(Photo by Magnolia Pictures)
Celebrating Roger Ebert’s Great Movies
Across six decades, Roger Ebert communicated to the world about what he saw in the dark at the movies. Wild, wonderful, wicked stuff. He did it in a way everyone could relate to: With clarity and purpose of thought, bursting from a deeply humanistic viewpoint, while tacking on an occasional one-liner that could knock a celebrity’s career off its tracks. His greatest gift was making film criticism accessible to the masses. Ebert pulled his profession out from literary magazines and newspaper back pages, popularizing the medium to the point where movie review aggregation websites could one day become a sustainable venture.
Before he passed away in 2013, he tactfully amassed a list of over 350 4-star/thumbs-up films that he called Great Movies. You can see all of Ebert’s Great Movies here. To celebrate his life and the films he championed (seriously, they’re all amazing), we’re listing them all in alphabetical order for everyone to discover.
#359
Adjusted Score: 107.468%
Critics Consensus: Sidney Lumet's feature debut is a superbly written, dramatically effective courtroom thriller that rightfully stands as a modern classic.
Synopsis: A Puerto Rican youth is on trial for murder, accused of knifing his father to death. The twelve jurors retire...
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#358
Adjusted Score: 104.244%
Critics Consensus: One of the most influential of all sci-fi films -- and one of the most controversial -- Stanley Kubrick's 2001 is a delicate, poetic meditation on the ingenuity -- and folly -- of mankind.
Synopsis: A mind-bending sci-fi symphony, Stanley Kubrick's landmark 1968 epic pushed the limits of narrative and special effects toward a meditation...
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#357
Adjusted Score: 82.918%
Critics Consensus: An intelligent and well-acted film despite the usual Spike Lee excesses.
Synopsis: The clock is ticking on Monty Brogan's freedom--in 24 hours he goes to prison for seven long years. Once a...
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#356
Adjusted Score: 96.488%
Critics Consensus: 3 Women is a strange, eerie portrait of late-'70s womanhood that upends and then defies all expectations.
Synopsis: Robert Altman's Three Women takes a surreal, improvisational and rather eerie look at the lives of three women in a...
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#355
Adjusted Score: 107.47%
Critics Consensus: A seminal French New Wave film that offers an honest, sympathetic, and wholly heartbreaking observation of adolescence without trite nostalgia.
Synopsis: "The 400 Blows" marks the birth of legendary nouvelle vague character Antoine Doinel; his is the story of a 13-year-old...
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#354
Adjusted Score: 89.79%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Michael Apted's renowned series tests the maxim by returning every seven years to 14 British children originally profiled in 7...
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#353
Adjusted Score: 80.476%
Critics Consensus: A curious, not always seamless, amalgamation of Kubrick's chilly bleakness and Spielberg's warm-hearted optimism, A.I. is, in a word, fascinating.
Synopsis: Based on the 1969 short story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" by Brian Aldiss, this science fiction fantasy bears similarities...
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#352
Adjusted Score: 97.441%
Critics Consensus: Spearheaded by an excellent Kirk Douglas, Ace in the Hole is an incisive and sardonic satire that, much like its opportunistic hero, never lets moral compunction get in the way of a good story.
Synopsis: Billy Wilder's tale of a reporter (Kirk Douglas) who squeezes headlines from a mine cave-in. Jan Sterling, Porter Hall, Bob...
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#351
Adjusted Score: 97.047%
Critics Consensus: Dizzyingly original, the loopy, multi-layered Adaptation is both funny and thought-provoking.
Synopsis: Despite the success of his first produced script, "Being John Malkovich," for which he received an Academy Award nomination for...
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#350
Adjusted Score: 110.202%
Critics Consensus: Errol Flynn thrills as the legendary title character, and the film embodies the type of imaginative family adventure tailor-made for the silver screen.
Synopsis: In order to avoid the material copyrighted by Douglas Fairbanks Sr. for his 1922 Robin Hood, the scripters of this...
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#349
Adjusted Score: 82.417%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A one-time boxer turned drifter is sucked into a kidnapping plot, thanks to his involvement with a sultry but troubled...
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#348
Adjusted Score: 92.892%
Critics Consensus: Bursting with frantic energy and tinged with black humor, After Hours is a masterful -- and often overlooked -- detour in Martin Scorsese's filmography.
Synopsis: A Manhattan Yuppie's night out becomes a comic nightmare, courtesy of director Martin Scorsese. Griffin Dunne and Rosanna Arquette star...
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#347
Adjusted Score: 88.118%
Critics Consensus: Equal measures romantic and wistful, Martin Scorsese's elegant adaptation of The Age of Innocence is a triumphant exercise in both stylistic and thematic restraint.
Synopsis: A ravishing romance about three wealthy New Yorkers caught in a tragic love triangle, the ironically-titled story chronicles the grandeur...
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#346
Adjusted Score: 102.104%
Critics Consensus: A haunting journey of natural wonder and tangible danger, Aguirre transcends epic genre trappings and becomes mythological by its own right.
Synopsis: The most famed and well-regarded collaboration between New German Cinema director Werner Herzog and his frequent leading man, Klaus Kinski,...
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#345
Adjusted Score: 103.565%
Critics Consensus: Regarded as one of the high-water marks in German New Wave cinema of the 1970s, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is at once an intense portrayal of a relationship and a tribute to one of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's film heroes, Douglas Sirk.
Synopsis: Rainer Werner Fassbinder not only directed Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Angst essen Seele auf), but also scripted the film,...
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#344
Adjusted Score: 109.703%
Critics Consensus: A modern classic, Alien blends science fiction, horror and bleak poetry into a seamless whole.
Synopsis: "In space, no one can hear you scream." A close encounter of the third kind becomes a Jaws-style nightmare when...
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#343
Adjusted Score: 110.508%
Critics Consensus: Smart, sophisticated, and devastatingly funny, All About Eve is a Hollywood classic that only improves with age.
Synopsis: Based on the story The Wisdom of Eve by Mary Orr, All About Eve is an elegantly bitchy backstage story...
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#342
Adjusted Score: 101.252%
Critics Consensus: A lavish, entertaining, powerful film about the life and influence, both positive and negative, of one of Western culture's great artists.
Synopsis: For this film adaptation of Peter Shaffer's Broadway hit, director Milos Forman returned to the city of Prague that he'd...
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#341
Adjusted Score: 91.833%
Critics Consensus: Ribald, sweet, and sentimental, Amarcord is a larger-than-life journey through a seaside village and its colorful citizens.
Synopsis: Federico Fellini's warmly nostalgic memory piece examines daily life in the Italian village of Rimini during the reign of Mussolini,...
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#340
Adjusted Score: 106.227%
Critics Consensus: Filled with poignant performances and devastating humor, Annie Hall represents a quantum leap for Woody Allen and remains an American classic.
Synopsis: "Annie Hall" is a comical look at the up and down relationship between a New York City TV writer and...
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#339
Adjusted Score: 97.009%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: The Unvanquished is the second of Indian director Satyajit Ray's "Apu Trilogy" (the first was Pather Panchali). Ray's young protagonist...
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#338
Adjusted Score: 102.25%
Critics Consensus: Director Billy Wilder's customary cynicism is leavened here by tender humor, romance, and genuine pathos.
Synopsis: Widely regarded as a comedy in 1960, The Apartment seems more melancholy with each passing year. Jack Lemmon plays C.C....
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#337
Adjusted Score: 106.654%
Critics Consensus: Francis Ford Coppola's haunting, hallucinatory Vietnam War epic is cinema at its most audacious and visionary.
Synopsis: One of a cluster of late-1970s films about the Vietnam War, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now adapts the Joseph Conrad...
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#336
Adjusted Score: 106.699%
Critics Consensus: Originally made in 1969, this recently reissued classic is a masterful examination of the inner workings of the World War II resistance efforts.
Synopsis: In this war drama set during the French Resistance of WW II, a courageous fighter escapes Gestapo headquarters and returns...
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#335
Adjusted Score: 102.443%
Critics Consensus: Bittersweet and reflective, Atlantic City is a modest romance given raw power by Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon's heartfelt performances along with director Louis Malle's eccentric eye for detail.
Synopsis: Burt Lancaster stars as Lou, an aging mob flunkey, barely making a living in Atlantic City. Susan Sarandon plays Sally,...
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#334
Adjusted Score: 104.92%
Critics Consensus: Au Hasard Balthazar uses one animal's lifelong journey to trace a soberly compelling -- and ultimately heartbreaking -- outline of the human experience.
Synopsis: Robert Bresson's acclaimed Au Hasard, Balthazar presents an unfettered view of human cruelty, suffering and injustice, filtered through the eyes...
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#333
Adjusted Score: 96.46%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu's Autumn Afternoon is an elegiac exercise in what one critic has labelled the director's sense of...
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#332
Adjusted Score: 75.815%
Critics Consensus: In Babel, there are no villains, only victims of fate and circumstance. Director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu weaves four of their woeful stories into this mature and multidimensional film.
Synopsis: The tragic aftermath of human carelessness travels around the world in this multi-narrative drama from filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu. Richard...
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#331
Adjusted Score: 104.355%
Critics Consensus: Terrence Malick's debut is a masterful slice of American cinema, rife with the visual poetry and measured performances that would characterize his work.
Synopsis: "He wanted to die with me and I dreamed of being lost forever in his arms." A young couple goes...
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#330
Adjusted Score: 101.79%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A lavish, enduring backstage musical from Vincente Minnelli, The Band Wagon tells the tale of Tony Hunter (Fred Astaire who...
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#329
Adjusted Score: 102.408%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In this film, the matchless W. C. Fields plays Egbert Souse, a bibulous denizen of Lompoc who supports his family...
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#328
Adjusted Score: 82.376%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Named after a Sufi word that translates roughly as "breath of life" or "blessing," Baraka is Ron Fricke's impressive follow-up...
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Starring:
#327
Adjusted Score: 98.996%
Critics Consensus: Cynical, ironic, and suffused with seductive natural lighting, Barry Lyndon is a complex character piece of a hapless man doomed by Georgian society.
Synopsis: Based on the Victorian novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, this film tells the complex story of a sensitive, intelligent, and...
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#326
Adjusted Score: 109.091%
Critics Consensus: A documentary-like depiction of a nation's real-life efforts to expel a colonizing force, The Battle of Algiers puts viewers on the front lines with gripping realism.
Synopsis: This highly political film about the Algerian struggle for independence from France took "Best Film" honors at the 1966 Venice...
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#325
Adjusted Score: 106.06%
Critics Consensus: A technical masterpiece, Battleship Potemkin is Soviet cinema at its finest, and its montage editing techniques remain influential to this day.
Synopsis: After the success of Strike (1924), Sergei Eisenstein was commissioned by the Soviet government to make a film commemorating the...
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#324
Adjusted Score: 72.635%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Humphrey Bogart stars as one of five disreputable adventurers who are trying to get uranium out of East Africa. Bogart's...
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#323
Adjusted Score: 104.257%
Critics Consensus: With its magical optical effects and enchanting performances, Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast remains the most surreal -- and soulful -- of the fairy tale's film adaptations.
Synopsis: Jean Cocteau's adaptation of Beauty and the Beast (originally released in France as La Belle et la Bte) stars Josette...
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#322
Adjusted Score: 105.324%
Critics Consensus: An engrossing look at the triumphs and travails of war veterans, The Best Years of Our Lives is concerned specifically with the aftermath of World War II, but its messages speak to the overall American experience.
Synopsis: A memorable film about the aftermath of World War II in the United States., this film opens with the homecoming...
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#321
Adjusted Score: 107.488%
Critics Consensus: An Italian neorealism exemplar, Bicycle Thieves thrives on its non-flashy performances and searing emotion.
Synopsis: This landmark Italian neorealist drama became one of the best-known and most widely acclaimed European movies, including a special Academy...
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#320
Adjusted Score: 103.961%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Police Sergeant Bannion is investigating the apparent suicide of a corrupt cop, then is suddenly ordered to stop the investigation....
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#319
Adjusted Score: 88.884%
Critics Consensus: Typically stunning visuals and sharp dialogue from the Coen Brothers, brought to life with strong performances from Goodman and Bridges.
Synopsis: The plot of this Raymond Chandler-esque comedy crime caper from the Coen Brothers (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen) pivots around...
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#318
Adjusted Score: 94.112%
Critics Consensus: The reconstruction of Samuel Fuller's epic account of his days in North Africa in World War II elevates the film into the pantheon of great war movies.
Synopsis: Samuel Fuller's valedictory war picture, The Big Red One follows the First Infantry Division from Africa to Europe during the...
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#317
Adjusted Score: 92.263%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Visually spectacular, intensely action-packed and powerfully prophetic since its debut, Blade Runner returns in Ridley Scott's definitive Final Cut, including...
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#316
Adjusted Score: 94.048%
Critics Consensus: Exquisitely shot and simmering with unease, Michelangelo Antonio's Blow-Up is an enigma that invites audiences to luxuriate in the sensual atmosphere of 1960s London chic.
Synopsis: Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni's first English-language production was also his only box office hit, widely considered one of the seminal...
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#315
Adjusted Score: 73.112%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: This film documents the turbulent and often life-threatening years of China's Cultural Revolution through the eyes of one family, positing...
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#314
Adjusted Score: 100.659%
Critics Consensus: Majorly stylish, Bob le Flambeur is a cool homage to American gangster films and the presage to French New Wave mode of seeing.
Synopsis: Both a tribute to classic American gangster films and the source of inspiration for French New Wave filmmakers, Bob le...
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#313
Adjusted Score: 100.909%
Critics Consensus: Made from classic noir ingredients and flavored with a heaping helping of steamy modern spice, Body Heat more than lives up to its evocative title.
Synopsis: Lawrence Kasdan's first directorial effort is a throwback to the early days of film noir. The scene is a beastly...
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#312
Adjusted Score: 94.976%
Critics Consensus: A paradigm-shifting classic of American cinema, Bonnie and Clyde packs a punch whose power continues to reverberate through thrillers decades later.
Synopsis: Producer/star Warren Beatty had to convince Warner Bros. to finance this film, which went on to become the studio's second-highest...
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#311
Adjusted Score: 104.386%
Critics Consensus: Breathless rewrote the rules of cinema -- and more than 50 years after its arrival, Jean-Luc Godard's paradigm-shifting classic remains every bit as vital.
Synopsis: Enjoy brunch in the Torpedo Room before screening BREATHLESS hosted by John DeSando and Johnny DiLoretto. There was before BREATHLESS,...
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#310
Adjusted Score: 107.589%
Critics Consensus: An eccentric, campy, technically impressive, and frightening picture, James Whale's Bride of Frankenstein has aged remarkably well.
Synopsis: Dr. Frankenstein is forced to tempt fate once again by creating a suitable mate for his monster....
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#309
Adjusted Score: 103.252%
Critics Consensus: This complex war epic asks hard questions, resists easy answers, and boasts career-defining work from star Alec Guinness and director David Lean.
Synopsis: The Bridge on the River Kwai opens in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Burma in 1943, where a battle of...
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#308
Adjusted Score: 81.678%
Critics Consensus: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia adds a quirky -- but still thoroughly entertaining -- outlier to Sam Peckinpah's pulpy filmography.
Synopsis: An American bartender and his prostitute girlfriend go on a road trip through the Mexican underworld to collect a $1...
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#307
Adjusted Score: 99.472%
Critics Consensus: Thought-provoking and beautifully filmed, D.W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms presents a master at the top of his form.
Synopsis: Based on "The Chink and the Child", a story by Thomas Burke, Broken Blossoms is one of D.W. Griffith's most...
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#306
Adjusted Score: 111.565%
Critics Consensus: Arguably the first true horror film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari set a brilliantly high bar for the genre -- and remains terrifying nearly a century after it first stalked the screen.
Synopsis: In one of the most influential films of the silent era, Werner Krauss plays the title character, a sinister hypnotist...
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#305
Adjusted Score: 102.485%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: The ancient conflict between Rome and Carthage is the war-torn background for this story of an innocent young woman's capture...
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#304
Adjusted Score: 93.204%
Critics Consensus: A creepy French psychological thriller that commands the audience's attention throughout.
Synopsis: Paranoia grips a bourgeois European family when a series of menacing videotapes begin turning up on their doorstep in Piano...
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#303
Adjusted Score: 117.882%
Critics Consensus: An undisputed masterpiece and perhaps Hollywood's quintessential statement on love and romance, Casablanca has only improved with age, boasting career-defining performances from Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.
Synopsis: One of the most beloved American films, this captivating wartime adventure of romance and intrigue from director Michael Curtiz defies...
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#302
Adjusted Score: 100.845%
Critics Consensus: Influential noir director Jacques Tourneau infused this sexy, moody horror film with some sly commentary about the psychology and the taboos of desire.
Synopsis: Handed the exploitive title Cat People, RKO producer Val Lewton opted for a thinking man's thriller--a psychological mood piece, more...
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#301
Adjusted Score: 103.216%
Critics Consensus: Strong performances abound, and Carne's wit and grace are evident in this masterful (if long) French epic.
Synopsis: Even in 1945, Marcel Carnà (C)'s Children of Paradise was regarded as an old-fashioned film. Set in the Parisian theatrical...
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#300
Adjusted Score: 104.284%
Critics Consensus: A classic story adapted by a filmmaker near his creative peak, Chimes at Midnight unites Welles and Shakespeare - and powerfully distills the best of both.
Synopsis: In this memorable adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, the friendship between the rogue Falstaff and the...
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#299
Adjusted Score: 107.511%
Critics Consensus: As bruised and cynical as the decade that produced it, this noir classic benefits from Robert Towne's brilliant screenplay, director Roman Polanski's steady hand, and wonderful performances from Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.
Synopsis: "You may think you know what you're dealing with, but believe me, you don't," warns water baron Noah Cross (John...
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#298
Adjusted Score: 97.431%
Critics Consensus: Filled with excellent performances, Ramin Bahrani's deft sophomore effort is a heartfelt, hopeful neorealist look at the people who live in the gritty underbelly of New York City.
Synopsis: A street-smart orphan determined to make a better life for himself and his sixteen year-old sister spends his days working...
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#297
Adjusted Score: 93.878%
Critics Consensus: Both warmly nostalgic and darkly humorous, A Christmas Story deserves its status as a holiday perennial.
Synopsis: In the 1940's, in the town of Hammond, 9-year-old Ralphie wants one thing for Christmas -- an official Red Ryder...
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#296
Adjusted Score: 98.881%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Less maudlin than many of Chaplin's longer films, this one won him a special Academy Award for "versatility and genius...
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#295
Adjusted Score: 118.294%
Critics Consensus: Orson Welles's epic tale of a publishing tycoon's rise and fall is entertaining, poignant, and inventive in its storytelling, earning its reputation as a landmark achievement in film.
Synopsis: This is the labyrinthine study of the life of a newspaper tycoon....
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#294
Adjusted Score: 105.319%
Critics Consensus: One of the best underdog romance movies ever, with an ending that will light up any heart.
Synopsis: A homeless tramp befriends a lovely blind flower seller and convinces her he is a millionaire while he secretly labors...
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#293
Adjusted Score: 98.33%
Critics Consensus: Cleo from 5 to 7 represents a beautifully filmed highlight of the French New Wave that encapsulates the appeal of the era while departing from its narrative conventions.
Synopsis: A spoiled and beautiful young pop singer wanders across Paris while awaiting the results of a medical test that may...
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#292
Adjusted Score: 82.708%
Critics Consensus: It might have been better served by a filmmaker with a deeper connection to the source material, but The Color Purple remains a worthy, well-acted adaptation of Alice Walker's classic novel.
Synopsis: Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker, The Color Purple spans the years 1909 to 1949, relating the...
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#291
Adjusted Score: 99.057%
Critics Consensus: As effectively anti-war as movies can be, Come and See is a harrowing odyssey through the worst that humanity is capable of, directed with bravura intensity by Elem Klimov.
Synopsis: As seen through the eyes of teen-aged protagonist Alexei Kravchenko, the landscape of Byelorussia is devastated by the incursion of...
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#290
Adjusted Score: 69.805%
Critics Consensus: Contact elucidates stirring scientific concepts and theological inquiry at the expense of satisfying storytelling, making for a brainy blockbuster that engages with its ideas, if not its characters.
Synopsis: She's known it since she was a young girl, when she would magically connect with distant voices on her father's...
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#289
Adjusted Score: 102.102%
Critics Consensus: This tense, paranoid thriller presents Francis Ford Coppola at his finest -- and makes some remarkably advanced arguments about technology's role in society that still resonate today.
Synopsis: Made between The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974), and in part a homage to Michelangelo Antonioni's art-movie...
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#288
Adjusted Score: 105.605%
Critics Consensus: Though hampered by Stuart Rosenberg's direction, Cool Hand Luke is held aloft by a stellar script and one of Paul Newman's most indelible performances.
Synopsis: Paul Newman was nominated for an Oscar and George Kennedy received one for his work in this allegorical prison drama....
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#287
Adjusted Score: 93.494%
Critics Consensus: Visually stunning and achingly performed, Ingmar Bergman's chamber piece is a visceral rumination on death and sisterhood.
Synopsis: This grim but unforgettable film stars Liv Ullman and Ingrid Thulin as the sisters of dying cancer patient Harriet Andersson....
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#286
Adjusted Score: 97.367%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Considered an important entry in filmmaker Woody Allen's body of work, and certainly one of his most interesting pieces, Crimes...
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#285
Adjusted Score: 97.211%
Critics Consensus: Crumb is a frank and surreal chronicle of artistic expression and family trauma, offering an unblinking gaze into the mind and work of cartoonist Robert Crumb that will endear as much as it unsettles.
Synopsis: A fascinating, funny and finally troubling documentary about the prolific, iconoclastic underground cartoonist Robert Crumb....
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#284
Adjusted Score: 80.468%
Critics Consensus: Stylishly gloomy, Dark City offers a polarizing whirl of arresting visuals and noirish action.
Synopsis: From the director of "The Crow," an atmospheric melange of styles and substance about aliens, night and unspeakable acts. Interesting,...
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#283
Adjusted Score: 103.308%
Critics Consensus: A sweet counterpoint to Godard's Contempt, Truffaut's Day for Night is a congenial tribute to the self-afflicted madness that is making a movie.
Synopsis: Known to English-speaking audiences as Day for Night, La nuit américaine was director François Truffaut's loving and humorous tribute to...
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#282
Adjusted Score: 97.343%
Critics Consensus: Illuminated by magic hour glow and wistful performances, Days of Heaven is a visual masterpiece that finds eloquent poetry in its spare scenario.
Synopsis: Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven, the long-awaited follow-up to his 1973 debut Badlands, confirmed his reputation as a visual poet...
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#281
Adjusted Score: 94.732%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: The final film of legendary director John Huston was based on the closing story of James Joyce's Dubliners. Anjelica Huston...
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Synopsis: Ten hourlong films about the Ten Commandments....
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#279
Adjusted Score: 82.975%
Critics Consensus: If slow and predictable, Departures is a quiet, life affirming story.
Synopsis: Director Yojiro Takita and writer Kundo Koyama examine the rituals surrounding death in Japan with this tale of an out-of-work...
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#278
Adjusted Score: 103.594%
Critics Consensus: Stylish and gripping, Detour offers further proof that a patsy and a femme fatale often add up to a satisfying story.
Synopsis: Detour, called by many the ultimate "film noir," made on a shoe-string budget, and utilizing "night-for-night cinematography, creates a bleak,...
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#277
Adjusted Score: 99.075%
Critics Consensus: Diary of a Country Priest brilliantly captures one man's spiritual and religious journey -- and the striking next phase in the evolution of a major filmmaking talent.
Synopsis: An austere look at the experiences of a young priest in a small French parish, Robert Bresson's masterly Le Journal...
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#276
Adjusted Score: 100.404%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: German filmmaker G.W. Pabst and Hollywood expatriate Louise Brooks re-team after the success of Pandora's Box for the silent film...
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#275
Adjusted Score: 104.683%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In typical Luis Buñuel fashion, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie surrealistically skewers the conventions of society. Buñuel applies his...
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#274
Adjusted Score: 99.839%
Critics Consensus: Beineix combines unique cinematography, an intelligent script, and a brilliant soundtrack to make Diva a stylishly memorable film.
Synopsis: This atmospheric thriller is about a young postal delivery boy, his obsession with an opera diva, the bootleg tapes he...
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#273
Adjusted Score: 100.916%
Critics Consensus: Smart, vibrant, and urgent without being didactic, Do the Right Thing is one of Spike Lee's most fully realized efforts -- and one of the most important films of the 1980s.
Synopsis: This powerful visual feast combines humor and drama with memorable characters while tracing the course of a single day on...
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#272
Adjusted Score: 100.714%
Critics Consensus: Framed by great work from director Sidney Lumet and fueled by a gripping performance from Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon offers a finely detailed snapshot of people in crisis with tension-soaked drama shaded in black humor.
Synopsis: Based on a true 1972 story, Sidney Lumet's 1975 drama chronicles a unique bank robbery on a hot summer afternoon...
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#271
Adjusted Score: 102.617%
Critics Consensus: Don't Look Now patiently builds suspense with haunting imagery and a chilling score -- causing viewers to feel Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie's grief deep within.
Synopsis: A married couple is haunted by a series of mysterious occurrences after the death of their young daughter in this...
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#270
Adjusted Score: 111.006%
Critics Consensus: A dark, tautly constructed adaptation of James M. Cain's novel -- penned by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler -- Double Indemnity continues to set the standard for the best in Hollywood film noir.
Synopsis: Directed by Billy Wilder and adapted from a James M. Cain novel by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, Double Indemnity represents...
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#269
Adjusted Score: 83.444%
Critics Consensus: Operating on confounding dream logic with Irene Jacob's beautiful performance as a guide, The Double Life of Veronique offers a moving meditation on perception for audiences willing to indulge its inscrutability.
Synopsis: In this off-beat fantasy, the life of a beautiful French woman is mirrored by that of a Polish woman. The...
[More]
#268
Adjusted Score: 107.063%
Critics Consensus: Stanley Kubrick's brilliant Cold War satire remains as funny and razor-sharp today as it was in 1964.
Synopsis: In 1964, with the Cuban Missile Crisis fresh in viewers' minds, the Cold War at its frostiest, and the hydrogen...
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#267
Adjusted Score: 100.377%
Critics Consensus: Bela Lugosi's timeless portrayal of Dracula in this creepy and atmospheric 1931 film has set the standard for major vampiric roles since.
Synopsis: "I am....Drac-u-la. I bid you velcome." Thus does Bela Lugosi declare his presence in the 1931 screen version of Bram...
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#266
Adjusted Score: 101.452%
Critics Consensus: Fueled by inspired silliness and blessed with some of the Marx brothers' most brilliant work, Duck Soup is one of its -- or any -- era's finest comedies.
Synopsis: Arguably the Marx Brothers' funniest film, this comedy masterpiece contains several famous scenes, including the hilarious mirror sequence. A wealthy...
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#265
Adjusted Score: 110.889%
Critics Consensus: Playing as both an exciting sci-fi adventure and a remarkable portrait of childhood, Steven Spielberg's touching tale of a homesick alien remains a piece of movie magic for young and old.
Synopsis: Both a classic movie for kids and a remarkable portrait of childhood, E.T. is a sci-fi adventure that captures that...
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#264
Adjusted Score: 100.425%
Critics Consensus: Ophüls' graceful camerawork and visual portrayal of luxury and loss make Earrings a powerful French drama.
Synopsis: Max Ophüls' masterpiece stars Danielle Darrieux as the titular Madame Louise de..., who in the film's opening scenes is forced...
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#263
Adjusted Score: 89.56%
Critics Consensus: Edgy and seminal, Easy Rider encapsulates the dreams, hopes, and hopelessness of 1960s counterculture.
Synopsis: After scoring cocaine in Mexico, then re-selling it in California, two bikers set off on a cross-country trek to New...
[More]
#262
Adjusted Score: 86.943%
Critics Consensus: Sensitively written, skillfully directed, and powerfully portrayed, El Norte wrings deeply affecting drama from intractable real-life issues.
Synopsis: "When will we find a home?" Rosa asks her brother Enrique at the end of their long journey. Alone in...
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#261
Adjusted Score: 84.091%
Critics Consensus: By turns intoxicating and confounding, El Topo contains the creative multitudes that made writer-director Alejandro Jodorowsky such a singular talent.
Synopsis: A bizarre, ultra-violent, allegorical Western, "El Topo" is set in two halves that have widely been compared to the Old...
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#260
Adjusted Score: 96.663%
Critics Consensus: The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser marks a powerfully humane entry in writer-director Werner Herzog's acclaimed oeuvre, further bolstered by tremendous work by star Bruno S.
Synopsis: This film is based on the famous story of mysterious 19th-century child genius Kasper Hauser. Hauser shows up unannounced in...
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#259
Adjusted Score: 99.229%
Critics Consensus: Propelled by Charlie Kaufman's smart, imaginative script and Michel Gondry's equally daring directorial touch, Eternal Sunshine is a twisty yet heartfelt look at relationships and heartache.
Synopsis: The second feature from director Michel Gondry (Human Nature) finds the filmmaker reteaming with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman for this off-the-wall...
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#258
Adjusted Score: 98.439%
Critics Consensus: Exotica simmers with sex and obsession, while successfully doubling as an extreme character study.
Synopsis: The action in this film revolves largely around the Exotica strip club, a faux-tropical hothouse where young female dancers cater...
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#257
Adjusted Score: 95.365%
Critics Consensus: Societal etiquette devolves into depravity in Luis Buñuel's existential comedy, effectively playing the absurdity of civilization for mordant laughs.
Synopsis: In this jet black and surreal comedy, a formal dinner party starts out normally enough. After the sophisticated guests retire...
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#256
Adjusted Score: 100.663%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: This abstract video shows the adaptation of the Poe Story "The Fall of the house of Usher." Using slow motion,...
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#255
Adjusted Score: 102.998%
Critics Consensus: Ingmar Bergman conveys the sweep of childhood with a fastidious attention to detail and sumptuous insight into human frailty in Fanny & Alexander, a masterwork that crystalizes many of the directors' preoccupations into a familial epic.
Synopsis: In 1982, Ingmar Bergman emerged with one of his most singularly acclaimed films - a work that dramatically broke away...
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#254
Adjusted Score: 99.469%
Critics Consensus: Violent, quirky, and darkly funny, Fargo delivers an original crime story and a wonderful performance by McDormand.
Synopsis: A pregnant police chief is investigating a series of homicides across the frozen tundra. Against a sprawling Minnesota landscape, a...
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#253
Adjusted Score: 101.227%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In this German film, Emil Jannings glowers his way through the role of Mephistopholes, who offers the aging Faust an...
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#252
Adjusted Score: 103.774%
Critics Consensus: Inventive, thought-provoking, and funny, 8 1/2 represents the arguable peak of Federico Fellini's many towering feats of cinema.
Synopsis: Exhausted from the success of his latest blockbuster film, already feeling pressured to come up with another smash hit, and...
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#251
Adjusted Score: 93.784%
Critics Consensus: The Firemen's Ball is an uproarious comedy of incompetence, mining laughs and sharp satire from an allegory that is amusing and distressing in equal measure.
Synopsis: Firemen's Ball was Czechoslovakian director Milos Forman's final film in his home country; he was scouting locations in Paris when...
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#250
Adjusted Score: 79.841%
Critics Consensus: With a production as audacious as the feat it's depicting, Fitzcarraldo comes by its awe-inspiring spectacle honestly, even when it declines to examine the darker implications of its hero's dream.
Synopsis: German filmmaker Werner Herzog has never done anything by halves. When Herzog tackled Fitzcarraldo, the story of an obsessed impresario...
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#249
Adjusted Score: 94.366%
Critics Consensus: An important touchstone of the New Hollywood era, Five Easy Pieces is a haunting portrait of alienation that features one of Jack Nicholson's greatest performances.
Synopsis: A disaffected man seeks a sense of identity in one of the key films of Hollywood's 1970s New Wave. Once...
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#248
Adjusted Score: 98.092%
Critics Consensus: Floating Weeds boasts the visual beauty and deep tenderness of director Yasujiro Ozu's most memorable films -- and it's one of the few the master shot in color.
Synopsis: This 1959 Ozu production centers on the likable but fallible leader of an itinerant acting troupe ("floating weeds" being the...
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#247
Adjusted Score: 102.082%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: One of the first films to see the horrors of war through the eyes of children, Forbidden Games was a...
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#246
Adjusted Score: 102.16%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Beautifully photographed, this comedy drama from Jean Renoir chronicles the revival of Paris' most notorious dance as it tells the...
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#245
Adjusted Score: 91.087%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Gates of Heaven is a perversely enjoyable film about the American funeral industry. Oh, wait, we forget to tell you....
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#244
Adjusted Score: 97.361%
Critics Consensus: Brilliantly filmed and fueled with classic physical comedy, The General captures Buster Keaton at his timeless best.
Synopsis: Buster Keaton plays Johnny Gray, a Southern railroad engineer who loves his train engine, The General, almost as much as...
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#243
Adjusted Score: 111.787%
Critics Consensus: One of Hollywood's greatest critical and commercial successes, The Godfather gets everything right; not only did the movie transcend expectations, it established new benchmarks for American cinema.
Synopsis: Popularly viewed as one of the best American films ever made, the multi-generational crime saga The Godfather is a touchstone...
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#242
Adjusted Score: 107.779%
Critics Consensus: Drawing on strong performances by Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, Francis Ford Coppola's continuation of Mario Puzo's Mafia saga set new standards for sequels that have yet to be matched or broken.
Synopsis: Francis Ford Coppola's legendary continuation and sequel to his landmark 1972 film, The Godfather, parallels the young Vito Corleone's rise...
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#241
Adjusted Score: 105.603%
Critics Consensus: Goldfinger is where James Bond as we know him comes into focus - it features one of 007's most famous lines ("A martini. Shaken, not stirred") and a wide range of gadgets that would become the series' trademark.
Synopsis: To many, the quintessential Bond film and a brilliant third entry in the series. Here Bond gets his Aston Martin,...
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#240
Adjusted Score: 105.255%
Critics Consensus: Gone with the Wind's epic grandeur and romantic allure encapsulate an era of Hollywood filmmaking -- but that can't excuse a blinkered perspective that stands on the wrong side of history.
Synopsis: Gone With the Wind boils down to a story about a spoiled Southern girl's hopeless love for a married man....
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#239
Adjusted Score: 106.572%
Critics Consensus: Arguably the greatest of the spaghetti westerns, this epic features a compelling story, memorable performances, breathtaking landscapes, and a haunting score.
Synopsis: In the last and the best installment of his so-called "Dollars" trilogy of Sergio Leone-directed "spaghetti westerns," Clint Eastwood reprised...
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#238
Adjusted Score: 99.204%
Critics Consensus: Louis Malle's autobiographical tale of a childhood spent in a WWII boarding school is a beautifully realized portrait of friendship and youth.
Synopsis: During the Nazi occupation of France, a young Catholic boarding-school student witnesses the courage of his teachers as they defy...
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#237
Adjusted Score: 103.418%
Critics Consensus: Hard-hitting and stylish, GoodFellas is a gangster classic -- and arguably the high point of Martin Scorsese's career.
Synopsis: Martin Scorsese explores the life of organized crime with his gritty, kinetic adaptation of Nicolas Pileggi's best-selling Wiseguy, the true-life...
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#236
Adjusted Score: 93.914%
Critics Consensus: The Gospel According to St. Matthew forgoes the pageantry of biblical epics in favor of a naturalistic retelling of the Christ story, achieving a respectful if not reverent interpretation with political verve.
Synopsis: Relating his facts in straight-on documentary fashion, Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1964 Biblical film stars Enrique Irazoqui as Jesus. In it,...
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#235
Adjusted Score: 111.636%
Critics Consensus: Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion is a masterful anti-war statement, bringing humane insight and an undercurrent of ironic humor to an unusual relationship between captor and captive.
Synopsis: For its 75th Anniversary, Rialto Pictures presents a stunning 4K restoration of GRAND ILLUSION, Jean Renoir's powerful and eloquent anti-war...
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#234
Adjusted Score: 106.436%
Critics Consensus: A potent drama that is as socially important today as when it was made, The Grapes of Wrath is affecting, moving, and deservedly considered an American classic.
Synopsis: Adapted from John Steinbeck's novel, this classic drama shows how the Great Depression affects one American family. Evicted from their...
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#233
Adjusted Score: 102.501%
Critics Consensus: An achingly sad anti-war film, Grave of the Fireflies is one of Studio Ghibli's most profoundly beautiful, haunting works.
Synopsis: Grave of the Fireflies opens on an evening in 1945, after Japan's surrender at the end of World War II;...
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#232
Adjusted Score: 98.816%
Critics Consensus: Charlie Chaplin demonstrates that his comedic voice is undiminished by dialogue in this rousing satire of tyranny, which may be more distinguished by its uplifting humanism than its gags.
Synopsis: "This is the story of the period between two world wars--an interim during which insanity cut loose, liberty took a...
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#231
Adjusted Score: 104.368%
Critics Consensus: Furnished with striking visual detail and told with great narrative economy by director David Lean, Great Expectations is an exemplary adaptation of Charles Dickens' dense and episodic novel.
Synopsis: After an anonymous patron provides him with an income, orphaned Pip sets out for the life of a young gentleman....
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#230
Adjusted Score: 98.746%
Critics Consensus: Powerful even in its incomplete form, Erich von Stroheim's Greed is a spoil of cinematic riches and a harrowing treatise on the corrupting allure of money.
Synopsis: No one living can say whether the original, ten-hour version of Erich von Stroheim's most famous movie was the epic...
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#229
Adjusted Score: 70.839%
Critics Consensus: A grim and devastating tale of the Holocaust.
Synopsis: The story of five prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp as told through the memoirs of Dr. Miklos Nyiszil, a...
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#228
Adjusted Score: 102.585%
Critics Consensus: Smart, sweet, and inventive, Groundhog Day highlights Murray's dramatic gifts while still leaving plenty of room for laughs.
Synopsis: Bill Murray plays Phil, a TV weatherman working for a local station in Pennsylvania but convinced that national news stardom...
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#227
Adjusted Score: 86.708%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A man fulfills a lifelong ambition when he marries a beautiful hairdresser....
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#226
Adjusted Score: 94.703%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In this Japanese drama, set in the 17th century, samurai warriors fight each other in their search for a master...
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#225
Adjusted Score: 109.188%
Critics Consensus: A Hard Day's Night, despite its age, is still a delight to watch and has proven itself to be a rock-and-roll movie classic.
Synopsis: The year is 1964 and four young lads from Liverpool are about to change the world - if only the...
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#224
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Starring:
#223
Adjusted Score: 101.574%
Critics Consensus: One of the most critically acclaimed documentaries of all time, Hoop Dreams is a rich, complex, heartbreaking, and ultimately deeply rewarding film that uses high school hoops as a jumping-off point to explore issues of race, class, and education in modern America.
Synopsis: This documentary about the aspirations of high-school basketball players from inner city Chicago won awards from the Sundance film festival,...
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Directed By:
#222
Adjusted Score: 97.544%
Critics Consensus: Galvanized by David Mamet's punchy dialogue and a winding succession of surprises, House of Games is a terse thriller where confidence is currency.
Synopsis: Playwright David Mamet's directorial debut House of Games is a tense psychological thriller about a uptight psychiatrist (Lindsay Crouse) who...
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#221
Adjusted Score: 98.804%
Critics Consensus: A superbly-mounted adaptation of E.M. Forster's tale of British class tension, with exceptional performances all round, Howard's End ranks among the best of Merchant-Ivory's work.
Synopsis: One of the best Ismail Merchant/James Ivory films, this adaptation of E. M. Forster's classic 1910 novel shows in careful...
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#220
Adjusted Score: 102.426%
Critics Consensus: Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason give iconic performances in this dark, morally complex tale of redemption.
Synopsis: As The Hustler's "Fast" Eddie Felson, Paul Newman created a classic antihero, charismatic but fundamentally flawed, and nobody's role model....
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#219
Adjusted Score: 103.62%
Critics Consensus: Ikiru is a well-acted and deeply moving humanist tale about a man facing his own mortality, one of legendary director Akira Kurosawa's most intimate films.
Synopsis: Akira Kurosawa's drama stars Takashi Shimura as Kanji Watanabe, a government clerk who learns he has only months to live....
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#218
Adjusted Score: 85.86%
Critics Consensus: In Cold Blood is a classic docudrama with a fictional thriller's grip -- and a pair of terrific lead performances from Robert Blake and Scott Wilson.
Synopsis: This docudrama recreates a real life crime in which an entire family was brutally murdered by wandering gunmen....
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#217
Adjusted Score: 104.635%
Critics Consensus: Led by extraordinary performances from Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame, In a Lonely Place is a gripping noir of uncommon depth and maturity.
Synopsis: Screenwriter Dixon Steele, faced with the odious task of scripting a trashy bestseller, has hatcheck girl Mildred Atkinson tell him...
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#216
Adjusted Score: 94.701%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: The Evolution vs. Creationism argument is at the center of the Jerome Lawrence-Robert E. Lee Broadway play Inherit the Wind....
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#215
Adjusted Score: 106.365%
Critics Consensus: The holiday classic to define all holiday classics, It's a Wonderful Life is one of a handful of films worth an annual viewing.
Synopsis: This is director Frank Capra's classic bittersweet comedy/drama about George Bailey (James Stewart), the eternally-in-debt guiding force of a bank...
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#214
Adjusted Score: 101.773%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Sergei Eisenstein's operatic saga of the 16th-century Russian hero Czar Ivan IV is given a charismatic performance by Nikolai Cherkasov...
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#213
Adjusted Score: 100.613%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: The second part of Sergei Eisenstein's baroque chronicle of the legendary Russian czar was originally planned as a three-part epic....
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#212
Adjusted Score: 102.707%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Released shortly before his Apu trilogy, this is felt to be one of Satyaijt Ray's finest productions. Based on a...
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#211
Adjusted Score: 88.5%
Critics Consensus: As history, Oliver Stone's JFK is dubious, but as filmmaking it's electric, cramming a ton of information and excitement into its three-hour runtime and making great use of its outstanding cast.
Synopsis: The November 22, 1963, assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy shocked the nation and the world. The brisk investigation...
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#210
Adjusted Score: 107.942%
Critics Consensus: Compelling, well-crafted storytelling and a judicious sense of terror ensure Steven Spielberg's Jaws has remained a benchmark in the art of delivering modern blockbuster thrills.
Synopsis: Based on Peter Benchley's best-selling novel, Steven Spielberg's 1975 shark saga set the standard for the New Hollywood popcorn blockbuster...
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#209
Adjusted Score: 97.986%
Critics Consensus: Johnny Guitar confidently strides through genre conventions, emerging with a brilliant statement that transcends its period setting -- and left an indelible mark.
Synopsis: Strong-willed saloon-casino owner Vienna squares off against her nemesis, the shrieking Emma Small, who wrongly blames Vienna for her brother's...
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#208
Adjusted Score: 97.09%
Critics Consensus: Francois Truffaut's arguable masterpiece in a filmography full of masterpieces ready to be argued for, Jules and Jim is an eternal ode to boundless love.
Synopsis: Acclaimed French director François Truffaut's third and, for many viewers, best film is an adaptation of a semi-autobiographical novel by...
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#207
Adjusted Score: 82.079%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Believing her husband to be unfaithful, Giulietta is advised by a mystic to "trust in the spirits." Before long, she...
[More]
#206
Adjusted Score: 100.063%
Critics Consensus: By turns funny, sad, and profound, Killer of Sheep offers a sympathetic and humane glimpse into inner-city life.
Synopsis: Set in the Watts area of Los Angeles, a slaughterhouse worker must suspend his emotions to continue working at a...
[More]
#205
Adjusted Score: 103.169%
Critics Consensus: An expertly crafted noir with more on its mind than stylishly staged violence, The Killing establishes Stanley Kubrick as a filmmaker of uncommon vision and control.
Synopsis: A gang of greedy petty criminals plan a race track robbery. The plan gets foiled and disaster ensues....
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#204
Adjusted Score: 106.702%
Critics Consensus: Performed with chameleonic brio by Alec Guinness, Kind Hearts and Coronets is a triumphant farce.
Synopsis: A distant poor relative of the Duke of D'Ascoyne plots to inherit the title by murdering the eight other heirs...
[More]
#203
Adjusted Score: 109.864%
Critics Consensus: King Kong explores the soul of a monster -- making audiences scream and cry throughout the film -- in large part due to Kong's breakthrough special effects.
Synopsis: "How would you like to star opposite the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood?" Enticed by these words, brunette leading...
[More]
#202
Adjusted Score: 107.642%
Critics Consensus: As poetic as it is realistic, Jean Vigo's L'Atalante passionately deals with relevant themes through the story of two star-crossed lovers.
Synopsis: The story of a naive young woman who marries a barge captain; who slips away from his boat for the...
[More]
#201
Adjusted Score: 99.833%
Critics Consensus: L'Avventura marks a bewitchingly ambiguous milestone in Antonioni's career -- and European cinema in general.
Synopsis: This exceptional Italian mystery offers potent comments upon life in the bourgeoisie class and upon the isolation sometimes suffered by...
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#200
Adjusted Score: 106.247%
Critics Consensus: Taut pacing, brilliantly dense writing and Oscar-worthy acting combine to produce a smart, popcorn-friendly thrill ride.
Synopsis: Based on the best-selling novel by James Ellroy and directed by Curtis Hanson, this award-winning crime drama explores both the...
[More]
#199
Adjusted Score: 101.532%
Critics Consensus: A sensual and hypnotic masterpiece, La Belle Noiseuse luxuriates in its four-hour run time while holding audience attention.
Synopsis: In 1991, the master French director Jacques Rivette released one of his most acclaimed works- the four-hour La Belle noiseuse....
[More]
#198
Adjusted Score: 94.293%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: This French tragicomedy takes place in a remote chateau owned by a wealthy family. To help keep it up, they...
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#197
Adjusted Score: 81.114%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In this film, Patrick Bauchau plays a self-centered young man on summer holiday in the Mediterranean. He finds himself irresistibly...
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#196
Adjusted Score: 105.25%
Critics Consensus: An epic, breathtakingly stylish cinematic landmark, La Dolce Vita remains riveting in spite of -- or perhaps because of -- its sprawling length.
Synopsis: In this Federico Fellini film, Marcello Mastrioanni stars as Fellini's alter ego, here depicted as a gossip columnist. Having left...
[More]
#195
Adjusted Score: 107.294%
Critics Consensus: A career highlight for Preston Sturges, The Lady Eve benefits from Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda's sparkling chemistry -- and a script that inspired countless battle-of-the-sexes comedies.
Synopsis: In Preston Sturges' comedy, Henry Fonda stars as Charles Pike, the son of a beer magnate who becomes the target...
[More]
#194
Adjusted Score: 103.034%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: F.W. Murnau's German silent classic The Last Laugh (Der Letze Mann) stars Emil Jannings as the doorman of a posh...
[More]
#193
Adjusted Score: 106%
Critics Consensus: Making excellent use of its period and setting, Peter Bogdanovich's small town coming-of-age story is a sad but moving classic filled with impressive performances.
Synopsis: Produced by Hollywood iconoclast BBS Productions, film critic-turned-director Peter Bogdanovich's 1971 film pays homage to Hollywood's classical age as it...
[More]
#192
Adjusted Score: 87.799%
Critics Consensus: Naturalistic but evocative, Last Tango in Paris is a vivid exploration of pain, love, and sex featuring a typically towering Marlon Brando performance.
Synopsis: In Bernardo Bertolucci's art-house classic, Marlon Brando delivers one of his characteristically idiosyncratic performances as Paul, a middle-aged American in...
[More]
#191
Adjusted Score: 85.076%
Critics Consensus: The Last Temptation of Christ is a surprisingly straight and passionate affair, one that also seeks to redeem Scorsese's '80s career.
Synopsis: The story of Jesus Christ's crucifixion and its aftermath are the subject of this sometimes iconoclastic but always passionate religious...
[More]
#190
Adjusted Score: 99.413%
Critics Consensus: Elegantly enigmatic and dreamlike, this work of essential cinema features exquisite cinematography and an exploration of narrative still revisited by filmmakers today.
Synopsis: This experimental New Wave film features stunning imagery, while deliberately avoiding conventional plot and character development. At an elegant European...
[More]
#189
Adjusted Score: 103.097%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Veteran Japanese writer/director Yasujiro Ozu's second postwar production was 1949's Late Spring or Banshun. Chisu Ryu plays another of Ozu's...
[More]
#188
Adjusted Score: 109.439%
Critics Consensus: A psychologically complex portrait of obsession, Laura is also a deliciously well-crafted murder mystery.
Synopsis: This adaptation of Vera Caspary's suspense novel was begun by director Rouben Mamoulien and cinematographer Lucien Ballard, but thanks to...
[More]
#187
Adjusted Score: 106.654%
Critics Consensus: The epic of all epics, Lawrence of Arabia cements director David Lean's status in the filmmaking pantheon with nearly four hours of grand scope, brilliant performances, and beautiful cinematography.
Synopsis: This sweeping, highly literate historical epic covers the Allies' mideastern campaign during World War I as seen through the eyes...
[More]
#186
Adjusted Score: 98.24%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In this Hitchcockian thriller, schoolteacher Hélène comes to a small Périgord village to begin a new job. She is soon...
[More]
#185
Adjusted Score: 102.863%
Critics Consensus: Le Samouraï makes the most of its spare aesthetic, using stylish -- and influential -- direction, solid performances, and thick atmosphere to weave an absorbing story.
Synopsis: Living the sterile life necessary for a hitman, Alain Delon portrays an assassin's last assignment, which leaves him under the...
[More]
#184
Adjusted Score: 94.051%
Critics Consensus: Oscar-awarded Nicolas Cage finds humanity in his character as it bleeds away in this no frills, exhilaratingly dark portrait of destruction.
Synopsis: Mike Figgis' grim drama documents a romantic triangle of sorts involving prostitute Sera (Elisabeth Shue), failed Hollywood screenwriter Ben (Oscar-winner...
[More]
#183
Adjusted Score: 77.959%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Jean-Claude Lauzon's highly praised film tells the strange story of Léolo, a young boy from Montréal. Told from Léolo's point-of-view,...
[More]
#182
Adjusted Score: 97.836%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A richly contemplative saga of grief, this is the tale of a young war widow who is helped to work...
[More]
#181
Adjusted Score: 103.376%
Critics Consensus: Lavish and wistful, The Leopard features epic battles, sumptuous costumes, and a ballroom waltz that competes for most beautiful sequence committed to film.
Synopsis: Arguably Luchino Visconti's best film and certainly the most personal of his historical epics, The Leopard chronicles the fortunes of...
[More]
#180
Adjusted Score: 102.667%
Critics Consensus: A moving evocation of both British values and the passage of time, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is an epic portrait of a singular character by Powell and Pressburger.
Synopsis: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's much-lauded epic Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, which satirizes British traditionalism, stirred up impassioned...
[More]
#179
Adjusted Score: 101.696%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Life of Oharu features Kinuyo Tanaka in the title role. Oharu is a middle-aged prostitute in 17th century Japan. As...
[More]
#178
Adjusted Score: 97.24%
Critics Consensus: An ice-cold noir that retains Robert Altman's idiosyncratic sensibilities, The Long Goodbye ranks among the smartest and most satisfying Marlowe mysteries.
Synopsis: "It's OK with me...." Applying his deconstructive eye to the "film noir" tradition, Robert Altman updated Raymond Chandler in his...
[More]
#177
Adjusted Score: 101.835%
Critics Consensus: Effectively balancing humor and subtle pathos, Sofia Coppola crafts a moving, melancholy story that serves as a showcase for both Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson.
Synopsis: After making a striking directorial debut with her screen adaptation of The Virgin Suicides, Sofia Coppola offers a story of...
[More]
#176
Adjusted Score: 108.104%
Critics Consensus: A landmark psychological thriller with arresting images, deep thoughts on modern society, and Peter Lorre in his finest performance.
Synopsis: Fritz Lang's classic early talkie crime melodrama is set in 1931 Berlin. The police are anxious to capture an elusive...
[More]
#175
Adjusted Score: 89.517%
Critics Consensus: Magnolia is an ambitious, lengthy work that ultimately succeeds due to interesting stories and excellent ensemble performances.
Synopsis: An intriguing and entertaining study in characters going through varying levels of crisis and introspection. This psychological drama leads you...
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#174
Adjusted Score: 104.077%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Totally alone but for each other, an elderly couple struggles to keep the bank from taking their home. When that...
[More]
#173
Adjusted Score: 109.235%
Critics Consensus: Suspenseful, labyrinthine, and brilliantly cast, The Maltese Falcon is one of the most influential noirs -- as well as a showcase for Humphrey Bogart at his finest.
Synopsis: After two previous film versions of Dashiell Hammett's detective classic The Maltese Falcon, Warner Bros. finally got it right in...
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#172
Adjusted Score: 104.645%
Critics Consensus: A Man Escaped is blockbuster Bresson, a well-acted POW drama that builds with subtle, seat-gripping tension.
Synopsis: French director Robert Bresson drew from his own experiences as a POW to fashion this story of a resistance leader...
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#171
Adjusted Score: 101.772%
Critics Consensus: A meeting of brilliant creative minds, The Man Who Laughs serves as a stellar showcase for the talents of director Paul Leni and star Conrad Veidt.
Synopsis: The second of German director Paul Leni's American films (Cat and the Canary was the first), The Man Who Laughs...
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#170
Adjusted Score: 98.682%
Critics Consensus: Featuring a trio of classic leading men and a rich story captured by a director at the peak of his craft, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is one of the finest Westerns ever filmed.
Synopsis: Eastern attorney Ranson Stoddard (James Stewart) heads to the wild West in search of a new life. He settles in...
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#169
Adjusted Score: 102.491%
Critics Consensus: Groundbreaking in its exploration of the medium, Man with a Movie Camera is proof that cinema in and of itself can be a source of grand entertainment and sociological value.
Synopsis: More widely known as Man With a Movie Camera, this radical (for it's time), freewheeling Russian documentary depicts the city...
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#168
Adjusted Score: 85.973%
Critics Consensus: While not the classic its predecessor is, this update is well-acted and conjures a chilling resonance.
Synopsis: A psychological thriller in which a career soldier, Army Major Bennett Marco, grows suspicious about his experiences in Desert Storm...
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#167
Adjusted Score: 101.809%
Critics Consensus: One of Woody Allen's early classics, Manhattan combines modern, bittersweet humor and timeless romanticism with unerring grace.
Synopsis: Woody Allen combines witty dialogue, the music of George Gershwin, and atmospheric location shooting in one of his best romantic...
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#166
Adjusted Score: 93.541%
Critics Consensus: Hanna Schygulla is a knockout in The Marriage of Maria Braun, an intimate epic that reaffirms Rainer Werner Fassbinder's mastery of examining multifaceted people and a complicated nation.
Synopsis: The film that elevated German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder from domestic approbation to international acclaim, The Marriage of Maria Braun...
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#165
Adjusted Score: 0%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A downtrodden young factory worker becomes pregnant after a one-night stand and, when rejected by the wealthy father, suddenly decides...
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#164
Adjusted Score: 90.754%
Critics Consensus: McCabe & Mrs. Miller offers revisionist Western fans a landmark early addition to the genre while marking an early apogee for director Robert Altman.
Synopsis: In a small American frontier village, a stranger named McCabe builds a brothel with the help of experienced madame Mrs....
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#163
Adjusted Score: 101.219%
Critics Consensus: Mean Streets is a powerful tale of urban sin and guilt that marks Scorsese's arrival as an important cinematic voice and features electrifying performances from Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro.
Synopsis: "You don't make up for your sins in church; you do it in the streets; you do it at home....
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#162
Adjusted Score: 79.14%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A Hungarian update of the Faustian legend, Istvan Szabo's Mephisto stars Klaus Maria Brandauer as Hendrik Hofgen, a successful theatrical...
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#161
Adjusted Score: 108.202%
Critics Consensus: A visually awe-inspiring science fiction classic from the silent era.
Synopsis: In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind...
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#160
Adjusted Score: 90.446%
Critics Consensus: Paul Schrader's directorial masterpiece is a classy and imaginative portrait enriched by a stunning score and impressive cinematography.
Synopsis: The fragments of an autobiography by the self-destructive Japanese writer, Yukio Mishima....
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#159
Adjusted Score: 96.352%
Critics Consensus: Jacques Tati's most accessible film is a paean to gentle values and observing the small details of life.
Synopsis: In Jacques Tati's first color film, he again plays Monsieur Hulot, a man of simple means living an uncomplicated life....
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#158
Adjusted Score: 61.4%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: French Canadian director and actor Claude Jutra enjoyed his greatest critical success with this evocative and loving (but unsentimental) look...
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#157
Adjusted Score: 100.183%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Monsieur Hire (Michel Blanc) is an ageing, truculent loner who indulges in peeping-tomism. Hire worships a beautiful neighbor (Sandrine Bonnaire)...
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#156
Adjusted Score: 100.445%
Critics Consensus: A vibrant, powerful, and poignant glimpse into the struggles of women in modern Africa.
Synopsis: Set in a small African village, four young girls face a ritual "purification" flee to the household of Colle' Ardo...
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#155
Adjusted Score: 99.03%
Critics Consensus: Led by energetic performances from Nicolas Cage and Cher, Moonstruck is an exuberantly funny tribute to love and one of the decade's most appealing comedies.
Synopsis: When there's a full moon over Brooklyn, anything can happen, and everything happens in the neighborhood where widowed bookkeeper Loretta...
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#154
Adjusted Score: 102.904%
Critics Consensus: Pleasant, lackadaisical, and very charming, Monsieur Hulot lays the groundwork for Jacques Tati's later, more accomplished films.
Synopsis: Already familiar to many, especially following his acclaimed directorial debut Jour De Fete, Jacques Tati came into his own and...
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#153
Adjusted Score: 88.936%
Critics Consensus: David Lynch's dreamlike and mysterious Mulholland Drive is a twisty neo-noir with an unconventional structure that features a mesmirizing performance from Naomi Watts as a woman on the dark fringes of Hollywood.
Synopsis: Along Mulholland Drive nothing is what it seems. In the unreal universe of Los Angeles, the city bares its schizophrenic...
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#152
Adjusted Score: 104.126%
Critics Consensus: A class satire in a class of its own, My Man Godfrey's screwball comedy is as sharp as the social commentary is biting.
Synopsis: A scatterbrained socialite hires Godfrey, a vagrant, as a family butler, but there's more to Godfrey than meets the eye....
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#151
Adjusted Score: 103.818%
Critics Consensus: Canny and coolly confident, My Darling Clementine is a definitive dramatization of the Wyatt Earp legend that shoots from the hip and hits its target in breezy style.
Synopsis: John Ford's western takes its inspiration from the life and legend of Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda), the frontier lawman who...
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