“What are the 100 best movies of all time?” It’s a hell of a question to ask, and an even harder one to answer — even for the team here at Empire, the world’s biggest and favorite film magazine. After all, there are all kinds of reasons why individual films stand the test of time, connecting with us personally while speaking to the universal.
The very best examples of the form conjure indelible images, evoke overwhelming emotions, tell unforgettable stories, and bring us characters who — love ’em or loathe ’em — we truly believe in. Whether we see ’em on the big screen, a trusty TV, or hunched over a laptop on the morning commute, the greatest films still hit like nothing else.
Ever since the movies began, well over a century ago, they have been finding new ways to, well, move us — to joy, to laughter, to fear, to tears, to the edges of our seats and to profound experiences that resonate through the years. From the misadventures of Peruvian bears to the epic quests of almighty fellowships; painterly, whisper-quiet period romances to pop culture-shaping comic book blockbusters; and from awe-inspiring animated adventures to singular stories about the human experience hailing from all corners of the globe, there truly is something out there for everyone and all tastes.
How We Chose The Top 100 Best Movies Of All Time
In creating Empire’s list of the 100 best movies of all time, we enlisted the help of our esteemed readers, asking you to share your picks for the movies that have comforted, challenged, entertained and inspired you most — the films that, above all else, made and continue to make you feel something. Receiving over 3,000 responses with your painstakingly selected picks, we counted up the votes, assigning the top choices the most points, and vice-versa. Then, we turned to our experienced team of critics and contributors to pool their expertise. Now, having weighed up the list and its entries’ artistic merit and cultural impact, we have, after much heated discussion, settled on our final line-up. Destined to delight some, enrage others, and confuse many more, we wholeheartedly believe that what we have here is a damn fine rundown of a hundred of the greatest features this medium has to offer.
Now, with the formalities dispensed with and the parameters of our cinematic odyssey set, here is Empire’s official rundown of The 100 Best Movies Of All Time…
Read on for a more detailed look at each of our top 100 movies of all time, including where they’re currently available to stream in the US.
The 100 Greatest Movies Ever Made (And Where To Watch Them)
1) The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001)
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean, Cate Blanchett, Liv Tyler
Release Date: December 13, 2001
Runtime: 178 minutes
A wizard is never late. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he… well, you know the rest. It might have taken 20 years for New Zealand director Peter Jackson’s plucky fantasy to clamber, Mount-Doom-style, to the very pinnacle of our greatest-movies pantheon. But here it is, brighter and more resplendent than ever. The Fellowship Of The Ring contains so much movie. Even at the halfway point, as the characters take a breather to bicker in Rivendell, you already feel sated, like you’ve experienced more thrills, more suspense, more jollity and ethereal beauty than a regular film could possibly muster up. But Jackson is only getting started.
Onwards his adventure hustles, to the bravura dungeoneering of Khazad-dum, to the sinisterly serene glades of Lothlorien, to the final requiem for flawed Boromir amidst autumnal leaves. As Fellowship thrums to its conclusion, finally applying the brakes with a last swell of Howard Shore’s heavenly score, you’re left feeling euphoric, bereft and hopeful, all at the same time.
The Two Towers has the coolest battle. The Return Of The King boasts the most batshit, operatic spectacle. But Fellowship remains the most perfect of the three, matching every genius action beat with a soul-stirring emotional one, as its Middle-earth-traversing gang swells in size in the first act, then dwindles in the third. This oddball suicide squad has so much warmth and wit, they’re not just believable as friends of each other — they’ve come to feel like they’re our buddies too.
An ornately detailed masterwork with a huge, pulsing heart, it’s just the right film for our times — full of craft, conviction and a belief that trudging forward, step by step, in dark days is the bravest act of all. Its ultimate heroes aren’t the strongest, or those with the best one-liners, but the ones who just keep going. And so Fellowship endures: a miracle of storytelling, a feat of filmmaking and still the gold standard for cinematic experiences. Right, now that’s decided, who’s up for a second breakfast?
Streaming on: HBO Max
Read Empire’s review of The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring. See where the LOTR films came in our list of the best movie trilogies of all time.
2) Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Director: Irvin Kershner
Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, David Prowse
Release Date: May 21, 1980
Runtime: 124 minutes
If Star Wars gave us a whole new cinematic galaxy, Empire made that galaxy feel so much larger, deeper, and richer. Bolstered by the original’s success, George Lucas shot for the moon a second time around, teaming up with director Irvin Kershner to tell the story of Luke training under Master Yoda, Han and Leia heading to Cloud City, and Darth Vader dropping the daddy of all twists. Episode V ramped up the scope with more astonishing model work, dizzying dogfights, the snowy Hoth battle, and a ferocious lightsaber duel between Luke and Vader. It is, simply, bigger and better than the original Star Wars, influential in its own right with its downer-ending and game-changing familial revelations. We love it. You know.
Streaming on: Disney+
Read Empire’s review of The Empire Strikes Back, or see our list of the 50 greatest Star Wars characters of all time.
3) The Godfather (1972)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, John Cazale, Talia Shire
Release Date: March 15, 1972
Runtime: 175 minutes
Stanley Kubrick once described Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of Mario Puzo’s novel as the best film ever made – though having previously topped this list, this time it falls to bronze position. At once an arthouse drama and a commercial blockbuster, The Godfather marked the dawn of the age of the mega-movie. An icon of the gangster genre, it’s imprinted in popular culture – “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes”, the horse’s head in the bed – but the first installment of Brando’s cotton-cheeked patriarch’s fight for power is so much more than those moments. With performances, style and substance to savor, it managed to both smash box office records and live on as a staple of cinematic canon.
Streaming on: Paramount+
Read Empire’s review of The Godfather, or see our list of the 20 best moments from The Godfather trilogy.
4) The Dark Knight (2008)
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman
Release Date: July 18, 2008
Runtime: 152 minutes
And away… we… go! After constructing a whole new Gotham in Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan introduced the clown intent on tearing the whole thing down. Despite being a Batman movie (albeit the first ever not to have ‘Batman’ in the title), The Dark Knight is absolutely The Joker’s show – the late, great Heath Ledger (an initially controversial choice) putting in a visceral, transformative, truly terrifying performance as the Clown Prince Of… not exactly Crime, but pure, unadulterated Chaos. Less than a decade after 9/11, Nolan re-conceived Batman’s greatest foe as an unpredictable terrorist intent on turning the people of Gotham against each other – his actions intended to spark mass discord pulled off in jaw-dropping set-pieces. For all the spectacle, this is a very different blockbuster from the off – the genius opening clown-mask bank heist is the film in miniature, an ambitious crime saga clad in superhero trappings, daring and ruthless and full of surprises. The Dark Knight is full-strength, no-holds-barred, firing-on-all cylinders Nolan, and not just an all-time great comic book movie, but an all-time great movie period — as the movie’s rightful high ranking here attests.
Streaming on: HBO Max
Read Empire’s review of The Dark Knight. See where it came in our Batman movie ranking.
5) The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Director: Frank Darabont
Starring: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, William Sadler
Release Date: September 23, 1994
Runtime: 142 minutes
The warm, leathery embrace of Morgan Freeman’s narration… The reassuringly Gary Cooper-ish rumple of Tim Robbins’ face… Odd that a movie which features such harshness and tragedy should remain a feel-good perennial — even odder when you consider it was a box-office flop on release. Few directorial debuts are so deftly constructed; no surprise, then, that Frank Darabont has yet to top it.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of The Shawshank Redemption.
6) Jaws (1975)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss
Release Date: June 20, 1975
Runtime: 124 minutes
The impact of Jaws simply cannot be overstated. It created the notion of the summer blockbuster. It made millions feel it wasn’t safe to go back in the water. And, for all the clear potential of his early work, it well and truly put Spielberg on the map. It was, famously, nightmarish to shoot — waterlogged, behind schedule, over budget, and with a mechanical shark that kept breaking. But for all that churn beneath the surface, what the audience sees is effortless brilliance — a tense, beautifully-shot shark-attack thriller with deeply-layered characters, outstanding dialogue, and heart-stopping moments forever burned in the cultural landscape. Roy Scheider is utterly believable as vulnerable everyman police chief Martin Brody, forced to face the reality of a murderous shark on the shores of Amity Island, teaming up with Richard Dreyfuss’ preppy marine biologist Hooper and Robert Shaw’s salty sea-dog Quint to blow it to bits. Their chemistry steers the entire ship — sure, the scary set-pieces are outstanding, but so too is Quint’s haunting USS Indianapolis monologue. But the real star here isn’t them, or even Bruce the shark — it’s Spielberg himself. The eerie shark POV shots. The mind-bending dolly zooms. The head popping out of the boat. His work here is a pure display of cinematic mastery from first minute to last — the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.
Streaming on: Netflix
Read Empire’s review of Jaws, or our ultimate viewer’s guide to Jaws here.
7) Pulp Fiction (1994)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis
Release Date: October 14, 1994
Runtime: 154 minutes
After Reservoir Dogs announced Tarantino as a blistering new voice in American indie cinema, the filmmaker took everything that made his debut great and expanded on it. Across a set of interweaving tales, a host of hitmen, armed robbers, fixers and an ageing boxer find themselves entangled in stories of death, drugs, and lucky escapes in ’90s LA – all interspersed with self-aware conversations on pop culture, religion, and the nature of crime itself. It’s about everything and nothing at once, an exercise in pure style but with substance to match, and dialogue so memorable that entire chunks have entered the cultural consciousness at large. Pulp Fiction embodies everything that made early ’90s independent cinema (and Tarantino himself) so exciting and fresh – playful and unexpected, steeped in genre knowledge, the coolest images set to the coolest soundtrack. And with truly iconic performances from John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Bruce Willis and more, the whole thing is an embarrassment of cinematic riches. Somehow both of its time and entirely timeless, Pulp Fiction just never gets old.
Streaming on: AMC+
Read Empire’s review of Pulp Fiction. See where it came in our Quentin Tarantino movie ranking.
8) Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Starring: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Chadwick Boseman, Chris Hemsworth, Sebastian Stan, Josh Brolin
Release Date: April 27, 2018
Runtime: 149 minutes
It was the biggest crossover event in cinematic history, and the biggest cliffhanger we never saw coming. After ten years and eighteen movies, Marvel took superhero filmmaking to a new level when they united all of Earth’s mightiest heroes (and several more) against The Mad Titan himself – and incredibly, devastatingly, they lost. Infinity War crashed much-loved characters into each other’s orbits, flitting between planets at breakneck speed as the Avengers desperately tried to stop Thanos from clicking his fingers and wiping out half the universe. Spectacular action, punch-the-air moments and big-scale battles are perfectly balanced, as all things should be, with hilarious interplays and aching emotion. Oh snap.
Streaming on: Disney+
Read Empire’s review of Avengers: Infinity War. See where it came in our MCU ranking.
9) Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, John Rhys-Davies
Release Date: June 12, 1981
Runtime: 115 minutes
In ’81, it must have sounded like the ultimate pitch: the creator of Star Wars teams up with the director of Jaws to make a rip-roaring, Bond-style adventure starring the guy who played Han Solo, in which the bad guys are the evillest ever (the Nazis) and the MacGuffin is a big, gold box which unleashes the power of God. It still sounds like the ultimate pitch.
Streaming on: Prime Video
Read Empire’s review of Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Read why it’s the best Indiana Jones film here.
10) Goodfellas (1990)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino
Release Date: September 19, 1990
Runtime: 145 minutes
No film hits like Goodfellas. Just like the cocaine that turns effortlessly charismatic gangster fanboy Henry Hill into a reckless maniac, that drives him to the edge of a heart attack, that makes him paranoid (OR IS HE?), the film enters your system with a jolt, giving you an immediate rush, and keeps you wanting more, more, more, MORE, until it finally comes crashing down, back to bleak reality, and then just finishes. And you have to live the rest of your life like a schnook, because, frankly, no other film compares to Goodfellas. The only solution: another big snort of Goodfellas. Scorsese, writer Nicholas Pileggi and editor Thelma Schoonmaker constructed almost the entire film like a trailer, one scene bleeding into the next, not giving you the opportunity to stop watching, to let go, to take a breath. It’s an unstoppable feat of propulsion. Now that’s cinema.
Streaming on: YoutubeTV
Read Empire’s review of Goodfellas. See where it came in our Martin Scorsese movie ranking.
11) Star Wars (1977)
Director: George Lucas
Starring: Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill
Release Date: May 25, 1977
Runtime: 121 minutes
Such is its cultural ubiquity and omnipresence today that it’s hard now to even imagine the seismic impact of the original Star Wars — of that opening moment in which the Star Destroyer looms over the camera for a seeming infinity; of that first glimpse of a binary sunset; of that first, well, everything that we’ve come to know and love about that galaxy far, far away. Bursting with iconic aliens, hyper-space travel, and galactic overlords, George Lucas transplanted the classic hero’s journey narrative (Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker is the simple farm-boy who discovers he’s got a much bigger destiny out in the world) into a boundlessly imaginative universe of laser-swords and mystical religions, space-princesses and loveable rogues. From its incredible model work, to its cosmic dogfights, to the look of the opening crawl as it drifts off into the stars, the original Star Wars changed everything – and the world at large has been feeling the Force ever since.
Streaming on: Disney+ | AMC+ | Philo
Read Empire’s review of Star Wars
12) Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Director: George Miller
Starring: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Riley Keough
Release Date: May 15, 2015
Runtime: 120 minutes
In which old dog George Miller taught Hollywood some new tricks. Stripping the chase movie down to its raw essentials (the plot is basically: run away… then run back again!), Miller expertly built the narrative through some of the most astonishing and gloriously operatic action scenes we’d seen in yonks. While also ensuring his female characters are the film’s strongest; Charlize Theron’s Furiosa and Immortan Joe’s ex-brides are inheriting a world “killed” by men…
Streaming on: Netflix
Read Empire’s review of Mad Max: Fury Road
13) Back To The Future (1985)
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover
Release Date: July 3, 1985
Runtime: 116 minutes
Part science-fiction caper, part generational culture-clash movie, part weirdo family drama (in which the hero has to rescue his own existence after his mother falls in lust with him, eww), Back To The Future still manages to be timeless despite being so rooted in, well, time. And it might just have the best title of anything on this entire list.
Rent on: Amazon Prime
Read Empire’s review of Back To The Future
14) The Godfather Part II (1974)
Godfather Part II, The ©TMDB films 240
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, John Cazale, Diane Keaton
Release Date: December 12, 1974
Runtime: 202 minutes
Often cited as the greatest-ever sequel, TGPII, as no-one’s ever called it, is more accurately described as a seprequel. In a narrative masterstroke, it parallels Michael’s (Al Pacino) consolidation of power with the ascendance of his Dad, Vito (Robert De Niro); the triumph of one paving the way to the utter corruption of the other.
Streaming on: Paramount+
Read Empire’s review of The Godfather Part II
15) Jurassic Park (1993)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough
Release Date: June 11, 1983
Runtime: 127 minutes
When dinosaurs first ruled the movie-Earth, they did so in a herky-jerky stop-motion manner that while charmingly effective, required a fair dose of disbelief-suspension. When Steven Spielberg brought them back on Isla Nublar, he perfected the summer blockbuster, and we felt for the first time they could be real, breathing animals (as opposed to monsters). And that’s as much thanks to Stan Winston’s astonishing animatronics work as to ILM’s groundbreaking CGI.
Rent on: Amazon Prime
Read Empire’s review of Jurassic Park, or see our list of the 28 best dino moments in the franchise.
16) Blade Runner (1982)
Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah
Release Date: June 25, 1982
Runtime: 117 minutes
Rain-lashed, noodle-bar-packed streets shrouded in perpetual night, with giant adverts and neon signs doing the job you’d usually expect of the sun itself… The not-too-distant future had never looked cooler than in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi gumshoe noir, and we’re not sure it ever will.
Rent on: Amazon Prime
Read Empire’s review of Blade Runner
17) Aliens (1986)
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser, Bill Paxton
Release Date: July 18, 1986
Runtime: 137 minutes
The genius of James Cameron’s self-penned Alien follow-up was to not try to top the original as one of the greatest ever horror movies. Instead, he transplanted the Alien (and, significantly, Ripley) to a different genre, and created one of the greatest ever action movies. That’s also a Vietnam metaphor. And also one of the most enduringly quotable films.
Read Empire’s review of Aliens. See where it came in our Alien movie ranking.
18) Parasite (2019)
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Starring: Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Park So-dam, Choi Woo-sik
Release Date: November 1, 2019
Runtime: 132 minutes
Few award ceremony moments stick in the mind more than Parasite taking the Best Picture gong at the Oscars in 2020. It’s no surprise that it made history as the first non-English language movie to do so – this South Korean genre-defying delight offers some of the biggest twists and expertly mounted tension in recent memory, with a family of excellent performances from Song Kang-ho, Park So-dam, Choi Woo-sik and more. Bitingly satirical, darkly comedic and made with unmatched precision, Parasite doesn’t just overcome the ‘one inch barrier’ of subtitles, as referenced in director Bong Joon-ho’s acceptance speech – it obliterates it entirely.
Streaming on: Netflix
Read Empire’s review of Parasite, or our film-by-film guide to director Bong Joon-ho.
19) Inception (2010)
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Elliot Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Release Date: July 16, 2010
Runtime: 138 minutes
Talk about a true original. Christopher Nolan’s dreamy blockbuster takes layers of subconsciousness and turns them into action playgrounds, as a group of benevolent criminals set about planting the seed of an idea in the mind of a business magnate. Along with Tenet, this is the closest Nolan has come to making a Bond movie – just check out that snowy setpiece. While there’s plenty of braininess here (and a tantalising make-your-own-mind-up ending), there’s real brawn too: the climactic action sequence is so huge it takes up almost half the movie, and is actually three big action sequences temporally nested inside each other around a surreal, metaphysical-conflict core. Couldn’t be simpler, really.
Streaming on: HBO Max
Read Empire’s review of Inception. See where it came in our Christopher Nolan movie ranking.
20) The Matrix (1999)
Directors: Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Ann Moss, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving
Release Date: March 31, 1999
Runtime: 136 minutes
Blending kung-fu brawls, philosophy, identity politics, apocalyptic sci-fi, and a sense of digital dread, The Matrix took every rule of cinema and bent it to its own end. The Wachowski sisters followed up Bound with a mind-bending action classic, tapping into cyber-anxieties and Gen X disenfranchisement to reimagine the world we know as a simulation, blinding us from the truth. As we watch Keanu Reeves’ Neo find his liberation, we see him unlock the ability to ‘hack’ himself, and the world around him, for good. Still finding new resonances after all this time, The Matrix keeps revealing new depths – while simply remaining one of the coolest blockbusters ever made. (Oh, and the sequels are better than you remember.)
Rent on: Amazon Prime
Read Empire’s review of The Matrix
21) Alien (1979)
Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Harry Dean Stanton
Release Date: May 25, 1979
Runtime: 117 minutes
Talk about a perfect organism. This masterful sci-fi horror is, in its first half, so mysterious and unknowable, conjuring grand interstellar imagery as the crew of the spaceship Nostromo follows a distress call to an inhospitable planet to investigate. And then, in its second half, it brings the terror, as the titular life-form bursts onto the scene (quite literally) and starts picking them all off one by one. Ridley Scott conjures astonishing imagery, and wrangles the chaos with careful precision once the blood starts spraying (whether regular or acid), while Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley emerges from the ensemble not just as a hero, but – arguably – the hero.
Streaming on: Hulu
Read Empire’s review of Alien. See where it came in our Alien movie ranking.
22) Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Starring: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Paul Rudd, Jeremy Renner, Josh Brolin
Release Date: April 26, 2019
Runtime: 181 minutes
What does it take to dethrone James Cameron? A blockbuster of behemothic proportions. The weight of expectations on Endgame — the culmination of 11 years of interweaving stories, following up the greatest cinematic cliffhanger since The Empire Strikes Back — was immense, which only makes it more miraculous that the Russo Brothers (and writers Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeeley) delivered a thrilling, adventurous, emotional time-travelling trip through the entire MCU so far. The character pay-offs are just as staggering as the action — and when Steve Rogers finally proved worthy enough to lift Mjolnir, a stone-cold cultural moment was created.
Streaming on: Disney+
Read Empire’s review of Avengers: Endgame
23) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter
Release Date: April 3, 1986
Runtime: 149 minutes
Of all Stanley Kubrick’s work, his game-changing science-fiction film is arguably his greatest gift to cinema – an infinitely ambitious vision of a space-faring future whose narrative centers on the most pivotal moment in human evolution since some ape-man first bashed another ape-man with an old bone. 2001 is both deeply architectural, as a series of chapters depicting moments across the vastness of time where humanity transcends itself, but also unknowable and mysterious – and the sheer technical craft of it remains gobsmacking. It’s graceful, gorgeous, unwearied by time’s passing. Rather like those mesmerising monoliths.
Streaming on: Cinemax | HBO Max
Read Empire’s review of 2001: A Space Odyssey. See where it ranked on our list of the best sci-fi movies of all time.
24) Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick
Release Date: July 3, 1991
Runtime: 136 minutes
Making Arnie’s T-800 a protector rather than a killer for part two could have been a shark-jump moment for the Terminator series. But we’re talking about James Cameron here, so it paid off – to a mind boggling degree. For all the greatness of the original, this sequel has really become the Terminator movie, turning the tables on the original premise as the T-800 protects a young John Connor from the slick liquid-metal T-1000. The action is bigger, the effects still excellent, and the heart so clear, as Connor and his metal protector teach each other the ways of the world. And don’t get us started on the evolution of Sarah Connor, both badass and tragic. Hasta la vista, baby.
Streaming on: Paramount+
Read Empire’s review of Terminator 2: Judgment Day
25) Fight Club (1999)
Director: David Fincher
Starring: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Jared Leto
Release Date: October 15, 1999
Runtime: 139 minutes
Forget the rules: we really should talk about Fight Club. David Fincher’s adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel is so many things in one: a psychological thriller, a bruising drama, and – perhaps most importantly – a tar-black comedy. There’s a smirking Gen X disdain to the satire here, as 1990s consumerism clashes with raw masculinity run wild – with literally explosive results. The now widely-known twist is brilliantly handled, as are the twin performances of Edward Norton’s unnamed whacked-out drone, and Brad Pitt’s wiry brawler Tyler Durden, who draws disenfranchised men into his underground fight club (and, eventually, terrorist-cult). All these years on, we’re still talking about it.
Streaming on: Apple TV
Read Empire’s review of Fight Club
26) Die Hard (1988)
Director: John McTiernan
Starring: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson
Release Date: July 15, 1988
Runtime: 132 minutes
It’s no hyperbole to say that Die Hard reinvented action cinema as we know it. Even now, all these years later, so many modern action films could be teed up as, “It’s Die Hard in [insert location here].” In the case of actual Die Hard, it’s Die Hard in an office block – as Bruce Willis’ ordinary cop John McClane attends his estranged wife’s Christmas office party, and finds himself thwarting a terrorist plot led by Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber. The action is crisp and propulsive, matched in tempo by the rapid-fire sarcasm of McClane himself, grumbling his way through a very, very bad Christmas Eve. It made Willis into a movie star; it made Rickman immortal; it even made air vents into cinematic gold.
Streaming on: Prime Video | Hulu | Youtube TV
Read Empire’s review of Die Hard. See where it came in our Christmas movie ranking (yes, it definitely is one!).
27) The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (2003)
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom
Release Date: December 17, 2003
Runtime: 201 minutes
It all led to this. The Lord Of The Rings trilogy was always heading for a fiery conclusion, and Peter Jackson doesn’t hold back on the operatic drama as Frodo, Sam, and Gollum make for Mount Doom – while the rest of the Fellowship battles for the soul of Middle-earth. This Academy Award-laden trilogy-closer has some of the most colossal and entertaining battle scenes ever mounted; it has an awesome giant spider; it has that fantastic dramatic-ironic twist when Gollum saves the day through his own treachery; and it has that bit where Eowyn says, “I am no man.” In short, it deserves every Oscar – even if, yes, it does have a lot of endings.
Streaming on: HBO Max
Read Empire’s review of The Return Of The King
28) Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, alison Doody, Denholm Elliott, John Rhys-Davies
Release Date: May 24, 1989
Runtime: 127 minutes
You voted… wisely. The final chapter of the original Indiana Jones trilogy is the most soulful of the lot. Underpinning all the adventure and the Nazi-punching, the father-son relationship – and its connection to faith – between Indy and Henry Jones Sr. (Sean Connery, in a masterstroke of casting, despite there only being 12 years between them) is truly heartfelt. On that foundation is built two hours of giddily entertaining popcorn cinema, a globetrotting quest for the Holy Grail that takes in blimps, Venetian churches, and a face-to-face encounter with Hitler himself – but it’s the bickering dynamic between Indiana and his dad that truly makes it.
Streaming on: Youtube TV | Prime Video
Read Empire’s review of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. Here’s our argument for why it’s the best Indiana Jones film.
29) Apocalypse Now (1979)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall
Release Date: August 15, 1979
Runtime: 147 minutes
The making of Apocalypse Now was famously not fun. Budgets blown, schedules vastly overrunning, actors going rogue – it was a shoot of sweltering madness. Which is exactly what Coppola’s Vietnam war epic needed, channelling Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness in its tale of a Colonel gone mad (Marlon Brando’s magnetic Kurtz) and the soldier dispatched to track him down (Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard), going up-river into ever-deeper thickets of the jungle on his quest. The results are mesmeric, tapping into something primal and translating it onto the context of a specific conflict. It’s gone on to influence an entire generation of filmmakers – not just war movies, but across the cinematic spectrum.
Rent on: Apple TV
Read Empire’s review of Apocalypse Now
30) Heat (1995)
Director: Michael Mann
Starring: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight
Release Date: December 15, 1995
Runtime: 170 minutes
There’s a reason why Heat has remained the pinnacle of epic crime cinema for over three decades. Combining the directorial sweep of Michael Mann, with the ultimate mano a mano between Al Pacino (as LA detective Lt. Vincent Hanna) and Robert De Niro (as criminal Neil McCauley), this is the one of the all-time-great cat-and-mouse thrillers. The duo only share the screen twice across the runtime, but they are monumental showdowns, where every word feels weighted not just with Heat’s own heft, but the entire cinematic legacies of each star. Those scenes virtually fizz with alpha-star electricity – the exact reason Heat remains so hot.
Streaming on: Fubo TV | Paramount+
Read Empire’s review of Heat
31) Interstellar (2014)
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain
Release Date: November 5, 2014
Runtime: 169 minutes
To an extent, Interstellar stands as Christopher Nolan’s most intelligent movie – its evocation of black holes, gravity distortions and extra-dimensional science was cooked up with physicist Kip Thorne for cutting-edge fidelity. But it’s all in service of his most heartfelt message – using those PhD smarts to convey that the most powerful force in the entire universe is love, actually. Matthew McConaughey is heartbreaking as the NASA pilot who mans a last-ditch mission to space to save the human race from a dying Earth – even though it means leaving his daughter behind. Across the stars, he hopes to find a new home for humanity, all the while reckoning with his own. Epic and emotional in equal measure, with a sarcastic robot to boot.
Rent on: Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Interstellar. Here’s our explanation of the plot, if it left you a bit confused.
32) The Thing (1982)
Director: John Carpenter
Starring: Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David, Richard Masur
Release Date: June 25, 1982
Runtime: 109 minutes
Taking its bones from Howard Hawks’ 1951 film The Thing From Another World, John Carpenter’s chilly paranoid terror is perhaps the ultimate example that a remake can outstrip the original. The Thing is both a stomach-churning sci-fi horror bursting with gruesome gore, as its shape-shifting intergalactic menace revels in fleshy mutations; but it’s also a tense brainteaser, as everyone (the audience included) tries to sniff out which character, at any time, might be the Thing in disguise. It wasn’t a hit at the time, but Carpenter’s biological nightmare has proved an endlessly rewatchable frightfest, particularly thanks to Rob Bottin’s SFX genius.
Rent on: Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of The Thing. See where it came on our list of the 50 best horror movies of all time.
33) Casablanca (1942)
Director: Michael Curtiz
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
Release Date: January 23, 1943
Runtime: 102 minutes
If you had a drink of gin every time an all-time-classic line is spoken in Casablanca, you’d be comatose before the end credits. Part political thriller, part aching romance, it’s a film that shifts in shades of grey (and not just because of that gorgeous black-and-white photography), set against the backdrop of World War II. Humphrey Bogart’s elusive Rick has left the conflict to set up a bar in Morocco, a place where all people pass through – including, to his shock, his big ex, Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa. Will Rick help her evade the Nazis, even if he risks putting himself in the firing line? Blending personal heartbreak with the sweep of history, it’s a tender and tense masterpiece.
Streaming on: HBO Max | Cinemax
Read Empire’s review of Casablanca
34) The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Andy Serkis, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom
Release Date: December 18, 2002
Runtime: 179 minutes
The middle chapter of Peter Jackson’s trilogy could have suffered from not being either the opening or closing of the Lord Of The Rings story. Instead, it deepens everything that made Fellowship so great – offering Shakespearean human drama in the Rohan plot line, bringing ancient mythology to life in the walking-talking tree-people Ents, and delivering the slipperiest fish to Frodo and Sam as they trudge closer to Mordor: Gollum. Andy Serkis’ performance is one for the ages, bringing sinister edge and serious pathos to the wretch ensnared by the One Ring. Oh, and it all builds up to the battle of Helm’s Deep, a ferocious action crescendo, which features gratuitous scenes of dwarf-tossing.
Streaming on: HBO Max
Read Empire’s review of The Two Towers
35) The Shining (1980)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd
Release Date: May 23, 1980
Runtime: 144 minutes
The ultimate haunted house move is actually a haunted hotel movie. The Overlook is a place of pure evil, its vast (intensely-patterned) hallways holding decades of horrifying history in ghostly entities that drive Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance to murderous madness. (Admittedly, he was already somewhat close.) Stanley Kubrick elegantly translates Stephen King’s ghostly novel into one of the scariest movies ever made – though King famously hated the adaptation for the tweaks it made to the story. Still, for the rest of us it’s a total masterpiece, both in its quietly unsettling moments, and in its nerve-shredding Jack-with-an-axe finale.
Streaming on: HBO Max
Read Empire’s review of The Shining. See where it came in our Stephen King movie ranking.
36) Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)
Director: Michel Gondry
Starring: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo
Release Date: March 19, 2004
Runtime: 108 minutes
Director Michel Gondry and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman are two of the most imaginative filmmakers around – so their collaboration on an anti-romcom (or is it?) it bursting with invention. Eternal Sunshine deconstructs the relationship drama via a fantastic psycho-sci-fi device, as Jim Carrey’s Joel races through his own mind to reverse a process by which all the memories of his failed relationship with Kate Winslet’s Clementine are about to be erased. Which is a brilliantly weird, round-the-houses way of reminding us that heartbreak should be valued as one of the things that makes us. Better to have loved and lost, and all that.
Rent on: Amazon Video | Apple TV
Read Empire’s review of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
37) Seven (1995)
Director: David Fincher
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey, Gwyneth Paltrow
Release Date: September 22, 1995
Runtime: 127 minutes
David Fincher’s second film (the first that he was actually happy with, since he famously loathed Alien 3) goes toe-to-toe with The Silence Of The Lambs for the darkest, scariest serial-killer thriller Hollywood ever made. There’s a novelty factor to the premise of Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman’s cops tracking down a murderer taking tenets from the seven deadly sins – but in Fincher’s hands it becomes an exercise in properly rattling terror, delivering nightmare images in the killings set up by warped murderer-moralist ‘John Doe’. From its shocking central twist, to that “what’s in the box?!” gut-punch, it’s a film you need to scrub off your skin come the end credits.
Rent on: Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Seven
38) The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966)
Director: Sergio Leone
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef
Release Date: December 29, 1967
Runtime: 161 minutes
The culmination of Sergio Leone’s ‘Man With No Name’ trilogy is a true Western epic – three hours of Spaghetti Western cooked perfectly al dente. Following A Fistful Of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More – thematically, if not narratively – this one sets three renegades against each other in a treasure hunt backdropped against the chaos and madness of the American Civil War. The result is the movie on Leone’s CV which best balances art and entertainment. Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef are great value as Blondie and Angel Eyes, but it’s Eli Wallach’s Tuco who steals this Wild West show: “When you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.” Cue the howling flutes of Ennio Morricone’s immortal score.
Streaming on: Fubo TV | Philo | Youtube TV
Read Empire’s review of The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
39) Gladiator (2000)
Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Djimon Hounsou
Release Date: May 5, 2000
Runtime: 154 minutes
Say ‘Ridley Scott’, and chances are you think sci-fi: Alien, or Blade Runner. But Gladiator made him a master of the sword ’n’ sandals epic too, after a tricky directorial run (1492, White Squall and GI Jane). Russell Crowe got his big Hollywood breakthrough as Maximus Decimus Meridius (father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife etc etc), making a name for himself in the Colosseum by surviving bloody battles aplenty. Gladiator was a leap forward in CGI too – the movie that showed the industry you could make colossal historical epics commercially viable once more. Yes, we were entertained.
Streaming on: Paramount+ | Youtube TV
Read Empire’s review of Gladiator
40) Citizen Kane (1941)
Director: Orson Welles
Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
Release Date: May 1, 1941
Runtime: 119 minutes
‘Rosebud’ might be the operative word when it comes to Citizen Kane, but this is arguably the film where the entire medium of cinema went into full bloom. Orson Welles’ game-changing fictional biopic fundamentally evolved the language of movies, managing to both launch his film career and ruin it at the same time (turns out it’s not a good idea to piss off powerful newspaper magnates by viciously satirising them). Not only did he use impressive new film-making techniques that make Kane feel like a movie far younger than its 80+ years, but its power-corrupts story still resonates loudly.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Citizen Kane
41) The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)
Director: Jonathan Demme
Starring: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine
Release Date: February 14, 1991
Runtime: 118 minutes
In the decades since its release, the sheer filmmaking power of The Silence Of The Lambs hasn’t lost a single bit of its vice-like grip. Jonathan Demme’s take on the Thomas Harris novels broke major Hollywood ground – not only the first horror to win a Best Picture Oscar, it’s also only the third movie to score in all four main categories: Picture, Director, Actress (Jodie Foster) and Actor (Anthony Hopkins) — the latter managing that despite technically being a supporting performer, with a mere 25-ish minutes of screen time. For all of Hannibal Lecter’s cultural ubiquity, Lambs feels like Foster’s movie more than anybody’s: her vulnerable-but-steely Clarice Starling is defined by her ability, not her gender.
Streaming on: Youtube TV | Philo | AMC+
Read Empire’s review of The Silence Of The Lambs
42) 12 Angry Men (1957)
Director: Sidney Lumet
Starring: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam
Release Date: April 13, 1957
Runtime: 96 minutes
Juries most often amount to little more than set dressing in courtroom dramas. But Sidney Lumet’s film finds all its drama outside the courtroom itself and inside a jury deliberation room packed with fantastic character actors, who are forced to re-examine a seemingly straightforward case by lone-voice juror Henry Fonda. It’s all about the value of looking at things differently, and a reminder that nothing is more important than great dialogue, as the titular jurors change their minds one-by-one through reasoned discussion and open ears.
Streaming on: Fubo TV | Youtube TV | Philo
Read Empire’s review of 12 Angry Men
43) There Will Be Blood (2007)
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Ciarán Hinds
Release Date: December 26, 2007
Runtime: 158 minutes
If America were a person, then oilman Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a vampire. (A milkshake-drinking vampire, if you feel like mixing our metaphor with his own.) Which is why it’s appropriate that Paul Thomas Anderson gives his gargantuan American epic a kind of horror-movie vibe throughout, depicting a rot of the soul as Plainview drains the very land beneath his feet – and exploits everyone around him – in the pursuit of bounteous riches. Day-Lewis delivers such a deliciously monstrous performance, imbuing one of cinema’s most gleefully hissable villains with a glint of oil-black humor, right up to the spine-chilling finale in an empty mansion, where he’s haunted only by himself.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of There Will Be Blood
44) It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
Director: Frank Capra
Starring: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barryone, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers
Release Date: December 20, 1946
Runtime: 130 minutes
Frank Capra’s Christmas fantasy was the movie that coaxed a war-battered James Stewart back to acting, and a good thing, too: as George Bailey, who’s shown a mind-blowing parallel reality in which he never existed, Stewart was never more appealing. Rightly, the film has gone down as a festive favorite, sending audiences out on a warm, fuzzy high as Bailey gets a Christmas Carol-esque recalibration of the soul just in time for the big day. But Stewart and Capra temper any potential schmaltz, too, with a sense of underlying world-weariness — there’s real darkness to the existential quandary that plays out before that finale, one that only makes the ending all the more touching and beautifully earned.
Streaming on: Prime Video
Read Empire’s review of It’s A Wonderful Life
45) The Big Lebowski (1998)
Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Starring: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Release Date: March 6, 1998
Runtime: 117 minutes
The entire appeal of The Big Lebowski is encompassed by its central figure, Jeffrey ‘The Dude’ Lebowski: so laid-back he’s basically horizontal; living for the pursuit of simply floating by; out of step with the wildness of the world around him. Bridges’ Dude really is The Big Lebowski. Except, he’s not, because the entire plot hinges on a case of mistaken identity, when he’s attacked by thugs looking to extort rich philanthropist Jeffrey Lebowski. Thus begins a shaggy-dog farce with bowling, marmots, and a urine-stained rug, resulting in arguably the funniest movie of the ’90s, and a genuine cult phenomenon. The Coens manage to construct a kidnap mystery in which the detective isn’t a detective, and nobody was actually kidnapped. As ever, The Dude abides.
Streaming on: Youtube TV
Read Empire’s review of The Big Lebowski. See where it came in our Coen brothers movie ranking.
46) Schindler’s List (1993)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Caroline Goodall
Release Date: December 15, 1993
Runtime: 195 minutes
For all the blockbuster spectacles he’s committed to the screen, Schindler’s List finds Spielberg at the peak of his powers. There are no flaws to be found in his harrowing, (mostly) monochromatic depiction of Nazi persecution of the Jewish community in Krakow, while Neeson’s Oskar Schindler attempts to save the lives over a thousand Jewish people by employing them in his factories. Spielberg puts all his abundant talent for creating dynamic cinema into portraying a haunting piece of history that should never be forgotten – and though it’s not an easy watch, it’s a masterful work from one of the all-time-greats. If you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Schindler’s List. See where it came in our Steven Spielberg ranking.
47) Do The Right Thing (1989)
Director: Spike Lee
Starring: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, John Turturro
Release Date: June 30, 1989
Runtime: 120 minutes
Spike Lee had already caused a stir with his first two films – She’s Gotta Have It and School Daze – but this was the one that changed everything, with Lee in complete command and full of fury. Over the longest, hottest summer’s day in Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy, already-boiling tensions between the African-Americans on the block and the Italian-Americans running a pizzeria eventually peak, erupting into violence. It’s an absolutely flawless, funny, frightening piece of work, rammed with soon-to-be iconography from start to finish. It hasn’t dated a day.
Streaming on: Apple TV
Read Empire’s review of Do The Right Thing
48) Ghostbusters (1984)
Director: Ivan Reitman
Starring: Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver
Release Date: June 8, 1984
Runtime: 107 minutes
As high-concept comedies go, Ghostbusters is positively stratospheric: a story of demonic incursion… with gags! The sharpness of its execution – and the magic chemistry of its central cast – spawned Ghostbusters into an ongoing franchise, but one that has never managed to recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle quality of the original. Reitman wrings a fantastic supernatural adventure out of his central conceit, as Peter Venkman (Murray), Ray Stantz (Aykroyd), Egon Spengler (Ramis) and Winston Zeddemore (Hudson) strap on proton packs to battle spectral forces in NYC, while never neglecting the opportunity to deliver a great laugh; or, on the flipside, ever allowing the zaniness to swallow up plot coherence. Ray Parker Jr was right: bustin’ does indeed make us feel good.
Streaming on: Youtube TV
Read Empire’s review of Ghostbusters
49) Spirited Away (2002)
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Starring: Miyu Irino, Rumi Hiiragi
Release Date: September 20, 2002
Runtime: 124 minutes
The film that truly broke Japanese animation legends Studio Ghibli into Western cinema. In a cinematic culture rooted in the easy good-vs-evil dichotomies (and European folktale narrative traditions) of Disney movies, Spirited Away proved a bracing change of pace – pure, uncut Ghibli. Taking in bathhouses, spirits of Shinto folklore, and obfuscated morality, Hayao Miyazaki‘s major crossover hit is distinctly Japanese, overflowing with imaginative imagery, brimming with breathtaking fantasy sequences, all tethered to a story that changes direction at a moment’s notice. That unruliness and cultural specificity is what made Spirited Away so groundbreaking – bringing anime at large to mainstream Western audiences, an influence increasingly felt in the likes of Moana and Frozen II.
Streaming on: HBO Max
Read Empire’s review of Spirited Away. See where it ranked in our list of the best anime movies.
50) Vertigo (1958)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: James Stewart, Kim Novak
Release Date: May 9, 1958
Runtime: 128 minutes
Across his legendary filmography, Alfred Hitchcock explored all kinds of sub-genres – animal-attack movies, psycho thrillers, mystery adventures and the like. But of everything, Vertigo is perhaps his greatest exercise in pure suspense – a film that truly gets under your skin, appropriately enough for its exploration of obsession. With James Stewart’s detective stalking Kim Novak’s mysterious woman, witnessing her suicide, then becoming obsessed with her double, it’s certainly disturbing and most definitely (as the title suggests) disorientating, in the most artful and inventive way. A thrilling cinematic rabbit-hole down which to tumble.
Streaming on: Youtube TV | Prime Video
Read Empire’s review of Vertigo
51) Whiplash (2014)
Director: Damien Chazelle
Starring: Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons
Release Date: October 10, 2014
Runtime: 106 minutes
If Damien Chazelle’s semi-autobiographical drama taught us anything, it’s that jazz drumming is more hazardous to learn than base jumping. Especially when your mentor is J.K. Simmons’ monstrous Fletcher: a raging bully who makes army drill instructors look like Care Bears. Though, of course, you could always argue that Fletcher’s methods certainly got great results out of Miles Teller’s battered but triumphant Andrew, in a tale of what it takes (or does it?) to strive for GOAT status. This is a firecracker first feature proper from Chazelle, staying entirely on beat across a taut runtime, closing out in a breathless drum-solo of a finale – both figuratively and literally. Cue standing ovation.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Whiplash
52) Point Break (1991)
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, Gary Busey, Lori Petty
Release Date: July 12, 1991
Runtime: 122 minutes
“Ever fired your gun in the air and gone ‘Ahhhh?'” PC Danny Butterman’s well-placed reference in Hot Fuzz confirmed, if confirmation were ever needed, that Point Break is a fundamental pillar of ’90s pop culture cool, and one of the most memorable action blockbusters ever made. In Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, we get two smouldering sides of the same anti-heroic coin; in W. Peter Iliff’s screenplay, we get gems of dialogue like, “The correct term is ‘babes’, sir”; and in Kathryn Bigelow’s frenetic, confident direction, we get intense foot chases, fiery shoot-outs, epic surfing, and a spot of light skydiving. It shouldn’t work: extreme sports, bank robberies and male bonding? But it does, every time.
Streaming on: Peacock | Fubo TV
Read Empire’s review of Point Break
53) Forrest Gump (1994)
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright
Release Date: July 6, 1994
Runtime: 142 minutes
Still one of the most quotable movies ever made. Robert Zemeckis’ era-spanning fable takes an affable stroll through some of America’s most turbulent decades, as seen through the childlike eyes of the simple-but-successful Forrest — the role which earned Tom Hanks his second Oscar in two years. It says a lot about its emotional heft that it managed to bag that Academy Award when it was in competition with both Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption. Plus, how many films do you know that have successfully spawned their own globe-spanning restaurant chains? Sign us up for some Bubba Gump Shrimp.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Forrest Gump
54) Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Giovanni Ribisi, Adam Goldberg
Release Date: July 24, 1998
Runtime: 169 minutes
There had never been a war movie quite like Saving Private Ryan – and, frankly, there still hasn’t been one since. Much of its impact comes from the sheer bludgeoning, blood-spilling, visceral power of its Omaha Beach during the D-Day-landing opening act, an overwhelming suite that ensured Steven Spielberg’s fourth World War II movie set the standard for all future battle depictions. There’s more heart – and heartbreak – in the rest of its story, as a band of brothers set off to save the lone surviving son of a mother whose entire brood have been killed across the combat. Private Ryan’s shaky-staccato-desaturated style (courtesy of Janusz Kaminski’s ingenious cinematography) has been often copied, but rarely bettered.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Saving Private Ryan
55) Taxi Driver (1976)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks
Release Date: February 7, 1986
Runtime: 114 minutes
The haunting power of Taxi Driver hasn’t waned a single bit since its release – this is a film that you still need to scrub off your skin after a rewatch, such is its potency and corrosive atmosphere. Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader’s violent noir is a gripping portrayal of a mentally crumbling Vietnam vet (Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle), who ultimately figures out that the only way to wash the crime-caked streets of New York is with a nice, big bloodbath. Everyone here’s at the top of their game: director, writer, actor, 14-year-old Jodie Foster and composer Bernard Herrmann. Yes, it’s still talkin’ to us.
Streaming on: Netflix | The Criterion Channel
Read Empire’s review of Taxi Driver
56) The Social Network (2010)
Director: David Fincher
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer
Release Date: October 1, 2010
Runtime: 120 minutes
Or, I’m Gonna Git You Zuckerberg. Portrayed as an über-ruthless ultra-nerd by Jesse Eisenberg, it’s fair to say the Facebook founder came out of David Fincher’s social-media drama smelling less of roses than the stuff you grow them in. But it is great drama, expertly wrought by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who exploits the story’s central paradox (a guy who doesn’t get people makes a fortune getting people together online) to supremely juicy effect, amped up by a pulsating masterpiece score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of The Social Network
57) Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Dave Bautista
Release Date: October 4, 2017
Runtime: 164 minutes
Teaming the director of Arrival with a sci-fi franchise that – for box office performance reasons — hasn’t been overexploited the way some others have, seemed like a no-brainer. It actually turned out to be a big-brainer, with Denis Villeneuve dipping into Philip K. Dick’s universe and constructing a sequel that not only doesn’t embarrass Ridley Scott’s original, but builds out that world, adding layers and texture while still feeling of a piece. Between Harrison Ford revisiting his iconic replicant hunter, and Ryan Gosling grappling with his own identity as incoming replicant K, 2049 is a triumph of quiet character moments and glorious, sense-enveloping spectacle.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Blade Runner 2049
58) Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014)
Director: James Gunn
Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillan, Vin Diesel
Release Date: August 1, 2014
Runtime: 121 minutes
Marvel took one of its biggest swings with this space-borne adventure, which featured the MCU’s freakiest and least-known characters (a talking raccoon, a walking tree, a green assassin lady, a muscleman named after a Bond villain, and Star-who?!), starred that funny guy from Parks And Rec, and was directed by the guy who turned Michael Rooker into a giant slug-monster in Slither. Which is pretty cool, when you think about it. That Gunn turned it all into a groovy space-opera that feels like Marvel’s own Star Wars is near-miraculous, all soundtracked to an Awesome Mix (Vol. 1) of stellar rock classics.
Streaming on: Disney+ | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Guardians Of The Galaxy. See where it came in our MCU ranking.
59) Moonlight (2016)
Director: Barry Jenkins
Starring: Trevante Rhodes, Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders
Release Date: October 21, 2016
Runtime: 111 minutes
Adapted from Tarell Alvin’s play In Moonlight, Black Boys Look Blue, Barry Jenkins’ Oscar-winning drama (and certified Empire Masterpiece) is the kind of film that seeps under your skin and stays there. Tracking one man’s life in three stages, and the love (and lack of it) that made him who he is, Moonlight evokes a sense of intimacy so palpable, the camera’s gaze into the characters’ eyes so intense, you can’t bear to look away. Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris are impeccable in supporting roles, with Trevante Rhodes and Andre Holland delivering an unforgettable final act.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Moonlight. See where it came in our list of the 50 greatest LGBTQ+ movies (hint, it’s high!).
60) Hot Fuzz (2007)
Director: Edgar Wright
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Timothy Dalton, Rafe Spall, Paddy Considine
Release Date: October 20, 2007
Runtime: 121 minutes
How do you one-up Shaun Of The Dead? You go bigger, bloodier, and even funnier. Wright, Pegg and Frost’s tribute to big American cop movies isn’t just a great fish-out-of-water comedy, sending high-achieving London policeman Nick Angel (Pegg) to the most boring place in the UK (or so it seems). It also manages to wring every last drop of funny out of executing spot-on bombastic, Bayhem-style action in a sleepy English small-town setting. As a result it brings pulse-pounding thrills of its own, with a script boasting some of the best gags ever committed to film. Put it in the pantheon between Point Break and Bad Boys 2.
Rent on: Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Hot Fuzz. Read Empire’s original interview on the film here.
61) Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Ivana Baquero, Ariadna Gil, Doug Jones
Release Date: December 29, 2006
Runtime: 118 minutes
Guillermo del Toro’s fairy tale for grown-ups is as pull-no-punches brutal as it is gorgeously, baroquely fantastical. There’s an earthy, primal feel to his fairy-world here, alien and threatening rather than gasp-inducing and ‘magical’, thanks in no small part to the truly cheese-dream nightmarish demon-things Del Toro conjures up (sans CGI) with the assistance of performer Doug Jones. His fawn guides young Ofelia (Baquero) through a series of dangerous fantastical trials as she approaches a mystical destiny – though the storybook elements prove just as gruelling and deadly as the backdrop of Fascistic Francoist Spain. Spine-tingling.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Pan’s Labyrinth.
62) Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)
Director: David Lean
Starring: Peter O’Toole, Alec Guinness, Omar Sharif
Release Date: December 21, 1962
Runtime: 227 minutes
If you only ever see one David Lean movie… well, don’t. Watch as many as you can. But if you really insist on only seeing one David Lean movie, then make sure it’s Lawrence Of Arabia, the movie that put both the “sweeping” and the “epic” into “sweeping epic” with its breath-taking depiction of T.E. Lawrence’s (Peter O’Toole) Arab-uniting efforts against the German-allied Turks during World War I. It’s a different world to the one we’re in now, of course, but Lean’s mastery of expansive storytelling does much to smooth out any elements (such as Alec Guinness playing an Arab man) that may rankle modern sensibilities.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Lawrence Of Arabia.
63) Get Out (2017)
Director: Jordan Peele
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Alison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener
Release Date: February 24, 2017
Runtime: 104 minutes
Even given the darker tones of a few Key And Peele sketches, no one could have predicted that Jordan Peele would place himself on track to become a modern master of horror. And it all started with this, the Oscar-winning kick-off to his film career in which Daniel Kaluuya’s Chris meets his girlfriend Rose’s (Allison Williams) parents and discovers some truly shocking secrets. White guilt, outright racism, slavery and more blend into a socially conscious terror tale that rings every note with pitch-perfect accuracy. You’ll never look at a cup of tea the same way again.
Streaming on: HBO Max
Read Empire’s review of Get Out. See where it ranks in our list of the 50 best horror movies of the 21st century (hint, it’s pretty high!).
64) La La Land (2016)
Director: Damien Chazelle
Starring: Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, J.K. Simmons
Release Date: December 25, 2016
Runtime: 128 minutes
As much a technical marvel as it is an acting tour-de-force, Damien Chazelle’s Los Angeles love letter proved a ridiculously easy movie to fall in love with, even for those who may have grumbled that they weren’t really into musicals before sitting down to watch it. It’s an ode to “the fools who dream”, as Emma Stone’s aspiring actress Mia and Ryan Gosling’s jazz-obsessed Sebastian try to seize their artistic ambitions in the Hollywood hills – with hope and heartbreak awaiting them. It’s a razzle-dazzle triumph. Go on, admit it: You’re still humming ‘Another Day Of Sun’, aren’t you?
Streaming on: Moviesphere+ on Prime Video
Read Empire’s review of La La Land
65) Seven Samurai (1954)
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima
Release Date: November 19, 1956
Runtime: 207 minutes
A film so good they remade it twice — as The Magnificent Seven, then as Battle Beyond The Stars. Or four times, arguably… if you count A Bug’s Life and the remake of The Magnificent Seven. You could also make the case that Avengers Assembleis a version, too. The point is this: Akira Kurosawa’s epic, 16th century-set drama about a motley gang of warriors uniting to save a helpless village from bandits couldn’t be more influential. With its satisfying and pacy get-the-band-together suite, followed by its action-packed katana-filled finale, this is masterful character drama meets action classic, beautifully lensed in monochrome. Cinema simply wouldn’t be the same without it.
Streaming on: HBO Max | The Criterion Channel
Read Empire’s review of Seven Samurai
66) One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Director: Milos Forman
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Michael Berryman
Release Date: November 20, 1975
Runtime: 133 minutes
Ken Kesey’s era-defining novel was in good hands with screenwriters Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman, not to mention director Milos Forman. Five Oscars were testament to that, including one for Jack Nicholson, who’s arguably never been better than here, playing Randle McMurphy – a man destined to be chewed up by the unfeeling system when he feigns mental illness to avoid prison time, instead institutionalised in a psychiatric hospital. Louise Fletcher, too, is outstanding, representing that unfeeling system in the form of Nurse Ratched – a movie villain for the ages.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
67) Singin’ In The Rain (1952)
Directors: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly
Starring: Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds
Release Date: March 27, 1952
Runtime: 103 minutes
A joyous, vibrant Technicolor celebration of the movies. Singin’ In The Rain is such an essential viewing experience, there should perhaps be a law that it features in every DVD and Blu-ray collection. Despite its story depicting how moviemaking went from silent films to the sound era (causing much consternation for many of its stars), this is no mere Hollywood self-love exercise. As star Don Lockwood, Gene Kelly brings a sense of exasperation at the film industry’s diva-indulging daftness, making it a gentle satire, too. A film you want to sing about, in any type of weather.
Streaming on: Cinemax | HBO Max
Read Empire’s review of Singin’ In The Rain
68) Lady Bird (2017)
Director: Greta Gerwig
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet, Lucas Hedges, Laurie Metcalf
Release Date: November 3, 2017
Runtime: 94 minutes
With her directorial debut, the wry wit and emotional potency of Greta Gerwig’s previous work came even sharper into focus – telling a beautifully nuanced coming-of-age story about mothers, daughters, and the hometowns you yearn to leave, only for them to be truly appreciated in the rear-view mirror. Saoirse Ronan is perfectly precocious as the not-always-likeable Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson, experiencing fractured friendships, first fuckboys, and fateful fumbles in her final year of high school in 2003 Sacramento.
Streaming on: Cinemax
Read Empire’s review of Lady Bird
69) Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Melanie Laurent, Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Christoph Waltz
Release Date: August 21, 2009
Runtime: 153 minutes
From its Sergio Leone-riffing opening to its insanely over the top, history-rewriting finale, Tarantino’s World War II caper never once fails to surprise and entertain. As ever, though, QT’s at his best in claustrophobic situations, with the tension ramped up to almost unbearable levels in a volley of standout scenes – the tavern, the strudel, to name a couple. Plus, Brad Pitt’s amusing attempts at an Italian accent (which contributed to it making our list of Pitt’s 10 best movies, too).
Streaming on: Netflix | Moviesphere+ on Prime Video
Read Empire’s review of Inglourious Basterds
70) Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018)
Directors: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman
Starring: Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry
Release Date: December 14, 2018
Runtime: 117 minutes
Having Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s names on a movie is regularly the guarantee of something great, but the full team behind this animated marvel (in both upper- and lower-case senses of the word) is what makes it work. The directing trio all added something (with Rothman co-writing alongside Lord) and their animators whipped up a visually dynamic big screen experience — an exciting, heartwarming adventure that literally spanned multiverses well before the MCU got in on the act. Bringing Miles Morales to the screen was a masterstroke, and Shameik Moore’s vocal work gives him buckets of charm. Thwipping excellent stuff!
Streaming on: Fubo TV
Read Empire’s review of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. See where it came in our Spider-Man movie ranking.
71) Up (2009)
Directors: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
Starring: Edward Asner, Jordan Nagai
Release Date: May 29, 2009
Runtime: 96 minutes
A lot has been said about the opening to Pete Docter’s Pixar masterpiece – and rightly so, wringing tears from the hardest of hearts with a wordless sequence set to Michael Giacchino’s Oscar-winning score that charts the ups and downs of a couple’s marriage. Yet while the majority of the film is more of a straight-ahead adventure tale (albeit one with a wacky bird and talking dogs), that doesn’t make it any less satisfying. And let’s be honest — the story of a man who uses balloons to float his house to a foreign land, accidentally picking up a young wilderness explorer scout as he does, feels perfectly Pixar.
Streaming on: Disney+
Read Empire’s review of Up. See where it came in our list of the 50 best animated movies.
72) Rear Window (1954)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: James Stewart, Grace Kelly
Release Date: August 1, 1954
Runtime: 112 minutes
Photographer LB Jeffries (James Stewart, one of Empire’s greatest actors of all time) is on sick leave, with a broken leg. He’s bored to tears, so he starts spying on his neighbors. Then he witnesses a murder. Or does he? Alfred Hitchcock really knew how to take an incredible premise and spin it into a peerless thriller (that’s why they called him The Master Of Suspense), but Rear Window also deserves praise for an astonishing set build: that entire Greenwich Village courtyard was constructed at Paramount Studios, complete with a drainage system that could handle all the rain.
Streaming on: Youtube TV | Prime Video
Read Empire’s review of Rear Window
73) Mulholland Drive (2001)
Director: David Lynch
Starring: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux
Release Date: October 8, 2001
Runtime: 147 minutes
David Lynch messes with Hollywood itself in a mystery tale that’s as twisted as the road it’s named after, while presenting Tinseltown as both Dream Factory and a realm of Nightmares. (Try not to have a sleepless night after that Winkie’s Diner sequence.) The result is a hallucinatory odyssey, that refuses to spell out what is or isn’t real – a film that put Naomi Watts on the map; her audition scene remains as stunning as it was 20 years ago.
Rent on: Apple TV
Read Empire’s review of Mulholland Drive
74) Trainspotting (1996)
Trainspotting ©TMDB
Director: Danny Boyle
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Kelly Macdonald
Release Date: July 19, 1996
Runtime: 93 minutes
For their follow up to the superb Shallow Grave, Danny Boyle (director), Andrew Macdonald (producer) and John Hodge (screenwriter) foolhardily elected to film the supposedly unfilmable: Scottish author Irvine Welsh’s scrappy, episodic, multi-perspective novel about Edinburgh low-lives. The result couldn’t have been more triumphant: the cinematic incarnation of ‘Cool Britannia’ came with a kick-ass soundtrack that made you want to crank the speakers up, and despite some dark subject matter, a punch-the-air uplifting pay-off.
Buy on DVD: Amazon
Read Empire’s review of Trainspotting. Read our complete behind-the-scenes history here.
75) A Quiet Place (2018)
Director: John Krasinski
Starring: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe
Release Date: April 6, 2018
Runtime: 90 minutes
Take a simple concept (don’t make a sound, or aliens will get you), a stellar cast, and a director with a laser-focused vision, and what do you get? One of the most innovative, refreshing, and unbearably tense horror movies of the 21st century. From the second it starts, the imposed silence of A Quiet Place makes it a revelatory cinematic experience. As the Abbott family pad gently around their home, the store, the woods, you feel in your bones that one wrong step equals disaster. The (loudly) ticking time bomb of imminent childbirth sets the scene for a stellar scary finale, but it’s the deeply endearing family dynamic in Bryan Woods and Scott Beck’s subtle screenplay that sets it apart.
Streaming on: Paramount+ | Fubo TV
Read Empire’s review of A Quiet Place. See where it ranked in our list of the best horror movies ever, and of the 21st century.
76) Arrival (2016)
Arrival ©TMDB
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg
Release Date: November 11, 2016
Runtime: 116 minutes
Denis Villeneuve’s empathic, perception-bending alien visitation drama is sci-fi at its very best. Offering a mercurial blend of blockbuster scale, spectacular special effects and grounded, intensely cerebral human drama, the Quebecois filmmaker’s first venture into speculative fiction — bolstered by an emotional, career-standout turn from Amy Adams as linguistics professor Dr Louise Banks — takes Ted Chiang’s short story and makes of it something vast and singular. With its message that open-minded communication enables us to realise the things we have in common with those who appear vastly different, Arrival endures as a soul-piercing call for understanding.
Streaming on: Paramount+
Read Empire’s review of Arrival
77) Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi (1983)
Director: Richard Marquand
Starring: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, James Earl Jones
Release Date: May 25, 1983
Runtime: 131 minutes
Episode VI of George Lucas’ saga is the perfect giddy finale to a trilogy that changed cinema forever. Balancing soapy schmaltz with eye-popping action set-pieces (*that* triple-front finale is just magnificent!) and a Shakespearean redemption story, Jedi is a blockbuster finale with peril and poignance poised on a lightsaber-edge. Largely swerving the sense of dread that dominated Empire Strikes Back’s conclusion, Jedi instead — with all its tactile effects, witty dialogue, kinetic action, kick-ass heroes (and villains), and awesome design work — feels like the ultimate embodiment of everything Star Wars is in the cultural consciousness.
Streaming on: Disney+
Read Empire’s review of Return Of The Jedi
78) In The Mood For Love (2000)
Director: Wong Kar Wai
Starring: Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung
Release Date: February 2, 2001
Runtime: 98 minutes
Set in 1960s Hong Kong, Wong Kar Wai’s In The Mood For Love sees neighbors Chow (Tony Leung) and Su (Maggie Cheung) fall for one another when they discover their spouses are cheating together. The set-up seems fit for a farce, but Wong uses it instead to create a sizzlingly sensual and heartbreakingly restrained exploration of – as Chow puts it – how feelings “can creep up just like that”. With a distinctive, noir-inflected visual style (homaged to great effect in Everything Everywhere All At Once), and two of the most beautiful human beings to ever grace the screen in the form of Leung and Cheung, In The Mood For Love captures unspeakable desire quite unlike anything else. In its final moments, Wong Kar Wai delivers an unparalleled expression of love.
Streaming on: HBO Max
Read Empire’s review of In The Mood For Love. See where it ranked in our list of the 100 Greatest Movies of the 21st Century.
79) E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore
Release Date: June 11, 1982
Runtime: 115 minutes
Over the years, the phrase “Amblinesque” has come to be a calling card for family-friendly adventures thrumming with heart, wonder, and just a smidge of darkness – and never has that moviemaking method been more perfectly encapsulated than in E.T. Equal parts fun children’s adventure and poignant meditation on familial dysfunction and our capacity for healing, E.T. carefully beds its supernatural elements in an utterly relatable every-kid world, tempering its cuter, more sentimental moments with a true sense of jeopardy. Boasting an extraordinary lead performance from a 10-year-old Henry Thomas, one of John Williams greatest scores, and an ending that still has us in floods over forty years later, E.T. remains the gold standard for family filmmaking.
Read Empire’s review of E.T. The Extraterrestrial
80) L.A. Confidential (1997)
Director: Curtis Hanson
Starring: Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger
Release Date: September 19, 1997
Runtime: 138 minutes
Famously dense, knottily plotted, and written in a staccato style, James Ellroy’s L. A. Quartet of epic crime novels hardly screams prime big-screen material. The miracle of Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland’s L.A. Confidential, then – which adapts the third book – is how it viscerally captures the author’s noirish sense of Los Angeles as a dark-hearted labyrinth, while also trimming the fat off the original 500-ish page tome without losing any of its soul or meaning. That it also features exceptional performances across the board – especially from Russell Crowe as conscience-discovering bruiser Bud White and Guy Pearce as ramrod rookie Ed Exley – only solidifies its position further as one of the great modern works of noir cinema (and one of our best murder-mystery movies, too).
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of L.A. Confidential
81) Psycho (1960)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins
Release Date: June 16, 1960
Runtime: 109 minutes
Imagine seeing Psycho in 1960. No late entry. Virtually no marketing beyond some shots of the Bates Motel. And then, for the entire opening act, you’re watching a good old-fashioned noir! Janet Leigh’s on the lam with a bunch of her boss’ money, stopping at said motel, and encountering the strange-but-nice-enough Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). Then, she hops in the shower, and the whole film shifts on its axis. From that moment on, you’re rooted to your seat, in thrall to a madman (whether that’s Hitch or Norman is your call), certain to never be the same again. One of the best horror movies ever made, Hitchcock’s monochromatic masterwork is pure cinema. (Also, don’t sleep on Psycho II, an unexpected, underrated gem.)
Streaming on: Apple TV
Read Empire’s review of Psycho
82) The Usual Suspects (1995)
Director: Bryan Singer
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Giancarlo Esposito, Pete Postlethwaite
Release Date: August 18, 1995
Runtime: 106 minutes
Five criminals are brought together to pull off a heist, and suspicion and shoot-outs abound. Sounds like Reservoir Dogs, doesn’t it? In fact, it was even marketed as such. But a Tarantino picture, The Usual Suspects ain’t. Taking the line-up concept as a starting point for something altogether different in execution, Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie’s super-twisted, uber-cool crime thriller attains true greatness through its inventive evocation of mythic crime lord Keyser Soze – a phantom menace terrifying enough to scare even the most hardened of criminals. Turns out the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing people this would be just another crime movie.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of The Usual Suspects
83) Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Director: Taika Waititi
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Tessa Thompson, Mark Ruffalo, Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum
Release Date: November 3, 2017
Runtime: 130 minutes
Throughout the MCU, Kevin Feige has cleverly employed directors known for smaller independent movies, and then handed them the keys to the franchise’s kingdom. Among the best to grasp such an opportunity is Kiwi auteur Taika Waititi, helping Chris Hemsworth’s Thor find a weapon more mighty than Mjölnir — his funny bone! Ragnarok shakes up the God of Thunder’s entire world by, well, pretty much destroying it, and has an absolute blast doing it. Full of action, bursting with color, and boasting a uniformly excellent ensemble — Mark Ruffalo! Tessa Thompson! Jeff Goldblum! Cate Blanchett! — this is pretty much the Platonic ideal of a popcorn superhero blockbuster. Anybody want a pamphlet?
Streaming on: Disney+
Read Empire’s review of Thor: Ragnarok. See where it comes in our MCU ranking here.
84) Lost In Translation (2003)
Director: Sofia Coppola
Starring: Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi
Release Date: September 12, 2003
Runtime: 102 minutes
With her sophomore feature, Sofia Coppola took a familiar enough rom-com set-up — two strangers cross paths in a foreign place — and turned it into a mesmerising mumblecore anti-romance. As listless college grad Charlotte and world weary actor Bob, Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray share an ineffable chemistry, offering beautifully understated performances as two people whose geographic and emotional sense of dislocation in Tokyo is simultaneously what brings them together and, ultimately, what keeps them apart, too. As well as that karaoke scene, its ending, in which Bob whispers words we never hear into Charlotte’s ear, is an all-timer.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Lost In Translation
85) Shaun Of The Dead (2004)
Director: Edgar Wright
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Bill Nighy, Kate Ashfield, Lucy Davis, Dylan Moran
Release Date: April 9, 2004
Runtime: 99 minutes
Before its release, you might have been forgiven for thinking that Edgar Wright’s proper feature directorial debut would be ‘Spaced: The Movie’. But what we got was so much more. A zom-rom-com made with real genre nous and a distinctly British sense of humor, Wright’s movie strikes the perfect balance between laugh-out-loud comedy and seriously gruesome undead horror. From its perfectly synchronised ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ zombie beatdown, to Nick Frost and Simon Pegg’s star-making, side-splitting performances, to Edgar Wright’s go-for-broke gonzo approach to shooting and editing, this is British filmmaking at its finest. Fuck-a-doodle-doo!
Streaming on: Apple TV
Read Empire’s review of Shaun Of The Dead
86) Black Panther (2018)
Director: Ryan Coogler
Starring: Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong’o, Michael B. Jordan, Angela Bassett, Letitia Wright, Martin Freeman, Winston Duke
Release Date: February 16, 2018
Runtime: 134 minutes
After his standout introduction in Captain America: Civil War, 2018’s Black Panther allowed us to properly meet Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa, and see Wakanda in all its glory. Impeccably directed by Creed‘s Ryan Coogler, it’s an astonishing Afrofuturistic vision oozing cool, colorful regality. His culture-rich canvas is beautifully filled with Oscar-winning costume design, a slew of stunning set pieces, and a hit-filled soundtrack crying out for a fancy soundbar. What’s more, its mercurial narrative blend of pulsating espionage thriller and family saga ensures the movie has real substance. Soaring to billion dollar-plus box office takings, Black Panther’s cultural impact cannot be understated — and after Boseman’s untimely passing in 2020, the film endures as the defining role for a truly remarkable talent.
Streaming on: Disney+
Read Empire’s review of Black Panther. See where it came in our MCU ranking here.
87) The Exorcist (1973)
Director: William Friedkin
Starring: Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow
Release Date: December 26, 1973
Runtime: 122 minutes
For many still the definitive exorcism film (sorry, The Pope’s Exorcist!), William Friedkin’s 1973 masterwork is the stuff of horror legend. The movie, which sees Linda Blair’s 12-year-old Regan possessed by demonic spirit Pazuzu, endures as a jump-out-of-your-skin shocker thanks to its pea-vomiting, spider-crawling, crucifix-screwing sequences. But the real reason it continues to affect audiences so deeply today is because of the way Friedkin – through the figures of Fathers Damien Karras (Jason Miller) and Lankester Merrin (Max von Sydow) – so skillfully stages a soul-shaking crisis of faith, sustaining and building an atmosphere of such dread, such spiritual torment, that you can’t help but feel you’ve unleashed something satanic simply by watching it.
Streaming on: AMC
Read Empire’s review of The Exorcist. See where it came in our list of the 50 Best Horror Movies here.
88) Titanic (1997)
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates
Release Date: December 19, 1997
Runtime: 194 minutes
What to say about James Cameron’s epic romantic tragedy? It’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’. It’s “Paint me like one of your French girls.” It’s a steamy handprint on a cab window, and a floating door that’s definitely big enough for two. It’s sparks flying between Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, and Billy Zane being the ultimate shit-eating grinning baddie. It is – figuratively and literally – one of the biggest movies ever made. With a difficult, overrunning shoot, it was predicted to be a career-ending flop for Cameron. Instead, it became one of the most successful films of all time, both at the box office and at the Oscars. As Cameron himself proudly declared, it made him “king of the world!”
Read Empire’s review of Titanic
89) No Country For Old Men (2007)
Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Starring: Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson
Release Date: November 9, 2007
Runtime: 122 minutes
A perfect meeting of artistic sensibilities, the Coen brothers’ adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s literary great sees the directorial duo imbue the existentialism of McCarthy’s book with their signature brand of dark, violent filmmaking. The result is a tense, slow, and mysterious take on the chase movie format, lensed immaculately by legendary DP Roger Deakins. It’s also a film that thoughtfully considers the question of how — or even if — good people can ever hope to deal with a world that’s entirely gone to shit. And lest we forget, this was the movie that gave us Javier Bardem’s cold-blooded sociopathic killer Anton Chigurh, a villain so terrifying that Hollywood has cast Bardem as the go-to bad guy ever since.
Streaming on: Youtube TV
Read Empire’s review of No Country For Old Men
90) The Terminator (1984)
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn
Release Date: October 26, 1984
Runtime: 107 minutes
After his Piranha II: Flying Killers experience, James Cameron could’ve called it quits on a Hollywood career. Instead, he made The Terminator. The rest, as they say, is history (which you can read about in detail in our major Cameron interview). Shot for $6 million, Cameron cribbed from Michael Crichton’s Westworld and Harlan Ellison’s Outer Limits episode ‘Soldier’, and amped up the action — all revolving around Arnold Schwarzenegger’s instantly iconic shotgun-toting, shades-rocking, time-travelling cyborg killer. With the relentless tension of a slasher (what is Arnie’s Terminator if not Michael Myers in leathers?) and the kinetic thrills of a balls-to-the-wall blockbuster, nothing has been the same since the T-800 told Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor: “Come with me if you want to live”.
Streaming on: Youtube TV | Paramount+
Read Empire’s review of The Terminator
91) Logan (2017)
Director: James Mangold
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Stephen Merchant, Boyd Holbrook
Release Date: March 1, 2017
Runtime: 137 minutes
If you’re wrapping up your tenure as a beloved superhero icon, look no further than how Hugh Jackman — under the direction of a never-better James Mangold — punched out the clock on playing Wolverine. Set in a dark near-future world where an aging Logan is caring for a mentally unstable Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Logan takes cues from Western greats such as Shane as Wolvie wrestles with his mortality and history of violence. A truly original superhero tale that is mournful without being morbid, Mangold’s mutant masterwork is the perfect end to Logan’s story (an ending, it has to be noted, given a rousing yet respectful encore in Deadpool & Wolverine).
Streaming on: Disney+
Read Empire’s review of Logan. See where it came in our X-Men movie ranking here.
92) Léon: The Professional (1994)
Director: Luc Besson
Starring: Natalie Portman, Jean Reno, Gary Oldman
Release Date: November 18, 1994
Runtime: 110 minutes
While something of a spiritual spin-off to his Nikita, Luc Besson’s follow-up film is very much its own beast. Inarguably, its greatest strength isn’t Jean Reno’s titular contract killer, or even Gary Oldman’s unhinged baddie Stansfield, but a very young Natalie Portman, who delivers a luminous, career-creating performance as vengeful 12-year-old Mathilda. Despite some of the ickiness inherent in the relationship the film presents between a middle-aged man and a pre-teen girl, Portman’s phenomenal performance helps augment an unlikely kinship that winds up being deeply affecting to watch.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Léon: The Professional
93) Portrait Of A Lady On Fire (2020)
Director: Céline Sciamma
Starring: Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel
Release Date: December 6, 2019
Runtime: 122 minutes
Celine Sciamma’s magnetic, masterful lesbian romance may be a recent addition to this list (as well as our 50 greatest LGBTQ+ movies), but became an instant landmark of queer cinema upon its release. Starring Noémie Merlant as an 18th century painter and Adèle Haenel as her elusive subject, Portrait Of A Lady On Fire is a tale of an epic love developed in the quietest, most delicate way, formed in stolen moments and glances. Sciamma’s carefully constructed, smouldering screenplay and our leads’ electric chemistry are matched only by Claire Mathon’s transcendent cinematography, with each impeccably framed, Renaissance-inspired 8K shot bringing new meaning to the expression “every frame a painting”. Pure poetry.
Streaming on: HBO Max
Read Empire’s review of Portrait Of A Lady On Fire.
94) Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (2010)
Director: Edgar Wright
Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Chris Evans, Brie Larson, Jason Schwartzman, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza
Release Date: August 13, 2010
Runtime: 112 minutes
With Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Edgar Wright leaned all the way into the things that make his directorial style so singular — excellent needle drops, a poppy visual palette, whip-pans and whip-smart wit — in order to do Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novels justice. Michael Cera is on peak socially-awkward-Cera form as the put-upon protagonist who’s forced to face his new girlfriend’s (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) seven evil exes in a series of increasingly wild face-offs. But it’s the film’s extraordinarily stacked ensemble (Chris Evans! Brie Larson! Anna Kendrick! Aubrey Plaza!), mixed-media aesthetics, and endless pool of iconic quotes and playlist-essential tunes that cement it as one of Wright’s most memorable. This is good garlic bread.
Streaming on: Apple TV
Read Empire’s review of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
95) Donnie Darko (2001)
Director: Richard Kelly
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Patrick Swayze, Mary McDonnell
Release Date: October 26, 2001
Runtime: 113 minutes
A high school drama with a time-travelling, tangential universe-threading, sinister rabbit-featuring twist, Richard Kelly’s labyrinthine opus was always destined for cult classic status. An early beneficiary of physical media’s move to DVD, it gained a fandom in film obsessives who could pause, play, and skip back and forth through it at will. Any attempt to synopsise the movie is a fool’s errand, but there’s more than a hint of It’s A Wonderful Life in the way we see Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal, in a star-making turn) experiencing how the world would be worse off if he survives the jet engine that mysteriously crashes through his bedroom. That the film, with all its heavy themes and brooding atmosphere, manages to eventually land on a note of overwhelming optimism is a testament to Kelly’s mercurial moviemaking.
Streaming on: Prime Video | Hulu | Fubo TV
Read Empire’s review of Donnie Darko.
96) Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Director: Ang Lee
Starring: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Michelle Williams
Release Date: December 9, 2005
Runtime: 134 minutes
Ang Lee’s adaptation of Annie Proulx’s short story retains its source’s sensitivity and grace whilst expanding its scope gorgeously. Played out against the beautiful mountain landscapes of Wyoming (in reality, the Canadian Rockies), the decades-spanning love story between shepherds Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) and Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) — two men who unexpectedly find love, only to find it tested over the years as heteronormative expectations work against them — is sensually observed and immaculately shot. (No wonder it’s in our list of the 50 greatest LGBTQ+ movies.) Delivering hope and heartbreak in equal measure, the multiple Oscar-winning movie’s impact on queer cinema continues to be felt today. We still don’t know how to quit it (and honestly, we don’t want to).
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Brokeback Mountain
97) Amélie (2001)
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Starring: Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus, Lorella Cravotta
Release Date: April 25, 2001
Runtime: 122 minutes
French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s fourth feature – his second as a solo artist divorced from Marc Caro – saw the Delicatessen and Alien: Resurrection filmmaker leave behind the overwhelming darkness of his earlier works and step out into the glorious sunshine of Amélie’s whimsical fantasy of Paris. Sure, a cynic could read the film as the story of Audrey Tautou’s monomaniacal title character’s relentless, somewhat stalkerish pursuit of the hapless Nino (Matthieu Kassovitz) around Montmartre’s dream-like cityscape. But this one isn’t for the cynics — it’s a tribute to the daydreamers of this world, and a sweet, nostalgic, sentimental romantic comedy that only Jeunet could have conceived. Amélie will always be on our list of things we like.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Amelie
98) Paddington 2 (2017)
Director: Paul King
Starring: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Hugh Grant, Brendan Gleeson
Release Date: November 9, 2017
Runtime: 103 minutes
With the first Paddington, co-writer/director Paul King delivered a truly wonderful, thoroughly British film bursting with joy, imagination, kindness, and just the odd hard stare from our beloved Peruvian bear. Then, he followed it by making one of the greatest sequels — nay, one of the best, most feel-good movies, period — of all time. Matching wits with Hugh Grant’s moustache-twirlingly evil and deliciously outré washed-up actor Phoenix Buchanan, Paddington (Ben Whishaw) is on typically adorable form here as his search for a special present for his Great Aunt Lucy leads to all sorts of hilarious hijinks. Like all great sequels, this one takes everything that made the first so good and builds on it, dialling up the spectacle, the silliness, and the emotional stakes. The result is as sweet as marmalade.
Rent on: Apple TV | Amazon Video
Read Empire’s review of Paddington 2
99) Groundhog Day (1993)
Director: Harold Ramis
Starring: Bill Murray, Andie McDowell, Chris Elliott, Stephen Tobolowsky
Release Date: February 12, 1993
Runtime: 101 minutes
Bill Murray is at the height of his (eventually) lovable schmuck powers here as narcissistic weatherman Phil Connors. Andie McDowell brings the brains and the heart as distant-but-ever-closer-coming producer Rita Hanson. And Harold Ramis, directing and co-writing with Danny Rubin, manages to spin gold from the well-worn thread of a man stuck in time. Whilst this time-loop dramedy might not have been the first film to drink from this particular trope’s well, it is inarguably head and shoulders above the rest. Murray’s customarily snarky delivery gets the easy laughs flowing early doors, but it’s the way the movie finds deeper things to say about existence and morals as it goes on, all whilst never feeling overly preachy or worthy, that keeps us coming back to it again, and again, and again.
Streaming on: Netflix
Read Empire’s review of Groundhog Day
100) Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn
Release Date: October 23, 1992
Runtime: 105 minutes
Making his uber cool and supremely confident directorial debut, Quentin Tarantino hit audiences with a terrific twist on the heist-gone-wrong thriller. For the most part a single location chamber piece, Reservoir Dogs delights in ricocheting the zing and fizz of its dialogue around its gloriously intense setting, with the majority of the movie’s action centering around one long and incredibly bloody death scene. Packing killer lines, killer needledrops, and killer, er, killers too, this is a rollicking ride – and set the blueprint for everything we’ve come to expect from a Tarantino joint. Oh, and by the way: Nice Guy Eddie was shot by Mr. White. Who fired twice. Case closed.
Streaming on: Moviesphere+ on Prime Video
Read Empire’s review of Reservoir Dogs