My Ten Favorite Movies
With Sight & Sound’s poll right around the corner, it felt only right to explore and celebrate my favorite works of cinema
As frivolous and subjective as any “best-of-list” inherently is, we will soon be provided with the mother of them all for the cinema world: the highly discussed poll conducted by British film magazine Sight & Sound. The publication does this every ten years: present prominent critics and filmmakers from around the world with the pleasure/headache of providing their ten favorite movies (or is it the ten best movies? There isn’t a right answer; the magazine said so itself). These hundreds of tiny submissions are then combined and processed into a single grand list, ranked by how many entrants advocated for each film. After a six-decade run in which Citizen Kane held the list’s top spot, in 2012, the consensus pivoted to crown Hitchcock’s Vertigo as the G.F.O.A.T. Near the top of the list were other usual suspects: Rules of the Game, Tokyo Story, 2001, and so on. Despite some minor shuffling of positions, the “canon” has, more or less, stayed the same through the years.
The 2022 list will be unveiled in December, and it will be fascinating to see how that canon fares this time around. We not only have ten additional years of retrospective, analysis and reconciliation of classic films, but the number of participants in the poll is said to have expanded greatly, with an emphasis on bringing underrepresented demographics into the largely homogenous fold. Will this result in a significantly different list? I hope so and would expect some contemporary titles to make notable appearances (my prediction is that Beau Travail rockets up the list), but it remains unclear how far into modernity the list will be pushed.
One thing that was abundantly clear was that I had to share my own list of ten films, with or without an invite to the actual project (obviously without) and if only to celebrate it because, candidly, I’m very excited to read it. The 2012 list was hugely influential for me, pointing me toward what would be some of my favorite films and filmmakers, especially those from outside of the US. It was an invaluable tool for a young tween with a movie obsession to have a roadmap through the best of international film — no, lists like these shouldn’t be gospel, but anything that compels one to discover Bergman, Kurosawa and Bresson is a net positive to the world.
Doing this exercise also gave me the opportunity to actually list out my ten favorite movies, which I hadn’t done in many years. You can describe dozens upon dozens of movies as “one of my favorites,” and I do, but picking ten and only ten to hold above everything else forces you to prioritize and personalize. I’m pleased with my list, but it came at the sacrifice of an honorable mentions list that is too long to share here.
Is there a defining criteria behind which movies I ended up picking? I don’t think so; some of them were chosen because they never fail to entertain me, others because they deepened my love and appreciation for film itself. One movie made it because my childhood nostalgia couldn’t be denied, while another is a decades-old classic I just discovered during COVID. I honestly fail to see any unifying theme here, which isn’t a bad thing, as I instead get to share and celebrate ten great films on their own terms.
They are presented below in alphabetical order and, crucially, not in any order of quality or preference. I’ll admit that while I don’t have a favorite movie, there are three that I would describe as “co-favorites,” slightly more cherished and meaningful than the others. Which ones they are, I’ll never tell.
Barry Lyndon (1975)
The immediate legacy of Barry Lyndon is the film’s startling beauty — it is arguably the singular visual achievement in the career of cinema’s most famous visual master, Stanley Kubrick. I was impressed by it more than in love with it on my first watch, specifically awed by the famous “double shots” — several times, Kubrick begins a shot with a subject in close-up, only to slowly and cleanly zoom out to reveal a far grander, more intricately composed scene. We are also taken into the dark chambers of 18th century Europe, with scenes miraculously captured using candles as their only source of light — a feat that could only be achieved by borrowing a custom lens from NASA. This has indeed become one of those movies whose making has become its primary myth — I suspect that more people know that the film was designed to look like a painting from the period, than about the actual story or characters. (Kubrick will always be at the center of his film’s histories, but I can’t describe the look of Barry Lyndon in good faith without also citing cinematographer John Alcott, production designer Ken Adam and costume designers Milena Canonero and Ulla-Britt Soderlund, all of whom won Oscars for their work on the film.)
I keep returning to the film, by far my favorite of Kubrick’s, not for its many filmmaking triumphs, but for the sprawling, cynical and deeply comedic account of one of cinema’s great shitbags. Redmond Barry (Ryan O’Neal) is not the same domineering, overtly dangerous male monster that you’ll find in A Clockwork Orange or The Shining, but something I find much more compelling: an impulsive, superficial and intrinsically foolish young man. His ambitions for a station in high society set him on a fascinating lifelong journey; the first half of the film shows his rise to a position of power and status through remarkable means, and the second half is about his squandering of it all. It is not a spoiler to say that Barry’s story doesn’t end happily — he is a perpetual loser, and the film makes you continually aware of this fact throughout. All the credit in the world goes to O’Neal, who has the rare ability to look like a credible literary hero one second, and a complete dunce the next.
I find the movie to be viciously funny above all else. Much has been written about Barry Lyndon as a satire of the European society it depicts, but I simply admire all the absurd characters and situations that Barry encounters in rather rapid succession (they almost always end badly for him). This is where I choose to avoid spoilers, as I think the real joy in watching this film comes from taking in its episodic storytelling, especially in the first half.
Broadcast News (1987)
A workplace sorta-love-triangle tinged with neuroticism and lessons in media ethics, this is a Hollywood comedy that hits all my favorite notes. Holly Hunter gives an all-time lead performance as national TV news producer Jane Craig, who goes about her professional day operating with the general temperament of Doc Brown. She is a wunderkind in her field and navigates her D.C. studio with a standard of journalistic integrity that, to her, is a personal code. Her greatest ally is longtime friend and network reporter Aaron (Albert Brooks), who is pseudo-secretly in love with her.
Enter Tom Grunick (William Hurt), a former sports reporter with little book smarts, no grasp on that greater purpose of journalism which Jane and Aaron believe in, but enough charisma for his on-air career to be a success anyway. With his recent arrival at the network as a reporter, Jane must weigh her moral opposition to Tom’s presence with, of course, her attraction to him.
With Hunter, Hurt and Brooks in place, and with James L. Brooks’ heavily researched, maniacally sharp and funny script written, Broadcast News was teed up to be a great movie. You couldn’t ask for three better actors to cast in the lead parts — each star gives my favorite performance of their career here. Hunter, though, stands apart through sheer difficulty of being in nearly every scene. She runs the absolute gamut of emotions, from authoritarian rage in the TV studio (few actors can boss people around so believably), to absolute vulnerability in her brief moments of quiet and solitude. Brooks, one of our most prolific television writers, directed the film along with writing it, and augments the central plot with genuine and still-relevant discourse of style vs. substance, of the absolute truth vs. the “enhanced” truth, in modern media. Like Network which was released over a decade earlier, these aspects of the movie have aged troublingly well.
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
It has to be one of the ten. No matter how old I get, no matter what else I see, there will never be ten movies that supersede Empire in terms of personal importance for me. This movie played on repeat for about a year of my early life; I was — am — a ravenous Star Wars kid as anyone who knows me could tell you, and Empire was the specific chapter I glommed onto at a very young age. I remember my reasoning for loving it, too: this is the movie with the best battle sequence in the saga, and it has Yoda. For a first grader, there was no better recipe for perfect cinema.
Of course, I watch it now and it’s still the best. The aforementioned battle sequence, which was recreated annually in my backyard every snow day, takes place near the beginning of the film and causes the main band of characters, who always stayed together in the original Star Wars, to break into two groups. We spend ample time with both: Luke and R2-D2 seek out the mysterious Yoda to continue Luke’s Jedi training, while Han, Leia, Chewbacca and C-3P0 attempt to flee Darth Vader’s forces in a severely handicapped Millennium Falcon. This allows the movie to become my platonic ideal of Star Wars: equal parts Old Hollywood-inspired serial, punctuated by Lawrence Kasdan’s crackling, screwball-adjacent dialogue (“Shut him up or shut him down!”), and equal parts semi-solemn exploration of The Force’s mysticism. Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford each give their best performances of the saga in this middle act, taking full advantage of quiet, character-focused sequences that are scarcely present in the original film save your occasional twin sunset.
Eventually, the two storylines collide in the emotionally wrenching finale: we are treated to cinema’s most famous twist and the Star Wars saga’s best lightsaber duel, as well as the darkest passage of storytelling you’ll find in the original trilogy. And it is indeed dark, but crucially, the swashbuckling sense of adventure that makes the franchise so special is never abandoned. I always think of a brief moment that occurs when our heroes, already defeated, make their escape from the occupied Cloud City: R2-D2 ejects a smokescreen to provide cover from the (already optically challenged) attacking stormtroopers. The juvenile droid emerges innocuously from the other side of the smoke and slowly rolls away, beeping and chirping happily as laser fire whizzes past him. It’s as if Artoo is blissfully unaware that he is in the climax of the film, and it might be my favorite single moment in the entire saga — such a stark juxtaposition between good and evil, of high narrative stakes and good clean fun. To me, it’s pure Star Wars.
Frances Ha (2013)
A brief sequence from this movie is still my favorite cinematic depiction of young adulthood: Frances (Greta Gerwig) opens up her mailbox and finds an envelope; she rips it open and pull sout a tax rebate. Overjoyed and strapped for cash, she lets out a yelp and/or laugh that sounds equal parts ecstatic and goofy. Cut to: a wide shot of Frances scampering out of the bank, standing triumphantly out front for a beat while an over-the-top fanfare plays on the soundtrack. As a person who is also in my twenties, who also credits any deposit in my bank account as a victory, all I have to say is: Yes!
Indeed, all of Frances Ha has such a specific, charming grasp on the plight of the modern American twenty-something — largely due to its sumptuous black-and-white cinematography, the film has a great knack for presenting its rundown settings and exasperated, aloof characters as idyllic fixtures in this period of life. But all of its charisma comes from Gerwig, who co-wrote the script and gives us a character that is so well realized, she can’t help but be likeable no matter how often she stumbles.
I was in love with the movie as soon as I saw it during college. From the opening montage of Frances palling around New York with her friend and roommate Sophie, to the high-on-life running scene set to Bowie’s “Modern Love,” to the melancholy but note-perfect ending, everything feels just right inside this 86-minute gem.
Jaws (1975)
Jaws was recently rereleased on the big screen to coincide with the inaugural National Cinema Day; a novel holiday intended to attract mainstream audiences back into theaters. I excitedly went to see it, knowing every scene like the back of my hand but still ready for the new experience of seeing it projected on an IMAX screen (and, I must say, in shockingly excellent 3D). I sat in a packed house, full of people who I’m sure had also seen the movie. And yet, when Roy Scheider said that line and pulled the trigger, the theater went absolutely nuts in a way I’ve so rarely experienced. Seriously, after the throne room sequence in The Last Jedi and Thor arriving in Wakanda, I’ve never had an audience experience as rapturous as the one for the ending of Jaws, 47 years after the fact.
There was no better classic movie to program nationwide on a day that commemorates seeing movies where they were meant to be seen. After nearly 50 years, this remains the greatest thrill ride Hollywood has ever produced, and the best film Steven Spielberg has ever directed. There are no frills, no expendable passages or scenes; just a sublimely taut and propulsive screenplay by Carl Gottlieb, three leads that fit into their characters like gloves, one of the greatest musical scores of all time, and the Atlantic Ocean. Spielberg, aged 26 when beginning work on the film, directs it all like the sublime craftsman he is — Jaws is still the shining example of mainstream entertainment made into high cinematic art, through pure excellence in its filmmaking.
Should I describe the last hour of the film, probably my favorite hour-long portion of any movie ever? Eh, you’ve seen it. You know how good it is.
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
I’m not a big fan of epics — specifically the bloated products of late-50’s and early-60’s Hollywood that were more concerned with outdoing the novelty of television (they didn’t) than with being memorable and grand works of cinema (they aren’t).
Lawrence of Arabia is usually held as the crowned jewel of this subgenre, but make no mistake, it is not cut from the same cloth as Cleopatra or The Greatest Story Ever Told (with respect to those who like those movies). Now 60 years old, Lawrence is still the epic of epics, grander and more impressive than anything I’ve seen on a screen in 2022. Here is a four-hour movie with a runtime that is wholly earned, with visual ideas that go beyond simply presenting grandiose images, with a main character (Peter O’Toole, in the performance that defined his career) who is deeply captivating and mysterious, and with sequences that showcase some of the finest narrative filmmaking you can see.
I saw it for the first time at too young an age with an eye on another screen, checking it off the list with all the other “greatest movies of all-time.” The mammoth scope and adventurous aspect of the story kept me minimally engaged, but it wasn’t until my junior year of high school that the movie took hold of me. I watched it one night, thought about it that entire next day of school, then saw the whole thing over again when I got home. The text suddenly appeared so rich; not only were there countless filmmaking elements to obsess over, but I was also fascinated by this story of a man locked into a vicious battle with his own identity, which ends on such an ambiguous, quiet note for a film that is otherwise so titanic. I loved the dichotomy between the two halves (there is an intermission), the first being a rollicking wartime adventure that gives way to a much darker, more intimate final 90 minutes. This is to say that I never analyzed or appreciated a movie quite on the same level that I did with Lawrence during that exciting period of re-discovery, and I don’t think I have since.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
It speaks a great deal to what I think about the Western film that the The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is my ultimate Western (revisionism gets a thumbs up from me). Its place in film history is almost as a coda for the genre that dominated Hollywood for decades, that propelled several male movie stars to the top of the industry. After Valance, the next great Westerns were to come from Italy, gorier and more challenging, before Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969) signaled the genre’s revival in the New Hollywood. By then, John Ford had made his last movie, and the Hays Code Westerns of John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart were relegated to the past.
The movie feels like an elegy for both that era of filmmaking and the West itself, shot in stark black-and-white years after Ford gave us The Searchers in sparkling Technicolor — no one is sure if this decision was intentional, but it sure feels like it. It is much more contained in setting than many of its predecessors, substituting the vistas of Monument Valley for the dusty, fictional town of Shinbone. Stewart plays new-in-town attorney Ransom Stoddard, a college educated fish-out-of-water with aims to reform frontier law. He is instantly targeted and attacked by outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), the Great White Shark of the territory and the person who stands the most to lose from modern society’s rule of law. A figurative battle for Shinbone’s soul ensues, with Ransom finding allies in most of the townspeople, including horse rancher Tom Doniphan (Wayne). Valance, though, is not easily defeated.
As with the leads of Broadcast News, here is another instance where immaculate casting does a large fraction of the work. Was there a better actor from that period to play the meek academic with firm integrity than Jimmy Stewart? Of course not. And John Wayne, while not a powerhouse performer, is certainly the definitive movie cowboy and plays such a character here. It’s how Ford positions these characters (and Valance) with and against each other that makes the movie such a fascinating exploration of masculinity outside of society. Through this theme and its famous reveal and ending, the movie asks what I think is the defining question about the West as depicted on film: How do we remember the past, and who are our real heroes from it?
Phantom Thread (2017)
A weird and beguiling love story of such specificity, it’s a joy to see brought to life by Paul Thomas Anderson. Anderson’s filmography is greatly important to me and many others: his hilarious porn-industry ensemble film Boogie Nights and singular American epic There Will Be Blood could easily appear on this list. But Phantom Thread is a self-contained piece of incredible craft, both in its filmmaking and acting, that I think best capture’s Anderson’s gift for balancing scenes of austere severity with a dark, occasionally juvenile sense of humor.
My favorite scenes come at the very beginning, as we see London dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) begin his day — every aspect of his routine is given a distinct and memorable texture. We are made intimately familiar with Reynolds’ shaving cream, the way in which he combs his hair, the type of socks he wears, and the flakiness of his breakfast pastries. It is a hermetically sealed, exact environment, introduced to us as a beautiful and fascinating setting where masterpieces of fashion are made. As Reynolds grows closer with the mysterious, independent Alma (Vicky Krieps), however, we begin to see the House of Woodcock as a place that is perfectly calibrated for its master to never be the least bit vulnerable.
While Daniel Day-Lewis, in what is apparently to be his final film role, is the centerpiece of Phantom Thread, the breakout performance of Krieps is what makes the movie work so wonderfully. She is the catalyst for the drama, both a willful challenger to Reynolds’ way of life and an active participant in it. I think she is Anderson’s best character; as fond as I am for that other Day-Lewis performance and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s titular The Master, Krieps brings a hushed confidence to Alma that makes her not only a worthy counterpart to Day-Lewis, but also a deeply empathetic avatar for the audience in this strange world. Until she isn’t.
Playtime (1967)
The Lord of the Rings of comedy films, Playtime is an achievement unlike anything before or since its production. Years after the release of his wonderful Mon Oncle, Jacques Tati, one of my favorite old filmmakers, constructed the ultimate playground for his next venture as bumbling on-screen persona Monsieur Hulot: an artificial, futuristic version of Paris, populated with monochromatic skyscrapers and gaggles of American tourists. The massive set, dubbed “Tativille,” was the culmination of the director’s career-long japing of modernity and technology. This artificial world is at once extremely impressive and wholly nonsensical, fussed-over to a point of nearly coming apart at its seams.
Hulot ambles around the city, sometimes in the foreground and sometimes in the background, innocuously interacting with whatever catches his eye. Not too much else happens here; thankfully, because nothing else is needed. This is a movie of observation — there isn’t a plot so much as a thread from one place and situation to the next — and nearly every frame is packed with things the viewer is bound to miss on first, second, third rewatches. It culminates in one of comedy cinema’s great set pieces: the opening night of an upscale restaurant called The Royal Garden, a symphony of decadent mayhem that takes up almost an hour of screentime.
The magic of Tati’s comedy is its timelessness, and Playtime, like several of his earlier films, is a rare masterpiece that can be seen and loved at literally any age. The gags are so well-executed yet simple enough that anyone can understand them, but it is also a true joy for the astute viewer to discover just how complex the design of every sequence is. I would recommend it to everyone I know.
Silence (2016)
My greatest dilemma with making this list, with a self-imposed limit of one movie per director, was to pick only one from Martin Scorsese. He has directed more movies that I love than anyone else, with an output of wonderful variety — really, he hasn’t made that many mob movies. Silence, adapted from Shusaku Endo’s 1966 novel, is the one I always go to bat for, even over the great director’s more prominent “masterpieces.” A passion project that spent decades in development, it is the film of his that feels the most personal. It explores the complexities of faith, a career-long interest for Scorsese, with excruciating severity. This is not a fun watch, but a deeply emotional, occasionally overwhelming exploration of belief amidst crisis.
It’s also a great movie about nature — much of Silence is set in the dense forests of 17th century Japan, where two young Jesuit priests (Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver) are seemingly oppressed by its conditions while on the search for their missing religious mentor (Liam Neeson). They are in a dangerous land, concealed by Japanese Christians to avoid imprisonment by the Tokugawa edict to weed the Western religion out of the country. The stakes are high immediately, and conflict is built around a seemingly simple conceit: to avoid persecution, torture and death, one must only press their foot on an image of Christ, thus renouncing their faith.
The choice between a symbolic gesture and life-threatening torment, however, is interrogated deeply by both the priests and the protective villagers — when do one’s physical actions and inner beliefs become inseparable? What, if anything, is martyrdom worth? Masterfully, these questions are not answered definitively, but the harrowing experiences of the characters (specifically Garfield’s Father Rodrigues) never allow them to escape our minds.
Okay, fine. The three co-favorites are Barry Lyndon, Empire Strikes Back and Lawrence of Arabia. Aren’t movies the best?