Best Movies Of All Time: Reader-Curated Bucket List For The Perfect Weekend Movie Marathon
From The Godfather to Parasite to Star Wars, here's Empire's list of the greatest films ever made.
"What are the 100 best movies of all time?" It's a hell of a question to ask, and an even harder one to answer — even for the team here atEmpire, the world's biggest and best-loved film magazine. After all, there are all kinds of reasons why individual films stand the test of time, connecting with us personally while speaking to the universal.
The very best examples of the form conjure indelible images, evoke overwhelming emotions, tell unforgettable stories, and bring uscharacters who — love 'em or loathe 'em — we truly believe in. Whether we see 'em on the big screen, atrusty TV, or hunched over a laptop on the morning commute, the greatest films still hit like nothing else.
Ever since the movies began, well over a century ago, they have been finding new ways to, well, move us — to joy, to laughter, to fear, to tears, to the edges of our seats and to profound experiences that resonate through the years. From the misadventures ofPeruvian bears to the epic quests of almighty fellowships; painterly, whisper-quiet period romances to pop culture shapingcomic book blockbusters; and from awe-inspiringanimated adventures to singular stories about the human experience hailing from all corners of the globe, there truly is something out there for everyone and all tastes.
How We Chose The Top 100 Best Movies Of All Time
In creatingEmpire's list of the 100 best movies of all time, we enlisted the help of our esteemed readers, asking you to share your picks for the movies that have comforted, challenged, entertained and inspired you most — the films that, above all else, made and continue to make youfeel something. Then, having taken a survey of your painstakingly selected picks, we turned to ourexperienced team of critics and contributors to pool their expertise. Now, having weighed up the final shortlist and its entries' artistic merit and cultural impact, we have after much heated discussion settled on our final line-up. Destined to delight some, enrage others, and befuddle many more, we wholeheartedly believe nevertheless that what we have here is a damn fine rundown of a hundred of the finest features this medium has to offer.
Now, with the formalities dispensed with and the parameters of our cinematic odyssey set, here is Empire's official rundown of The 100 Best Movies Of All Time...
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The 100 Greatest Movies Ever Made (And Where To Watch Them)
100) Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn
Making his uber cool and supremely confident directorial debut,Quentin Tarantino hit audiences with a terrific twist on the heist-gone-wrong thriller. For the most part a single location chamber piece,Reservoir Dogs delights in ricocheting the zing and fizz of its dialogue around its gloriously intense setting, with the majority of the movie's action centring around one long and incredibly bloody death scene. Packing killer lines, killer needledrops, and killer, er, killers too, this is a rollicking ride – and set the blueprint for everything we've come to expect from a Tarantino joint. Oh, and by the way: Nice Guy Eddie was shot by Mr. White. Who fired twice. Case closed.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of Reservoir Dogs
99) Groundhog Day (1993)
Director: Harold Ramis
Starring: Bill Murray, Andie McDowell, Chris Elliott, Stephen Tobolowsky
Bill Murray is at the height of his (eventually) lovable schmuck powers as narcissistic weatherman Phil Connors. Andie McDowell brings the brains and the heart as distant-but-ever-closer-coming producer Rita Hanson. And Harold Ramis, directing and co-writing with Danny Rubin, manages to spin gold from the well-worn thread of a man stuck in time. Whilst this time-loop dramedy might not have been the first film to drink from this particular trope's well, it is inarguably head and shoulders above the rest. Murray's customarily snarky delivery gets the easy laughs flowing early doors, but it's the way the movie finds deeper things to say about existence and morals as it goes on, all whilst never feeling overly preachy or worthy, that keeps us coming back to it again, and again, and again.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of Groundhog Day
98) Paddington 2 (2017)
Director: Paul King
Starring: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Hugh Grant, Brendan Gleeson
With the firstPaddington, co-writer/director Paul King delivered a truly wonderful film bursting with joy, imagination, kindness, and just the odd hard stare from our beloved Peruvian bear. Then, he followed it by making one of the greatest sequels — nay, one of the best,most feel-good movies, period — of all time. Matching wits with Hugh Grant's moustache-twirlingly evil and deliciously outré washed-up actor Phoenix Buchanan, Paddington (Ben Whishaw) is on typically adorable form here as his search for a special present for his Great Aunt Lucy leads to all sorts of hilarious hijinks. Like all great sequels, this one takes everything that made the first so good and builds on it, dialing up the spectacle, the silliness, and the emotional stakes. The result is as sweet as marmalade.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of Paddington 2
97) Amélie (2001)
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Starring: Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus, Lorella Cravotta
Jean-Pierre Jeunet's fourth feature – his second as a solo artist divorced from Marc Caro – saw theDelicatessen andAlien: Resurrection filmmaker leave behind the overwhelming darkness of his earlier works and step out into the glorious sunshine ofAmélie's whimsical fantasy Paris. Sure, a cyniccould read the film as the story of Audrey Tautou's monomaniacal title character's relentless, somewhat stalkerish pursuit of the hapless Nino (Matthieu Kassovitz) around Montmartre's dream-like cityscape. But this one isn't for the cynics — it's a tribute to the daydreamers of this world, a sweet, nostalgic, sentimentalromantic comedy that only Jeunet could have conceived.Amélie will always be on our list of things we like.
Read Empire'sreview of Amelie
96) Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Director: Ang Lee
Starring: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Michelle Williams
Ang Lee's adaptation of Annie Proulx's short story retains its source's sensitivity and grace whilst expanding its scope gorgeously. Played out against the beautiful mountain landscapes of Wyoming (in reality, the Canadian Rockies), the decades-spanning love story between shepherds Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) and Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) — two men who unexpectedly find love, only to find it tested over the years as heteronormative expectations work against them — is sensually observed and immaculately shot. (No wonder it's in our list of the50 greatest LGBTQ+ movies.) Delivering hope and heartbreak in equal measure, the multiple Oscar-winning movie's impact on queer cinema continues to be felt today. We still don't know how to quit it (and honestly, we don't want to).
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of Brokeback Mountain
95) Donnie Darko (2001)
Director: Richard Kelly
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Patrick Swayze, Mary McDonnell
A high school drama with a time-travelling, tangential universe-threading, sinister rabbit-featuring twist, Richard Kelly's labyrinthine opus was always destined for cult classic status. An early beneficiary of physical media's move to DVD, it gained a fandom in film obsessives who could pause, play, and skip back and forth through it at will. Any attempt to synopsise the movie is a fool's errand, but there's more than a hint ofIt's A Wonderful Life in the way we see Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal, in a star-making turn) experiencing how the world would be worse off if he survives the jet engine that mysteriously crashes through his bedroom. That the film, with all its heavy themes and brooding atmosphere, manages to eventually land on a note of overwhelming optimism is a testament to Kelly's mercurial moviemaking.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of Donnie Darko
94) Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (2010)
Director: Edgar Wright
Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Chris Evans, Brie Larson, Jason Schwartzman, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza
WithScott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Edgar Wright leaned all the way into the things that make his directorial style so singular — excellent needle drops, a poppy visual palette, whip-pans and whip-smart wit — in order to do Bryan Lee O'Malley's graphic novels justice. Michael Cera is on peak socially-awkward-Cera form as the put-upon protagonist who's forced to face his new girlfriend's (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) seven evil exes in a series of increasingly wild face-offs. But it's the film's extraordinarily stacked ensemble (Chris Evans! Brie Larson! Anna Kendrick! Aubrey Plaza!), mixed-media aesthetics, and endless pool of iconic quotes and playlist-essential tunes that cement it as one of Wright's most memorable. This is good garlic bread.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
93) Portrait Of A Lady On Fire (2020)
Director: Céline Sciamma
Starring: Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel
Celine Sciamma's magnetic, masterful lesbian romance may be a recent addition to this list, but became an instant landmark of queer cinema upon its release. Starring Noémie Merlant as an 18th century painter and Adèle Haenel as her elusive subject,Portrait Of A Lady On Fire is a tale of an epic love developed in the quietest, most delicate way, formed in stolen moments and glances. Sciamma's carefully constructed, smouldering screenplay and our leads' electric chemistry are matched only by Claire Mathon's transcendent cinematography, with each impeccably framed, Renaissance-inspired 8K shot bringing new meaning to the expression "every frame a painting". Pure poetry.
Streaming on:Apple TV+|Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of Portrait Of A Lady On Fire
92) Léon: The Professional (1994)
Director: Luc Besson
Starring: Natalie Portman, Jean Reno, Gary Oldman
While something of a spiritual spin-off to hisNikita, Luc Besson's follow-up film is very much its own beast. Inarguably, its greatest strength however isn't Jean Reno's titular contract killer, or even Gary Oldman's unhinged baddie Stansfield, but a very young Natalie Portman, who delivers a luminous, career-creating performance as vengeful 12-year-old Mathilda. Despite some of the ickiness inherent in the relationship the film presents between a middle-aged man and a pre-teen girl, Portman's phenomenal performance helps augment an unlikely kinship that winds up being deeply affecting to watch.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of Léon: The Professional
91) Logan (2017)
Director: James Mangold
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Stephen Merchant, Boyd Holbrook
If you're wrapping up your tenure as a beloved superhero icon, look no further than how Hugh Jackman — under the direction of a never-better James Mangold — punched out the clock on playing Wolverine. Set in a dark near-future world where an aging Logan is caring for a mentally unstable Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart),Logan takes cues from Western greats such asShane as Wolvie wrestles with his mortality and history of violence. A truly original superhero tale that is mournful without being morbid, Mangold's mutant masterwork is the perfect end to Logan's story (an ending, it has to be noted, given a rousing yet respectful encore inDeadpool & Wolverine).
Read Empire'sreview of Logan.See where it came in ourX-Men movie ranking here.
90) The Terminator (1984)
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn
After hisPiranha II: Flying Killers experience, James Cameron could've called it quits on a Hollywood career. Instead, he madeThe Terminator. The rest, as they say, is history (which you can read about in detail in ourmajor Cameron interview). Shot for $6 million, Cameron cribbed from Michael Crichton'sWestworld and Harlan Ellison'sOuter Limits episode 'Soldier', and amped up theaction — all revolving around Arnold Schwarzenegger's instantly iconic shotgun-toting, shades-rocking, time-travelling cyborg killer. With the relentless tension of a slasher (what is Arnie's Terminator if not Michael Myers in leathers?) and the kinetic thrills of a balls-to-the-wall blockbuster, nothing has been the same since the T-800 told Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor: "Come with me if you want to live”.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of The Terminator
89) No Country For Old Men (2007)
Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Starring: Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson,
A perfect meeting of artistic sensibilities, the Coen brothers' adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's literary great sees the directorial duo imbue the existentialism of McCarthy's book with their signature brand of dark, violent filmmaking. The result is a tense, slow, and mysterious take on the chase movie format, lensed immaculately by legendary DP Roger Deakins. It's also a film that thoughtfully considers the question of how — or even if — good people can ever hope to deal with a world that's entirely gone to shit. And lest we forget, this was the movie that gave us Javier Bardem's cold-blooded sociopathic killer Anton Chigurh, a villain so terrifying that Hollywood has cast Bardem as the go-to bad guy ever since.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of No Country For Old Men
88) Titanic (1997)
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates
What to say about James Cameron's epic romantic tragedy? It's 'My Heart Will Go On'. It's "Paint me like one of your French girls." It's a steamy handprint on a cab window, and a floating door that'sdefinitely big enough for two. It's sparks flying between Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, and Billy Zane being the ultimate shit-eating grinning baddie. It is – figuratively and literally – one of the biggest movies ever made. With a difficult, overrunning shoot, it was predicted to be a career-ending flop for Cameron. Instead, it became one of the most successful films of all time, both at the box office and at the Oscars. As Cameron himself proudly declared, it made him "king of the world!"
Read Empire'sreview of Titanic
87) The Exorcist (1973)
Director: William Friedkin
Starring: Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow
For many still the definitive exorcism film (sorryThe Pope's Exorcist!), William Friedkin's 1973 masterwork is the stuff ofhorror legend. The movie, which sees Linda Blair's 12-year-old Regan possessed by demonic spirit Pazuzu, endures as a jump-out-of-your-skin shocker thanks to its pea-vomiting, spider-crawling, crucifix-screwing sequences. But the real reason it continues to affect audiences so deeply today is because of the way Friedkin – through the figures of Fathers Damien Karras (Jason Miller) and Lankester Merrin (Max von Sydow) – so skilfully stages a soul-shaking crisis of faith, sustaining and building an atmosphere of such dread, such spiritual torment, that you can't help but feel you've unleashed something satanic simply by watching it.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of The Exorcist.See where it came in our list of the50 Best Horror Movies here.
86) Black Panther (2018)
Director: Ryan Coogler
Starring: Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong’o, Michael B. Jordan, Angela Bassett, Letitia Wright, Martin Freeman, Winston Duke
After his standout introduction inCaptain America: Civil War, 2018'sBlack Panther allowed us to properly meet Chadwick Boseman's T'Challa, and see Wakanda in all its glory. Impeccably directed byCreed's Ryan Coogler, it's an astonishing Afrofuturistic vision oozing cool, colourful regality. His culture-rich canvas is beautifully filled with Oscar-winning costume design, a slew of stunning set pieces, and a banger-filled soundtrack crying out fora fancy soundbar. What's more, its mercurial narrative blend of pulsating espionage thriller and family saga ensures the movie has real substance. Soaring to billion dollar-plus box office takings,Black Panther's cultural impact cannot be understated — and after Boseman' in 2020's untimely passing, the film endures as the defining role for a truly remarkable talent.
Read Empire'sreview of Black Panther.See where it came in ourMCU ranking here.
85) Shaun Of The Dead (2004)
Director: Edgar Wright
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Bill Nighy, Kate Ashfield, Lucy Davis, Dylan Moran
Before its release, you might have been forgiven for thinking that Edgar Wright's proper feature directorial debut would be 'Spaced: The Movie'. But what we got was so much more. A zom-rom-com made with real genre nous and a distinctly British sense of humour, Wright's movie strikes the perfect balance betweenlaugh-out-loud comedy and seriously gruesome undead horror. From its perfectly synchronised 'Don't Stop Me Now' zombie beatdown, to Nick Frost and Simon Pegg's star-making, side-splitting performances, to Edgar Wright's go-for-broke gonzo approach to shooting and editing, this is British filmmaking at its finest. Fuck-a-doodle-doo!
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of Shaun Of The Dead
84) Lost In Translation (2003)
Director: Sofia Coppola
Starring: Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi
With her sophomore feature, Sofia Coppola took a familiar enough rom-com set-up — two strangers cross paths in a foreign place — and turned it into a mesmerising mumblecore anti-romance. As listless college grad Charlotte and world weary actor Bob, Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray share an ineffable chemistry, offering beautifully understated performances as two people whose geographic and emotional sense of dislocation in Tokyo is simultaneously what brings them together and, ultimately, what keeps them apart, too. As well asthat karaoke scene, its ending, in which Bill Murray's Bob whispers words we never hear into Charlotte's ear, is an all-timer.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of Lost In Translation
83) Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Director: Taika Waititi
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Tessa Thompson, Mark Ruffalo, Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum
Throughout the MCU, Kevin Feige has cannily employed directors known for smaller independent movies, and then handed them the keys to the franchise's kingdom. Among the best to grasp such an opportunity is Kiwi auteur Taika Waititi, helping Chris Hemsworth's Thor find a weapon more mighty than Mjölnir — his funny bone!Ragnarok shakes up the God of Thunder's entire world by, well, pretty much destroying it., and has an absolute blast doing it. Full of action, bursting with colour, and boasting a uniformly excellent ensemble — Mark Ruffalo! Tessa Thompson! Jeff Goldblum! Cate Blanchett! — this is pretty much the Platonic ideal of a popcorn superhero blockbuster. Anybody want a pamphlet?
Read Empire'sreview of Thor: Ragnarok.See where it comes in ourMCU ranking here.
82) The Usual Suspects (1995)
Director: Bryan Singer
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Giancarlo Esposito, Pete Postlethwaite
Five criminals are brought together to pull off a heist, and suspicion and shoot-outs abound. Sounds likeReservoir Dogs, doesn't it? In fact, it was even marketed as such. But a Tarantino picture,The Usual Suspects ain't. Taking the line-up concept as a starting point for something altogether different in execution, Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie's super-twisted, uber-cool crime thriller attains true greatness through its inventive evocation of mythic crime lord Keyser Soze – a phantom menace terrifying enough to put the willies up even the most hardened of criminals. Turns out the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing people this would be just another crime movie.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of The Usual Suspects
81) Psycho (1960)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins
Imagine seeingPsycho in 1960. No late entry. Virtually no marketing beyond some shots of the Bates Motel. And then, for the entire opening act, you're watching a good old-fashioned noir! Janet Leigh's on the lam with a bunch of her boss' money, stopping at said motel, and encountering the strange-but-nice-enough Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). Then, she hops in the shower, and the whole film shifts on its axis. From that moment on, you're rooted to your seat, in thrall to a madman (whether that's Hitch or Norman is your call), certain to never be the same again. One of thebest horror movies ever made, Hitchcock's monochromatic masterwork is pure cinema. (Also, don’t sleep onPsycho II, an unexpected, underrated gem.)
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of Psycho
80) L.A. Confidential (1997)
Director: Curtis Hanson
Starring: Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger
Famously dense, knottily plotted, and written in a staccato style, James Ellroy'sL. A. Quartet of epic crime novels hardly screams prime big-screen fodder. The miracle of Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland'sL.A. Confidential, then – which adapts the third book – is how it viscerally captures the author's noirish sense of Los Angeles as a dark-hearted labyrinth, while also trimming the fat off the original 500-ish page tome without losing any of its soul or meaning. That it also features exceptional performances across the board – especially from Russell Crowe as conscience-discovering bruiser Bud White and Guy Pearce as ramrod rookie Ed Exley – only solidifies its position further as one of the great modern works of noir cinema (and one of ourbest murder-mystery movies, too).
Read Empire'sreview of L.A. Confidential
79) E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore
Over the years, the phrase "Amblinesque" has come to be a calling card for family-friendly adventures thrumming with heart, wonder, and just a smidge of darkness – and never has that moviemaking method been more perfectly encapsulated however than inE.T. Equal parts stonking children's adventure and poignant meditation on familial dysfunction and our capacity for healing,E.T. carefully beds its supernatural elements in an utterly relatable everykid world, tempering its cuter, more sentimental moments with a true sense of jeopardy. Boasting an extraordinary lead performance from a 10-year-old Henry Thomas, one of John Williams greatest scores, and an ending that still has us in floods over forty years later,E.T. remains the gold standard for family filmmaking.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of E.T. The Extraterrestrial
78) In The Mood For Love (2000)
Director: Wong Kar Wai
Starring: Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung
Set in 1960s Hong Kong, Wong Kar Wai’sIn The Mood For Love sees neighbours Chow (Tony Leung) and Su (Maggie Cheung) fall for one another when they discover their spouses are cheating together. THe set-up seems fit for a farce, but Wong uses it instead to create a sizzlingly sensual and heartbreakingly restrained exploration of – as Chow puts it – how feelings “can creep up just like that”. With a distinctive, noir-inflected visual style (homaged to great effect inEverything Everywhere All At Once), and two of the most beautiful human beings to ever grace the screen in the form of Leung and Cheun,In The Mood For Love captures unspeakable desire quite unlike anything else. In its final moments, Wong Kar Wai delivers an unparalleled expression of love.
Read Empire'sreview of In The Mood For Love.See where it ranked in our list of the100 Greatest Movies of the 21st Century.
77) Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi (1983)
Director: Richard Marquand
Starring: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, James Earl Jones
Episode VI of George Lucas' saga is the perfect giddy finale to a trilogy that changed cinema forever. Balancing soapy schmaltz with eye-popping action set-pieces (*that* triple-front finale is just magnificent!) and a Shakespearean redemption story,Jedi is a blockbuster finale with peril and poignance poised on a lightsaber-edge. Largely swerving the sense of dread that dominatedEmpire Strikes Back's conclusion,Jedi instead — with all its tactile effects, witty dialogue, kinetic action, kick-ass heroes (and villains), and awesome design work — feels like the ultimate embodiment of everythingStar Wars is in the cultural consciousness.
Read Empire'sreview of Return Of The Jedi
76) Arrival (2016)
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg
Denis Villeneuve's empathic, perception-bending alien visitation drama issci-fi at its very best. Offering a mercurial blend of blockbuster scale, spectacular special effects and grounded, intensely cerebral human drama, the Quebecois filmmaker's first venture into speculative fiction — bolstered by an emotional, career standout turn from Amy Adams as linguistics professor Dr Louise Banks — takes Ted Chiang's short story and makes of it something vast and singular. With its message that open-minded communication enables us to realise the things we have in common with those who appear vastly different,Arrival endures as a soul-piercing call for understanding.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of Arrival
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75) A Quiet Place (2018)
Director: John Krasinski
Starring: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe
Take a simple concept (don't make a sound, or aliens will get you), a stellar cast, and a director with a laser-focused vision, and what do you get? One of the most innovative, refreshing, and unbearably tense horror movies of the 21st century. From the second it starts, the imposed silence ofA Quiet Place makes it a revelatory cinematic experience. As the Abbott family pad gently around their home, the store, the woods, you feel in your bones that one wrong step equals disaster. The (loudly) ticking time bomb of imminent childbirth sets the scene for a stellar scary finale, but it's the deeply endearing family dynamic in Bryan Woods and Scott Beck's subtle screenplay that sets it apart.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire’sreview of A Quiet Place.See where it ranked in our list of thebest horror movies ever, and of the21st century.
74) Trainspotting (1996)
Director: Danny Boyle
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Kelly Macdonald
For their follow up to the superbShallow Grave, Danny Boyle (director), Andrew Macdonald (producer) and John Hodge (screenwriter) foolhardily elected to film the supposedly unfilmable: Irvine Welsh's scrappy, episodic, multi-perspective novel about Edinburgh low-lives. The result couldn't have been more triumphant: the cinematic incarnation of 'Cool Britannia' came with a kick-ass soundtrack that made you want tocrank the speakers up, and despite some dark subject matter, a punch-the-air uplifting pay-off.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire’sreview of Trainspotting.Read ourcomplete behind-the-scenes history here.
73) Mulholland Drive (2001)
Director: David Lynch
Starring: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux
David Lynch messes with Hollywood itself in a mystery tale that's as twisted as the road it's named after, while presenting Tinseltown as both Dream Factory and a realm of Nightmares. (Try not to have a sleepless night after that Winkie's Diner sequence.) The result is a hallucinatory odyssey, that refuses to spell out what is or isn't real – a film that put Naomi Watts on the map; her audition scene remains as stunning as it was 20 years ago.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire’sreview of Mulholland Drive
72) Rear Window (1954)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: James Stewart, Grace Kelly
Photographer LB Jeffries (James Stewart, one ofEmpire’s greatest actors of all time) is on sick leave, with a broken leg. He's bored to tears, so he starts spying on his neighbours. Then he witnesses a murder. Or does he? Alfred Hitchcock really knew how to take a corker of a premise and spin it into a peerless thriller (that's why they called him The Master Of Suspense), butRear Window also deserves praise for an astonishing set build: that entire Greenwich Village courtyard was constructed at Paramount Studios, complete with a drainage system that could handle all the rain.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire’sreview of Rear Window
71) Up (2009)
Directors: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
Starring: Edward Asner, Jordan Nagai
A lot has been said about the opening to Pete Docter'sPixar masterpiece, and rightly so, wringing tears from the hardest of hearts with a wordless sequence set to Michael Giacchino's Oscar-winning score that charts the ups and downs of a couple's marriage. Yet while the majority of the film is more of a straight-ahead adventure tale (albeit one with a wacky bird and talking dogs), that doesn't make it any less satisfying. And let's be honest — the story of a man who uses balloons to float his house to a foreign land, accidentally picking up a young wilderness explorer scout as he does, feels perfectly Pixar.
Read Empire’sreview of Up
70) Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018)
Directors: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman
Starring: Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry
Having Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's names on a movie is regularly the guarantee of something great, but the full team behind this animated marvel (in both upper- and lower-case senses of the word) is what makes it work. The directing trio all added something (with Rothman co-writing alongside Lord) and their animators whipped up a visually dynamicbig screen experience — an exciting, heartwarming adventure that literally spanned multiverses well before the MCU got in on the act. Bringing Miles Morales to the screen was a masterstroke, and Shameik Moore's vocal work gives him buckets of charm. Thwipping marvellous stuff!
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire’sreview of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse.See where it came in ourSpider-Man movie ranking,or our list of the50 greatest teen movies.
69) Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Melanie Laurent, Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Christoph Waltz
From its Sergio Leone-riffing opening to its insanely OTT, history-rewriting finale, Tarantino's World War II caper never once fails to surprise and entertain. As ever, though, QT's at his best in claustrophobic situations, with the tension ramped up to almost unbearable levels in a volley of standout scenes – the tavern, the strudel, to name a few. Plus, Brad Pitt’s amusing attempts at an Italian accent (which contributed to it making our list ofPitt’s 10 best movies, too).
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire’sreview of Inglourious Basterds
68) Lady Bird (2017)
Director: Greta Gerwig
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet, Lucas Hedges, Laurie Metcalf
With her directorial debut, the wry wit and emotional potency of Greta Gerwig's previous work came even sharper into focus – telling a beautifully nuanced coming-of-age story about mothers, daughters, and the hometowns you yearn to leave, only for them to be truly appreciated in the rear-view mirror. Saoirse Ronan is perfectly precocious as the not-always-likeable Christine 'Lady Bird' McPherson, experiencing fractured friendships, first fuckboys, and fateful fumbles in her final year of high school in 2003 Sacramento.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire’sreview of Lady Bird
67) Singin' In The Rain (1952)
Directors: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly
Starring: Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds
A joyous, vibrant Technicolor celebration of the movies.Singin' In The Rain is such an essential viewing experience, there should perhaps be a law that it features in every DVD and Blu-ray collection. Despite its story depicting how moviemaking went from silent films to the sound era (causing much consternation for many of its stars), this is no mere Hollywood self-love exercise. As star Don Lockwood, Gene Kelly brings a sense of exasperation at the film industry's diva-indulging daftness, making it a gentle piss-take, too. A film you want to sing about, in any type of weather.
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Read Empire’sreview of Singin’ In The Rain
66) One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
Director: Milos Forman
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Michael Berryman
Ken Kesey's era-defining novel was in good hands with screenwriters Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman, not to mention director Milos Forman. Five Oscars were testament to that, including one for Jack Nicholson, who's arguably never been better than here, playing Randle McMurphy – a man destined to be chewed up by the unfeeling system when he feigns mental illness to avoid prison time, instead institutionalised in a psychiatric hospital. Louise Fletcher, too, is outstanding, representing that unfeeling system in the form of Nurse Ratched – a movie villain for the ages.
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Read Empire'sreview of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
65) Seven Samurai (1954)
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima
A film so good they remade it twice — asThe Magnificent Seven, then asBattle Beyond The Stars. Or four times, arguably... if you countA Bug's Life and the remake ofThe Magnificent Seven. You could also make the case thatAvengers Assemble is a version, too. The point is this: Akira Kurosawa's epic, 16th century-set drama about a motley gang of warriors uniting to save a helpless village from bandits couldn't be more influential. With its satisfying and pacy get-the-band-together suite, followed by its action-packedkatana-filled finale, this is masterful character drama meets action classic, beautifully lensed in monochrome. Cinema simply wouldn't be the same without it.
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Read Empire'sreview of Seven Samurai
64) La La Land (2016)
Director: Damien Chazelle
Starring: Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, J.K. Simmons
As much a technical marvel as it is an acting tour-de-force, Damien Chazelle's Los Angeles love letter proved a ridiculously easy movie to fall in love with, even for those who may have grumbled that they weren't really into musicals before sitting down to watch it. It's an ode to "the fools who dream", as Emma Stone's aspiring actress Mia and Ryan Gosling's jazz-obsessed Sebastian try to seize their artistic ambitions in the Hollywood hills – with hope and heartbreak awaiting them. It's a razzle-dazzle triumph. Go on, admit it: You're still humming 'Another Day Of Sun', aren't you?
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Read Empire'sreview of La La Land
63) Get Out (2017)
Director: Jordan Peele
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Alison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener
Even given the darker tones of a fewKey And Peele sketches, no one could have predicted that Jordan Peele would place himself on track to become a modern master of horror. And it all started with this, the Oscar-winning kick-off to his film career in which Daniel Kaluuya's Chris meets his girlfriend Rose's (Allison Williams) parents and discovers some truly shocking secrets. White guilt, outright racism, slavery and more blend into a socially conscious terror tale that rings every note with pitch-perfect accuracy. You'll never look at a cup of tea the same way again.
Streaming on:Apple TV+ |Amazon Prime
Read Empire'sreview of Get Out.See where it ranks in our list of the50 best horror movies of the 21st century (hint, it’s pretty high!).
62) Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)
Director: David Lean
Starring: Peter O’Toole, Alec Guinness, Omar Sharif
If you only ever see one David Lean movie... well, don't. Watch as many as you can. But if you really insist on only seeing one David Lean movie, then make sure it'sLawrence Of Arabia, the movie that put both the "sweeping" and the "epic" into "sweeping epic" with its breath-taking depiction of T.E. Lawrence's (Peter O'Toole) Arab-uniting efforts against the German-allied Turks during World War I. It's a different world to the one we're in now, of course, but Lean's mastery of expansive storytelling does much to smooth out any elements (such as Alec Guinness playing an Arab man) that may rankle modern sensibilities.
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Read Empire'sreview of Lawrence Of Arabia
61) Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Ivana Baquero, Ariadna Gil, Doug Jones
Guillermo del Toro's fairy tale for grown-ups is as pull-no-punches brutal as it is gorgeously, baroquely fantastical. There's an earthy, primal feel to his fairy-world here, alien and threatening rather than gasp-inducing and 'magical', thanks in no small part to the truly cheese-dream nightmarish demon-things Del Toro conjures up (sans CGI) with the assistance of performer Doug Jones. His fawn guides young Ofelia (Baquero) through a series of dangerous fantastical trials as she approaches a mystical destiny – though the storybook elements prove just as gruelling and deadly as the backdrop of Fascistic Francoist Spain. Spine-tingling.
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Read Empire'sreview of Pan's Labyrinth
60) Hot Fuzz (2007)
Director: Edgar Wright
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Timothy Dalton, Rafe Spall, Paddy Considine
How do you one-upShaun Of The Dead? You go bigger, bloodier, and even funnier. Wright, Pegg and Frost's tribute to big American cop movies isn't just a great fish-out-of-water comedy, sending high-achieving London policeman Nick Angel (Pegg) to the most boring place in the UK (or so it seems). It also manages to wring every last drop of funny out of executing spot-on bombastic, Bayhem-style action in a sleepy English small-town setting. As a result it brings pulse-pounding thrills of its own, with a script boasting some of the best gags ever committed to film. Put it in the pantheon betweenPoint Break andBad Boys 2.
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Read Empire'sreview of Hot Fuzz.ReadEmpire’s original interview on the film here.
59) Moonlight (2016)
Director: Barry Jenkins
Starring: Trevante Rhodes, Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders
Adapted from Tarell Alvin's playIn Moonlight, Black Boys Look Blue, Barry Jenkins' Oscar-winning drama (andcertifiedEmpire Masterpiece) is the kind of film that seeps under your skin and stays there. Tracking one man's life in three stages, and the love (and lack of it) that made him who he is,Moonlight evokes a sense of intimacy so palpable, the camera's gaze into the characters' eyes so intense, you can't bear to look away. Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris are impeccable in supporting roles, with Trevante Rhodes and Andre Holland delivering an unforgettable final act.
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Read Empire'sreview of Moonlight.See where it came in our list of the 50 greatest LGBTQ+ movies (hint, it’s high!).
58) Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014)
Director: James Gunn
Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillan, Vin Diesel
Marvel took one of its biggest swings with this space-borne adventure, which featured the MCU's freakiest and least-known characters (a talking raccoon, a walking tree, a green assassin lady, a muscleman named after a Bond villain and Star-who?!), starred that funny guy fromParks And Rec, and was directed by the guy who turned Michael Rooker into a giant slug-monster inSlither. Which is pretty cool, when you think about it. That Gunn turned it all into a groovy space-opera that feels like Marvels' ownStar Wars is near-miraculous, all soundtracked to an Awesome Mix (Vol. 1) of stellar rock classics.
Read Empire'sreview of Guardians Of The Galaxy.See where it came in ourMCU ranking.
57) Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Ryan Gosling,Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Dave Bautista
Teaming the director ofArrival with a sci-fi franchise that – for box office performance reasons — hasn't been overexploited the way some others have, seemed like a no-brainer. It actually turned out to be a big-brainer, with Denis Villeneuve dipping into Philip K. Dick's universe and constructing a sequel that not only doesn't embarrass Ridley Scott's original, but builds out that world, adding layers and texture while still feeling of a piece. Between Harrison Ford revisiting his iconic replicant hunter, and Ryan Gosling grappling with his own identity as incoming replicant K,2049 is a triumph of quiet character moments and glorious, sense-enveloping spectacle.
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Read Empire'sreview of Blade Runner 2049
56) The Social Network (2010)
Director: David Fincher
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer
Or, I'm Gonna Git You Zuckerberg. Portrayed as an über-ruthless ultra-nerd by Jesse Eisenberg, it's fair to say the Facebook founder came out of David Fincher's social-media drama smelling less of roses than the stuff you grow them in. But it is great drama, expertly wrought by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who exploits the story's central paradox (a guy who doesn't get people makes a fortune getting people together online) to supremely juicy effect, amped up by a pulsating masterpiece score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
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Read Empire'sreview of The Social Network
55) Taxi Driver (1976)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks
The haunting power ofTaxi Driver hasn't waned a single bit since its release – this is a film that you still need to scrub off your skin after a rewatch, such is its potency and corrosive atmosphere. Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader's violent noir is a gripping portrayal of a mentally crumbling Vietnam vet (Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle), who ultimately figures out that the only way to wash the crime-caked streets of New York is with a nice, big bloodbath. Everyone here's at the top of their game: director, writer, actor, 14-year-old Jodie Foster and composer Bernard Herrmann. Yes, it's still talkin' to us.
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Read Empire'sreview of Taxi Driver
54) Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Giovanni Ribisi, Adam Goldberg
There had never been a war movie quite likeSaving Private Ryan – and, frankly, there still hasn't been one since. Much of its impact comes from the sheer bludgeoning, blood-spilling, visceral power of its Omaha Beach, D-Day-landing opening act, an overwhelming suite that ensuredSteven Spielberg's fourth World War II movie set the standard for all future battle depictions. There's more heart – and heartbreak – in the rest of its story, as a band of brothers set off to save the lone surviving son of a mother whose entire brood have been killed across the combat.Private Ryan's shaky-staccato-desaturated style (courtesy of Janusz Kaminski's ingenious cinematography) has been often copied, but rarely bettered.
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Read Empire'sreview of Saving Private Ryan
53) Forrest Gump (1994)
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright
Still one of the most quotable movies ever made. Robert Zemeckis' era-spanning fable takes an affable stroll through some of America's most turbulent decades, as seen through the childlike eyes of the simple-but-successful Forrest — the role which earned Tom Hanks his second Oscar in two years. It says a lot about its emotional heft that it managed to nab that Academy Award when it was in competition with bothPulp Fiction andThe Shawshank Redemption. Plus, how many films do you know that have successfully spawned their own globe-spanning restaurant chains? Sign us up for some Bubba Gump Shrimp.
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Read Empire'sreview of Forrest Gump
52) Point Break (1991)
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, Gary Busey, Lori Petty
"Ever fired your gun in the air and gone 'Ahhhh?'" PC Danny Butterman's well-placed reference inHot Fuzz confirmed, if confirmation were ever needed, thatPoint Break is a fundamental pillar of '90s pop culture cool, and one of the most memorable action blockbusters ever made. InKeanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, we get two smouldering sides of the same anti-heroic coin; in W. Peter Iliff's screenplay, we get gems of dialogue like, "The correct term is 'babes', sir"; and in Kathryn Bigelow's frenetic, confident direction, we get intense foot chases, fiery shoot-outs, epic surfing, and a spot of light skydiving. It shouldn't work: extreme sports, bank robberiesand male bonding? But it does, every time.
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Read Empire'sreview of Point Break
51) Whiplash (2014)
Director: Damien Chazelle
Starring: Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons
If Damien Chazelle's semi-autobiographical drama taught us anything, it's that jazz drumming is more hazardous to learn than base jumping. Especially when your mentor is J.K. Simmons' monstrous Fletcher: a raging bully who makes army drill instructors look like Care Bears. Though, of course, you could always argue that Fletcher's methods certainly got great results out of Miles Teller's battered but triumphant Andrew, in a tale of what it takes (or does it?) to strive for GOAT status. This is a firecracker first feature proper from Chazelle, staying entirely on beat across a taut runtime, closing out in a breathless drum-solo of a finale – both figuratively and literally. Cue standing ovation.
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Read Empire'sreview of Whiplash
50 — 26
50) Vertigo (1958)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: James Stewart, Kim Novak
Across his legendary filmography, Alfred Hitchcock explored all kinds of sub-genres – animal-attack movies, psycho thrillers, mystery adventures and the like. But of everything,Vertigo is perhaps his greatest exercise in pure suspense – a film that gets properly under your skin, appropriately enough for it exploration of obsession. With James Stewart's detective stalking Kim Novak's mysterious woman, witnessing her suicide, then becoming obsessed with her double, it's certainly disturbing and most definitely (as the title suggests) disorientating, in the most artful and inventive way. A thrilling cinematic rabbit-hole down which to tumble.
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Read Empire'sreview of Vertigo
49) Spirited Away (2001)
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Starring: Miyu Irino, Rumi Hiiragi
The film that truly broke Studio Ghibli into Western cinema. In a cinematic culture rooted in the easy good-vs-evil dichotomies (and European folktale narrative traditions) of Disney movies,Spirited Away proved a bracing change of pace – pure, uncut Ghibli. Taking in bathhouses, spirits of Shinto folklore, and obfuscated morality,Hayao Miyazaki's major crossover hit is distinctly Japanese, overflowing with imaginative imagery, brimming with breathtaking fantasy sequences, all tethered to a story that changes direction at a moment's notice. That unruliness and cultural specificity is what madeSpirited Away so groundbreaking – bringing anime at large to mainstream Western audiences, an influence increasingly felt in the likes ofMoana andFrozen II.
Read Empire'sreview of Spirited Away.See where it ranked in our list of thebest anime movies.
48) Ghostbusters (1984)
Director: Ivan Reitman
Starring: Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver
As high-concept comedies go,Ghostbusters is positively stratospheric: a story of demonic incursion... with gags! The sharpness of its execution – and the magic chemistry of its central cast – spawnedGhostbusters into an ongoing franchise, but one that has never managed to recapture the lighning-in-a-bottle quality of the original. Reitman wrings a fantastic supernatural adventure out of his central conceit, as Peter Venkman (Murray), Ray Stantz (Aykroyd), Egon Spengler (Ramis) and Winston Zeddemore (Hudson) strap on proton packs to battle spectral forces in NYC, while never neglecting the opportunity to deliver a great laugh; or, on the flipside, ever allowing the zaniness to swallow up plot coherence. Ray Parker Jr was right: bustin' does indeed make us feel good.
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Read Empire'sreview of Ghostbusters
47) Do The Right Thing (1989)
Director: Spike Lee
Starring: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, John Turturro
Spike Lee had already caused a stir with his first two films –She's Gotta Have It andSchool Daze – but this was the one that changed everything, with Lee in complete command and full of fury. Over the longest, hottest summer's day in Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy, already-boiling tensions between the African-Americans on the block and the Italian-Americans running a pizzeria eventually peak, erupting into violence. It's an absolutely flawless, funny, frightening piece of work, rammed with soon-to-be iconography from start to finish. It hasn't dated a day.
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Read Empire'sreview of Do The Right Thing
46) Schindler's List (1993)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Caroline Goodall
For all the blockbuster spectacles he's committed to the screen,Schindler's List finds Spielberg at the peak of his powers. There are no flaws to be found in his harrowing, (mostly) monochromatic depiction of Nazi persecution of the Jewish community in Krakow, while Neeson's Oskar Schindler attempts to save the lives over a thousand Jewish people by employing them in his factories. Spielberg puts all his abundant talent for creating dynamic cinema into portraying a haunting piece of history that should never be forgotten – and though it's not an easy watch, it's a masterful work from one of the all-time-greats. If you haven't seen it, you're missing out.
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Read Empire'sreview of Schindler's List
45) The Big Lebowski (1998)
Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Starring: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, Philip Seymour Hoffman
The entire appeal ofThe Big Lebowski is encompassed by its central figure, Jeffrey 'The Dude' Lebowski: so laid-back he's basically horizontal; living for the pursuit of simply floating by; out of step with the wildness of the world around him. Bridges' Dude really isThe Big Lebowski. Except, he's not, because the entire plot hinges on a case of mistaken identity, when he's attacked by thugs looking to extort rich philanthropist Jeffrey Lebowski. Thus begins a shaggy-dog farce with bowling, marmots, and a urine-stained rug, resulting in arguably the funniest movie of the '90s, a genuine cult phenomenon. The Coens manage to construct a kidnap mystery in which the detective isn't a detective, and nobody was actually kidnapped. As ever, The Dude abides.
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Read Empire'sreview of The Big Lebowski
44) It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
Director: Frank Capra
Starring: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barryone, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers
Frank Capra's Christmas fantasy was the movie that coaxed a war-battered James Stewart back to acting, and a good thing, too: as George Bailey, who's shown a mind-blowing parallel reality in which he never existed, Stewart was never more appealing. Rightly, the film has gone down as a festive favourite, sending audiences out on a warm, fuzzy high as Bailey gets aChristmas Carol-esque recalibration of the soul just in time for the big day. But Stewart and Capra temper any potential schmaltz, too, with a sense of underlying world-weariness — there's real darkness to the existential quandary that plays out before that finale, one that only makes the ending all the more touching and beautifully earned.
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Read Empire'sreview of It's A Wonderful Life. See where it came in our list of thebest Christmas movies.
43) There Will Be Blood (2007)
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Ciarán Hinds
If America were a person, then oilman Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a vampire. (A milkshake-drinking vampire, if you feel like mixing our metaphor with his own.) Which is why it's appropriate that Paul Thomas Anderson gives his gargantuan American epic a bit of a horror-movie vibe throughout, depicting a rot of the soul as Plainview drains the very land beneath his feet – and exploits everyone around him – in the pursuit of bounteous riches. Day-Lewis delivers such a deliciously monstrous performance, imbuing one of cinema's most gleefully hissable villains with a glint of oil-black humour, right up to the spine-chilling finale in an empty mansion, where he's haunted only by himself.
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Read Empire'sreview of There Will Be Blood
42) 12 Angry Men (1957)
Director: Sidney Lumet
Starring: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam
Juries most often amount to little more than set dressing in courtroom dramas. But Sidney Lumet's film finds all its drama outside the courtroom itself and inside a jury deliberation room packed with fantastic character actors, who are forced to re-examine a seemingly straightforward case by lone-voice juror Henry Fonda. It's all about the value of looking at things differently, and a reminder that nothing is more important than great dialogue, as the titular jurors change their minds one-by-one through reasoned discussion and open ears.
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Read Empire'sreview of 12 Angry Men
41) The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)
Director: Jonathan Demme
Starring: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine
In the decades since its release, the sheer filmmaking power ofThe Silence Of The Lambs hasn’t lost a single bit of its vice-like grip. Jonathan Demme's take on the Thomas Harris novels broke major Hollywood ground – not only the first horror to win a Best Picture Oscar, it's also only the third movie to score in all four main categories: Picture, Director (the late, great Jonathan Demme), Actress (Jodie Foster) and Actor (Anthony Hopkins) — the latter managing that despite technically being a supporting performer, with a mere 25-ish minutes of screen time. For all of Hannibal Lecter's cultural ubiquity,Lambs feels like Foster's movie more than anybody's: her vulnerable-but-steely Clarice Starling is defined by her ability, not her gender.
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Read Empire'sreview of The Silence Of The Lambs
40) Citizen Kane (1941)
Director: Orson Welles
Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
'Rosebud' might be the operative word when it comes toCitizen Kane, but this is arguably the film where the entire medium of cinema went into full bloom. Orson Welles' game-changing fictional biopic fundamentally evolved the language of movies, managing to both launch his film career and ruin it at the same time (turns out it's not a good idea to piss off powerful newspaper magnates by viciously satirising them). Not only did he use impressive new film-making techniques that makeKane feel like a movie far younger than its 80+ years, but its power-corrupts story still resonates loudly.
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39) Gladiator (2000)
Read Empire'sreview of Citizen Kane
Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Djimon Hounsou
You think Ridley Scott, chances are you think sci-fi:Alien, orBlade Runner. ButGladiator made him a master of the sword ’n’ sandals epic too, after a tricky directorial run (1492,White Squall andGI Jane). Russell Crowe got his big Hollywood breakthrough as Maximus Decimus Meridius (father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife etc etc), making a name for himself in the Colosseum by surviving bloody battles aplenty.Gladiator was a leap forward in CGI too – the movie that showed the industry you could make colossal historical epics commercially viable once more. Yes, we were entertained.
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Read Empire'sreview of Gladiator
38) The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966)
Director: Sergio Leone
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef
The culmination of Sergio Leone’s ‘Man With No Name’ trilogy is a true Western epic – three hours of Spaghetti Western cooked perfectlyal dente. FollowingA Fistful Of Dollars andFor A Few Dollars More – thematically, if not narratively – this one sets three renegades against each other in a treasure hunt backdropped against the chaos and madness of the American Civil War. The result is the movie on Leone’s CV which best balances art and entertainment. Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef are great value as Blondie and Angel Eyes, but it's Eli Wallach's Tuco who steals this Wild West show: “When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk.” Cue the howling flutes of Ennio Morricone’s immortal score.
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Read Empire'sreview of The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
37) Seven (1995)
Director: David Fincher
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey, Gwyneth Paltrow
David Fincher's second film (the first that he was actually happy with, since he famously loathedAlien 3) goes toe-to-toe withThe Silence Of The Lambs for the darkest, scariest serial-killer thriller Hollywood ever made. There’s a novelty factor to the premise of Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman’s cops tracking down a murderer taking tenets from the seven deadly sins – but in Fincher’s hands it becomes an exercise in properly rattling terror, delivering nightmare images in the killings set up by warped murderer-moralist ‘John Doe’. From its shocking central twist, tothat “what’s in the box?!” gut-punch, it’s a film you need to scrub off your skin come the end credits.
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Read Empire'sreview of Seven
36) Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)
Director: Michel Gondry
Starring: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo
Director Michel Gondry and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman are two of the most imaginative filmmakers around – so their collaboration on an anti-romcom (or is it?) it bursting with invention.Eternal Sunshine deconstructs the relationship drama via a fantastic psycho-sci-fi device, as Jim Carrey's Joel races through his own mind to reverse a process by which all the memories of his failed relationship with Kate Winslet's Clementine are about to be erased. Which is a brilliantly weird, round-the-houses way of reminding us that heartbreak should be valued as one of the things that makes us. Better to have loved and lost, and all that.
Read Empire'sreview of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
35) The Shining (1980)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd
The ultimate haunted house move is actually a haunted hotel movie. The Overlook is a place of pure evil, its vast (intensely-patterned) hallways holding decades of horrifying history in ghostly entities that drive Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance to murderous madness. (Admittedly, he was already somewhat close.) Stanley Kubrick elegantly translates Stephen King’s ghostly novel into one of the scariest movies ever made – though King famously hated the adaptation for the tweaks it made to the story. Still, for the rest of us it’s a total masterpiece, both in its quietly unsettling moments, and in its nerve-shredding Jack-with-an-axe finale.
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Read Empire'sreview of The Shining.See where it came in our Stephen King movie ranking.
34) The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Andy Serkis, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom
The middle chapter of Peter Jackson’s trilogy could have suffered from not being either the opening or closing of theLord Of The Rings story. Instead, it deepens everything that madeFellowship so great – offering Shakespearean human drama in the Rohan plot line, bringing ancient mythology to life in the walking-talking tree-people Ents, and delivering the slipperiest fish to Frodo and Sam as they trudge closer to Mordor: Gollum. Andy Serkis’ performance is one for the ages, bringing sinister edge and serious pathos to the wretch ensnared by the One Ring. Oh, and it all builds up to the battle of Helm’s Deep, a ferocious action crescendo, which features gratuitous scenes of dwarf-tossing.
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Read Empire'sreview of The Two Towers
33) Casablanca (1942)
Director: Michael Curtiz
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
If you had a drink of gin every time an all-time-classic line is spoken inCasablanca, you’d be comatose before the end credits. Part political thriller, part aching romance, it’s a film that shifts in shades of grey (and not just because of that gorgeous black-and-white photography), set against the backdrop of World War II. Humphrey Bogart’s elusive Rick has left the conflict to set up a bar in Morocco, a place where all people pass through – including, to his shock, his big ex, Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa. Will Rick help her evade the Nazis, even if he risks putting himself in the firing line? Blending personal heartbreak with the sweep of history, it’s a tender and tense masterpiece.
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Read Empire'sreview of Casablanca
32) The Thing (1982)
Director: John Carpenter
Starring: Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David, Richard Masur
Taking its bones from Howard Hawks’ 1951 filmThe Thing From Another World, John Carpenter’s chilly paranoid terror is perhaps the ultimate example that a remake can outstrip the original.The Thing is both a stomach-churning sci-fi horror bursting with gruesome gore, as its shape-shifting intergalactic menace revels in fleshy mutations; but it’s also a tense brainteaser, as everyone (the audience included) tries to sniff out which character, at any time, might be the Thing in disguise. It wasn’t a hit at the time, but Carpenter’s biological nightmare has proved an endlessly rewatchable frightfest, particularly thanks to Rob Bottin’s SFX genius.
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Read Empire'sreview of The Thing
31) Interstellar (2014)
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain
To an extent,Interstellar stands as Christopher Nolan’s brainiest movie – its evocation of black holes, gravity distortions and extra-dimensional science was cooked up with physicist Kip Thorne for cutting-edge fidelity. But it’s all in service of his most heartfelt message – using those PhD smarts to convey that the most powerful force in the entire universe is love, actually. Matthew McConaughey is heartbreaking as the NASA pilot who mans a last-ditch mission to space to save the human race from a dying Earth – even though it means leaving his daughter behind. Across the stars, he hopes to find a new home for humanity, all the while reckoning with his own. Epic and emotional in equal measure, with a sarcastic robot to boot.
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Read Empire'sreview of Interstellar
30) Heat (1995)
Director: Michael Mann
Starring: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight
There’s a reason whyHeat has remained the pinnacle of epic crime cinema for over three decades. Combining the directorial sweep of Michael Mann, with the ultimatemano a mano between Al Pacino (as LA detective Lt. Vincent Hanna) and Robert De Niro (as criminal Neil McCauley, this is the one of the all-time-great cat-and-mouse thrillers. The duo only share the screen twice across the runtime, but they are monumental showdowns, where every word feels weighted not just withHeat’s own heft, but the entire cinematic legacies of each star. Those scenes virtually fizz with alpha-star electricity – the exact reasonHeat remains so hot.
Read Empire'sreview of Heat
29) Apocalypse Now (1979)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall
The making ofApocalypse Now was famously not fun. Budgets blown, schedules vastly overrunning, actors going rogue – it was a shoot of sweltering madness. Which is exactly what Coppola’s Vietnam war epic needed, channelling Joseph Conrad’sHeart Of Darkness in its tale of a Colonel gone mad (Marlon Brando’s magnetic Kurtz) and the soldier dispatched to track him down (Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard), going up-river into ever-deeper thickets of the jungle on his quest. The results are mesmeric, tapping into something primal and translating it onto the context of a specific conflict. It’s gone on to influence an entire generation of filmmakers – not just war movies, but across the cinematic spectrum.
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Read Empire'sreview of Apocalypse Now
28) Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, alison Doody, Denholm Elliott, John Rhys-Davies
You voted… wisely. The final chapter of the originalIndiana Jones trilogy is the most soulful of the lot. Underpinning all the adventure and the Nazi-punching, the father-son relationship – and its connection to faith – between Indy and Henry Jones Sr. (Sean Connery, in a masterstroke of casting, despite there only being 12 years between them) is truly heartfelt. On that foundation is built two hours of giddily entertaining popcorn cinema, a globetrotting quest for the Holy Grail that takes in blimps, Venetian churches, and a face-to-face encounter with Hitler himself – but it’s the bickering dynamic between Indiana and his dad that truly makes it.
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Read Empire'sreview of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. Here’s our argument for why it’s the best Indiana Jones film.
27) The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (2003)
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom
It all led to this.The Lord Of The Rings trilogy was always heading for a fiery conclusion, and Peter Jackson doesn’t hold back on the operatic drama as Frodo, Sam, and Gollum make for Mount Doom – while the rest of the Fellowship battles for the soul of Middle-earth. This Academy Award-laden trilogy-closer has some of the most colossal and entertaining battle scenes ever mounted; it has an awesome giant spider; it has that fantastic dramatic-ironic twist when Gollum saves the day through his own treachery; and it has that bit where Eowyn says, “I am no man.” In short, it deserves every Oscar – even if, yes, it does have alot of endings.
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Read Empire'sreview of The Return Of The King
26) Die Hard (1988)
Director: John McTiernan
Starring: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson
It’s no hyperbole to say thatDie Hard reinvented action cinema as we know it. Even now, all these years later, so many modern action films could be teed up as, “It’sDie Hard in [insert location here].” In the case of actualDie Hard, it’sDie Hard in an office block – as Bruce Willis’ ordinary cop John McClane attends his estranged wife’s Christmas office party, and finds himself thwarting a terrorist plot led by Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber. The action is crisp and propulsive, matched in tempo by the rapid-fire sarcasm of McClane himself, grumbling his way through a very, very bad Christmas Eve. It made Willis into a movie star; it made Rickman immortal; it even made air vents into cinematic gold.
Read Empire'sreview of Die Hard
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25) Fight Club (1999)
Director: David Fincher
Starring: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Jared Leto
Forget the rules: we really should talk aboutFight Club. David Fincher’s adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel is so many things in one: a psychological thriller, a bruising drama, and – perhaps most importantly – a tar-black comedy. There’s a smirking Gen X disdain to the satire here, as 1990s consumerism clashes with raw masculinity run wild – with literally explosive results. The now widely-known twist is brilliantly handled, as are the twin performances of Edward Norton’s unnamed whacked-out drone, and Brad Pitt’s wiry brawler Tyler Durden, who draws disenfranchised men into his underground fight club (and, eventually, terrorist-cult). All these years on, we’re still talking about it.
Read Empire'sreview of Fight Club
24) Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick
Making Arnie's T-800 a protector rather than a killer for part two could have been a shark-jump moment for the Terminator series. But we're talking about James Cameron here, so it paid off – to a mind boggling degree. For all the greatness of the original, this sequel has really becomethe Terminator movie, turning the tables on the original premise as the T-800 protects a young John Connor from the slick liquid-metal T-1000. The action is bigger, the effects still excellent, and the heart so clear, as Connor and his metal protector teach each other the ways of the world. And don’t get us started on the evolution of Sarah Connor, both badass and tragic. Hasta la vista, baby.
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Read Empire'sreview of Terminator 2: Judgment Day
23) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter
Of all Stanley Kubrick’s work, his game-changing science-fiction film is arguably his greatest gift to cinema – an infinitely ambitious vision of a space-faring future whose narrative centres on the most pivotal moment in human evolution since some ape-man first bashed another ape-man with an old bone.2001 is both deeply architectural, as a series of chapters depicting moments across the vastness of time where humanity transcends itself, but also unknowable and mysterious – and the sheer technical craft of it remains gobsmacking. It’s graceful, gorgeous, unwearied by time's passing. Rather like those mesmerising monoliths.
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Read Empire'sreview of 2001: A Space Odyssey.See where it ranked on our list of thebest sci-fi movies of all time.
22) Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Starring: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Paul Rudd, Jeremy Renner, Josh Brolin
What does it take to dethrone James Cameron? A blockbuster of behemothic proportions. The weight of expectations onEndgame — the culmination of 11 years of interweaving stories, following up the greatest cinematic cliffhanger sinceThe Empire Strikes Back — was immense, which only makes it more miraculous that the Russo Brothers (and writers Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeeley) delivered a thrilling, adventurous, emotional time-travelling trip through the entire MCU so far. The character pay-offs are just as staggering as the action — and when Steve Rogers finally proved worthy enough to lift Mjolnir, a stone-cold cultural moment was created.
Read Empire'sreview of Avengers: Endgame
21) Alien (1979)
Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Harry Dean Stanton
Talk about a perfect organism. This masterful sci-fi horror is, in its first half, so mysterious and unknowable, conjuring grand interstellar imagery as the crew of the spaceship Nostromo follows a distress call to an inhospitable planet to investigate. And then, in its second half, it brings the terror, as the titular life-form bursts onto the scene (quite literally) and starts picking them all off one by one. Ridley Scott conjures astonishing imagery, and wrangles the chaos with careful precision once the blood starts spraying (whether regular or acid), while Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley emerges from the ensemble not just as a hero, but – arguably –the hero.
Read Empire'sreview of Alien.See where it came in ourAlien movie ranking.
20) The Matrix (1999)
Blending kung-fu brawls, philosophy, identity politics, apocalyptic sci-fi, and a sense of digital dread,The Matrix took every rule of cinema and bent it to its own end. The Wachowski sisters followed upBound with a mind-bending action classic, tapping into cyber-anxieties and Gen X disenfranchisement to reimagine the world we know as a simulation, blinding us from the truth. As we watch Keanu Reeves’ Neo find his liberation, we see him unlock the ability to ‘hack’ himself, and the world around him, for good. Still finding new resonances after all this time,The Matrix keeps revealing new depths – while simply remaining one of the coolest blockbusters ever made. (Oh, andthe sequels are better than you remember.)
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19) Inception (2010)
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Elliot Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Talk about a true original. Christopher Nolan’s dreamy blockbuster takes layers of subconsciousness and turns them into action playgrounds, as a group of benevolent criminals set about planting the seed of an idea in the mind of a business magnate. Along withTenet, this is the closest Nolan has come to making a Bond movie – just check out that snowy setpiece. While there’s plenty of braininess here (and a tantalising make-your-own-mind-up ending), there’s real brawn too: the climactic action sequence is so huge it takes up almost half the movie, and is actuallythree big action sequences temporally nested inside each other around a surreal, metaphysical-conflict core. Couldn’t be simpler, really.
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Read Empire'sreview of Inception
18) Parasite (2019)
Director: Bong Joon Ho
Starring: Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Park So-dam, Choi Woo-sik
Few award ceremony moments stick in the mind more thanParasite taking the Best Picture gong at the Oscars in 2020. It's no surprise that it made history as the first non-English language movie to do so – this South Korean genre-defying delight offers some of the biggest twists and expertly mounted tension in recent memory, with a family of excellent performances. Or two, since we follow both the rich Park family, and the poor Kim clan who inveigle their way into the Parks' lives, with spiralling consequences. Bitingly satirical, darkly comedic and made with unmatched precision,Parasite doesn't just overcome the 'one inch barrier' of subtitles, as referenced in Director Bong's acceptance speech – it obliterates it entirely.
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17) Aliens (1986)
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser, Bill Paxton
It’s official: you ratedAliens higher thanAlien. James Cameron’s self-penned follow-up to Ridley Scott’s original is one ofthe great sequel pivots, abandoning the ‘haunted house in space’ atmosphere for all-out war – a gun-toting epic in which Ripley and the inhabitants of Hadley’s Hope battle a whole gaggle of Xenomorphs, spawned from an egg-popping Queen. The result is one of the greatest ever action movies, upping the scale while losing none of the character drama – particularly as Ripley takes kid Newt under her wing. Packed with memorable quotes (“Get away from her, you bitch!”), underpinned with a Vietnam metaphor, and still scary as hell, it was the first evidence that Cameron would be the master of mind-blowing sequels.
Read Empire'sreview of Aliens
16) Blade Runner (1982)
Director: Ridley Scott,
Starring: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah
Just like the steam-spewing rain-lashed streets of the future LA it depicts,Blade Runner boasts a sweltering, palpable atmosphere. Ridley Scott’s second sci-fi masterpiece adapts Philip K Dick’sDo Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep into a mesmerising moodpiece that’s part noir, part thriller, part existential crisis. Harrison Ford is on quieter, inquisitive form as Rick Deckard, tasked with hunting down rogue ‘Replicants’ – bioengineered synthetic humans who have fled their colonial duties. It leads to chases and shootouts, but also deep introspection as Deckard questions his mission, and his own identity; it all peaks with Rutger Hauer’s stunning monologue as Replicant Roy Batty: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’tbelieve…” Spine-tingling stuff.
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Read Empire'sreview of Blade Runner
15) Jurassic Park (1993)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough
In the 1990s, Steven Spielberg reinvented the summer blockbuster all over again.Jurassic Park was a visual effects revolution, quite literally bringing dinosaurs back to life with breathtaking realism, courtesy of ILM’s groundbreaking CGI. But beyond the sheer movie magic of it all, Jurassic endures as another Spielberg firing-on-all-cylinders thrill ride. The raptors in the kitchen. The T-rex escape. Jeff Goldblum’s unexpected shirtlessness.Jurassic Park delivers spectacle after spectacle following a masterful build-up, all anchored by smart heroes (Sam Neill’s Alan Grant and Laura Dern’s Ellie Sattler), dynamic direction, and – of course – those terrifying toothy lizards.
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Read Empire'sreview of Jurassic Park
14) The Godfather Part II (1974)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, John Cazale, Diane Keaton
One of the strongest examples of a sequel that stands toe-to-toe with the original,The Godfather Part II is something of a two-for-one – part sequel, tracing Michael’s (Al Pacino) consolidation of power having ascended as the new Don in Part I; and part prequel, casting none other than Robert De Niro as the young Vito Corleone, making the move from Sicily to New York as he enters a life of organised crime. It’s just as epic in scope and intimate in character stakes, mesmerising in the ways the two stories mirror each other. In a world of follow-ups you’d prefer to forget,The Godfather Part II instead enriches the original so much, you can’t imagine it not existing.
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Read Empire'sreview of The Godfather Part II
13) Back To The Future (1985)
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover
Ask anyone:Back To The Future has one of the strongest scripts ever written. That’s not just for the indelible characters, like teenager Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) and his eccentric inventor friend Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), or its witty observations on both the 1950s and the 1980s, orthat breathlessly exciting final race against time; no, it’s the sheer neatness of it all. It feels like every line, every moment, has a knock-on effect elsewhere, with every thread perfectly intertwined as Marty is zapped back to the time of his parents’ youth, and has to ensure they meet-cute so that he eventually gets born – all while figuring out how to zap himself back to 1985. It was a smash at the time, but even now, your kids are gonna love it.
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Read Empire'sreview of Back To The Future
12) Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Director: George Miller
Starring: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Riley Keough
In the 30 years followingBeyond Thunderdome, George Miller dreamed up his maddestMax yet.Fury Road puts pedal to the metal, roaring out of the gates with eyes bulging and maw snarling – this time with Tom Hardy as Max Rockatansky, caught up in a Wasteland power struggle when Charlize Theron’s instantly iconic Furiosa flees apocalyptic warlord Immortal Joe. Playing out like a feature-length action sequence, with boundless imagination and impeccable craft, Fury Road felt like a classic from the day it hit cinemas – gloriously operatic to its very last frame.
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Read Empire'sreview of Mad Max: Fury Road
11) Star Wars (1977)
Director: George Lucas
Starring: Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill
Such is its cultural ubiquity today that it's hard now to even imagine the seismic impact of the originalStar Wars — of that opening moment in which the Star Destroyer looms over the camera for a seeming infinity; of that first glimpse of a binary sunset; of that first, well,everything. Bursting with iconic aliens, hyper-space travel, and galactic overlords, George Lucas transplanted the classic hero's journey narrative into a boundlessly imaginative universe of laser-swords and mystical religions, space-princesses and loveable rogues. From its incredible model work, to its cosmic dogfights, to the opening crawl credits that drift off into the stars – the world at large has been feeling the Force ever since.
Read Empire'sreview of Star Wars
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10) Goodfellas (1990)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino
No film hits likeGoodfellas. Just like the cocaine that turns effortlessly charismatic gangster fanboy Henry Hill into a reckless maniac, the film enters your system with a jolt, giving you an immediate rush, and keeps you wanting more, more, more, MORE, until it finally comes crashing down. And you have to live the rest of your life like a schnook, because, frankly, few films compare toGoodfellas. The only solution: another big snort ofGoodfellas. Scorsese, writer Nicholas Pileggi and editor Thelma Schoonmaker constructed almost the entire film like a trailer, one scene bleeding into the next, not giving you the opportunity to stop watching, to let go, to take a breath. It’s an unstoppable feat of propulsion. Nowthat’s cinema.
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Read Empire'sreview of Goodfellas
9) Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, John Rhys-Davies
What do you get when you combine the sheer blockbuster power of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas? You get a new instant cinema icon: Indiana Jones. Release betweenEmpire Strikes Back andReturn Of The Jedi,Raiders saw Lucas at the peak of his powers, while Spielberg was ready to prove himself again after1941 flopped. The result is a pitch-perfect adventure movie, drawing on everything from Bond, toLawrence Of Arabia – unleashing Harrison Ford as a whip-cracking archaeological hero who’s both unrepentant in his Nazi-punching, but far from an invincible action hero. From its tomb-raiding opening, to that Ark-cracking finale, it still feels like looking into the eyes of God.
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Read Empire'sreview of Raiders Of The Lost Ark.Readwhy it's the best Indiana Jones film here.
8) Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Starring: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Chadwick Boseman, Chris Hemsworth, Sebastian Stan, Josh Brolin
It was the biggest crossover event in cinematic history, and the biggest cliffhanger we never saw coming. After ten years and eighteen movies, Marvel took superhero filmmaking to a new level when they united all of Earth's mightiest heroes (and several more) against The Mad Titan himself – and incredibly, devastatingly, they lost.Infinity War crashed much-loved characters into each other's orbits, flitting between planets at breakneck speed as the Avengers desperately tried to stop Thanos from clicking his fingers and wiping out half the universe. Spectacular action, punch-the-air moments and big-scale battles are perfectly balanced – as all things should be – with hilarious interplay and aching emotion. Oh snap.
Read Empire'sreview of Avengers: Infinity War
7) Pulp Fiction (1994)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis
AfterReservoir Dogs announced Tarantino as a blistering new voice in American indie cinema, he took everything that made his debut great and expanded on it. Across a set of interweaving tales, a host of hitmen, armed robbers, fixers and an ageing boxer find themselves entangled in stories of death, drugs, and lucky escapes in '90s LA – all interspersed with self-aware conversations on pop culture, religion, and the nature of crime itself.Pulp Fiction embodies everything that made early '90s independent cinema (and Tarantino himself) so exciting and fresh – playful and unexpected, steeped in genre knowledge, the coolest images set to the coolest soundtrack. The whole thing is an embarrassment of cinematic riches, both of its time and entirely timeless.
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Read Empire'sreview of Pulp Fiction
6) Jaws (1975)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss
The impact ofJaws simply cannot be overstated. It created the notion of the summer blockbuster. It made millions feel it wasn’t safe to go back in the water. And, for all the clear potential of his early work, it well and truly put Spielberg on the map. It was, famously, nightmarish to shoot — waterlogged, behind schedule, over budget, and with a mechanical shark that kept breaking. But for all that churn beneath the surface, what the audience sees is effortless brilliance — a tense, beautifully-shot shark-attack thriller with deeply-layered characters, outstanding dialogue, and heart-stopping moments forever burned in the cultural landscape. The performances are all outstanding, but the real star here is Spielberg himself, delivering a pure display of movie mastery from first minute to last — the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.
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Read Empire'sreview of Jaws
5) The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Director: Frank Darabont
Starring: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, William Sadler
It’s hard to fathom thatShawshank was largely ignored on release. And yet, it’s blindingly obvious why it became a word-of-mouth all-timer when released on VHS – it’s a soulful, smart adaptation of Stephen King on non-horror form. Frank Darabont doesn’t shy away from the harshness of prison life, as Tim Robbins’ Andy Dufresne is wrongly convicted of murdering his wife and incarcerated in Shawshank. Per its title, he eventually gets his redemption – but in the meantime, entire lives are lived, friendships forged, attitudes changed, leaving a constant trickle of hope amid the vast darkness. The sheer emotional release of it all has made it a perennial favourite, deftly constructed by Darabont’s masterful hands.
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Read Empire'sreview of The Shawshank Redemption
4) The Dark Knight (2008)
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman
And away… we… go! After constructing a whole new Gotham inBatman Begins, Christopher Nolan introduced the clown intent on tearing the whole thing down. Despite being aBatman movie (albeit the first ever not to have 'Batman' in the title),The Dark Knight is absolutely The Joker's show – the late, great Heath Ledger putting in a visceral, transformative, truly terrifying performance as the Clown Prince Of… not exactly Crime, but pure, unadulterated Chaos. Less than a decade after 9/11, the film re-conceived Batman's greatest foe as an unpredictable terrorist intent on turning the people of Gotham against each other.The Dark Knight is full-strength, no-holds-barred, firing-on-all cylinders Nolan – not just an all-time-great comic book movie, but an all-time-great movie period.
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Read Empire'sreview of The Dark Knight. See where it came in ourBatman movie ranking.
3) The Godfather (1972)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, John Cazale, Talia Shire
Stanley Kubrick once described Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of Mario Puzo's novel as the best film ever made – though having previously topped this list, this time it falls to bronze position. At once an arthouse drama and a commercial blockbuster,The Godfather marked the dawn of the age of the mega-movie. An icon of the gangster genre, it’s imprinted in popular culture – "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes", the horse's head in the bed – but the first instalment of Brando's cotton-cheeked patriarch's fight for power is so much more thanthose moments. With performances, style and substance to savour, it managed to both smash box office records andlive on as a staple of cinematic canon.
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Read Empire'sreview of The Godfather
2) Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Director: Irvin Kershner
Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, David Prowse
IfStar Wars gave us a whole new cinematic galaxy,Empire made that galaxy feel so much larger, deeper, and richer. Bolstered by the original's success, George Lucas shot for the moon a second time around, teaming up with director Irvin Kershner to tell the story of Luke training under Master Yoda, Han and Leia heading to Cloud City, and Darth Vader dropping the daddy of all twists.Episode V ramped up the scope with more astonishing model work, dizzying dogfights, the snowy Hoth battle, and a ferocious lightsaber duel between Luke and Vader. It is, simply, bigger and better than the originalStar Wars, influential in its own right with its downer-ending and game-changing familial revelations. We love it. You know.
Read Empire'sreview of The Empire Strikes Back
1) The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001)
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean, Cate Blanchett, Liv Tyler
A wizard is never late. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he... well, you know the rest. It might have taken 20 years for Peter Jackson's plucky fantasy to clamber, Mount-Doom-style, to the very pinnacle of our greatest-movies pantheon. But here it is, brighter and more resplendent than ever.The Fellowship Of The Ring contains so much movie. Even at the halfway point, as the characters take a breather to bicker in Rivendell, you already feel sated, like you've experienced more thrills, more suspense, more jollity and ethereal beauty than a regular film could possibly muster up. But Jackson is only getting started.
Onwards his adventure hustles, to the bravura dungeoneering of Khazad-dum, to the sinisterly serene glades of Lothlorien, to the final requiem for flawed Boromir amidst autumnal leaves. AsFellowship thrums to its conclusion, finally applying the brakes with a last swell of Howard Shore's heavenly score, you're left feeling euphoric, bereft and hopeful, all at the same time.
The Two Towers has the coolest battle.The Return Of The King boasts the most batshit, operatic spectacle. ButFellowship remains the most perfect of the three, matching every genius action beat with a soul-stirring emotional one, as its Middle-earth-traversing gang swells in size in the first act, then dwindles in the third. This oddball suicide squad has so much warmth and wit, they're not just believable as friends of each other — they've come to feel like they're our pals too.
An ornately detailed masterwork with a huge, pulsing heart, it's just the right film for our times — full of craft, conviction and a belief that trudging forward, step by step, in dark days is the bravest act of all. Its ultimate heroes aren't the strongest, or those with the best one-liners, but the ones who just keep going. And soFellowship endures: a miracle of storytelling, a feat of filmmaking and still the gold standard for cinematic experiences. Right, now that's decided, who's up for a second breakfast?
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Read Empire'sreview of The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring. See where theLOTR films came in our list of thebest movie trilogies of all time.