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| |  96 American Beauty (1999) Director: Sam Mendes An intricate, brilliantly acted dissection of dysfunctional family life, wunderkind Mendes� first movie was well-rewarded with a hatful of Oscars. Read Review |
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 94 The Wild Bunch (1969) Director: Sam Peckinpah Peckinpah뭩 lament for the dying West plays on his favourite theme � men out of step with their time � and embroiders it with the most memorable bloodshed imaginable. John Woo owes his career to this. Read Review | |  93 Spirit Of The Beehive(1973) Director: V�tor Erice A story of a young Spanish girl, the aftermath of the civil war, Frankenstein뭩 Monster and a father뭩 obsession with bees, this is a triumph of dreamlike style. And one of Guillermo del Toro뭩 faves.Read Review | |  92 Once Upon A Time In America (1984) Director: Sergio Leone It took Leone years to realise this chronicle of the lives of Jewish ghetto youths, and he couldn뭪 quite let it go in the editing suite. Still, it뭩 a majestic drama that repays endless viewings. Read Review | |  91 Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi (1983) Director: Richard Marquand The weakest of the original trilogy, Marquand뭩 send-off still does more than enough to earn its place in movie history. The triple-stranded climax is masterful. Read Review | |  90 Cover Movie View Cover When Harry Met Sally(1989) Director: Rob Reiner Reiner뭩 rom-com is sweet-natured and old-fashioned, yet with a deliciously dirty streak and game performances from Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. Read Review |
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 89 Magnolia (1999) Director: Paul Thomas Anderson An ensemble piece about the bonds that bring a disparate group of Los Angelinos together, it뭩 no coincidence that Anderson뭩 instant classic is loved by so many. Read Review | |  88 Cover Movie View Cover Ferris Bueller뭩 Day Off(1986) Director: John Hughes The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies and dickheads all adore him, and so do we. John Hughes� righteous dude is unquestionably too cool for school. Read Review | |  87 The King Of Comedy (1983) Director: Martin Scorsese De Niro뭩 Rupert Pupkin is the self-deluded ying to Travis Bickle뭩 sociopathic yang. Scorsese뭩 satirical and deeply discomfiting black comedy deserves its place in this list for its dangerously desperate protagonist alone. Read Review | |  86 Cover Movie View Cover Carrie (1976) Director: Brian De Palma Most horrors make their female lead the plucky, survivalist scream queen. Carrie stands out by making her meek, awkward and responsible for supernaturally charged mass-murder. Read Review | |  85 Blue Velvet (1986) Director: David Lynch Never have Lynch뭩 beautiful and bizarre visions been more unsettling than here, as he unearths the dirt that lies beneath a seemingly genteel American suburbia. At a stretch it뭩 a form of neo-noir. Then again, this is Lynch, and definitions never stick. Read Review |
 84 L. A. Confidential (1997) Director: Curtis Hanson James Ellroy � equally known as 뱓he demon dog of crime fiction� and the author of L. A. Confidential � once admitted that if he뭗 had his way, the movie of the third entry in his darkly magnificent LA Quartet (or the second entry in his Dudley Smith Trio, if you prefer) would have been shot in black-and-white and been four hours long. Which, as intriguing as that sounds, only goes to show that sometimes it뭩 a good thing creators maintain a (dis)respectful distance from adaptations of their output. After all, Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland뭩 well-oiled retool of Ellroy뭩 devilishly manifold tale of police corruption in �40s Hollywood should be held up as the very pinnacle of novel-to-script revisualisation: a robust reworking with an eye on the beats that give every good mainstream drama its pulse, while sensitively embracing the original뭩 bitter core. Read Review | |
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| |  74 The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948) Director: John Huston John Huston뭩 mano-a-mano thriller (loaded with stark Western overtones), starring Humphrey Bogart as the grizzled gold prospector who lets greed swerve his moral compass, is back in fashion thanks to Paul Thomas Anderson. He very publicly cited Huston뭩 gritty classic as an inspiration for his masterful There Will Be Blood. Thus it has now become open season on citing just how many films Treasure has influenced, from City Slickers to Trespass, from The Wages Of Fear to the work of Sam Peckinpah, and there뭩 plenty of Bogart뭩 cynical Dobbs in Indiana Jones. Not to forgo the pleasures of Huston뭩 powerful film in its own right � studio boss Jack Warner considered it the best film they had ever made. Read Review |
 73 Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004) Director: Michel Gondry Charlie Kaufman뭩 warmest script probably accounts for his highest chart position. Add Gondry뭩 skewed visuals, an affecting Jim Carrey and an adorable Kate Winslet, and this is Quirk Gold. Read Review | |  72 12 Angry Men (1957) Director: Sidney Lumet Where it all started for one of America뭩 most enduring directors, tapping his TV roots for a claustrophobic courtroom thriller with Henry Fonda standing up for the best of America. Read Review | |  71 The Night Of The Hunter(1955) Director: Charles Laughton The sole behind-the-camera gig of character actor Laughton, a psycho-thriller shrouded in spectral majesty, with a mesmerising act of evil from another underrated actor, Robert Mitchum. 밅hilll... dren?� Read Review | |  70 Stand By Me (1986) Director: Rob Reiner A coming-of-age classic crucial to the making of many of us, with one-time multi-genre master Reiner coaxing a wonderful performance from River Phoenix, and Stephen King providing the truthful source material. Read Review | |  69 Three Colours Red (1994) Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski Interlocking lives and loves, the nature of chance, the unlikelihood of happiness... Kieslowski retired � in his early 50s � after this final entry in his Colours trilogy; perhaps he knew he뭗 never equal it. Read Review |
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 68 Annie Hall (1977) Director: Woody Allen A thriller named Anhedonia transformed into a rom-com where the antagonist is the lead뭩 own neurosis. More daring than Allen is usually given credit for. Its other alternative title? It Had To Be Jew. Read Review | |  67 Tokyo Story (1953) Director: Yasujiro Ozu Much more soulful and engaging than its arthouse rep suggests. A tender, tragic and transcendent picture of old age ignored. Watch it with someone you love. Read Review | |  66 Edward Scissorhands(1990) Director: Tim Burton After he busted blocks with Batman, Burton broke hearts with perhaps his most personal picture. The romance of a razor-fingered recluse is given irresistible internal strength by a breakout performance from Johnny Depp. Read Review | |  65 Harold And Maude (1971) Director: Hal Ashby Wonderful to see this bizarre, bittersweet love story in the top ton, with Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort soulmates separated by a mere, um, 60 years. The most unlikely romance you뭠l ever see. | |  64 Oldboy (2003) Director: Park Chan-wook Popular with readers, critics and the most unlikely of filmmakers � Cameron Crowe loves it � this ferocious thriller explores the appeal and futility of revenge. And how to eat a live octopus. Read Review |
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| |  59 Cover Movie View Cover Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977) Director: Steven Spielberg The mashed-potato masterpiece, with Richard Dreyfuss� Roy Neary one of Spielberg뭩 most complicated creations � a family man whose selfishness is out of this world. Love it? You are not alone. Read Review |
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| |  54 The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (2002) Director: Peter Jackson The tricky middle one, this carries forward the story briskly towards the rousing battle of Helm뭩 Deep, and brings on the mo-capped Andy Serkis Gollum, a major advance in CG characters (bye-bye Jar Jar). Read Review |
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| |  49 Cover Movie View Cover Evil Dead 2 (1987) Director: Sam Raimi How did this happen? How did a low-budget schlocker that made bugger-all when it opened in 1987 finally get its own Empire cover? Here are just ten reasons why Evil Dead 2 is the 49th greatest film of all time占� 1. Sam Raimi: young, brilliant and bursting at the seams with ideas for virtuoso camera moves and demented montages. 2. Star Bruce Campbell's Ash: half-Stooge, half-Rambo. 3. The chainsaw/shotgun combo... "Groovy." 4. There's a gleeful disregard for convention throughout: the breakneck first five minutes remake the original movie. 5. High gore factor: walls spurt blood, eyeballs land in mouths. 6. The bit where Ash's hair turns grey. Genius. 7. It's hugely influential (ask Edgar Wright and Louis Leterrier). 8. It's goofily hilarious - the possessed demon hand is a hoot. 9. Its ending is perverse and Planet Of The Apes-perfect. 10. Oh, and it has a laughing moose head. Every movie should have a laughing moose head. Read Review |
 48 Cover Movie View Cover This Is Spinal Tap (1984) Director: Rob Reiner This - if you will - rockumentary founded a new mode of American screen comedy, and added more quotable soundbites to the culture than 20 seasons of The Simpsons. Read Review | |  47 Cover Movie View Cover E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) Director: Steven Spielberg Spielberg turns his parents' divorce into a magical slice of sci-fi as autobiography. Subtle kid performances (especially Henry Thomas) make a great animatronic creation even more affecting.Read Review | |  46 On The Waterfront (1954) Director: Elia Kazan Brando's Terry Malloy maybe a landmark in screen acting, but Elia Kazan's still stunning hymn to individualism set new levels of realism, finding enough gritty atmosphere and street poetry to power 1,000 episodes of The Wire. Read Review | |  45 Psycho (1960) Director: Alfred Hitchcock "We all go a little mad sometimes." Hitchcock claimed this was a comedy - it does make cruel fun of everything Americans were supposed to take seriously in 1960: psychology, cleanliness, money and mothers. Read Review | |  44 Schindler's List (1993) Director: Steven Spielberg Spielberg's Oscar breakthrough strives hard for its masterpiece status, with masterful work from Liam Neeson and extraordinarily complex villainy from Ralph Fiennes. If it had subtitles, you'd swear it were a Polanski or Andrzej Wajda film. Read Review |
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 43 Cover Movie View Cover The Big Lebowski (1998) Director: Joel and Ethan Coen The Coens' colourful take on Raymond Chandler's LA noir is the shaggiest of shaggy dog stories, and evidently Joel and Ethan's most enduring by a long shot. Jeff Bridges' White Russian-downing 'Dude' is an iconic hero.Read Review | |  42 Kind Hearts And Coronets(1949) Director: Robert Hamer Ealing at its most entertainingly contradictory �� a film of style, charm and Victorian literary elegance about (frankly) a social-climbing serial killer. An exemplar of British good taste built on corpses, snobbery and sex. Read Review | |  41 The 400 Blows (1959) Director: Fran챌ois Truffaut Jean-Pierre Leaud is Truffaut stand-in Antoine Doinel, here an unhappy child taking refuge in the freedom of the cinema and the bleakness of petty crime. Thematically grim, but joyous moviemaking. Read Review | |  40 Cover Movie View Cover Vertigo (1958) Director: Alfred Hitchcock A mystery which takes such a sidetrack that the unmasking of the villain is an irrelevance. Beautiful Kim Novak is mysteriously haunted, while neurotic 'tec James Stewart turns worryingly obsessive. Read Review | |  39 Cover Movie View Cover The Matrix (1999) Director: Andy and Larry Wachowski Mind-wipe the sequels from your brain, and recall the most significant science-fiction blockbuster of the turn of the millennium - even Keanu Reeves was cool, and the Wachowski brothers pioneered bullet-time. Read Review |
| |  36 Andrei Rublev (1969) Director: Andrei Tarkovsky This Soviet-era Russian epic, which made Andrei Tarkovsky뭩 international reputation, dramatises episodes in the life and times of a medieval monk with a gift for painting icons. Uniquely among artist biopics, there are no scenes of the hero at the easel and we don뭪 see his work � in radiant colour after three hours of black-and-white � until the very end of the film. Indeed, Rublev (Anatoli Solonitsyn) tends to fade into the bearded, weatherbeaten crowd (for much of the running time he뭩 under a vow of silence) as various holy fools command attention. If Tarkovsky뭩 intense argument about God, talent and the human condition is as chilly as the steppes, the pre-CGI widescreen spectacle, depicting crowds of people and animals, is often breathtaking: the screen fills with Kurosawa-like action as Tartars sack a cathedral or a mad waif bosses a more experienced crew as they forge a church bell.Read Review | |
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| |  28 Cover Movie View Cover Citizen Kane (1941) Director: Orson Welles It may come as a jolt to film historians that Welles� hallowed classic, so embalmed as the 멒reatest Film Ever Made�, has only just squeezed into the top 30. Has time finally caught up with it? While Welles� achievement is never in doubt, it remains a film that appeals more to the academic and critic than the film fan, partly because of its reputation. Talked of with hushed voices and nodding heads by wise arbiters of film, for the non-acolyte it can feel like an enigma � a whopping cathedral of a movie, awe-inspiring, but too vast and ornate to love. If the list embodies only technical prowess and thematic power then its demotion is a shock, but is it a friend for life? A comfort? On current showing, perhaps not. Read Review |
 27 Cover Movie View Cover Some Like It Hot (1959) Director: Billy Wilder Tony Curtis in a dress. Is this the original gross-out comedy? Hardly, though the Curtis/Jack Lemmon drag-act has its share of goofball gags. Only number 27? Well, nobody뭩 perfect. Read Review | |  26 Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (1964) Director: Stanley Kubrick Intended as a serious exploration of the Cold War, but the super-powers� MAD policy (Mutually Assured Destruction) was so absurd, it had to be a comedy. Read Review | |  25 Cover Movie View Cover The Good The Bad And The Ugly (1967) Director: Sergio Leone The West is brutal, war is hell and Clint Eastwood is an icon. Laconic and perhaps plain irritated by clashes with his wild, genius director, the TV star came of age as The Man With No Name. Read Review | |  24 The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring(2001) Director: Peter Jackson The fear was tangible at the premiere for Fellowship, as Rings-readers worried if Jackson was up to it. 묬ourse he was. And how. A dashing, hugely skilful adaptation.Read Review | |  23 Back To The Future (1985) Director: Robert Zemeckis Unlike the poodle-perm or your dad, this �80s classic has aged remarkably well. Weird science and teenage dreams combine in a wish-fulfilment sci-fi lent heart by the fantastic Mr. Michael J. Fox.Read Review |
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 22 Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) Director: George Lucas It뭩 a surprise to see the saga-starter that arguably birthed modern blockbusters outside the Top 10. Eclipsed by Empire, then � though we shouldn뭪 forget how Lucas bravely battled naysayers to create a galaxy far, far away.Read Review | |  21 Cover Movie View Cover The Third Man (1949) Director: Carol Reed Unjustly overshadowed by Orson Welles� showboating, Reed constructs a claustrophobic, thoughtful thriller from Graham Greene뭩 trawl through occupied territory and moral murk.Read Review | |  20 Cover Movie View Cover Blade Runner (1982) Director: Ridley Scott Drenched in neon and endless rain, Scott뭩 striking private-eye picture endures due to the script뭩 struggle with what makes us human. Can we stop arguing whether Deckard is a replicant now?Read Review | |  19 The Godfather Part II(1974) Director: Francis Ford Coppola Even cash-ins were high quality during the �70s. Coppola reluctantly returned, yet delivered a damning picture in which Pacino뭩 mobster gains the world but loses his soul. Read Review | |  18 Cover Movie View Cover Casablanca (1942) Director: Michael Curtiz Bogey and Bergman뭩 wartime dalliance somehow emerged as one of Hollywood뭩 most loved and misquoted movies � aided considerably by Claude Rains� wonderfully cynical humour.Read Review |
| |  12 The Apartment (1960) Director: Billy Wilder One of the fascinating quirks of the list is the higher placing for this darker-veined comedy than the bewigged flamboyance of so-called 멹unniest film of all time� Some Like It Hot. To argue between them rather misses the point (both are excellent and must be seen) � what stands out is how The Apartment has grown in stature as one of the diminutive Hungarian �igr�s finest films. On the surface, it뭩 the straight downtrodden-boy-meets-indifferent-girl formula, but Wilder, who skipped Berlin as the Nazis took power, came possessed of a more savage view of the world뭩 workings. Jack Lemmon뭩 hypochondriac Baxter is a friendless corporate climber; the object of his affection, Shirley MacLaine, an unstable lift girl having an affair with the CEO. Their meandering path to romance twists between notions of prostitution (corporate and real) and even suicide. Meet-cute it is not. Yet, somehow, the film remains optimistic about their chances. Read Review |
 11 Cover Movie View Cover Raging Bull (1980) Director: Martin Scorsese Bruising, beautiful and a never-bettered showcase for De Niro뭩 once-legendary physical immersion into a role. We뭨e not just talking about the weight gain: look into those eyes and try telling us they뭨e anyone else뭩 but Jake LaMotta뭩... Read Review | |
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