TSPDT - The 1,000 Greatest Films: The Top 500 Films (1-25)

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The 1,000 Greatest Films The Top 500 (1-25)

• Introduction • The Top 500 Films • The Full List • The Top 250 Directors • PDF Companion • Links

The Top 500: •1-25 •26-50 •51-75 •76-100 •101-150 •151-200 •201-250 •251-300 •301-350 •351-400 •401-450 •451-500

• Welcome to TSPDT's detailed view of the leading 500 films from the 1,000 Greatest list. Very slowly but not entirely surely, we hope to display all 1,000 films in this manner, but for now, 500 is where it's at.

• So then, here is the supposed cream of the crop. Based on our calculations, these are the 500 most critically acclaimed films of all-time. If you've only seen a handful of these, then you better get cracking! Or then again, please yourself.

• Alongside each director's name is the position each film held in our last update (January 2011). For each film, we've also included a list of five critics and/or filmmakers that have included it amongst their personal list of favourites.

• The numbers 2 → 2 → 3 → 3 → 3 → 3 → 3 indicate the positions each film has held within the last seven 1,000 Greatest Films listings (Mar06 → Dec06 → Dec07 → Dec08 → Jan10 → Jan11 → Jan12).

• Click here to see all 1,000 films.

Citizen Kane

ORSON WELLES (1)

1941 | 119m | BW | USA | Drama, Period Film

Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane, Dorothy Comingore, Ray Collins, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Stewart, George Coulouris, Ruth Warrick, Erskine Sanford

"Far and away the most surprising and cinematically exciting motion picture to have been seen here in many a moon. As a matter of fact, it comes close to being the most sensational film ever made in Hollywood." - Bosley Crowther, New York Times

"Its imagery (not forgetting the oppressive ceilings) as Welles delightedly explores his mastery of a new vocabulary, still amazes and delights, from the opening shot of the forbidding gates of Xanadu to the last glimpse of the vanishing Rosebud (tarnished, maybe, but still a potent symbol). A film that gets better with each renewed acquaintance." - Tom Milne, Time Out

Selected by John Carpenter, Roland Emmerich, Ken Russell, Ridley Scott, Frank Marshall.

1 → 1 → 1 → 1 → 1 → 1 → 1

Amazon Bright Lights Film Journal Roger Ebert's Great Movies

Vertigo

ALFRED HITCHCOCK (2)

1958 | 128m | Col | USA | Romantic Mystery, Psychological Thriller

James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore, Henry Jones, Ellen Corby, Lee Patrick, Raymond Bailey, Konstantin Shayne, Paul Bryar

"Of all Hitchcock's films the one nearest to perfection. Indeed, its profundity is inseparable from the perfection of form: it is a perfect organism, each character, each sequence, each image, illuminating each other." - Robin Wood, Hitchcock's Film's Revisited, 1989

"It's nice to see critics accepting Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 commercial flop as a masterpiece; when I first saw it more than 30 years ago it was a neglected film cited by Pauline Kael as a junky Hitchcock demonstrating the absurdity of auteurism. But masterpiece it is: I can think of no film that makes romance more palpable and affecting." - Fred Camper, Chicago Reader, 1996

Selected by Richard Kelly, James Gray, Wong Kar-wai, Andrew Sarris, John Walker.

3 → 3 → 2 → 2 → 2 → 2 → 2

Amazon Images Journal Bright Lights Film Journal

The Rules of the Game

JEAN RENOIR (3)

• La Règle du jeu (original title)

1939 | 113m | BW | France | Comedy Drama, Comedy of Manners

Marcel Dalio, Nora Gregor, Jean Renoir, Roland Toutain, Mila Parely, Gaston Modot, Julien Carette, Pauline Dubost, Pierre Magnier, Odette Talazac

"How brilliantly Renoir focuses the confusion! The rather fusty luxury of the chateau, the constant mindless slaughter of wild animals, the minuets of adultery and seduction, the gavottes of mutual hatred or mistrust." - Basil Wright, 1972

"Every frame of La règle du jeu seems dominated by Renoir's personality; yet the most appealing facets of that personality are generosity, openness, responsiveness. As a result, La règle is at once the auteur film par excellence and a work of co-operation and active participation." - Robin Wood, Film Reference

Selected by Cameron Crowe, Paul Schrader, Carrie Rickey, Amy Taubin, Carlos Diegues.

2 → 2 → 3 → 3 → 3 → 3 → 3

Amazon Roger Ebert's Great Movies The A.V. Club

2001: A Space Odyssey

STANLEY KUBRICK (4)

• Two Thousand and One: A Space Odyssey (alternative spelling)

1968 | 139m | Col | UK | Science Fiction, Psychological Sci-Fi

Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter, Leonard Rossiter, Margaret Tyzack, Robert Beatty, Sean Sullivan, Frank Miller, Alan Gifford

"The genius is not in how much Stanley Kubrick does in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but in how little. This is the work of an artist so sublimely confident that he doesn't include a single shot simply to keep our attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and leaves it on screen long enough for us to contemplate it, to inhabit it in our imaginations. Alone among science-fiction movies, 2001 is not concerned with thrilling us, but with inspiring our awe." -Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1997

Selected by James Cameron, Greg Mottola, Richard Kelly, James Gray, Bryan Singer.

4 → 4 → 4 → 4 → 4 → 4 → 4

Amazon Images Journal Roger Ebert's Great Movies

The Godfather

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA (5)

1972 | 175m | Col | USA | Gangster Film, Crime Drama

Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard Castellano, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte, Diane Keaton, John Cazale

"Taking a best-selling novel of more drive than genius, about a subject of something less than common experience (the Mafia), involving an isolated portion of one very particular ethnic group (first-generation and second-generation Italian-Americans), Francis Ford Coppola has made one of the most brutal and moving chronicles of American life ever designed within the limits of popular entertainment." - Vincent Canby, New York Times, 1972

Selected by A.O. Scott, Robert Rodriguez, Alex Proyas, Roland Emmerich, Paul Schrader.

7 → 7 → 6 → 6 → 6 → 5 → 5

Amazon Roger Ebert's Great Movies Metacritic

8½

FEDERICO FELLINI (6)

• Otto e mezzo (original title/alternative spelling); Eight and a Half (alternate spelling)

1963 | 135m | BW | Italy | Satire, Psychological Drama

Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimee, Sandra Milo, Rossella Falk, Barbara Steele, Guido Alberti, Mario Pisu, Madeleine LeBeau, Jean Rougeul

"If all you know about this exuberant, self-regarding 1963 film is based on its countless inferior imitations (from Paul Mazursky's Alex in Wonderland and The Pickle to Woody Allen's Stardust Memories to Bob Fosse's All That Jazz), you owe it to yourself to see Federico Fellini's exhilarating, stocktaking original... It's Fellini's last black-and-white picture and conceivably the most gorgeous and inventive thing he ever did--certainly more fun than anything he made after it." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

Selected by Baz Luhrmann, Marc Forster, David Ehrenstein, John Walker, István Szabó.

5 → 5 → 5 → 5 → 5 → 6 → 6

Amazon Strictly Film School Derek Malcolm's Century of Films

The Seven Samurai

AKIRA KUROSAWA (7)

• Shichinin no samurai (original title)

1954 | 200m | BW | Japan | Samurai Film, Drama

Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune, Yoshio Inaba, Seiji Miyaguchi, Minoru Chiaki, Daisuke Kato, Ko Kimura, Kokuten Kodo, Kamatari Fujiwara, Yoshio Tsuchiya

"Breathtaking, fastmoving, and overflowing with a delightfully self-mocking sense of humor, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai is one of the most popular and influential Japanese films ever made.... This rip-snorting action-adventure epic about a sixteenth-century farm community led by a band of samurai warriors defending itself against a marauding army, sparked not only an American remake, The Magnificent Seven (1960), but went on to influence a score of other westerns, particularly those of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone." - Gavin Lambert, Sight & Sound

Selected by Julio Medem, Robin Wood, Ramin Bahrani, Arturo Ripstein, Christopher Frayling.

6 → 6 → 8 → 9 → 8 → 7 → 7

Amazon Bright Lights Film Journal Senses of Cinema

The Searchers

JOHN FORD (8)

1956 | 119m | Col | USA | Western, Revisionist Western

John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, Natalie Wood, Hank Worden, Henry Brandon, Harry Carey Jr., Olive Carey, John Qualen

"We may still be waiting for the Great American Novel, but John Ford gave us the Great American Film in 1956. The Searchers gathers the deepest concerns of American literature, distilling 200 years of tradition in a way available only to popular art, and with a beauty available only to a supreme visual poet like Ford." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

Selected by Andrew Sarris, Martin Scorsese, Barry Norman, Bill Rothman, Jean-Michel Frodon.

8 → 9 → 7 → 7 → 7 → 8 → 8

Amazon Roger Ebert's Great Movies Images Journal

Singin' in the Rain

STANLEY DONEN & GENE KELLY (9)

1952 | 102m | Col | USA | Musical, Showbiz Comedy

Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell, Cyd Charisse, Douglas Fowley, Rita Moreno, Madge Blake, King Donovan

"One of the shining glories of the American musical... The setting is Hollywood's troubled transition to sound, and there is just enough self-reflexive content (on the eternal battle between illusion and reality in the movies) to structure the film's superb selection of numbers." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

Selected by Kevin MacDonald, Nick James, Bryan Forbes, David Stratton, Gillian Armstrong.

10 → 10 → 11 → 11 → 9 → 9 → 9

Amazon The Village Voice Roger Ebert's Great Movies

Battleship Potemkin

SERGEI EISENSTEIN (10)

• Bronenosets Potyomkin (original title); Potemkin (alternative title)

1925 | 65m | BW | Russia | Historical Film, Political Drama

Alexander Antonov, Vladimir Barsky, Grigori Alexandrov, Mikhail Goronorov, Levchenko, Repnikova, Marusov, I. Bobrov, A. Fait, Sergei Eisenstein

"Upon its release in 1925, Potemkin was hailed as a masterpiece, as much for the way it dramatized the emotions behind the communist revolution as for its innovative use of montage... Battleship Potemkin remains remarkable for the way it builds over a brisk 69 minutes, setting the pace for nearly every action movie made since." - Noel Murray, The A.V. Club, 2007

Selected by Jesus Franco, Christopher Frayling, Robin Buss, Barry Norman, Michael Mann.

12 → 12 → 12 → 8 → 10 → 10 → 10

Amazon Senses of Cinema Film as Art

Tokyo Story

YASUJIRO OZU (11)

• Tôkyô monogatari (original title)

1953 | 134m | BW | Japan | Drama, Family Drama

Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama, Setsuko Hara, Haruko Sugimura, Soh Yamamura, Kuniko Miyake, Kyoko Kagawa, Eijiro Tono, Nobuo Nakamura, Shiro Osaka

"Tokyo Story lacks sentimental triggers and contrived emotion; it looks away from moments a lesser movie would have exploited. It doesn't want to force our emotions, but to share its understanding. It does this so well that I am near tears in the last 30 minutes. It ennobles the cinema. It says, yes, a movie can help us make small steps against our imperfections." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 2003

Selected by Robin Wood, Mike Leigh, Paul Schrader, John Walker, Geoff Andrew.

9 → 8 → 9 → 10 → 11 → 11 → 11

Amazon Derek Malcolm's Century of Films Strictly Film School

Sunrise

F.W. MURNAU (12)

• Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (original title)

1927 | 110m | BW | USA | Melodrama, Romantic Drama

George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston, Bodil Rosing, J. Farrell MacDonald, Ralph Sipperly, Jane Winton, Arthur Housman, Eddie Boland, Barry Norton

"Like Citizen Kane, Sunrise is one of those movies that introduce viewers to the notion of film as art... Part of what continues to make it great is its creation in a particular utopian moment in film history: the end of the silent era, when movies reached a certain pinnacle of visual expressiveness that was tied to a dream of universality, a belief that cinema could speak an international tongue." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Guardian, 2004

Selected by Gus Van Sant, Andrew Sarris, Carrie Rickey, Carlos Diegues, Alan Rudolph.

11 → 11 → 10 → 12 → 12 → 12 → 12

Amazon Village Voice Strictly Film School

Lawrence of Arabia

DAVID LEAN (13)

1962 | 216m | Col | UK | Epic, British Empire Film

Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins, Jose Ferrer, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quayle, Claude Rains, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Wolfit

"As a shining example of a vanished breed of epic filmmaking it can't be beat. The scene most admirers remember best a near-dead Lawrence reemerging from the desert after risking his life to rescue a fallen comrade is so long and minimal that no director in the age of Spielberg & Co. would dream of attempting it.... In short, they don't make 'em like this one anymore. Viewing it is like taking a time machine to a movie age that was more naive than our own in some ways, more sophisticated and ambitious in others." - David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor, 2002

Selected by Roland Emmerich, Edward Zwick, Renny Harlin, Kathryn Bigelow, Andrew Stanton.

18 → 13 → 13 → 13 → 13 → 13 → 13

Amazon BFI Screen Online Washington Post

Bicycle Thieves

VITTORIO DE SICA (14)

• Ladri di biciclette (original title); The Bicycle Thief (alternative title)

1948 | 90m | BW | Italy | Family Drama, Urban Drama

Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell, Gino Saltamerenda, Vittorio Antonucci, Giulio Chiari, Elena Altieri, Carlo Jachino, Michele Sakara, Emma Druetti

" Hailed around the world as one of the greatest movies ever made, Vittorio De Sica’s Academy Award–winning Bicycle Thieves defined an era in cinema... Simple in construction and dazzlingly rich in human insight, Bicycle Thieves embodied all the greatest strengths of the neorealist film movement in Italy: emotional clarity, social righteousness, and brutal honesty." - The Criterion Collection

Selected by Bruce Robinson, Danny Boyle, Jesus Franco, Ken Loach, Robin Buss.

19 → 17 → 15 → 14 → 14 → 14 → 14

Amazon Strictly Film School Roger Ebert's Great Movies

The Godfather Part II

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA (15)

1974 | 200m | Col | USA | Gangster Film, Crime Drama

Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, Talia Shire, John Cazale, Lee Strasberg, Michael V. Gazzo, Richard Bright, Gastone Moschin

"Combined, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II represent the apex of American movie-making and the ultimate gangster story. Few sequels have expanded upon the original with the faithfulness and detail of this one... The Godfather is not so much about crime lords as it is about prices paid in the currency of the soul for decisions made and avoided. It is that quality which establishes this saga as timeless. " - James Berardinelli, Reel Views, 1994

Selected by Greg Mottola, F. Gary Gray, Peter Segal, Carrie Rickey, Alan Parker.

15 → 18 → 17 → 20 → 15 → 15 → 15

Amazon Filmsite Pop Matters

18↑

Casablanca

MICHAEL CURTIZ (16)

1942 | 102m | BW | USA | Drama, War Romance

Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Paul Henreid, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Dooley Wilson, Marcel Dalio, S.Z. Sakall

"Michael Curtiz's 1942 classic is irresistible, big-hearted film-making - a unique kind of romantic noir - with cracking dialogue and a thrilling leading man in Humphrey Bogart as bar owner Rick: a stateless, cynical American in second world war Casablanca, where desperate refugees plead for transit papers and which has become a sordid marketplace in cash and sexual favours." - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 2007

Selected by F. Gary Gray, Carrie Rickey, Mark L. Lester, Iain Softley, Jonathan Lynn.

25 → 25 → 20 → 15 → 17 → 16 → 16

Amazon Roger Ebert's Great Movies The A.V. Club

L'Atalante

JEAN VIGO (17)

1934 | 89m | BW | France | Drama, Romance

Michel Simon, Jean Daste, Dita Parlo, Gilles Margaritis, Louis Lefevre, Fanny Clar, Raphael Diligent, Maurice Gilles, Rene Bleck, Charles Goldblatt

"The film is a masterpiece not because of the tragic story of its maker nor because of its awkward genesis, but because, as Truffaut has said, in filming prosaic words and acts, Vigo effortlessly achieved poetry... The poetic power of the film, however, had a lot to do with the cinematography of the Russian-born Boris Kaufman, who worked on each of Vigo's films." - Derek Malcolm, The Guardian, 1999

Selected by Michel Gondry, Geoff Andrew, Gilbert Adair, Aki Kaurismäki, Gilles Jacob.

17 → 16 → 14 → 16 → 16 → 17 → 17

Amazon Slant Magazine Roger Ebert's Great Movies

Raging Bull

MARTIN SCORSESE (19)

1980 | 128m | BW | USA | Biography, Sports Drama

Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci, Frank Vincent, Nicholas Colasanto, Theresa Saldana, Mario Gallo, Frank Adonis, Frank Topham, Lori Anne Flax

"Despite an initial flurry of rabbit punches (most of them from the Kael wing of the critical establishment), Raging Bull is now treasured as an American masterwork, a fusion of Hollywood genre with personal vision couched in images and sounds that are kinetic and visceral, and closer to poetry than pulp." - Amy Taubin, The Village Voice

Selected by Julian Schnabel, John Sayles, John Walker, Alan Parker, Gillian Armstrong.

16 → 19 → 18 → 18 → 19 → 19 → 18

Amazon Roger Ebert's Great Movies Derek Malcolm's Century of Films

Rashomon

AKIRA KUROSAWA (18)

• Rashômon (original title)

1950 | 88m | BW | Japan | Drama, Samurai Film

Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki, Fumiko Honma, Kichijiro Ueda, Daisuke Kato, Scinobu Hascimoto

"The film’s nonlinear narrative decisively marked it as a modernist work and as a part of the burgeoning world art cinema that was transforming the medium in the 1950s. With Rashomon and his subsequent films, Kurosawa came to rank among the leading international figures of the art cinema, in the company of Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Satyajit Ray. Like their work, Rashomon was more than just commercial entertainment. It was a film of ideas, made by a serious artist with a sophisticated aesthetic design. " - Stephen Prince, The Criterion Collection, 2002

Selected by Werner Herzog, Dennis Hopper, Carrie Rickey, Dusan Makavajev, Andrey Plakhov.

14 → 15 → 19 → 19 → 18 → 18 → 19

Amazon The Criterion Collection Roger Ebert's Great Movies

The Passion of Joan of Arc

CARL DREYER (20)

• La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (original title)

1928 | 77m | BW | France | Historical Film, Biography

Renee Maria Falconette, Eugene Sylvain, Maurice Schutz, Michel Simon, Antonin Artaud, Louis Ravet, Andre Berley, Jean d'Yd, Jacques Ama, Alexandre Mihalesco

"Dreyer's most universally acclaimed masterpiece remains one of the most staggeringly intense films ever made. It deals only with the final stages of Joan's trial and her execution, and is composed almost exclusively of close-ups... The entire film is less moulded in light than carved in stone: it's magisterial cinema, and almost unbearably moving." - Tony Rayns, Time Out

Selected by Jean-Michel Frodon, Bruce Beresford, Armond White, Donald Richie, Gavin Smith.

13 → 14 → 16 → 17 → 20 → 20 → 20

Amazon Bright Lights Film Journal Strictly Film School

Touch of Evil

ORSON WELLES (21)

1958 | 108m | BW | USA | Film Noir, Psychological Thriller

Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff, Marlene Dietrich, Dennis Weaver, Ray Collins, Mercedes McCambridge, Lalo Rios

"Touch of Evil is a flat-out all-cylinders-running, eye-popping masterpiece, one of a few monumental 1950s swan songs marking the end of the great epoch of traditional studio filmmaking. It belongs alongside Vertigo and The Searchers and Kiss Me Deadly and Some Came Running as a tribute to the kind of directorial vision that used the machinery of the studio to create a work of pure visual poetry." - Fred Camper, Chicago Reader, 1998

Selected by Mark Cousins, Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante, Philip Kaufman, Bernardo Bertolucci.

20 → 22 → 22 → 21 → 21 → 21 → 21

Amazon Derek Malcolm's Century of Films Filmsite