Top 275 Favorite Films

Charlie Kaufman's screenplay for "Adaptation." (2002) has it three ways. It is wickedly playful in its construction, it gets the story told, and it doubles back and kids itself. There is also the sense that to some degree it's true: that it records the torments of a screenwriter who doesn't know how the hell to write a movie about orchids. And it has the audacity to introduce characters we know are based on real people and has them do shocking things.-Roger Ebert

*Top 10

He was, of course, the greatest. He told us so himself. We believed him then. We believe him now. In "Ali," we believe it because we believe Will Smith in the role. If Michael Mann's biopic of Muhammad Ali is not right up there with "Raging Bull," it misses by only a whisker.-Bob Graham

In another way, Ridley Scott's 1979 movie is a great original. It builds on the seminal opening shot of "Star Wars" (1977), with its vast ship in lonely interstellar space, and sidesteps Lucas' space opera to tell a story in the genre of traditional "hard" science fiction; with its tough-talking crew members and their mercenary motives, the story would have found a home in John W. Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction during its nuts-and-bolts period in the 1940s. Campbell loved stories in which engineers and scientists, not space jockeys and ray-gun blasters, dealt with outer space in logical ways.-Roger Ebert

Cameron is very clever in the way he sets up the tension. Again, much like Ridley Scott, for most of the film the true horror isn’t in what you see but what you think you are seeing. You get fleeting glances of the aliens – only enough to project images into your mind. In a sense, Cameron has the audience paste these brief images together in their minds to create what these deadly creatures look like. It isn’t until the very end that we get an unhindered look at them. I still remember the first time I saw the film. The brief camera shots of the creatures in motion really created a sense of tension and suspense.-Anonymous

The much-ballyhooed revelation about Ripley’s physical condition struck many in ’92 as unforgivably mean but, in retrospect, it plays like the natural evolution of the franchise’s running birth-mother-child subtexts, downbeat thematic threads well-suited to Fincher’s gloomy, cynical Christ-like conclusion. Alien³’s emotional and spiritual desolation is encapsulated by Fury 161’s inhabitants, led by homicidal rapist-turned-preacher Dillon (an intense, empathetic Charles S. Dutton), whose severe faith maintains tenuous order in the compound and is tested – to negative consequences – by the appearance of the female Ripley. In the assembly cut’s finest addition, the alien, having been successfully trapped by Ripley and company, is released from captivity by Golic (Paul McGann), a disturbed lunatic enraptured by the extraterrestrial “dragon.” It’s an act of fanatical faith-run-fatally-amok that sums up the film’s disdainful critique of religion, merely another dead-end avenue for salvation in a random, vicious universe where hope is a fool’s luxury and even the altruistic sacrifice of heroes is less likely to grant others deliverance than merely provide said martyr with a true, final means of escape.-Anonymous

A tour de force self-portrait by the brilliant writer-director-choreographer Bob Fosse, as seamlessly impersonated in a career-peak turn from Roy Scheider. This darkly funny dramedy ranges from the dance floor to the casting couch to one of the most incredibly vivid near-death experiences ever captured in a fiction feature. One viewing and you’ll never forget the comic/tragic nuances of Fosse’s shower mantra, with pills and the day’s first cigarette.-David Lamble

“All the President’s Men” is a quintessential American movie: It does a lot of things well and makes it all look simple. It works on several levels. Most important, in terms of getting seen, it works as a superstar genre movie, a shared male adventure, a “buddy” picture, an entertainment. As, respectively, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman are reporters, make us share their exhilaration because the care about their big story.-Joseph Gelmis

*Top 10 Most movies about artists (painters, composers, authors, etc.) tend to be dull and uninspired, rendering the subject of the film far less interesting than his or her work. "Amadeus" is an exception. In fact, it is arguably the best motion picture ever made about the process of creation and the creator.-James Berardinelli

In part that's because "American Gangster" is conscious of its place in that tough guy continuum. Visual and thematic references to classics such as "The Godfather," "Once Upon a Time in America" and "The Asphalt Jungle" show that director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Steven Zaillian are quite aware of their film's place in history. More than that, with Oscar-winning costars Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe joining forces with Scott and Zaillian, two of the best at what they do, "American Gangster" is mindful of continuing another tradition, that of sweeping, old-school epic filmmaking that artfully heightens reality even if it's based on the gritty facts of the Harlem drug trade of the 1970s.-Kenneth Turan

It's just as well a woman directed "American Psycho." She's transformed a novel about blood lust into a movie about men's vanity. A male director might have thought Patrick Bateman, the hero of "American Psycho," was a serial killer because of psychological twists, but Mary Harron sees him as a guy who's prey to the usual male drives and compulsions. He just acts out a little more.-Roger Ebert

The film shimmers with the irresistible pleasures that define Hollywood at its best -- it's polished like glass, funny, knowing and bright, and filled with characters whose lives are invariably sexier and more purposeful than our own.-Manohla Dargis

Mixing everything from animation to split-screen effects, Allen handles the technical aspects of the production with complete self-assurance. But if his direction is richer and more authoritative than before, it is because the writer-comic side of him is more exposed than it has ever been; for a shy, introspective man famous for being fiercely protective about his private life, Allen reveals a great deal about his anxieties inner yearning and personality (he is, unmistakably, a born pessimist) in this wonderfully poignant picture.-Kathleen Carroll

Ron Howard's soaring salute to space exploration, lifts off with a payload of the right stuff—courage, can-do, grace under pressure and other qualities derided as machismo by some and applauded as old-fashioned values by others. Whatever, few recent movies have explored these virtues with as much eager enthusiasm as Howard's latest effort.-Rita Kempley

What's particularly perceptive is the way, after her suicide attempt, she hauls herself together and actually gives Sheldrake another chance. Like Baxter, she has not been forced into job prostitution, but chosen it. One of the ways this is an adult picture and not a sitcom is the way it takes Baxter and Miss Kubelik so long to make the romantic leap; they aren't deluded fools, but jaded realists who have given up on love and are more motivated by paychecks. There is a wonderful, wicked, delicacy in the way Wilder handles the final scene, and finds the right tender-tough note in the last lines of the screenplay.-Roger Ebert

In any event, seen again now at a distance of 20 years, "Apocalypse Now" is more clearly than ever one of the key films of the century. Most films are lucky to contain a single great sequence. "Apocalypse Now" strings together one after another, with the river journey as the connecting link.-Roger Ebert

Only someone with a heart of stone could fail to love a drunk like Arthur Bach, who spends his wasted days in a poignant search for someone who will love him, will care for him, will inflame his passions, and soothe his pain, and who, most of all, will laugh at his one-liners. Arthur is such a servant of humanity that he even dedicates himself to thinking up new one-liners and holding them in reserve, lest he be unprepared if someone walks into his life and needs a laugh, quick.-Roger Ebert

Marvel's "The Avengers" is such a pure and unadulterated comic-book movie that it will bring you to tears.-James Hoare

Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator" wisely focuses on the glory years, although we can see the shadows falling, and so can Hughes. Some of the film's most harrowing moments show him fighting his demons; he knows what is normal and sometimes it seems almost within reach."The Aviator" celebrates Scorsese's zest for finding excitement in a period setting, re-creating the kind of glamor he heard about when he was growing up. It is possible to imagine him wanting to be Howard Hughes. Their lives, in fact, are even a little similar: Heedless ambition and talent when young, great early success, tempestuous romances and a dark period, although with Hughes it got darker and darker, while Scorsese has emerged into the full flower of his gifts.-Roger Ebert

This is the most intense, complex, and stirring Marvel Cinematic Universe film yet -- though the sheer number of characters and storylines make it a bit confusing for anyone who's not a hard-core fan. Avengers: Infinity War is also the grimmest MCU movie so far, with consequences unlike any that have come before in this massive franchise.-Michael Ordana

Look, blockbuster cinema has been a mainstay for everyone born since the early ’80s, and the “end” of a 23-film saga is both the culmination of the most commercially ambitious cinematic feat ever and a towering specimen of the last decade’s reigning movement, franchise cinema. Lauded by fans and critics alike, it’ll probably sit out most top ten lists as being too commercial. So much of the art form is about storytelling, and bringing so many side stories and characters to a satisfying conclusion is tough, and the film blended a (rather) unpredictable plot with emotional character beats deftly enough to earn a spot on the list. Think that’s easy?-Luis Oliviera

It isn't often that extremely clever moviemakers use their brains in the service of pure fun. But that's just what the people who made "Back to the Future" have done. This brilliant contraption of a film could become the hit of the summer. It's a cinematic Rube Goldberg machine whose parts connect in audacious, witty ways.-Jay Boyar

"Visually, this film is the biggest challenge in terms of designs because they’re designing it for three different periods. We’re talking production design, costume design, and even hair and makeup. This is mainly because Marty is foolish enough to buy a sports almanac, not knowing that Biff is just waiting in the background. In doing so, Marty, Doc, and Jennifer come back to an alternate 1985 when Biff Tannen is basically Donald Trump. I feel that Biff Tannen has got to be near the top of the list of cinematic villains. There’s no redemption in the man because he’s just a bully."-Danielle Solzman

"Barry Lyndon" is aggressive in its cool detachment. It defies us to care, it asks us to remain only observers of its stately elegance. Many of its developments take place off-screen, the narrator informing us what's about to happen, and we learn long before the film ends that its hero is doomed. This news doesn't much depress us, because Kubrick has directed Ryan O'Neal in the title role as if he were a still life. It's difficult to imagine such tumultuous events whirling around such a passive character.-Roger Ebert

Repetition might be drab in any other franchise, but here it’s absolutely hysterical. Many events purposefully mirror facetious gimmicks for a third time in a row, while quirky role reversals and memorable catch phrases abound; rather than appearing as if the writers have run out of jokes, this compounding just becomes funnier. Thrillingly, all the subplots come together with just seconds to spare, timed for coincidence, suspense, and laughs. With Robert Zemeckis once again at the helm, Bob Gale writing, and Steven Spielberg lending his executive producer enthusiasm, “Back to the Future Part III” is a fitting conclusion (despite an unbelievable climax) to a highly successful trilogy-Mike Massie

"It is the wondering narrative voice that lingers beneath all of Terrence Malick’s films, sometimes unspoken: Human lives diminish beneath the overarching majesty of the world...“Badlands” was one of the great films of the flowering of American auteurs in the 1970s, a debut film chosen to close the New York Film Festival."-Roger Ebert

Dark, haunting and poetic, Tim Burton's "Batman" is a magnificent living comic book. From its opening shots, as the camera descends into the grim, teeming streets of Gotham City, the movie fixes you in its gravitational pull. It's an enveloping, walk-in vision. You enter into it as you would a magical forest in a fairy tale, and the deeper you're drawn into it, the more frighteningly vivid it becomes.-Hal Hinson

'Batman Begins" at last penetrates to the dark and troubled depths of the Batman legend, creating a superhero who, if not plausible, is at least persuasive as a man driven to dress like a bat and become a vigilante. The movie doesn't simply supply Batman's beginnings in the tradition of a comic book origin story, but explores the tortured path that led Bruce Wayne from a parentless childhood to a friendless adult existence. The movie is not realistic, because how could it be, but it acts as if it is.-Roger Ebert

Burton has always taken inspiration from German Expressionism and Batman Returns is his best use of the form. Gotham City was grimy and Art Deco before, but Batman Returns takes it into a nightmarish territory. Giant stone-faced statues and sharp shadows drape the crime-ridden burg. It’s like a living, breathing Underworld brought to life. Modern superhero movies are so focused on being grounded in a reality that we recognize. Today, the unabashed surrealism of Batman Returns‘ Gotham City is refreshingly unreal.”-Drew Dietch

The movie's implications are alarming. Is it possible that we are all just clever versions of Chance the gardener? That we are trained from an early age to respond automatically to given words and concepts? That we never really think out much of anything for ourselves, but are content to repeat what works for others in the same situation? The last words in the movie are, "Life is a state of mind." So no computer will ever be alive. But to the degree that we are limited by our programming, neither will we. The question is not whether a computer will ever think like a human, but whether we choose to free ourselves from thinking like computers.-Roger Ebert

It's an outstanding buddy cop comedy that remains just as poignant and hilarious as ever. In fact, it's the sort of film that gets better with each viewing.-R.L. Shaffer

"The Big Lebowski" is about an attitude, not a story. It's easy to miss that, because the story is so urgently pursued. It involves kidnapping, ransom money, a porno king, a reclusive millionaire, a runaway girl, the Malibu police, a woman who paints while nude and strapped to an overhead harness, and the last act of the disagreement between Vietnam veterans and Flower Power. It has more scenes about bowling than anything else. This is a plot and dialogue that perhaps only the Coen Brothers could have devised. Only a steady hand in the midst of madness allows them to hold it all together--that, and the delirious richness of their visual approach.-Roger Ebert

Notice I have committed a journalistic misdemeanor. I have referred to replicants without ever establishing what a replicant is. It is a tribute to the influence and reach of "Blade Runner" that 25 years after its release virtually everyone reading this knows about replicants. Reviews of "The Wizard of Oz" never define Munchkins, do they? This is a seminal film, building on older classics like "Metropolis" (1926) or "Things to Come," but establishing a pervasive view of the future that has influenced science fiction films ever since. Its key legacies are: Giant global corporations, environmental decay, overcrowding, technological progress at the top, poverty or slavery at the bottom -- and, curiously, almost always a film noir vision.-Roger Ebert