Searching for Glorious Views
After a nearly six-month hiatus, the Martell 100 is back with five new additions to the rankings.
Remember me? Just because I haven’t been writing newsletters here doesn’t mean I haven’t been watching movies. Quite the opposite actually. Since the last edition of the Martell 100 went out in mid-June, I’ve seen 72 movies, including 16 new releases — all of which I’ll cover here in subsequent editions as we get into awards season.
So what have I been up to over these last five months? In no particular order: I covered my first World Series after an exciting first season working at FanGraphs, drove across the country for two and a half weeks, finished a seven-month investigative story for Men’s Health magazine on teenagers and steroids, moved out of our brownstone in Bed-Stuy to a place in Crown Heights, among plenty of other things.
One of my favorite days came in the middle of August, just before I left for my road trip, when I hosted a group of friends to watch The Godfather and The Godfather Part II on our movie projector, with a break in the middle for dinner. My friend Frank, a loyal Martell 100 reader, made excellent chicken parm sandwiches for the occasion. He and my roommate Manus had never seen either Godfather film before, and it was a blast to watch the two movies back to back with people experiencing them for the first time. Frank liked the first one better; Manus preferred Part II.
Then, on the Sunday before the World Series began, I had a brief lull in the October chaos. That day, my pal Vecere came over for one last movie and hot tub day before I moved out, and we watched Citizen Kane. He’d never seen it, and now we will forever share an affinity for the cigar-smoking, drunken idealist and fashion icon Jedediah Leland (as played by Joseph Cotton). Kane remains on the list of films that just miss the top 100, but each time I see it, I like it more.
A few other memorable movie experiences since the middle of June: Seeing Horizon: An American Saga: Chapter 1 and Megalopolis in theaters on opening night; randomly deciding to watch Dances With Wolves late one night while staying with my friend Evan in Montana during my road trip; catching an afternoon showing of Anora — my favorite 2024 release — on my way back from the Yankees’ World Series workout day at the Stadium; and most recently, watching My Old Ass with my roommate Elina in our new house on the Friday before Thanksgiving.
Now that it’s the offseason, I’ll be back to writing these newsletters biweekly. Whenever I can, I’ll also give a heads up about some of the movies I’ll be writing about in depth so you can have a chance to watch them beforehand if you’d like. Next time, I’ll be discussing two of my favorite movies of this year: Conclave and Juror #2.
Finally, we’re on to the latest top 100, which features five new additions. As always, thanks for reading.
100. Witness (1985)
Director: Peter Weir
Cast: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Lukas Haas
99. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Director: Charles Laughton
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish
98. Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
Director: Justine Triet
Cast: Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado Granerv
97. Double Indemnity
Director: Billy Wilder
Cast: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson is dynamite as Keys, especially in the one moment when he isn’t blustering about sniffing out insurance fraud. The way he looks at Walter at the end, once the jig is up, carries the entire emotional spectrum. He is angry, sad, hurt, embarrassed, disappointed, relieved, accepting, and understanding all at the same time. His facial expressions and vocals are so restrained, as if everything that he feels is numbing him. I ache when he says, “Closer than that, Walter.” Magnificent performance, magnificent movie.
96. On the Waterfront (1954)
Director: Elia Kazan
Cast: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Eva Marie Saint
95. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Director: John Frankenheimer
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury
Made in the aftermath of the Red Scare and the Hollywood Blacklist and released during the second week of the Cuban Missile Crisis, The Manchurian Candidate is both a reflection of the country’s mood at the time and a precursor to the classic New Hollywood conspiracy thrillers that would come a decade later. It stars Frank Sinatra as Bennett Marco, a captain in the Korean War whose platoon is captured by Soviet and Chinese soldiers and taken to Communist China. They are held there for three days before being released.
Upon his return to the U.S., Marco recommends another member of the platoon, Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), for the Medal of Honor. Marco is assigned to work in Army Intelligence and promoted to major, but soon after he begins to have a recurring dream. In it, he sees Shaw, whom he’d recently described as “the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being” he’d ever known, murder two American soldiers in front of an audience of military leaders from various communist countries. It turns out this nightmare is actually a memory stored deep into his subconscious. During their three days in captivity, the entire platoon was brainwashed; Shaw was programmed to be a communist sleeper agent who, when activated, assassinates on command and then immediately forgets having done so. Meanwhile, the rest of the soldiers were made to believe that Shaw saved their lives during the battle in which they were captured. They were also hypnotized into repeating the same description of Shaw whenever they are asked about him, that he is “the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being” they’d ever known, instead of an awkward, unfeeling leader whom they disliked.
We soon learn that the Communists selected Shaw because of his proximity to power in the U.S. government. His mother Eleanor Iselin (Angela Lansbury in an Academy Award-nominated performance) is married to Senator John Iselin (James Gregory), who is falsely accusing his political rivals of being communists and rising to power in the process. Shaw loathes Iselin, an obvious stand-in for Joseph McCarthy, and Marco and others in the intelligence community see through the witch hunt, but they don’t fully grasp the extent of the conspiracy.
The Manchurian Candidate is an enthralling movie, thrilling and thought provoking. It’s inherently messy, yet in an age when machines control our minds at the behest of bad actors, maybe this isn’t as silly as it seems. Maybe the notion that things would work out in the end is the only part of this that’s naive.
Also, this is hands down the greatest movie trailer I’ve ever seen:
94. Ishtar (1987)
Director: Elaine May
Cast: Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Adjani
93. Sorcerer (1977)
Director: William Friedkin
Cast: Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Amidou
92. Spirited Away (2001)
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Cast (English Voices): Daveigh Chase, Suzanne Pleshette, Jason Marsden
91. Michael Clayton (2007)
Director: Tony Gilroy
Cast: George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson
90. Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Director: Sergio Leone
Cast: Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern
89. The Parallax View (1974)
Director: Alan J. Pakula
Cast: Warren Beatty, Hume Cronyn, Paula Prentiss
The overlooked middle movie in Alan J. Pakula’s paranoia trilogy, sandwiched between Klute and All the President’s Men (no. 17), The Parallax View is one of those films that I just can’t shake. It is the darkest, most cynical film in the trio, and the one that most fits the conspiracy thriller genre. In Klute, once the conspiracy is uncovered and the day saved, private investigator John Klute and New York City call girl Bree Daniels leave together, presumably on their way to a quieter, safer life in the country. Although All the President’s Men concludes with Richard Nixon getting sworn in for his second term in office, we know how the story ends even before we see the teletype headlines covering the rest of the Watergate investigation: Woodward and Bernstein triumph in their reporting and Nixon resigns. By contrast, the ending of The Parallax View is neither hopeful nor uplifting. However, that doesn’t mean the movie is boring or too depressing to enjoy. Quite the opposite, actually.
The Parallax View begins at a Fourth of July parade in Seattle. We see the festivities through the eyes of local TV journalist Lee Carter (Paula Prentiss) and learn what’s going on there through what she says on air. She’s there covering U.S. Senator Charles Carroll (William Joyce), who we learn has presidential aspirations even if he won’t say so publicly. It seems that he is a Kennedy Democrat and a reformer, but it’s never exactly clear to which party he belongs. In the background of all this we see Joseph Frady, an investigative newspaper reporter played by Warren Beatty. When the parade ends and the celebration continues atop the Space Needle, Frady tries to follow the Senator, the other bigwigs in attendance, and Carter into the elevator, but he doesn’t have the proper credentials to get through security; he hopes that Carter, who happens to be his ex-girlfriend, will vouch for him, but she says she doesn’t know him.
The event continues in the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle and out on the observation deck, where Carter is chatting with Carroll’s political adviser Austin Tucker (William Daniels). Inside, Carroll begins a speech: “Independence Day is very meaningful to me, because sometimes I’ve been called too independent for my own good.” At the end of that line, he is assassinated. Chaos ensues. We see a man dressed as a waiter holding a gun in the air and people trying to detain him; then, briefly, we see another man in a waiter’s uniform in a doorway off to the side as he slips a gun inside his jacket. The camera then cuts back to the first man as he escapes. He runs out of the restaurant onto the observation deck and then climbs up a ladder to the roof; security follows him and wrestles with him before he falls off the Space Needle to his death. The other man calmly walks away.
There’s a hard cut to a dark interior, where a group of men sit on a panel and announce their findings after an investigation into the assassination. The commission concludes that the gunman acted alone and claims there is no evidence of a conspiracy. Then, the opening credits roll.
A few years later, Carter visits Frady and tells him that six of the witnesses to the Carroll assassination are dead; she thinks they were murdered because of what they saw and is afraid that she’s going to be next. Frady dismisses her concerns. Not long after, Carter dies of what the coroners say is an overdose and suspect is a suicide. A suspicious Frady begins to investigate Carter’s death and soon believes that maybe she was right; maybe the witnesses were killed to cover up what actually happened to Carroll. With the reluctant blessing of his editor Bill Rintels (Hume Cronyn, in a magnificent performance), Frady fully dives in and discovers something far more sinister than he ever could’ve imagined.
In lesser hands, The Parallax View would either be a shallow second-rate thriller, one that sacrifices story for spectacle, or a drab social commentary. Instead, it catches some of the best to ever do it at the top of their game. The script — by David Giler and Lorenzo Semple Jr., along with uncredited assistance from the great Robert Towne — works because it is such a confident piece of writing. It is not watered down with too much exposition, and there is no big reveal. We learn what’s happening as Frady does, piece by piece. By the end of the movie, we’re just beginning to realize the full scope of the conspiracy, and we’re left to turn it over and over in our heads long after we’ve stopped watching. Additionally, the movie is paced like an action movie, moving us along from set piece to set piece and creating a whirlwind effect that heightens the tension. At times it even is an action movie, with a killer car chase through the rural Pacific Northwest town of Salmontail. Cinematographer Gordon Willis shoots with his signature shadows, and Pakula’s direction is more methodical than dynamic, saving the bravura for the astounding recruitment montage and the final sequence.
And then there’s Beatty, who gives one of his best performances. With his boyish charisma, he exudes the innate idealism of the American spirit, yet he has the necessary cynicism to make for a convincing investigative reporter. As he plunges deeper into the conspiracy, he grows more disillusioned, but he continues to believe that if he just digs deeper, he can make a difference. All of this leads to one of the great movie endings, a conclusion that makes The Parallax View still feel fresh 50 years later.
88. The Searchers (1956)
Director: John Ford
Cast: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Natalie Wood
The first few times I watched The Searchers, I didn’t quite get all the hype. I thought it was good, but I was a bit underwhelmed. And then in mid-September, my friend Jesse and I went to see a 4k restoration screening of it at Film Forum. Now, I understand why it’s considered one of the greatest movies ever made. John Ford’s masterpiece doesn’t hold your hand as it brings you along with a broken, racist man on his quest for vengeance. It doesn’t moralize or try to convince you that Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) is a bad person. Instead, it simply tells the story and trusts that you’ll figure things out.
It’s also a story of Texas during its adolescence in the United States. The characters still refer to themselves as Texicans. I’m going to sound very dad-like here when I say I’ve been making my way through James A. Michener’s epic novel Texas — and let me tell you, The Power Broker is a breeze compared to it — and The Searchers feels like an omitted chapter from the book. Mrs. Jorgensen’s speech about how Texas, and the American West and the U.S. more broadly, would one day be a great land, just that the great land might need to be built upon their bones, is pure Michener.
Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because The Searchers is our history as a nation. It’s flawed, dark, ugly, at times hilarious, and painful, and told through the white perspective, but it is trying to grapple with what we have done and where we are going. It is a monumental achievement and a necessary step in our understanding of where we’ve come from. The heroes of our history are imperfect — and sometimes downright bad — people, but they are the ones upon whose deeds we have built our nation, our values and our legacy, for better and worse.
87. Frances Ha (2012)
Director: Noah Baumbach
Cast: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Adam Driver
86. Mikey and Nicky (1976)
Director: Elaine May
Cast: Peter Falk, John Cassavetes, Ned Beatty
85. Babylon (2022)
Director: Damien Chazelle
Cast: Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Brad Pitt
84. Past Lives (2023)
Director: Celine Song
Cast: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro
83. Out of the Past (1947)
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Freer, Kirk Douglas
82. The Conversation (1974)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield
81. Little Women (2019)
Director: Greta Gerwig
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh
80. Seven Samurai (1954)
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima
79. Toy Story 3 (2010)
Director: Lee Unkrich
Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack
78. Boogie Nights (1997)
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds
77. The Right Stuff (1983)
Director: Philip Kaufman
Cast: Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris
76. Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi
Director: Richard Marquand
Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher
75. The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Director: Martin McDonagh
Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon
74. Road to Perdition (2002)
Director: Sam Mendes
Cast: Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Tyler Hoechlin
73. A Few Good Men (1992)
Director: Rob Reiner
Cast: Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore
72. North By Northwest (1959)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason
7. JFK (1991)
Director: Oliver Stone
Cast: Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones
70. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Director: Frank Capra
Cast: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore
69. There’s Something About Mary (1998)
Director: Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly
Cast: Cameron Diaz, Ben Stiller, Matt Dillon
68. Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)
Director: Carl Franklin
Cast: Denzel Washington, Tom Sizemore, Jennifer Beals
67. High Noon (1952)
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Thomas Mitchell
66. 12 Angry Men (1957)
Director: Sidney Lumet
Cast: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam
65. Moneyball (2011)
Director: Bennett Miller
Cast: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman
64. The Irishman (2019)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci
63. To Live and Die in L.A (1985)
Director: William Friedkin
Cast: William Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Turturro
62. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)
Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber
Cast: Vince Vaughn, Christine Taylor, Ben Stiller
61. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Director: Peter Weir
Cast: Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, James D’Arcy
60. Bull Durham (1988)
Director: Ron Shelton
Cast: Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins
59. Paths of Glory (1957)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou
One night this summer, my roommate Jose and I went through our usual routine for when we want to watch a movie: I pulled three Blu-rays from the shelf and asked him to pick from the narrowed-down set. The first one was Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye; the second was Elaine May’s Mikey and Nicky (no. 86). The third one, as you’ve probably guessed by now, was Paths of Glory. Neither of us had ever seen it before, but it’s our friend Frank’s favorite war movie — and Frank doesn’t miss. He calls it “the only anti-war movie,” so I assumed it was not the type of film that 12-year-old boys would get excited about. I also knew it was directed by Stanley Kubrick and stars Kirk Douglas, and that it is set in France during World War I. Beyond that, I wanted to go in blind.
Here’s the thing, though: There is no way to spoil Paths of Glory. It is an experiential film, one that shows us everything so vividly that we can’t help but have an overwhelming emotional response. Yes, there is a central plot carrying us along, but the events of the story are secondary to how they make us feel. From there, the film prompts us to think about our own lives, about duty, patriotism and corruption.
After a brief prologue in which a narrator provides the necessary background info on where we are in the war, the movie begins with a conversation between General Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) and his subordinate, General Paul Mireau (George Macready). The first thing we notice is the setting. The two high-ranking officers are meeting in an opulent room at an elegant estate that is serving as Mireau’s headquarters. They greet each other with small talk about the salon that’s been converted into an office:
BROULARD: This is splendid. Superb!
MIREAU: Well, I try to create a pleasant atmosphere in which to work.
BROULARD: Well, you’ve succeeded marvelously. I wish I had your taste in carpets and pictures.
MIREAU: You’re much too kind, George. Much too kind. Sit down, George. I really haven’t done very much. The place is much the same as it was when I moved in.
Over lunch, Broulard orders Mireau to attack “The Anthill,” an impregnable position along the German front. Mireau protests that it’s an impossible task for his regiment, which has already been “cut to pieces.” Broulard then floats that Mireau, a two-star general, is being considered for a promotion, which would result in his earning a third star; the implication is that if Mireau refuses the assignment, someone else will get promoted instead. The quid pro quo has its desired effect, and Mireau’s tenor changes. He’s a savvy enough political general to know that he can’t flip immediately, so he works his way through the various factors and possible outcomes of such an attack before deciding to accept the order. All of this is perfunctory, said aloud for Broulard to hear, so that the two of them can have plausible deniability in case they’re ever questioned about their motivations for the operation. The scene ends with Mireau’s declaration, “By God, we just might do it!”
From there, we are in the trenches. We follow Mireau as he makes his way through — greeting his men with the same introduction “Ready to kill more Germans?” — to see Colonel Dax (Douglas) and relay the orders to attack the Anthill. Dax protests, on the same grounds that such a mission is impossible and will only lead to heavy casualties. After Mireau threatens to relieve him from his command, Dax agrees to try and take the Anthill, even though he knows it can’t be done. Whereas Mireau enthusiastically accepted Broulard’s order once he learned a promotion was on the line, Dax’s voice is full of anguish. We soon understand why.
The attack is a colossal disaster. It’s brutal and bloody; the camera is unflinching as it captures the combat on screen. Its realism reminded me of the D-Day scene in Saving Private Ryan (no. 55), though it has a different effect. Spielberg shoots his sequence as if we’ve actually been dropped onto the beaches of Normandy, bringing us so close to the battle that it feels like we’re participating in it; that’s horrifying, yes, but it’s also thrilling. Kubrick, though, keeps us slightly removed from what’s unfolding in No Man’s Land. He exposes us to the carnage, and because he doesn’t pump us up with adrenaline, all we can do is sit there and watch it.
This all sets up the main premise of the film. Scrambling to save his reputation, protect his promotion, and avoid blame for the failed attack, Mireau decides to court-martial 100 men for cowardice. Broulard reduces that number to three, one man from each company. Dax volunteers to defend the three scapegoats in front of a military tribunal. From there, the movie turns into a courtroom drama.
Paths of Glory is the ultimate depiction of cowardice, blind ambition and ruthless self-preservation. It examines the ways in which society incentivizes advancement above all else and warps our understanding of right and wrong, and it shows how easily, in our lust for power, we can justify anything in the name of justice. It should be required viewing for anybody in a position of authority.
58. Tár (2022)
Director: Todd Field
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss
57. The Social Network (2010)
Director: David Fincher
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake
56. Thief (1981)
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Robert Prosky
55. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns
54. Back to the Future (1985)
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Cast: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson
53. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Director: Sidney Lumet
Cast: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Chris Sarandon
52. Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Director: Irvin Kershner
Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher
51. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Director: Sergio Leone
Cast: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards
50. Phantom Thread (2017)
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, Lesley Manville
49. Oppenheimer (2023)
Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr.
48. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Director: George Roy Hill
Cast: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross
47. Good Will Hunting (1997)
Director: Gus Van Sant
Cast: Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Ben Affleck
46. Rear Window (1954)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey
45. There Will Be Blood (2007)
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Ciarán Hinds
44. Goodfellas (1990)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci
43. That Thing You Do! (1996)
Director: Tom Hanks
Cast: Tom Everett Scott, Liv Tyler, Tom Hanks
42. Do the Right Thing (1989)
Director: Spike Lee
Cast: Spike Lee, Ossie Davis, Danny Aiello
41. Lincoln (2012)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones
40. The Third Man (1949)
Director: Carol Reed
Cast: Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles
39. When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Director: Rob Reiner
Cast: Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher
38. After Hours (1985)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Verna Bloom
37. The Other Guys (2010)
Director: Adam McKay
Cast: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes
36. Get Out (2017)
Director: Jordan Peele
Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford
35. Almost Famous (2000)
Director: Cameron Crowe
Cast: Billy Crudup, Patrick Fugit, Kate Hudson
34. Malcolm X (1992)
Director: Spike Lee
Cast: Denzel Washington, Angela Bassett, Albert Hall
33. Parasite (2019)
Director: Bong Joon Ho
Cast: Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong
32. Zodiac (2007)
Director: David Fincher
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo
31. Apocalypse Now (1979)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall
30. The Nice Guys (2016)
Director: Shane Black
Cast: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice
29. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden
28. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Director: Jonathan Demme
Cast: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Ted Levine
27. The Insider (1999)
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer
26. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Alison Doody
25. The Hateful Eight (2015)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh
24. Heat (1995)
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer
23. Network (1976)
Director: Sidney Lumet
Cast: William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch
22. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie
21. Spotlight (2015)
Director: Tom McCarthy
Cast: Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams
20. In a Lonely Place (1950)
Director: Nicholas Ray
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy
19. Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro
18. Magnolia (1999)
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast: Tom Cruise, Jason Robards, Julianne Moore
17. All the President’s Men (1976)
Director: Alan J. Pakula
Cast: Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards
16. Taxi Driver (1976)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd
15. Rio Bravo (1959)
Director: Howard Hawks
Cast: John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson
14. Casablanca (1942)
Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains
13. Chinatown (1974)
Director: Roman Polanski
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
12. The Fugitive (1993)
Director: Andrew Davis
Stars: Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Sela Ward
11. Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Mélanie Laurent
10. A League of Their Own (1992)
Director: Penny Marshall
Cast: Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Lori Petty
9. Reds (1981)
Director: Warren Beatty
Cast: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson
8. The Godfather Part II (1974)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall
7. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie
6. Gangs of New York (2002)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz
5. L.A. Confidential (1997)
Director: Curtis Hanson
Cast: Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman
3. The Godfather (1972)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan
2. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Director: Frank Darabont
Cast: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton
1. The Departed (2006)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson
Additions:
Double Indemnity, The Manchurian Candidate, The Parallax View, The Searchers, Paths of Glory
Subtractions:
No Country for Old Men, Silence, Licorice Pizza, The Big Short, City of God
Highest Risers:
Little Women (+13), After Hours (+8), The Third Man (+8), Devil in a Blue Dress (+5), The Conversation (+5), Ishtar (+5)
Furthest Fallers:
Boogie Nights (-9), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (-7), JFK (-6), Goodfellas (-6), The Irishman (-5), Babylon (-4), Rear Window (-4), Frances Ha (-3)
Honorable Mentions (Non-Cuts):
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, All That Jazz, Bridge of Spies, Citizen Kane, Inside Man, Jackie Brown, Lady Bird, The Age of Innocence, The Dark Knight