I have been working on this list for almost a year. The idea is to create a list that will generate conversation, hopefully people will get a little upset with my list. My list will probably leave off some films that are considered classics, and will add films that are not. I guarantee that for most people about 20% of these films will be one that they have not seen. Hopefully the list spurs you to see them.
This list appears in two separate publications. The longer 100 film list is on my Substack. The Top 20 version appears here on This Week in Worcester, my hometown paper where I am a featured contributor.
This list has rules. I like to add a little degree of difficulty to my lists, for the sole purpose of dealing with the folks who want to argue. I can then say: make your own list, and let’s compare. There are only three rules, but the rules make it special.
Rule #1: Films that appear on a list eliminate remakes and sequels. This means, for example, if The Godfather makes the list, The Godfather 2 cannot appear. It also means that if the original 3:10 to Yuma were to appear, the remake would be left out.
Rule #2: The film has to have made at least an appearance in theaters. With some of the films being very indie, that means there may have only been a screening or two but that counts. If the film went direct-to-video or direct to streaming, it is out. This eliminates the vast majority of made for TV movies.
Rule #3: The film must be at least 60 minutes in length. A true feature, for me, takes up an hour of your life. I recognize that there are many great documentaries that are 50 minutes long, having been made for Frontline, or something like that. This list is about cinema at its finest, and all short film makers have some desire to make a feature.
These rules hurt me when I implemented them. Great trilogies were disrupted, for sure, by these rules, and great TV movies were left out. For the sake of cinema though I present, intentionally in descending order, the Top 20 Films of All Time according to John. Consider watching them in this order, and your brain will feel better.
20. Amadeus features one of the single greatest performances in the history of cinema in F. Murray Abraham’s Antonio Salieri. Salieri is a towering force of jealousy who destroys himself in the comparison to another man. The film also features another of the single greatest performances in the history of cinema in Tom Hulce’s Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Hulce lost the Oscar to Abraham in a reversal of fortune from the film’s story. Hulce is depraved, a playboy and a perfect foil for whom life is easy. He drives Salieri mad, and it is awesome. The music is great, the set design is pristine and the great Milos Forman pulls together another masterpiece for his second film on the list. See it, and make sure you have popcorn.
19. Kill Bill is a very long movie. Released in two parts originally, and with a new full length single film now (Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair), you need to strap in for the story of the Bride. This film has all the good things about Tarantino, and includes the spectacular Uma Thurman. To be honest, this review would need to be too long. Just see it, its his best.
18. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is one of those films that proves that most of the big lists you see around traditional Hollywood media are still in love with original box office numbers. The film only made $4 million dollars on a $3 million dollar budget. True. But the only promotion for this film was through TV ads for a mail-in chocolate bar promo. That’s it. With the wild sets, the colorful story and the OOMPA LOOMPAS, marketing for this should have been a breeze. Regardless, Gene Wilder’s manic performance is outstanding. The villain of the movie is by far Grandpa Joe, who didn’t work for decades while his daughter broke her back to support 4 grandparents who laid in bed, and then first shot at a candy bar the guy hops out of bed and dances. The songs are amazing, and the expansion of Veruca Salt is one of the most satisfying scenes in movie history. The story of a young boy without a father, whose single mother got him through to his big chance is a continuously underplayed concept in Hollywood. 5 stars.
17. Aladdin So this era of Disney animation remains hard to match. Of course each generation will argue that the ones that came out when they were kids are best. None of those movies have Robin Williams as Genie. In my opinion, this is the singular performance of Williams’ career, and he appears on this list multiple times. Genie is another role entirely, and just like the kids the last few years have sung, ‘Do you wanna build a snowman?’ or ‘We don’t talk about Bru-no-no’ we all sang, ‘You ain’t never had a friend like me.’ Williams seemingly schizoid ability to bop between thoughts works perfectly with the older school Disney animation, with swift cuts to each of his lines. His performance led to many big-time celebrities being cast in voice-only roles, which is lamented in some corners by less famous folks who used to get those jobs for their vocal abilities. The film has controversy attached to it for its stereotypical depiction of Arab societies. That said, the film is still the only Disney film to have a song win a Grammy (A Whole New World), and Williams role must be spotlighted.
16. The Nightmare Before Christmas some people who know me will think I am only including this here because they have heard me wax poetic about Tim Burton’s animated movies all being connected. First off, this was directed by Henry Selick (put some RESPECT on the man’s name), and I would never insert such a conspiracy into a work as grand as my epic 100 Best Films List. NEVER! Jack Skellington deserves his day in the sun, or the moon. (Random bonus: Tim Burton directed a Killers Video: Here With Me) The story is beautiful, and yes I know it offends folks who have the same faith as me. When watching films, you need to take the time and leave yourself behind. For this film, just be free. ‘Making Christmas, fa la la.’
15. Se7en opens up like an old detective show. A guy on the last week on the job. Morgan Freeman is tired old Somerset, and the cliches are laid down. Brad Pitt shows up, Mills the brash star detective from another unit, here to claim the old man’s job. Then the murders start, and you are sucked into a world of despair and pure evil. The film hurtles along, and screams towards an ending that remains etched in people’s minds. One that did not actually take place. The film is so visceral, you can’t help but imagine it even worse than it was. Freeman is perfect in this film, and Pitt surprises with a deft supporting turn. When Spacey actually shows up on screen, he is so evil, and so banal you hate him immediately. He represents all that is wrong with the universe.
14. Memento is just one of those movies man. I am not all-in on Christopher Nolan. Sometimes things he says bothers me at my core as a filmmaker. The bit about not having chairs on set just stinks to high heaven of treating people on film sets poorly and I hate that. There is no reason a film can’t be a place where the workers are treated well. It’s annoying otherwise. That said, this film was unique, remarkable and it was independent. This film had foreign distribution from its success on the film festival circuit, and only got a single American distributor (Newmarket) because Steven Soderbergh gave it free publicity because he liked it. The film became a hit because of the greatest force in advertising: word of mouth. Audiences tell their friends and families about movies they like. I am telling you now. Go see it. Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss (who was cast because of the Matrix!) and Joe Pantoliano (ditto!) are awesome.
13. Minority Report is an adaptation of yet another Phillip K. Dick novella. He is one of the great science fiction writers of our time. The film also features, a non-preachy Spielberg, and Tom Cruise at his best. It is dark and foreboding, and each day we move forward into a technology and A.I. driven world, the very idea of this film becomes closer to reality. We already use a form of this technology to predict where to put police. There are both philosophical and ethical issues with the practice. Street level crime is prosecuted at a much higher level than white collar crime, so there is no real use to statistical modeling when crime is weighted towards the poor. Spielberg touches on this, and leaves it an open question in the film, as Cruise struggles through the film future ‘ghetto.’ Leaving that open is the best part of the film, it pushes Cruise’s performance towards a dark place. Being the biggest movie star in the world has its drawbacks, no one wants a heel turn for Cruise. Yet, in Chief John Anderton, he starts as a heel in the context of the story. This film, for my wrestling fans, is a true babyface turn. The heel, in the end, is society. Are we headed there?
12. The Empire Strikes Back is the best Star Wars film. I don’t care about George Lucas changing the titles. It is darker than all of the other 8 “Skywalker Saga” movies, and the darkness makes everything real. I can go on and on but Lucas giving up the director’s role to Irvin Kershner, and focusing on the script led to the best script. He brought on people to challenge him and it worked. I have a lot to say about all the other movies, and there is a lot to love and a lot to hate as a filmmaker. This film invented many things. Industrial Light & Magic is an inspiration for me, and I hope to have an effects studio for my own projects some day. The miniature work continues to look amazing in the original. The cliffhanger with the Empire winning is the single best decision of the entire franchise, it drove people to not only the third original movie, but all the other Star Wars content to this day. TV Shows, movies, cartoons, comic books, Lego sets, toys, books and more show exactly how much this world has gripped generations. The first film set the stage sure, but this film made everything else possible. Plus, of course: YODA.
11. Back to the Future is so beloved by its fans that it has conventions, the play is now touring worldwide, and yes you can rent the DeLorean. Michael J. Fox’s iconic performance resonates until this day with constant references to almost every line he spoke in the film. People argue about details in the plot related to the time travel in a way that is beyond passion. Zemeckis and Bob Gale created a world that everyone loves, and this film is best part of it all. It did not receive great critical response to get awards at the time because film critics are stuffy. This film is FUN. You will laugh out loud during this film, and you will believe in Marty and Doc. Just a wonderful, great, awesome and cool movie.
10. Chinatown is a difficult film to put on this list because of Polanski. Can you separate art from the questions? In the end, this picture is so good it is hard not to view it as great. The trust between Dunaway and Nicholson, especially in the confrontation over Katherine, when Gittes slaps Evelyn repeatedly is clear and distinct both accepting it for what it was. The script by Robert Towne hurtles through the film. The noir LA you see here is the LA that dominates filmmaking throughout the subsequent decades. It can contain both To Live and Die in LA and The Terminator while having enough room for Beverly Hills Cop and American Gigolo. Make no bones about it, this film is the advent of modern noir thriller.
9. Alien is arguably the greatest horror film of all time. If you set it in a separate sub-genre of sci-fi horror, it stands alone. The film is a taut thriller as well, not revealing the monster (as it should be) until late in the film, or the betrayal of Ash, or that Ash is a robot, or that the company had betrayed them all. The film is fast paced when it needs to be, it slows down and drives the viewer to agony when it calls for it. Scott’s direction is perfect. The sets, the production design, the suit, Bolaji Badejo’s remarkable turn as the Alien. Sigourney Weaver as the mother of all bad-ass women in sci-fi. The film is just remarkable. It is one of my all time personal favorites and I challenge you to watch it alone and not jump or not root for Ripley.
8. The Two Towers is a perfect film. In many ways it is the film Peter Jackson is allowed to be the freest in the Lord of The Rings series. The first one he had to establish things, and the last one he had to drive the story home with required elements. In the middle film, we get all the fun of being in the middle of a world that is in the middle of the story. The big fancy film people at AFI aren’t allowed to say how good LOTR is, and in the awards they only really awarded the last one with all the awards for all three films. This did win for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound Editing. I believe that is should have beat out A Beautiful Mind, but alas we cannot change the past.
The battle at Helm’s Deep is the one you feel in your bones that they can actually lose. I understand many of my fellow Tolkienites are upset with some of the changes for the film, but we have an epic set of movies that have made more generations read the books. A perfect film.
7. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? This pick will get me a ton of pushback, but you are wrong. I am right. This film is and was revolutionary. There is nothing quite like the mix of live action and animation in this film before or since. I know that Pixar movies and CGI and AI and all that but nothing is like this movie. When Bob Hoskins grabs a cartoon by the throat, he is totally grabbing something real, and when Jessica Rabbit enters the film I don’t care who you are you are blown away. You are sympathetic to Betty Boop and you hate, hate, hate Judge Doom. The score, the jokes, the plot! INVISBLE INK. Frankly, if you don’t like this film after seeing it, I consider you a hater. There is no review, it is just awesome. GO WATCH IT.
6. Home Alone is a generational classic film. A family film, a caper, a Christmas film and a real drama, it has everything you could ask for and more. Frankly, only the greatness of the five films in front of it prevents it from being higher, and I would not be upset if someone had this as their number one movie. Did you know that it was written by John Hughes? Just off of inventing how the 80s would be defined he teams up with Chris Columbus to make an absolute smash hit home run. This film has the greatest child actor performance in all of filmdom with Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin. I don’t know if there are others close to this, it stands alone as number one. It has one of the great cameos of all time from John Candy. The music, the set dec, the story! Katherine O’Hara! It is rewatchable, it is funny, it is sad, and it has a great ending. Quotable, zeitgeist and all that. Great, great, great movie.
5. The Sound of Music. It doesn’t matter that the story in the film is not fully true. It doesn’t matter to me, this film is amazing. I have seen it over a hundred times because it was dear to my mother. The songs are perfect, and the love story between Maria and Captain Von Trapp is still smoldering the screen to this day. Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews are perfect. The children are well directed, and although shallow in depth for the most part, Wise is able to get the most out of them, and the film is stronger for it. The film features several iconic shots, the wide sweeps of the hills and big wides of the Nazi banners, contrasted with the mid-shots of the singing and dancing makes the film stunning. At the time it was beloved by audiences, adjusted for inflation, it made over 2 billion. Influential in so many ways. Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good for the one and only Frances Maloney to show me this picture.
4. The Wind That Shakes The Barley is a fully Irish film, directed by a clearly angry British director in Ken Loach. Angry at the very idea of the ongoing issues with Britain and Ireland. I say British and Britain on purpose, because the British are Celtic and local in a way that ‘England’ and the ‘English’ are not. Ken fits well into the story, which very much is an argument between socialism and colonialism. Not socialism in the sense of economy, but in the idea of who owns what. Remember, in 1920s Ireland, the Irish had been under British rule since 1169. They had not owned their own land, and they did not trust a government to do the right thing. It was natural for them to look towards a non-government collective, and the first Fáil government reflected that a bit. But the idealist republicans, who wanted full freedom, and still do, were very much who we say the IRA represents. The IRA has been given a bad reputation because of the later ‘Troubles’ in the 60s on. There are incidents, including a school bombing, that have contributed to that. Of course, that leaves out the centuries of English torture, rape and destruction of our homeland. Centuries. Which they hide away in the image of ‘Jolly Old England’, and hide terrible figures like Elizabeth and Churchill in romantic portraits that fit with the post-WW2 coalitions. I don’t have to, I am only reviewing a movie that tries to distill that in a set of characters that are brothers. Two brothers who end up on opposite sides of the Irish Civil War, which has been paused militarily but is still very much ongoing in thought. Cillian Murphy is ridiculous in this role, clearly knowing and understanding his heritage, and channeling that despair and rage into a form of poetry only the Gaeilge know. This film is heart wrenching, and it is evocative. The song Oró! Sé Do Bheatha ‘Bhaile (I linked to my favorite version by the Dubliners) which means basically, ‘Yay! You are welcome home’ was rewritten by the great Irish poet Pádraic Pearse for the revolution. It plays an important role in the film, which you need to watch.
3. The Godfather you were probably thinking, if you have read this whole list, that you would find the 2nd movie in this series here. There are those arguments to be made, but in this case, this film changed cinema forever. IT is good in all the ways a movie can be good, and it made gangster movies serious. The acting is superb, with Brando winning Best Actor, and all three main supporting actors getting a nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars. I will argue that Pacino, Duvall and Caan’s chemistry make this movie beyond what expectations could have been for realistic conversation in this mafia world. Yet, Caan as Sonny is next level. They lost to Joel Grey for Cabaret, which only happened because the vote was split by three actors from the same movie. The structure, the pacing, the deep Italian culture, and the code of honor make this film stand tall. It remains watchable and quotable. Simply a great film.
2. Jaws at this level any of the films could be chosen as the best film. I went back and forth between all three, and decided to choose something different. Jaws is one of the most watchable movies ever. It draws you in, and was a massive blockbuster that created the very idea of a summer blockbuster. 243 million people have bought tickets to see Jaws over the years, a number that is added to every summer. It also swims menacingly into living rooms every year around the world. The acting is top notch from start to finish, and the scratches on the chalkboard are as annoying as they were to film. The film had a ton of problems in production and went way over budget. Shooting on the ocean will do that to you. The sharks didn’t work so they hid it, and in doing so created a dep sense of fear until the shark appears 3/4 of the way through the movie. Verna Fields, the great editor, creates a sense of unease throughout the film not present in any later Spielberg movies. In the end, a great, all-time film.
1. The Shawshank Redemption is to me the best film of all-time. I guess it says something that I pick a prison movie, but this is not a movie about prison. Or that I picked a time-period movie, but this is not a movie about a period of time. Or that is was written originally by Stephen King as a short story in a book of horror stories, but this is not a movie about horror. This film, at its very core is about friendship and hope. I think the best acting is acting that you believe in. When I see either of these actors, I have a hard time separating them from their roles in this movie. They are real people that react exactly how a real person would. In watching it, you might find yourself thinking that the crimes of the prisoners are being glossed over to present everyone as a good guy. That point should reflect back to you. Most people, especially poor people, when they make a mistake are punished harshly. The idea (which has never worked in recorded human history) is that the threat of punishment will deter others from doing the same. In this film, so called ‘moral’ men, in positions of power, do the dirtiest of deeds without hesitation because they think they will get away with it. In the end, no one gets away with anything. We must instead, try to make the best of the circumstances until we can no longer. In this film, hope and joy is found in the prison, and it breaks out.
Thank you so much for reading my first version of the Top 20 Movies of All Time according to John (I’m John). I worked hard on this, and hope that it makes sense what I am trying to do. I love movies, and hope you do too. If you want to read further, here is The Top 100 Films of All Time according to John.
