The 100 best movies of all time by Time Out
"Over 70 actors gave us their personal top ten favorite movie titles to collectively build our list of the 100 best movies of all time. Now it's time to see how you compare. Have you seen The Turin Horse, which falls in the top three of Oscar winner Juliette Binoche's list? Do you agree with Michael C. Hall's favorites To Kill a Mockingbird or the modern classic Goodfellas? Find out how high you score in the below checklist—and get to watching the movies you've been missing out on!"
- Time Out
Weight: 80
Detractions
- Voted on by industry employee(s) (-20)
Films (100)
1. Tootsie
Directed by Sydney Pollack | Rated PG | 116 min | 1982
Michael Dorsey, an unsuccessful actor, disguises himself as a woman in order to get a role on a trashy hospital soap.
2. The Godfather
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola | Rated R | 175 min | 1972
The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.
3. A Woman Under the Influence
Directed by John Cassavetes | Rated R | 155 min | 1974
Mabel, a wife and mother, is loved by her husband Nick but her madness proves to be a problem in the marriage. The film transpires to a positive role of madness in the family, challenging conventional representations of madness in cinema.
4. Cinema Paradiso
Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore | Rated R | 155 min | 1988
A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird
Directed by Robert Mulligan | 129 min | 1962
Atticus Finch, a lawyer in the Depression-era South, defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge, and his kids against prejudice.
6. The Godfather: Part II
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola | Rated R | 202 min | 1974
The early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York is portrayed while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on his crime syndicate stretching from Lake Tahoe, Nevada to pre-revolution 1958 Cuba.
7. Annie Hall
Directed by Woody Allen | Rated PG | 93 min | 1977
Neurotic New York comedian Alvy Singer falls in love with the ditzy Annie Hall.
8. Boogie Nights
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson | Rated R | 155 min | 1997
The story of a young man's adventures in the Californian pornography industry of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
9. The Red Shoes
Directed by Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | 133 min | 1948
A young ballet dancer is torn between the man she loves and her pursuit to become a prima ballerina.
10. Taxi Driver
Directed by Martin Scorsese | Rated R | 113 min | 1976
A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge for violent action, attempting to save a preadolescent prostitute in the process.
11. Dog Day Afternoon
Directed by Sidney Lumet | Rated R | 125 min | 1975
A man robs a bank to pay for his lover's operation; it turns into a hostage situation and a media circus.
12. Goodfellas
Directed by Martin Scorsese | Rated R | 146 min | 1990
Henry Hill and his friends work their way up through the mob hierarchy.
13. Withnail & I
Directed by Bruce Robinson | Rated R | 107 min | 1987
London, 1969 - two 'resting' (unemployed and unemployable) actors, Withnail and Marwood, fed up with damp, cold, piles of washing-up, mad drug dealers and psychotic Irishmen, decide to ...
15. The Wizard of Oz
Directed by Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Mervyn LeRoy, Norman Taurog, King Vidor | 102 min | 1939
Dorothy Gale is swept away to a magical land in a tornado and embarks on a quest to see the Wizard who can help her return home.
16. On the Waterfront
Directed by Elia Kazan | 108 min | 1954
An ex-prize fighter turned longshoreman struggles to stand up to his corrupt union bosses.
17. The Shining
Directed by Stanley Kubrick | Rated R | 146 min | 1980
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.
18. Breaking the Waves
Directed by Lars von Trier | Rated R | 159 min | 1996
Oilman Jan is paralyzed in an accident. His wife, who prayed for his return, feels guilty; even more, when Jan urges her to have sex with another.
19. Pulp Fiction
Directed by Quentin Tarantino | Rated R | 154 min | 1994
The lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangster's wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.
20. Gladiator
Directed by Ridley Scott | Rated R | 155 min | 2000
When a Roman general is betrayed and his family murdered by an emperor's corrupt son, he comes to Rome as a gladiator to seek revenge.
21. La Haine
Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz | 98 min | 1995
24 hours in the lives of three young men in the French suburbs the day after a violent riot.
22. Jaws
Directed by Steven Spielberg | Rated PG | 124 min | 1975
When a gigantic great white shark begins to menace the small island community of Amity, a police chief, a marine scientist and a grizzled fisherman set out to stop it.
23. Raging Bull
Directed by Martin Scorsese | Rated R | 129 min | 1980
An emotionally self-destructive boxer's journey through life, as the violence and temper that leads him to the top in the ring destroys his life outside it.
24. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Directed by Mike Nichols | Rated TV-MA | 131 min | 1966
A bitter, aging couple, with the help of alcohol, use a young couple to fuel anguish and emotional pain towards each other.
25. Some Like It Hot
Directed by Billy Wilder | 120 min | 1959
When two musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in.
26. Fargo
Directed by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen | Rated R | 98 min | 1996
Jerry Lundegaard's inept crime falls apart due to his and his henchmen's bungling and the persistent police work of the quite pregnant Marge Gunderson.
27. Rosemary's Baby
Directed by Roman Polanski | Rated R | 136 min | 1968
A young couple move into an apartment, only to be surrounded by peculiar neighbors and occurrences. When the wife becomes mysteriously pregnant, paranoia over the safety of her unborn child begins to control her life.
28. The Night of the Hunter
Directed by Charles Laughton, Robert Mitchum, Terry Sanders | 92 min | 1955
A religious fanatic marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real daddy hid $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.
29. Chinatown
Directed by Roman Polanski | Rated R | 130 min | 1974
A private detective hired to expose an adulterer finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption and murder.
30. The Apartment
Directed by Billy Wilder | 125 min | 1960
A man tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but complications and a romance of his own ensue.
31. La Vie en Rose
Directed by Olivier Dahan | Rated PG-13 | 140 min | 2007
The life story of singer Édith Piaf.
32. There Will Be Blood
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson | Rated R | 158 min | 2007
A story of family, religion, hatred, oil and madness, focusing on a turn-of-the-century prospector in the early days of the business.
33. All About Eve
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz | 138 min | 1950
An ingenue insinuates herself into the company of an established but aging stage actress and her circle of theater friends.
34. Life Is Beautiful
Directed by Roberto Benigni | Rated PG-13 | 116 min | 1997
When an open-minded Jewish librarian and his son become victims of the Holocaust, he uses a perfect mixture of will, humor and imagination to protect his son from the dangers around their camp.
35. Apocalypse Now
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola | Rated R | 153 min | 1979
During the Vietnam War, Captain Willard is sent on a dangerous mission into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade colonel who has set himself up as a god among a local tribe.
36. The Philadelphia Story
Directed by George Cukor | 112 min | 1940
When a rich woman's ex-husband and a tabloid-type reporter turn up just before her planned remarriage, she begins to learn the truth about herself.
37. The Sting
Directed by George Roy Hill | Rated PG | 129 min | 1973
In Chicago in September 1936, a young con man seeking revenge for his murdered partner teams up with a master of the big con to win a fortune from a criminal banker.
38. Waiting for Guffman
Directed by Christopher Guest | Rated R | 84 min | 1996
An aspiring director and the marginally talented amateur cast of a hokey small-town Missouri musical production go overboard when they learn that someone from Broadway will be in attendance.
39. Citizen Kane
Directed by Orson Welles | 119 min | 1941
Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance.
40. Singin' in the Rain
Directed by Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly | 103 min | 1952
A silent film production company and cast make a difficult transition to sound.
41. The Celebration
Directed by Thomas Vinterberg | Rated R | 105 min | 1998
At Helge's 60th birthday party, some unpleasant family truths are revealed.
42. The Lives of Others
Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck | Rated R | 137 min | 2006
In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police, conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives.
43. American Beauty
Directed by Sam Mendes | Rated R | 122 min | 1999
A sexually frustrated suburban father has a mid-life crisis after becoming infatuated with his daughter's best friend.
44. Léon: The Professional
Directed by Luc Besson | Rated R | 110 min | 1994
Mathilda, a 12-year-old girl, is reluctantly taken in by Léon, a professional assassin, after her family is murdered. Léon and Mathilda form an unusual relationship, as she becomes his protégée and learns the assassin's trade.
45. A Star Is Born
Directed by George Cukor | 154 min | 1954
A film star helps a young singer and actress find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career on a downward spiral.
46. Casablanca
Directed by Michael Curtiz | Rated PG | 102 min | 1942
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
47. Stairway to Heaven
Directed by Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | Rated PG | 104 min | 1946
A British wartime aviator who cheats death must argue for his life before a celestial court.
48. An American in Paris
Directed by Vincente Minnelli | 113 min | 1951
Three friends struggle to find work in Paris. Things become more complicated when two of them fall in love with the same woman.
49. Mean Streets
Directed by Martin Scorsese | Rated R | 112 min | 1973
Following the life of a small-time hood who struggles with a moral crisis regarding his friends, family, business, and his conflicting religious beliefs.
50. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
Directed by Irvin Kershner | Rated PG | 124 min | 1980
After the rebels have been brutally overpowered by the Empire on their newly established base, Luke Skywalker takes advanced Jedi training with Master Yoda, while his friends are pursued by Darth Vader as part of his plan to capture Luke.
51. The Turin Horse
Directed by Béla Tarr, Ágnes Hranitzky | 146 min | 2011
A rural farmer is forced to confront the mortality of his faithful horse.
52. The Princess Bride
Directed by Rob Reiner | Rated PG | 98 min | 1987
While home sick in bed, a young boy's grandfather reads him a story called The Princess Bride.
53. This Is England
Directed by Shane Meadows | 101 min | 2006
A young boy becomes friends with a gang of skinheads. Friends soon become like family, and relationships will be pushed to the very limit.
54. The Royal Tenenbaums
Directed by Wes Anderson | Rated R | 110 min | 2001
An estranged family of former child prodigies reunites when their father announces he is terminally ill.
55. 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.
56. Midnight Cowboy
Directed by John Schlesinger | Rated X | 113 min | 1969
A naive hustler goes to New York to seek personal fortune but in the process finds himself a new friend.
57. Nil by Mouth
Directed by Gary Oldman | Rated R | 128 min | 1997
The family of Raymond, his wife Val and her brother Billy live in working-class London district. Also in their family is Val and Billy's mother Janet and grandmother Kath. Billy is a drug ...
58. Requiem for a Dream
Directed by Darren Aronofsky | Rated R | 102 min | 2000
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island people are shattered when their addictions run deep.
59. All That Jazz
Directed by Bob Fosse | Rated R | 123 min | 1979
Director/choreographer Bob Fosse tells his own life story as he details the sordid life of Joe Gideon, a womanizing, drug-using dancer.
60. Truly Madly Deeply
Directed by Anthony Minghella | Rated PG | 106 min | 1990
A woman dealing with inconsolable grief over the death of her partner gets another chance when he returns to earth as a ghost.
61. Harold and Maude
Directed by Hal Ashby | Rated PG | 91 min | 1971
Young, rich, and obsessed with death, Harold finds himself changed forever when he meets lively septuagenarian Maude at a funeral.
62. Notorious
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock | 101 min | 1946
A woman is asked to spy on a group of Nazi friends in South America. How far will she have to go to ingratiate herself with them?
63. Being There
Directed by Hal Ashby | Rated PG | 130 min | 1979
A simple, sheltered gardener becomes an unlikely trusted advisor to a powerful businessman and an insider in Washington politics.
64. A Clockwork Orange
Directed by Stanley Kubrick | Rated X | 136 min | 1971
In future Britain, charismatic delinquent Alex DeLarge is jailed and volunteers for an experimental aversion therapy developed by the government in an effort to solve society's crime problem - but not all goes according to plan.
65. It's a Wonderful Life
Directed by Frank Capra | Rated PG | 130 min | 1946
An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed.
66. The Sacrifice
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky | Rated PG | 149 min | 1986
At the dawn of World War III, a man searches for a way to restore peace to the world and finds he must give something in return.
67. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Directed by Milos Forman | Rated R | 133 min | 1975
A criminal pleads insanity after getting into trouble again and once in the mental institution rebels against the oppressive nurse and rallies up the scared patients.
68. Monster
Directed by Patty Jenkins | Rated R | 109 min | 2003
Based on the life of Aileen Wuornos, a Daytona Beach prostitute who became a serial killer.
69. A Streetcar Named Desire
Directed by Elia Kazan | Rated PG | 122 min | 1951
Disturbed Blanche DuBois moves in with her sister in New Orleans and is tormented by her brutish brother-in-law while her reality crumbles around her.
70. Blade Runner
Directed by Ridley Scott | Rated R | 117 min | 1982
A blade runner must pursue and try to terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.
71. The Thin Red Line
Directed by Terrence Malick | Rated R | 170 min | 1998
Terrence Malick's adaptation of James Jones' autobiographical 1962 novel, focusing on the conflict at Guadalcanal during the second World War.
72. The General
Directed by Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton | 67 min | 1926
When Union spies steal an engineer's beloved locomotive, he pursues it single-handedly and straight through enemy lines.
73. The Third Man
Directed by Carol Reed | 93 min | 1949
Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.
74. Amour
Directed by Michael Haneke | Rated PG-13 | 127 min | 2012
Georges and Anne are an octogenarian couple. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. Their daughter, also a musician, lives in Britain with her family. One day, Anne has a stroke, and the couple's bond of love is severely tested.
75. Tender Mercies
Directed by Bruce Beresford | Rated PG | 92 min | 1983
A broken-down, middle-aged country singer gets a new wife, reaches out to his long-lost daughter, and tries to put his troubled life back together.
76. Tokyo Story
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu | 136 min | 1953
An old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city; but the children have little time for them.
77. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
Directed by George Lucas | Rated PG | 121 min | 1977
Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle-station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the evil Darth Vader.
78. A Room for Romeo Brass
Directed by Shane Meadows | Rated R | 90 min | 1999
Two twelve-year-old boys, Romeo and Gavin, undergo an extraordinary test of character and friendship when Morell, a naive but eccentric and dangerous stranger, comes between them. Morell ...
79. Scenes from a Marriage
Directed by N/A | Rated PG | 283 min | 1973
Ten years of Marianne and Johan's relationship are presented. We first meet them ten years into their marriage. He is a college professor, she a divorce lawyer. They say that they are ...
80. Naked
Directed by Mike Leigh | 126 min | 1993
Parallel tales of two sexually obsessed men, one hurting and annoying women physically and mentally, one wandering around the city talking to strangers and experiencing dimensions of life.
81. The Goonies
Directed by Richard Donner | Rated PG | 114 min | 1985
In order to save their home from foreclosure, a group of misfits set out to find a pirate's ancient valuable treasure.
82. Brazil
Directed by Terry Gilliam | Rated R | 132 min | 1985
A bureaucrat in a retro-future world tries to correct an administrative error and himself becomes an enemy of the state.
83. Hidden
Directed by Tim McLachlan | Rated N/A | 93 min | 2005
Deep within a dark, twisted forest, at a faraway adventure camp, a group of young 'camp leaders' play a fast and furious game of 'hide and seek'. The atmosphere is strange and thick with ...
84. The Deer Hunter
Directed by Michael Cimino | Rated R | 183 min | 1978
An in-depth examination of the ways in which the U.S. Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of people in a small industrial town in Pennsylvania.
85. The Piano
Directed by Jane Campion | Rated R | 121 min | 1993
A mute woman along with her young daughter, and her prized piano, are sent to 1850s New Zealand for an arranged marriage to a wealthy landowner, and she's soon lusted after by a local worker on the plantation.
86. The Grand Budapest Hotel
Directed by Wes Anderson | Rated R | 99 min | 2014
The adventures of Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous hotel from the fictional Republic of Zubrowka between the first and second World Wars, and Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend.
87. Carmen Jones
Directed by Otto Preminger | 105 min | 1954
Contemporary version of the Bizet opera, with new lyrics and an African-American cast.
88. The African Queen
Directed by John Huston | Rated PG | 105 min | 1951
In Africa during WWI, a gin-swilling riverboat captain is persuaded by a strait-laced missionary to use his boat to attack an enemy warship.
89. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
Directed by Peter Greenaway | Rated NC-17 | 124 min | 1989
The wife of an abusive criminal finds solace in the arms of a kind regular guest in her husbands restaurant.
90. Y Tu Mamá También
Directed by Alfonso Cuarón | Rated R | 106 min | 2001
In Mexico, two teenage boys and an attractive older woman embark on a road trip and learn a thing or two about life, friendship, sex, and each other.
91. The Hustler
Directed by Robert Rossen | 134 min | 1961
An up-and-coming pool player plays a long-time champion in a single high-stakes match.
92. Sophie's Choice
Directed by Alan J. Pakula | Rated R | 150 min | 1982
After spending time with his new neighbors, an aspiring writer realizes they are harboring deep secrets that will forever change him.
93. Whiplash
Directed by Damien Chazelle | Rated R | 107 min | 2014
A promising young drummer enrolls at a cut-throat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student's potential.
94. Love Actually
Directed by Richard Curtis | Rated R | 135 min | 2003
Follows the lives of eight very different couples in dealing with their love lives in various loosely interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London, England.
95. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Directed by Steven Spielberg | Rated PG | 137 min | 1977
After an encounter with U.F.O.s, a line worker feels undeniably drawn to an isolated area in the wilderness where something spectacular is about to happen.
96. Paris, Texas
Directed by Wim Wenders | Rated R | 147 min | 1984
Travis Henderson, an aimless drifter who has been missing for four years, wanders out of the desert and must reconnect with society, himself, his life, and his family.
97. Persona
Directed by Ingmar Bergman | 83 min | 1966
A nurse is put in charge of an actress who can't talk and finds that the actress's persona is melding with hers.
98. Crimes and Misdemeanors
Directed by Woody Allen | Rated PG-13 | 104 min | 1989
An ophthalmologist's mistress threatens to reveal their affair to his wife, while a married documentary filmmaker is infatuated by another woman.
99. The Great Beauty
Directed by Paolo Sorrentino | 141 min | 2013
Jep Gambardella has seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades, but after his 65th birthday and a shock from the past, Jep looks past the nightclubs and parties to find a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.
100. 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.