Top 80 films in History
Schindler's List
Directed by Steven Spielberg | Rated R | 195 min | 1993
In German-occupied Poland during World War II, Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazi Germans.
Gone with the Wind
Directed by Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood | Rated G | 238 min | 1939
A manipulative Southern belle carries on a turbulent affair with a blockade runner during the American Civil War.
The Hurt Locker
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow | Rated R | 131 min | 2008
During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.
All the President's Men
Directed by Alan J. Pakula | Rated PG | 138 min | 1976
"The Washington Post" reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the details of the Watergate scandal that leads to President Richard Nixon's resignation.
Battleship Potemkin
Directed by Sergei M. Eisenstein | 66 min | 1925
A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resulting street demonstration which brought on a police massacre.
12 Years a Slave
Directed by Steve McQueen | Rated R | 134 min | 2013
In the antebellum United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery.
Gandhi
Directed by Richard Attenborough | Rated PG | 191 min | 1982
Gandhi's character is fully explained as a man of nonviolence. Through his patience, he is able to drive the British out of the subcontinent. And the stubborn nature of Jinnah and his commitment towards Pakistan is portrayed.
Ben-Hur
Directed by William Wyler | Rated G | 212 min | 1959
When a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend, he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge.
Amadeus
Directed by Milos Forman | Rated R | 160 min | 1984
The incredible story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, told by his peer and secret rival Antonio Salieri - now confined to an insane asylum.
A Man for All Seasons
Directed by Fred Zinnemann | 120 min | 1966
The story of Thomas More, who stood up to King Henry VIII when the King rejected the Roman Catholic Church to obtain a divorce and remarriage.
Tom Jones
Directed by Tony Richardson | 128 min | 1963
In eighteenth century England, "first cousins" Tom Jones and Master Blifil grew up together in privilege in the western countryside, but could not be more different in nature. Tom, the ...
The Passion of Joan of Arc
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer | 114 min | 1928
A chronicle of the trial of Jeanne d'Arc on charges of heresy, and the efforts of her ecclesiastical jurists to force Jeanne to recant her claims of holy visions.
Barry Lyndon
Directed by Stanley Kubrick | Rated PG | 184 min | 1975
An Irish rogue wins the heart of a rich widow and assumes her dead husband's aristocratic position in 18th-century England.
Selma
Directed by Ava DuVernay | Rated PG-13 | 128 min | 2014
A chronicle of Martin Luther King's campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965.
The Birth of a Nation
Directed by D.W. Griffith | 165 min | 1915
The American Civil War divides friends and destroys families, but that's nothing compared to the anarchy in the black-ruled South after the war.
Zero Dark Thirty
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow | Rated R | 157 min | 2012
A chronicle of the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after the September 2001 attacks, and his death at the hands of the Navy S.E.A.L.s Team 6 in May 2011.
Henry V
Directed by Laurence Olivier | 137 min | 1944
In the midst of the Hundred Years' War in 1415, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France.
Andrei Rublev
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky | 205 min | 1966
The life, times and afflictions of the fifteenth-century Russian iconographer.
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
Directed by D.W. Griffith | 197 min | 1916
The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.
Braveheart
Directed by Mel Gibson | Rated R | 178 min | 1995
When his secret bride is executed for assaulting an English soldier who tried to rape her, William Wallace begins a revolt against King Edward I of England.
The Killing Fields
Directed by Roland Joffé | Rated R | 141 min | 1984
A journalist is trapped in Cambodia during tyrant Pol Pot's bloody "Year Zero" cleansing campaign, which claimed the lives of two million "undesirable" civilians.
The Sorrow and the Pity
Directed by Marcel Ophüls | Rated PG | 251 min | 1969
From 1940 to 1944, France's Vichy government collaborated with Nazi Germany. Marcel Ophüls mixes archival footage with 1969 interviews of a German officer and of collaborators and ...
A Passage to India
Directed by David Lean | Rated PG | 164 min | 1984
Cultural mistrust and false accusations doom a friendship in British colonial India between an Indian doctor, an Englishwoman engaged to marry a city magistrate, and an English educator.
Reds
Directed by Warren Beatty | Rated PG | 195 min | 1981
A radical American journalist becomes involved with the Communist revolution in Russia and hopes to bring its spirit and idealism to the United States.
Far from the Madding Crowd
Directed by John Schlesinger | Rated PG | 168 min | 1967
Bathsheba Everdene, a willful, flirtatious, young woman, unexpectedly inherits a large farm and is romantically pursued by three very different men.
Z
Directed by Costa-Gavras | Rated M | 127 min | 1969
Following the murder of a prominent leftist, an investigator tries to uncover the truth while government officials attempt to cover up their roles.
The Leopard
Directed by Luchino Visconti | 187 min | 1963
The Prince of Salina, a noble aristocrat of impeccable integrity, tries to preserve his family and class amid the tumultuous social upheavals of 1860's Sicily.
Argo
Directed by Ben Affleck | Rated R | 120 min | 2012
Acting under the cover of a Hollywood producer scouting a location for a science fiction film, a CIA agent launches a dangerous operation to rescue six Americans in Tehran during the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran in 1980.
Woodstock
Directed by Michael Wadleigh | Rated R | 184 min | 1970
The film chronicle of the legendary 1969 music festival.
The Last Emperor
Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci | Rated PG-13 | 163 min | 1987
The story of the final Emperor of China.
United 93
Directed by Paul Greengrass | Rated R | 111 min | 2006
A real-time account of the events on United Flight 93, one of the planes hijacked on September 11th, 2001 that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers foiled the terrorist plot.
Shoah
Directed by Claude Lanzmann | 566 min | 1985
Claude Lanzmann's epic documentary recounts the story of the Holocaust through interviews with witnesses - perpetrators as well as survivors.
Empire of the Sun
Directed by Steven Spielberg | Rated PG | 153 min | 1987
A young English boy struggles to survive under Japanese occupation during World War II.
The King's Speech
Directed by Tom Hooper | Rated R | 118 min | 2010
The story of King George VI of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, his impromptu ascension to the throne and the speech therapist who helped the unsure monarch become worthy of it.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Directed by Werner Herzog | 93 min | 1972
In the 16th century, the ruthless and insane Don Lope de Aguirre leads a Spanish expedition in search of El Dorado.
Black Shack Alley
Directed by Euzhan Palcy | Rated PG | 103 min | 1983
Martinique, in the early 1930s. Young José and his grandmother live in a small village. Nearly everyone works cutting cane and barely earning a living. The overseer can fine a worker for ...
Daughters of the Dust
Directed by Julie Dash | Rated TV-PG | 112 min | 1991
Languid look at the Gullah culture of the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia where African folk-ways were maintained well into the 20th Century and was one of the last ...
Letters from Iwo Jima
Directed by Clint Eastwood | Rated R | 141 min | 2006
The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.
Mississippi Burning
Directed by Alan Parker | Rated R | 128 min | 1988
Two FBI agents with wildly different styles arrive in Mississippi to investigate the disappearance of some civil rights activists.
Mutiny on the Bounty
Directed by Frank Lloyd | 132 min | 1935
Midshipman Roger Byam joins Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian aboard the HMS Bounty for a voyage to Tahiti. Bligh proves to be a brutal tyrant and, after six pleasant months on Tahiti, ...
Becket
Directed by Peter Glenville | Rated PG-13 | 148 min | 1964
King Henry II of England comes to terms with his affection for his close friend and confidant Thomas à Becket, who finds his true honor by observing God's divine will rather than the king's.
Milk
Directed by Gus Van Sant | Rated R | 128 min | 2008
The story of Harvey Milk, and his struggles as an American gay activist who fought for gay rights and became California's first openly gay elected official.
The Lion in Winter
Directed by Anthony Harvey | Rated PG | 134 min | 1968
1183 AD: King Henry II's three sons all want to inherit the throne, but he won't commit to a choice. They and his wife variously plot to force him.
Zulu
Directed by Cy Endfield | 138 min | 1964
Outnumbered British soldiers do battle with Zulu warriors at Rorke's Drift.
The Right Stuff
Directed by Philip Kaufman | Rated PG | 193 min | 1983
The story of the original Mercury 7 astronauts and their macho, seat-of-the-pants approach to the space program.
Good Night, and Good Luck.
Directed by George Clooney | Rated PG | 93 min | 2005
Broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow looks to bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Julius Caesar
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz | 120 min | 1953
The growing ambition of Julius Caesar is a source of major concern to his close friend Brutus. Cassius persuades him to participate in his plot to assassinate Caesar but they have both sorely underestimated Mark Antony.
Macbeth
Directed by Roman Polanski | Rated R | 140 min | 1971
A ruthlessly ambitious Scottish lord seizes the throne with the help of his scheming wife and a trio of witches.
Question 7
Directed by Stuart Rosenberg | Rated N/A | 106 min | 1961
Suspenseful story of a boy and his father, each forced to decide his future on his willingness to stand up for what he believes.
Quiz Show
Directed by Robert Redford | Rated PG-13 | 133 min | 1994
A young lawyer, Richard Goodwin, investigates a potentially fixed game show. Charles Van Doren, a big time show winner, is under Goodwin's investigation.
The Longest Day
Directed by Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, Gerd Oswald, Darryl F. Zanuck | Rated G | 178 min | 1962
The events of D-Day, told on a grand scale from both the Allied and German points of view.
The Post
Directed by Steven Spielberg | Rated PG-13 | 116 min | 2017
A cover-up that spanned four U.S. Presidents pushed the country's first female newspaper publisher and a hard-driving editor to join an unprecedented battle between the press and the government.
Richard III
Directed by Laurence Olivier | 161 min | 1955
Shakespeare's powerful tale of the wicked deformed king and his conquests, both on the battlefield and in the boudoir.
The Dam Busters
Directed by Michael Anderson | 105 min | 1955
The story of how the British attacked German dams in WWII by using an ingenious technique to drop bombs where they would be most effective.
Elizabeth
Directed by Shekhar Kapur | Rated R | 124 min | 1998
A film of the early years of the reign of Elizabeth I of England and her difficult task of learning what is necessary to be a monarch.
Caravaggio
Directed by Derek Jarman | Rated N/A | 93 min | 1986
A retelling of the life of the celebrated 17th-century painter through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld.
Ivan the Terrible, Part I
Directed by Sergei M. Eisenstein | 95 min | 1945
During the early part of his reign, Ivan the Terrible faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people.
Napoleon
Directed by Abel Gance | Rated N/A | 240 min | 1927
A film about the French Field Marshal's youth and early military career.
Alexander Nevsky
Directed by Sergei M. Eisenstein, Dmitriy Vasilev | 112 min | 1938
The story of how a great Russian prince led a ragtag army to battle an invading force of Teutonic Knights.
Munich
Directed by Steven Spielberg | Rated R | 164 min | 2005
Based on the true story of the Black September aftermath, about the five men chosen to eliminate the ones responsible for that fateful day.
Senso
Directed by Luchino Visconti | 118 min | 1954
A troubled and neurotic Italian Countess betrays her entire country for a self-destructive love affair with an Austrian Lieutenant.
The Scarlet Empress
Directed by Josef von Sternberg | 104 min | 1934
Young Princess Sophia of Germany is taken to Russia to marry the half-wit Grand Duke Peter, son of the Empress. The domineering Empress hopes to improve the royal blood line. Sophia doesn't...
In the Realm of the Senses
Directed by Nagisa Ôshima | Rated X | 109 min | 1976
A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to a sexual obsession which then came to a violent end.
The Favourite
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos | Rated R | 119 min | 2018
In early 18th century England, a frail Queen Anne occupies the throne and her close friend, Lady Sarah, governs the country in her stead. When a new servant, Abigail, arrives, her charm endears her to Sarah.
The Times of Harvey Milk
Directed by Rob Epstein | 90 min | 1984
A documentary of the successful career and assassination of San Francisco's first elected gay councilor.
Apollo 13
Directed by Ron Howard | Rated PG | 140 min | 1995
NASA must devise a strategy to return Apollo 13 to Earth safely after the spacecraft undergoes massive internal damage putting the lives of the three astronauts on board in jeopardy.
Is Paris Burning?
Directed by René Clément | Rated N/A | 173 min | 1966
The departure of the German army from Paris in 1944.
Salvatore Giuliano
Directed by Francesco Rosi | 125 min | 1962
The unclear and complicate twists between governal powers, independentist party and Mafia in the Sicily of the '40s culminate with the death of Salvatore Giuliano.
The Great Escape
Directed by John Sturges | 172 min | 1963
Allied P.O.W.s plan for several hundred of their number to escape from a German camp during World War II.
The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
Directed by Errol Morris | Rated PG-13 | 107 min | 2003
The story of America as seen through the eyes of the former Secretary of Defense under President John F. Kennedy and President Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara.
Lincoln
Directed by Steven Spielberg | Rated PG-13 | 150 min | 2012
As the Civil War continues to rage, America's president struggles with continuing carnage on the battlefield as he fights with many inside his own cabinet on the decision to emancipate the slaves.
Quo Vadis, Aida?
Directed by Jasmila Zbanic | Rated Approved | 101 min | 2020
Aida is a translator for the UN in the small town of Srebrenica. When the Serbian army takes over the town, her family is among the thousands of citizens looking for shelter in the UN camp.
Anne of the Thousand Days
Directed by Charles Jarrott | Rated M | 145 min | 1969
Henry VIII of England discards one wife, Katharine of Aragon, who has failed to produce a male heir, in favor of the young and beautiful Anne Boleyn.
Dunkirk
Directed by Christopher Nolan | Rated PG-13 | 106 min | 2017
Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Empire and France are surrounded by the German Army, and evacuated during a fierce battle in World War II.
Evita
Directed by Alan Parker | Rated PG | 135 min | 1996
The hit musical based on the life of Evita Duarte, a B-picture Argentinian actress who eventually became the wife of Argentinian president Juan Perón, and the most beloved and hated woman in Argentina.
The Cardinal
Directed by Otto Preminger | 175 min | 1963
A young Catholic priest from Boston confronts bigotry, Naziism, and his own personal conflicts as he rises to the office of cardinal.
The Robe
Directed by Henry Koster | 135 min | 1953
In the Roman province of Judea during the 1st century, Roman tribune Marcellus Gallio is ordered to crucify Jesus of Nazareth but is tormented by his guilty conscience afterwards.
Hacksaw Ridge
Directed by Mel Gibson | Rated R | 139 min | 2016
WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people, and becomes the first man in American history to receive the Medal of Honor without firing a shot.
Mr. Turner
Directed by Mike Leigh | Rated R | 150 min | 2014
An exploration of the last quarter century of the great, if eccentric, British painter J.M.W. Turner's life.
Latest News
2021 Award Winners :) May 3, 2022
Per usual, we've added the award winners from last year (2021), and updated our rankings!
2020 Award Winners! May 9, 2021
As always, we've added the award winners from last year (2020), and updated our rankings!
All the 2019 Award Winners and Updated Rankings February 22, 2020
We've added all the award winners from 2019, and updated our rankings!
Film lists
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1. Top 100 Movies of All Time by Rotten Tomatoes
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2. 100 All-Time Greatest Movies by Entertainment Weekly
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3. The 50 Greatest Films of All Time by Sight & Sound
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4. The 50 Greatest Movies by Black Directors by Slate
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5. The 80 Best-Directed Films by Directors Guild of America (DGA)
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6. Directors’ 10 Greatest Films of All Time by Sight and Sound
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7. Hollywood's 100 Favorite Films by The Hollywood Reporter
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8. The 100 best movies of all time by Time Out
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9. The 100 greatest American films by BBC
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10. Best Picture by New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC)
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11. Best Film by National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
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12. The 50 Greatest Films by The One-Line Review
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13. BAFTA Award for Best Film by British Academy of Film and Television Arts
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14. Top 100 British films by British Film Institute
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15. Best Picture by National Society of Film Critics
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16. AFI's 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time by American Film Institute
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17. Top Rated Movies by IMDb
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18. 102 Greatest Films by filmsite
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19. John Kobal Presents the Top 100 Movies by John Kobal
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20. Ten Greatest Films of All Time by Roger Ebert
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21. The 25 Best Films of the 21st Century So Far by The New York Times
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22. 12 Greatest Films of All Time by Quentin Tarantino
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23. Academy Award for Best Picture by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
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24. Essential List of Films for Filmmakers by Spike Lee
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25. 12 Greatest Films of All Time by Martin Scorsese
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26. Best Picture by Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association
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27. Best European Film of the Year by European Film Awards
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28. Best Film by Independent Spirit Awards
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29. Best Picture by Los Angeles Film Critics Association
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30. Best Picture by Chicago Film Critics Association
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31. Best Picture by Boston Society of Film Critics
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32. The 25 "Greatest" Documentaries of All Time by POV
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33. Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy by Hollywood Foreign Press Association (Golden Globe)
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34. Best Film by Austin Film Critics Association
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35. Best Picture by The San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle
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36. Best Film by Village Voice Film Poll
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37. Best Motion Picture - Drama by Hollywood Foreign Press Association (Golden Globe)
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38. The 25 Best Sci-Fi Movies of the Last 25 Years by ScreenCrush
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39. Best Picture by Florida Film Critics Circle
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40. Best Theatrical Motion Picture by Producers Guild of America