitt killing him and being arrested. I spoiled the ending here, as I did with Burial above, because this ending is such a disservice to Freeman and Pitt and the work they’ve done to this point. The studio felt that the ending was too bleak and filmed alternate endings, but the cast and director insisted on the tragic ending. It became a very popular movie, and is still considered a classic in large part because of the bleak ending; one critic said the “happier” endings would have turned it into typical detective fodder and the bleak ending is what makes it succeed. Perhaps, but for me, it makes it a horrible film to watch.

2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, Apocalypse Now, Psycho, The Godfather

These are also not on my list, because while they are each well-made, they are much too disturbing for me to recommend.