What are the greatest films of the last 100 years? Depending on where you look, whether it be AFI, IMDb, Letterboxd, or any of the myriad websites or publications devoted to cinema, you’re likely to get a variety of answers. You’re also likely to get a fair amount of overlap, since there are some movies whose influence and general popularity have grown so tremendously within the film appreciation community over the years that they are likely to be included by practical default. That’s not to suggest they aren’t worthy, just that to deviate from those canonized classics is generally work left to opinionated contrarians. So, even though it might threaten monotonous repetition and undoubtedly will send some keyboard warriors into the comments to foment dissent, it’s still worth some of the greatest that cinema has had to offer over the past century.
Before anyone gets too worked up over anything they consider an egregious omission, just remember that taste is subjective, and any list of the greatest films is always going to be subject to a variety of biases, and any truly great film won’t suffer from not being included on the millionth list of this kind. Table set, let’s run down what no one could deny are some legitimate masterpieces of cinema, and certainly among the greatest movies of the last 100 years.
20
‘The Wizard of Oz’ (1939)
How influential is The Wizard of Oz? Enough that audiences have plunked down hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tickets to watch two films released in consecutive years based on a smash Broadway musical inspired by a book that was a reimagining of characters from this 1939 classic. And all due respect to L. Frank Baum, without whom this film wouldn’t exist, but almost no one thinks of his novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz whenever they hear mention of Dorothy, the Tin Man, Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, or the Wicked Witch. The first image that likely pops in their head is the bright and wondrous Technicolor world brought to life in this wondrous fantasy film, and they begin to hum any one of the iconic earworm songs woven throughout it.
Whether it’s Judy Garland‘s awe-struck performance as the Kansas farm girl relocated to a magical world via tornado, the childhood nightmare fuel of the flying monkeys, or that little adorable dog, everyone has some image, moment or character from this film that is permanently imprinted on their brain, even if they haven’t seen it. The Wizard of Oz has permeated pop culture so pervasively that it’s likely that many generations of viewers are only aware of it through any of the endless homages, parodies, or Wicked films that have followed in its footsteps down the yellow brick road. To those who haven’t taken a trip to this vibrant vision of Oz, do yourselves a favor and remedy that as soon as possible.
19
‘It Happened One Night’ (1934)
Frank Capra is a genre unto himself. An immigrant from Italy who came to America as a child, Capra personified the American Dream, and that idealized worldview is apparent in every frame of his films. From Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to It’s a Wonderful Life, Capra defined a mythic form of Americana that, while it may have only been colored in rosy tints, remains as intrinsic to the fabric of American culture as the works of Norman Rockwell or F. Scott Fitzgerald. His greatest American classic, It Happened One Night, features all the magic of Capra and more in one of the most delightful film romances ever put on film.
Claudette Colbert is a wealthy socialite who rebels when her father tries to exert too much control over her life. She runs away and, lacking any knowledge useful outside of her life of privilege, finds herself down on her luck when she meets a reporter, played by Clark Gable, who’s hungry for a story and agrees to help her get to New York if she grants him an exclusive. You might see where this is going, but only because It Happened One Night set the mold for hundreds of “opposites attract” romantic comedies to come. The dialogue is magic, Gable and Colbert have enough chemistry to produce an atomic bomb, and it was the first of only three films to ever win the “Big Five” at the Academy Awards. It’s a road trip to love that everyone should take.
18
‘Metropolis’ (1927)
Science fiction films have looked to the stars, the future and beyond to inspire both hope and caution in audiences. The best of them remain timeless even when their visual effects have long been eclipsed by modern technology because they tap into some universal truth of humanity. That’s what Fritz Lang‘s landmark expressionist classic Metropolis does with its grand vision of a dystopic future where industrialization and technological advancement are the tools of subjugation wielded by the wealthy elite to separate them from the lowly working class. Following the son of the wealthy master of the titular city, who becomes disillusioned with his father’s power and wealth and seeks to unite the warring classes, Metropolis builds its narrative in a world of colossal Art Deco skyscrapers that looks more familiar in 2025 than it did in 1927.
The iconic production design and visual effects, from the awe-inspiring miniatures to the massively influential design of the machine-human at the heart of its story, are what have allowed Lang’s masterwork to endure for almost 100 years. Still, all that mechanical artifice covers a beating human heart that makes an impassioned plea for the workers on whose shoulders this future world is built. Metropolis may have been created as a response to the effects of Germany’s Weimar Republic, but it’s hard not to see America’s current economic divide reflected in its chrome-plated hellscape.
17
‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)
Whether it’s an industrialized city of the future or a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland, there will always be a divide between those in power and those who suffer under their boot. In George Miller‘s guzzoline-fueled, madcap action masterpiece Mad Max: Fury Road, the remnants of humanity scour the Australian Outback, killing each other for control of any and every precious commodity. Max, now played through gritted teeth by Tom Hardy, does his best to stay uninvolved but nonetheless finds himself pulled into a rebellion against the vicious warlord Immortan Joe staged by Charlize Theron‘s full-metal badass Furiosa.
Production was so prolonged and delayed on Miller’s belated fourth film in his signature action franchise that few thought it would result in anything but a disaster. The former physician-turned-filmmaker defied all expectations by delivering possibly the greatest action film of all time. Miller manages to cram more worldbuilding and character development into single images than some filmmakers manage in entire films. It may just be one long car chase across the desert, but not a single frame is wasted, thanks to the economic storytelling and perfect collision of practical and digital effects. It’s high-octane destruction that gives a feminist middle finger to the bloated beast of the patriarchy, and to witness it is to witness greatness.
No one captures the wonder of childhood like Steven Spielberg. Even if he’s matured far beyond his escapist roots, there will always be a wide-eyed child inside the filmmaker, and when he lets him out, it more often than not has given audiences pure movie magic. Whether he uses that power to elicit terror at what lurks beneath in Jaws, wonder at what may come from the skies in Close Encounters of the Third Kind or thrills of what mysteries lie in the past in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Spielberg will always take you on a journey beyond your wildest imagination. Now imagine you’re a suburban boy who has just met the wrinkliest alien in the galaxy.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial began development as a much darker story of alien invaders before Spielberg realized there was something so much more spellbinding in the premise of a boy and his alien. When audiences first became acquainted with E.T., alongside the young protagonist Elliot, they weren’t sure how to react. The strange design of this otherworldly creature, courtesy of Carlo Rambaldi, is such that it can simultaneously inspire fear and curiosity. It’s in the deftness of Spielberg’s direction, shooting much of the film from the level of a child’s perspective, and Melissa Matheson‘s pitch-perfect script, that we come to love the little spud right alongside the kid characters on screen. Spielberg tugs at your heartstrings like a master harpist playing the gentlest love song.
15
‘Moonlight’ (2016)
To some viewers, the story of Moonlight protagonist Chiron, a Black boy becoming a man while facing adversity and coming to terms with his sexuality, might seem as alien as E.T.’s, but Barry Jenkins‘ deeply felt coming-of-age drama will shatter any preconceived notions and biases you may come to the film with and bleed your heart for every drop of empathy it has in it. Dividing the life of its lead character into three distinct chapters, the film examines how one distinct individual can form their identity by breaking down the prisms through which the world views them.
As Chiron finds himself at different intersections of life, so does Moonlight explore the intersections where race, masculinity, and sexuality cross over each other, causing conflict and forcing growth. It’s an assured film of emotional vulnerability that, no matter what your sexual identity or ethnicity, should speak to the universal desires we all have for connections, from early infatuations to electric seductions to intimate passions. Moonlight, though it may speak most directly to those that it represents, shares with all of us an experience that may be underrepresented on film but always enriches the culture when it is.
14
‘There Will Be Blood’ (2007)
An American epic from one of the country’s greatest living filmmakers starring one of the world’s finest actors, There Will Be Blood peels back the layers that enwrap unbounded ambition to reveal the oil-black corrupted soul that lies beneath. Paul Thomas Anderson entered a new phase of his directorial career by checking the kaleidoscopic ensemble of his previous two epics for something more deliberate and focused. In Daniel Plainview, the slick-tongued oilman who continues to drill for more power long after his first strike, Anderson has created a quintessential capitalist, and Daniel Day-Lewis breathes frightening, relentless life into the character.
In strong disagreement with Quentin Tarantino‘s radioactively bad take, Paul Dano is every bit Day-Lewis’ equal, representing the opposing American ambition to Plainview’s worship of the almighty dollar with the almighty God worshiping Eli Sunday. Their respective greed, in religion and capital, spirals them into inevitable conflict that leaves them broken and then bloodied. A new classic of the 21st century, There Will Be Blood is a towering monument to this country’s darkest obsessions.
13
‘Zodiac’ (2007)
If there is a director who knows from obsession, it’s David Fincher, and he delivered his masterpiece in the same year as There Will Be Blood. Zodiac presaged the culture’s obsession with true crime by dissecting the core tenets of procedural crime thrillers into an anxiety-inducing drama that offers an unsolvable puzzle in place of sleaze or violence. By sticking strictly to the facts of the real-life case of the Zodiac killer who stalked and terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area without embellishment, Zodiac finds its narrative spine not in some cat-and-mouse chase but in the dogged determination of one mousy cartoonist.
Fincher had already delivered the definitive statement on ’90s serial killer cinema with Se7en, but with Zodiac, he matured to wider themes, tackling the minutiae of grunt police work and reporting with a triptych of characters broken by their inability to answer the film’s key mystery. Jake Gyllenhaal is a coil of neuroses as cartoonist Robert Graysmith, whose book served as the basis of the film, while Mark Ruffalo channels the weariness of Detective Dave Toschi, the cop who would inspire Dirty Harry and Bullitt, and Robert Downey Jr. sinks into the substance abuse of reporter Paul Avery. They all inhabit a richly recreated ’60s and ’70s San Francisco that provides a strange comfort around the quiet building of unease and tension.
12
‘Fargo’ (1996)
A majority of the films from the Coen Brothers‘ filmography could stand tall to fill a spot on this list. It could be their handsome gangster masterpiece Miller’s Crossing, their ultimate cult comedy The Big Lebowski or their cold-hearted neo-Western No Country for Old Men. If there’s one film that best exemplifies the sibling filmmakers, from their madcap comedy sensibilities to their terse crime thrillers, it’s the Midwestern murder story Fargo. Parading a cavalcade of comical criminals through the bitter cold of a Minnesota winter, the film finds hilarious observed comedy in between its moments of cold-blooded killing.
Frances McDormand is the moral center of the film as pregnant police officer Marge Gunderson, who unravels an investigation that starts with William H. Macy‘s hapless car salesman hiring two criminals to kidnap his wife and ends with a body turned into bloody mulch. In lesser hands, as can be witnessed in the many films that have been made attempting Coen-esque material, these characters would become caricatures, and the plot would thicken into unpalatable mush. The brotherly directing duo know exactly how to balance the tone and mine their characters for humor without devolving to shallow mockery. Fargo is a quick-witted crime classic with a soft heart.
11
‘Do the Right Thing’ (1989)
Just as the Coens drew upon their Midwestern upbringing to create cold humor in Fargo, Spike Lee drew upon his in New York City to create white-hot hate in his incendiary comedy drama Do the Right Thing. Set in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn over one hot summer day where the heat raises the temperature on the simmering tension between the predominantly Black residents and the White owners of a local pizzeria, the movie is a microcosm of American divisions along racial lines. It’s a film that is vibrant and alive with the color and sounds of a culture, and how attempts to bottle and repress that culture will force it to bubble up and boil over.
Lee himself plays the pivotal role of pizza delivery boy Mookie, who pounds the pavement while interacting with the varied residents of the neighborhood, including Ossie Davis‘ proselytizing stoop sitter, John Turturro‘s pizza-tossing bigot, and Bill Nunn‘s boom-box bearing Radio Raheem, whose fateful end precipitates the film’s riotous ending. Do the Right Thing naturally inspired controversy, which only further exposed the fragility of the common bonds between White and Black audiences. Lee’s film was a brightly-colored Molotov chucked forcefully into the cultural conversation.