Taste of Cinema – Movie Reviews and Classic Movie Lists (2024)

Sometimes, an iconic line of dialogue unexpectedly takes on a life of its own and ends up infiltrating our cultural vernacular for no apparent reason. And all it takes is one or two famous catchphrases to turn a great movie into a full-blown pop-cultural phenomenon that embeds itself in the public consciousness and that fans can’t help but recite among friends on a daily basis.

From ‘The Big Lebowski’ to ‘Mean Girls’ to ‘The Princess Bride,’ we have rounded up 10 well-known and instantly recognizable classic movies that still inspire deep obsession all around the world and happen to feature memorable lines that either became hilarious memes or continue to be parroted as part of our daily lexicon. Let us know what your favorite go-to movie quote is in the comments and scroll down below to see what we got right and what we missed in our list of 10 most quotable movies of all time.

1. The Big Lebowski (1998)

“That rug really tied the room together.”

Back in 1998 when it quickly flamed out of theaters in without much fanfare, few could have predicted the lasting impact of this $15 million stoner comedy directed by the Coen Brothers — let alone the fact that it would inspire annual conventions and a full-blown religion with over half a million affiliated members styled on Jeff Bridges’ Zen-like slacker.

Alas, the saga about Jeffrey ‘The Dude’ Lebowski, a forty-something ex-hippie layabout otherwise known as His Dudeness, Duder or El Duderino who finds himself embroiled in a hilarious case of mistaken identity involving shady millionaire tycoons, Nihilists, nymphomaniacs, severed toes and urinated rugs, has since taken a life of its own and become mythically embedded in pop-culture as the ultimate hangout movie of its generation.

Anchored by a whip-smart script, stacked cast, and knockout performances (none better than John Goodman’s spot-on John Milius impression), almost every line delivery in the Coens’ tongue-in-cheek homage to post-war noir novels is a nugget of gold that never gets old no matter how many times you’ve seen it already. We’ve all heard someone say “That’s like your opinion, man” every now and then, but “obviously you’re not a golfer” and about every “shut the f*ck up, Donny!” Walter screams at the top of his lungs always have us in stitches.

2. Casablanca (1942)

“Here’s looking at you, kid.”

The timeless megawatt star pairing of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman set the screen aflame and made audiences collectively swoon as Rick and Ilsa, a pair of star-crossed love birds who are caught in a vortex of conflicted loyalties and helplessly swept aside by the tides of history after bumping into each other years after their fling in the titular Moroccan city during the thick of World War II.

Far and away one of the great stories about romantic longing, one of the most deserving Best Picture winners in the history of the Academy Awards, and as beloved as any film made under the Hollywood studio system, Michael Curtiz’s “Casablanca” offers such an abundance of memorable lines and golden moments to choose from — whether it’s “Here’s looking at you, kid” and “We’ll always have Paris,” or “Louis, I think this is beginning of a beautiful friendship” — that even those who haven’t actually sit through the movie from start to finish could likely still be able to quote several lines of the dialogue by heart.

3. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003)

“My friends, you bow to no one.”

Hollywood blockbusters simply don’t get more expansive, wondrous, or transportive than Peter Jackson’s monumental saga based on the bestselling novels by J.R.R. Tolkien, which somehow, miraculously, lived up to the source material, introduced a new generation of audiences to the world of Middle Earth, and is rightfully regarded today as the gold standard for franchise filmmaking.

Because we love all three of them dearly and singling out only one feels just wrong, we’re bending the rules by slipping in the complete trilogy — the fantasy epic to end all fantasy epics and a series of films that have more than cemented their status 20 years later as a perennial Holidays fixture we make a point to watch religiously every year from start to finish.

There are too many iconic moments and quotes to name, so choosing one line to rule them all is no easy task. Hardcore fans and book purists might point to Gandalf’s iconic sacrifice at Moria (“You Shall not Pass!”) or the climactic fight by the sword-swinging, Witch-king-slaying Éowyn at the end of “Return of the King” (“I am no man”). But how are we supposed to leave out Boromir’s instantly meme-able “One does not simply walk into Mordor” or Aragorn’s hair-raising speech in front of the gates of Mordor? Now, excuse us while we grab a bag of popcorn, get comfortable, and buckle up for our umpteenth 11-hour-long Lord of the Rings marathon.

4. Pulp Fiction (1994)

“Andyou will know my nameis theLordwhen I lay my vengeance upon thee.”

To say that Quentin Tarantino’s sophom*ore breakthrough was a complete game changer that single-handedly transformed the entire cinematic landscape would be a massive understatement — Few films in cinema history have spawned as many rip-offs and held onto its place in the public consciousness as fiercely throughout the decades as “Pulp Fiction”.

You can thank the Palme d’Or-winning film’s soaring success for America’s newfound interest on non-linear narratives, gangster flicks, surf rock, John Travolta, and the nuanced terminology of European fast food (turns out they call the Quarter Pounder a Royale with Cheese). Captivating from first frame to last, this intoxicating cinematic co*cktail featuring loud-mouthed contract killers, ruthless mob kingpins, melancholy boxers, fixers, sadomasoch*st dungeons, and a barrage of pop-culture homages has infiltrated so thoroughly the cultural vernacular that it now runs the risk of being reduced to a collection of quotable lines and scenes.

We’re not about to include the entire Bible verse that Samuel L. Jackson’s Jules eloquently recites while on an errand to prove our point, but we dare you, we double dare you to find a more quotable 1990s movie than this one right here.

5. The Princess Bride (1987)

“Hello. My name is Iñigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

One couldn’t ask for a finer tonic for the soul to whisk you away, lift your spirits, and put you in a good mood when you’re feeling down than Rob Reiner’s whimsical, inventive, and impossibly delightful skewering of the fairy tales of old, based off the 1973 novel by William Goldma. A cult classic in every sense of the word, “The Princess Bride” offers a little something for everybody on family movie night: Action! Romance! Suspense! Hilarious gags! Memorable characters! Awesome villains! Princesses! Kidnappers! Sword-fighting wizards! Pirates! André the Giant! Oh, and a treasure trove of iconic quotes.

The rare (dare I say… inconceivable?) case of a childhood go-to comfort movie that you only grow fonder and fonder of as you become older, this 1987 classic provided us with such invaluable lessons as to never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line, that true love is the greatest thing in the world except for a nice mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, that there’s a shortage of perfect breasts in this world, that mostly dead is still slightly alive, that death cannot stop true love, and that trying to kidnap what someone’s rightfully stolen is quite ungentlemanly. Take that for a bedtime story.

Reports of the Western genre’s demise have been greatly exaggerated many times over harkening back to its very conception in the silent era and glorious heydays as Hollywood’s premiere crowd-pleaser during the Golden Age, all the way to its gradual but steady decline in the latter half of the 20th century and subsequent revivals. And though unfairly pigeonholed as a source of mass entertainment with a strict American sensibility and old-fashioned values, the truth is that, despite greatly fluctuating in popularity throughout the decades, few genres if any have proven to be as timeless, resilient, varied, morally challenging and universally appealing as the Western.

Today, we’re plucking down a selection of titles that have helped redefine the genre, stood the test of time, and remain highly re-watchable well into the double digits. From pioneering Hollywood tentpoles shot in backlot studios to dirty cheap spaghetti westerns shot in the arid plains of Southern Spain, saddle up and scroll down below to check out our round-up of movies set in the American frontier that are almost better the second (or third) time around.

1. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

You really can’t go wrong with either of the three entries in Sergio Leone’s seminal Dollars trilogy, but for our money, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” will always remain the most rewarding and purely enjoyable to return to. A fairly archetypal set-up — three mean gunslingers (Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and newcomer Eli Wallach) set on a deadly collision course square off in a race against time to locate the whereabouts of a hidden stash of money as the American Civil War rages on in the background — is stripped down to its bare essential and reconfigured into a potent deconstruction of the Wild West, a somber meditation on greed and violence, and a sublime showcase for the trio of future A-listers.

There are too many iconic moments to name, but the film’s climactic centerpiece — a three-way Mexican standoff that simmers up the tension up to a boiling point to Ennio Morricone’s legendary score — is virtually guaranteed to get your adrenaline juices pumping no matter how many times you’ve seen it referenced and spoofed across media.

2. Rio Bravo (1959)

The rare kind of old-fashioned, hard-boiled Western able to pull off double duties as a relatively chill and easy-going hangout romp, this 1959 genre touchstone by Hollywood stalwart Howard Hawks withstands multiple repeated viewings without losing any of its luster on the strength of a killer set-up that never hits a dull note and an eye-catching cast you simply can’t help but wish you could spend even more time with.

Toplined by John Wayne at the height of his powers in the role of a tough-as-nails Texas sheriff and potently flanked by Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson and the always lovable Walter Brenan, “Rio Bravo” ratchets up the tension until it seeps from every frame as we watch this motley crew of misfits desperately try to find a way to hold out against a group of hired guns looking to break into the sheriff’s headquarters to free a captured murderer out of prison. It’s a lean, mean, and irresistible set-up that Hawks mines so expertly in order to squeeze in as many little character moments as possible.

The result was an unimpeachable masterpiece and such a smash hit that it’s no wonder the director decided to rehash it less than a decade later in the similarly enjoyable but somewhat insipid 1966s “El Dorado”, starring Robert Mitchum and fresh-faced 26-year-old James Caan.

3. Tombstone (1993)

It would be quite an understatement to say that king-of-cool Kurt Russell had some big shoes to fill when he saddled up with “Cobra” director George P. Cosmatos in the 1990s to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Henry Fonda, Burt Lancaster, Randolph Scott, and Kevin Costner and step into the role of famed 19th century marshal Wyatt Earp.

Purists will likely point to John Ford’s elegiac “My Darling Clementine” as the quintessential on-screen portrayal of the legendary gunfight at the O.K. Corral, but for sheer flavor and fun, this unapologetically brash and rowdy splatterfest easily ranks as the most flat-out entertaining and compulsively quotable of the pack. Come for the razor-sharp one-liners, adrenaline-pumping action, and high-wattage ensemble cast packed with iconic macho men such as Sam Elliot, Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, stay for Val Kilmer’s scene-stealing, career-best supporting turn as the devilish rogue Doc Holiday, as we watch him join forces with his frenemy over and over as the mining Arizona town of Tombstone turns on its head when a ruthless posse of trigger-friendly renegades cause a fuss and run riot.

4. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

As the undisputed figurehead of the genre, John Ford’s back catalog offers an embarrassment of riches to choose from for the present list. His best Western? That’s easy. It has to be “The Searchers” — quite possibly the single most influential American film of all time, right? Except we gotta throw “Stagecoach”, the one that turned John Wayne into a global icon in the first place, into the discussion. Except… we didn’t even mention “Wagon Master”, “Fort Apache” and “My Darling Clementine”! Hmm.

As it turns out, narrowing Ford’s vast collection of Westerns down to just one feels like splitting hairs, but perhaps none represent the entire breadth of his unrivaled directing output than this late-career triumph — at once a familiar reworking of his signature themes, an exhilarating whodunit, and a fitting capstone in a 50-plus year career. Tearing at the very fabric of American mythmaking and the slippery nature of truth, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” finds James Stewart, Lee Marvin, and John Wayne each embodying opposing codes of masculinity in an increasingly less wild West that only seems to have room for one going forward.

Legend becomes fact, myths are created out of lies, while we slowly learn the truth behind the man who pulled the trigger and killed notorious outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Simply put, one of the great movies in any genre, Western or otherwise.

5. Blazing Saddles (1974)

You don’t necessarily have to subscribe to the notion that Mel Brooks’ corrosive, fourth-wall-breaking Western spoof couldn’t possibly be made in our day and age to get the most out of it from a vantage point 50 years on. Likewise, you don’t need to be sharpest tool in the shed to enjoy the healthy dose of edgy humor and killer gags sprinkled throughout while understanding the unmistakably progressive themes of race prejudice and political corruption that the film effectively plays on — even if HBO still felt it necessary to add an intro disclaimer most recently.

A modern perspective might consider certain aspects about the film’s tonal highwire act dated, but the madcap adventure of a resilient Black ex-con who arrives to town to take over as sheriff and prove both the ignorant local white folk and corrupt governor wrong retains its charm and deservingly sealed Mel Gibson’s place in the all-time comedy pantheon. It’s always a delight to revisit the film — watching Cleavon Little and Gene Wilde chew up the scenery and perfectly play off one another is enough to put a smile on your face.

Growing up as I did as a film lover in the 1990s, looking back now I can see it truly was a special time for both independent and mainstream cinema. Every month saw the release of half a dozen tent pole pictures, huge-budgeted blockbusters which essentially kept the film industry afloat so that there was more money to put into smaller, more intimate pictures.

Whether this is the case now, of course, is up for debate, but back in the final decade of the 20th century there seemed to be a fair balance between big and small movies, both the mainstream and more quirky character-based pictures. It’s arguable whether this equilibrium was ever reached again.

Below are ten American films from the 1990s which may have slipped by you in the past couple of decades. Whether they were critical or commercial hits or not, these are movies which I believe deserve more appreciation.

1. Ed and His Dead Mother (1993)

Right after the roaring success of Reservoir Dogs, Steve Buscemi took a lead role in a little known obscurity by the name of Ed and His Dead Mother. Directed by Jonathan Wacks, it’s one of those comforting little indie films the 90s were so full of, only this one has some rather unsavoury factors about it, ensuring it borders on the fine line between horror and comedy.

Steve stars as Ed Chilton, the owner of a hardware shop who is trying to adjust to life now his mother has died. Ned Beatty plays his uncle Benny, who attempts to lift Ed’s spirits and help him get on with his life. When sharp suited salesman AJ Pattle (John Glover) visits his store with the promise he can revive his dead mum, Ed goes along with the scheme for a mere 1000 dollars. However, things do not go according to plan. When reanimated, Mabel (Miriam Margoyles) is not quite the woman she once was. As we are told in the black and white opening scene set in a courtroom, Ed ends up decapitating his mother, whose behaviour has become increasingly bizarre.

If this film is a metaphor for letting go of a dead loved one and moving on in life, then it puts its point across very literally and with many broad laughs. The script is wonderful, full of sharp gags and witty little lines, but it’s the cast who make it gently dazzle. The always great Glover is shiftiness personified as the salesman, and Ned Beatty is hilarious as Benny, always ogling the girl who sunbathes over the road. Margoyles puts in a fine effort too, one of the best British character actresses to make it over the other side of the pond. But it’s Buscemi who carries the film, with his gentle, mild mannered depiction of a son who just can’t move on, until he has no choice.

Ed and His Dead Mother is the kind of film that sells you on its title alone, but the press were less than kind to this quirky tale of a momma’s boy who literally cuts off the apron strings. Many critics claimed the direction to be the film’s major problem, praising the script and performances but having problems with Wacks’ approach. While the film failed to set the world alight back in the day, it is now something of a cult curiosity (thanks largely to Buscemi’s fame) and can be viewed easily, and freely. I suggest you do so.

2. Diggstown (1992)

Something of a favourite among hardcore James Woods fans is Diggstown (1992). Directed by Michael Ritchie and written by Steven McKay, the film stars Woods as Gabriel Caine, a con man who’s just got out of prison and has a fresh scam on his mind. Fitz (Oliver Platt) is his partner in crime, and together they travel to Diggstown, a place that puts boxing on a pedestal.

Bruce Dern is John Gillon, a high roller who owns most of the town and once managed their most famous export, boxer Charles Diggs. Fitz challenges the city’s claim that Diggs once KO’d five boxers in one day and insists that Gillon will pay him $100,000 if he can bring to town a boxer who can floor all ten of Diggstown’s best fighters. Gabriel chooses Palmer (Louis Gossett Jr.) for the job, an ex-boxer nearing fifty whose glory years are behind him. Can Palmer rise to the challenge, or have Fitz and Caine pushed it too far this time?

Diggstown works on many levels. Firstly, it’s the classic underdog story, where the man least likely to succeed does so in the end. Dern is the establishment, smug and complacent, and Woods and Gossett Jr. are the little men, the rebels standing up to his cruel greed. Though the feat seems impossible, we genuinely root for them and want them to come out on top.

The script is great of course, but the acting is what makes the picture a winner. Woods is at his motor-mouth best, a man who could talk his way into and out of anything. This is the kind of role no one else could have played. Woods is the star here, the central figure, and it’s a thrill to see him as the leading man in a major piece of mainstream entertainment. The fact he carries it (aided of course by the brilliant Louis Gossett Jr.) is a credit to him. One of the finest American actors of our time, he shows his range as the wily crook.

Diggstown does have a sizeable following, especially in the US, but I still feel it deserves more attention. A lavish blu-ray release seems the right way to go at this stage. A 90s indie classic, Diggstown deserves cult classic status.

3. City Hall (1996)

Coming six years after their collaboration on Sea of Love, director Harold Becker and Al Pacino teamed up once more for this riveting, largely overlooked drama. With a script co-written by Paul Schrader, the story concerns a mob shoot out which takes place in a busy street and includes the killing of an innocent child.

Martin Landau is Judge Stern, a friend of Mayor John Pappas (Pacino), heavily criticised for having previously let the killer out of jail, while the cop involved in the shooting, Detective Santos, much to the distress of his family sees his name smeared with the ugliness of the scandal. It is the deputy mayor, Kevin Calhoun (John Cusack), with help from police union lawyer Marybeth Cogan (Bridget Fonda), who starts looking for clues, and their investigations lead to worrying links between the establishment and the mob.

City Hall was a financial disappointment upon release, a film which was overshadowed by more showy pictures. Even Pacino fans didn’t bother to see it, instead opting for the much more publicised Heat, his first on screen stand off with Robert De Niro. City Hall, though, is a fine suspense drama, full of tension, twists and turns. It is wonderfully directed in a no-frills fashion by the ever reliable Becker, a hugely underrated director who made some of the finest American movies from the 1970s onwards.

Acting-wise the film is without fault, with Pacino, Cusack, the hugely overlooked Fonda, and Landau all sturdy in their roles. It may have suffered commercially due to its sizeable budget and the uncommercial quality of the story, but thirty years on it seems unfair that such a well made and engaging picture as this is so overlooked.

4. Catchfire (1990)

Despite directing one of the biggest hits of the 1960s, Easy Rider, Dennis Hopper was never really offered a film that matched it. He loved to direct, but the work he got to take on rarely ignited his flame. His first directorial picture of the 1990s was Catchfire, written by Alex Cox and three other writers. It follows Jodie Foster as a woman who goes on the run after witnessing a mob killing at the hands of Joe Pesci. Directing with a touch of glossy class, Hopper also stars in the picture as Milo, a mysterious hit man who tracks her down but typically offers to spare her life if she’ll do anything and everything he desires. Pure Hopper.

As with most of his directorial work, the cutting and releasing for Catchfire was all over the place. There is a three hour cut out there somewhere, rather predictably the one that Hopper preferred, and the film also went out on TV in the States as Backtrack with 20 extra minutes put in. Though we cannot see the 180 minute cut, the Hopper approved TV edit is just about good enough. A simmering, suspenseful film, it’s well acted and wonderfully directed too, with a surreal edge that separates it from other bog standard action thrillers from that era. As well as directing with firm efficiency, he delivers a stunning performance as the New York accented killer. “Passion’s a hard thing to conceal” is one of his stand out lines.

Hopper’s view of Catchfire soured quickly, seeing as he disowned it and wanted his name removing from the credits. Though no masterpiece, it is highly engaging, and just the kind of film that you have to see to believe. When all is said and done, who could resist a film that features Joe Pesci, Charlie Sheen, Dennis Hopper, Vincent Price and even Bob Dylan as a chainsaw wielding artist? I’ll await your response…

5. Bringing Out the Dead (1999)

One of Martin Scorsese’s most underrated pictures is Bringing out the Dead, a harrowing, enthralling and completely disturbing ride into the farthest reaches of urban hell. The film stars Nicolas Cage as Frank Pierce, a New York city paramedic who is starting to lose his mind. He is close to a complete breakdown, a man highly depressed by the number of deaths he has on his conscience. In a dizzying and disorientating fashion, the film charts his near-descent into near mental oblivion.

Written by Paul Schrader, and based on the novel by Joe Connelly, on paper Bringing out the Dead looks like it might merely be Taxi Driver in an ambulance, with Travis Bickle being replaced by a more sensitive soul who just cannot take it any more. That said, it doesn’t take long to realise that the film is a very different beast indeed. Full of jump cuts, speedy editing, and an overall fragmented visual style, it is the most un-Scorsese film you could pick out. Frantic and jarring, it’s a hugely distressing but totally engaging thriller of the mind, a psychological roller coaster which grabs you by the scruff of your neck and refuses to let go for two very tense hours.

Its story and visual approach aside, one reason to watch and enjoy Bringing out the Dead is to see some of the most talented actors of American cinema at their very best. Cage delivers what might just be one of the finest and most overlooked performances of his whole career, while ample support is provided by the likes of a completely unhinged and close to terrifying Tom Sizemore, a sweet and appealing Patricia Arquette and the ever reliable John Goodman.

Bringing out the Dead might take a bit of getting used to, but if you do adjust to its unnerving atmosphere, there is much to enjoy. Certainly seen as a lesser Scorsese movie by most critics, I feel it’s one to reassess now that it’s reached its 25th anniversary.

One of the perks of being one of the most brilliant filmmakers to ever pick up a camera is that you don’t have to sugarcoat your opinion regarding anybody in the business. If there was anything consistent with Ingmar Bergman is that when it came to judging the work of his peers, he never kept an opinion for himself — for better or worse. He didn’t bite his tongue even when passing sentence on some of the most celebrated directors of his time — Alfred Hitchco*ck ‘completely infantile’ and Orson Welles a ‘total hoax’.

But through his unfiltered bluntness, Bergman’s praise rang truer than any other director, especially when championing other movies, which he didn’t hesitate to do either. As controversial as his takes might have been, one thing is undisputed — you’d be hard-pressed to find a higher authority in the matter than Bergman, who not only was a genius himself but a fervid cinephile well-versed in the history of the seventh art.

During the Goteborg Film Festival in 1994, the Swedish master personally curated a list with his ten favorite films of all time. All have been assembled here — most entries are bona fide classics, some self-explanatory and others quite surprising. With no further ado, let’s dive in and take a look at ten films blessed with Ingmar Bergman’s seal of approval.

1. Andrei Rublev (1966)

“Tarkovsky is for me the greatest, the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.”

Arguably no director has ever reached the heights of Andrei Tarkovsky — often pitched against Bergman as two unrivaled giants of the medium who also happened to be each other’s idols. “He moves with such naturalness in the room of dreams. All my life I have hammered on the doors of the rooms in which he moves so naturally.” Just like Bergman, the Soviet auteur wrestled at length with his own religious and metaphysical concerns through his work — leaving a string of contemplative and insightful masterpieces.

In this historical epic, Tarkovsky recounts the spiritual endeavors of a 15th century icon painter — perfectly capturing the power of art as the greatest source of hope and inspiration known to mankind. Tormented by foreign invasions and political turmoil, Rublev struggles to follow down his path, burdened with his talent and consumed by his work before being encouraged by the works of a younger artist.

“Suddenly, I found myself standing at the door of a room the keys of which had, until then, never been given to me,” Bergman said of first experiencing the film. “I felt encouraged and stimulated: someone was expressing what I had always wanted to say without knowing how”.

2. Rashom*on (1950)

“I love and admire Tarkovsky and Fellini. But I also feel that Tarkovsky began to make Tarkovsky films and Fellini began to make Fellini films. Yet Kurosawa never made a Kurosawa film.”

If there’s a common denominator that ties Bergman’s extensive oeuvre together, it’s the inherent cynicism — if not outright nihilism — that permeates most of his films. As a director, he repeatedly mirrored his own existential dread and bitterness in bleak ruminations on faith, death and violence. Bergman was, above all, obsessed with finding an ever-elusive truth that could erase all of his inner doubts.

Truth, or lack thereof, is at the center of this timeless classic by Japanese master, Akira Kurosawa. A story is told through four different points of view — each one contradicting the last. A samurai is murdered and his wife presumably raped by a bandit. As we hear four different characters recount the tragedy, we’re left with an unreliable set of evidence and lack of closure. Whose story is the story? The term ‘Rashom*on effect’ has ever since earned its place in the cultural lexicon, inviting us to question the objectivity of truth and the inherent biases that cloud our judgement.

Bergman was supposed to collaborate with Kurosawa (and Fellini) in an anthology film, but the latter couldn’t leave Japan due to his health and the project was canned. Still, Kurosawa’s influence can be felt in some of his works, especially The Virgin Spring. “Now I want to make it plain that Virgin Spring must be regarded as an aberration. It’s touristic, a lousy imitation of Kurosawa. At that time my admiration for Japanese cinema was at its height. I was almost a samurai myself!”

3. La Strada (1954)

“Directing is more fun with women. Everything is.”

Ingmar Bergman can’t be understood without his muses. In a male-centric industry, no director — at least one of his stature — championed women as thoroughly as him. The Swede always strived to craft compelling female characters with complex and fleshed-out personalities, ones that ultimately stood by their own rather than serve as mere sidekicks to their male counterparts. From Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson and Ingrid Thulin, Bergman had the privilege of working with an embarrassingly stacked lineup of actresses that masterfully brought them to life.

Courtesy of another all-time director — one born and bred in the heights of Italian Neorealism — La Strada is anchored by the enchanting presence of Giulietta Masina (common collaborator and wife to Federico Fellini). Her tragic character is doomed to endure constant abuse and hardships after being purchased by an inconsiderate circus strongman. Finding the purpose of her suffering and her duty as an artist proves to be the emotional backbone of the movie — a theme that easily resonated with Bergman who is no stranger to portraying their spiritual endeavors.

“I have a great admiration for Fellini. He’s enormously intuitive, the heat from his creative mind, it melts him. He is burning inside with such heat. I feel a sort of brotherly contact with him, he is said to be enchanted by my films. The experience is mutual.”

4. Sunset Boulevard (1950)

After World War II, Hollywood — which once held cinema’s unquestioned hegemony — waned in quality under the dying studio system that ostracized talent in favor of conventionality and commercial escapism — a crisis it wouldn’t recover from until the early 70’s.

This created a power vacuum that gave room for the rest of the world to catch up. At a time where artists from all around the globe like Fellini, Antonioni, Kurosawa or Bresson — not to mention Bergman himself — kept pushing the frontier of cinema as art with groundbreaking masterpieces, America saw itself completely eclipsed and outdated.

Sunset Boulevard seems like a perfect swan song — one last classic belonging to America’s Golden Age. Fittingly, Billy Wilder’s movie follows a former actress from the silent era who refuses to come to terms with her own twilight. Completely detached from reality, she isolates herself within the confines of her luxurious mansion as if forever stuck in the past. There’s a sense of decay around the whole city of Los Angeles, like an empire on the brink of collapse, still yearning for an era long gone. The unrelenting machine that keeps it alive claims another victim and — as is the case with most movie stars — dooms her to live the rest of her life in obscurity.

5. The Phantom Carriage (1921)

Arguably no film had a bigger impact on Bergman, both growing up and later as a filmmaker as Victor Sjöjström’s silent classic. The Swede fell in love with the film as a teenager after his father — a Lutheran pastor — screened it for his confirmation class. Bergman remembered it fondly as “one of the great emotional and artistic experiences in my life”. Later on, as a wannabe director, he hunted down and bought a rare 16mm copy of the film and proceeded to religiously watch it on a yearly basis.

Themes of guilt, hatred and death all heavily featured in Bergman’s work can also be found in The Phantom Carriage. The biggest inspiration comes in the form of the scythe-wielding grim reaper who nonchalantly appears to those on the verge of death — practically mirroring the one Antonius Block challenges to a chess match in The Seventh Seal. The film plays like a reimagined take on A Christmas Carol — following David Holm, a self-destructive, bitter man filled with hatred after being abandoned by his wife.

Sjöjström served as a key mentor figure for Bergman, showing him the ropes and later starring in two of his films including Wild Strawberries. “Getting to know Victor — first through his pictures and then by meeting him in person — was to me a tremendous personal experience.”

Ever since he burst onto the scene with “Slacker” and “Dazed and Confused” in the early 1990s, Richard Linklater has solidified himself as one of the most essential voices in American cinema as well as an unflagging champion of film preservation, having spent the past four decades curating series as film programmer at his Austin Film Society.

This year, the mastermind behind the Before trilogy and “Boyhood” is making the rounds online once again on the heels of “Hit Man”, a genre-splicing rom-com based on true events that had its hotly-anticipated streaming debut on Netflix on June 7. Led by a star-making turn by burgeoning A-lister Glen Powell, the film tells the stranger-than-life story of Gary Johnson, a meek college philosophy professor posing undercover as a ruthless hitman who falls head over heels in love with one of his targets (Adria Arjona) during one of his assignments.

Praised for its knockout performances and a whip-smart screenplay with enough moral dilemmas and narrative hijinks to make Hitchco*ck’s head spin, “Hit Man” has already become one of the buzziest film releases of 2024 and is widely being touted as a return to form from one of Hollywood’s premiere directors and a diehard movie geek with an overwhelming movie knowledge. To celebrate Linklater’s latest crowd-pleaser, we have rounded up 10 thriller movies, listed in no specific order, that the Austin-born auteur has spoken highly of over the years, many of which have influenced his own spin on the hitman subgenre.

1. Cutter’s Way (1981)

Neo-noir aficionados looking to fill in their blindspots after watching Linklater’s wry genre pastiche should consider tracking down this criminally underseen deep cut starring young Jeff Bridges in a proto-Lebowski role as Richard Bone, a 30-something slacker-turned-amateur gumshoe who gets roped into a big conspiracy implicating a shady California tycoon after witnessing the disposal of a corpse in an alley.

Named by Linklater as one of the greatest films of the 1980s decade and one of the best sunlit noirs (“right up there with 1974s “Chinatown” by his own admission), “Cutter’s Way” is a fine reworking of classic genre tropes that was unfairly pulled from theaters and widely panned by pundits (including the late Roger Ebert) but has slowly achieved cult status after securing a small but loyal fanbase in the following decades.

While introducing a screening of the movie at his Austin Film Society in 2014, Linklater said that though unfair as it is that “Cutter’s Way” got dumped by the studio for being “way ahead of its time”, it endures today as a “bleak, post-Vietnam political paranoia thriller about powerful forces” that also benefits from a career-best performance by John Hurt in the role of an unstable vet.

2. Body Heat (1981)

The heyday of the classic film noir had long passed when “Raiders of the Lost Ark” screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan took it upon himself to jolt new life into the genre in his first rodeo in the director’s chair. Simmering tension begins to boil over between William Hurt’s f*ckless small-town lawyer and Kathleen Turner’s cunning femme fatale as they satisfy their libidos and bloodlust during one particularly smoldering Florida summer in this sleazy tale of greed, power, and lust, stewed from bits and pieces from Billy Wilder’s seminal “Double Indemnity” (which also earned a big shout out from Linklater).

In a recent promotional video for Vanity Fair, Linklater generously credited the influence of “Body Heat” in his much-anticipated feature movie and went on to call it a “stone-cold masterpiece” that masterfully blurs the line between good and evil and also helped devise the romantic backbone of 2024s “Hit Man”.

“We don’t live in the moral universe of the Hays Code, where no sin could go unpunished. Put a charming, hot couple in a movie, and they can get away with murder,” Linklater notes. “And they do here.” You don’t have to peer too closely at this ’80s gem to spot the similarities with “Hit Man”, especially given the fact that the latter lifted the memorable bathtub scene in its entirety from the former.

3. The Long Goodbye (1973)

If watching this year’s Glenn Powell-led Netflix’s chart-topper has left you aching for more pitch-black crime comedies anchored by an impossibly charismatic leading man who ends up well out of his depth, we have just the right movie for you. Featuring a career-best turn by 1970s pop-culture icon Elliot Gould, Robert Altman’s tongue-in-cheek adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled novel finds wisecracking L.A. private eye Philip Marlowe scouring for clues throughout Tinseltown after helping an old pal drive south of the border.

Like many of the brand-name filmmakers of his generation, Linklater has a soft spot for this highly influential noir riff, identifying it as one of his four favorite films of all time earlier this year as part of Hit Man’s press cycle in conversation with Letterboxd. The director had previously had a chance to talk about its strengths at length while discussing his early cinema-going days at the 2017 New York Film Festival. During the chat, he praised Altman’s commitment to authenticity, pitch-perfect casting and fluid camera movement and fondly remembered the time he bumped into the maverick auteur and confessed to him that watching this particular film changed his life.

“Talk about moments: “The Long Goodbye” is just one incredible moment after another.”

4. They Live (1988)

Another 1980s masterwork Linklater selected to screen and present as part of his “Jewels in the Wasteland” 2017 series at his Austin Film Society is John Carpenter’s scathing Reagan-era anti-capitalist takedown based on Ray Nelson’s 1963 short story, which finds Canadian professional wrestler Roddy Piper in the role of an unemployed L.A. construction worker who unwittingly stumbles upon a pair of enigmatic sunglasses that reveal hidden, subliminal messages placed by the elite meant to keep the human race subdued and obedient.

During the post-film discussion, Linklater explained that given the big ad push and wide distribution that it got at the time, he came in expecting a big conventional studio flick, but was pleasantly surprised when it turned out that it was pretty low-budget, indie, wonderfully eccentric, clever, action-packed, and fun. “It felt subversive just to be at the mall watching it on opening weekend. Carpenter delivered the goods man! You can tell he had something to say, a big F you to everybody, and he said it with such oomph that, though I loved it at the time, I really wished I was 17 when I first watched it.”

5. This Gun for Hire (1942)

More than just about any other film in this list, this cool slice of wartime American cinema directed by Frank Tuttle feels perhaps the most analogous to Linklater’s latest Netflix hit. Newcomers looking for a solid onramp to brush up on their film noir couldn’t ask for a better jumping board than “This Gun for Hire”, which clocks in at a crisp, tight 81 minutes and tells the story of a professional assassin with a soft spot for cats and blonde bombshells who’s hellbent on exacting revenge on his double-crossing boss after being paid off in marked bills for his last job.

One of the handful of serial killer films Linklater included around the 18-minute mark voiceover montage in “Hit Man”, “This Gun for Hire” served as a key point of reference for what the director tried to achieve in Gary Johnson’s journey from nerdy professor to smitten undercover agent. During an interview with Vanity Fair as part of the film’s press cycle, the mastermind behind “Before Sunrise” and “Boyhood” geeked out over what he considers one of the quintessential entries of the film noir canon and specifically singled out Alan Ladd’s performance as Philip Raven for praise. “Even though he is not really even the lead, that’s what everyone remembers”.

We all have that one movie that shook us to the chore and pushed our worldview in the process. It might have happened when we were at a young, and fairly impressionable age, thus making us fall in love with cinema, or it could have grabbed us at a moment in life that sparkled that once-lost magic again.

Some of the most successful and acclaimed directors working today owe it all to the one that made them pursue their own artistic endeavors and pick up a camera for themselves. In some cases that film shaped their entire body of work, influencing their style and providing the blueprint for all their films, while in other cases it curdled into a whole different type of movie. Down below are ten movies that stole the hearts of some of the most iconic auteurs working today.

1. Lawrence of Arabia (1963)

When a high-school teenager from Phoenix, Arizona named Steven Spielberg first watched this movie, he was completely blown away and walked out of the theater stunned and speechless. As he recalls it, he couldn’t comprehend the enormity of the experience and it took him two viewings to fully digest David Lean’s classic. Shortly after, he bought the film’s soundtrack and listened it on a loop for the next few months and a book on the film to try to understand how it was made. Lawrence of Arabia tells the story of a British officer who leads the Arab tribes against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.

As a kid who grew up in the desert plains of Arizona, he easily related to Lawrence, and ever since he’s gone on to call it the greatest screenplay ever made and the one that impacted him the most. He fondly remembers meeting David Lean, a man he worshipped and studied for ages, trying to pick up his tricks. Spielberg would later oversee Lawrence of Arabia’s restoration, and he proudly remembers the honor of sitting next to Lean as he showed him his own restored movie for the first time.

2. The 400 Blows (1959)

Widely considered to be one of greatest films in history and a high-water mark in the French New Wave, this semi-autobiographical François Truffaut drama tells the story about a young Parisian troublemaker, who’s currently punished by his teachers and scolded at home, with the constant rejection he receives from the authority figures in his life being the film’s core underpinning.

Wes Anderson claims that the movie was one of the reasons he started thinking on becoming a director. On the surface, Anderson’s movies tend to be colorful, quirky and light-hearted, but nevertheless share some obvious themes with Truffaut black-and-white drama. Most evidently, there is the figure of the rebellious kid alienated from his neglectful parents, a premise found in many instances within Wes Anderson’s filmography. Lots of his main characters bear resemblance to young Antoine Doinel, such as in Moonrise Kingdom or Isle of Dogs, with insufferable grown-ups also seen in The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

3. Paisan (1946)

A young Martin Scorsese once watched this Rossellini movie on television with his grandparents, experiencing as he recalls ‘the power of cinema itself’. As he puts it, his reaction to what had happened to their homeland were as vivid for him as the images and characters in the film. Paisan chronicles the liberation of Italy from the German occupation in the waning years of World War II, presented in six independent episodes all prefaced by realistic newsreels.

Scorsese has always been vocal about his Italian roots, with themes of Catholic guilt and immigrant discrimination rippling through his lengthy body of work. This Neorealist movie felt like a revelation to his younger self, in that he realized that cinema wasn’t just about the movie itself but “the relationship between the movie and its audience”, which felt like “seeing reality itself unfolding before your eyes”.

4. Le Samourai (1967)

This stylized crime movie by French New Wave maverick auteur Jean-Pierre Melville stars Alain Delon as lone hitman Jef Costello. His smooth demeanor, natural charm and impeccable trench coat are only matched by his razor-sharp precision when carrying out criminal tasks. Costello finds himself embroiled in a cat-and-mouse game, fending off the police full of interrogations, double-crosses and nerve-wracking subway chases.

It’s only natural that this explosive co*cktail of American noir, Japanese Samurai period pieces and French New Wave piqued the interest of one of the most iconic action directors in Hong Kong cinema, John Woo. Once set to become a Christian minister, young Woo found inspiration in arthouse European cinema, binging Melville’s crime thrillers and realizing the incomparable power of movies. The rest is history; Woo would go on to redefine Hong Kong action cinema with his collaborations with Chow Yun-Fat (Hard Boiled, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer) that established him as a household name and helped launch his career overseas.

5. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Although it’s another Sergio Leone’s classic (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), that holds the title for best spaghetti western according to Quentin Tarantino, the American auteur has credited his 1968 Henry Fonda-led epic as the one that made him consider picking up a camera of his own. Once Upon a Time in the West showed him “how a director can control a movie and how to give your work a signature”, and instantly established Leone as his favorite filmmaker bar none. The “Pulp Fiction” director was completely fascinated by how it created an aesthetic in his mind that has inherently shaped everything he’s made ever since.

Tarantino is a devout cinephile well-versed in the history of cinema, and the influence that the works of Leone and some of his contemporaries such as Corbucci and Tessari have wielded in his own is undeniable. Django Unchained marked Tarantino’s first rodeo in the western genre, with the film borrowing the title from Corbucci’s own 1966 western. He also collaborated with legendary composer and recurrent Leone-collaborator, Ennio Morricone, in the 2015 The Hateful Eight.

The 1980s were a lucrative time for American cinema, a decade in where films were consistently making previously unimaginable sums of money at the box office. Largely unpoliticized, much of the most popular cinema of the 1980s was about having a good time, living a rich and fulfilled life, overcoming the odds, and getting the girl at the end before the credits rolled.

Beneath the glossy surface though, there was more gritty, edgy fare being released, films that were far less feel-good in tone and delivered a harder punch. Given these movies pre-dated the political correctness that often stifles modern films, they often went into areas that were daring and controversial, unflinching human dramas that were fearless in their approach. Below are ten 1980s films that may have passed you by, but are well worth seeking out.

1. Best Seller (1987)

One of the least talked of, yet most impressive 1980’s films to feature James Woods, is Best Seller (1987), where he starred alongside the late and great Brian Dennehy. This sharp thriller has Woods as a hit-man named Cleve who wants the help of seasoned cop Dennis Meechum (Dennehy), who also happens to be a best selling writer, to adapt his admittedly fascinating story into book form.

Things aren’t straight forward though. Years earlier, as part of a masked gang, Cleve had killed two of Meechum’s colleagues, and once this fact is revealed he is adamant on busting him. At the start of the film though, Woods appears out of nowhere during Dennehy’s pursuit of a criminal and saves his life. Meechum is therefore torn and also genuinely intrigued by the tale Cleve has to tell him, that he was a paid assassin for Kappa International, a huge empire run by David Madlock (Paul Schena). What follows is a strange game between Woods and Dennehy, a kind of dance of psych outs and double bluffs. Is this relationship, this weird friendship that has developed between the officer and the criminal, at all healthy? Will he turn the hit man in as soon as the book is finished?

As anyone who’s seen it will know, there is much more to the film than a straight forward thriller. One can look into hidden subtext a little too intensely, yet I feel there is something being said about 80’s America here, the era of aspiration, of success being all, of suited yuppies making everything a commodity. Woods gives Cleve a believability, and not once do we roll our eyes when he takes a man down with his gun with ease, or breaks another’s neck because he is in the way. We buy it, and also swallow the fact he could quietly leave the room without you even knowing he’d been there. It’s a subtle performance.

It helps of course that he was cast opposite an actor as good as Dennehy, who also settles into his role with apparent ease. Cleve sees them as soul brothers, is adamant they have a bond. “Cop and killer,” he says, adding “two sides to the same coin.” As he did with De Niro in Once Upon a Time in America, Woods plays off Dennehy splendidly, and Dennehy works against Woods’ snake-like deviousness with a stony determination.

Best Seller is not the standard 80’s thriller it looks to be on its DVD cover. An intelligently written and constructed cat and mouse game, it’s a film about morals, about motives and personal redemption. At its centre are two wonderful performances by a pair of actors who work so well together that you wish they had teamed up more often.

2. The Big Town (1987)

Matt Dillon was one of the best of the young movie brats whose profile was on the rise during the mid to late 80s, and though he didn’t become a mega star like some of his contemporaries did, he always made excellent choices and consistently played challenging, intriguing characters. One of these came in 1987’s The Big Town, in which he portrays Cullen, a small time crap-shooter who moves to Chicago in hopes of making his fortune. He immediately falls in with two hustlers, one of whom is played by Bruce Dern, and meets Lorry (Diane Lane), a stripper who wants vengeance on her husband, played by Tommy Lee Jones. Cullen finds himself stuck between two women, Suzy Amis as the sensitive Aggy, and the bad girl Lorry, all the while working away on making as much money as he can.

Seedy, sleazy and gripping, this cool noir thriller is one of those lost treasures you get a kick out of discovering. Directed by Ben Bolt (who was helped out by an uncredited Harold Becker), and adapted from Clark Howard’s book The Arm by Robert Roy Pool, The Big Town was not a box office success (clearly, it had none of the shallow appeal of the more mainstream pictures), though it did attract some solid reviews. Stylish in an unforced kind of way, it’s simply an enthralling story acted thoroughly well by a top cast. As ever, the likes of Bruce Dern and Tommy Lee Jones are superb, though the film arguably belongs to Dillon and Lane. They had starred in two films together before this (Rumble Fish and The Outsiders) and always enjoyed a lively chemistry. The Big Town is worth watching for these characterisations alone, but it’s also just a good old fashioned thriller with all the twists and turns you want and expect.

3. The Package (1989)

The Package is a murky tale of intrigue set during the Cold War. The Package of the title is none other than Tommy Lee Jones, a prisoner called Walter Henke, who must be transported from East Berlin to America by US Special Forces Sergeant Johnny Gallagher, played by Gene Hackman, where he will face a court martial. However, things do not go smoothly to plan and he proves to be a slippery customer, escaping at the airport. Only then do the complications mount, and Hackman ends up working against the clock to solve the mystery and save the life of a politician who is due to be assassinated.

A slick, smart, beautifully played thriller, The Package is directed with panache by Andrew Davis, who keeps the action coming while also leaving enough room for his cast to flesh out their roles. John Bishop’s script stays clear of cliches, though it also sticks to the rules of a good thriller. Indeed, the movie never lets you relax and become complacent as the twists and shifts in the plot arrive to take you by surprise.

The cast are great too. Hackman and Jones are marvellous in their roles, and there is a real thrill to be had in their interactions and the unfolding plot which reveals Jones’ character to be a much more dangerous figure than expected. There are also fine supporting turns from Joanna Cassidy, Dennis Franz and John Heard, the latter at his most villainous and slimy. Though it wasn’t a big hit at the time, it does have a healthy reputation as a solid entry in the paranoiac Cold War genre. That said, it definitely deserves more acclaim, as well as a decent Blu-ray release, too.

4. True Believer (1989)

Director Joseph Ruben’s True Believer (1989) is another solid movie featuring yet another committed 80s James Woods performance. Here he excels as maverick defence attorney Eddie Dodd, a man who, slightly disenfranchised with the legal system, finds himself stirred once again by a prison murder which takes him back to a Chinatown killing from a decade earlier.

Way back when, Dodd was a man excited and enthralled by the very idea of seeking justice. In the late sixties and early seventies he was a famous civil rights lawyer, but twenty years on, at the end of the yuppie era, he’s slightly burnt out. He still has the long hair, but it’s tied back in a weird mullet. (In a later interview, Woods joked that he had kept the wig as a pet.) He is still on the edge, but he doesn’t have the faith and passion he once had. This case however, immediately landing him in hot water, gets his blood flowing again, and he is in his element once more, as if the 1980s never happened.

Robert Downey Jr. is effective as the rookie straight out of law school sent over to work with Dodd, but this is Woods at centre stage. Of course this does not mean he chews scenery and asserts himself over the rest of the cast, but Dodd is such a charismatic role that there was no way Woods wasn’t going to make him the heart of the picture. Embodied in this one character is the hope of a whole generation, one that believed that justice would win in the end, that truth and integrity were absolute. The fact he’s frazzled, let down by the system, only makes his resurgence all the more exciting. Woods plays it with perfection.

Overall the film is consistently gripping and keeps you fully invested and guessing away until the final reel. Though popular at the time (it even spawned a spin off TV series), it’s overlooked today and deserves a lot more attention.

5. Split Decisions (1988)

Split Decisions (1988) is a raw urban drama from director David Drury, with Gene Hackman at his grisly best as boxing trainer Danny McGuinn. He’s getting his son Eddie into the ring, while his other son, Ray, is mixing with the wrong sorts. When Ray gets killed, Eddie finds out the murderer was a mobster who also boxes, so naturally he challenges him to a match.

Some have compared the tone of the film to Rocky (1976), and though it’s very much a film which triumphs the underdog, this is a very different tale. Gritty in some ways, perhaps a little familiar in others, it is a film elevated by a subtle, multi layered performance by Hackman. Totally overlooked today, I would single it out as a minor gem in Hackman’s filmography, worth watching for his portrayal of the trainer who also happens to be a father.

Hackman played fathers very well in the 1980s, perhaps because he himself was by then an established dad to grown up kids. In Twice in a Lifetime he portrayed the wandering, tired, weary middle aged dad brilliantly, torn between his family and his fresh new love, but not torn enough to actually put his family first. Here, as in the later Wyatt Earp, family is the key word and blood comes before all else. Though some have said he sleepwalked through the part of Danny McGuinn, even a sleepwalking Hackman is better than 99 percent of other actors at their peak.

Thankfully, Split Decisions is easy to find these days and is readily available on both DVD and various digital platforms. Boxing buffs will love it, of course, but I would argue it would mainly appeal to die hard Hackman fans. Made the same year as the far more acclaimed and popular Mississippi Burning, Hackman is just as good here.

One of the oldest and purest forms of storytelling in genre cinema that has also proven continually popular over the years are horror movies that contain all sorts of paranormal elements. From demonic possessions and poltergeist to evil spirits lurking just beneath the alluring comforts of family, these fright fests have taken many shapes and forms throughout the decades, using their jump-scares not only to strike fear into the hearts of moviegoers but as a means to explore our deep-rooted fears of death and the unknown.

For the purpose of this list, we’ve decided to plumb the dark corners of horror’s cinematic history to round up 20 must-see titles — ranging from classic genre hallmarks to cult favorites waiting to be rediscovered that have helped redefine the genre altogether.

20. The Others (2001)

At the turn of the new millennium, back when self-aware slashers, found-footage chillers, and J-horror remakes were all the craze at the box office and every other horror director was busy looking ahead to explore the infinite (and often terrifying) possibilities of the 21st century, Spanish auteur Alejandro Amenabar turned the clock back to WWII and supernatural Gothic in putting together this old-fashioned ghost story.

Drawing heavy inspiration from haunted-house staples like the 1961s “The Innocents” yet perfectly enjoyable on its own terms, “The Others” zeroes in on a devoutly religious mother (Nicole Kidman) and her two photo-sensitive children who live peacefully in a Victorian-era mansion before experiencing supernatural phenomena. A study in restraint and misdirection, Amenabar’s understated masterpiece will keep you guessing for two heart-squeezing hours before knocking your socks off with one of the most memorable rug-pull moments in recent memory.

19. Poltergeist (1982)

Any list of must-see supernatural movies would be incomplete without special mention of “Poltergeist”, a watershed ’80s classic containing all of the genre’s favorite tropes that codified so many clichés that it now runs the risk of feeling archetypical by today’s standards.

Producer Steven Spielberg worked closely with “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” director Tobe Hooper to deliver one of the finest entries in haunted-house cinema, in which an unassuming middle-class family is tormented by a vengeful supernatural force that abducts their young daughter. This cracked-mirror vision of suburban America transplanted our collective fear of the unknown right into our living rooms, doing for television sets in the eighties essentially what “Jaws” had done for sharks and public beaches back a decade prior. If you feel brave enough, try double-featuring it with the 1998 “Ringu” to never look at any TV screen the same.

18. Inferno (1980)

For the better part of the 20th century, one name stood a cut above the rest in the realm of Italian horror: Dario Argento. When it comes to the iconic director whose name is now synonymous with giallo, the brand of pulpy psychosexual chillers he helped popularize internationally, most people generally talk about “Suspiria”, “Deep Red” or “Tenebrae”.

A lesser-known but just as enthralling entry in the director’s canon is “Inferno”, which works as a good primer for unaccustomed viewers looking to dip their toes into his gruesome catalog. The middle entry in Argento’s “Three Mothers” trilogy”, this supernatural slasher revolves around a young woman who discovers that his late brother’s New York apartment previously served as a home for a powerful, centuries-old witch. The movie includes almost all of the quintessential elements we tend to associate with classic gialli — from dark, brooding atmosphere, pulsating musical score, eye-popping colors and hyper-stylized bloodshed that roots itself under the viewer’s skin.

17. Prince of Darkness (1987)

John Carpenter spent the 1980s decade pumping out a slew of instant horror classics that made audiences squirm in disgust and have withstood the test of time. Purists might point to “The Thing”, “Christine” or even “The Fog” as the director’s finest contribution to the genre during that magical 10-year time span, but we retain a lot of residual love for the middle installment in his ‘Apocalypse trilogy’, a deliciously entertaining schlock fest that gets a little lost in the director’s canon but features the same loose formula that made his better-known hits enduring midnight-movie features.

Satanic monsters, squirming co*ckroaches, and hobo zombies are all par for the course in “Prince of Darkness”, which centers on a scientific crew racing against time to unearth the hidden truth behind a mysterious and potentially fatal gooey substance found in a deserted church. First-time viewers who struggle to make head or tails of the somewhat convoluted premise at first, worry not — the film sports some good old-fashioned chills to satisfy diehard horror enthusiasts.

16. The Haunting (1961)

In following up his 1960 Best Picture-winning musical “West Side Story”, Hollywood veteran Robert Wise shifted gears and pivoted away from musicals to adapt the bestselling novel “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson.

Identified as one of the favorite horror movies of Martin Scorsese, this highly influential sixties classic finds an anthropology professor (Richard Johnson) round up a sundry team of experts to determine whether there is any truth to the rumors that claim that a 90-year-old New England mansion known as Hill House is haunted.

Though brimming with suspense and spine-tingling moments that makes your hair stand on end, what gives “The Haunting” its lasting power is the way the film presents its central mystery through the warped perspective of unreliable narrators, leaving the audience with plenty to chew on after the credits start rolling.

15. Hellraiser (1987)

If Doug Bradley’s Pinhead is not the single most easily recognizable horror movie villain of the 1980s, he isn’t far off. In this genre hallmark by British fright-fest master Clive Baker, the odd-looking, tight-lipped leader of the Cenobites, a supernatural race of sadomasoch*stic creatures from another dimension who only know suffering and pain, slithers back into world of the living to strike fear into the hearts of men after being summoned by a mysterious puzzle box known as the Lament Configuration.

Things get messier, hornier, and rather convoluted in the countless sequels and straight-to-video remakes that inevitably followed, most recently in 2022, all of which have tried to catch the same lightning in the bottle as the original, albeit to varying degrees of success. Feel free to double dip with any of your choice, but in our eyes the original remains the undisputed best.

14. Don’t Look Now (1973)

Themes of loss and trauma run through Nicolas Roeg’s chilling adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s short story, a meticulously observed occult thriller starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie as two grief-stricken parents who move to Venice following the tragic death of their daughter.

Upon their arrival at the City of Canals, where Sutherland’s character plans to distract himself by restoring an old church, the married couple run into two creepy-looking elderly sisters who deliver a cryptic message from the beyond, allegedly from their deceased daughter. Though not for the faint of heart, this timeless supernatural horror continues to exert substantial influence on the landscape of contemporary horror movies, with industry trendsetters like Ari Aster, Robert Eggers and Darren Aronofsky all having acknowledged the great debt they owe to Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 film.

13. Hereditary (2018)

Unfinished family business reach out from the great beyond in Ari Aster’s piercing directorial debut, a half intimate chamber piece, half demonic nail-biter that has thoroughly infiltrated the pop-cultural vernacular to become the measuring stick by which every other artsy horror movie is judged by these days.

In a chillingly vulnerable lead performance that should have been showered in accolades, Toni Colette plays Annie Graham, a middle-aged miniature artist who’s still in the midst of processing the passing of her estranged mother when she finds every other member of her household targeted by malevolent forces, leading them to a gruesomely inescapable secret about their shared ancestry. Stretching the fabric of genre cinema to reveal a harrowing portrait of interpersonal trauma, Aster’s remarkably assured debut is the rare kind of horror offering that grounds its supernatural set-up with even more compelling human drama.

12. Kuroneko (1968)

The evil specters of the Japanese Civil War cast a dreadful shadow and resurface in this early example of the rape-revenge subgenre directed by Kaneto Shindo. Deeply rooted in Eastern medieval folklore and Noh theatre, this atmospheric ghoulish tale recounts the tragedy of two destitute countrywomen, a mother and her daughter-in-law, who exact their revenge against the lawless samurai that raped and killed them during the war by returning as shape-shifting spirits and preying on unsuspecting swordsman.

Beautifully shot in crisp black and white, this timeless morality play about the horrors of warfare all but faded into obscurity before receiving a long-overdue home release by Criterion, which led to a recent reappraisal of it as an underseen gem of Japanese cinema. Most recently, “Kuroneko” has been singled out by praise by Guillermo del Toro, who suggested double-featuring the film with another one of Kaneto Shindo’s spine-tingling ghost stories, the 1964 “Onibaba”.

11. The Innocents (1961)

Adapted from Henry James’ novella The Turn of the Screw, this oft-imitated pioneer of Gothic horror directed by Jack Clayton is the rare case of a movie high both in style and substance. Shot in dazzling chiaroscuro lightning by cinematographer Freddie Francis, “The Innocents” stars Deborah Kerr as a young governess devoted to children who finds her sanity thoroughly tested after sensing that all is not well with the two super-creepy orphaned kids he’s been hired to look after.

The idea of being trapped in a secluded Victorian manor with a pair of devilish spirits is disquieting enough. But screenwriter Truman Capote ups the ante by using the film’s supernatural elements as a baseline to delve into the tortured heroine’s crumbling psyche and pent-up frustrations. As her sense of identity slowly begins to unravel, you might find yourself double-guessing whom to trust at any given moment in this nail-biter.

Swashbuckling adventures, screwball romcoms, dystopian sci-fi, punch-throwing martial arts extravaganzas, and everything in between: Today we’re counting down 10 undisputed movie classics that will give you plenty of bang for your buck if you need a distraction and that you’ll never get tired of watching.

In making this list, narrowing our options down to 10 titles meant that glaring omissions were inevitable and to be expected. Shockingly, you won’t find certified film-bro staples like “Star Wars”, “The Big Lebowski”, “Goodfellas”, “The Dark Knight” or “The Matrix” down below, while older offerings like “Jaws”, “Psycho”, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”, “The Great Escape”, and “Die Hard” similarly missed the cut but obviously deserve your attention. All in all, there should be something for everyone in our rundown of 10 most entertaining movies of all time, from time-tested crowd-pleasers that have aged like fine wine to a few underseen gems ripe for reappraisal. Take our word for it, these films will keep you coming back over for more.

1. Raising Arizona (1987)

Not since Howard Hawks’ heyday at the zenith of the Golden Age had any film win the audience’s hearts with such a pitch-perfect blend of whip-smart dialogue, slapstick glee, and screwball mayhem than this madcap comedy of errors by the Coen Brothers, held down by a one-two punch of career-best turns in Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter as an erratic married couple that somehow match the film script’s unhinged tone and energy.

Like a live-action Looney Tunes feature-length episode by way of Preston Sturges, this big-hearted tale of small-town romance in the American frontier deftly showcases the Coen’s irreverent style, tongue-in-cheek humor and effortless ability to tow the line between different tones and genres, and quickly achieved cult status before reaching near-Lebowski levels of movie quotability in pop culture.

But for all the uproarious gags, lively performances, and ill-conceived quintuplet-kidnapping ploys, it’s the directing duo’s infectious love and sympathy towards their cast of eccentrics that makes “Raising Arizona” considerably more tolerable than other well-known Coen heavy-hitters, making it all the more rewarding to return to.

2. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Cinema’s marquee archaeologist made his big-screen debut in the summer of 1981 in this oft-imitated, globe-trotting filmic mash-up stewed from bits and pieces of the same Saturday matinee serials, pulp magazines, and post-war B-movies that George Lucas and his movie brat pal Steven Spielberg devoured throughout their childhood.

An awesome cross between James Bond and Humphrey Bogart, the role of Indy instantly cemented Harrison Ford’s status as a generational heartthrob and embedded itself in the popular imagination as a timeless paragon of rugged coolness and put-upon heroism that could really do it all: a brave but fallible treasure-seeking professor with a penchant for getting into impossibly dire situations that occasionally entail outrunning giant rolling boulders, chasing down trucks on horseback, and punching Nazis in the face. What’s not to like?

A perfectly paced thrill ride with too many memorable set pieces to name, “Raiders” stakes a legitimate claim to the title of greatest action-adventure movie ever and arguably the capstone achievement in Lucas and Spielberg’s lauded careers — not to mention the most purely rewarding entry in the saga by quite a wide margin.

3. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

There’s a solid reason why “T2” always comes up whenever the debate for the greatest movie sequel of all time makes the rounds online: In turning Arnold Schwarzenegger’s once-remorseless big baddie from the 1984 original into mankind’s unlikely savior, James Cameron — long before he shattered all-time box office records many times over and succumbed to his VFX fetish — defied all expectations and stayed ahead of the curve by rewriting every conventional rule in the franchise-filmmaking book to give the MTV generation another endlessly quotable movie hero to obsess over.

There’s not an ounce of fat in “Judgment Day”, a 137-minute-long sustained adrenaline rush that rarely puts a wrong foot and wastes no time setting up the stakes and drawing the viewer in with one of the finest opening 30 minutes ever put to film. A decade has passed since the T-800 was first sent back from the future to kill Sarah Connor’s son — as it turns out, now he’s back to protect him from an even mightier and futuristic AI threat (Robert Patrick).

Unresolved daddy issues, unchecked corporate greed, and the rise of the machines supply the thematic backbone this time around, giving Cameron ample room to flex his directing chops and tech wizardry, while a standout motorbike canal chase across L.A. and a brain-melting finale ensures “T2” ranks at least a tier or two above its predecessor.

4. The Thing (1982)

John Carpenter’s R-rated fright fest was not met kindly upon its release, having the misfortune of being completely overshadowed by broad crowd-pleasers like “E.T.” and “Poltergeist” at the 1982 summer box office. But time would be more than kind to “The Thing”, a formerly maligned remake of the 1951 Hawks-produced classic film by the same name that ended up securing a loyal fanbase on home video, and continues to grow in stature today as a watermark genre hallmark and undisputed Halloween fixture we make a point to revisit each and every October.

Cold War paranoia and creeping claustrophobia build to a fever pitch in this chilling slow burner starring Kurt Russell as one of the unlucky members of a group of unsuspecting American researchers trapped in the frozen wasteland of Antarctica who must track down and eliminate a shape-shifting alien force secretly disguised among their ranks.

It’s a deceptively simple and irresistibly pulpy source material that lends itself to a chock-full of spine-tingling moments of suspense and that Carpenter expertly mines to pull the rug out from under audience expectations and keep them double-guessing at every turn. Talk about an all-timer ending that will live rent free in your mind.

5. The Sting (1973)

In reuniting with the megawatt duo behind the 1969 smash hit “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” for a nostalgic throwback caper, Hollywood stalwart director George Roy Hill delivered a perennial fan favorite that played like gangbusters at the box office, collected a 7-Oscar haul including Best Picture and has stood the test of time after playing on cable TV for the past 50 years as much as any certified masterpiece on rotation.

I’d be remiss not to suggest you check “The Sting” if you fancy seeing Paul Newman and Robert Redford light up the scenery together as a pair of suave 1930s professional grifters trying to pull a series of elaborate cons that will bring down Robert Shaw’s ruthless Chicago mob boss. Sounds fun, right? And if the prospect of watching two heavyweight screen titans perfectly cast and playing off each other is somehow not enticing enough to tickle your fancy (as if!), worry not — there are enough narrative curveballs, unexpected twists, and double-crossing galore to keep your head spinning until the screen fades to black.

The 90s was a great film decade for many reasons. It was an era where the independent films such as “Pulp Fiction” and “Fargo” were getting mainstream attention, the studios was still producing mid-budget films like “Jerry Maguire” and the blockbusters were fun enough without getting extended into Marvel-like universes or whatever. There was something for everyone and the balance was there.

Nowadays, it’s almost impossible to think that film like “Forrest Gump”, regardless if you like it or not, would be the highest-grossing live-action film of its year. When you look at the highest-grossing films of their years, you might see adult dramas like “A Few Good Men”, “Philadelphia” and provocative films like ‘Basic Instinct”. It helped that there were still movie stars and people went out to see their new movie. Now it’s time to go back into the decade again and explore some of the less appreciated great films of the era and hopefully, once again, there will be something for everyone.

10. Impromptu (1991)

Let’s start off with a delightful film, seemingly a biopic but not your traditional one. In fact, it begins as a comedy of manners, as various creative personalities from the early to mid-1800s gather one weekend at a country estate and proceed to bicker amongst themselves. You expect it to be some kind of Jean Renoir “The Rules of the Game” type and it indeed has things to say about class and many other things. However, the film chooses to focus on the romance between composer Frederic Chopin and novelist George Sand Davis is a riot; she’s amazing and full of energy, and makes Sand a fascinating character to watch. Her character is showier and very well-written, so it gives her rich material to work with.

It’s also possibly the first romantic comedy role for Grant who will have bigger success with the genre later on his life, up until 2010s where he decided to back go his character actor roots with films like “Florence Foster Jenkins”, “The Gentlemen” or on television as in “A Very English Scandal”. Mandy Patinkin delivers some witty dialogues, Emma Thompson is a delight as always, and Bernadette Peters is wonderful also. The ensemble cast is just awesome here but one should also give a shout-out to Julian Sands who tragically died in 2023. You can see what an impactful performance here, in this intelligent and charming comedy with a gentle soul.

9. Cold Comfort Farm (1995)

It makes sense to follow a very charming British film with another British charmer. This time an adaptation and a very excellent one. After the death of her parents, young Flora Poste goes to stay with her country relatives. This part of her family is full of eccentric people and everyone of them has their own problems but can this modern young woman solve their problems and make the farm flourish again with imagination and joy? Probably, yes. This is yet another adaptation for the list, and an excellent one. Very earthy adaptation of Stella Gibbon’s 1932 novel is directed by the great John Schlesinger. He has made countless great films including |Darling”, “Midnight Cowboy”, “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, “The Day of the Locust” and “Marathon Man” in first half of his career.

“Cold Comfort Farm” is probably the last great film he directed as his subsequent efforts “Eye for an Eye” and “The Next Best Thing”. This one premiered on television but actually got some theatrical distribution in North America with strong reviews. Schlesinger’s direction was heavily praised as well as the wit and sharpness of the script. Those who love Thomas Hardy, D.H. Lawrence and Jane Austen’s books will particularly find this enjoyable but it has a lot of charm to offer to non-lovers of those also because in a way, it also sort of subtly parodying Austen clichés and it works so well.

8. Sweet Jane (1998)

Lack of distribution is always a big problem when it comes to films that didn’t get much attention. “Sweet Jane” stars two well-known names: Samantha Mathis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Mathis is a rather underrated actress who made a feature film debut with cult classic “Pump Up the Volume” and had starred in films like 94’s “Little Women” or another underrated film “The Thing Called Love”, which could be here on this list and it’d be very fitting also. Gordon-Levitt was the star of “3rd Rock from the Sun” but “Sweet Jane” came around the time when he was not a bigger name yet. These days, it’s almost impossible to hear this title unless Gordon-Levitt somehow mentions it in an interview.

This is a rather sweet film about a sensitive issue and a very unusual relationship. The film follows HIV-positive addict Jane (Mathis) who leaves the hospital and gets followed by a teenager (Gordon-Levitt) who is diagnosed with AIDS. They somehow form a bond. The film deals with many topics including the addiction, dealing with terminal illness, trauma and friendship. While it’s obviously sentimental, thanks to these actors, it doesn’t feel phony or forced. There is a lot of raw emotions to be found. As the film is low-budget effort, its director wisely decide to focus his camera on these two actors and they both are equally great. Those who love films that deal with lonely people, this one is a must-see.

7. The Music of Chance (1993)

“Angels and Insects” was close to be on the list but ultimately, this Paul Auster adaptation by the same director felt like a superior film to go with. Jim Nashe, a former firefighter traveling across the States in his new car, gives a ride to Jack Pozzi, a poker player, on the way. Pozzi tells him how he managed to arrange a match with Stone and Flower, two billionaires, but he has a problem: he doesn’t have the money needed to face them. Nashe, attracted by the profit, is convinced to invest in the game and gives all his savings to Jack Pozzi. Having gone to the villa of the two billionaires in Pennsylvania, things turn out to be terrible as they lose everything. Stone and Flower, two eccentric types, who have become rich thanks to the national lottery, make a singular proposal.

If more given about the plot, you’d think it sounds bizarre and it really is but it’s also brilliant. Then again, it makes it harder to explain to those who haven’t seen it. The acting is all-around excellent but James Spader particularly shines. All characters are interesting and the film basically deals with the philosophical question of “chance or fate?”. It’s also one of those films that refuse to explain itself, which makes It even more interesting. Roger Ebert described it as ”one of those movies you can argue about for hours.” And sometimes that’s all we want from movies.

6. The War at Home (1996)

At some point in the 1980s, Emilio Estevez was arguably most popular and in-demand name of his famous family. He successfully switched from teen hits of “The Breakfast Club”, “The Outsiders” and cult film “Repo Man” to rather adult man roles in “Stakeout” and “Young Guns”, before subsequently being the family film star in “The Mighty Ducks”. Displeased with the film offers, Estevez wanted to make his own films and up until to the much more relaxed “The Way”, he had a similar formula; the slowly tension builds up until final big moment, “Bobby”, “Rated X” and now our subject, “The War at Home”.

One can criticize Estevez for being heavy-handed at times and not being able to adapt the material cinematically from stage to film but not everyone can be Sidney Lumet. He has made a very respectable directorial effort here, and shines as an actor playing a Vietnam War veteran who blames his father for what happened to him. It’s not an easy to watch, you can’t help but feel sorry for his character as well as the others trapped in the situation. Estevez, Kathy Bathes (as mom) and “Father of the Bride”s Kimberly Williams are all good but it’s Martin Sheen who’s the MVP- Emilio knows what a powerful presence his father can be. There are several strong scenes here that hits you hard and once again reminds the tragic consequences of wars and warmongering.