This list suffers from recency bias, as I often cannot remember how much I liked movies from 15 or 20 years ago (and I have probably forgotten about some good ones entirely). And there is inevitably a certain capriciousness to this endeavor. Every time I look at the list, I shift a few around—and sometimes I think: I’d have trouble defending some of these rankings if asked about two movies head-to-head. It is also exceedingly difficult to rank across genres. Where does an outstanding superhero or action movie rank compared to a traditional Oscar-winner? I haven’t really sorted that out, but I did separate comedies, as they must have a distinct trait: they need to be funny. I also have no system for: how much I liked it the first time I saw it v. how rewatchable it is, or how much I liked it v. how well-made or important I think it is. In other words, this was a vibes-based process.
Here are the 100:
1. Lady Bird
2. Moonlight
3. Interstellar
4. Arrival
5. Inception
6. 1917
7. Lincoln
8. The Fighter
9. District 9
10. Gone Baby Gone
11. Room
12. The Departed
13. Social Network
14. Hotel Rwanda
15. Silver Linings Playbook
16. Amores Perros
17. City of God
18. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
19. Hacksaw Ridge
20. Memento
21. Django Unchained
22. The Post
23. Moana
24. Gone Girl
25. The Big Sick
26. Dune and Dune: Part Two
27. Dunkirk
28. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
29. The Irishman
30. Ray
31. Atonement
32. Lion
33. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse
34. Guardians of the Galaxy Films
35. Gravity
36. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
37. Peanut Butter Falcon
38. Tick Tick…Boom!
39. Coco
40. Midnight Special
41. People, Places, Things
42. Philomena
43. King Richard
44. The King of Staten Island
45. Wonder
46. Spider-Man No Way Home
47. Our Friend
48. The Contender
49. There Will be Blood
50. The Lord of the Rings films
51. The Wolf of Wall Street
52. 12 Years a Slave
53. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
54. Killers of the Flower Moon
55. Batman Begins and the Dark Knight
56. Little Miss Sunshine
57. Oppenheimer
58. Parasite
59. La La Land
60. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
61. Catch Me If You Can
62. Inglourious Basterds
63. Avengers Endgame and Infinity War
64. The Gangs of New York
65. Blood Diamond
66. A Beautiful Mind
67. Gladiator
68. The Royal Tenenbaums
69. Tar
70. Manchester by the Sea
71. Slumdog Millionaire
72. Coda
73. Captain Phillips
74. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
75. Birdman
76. Black Panther
77. Call Me By Your Name
78. American Fiction
79. Anatomy of a Fall
80. Get Out
81. Little Women
82. Florida Project
83. Fruitvale Station
84. Iron Claw
85. Just Mercy
86. Phantom Thread
87. Mystic River
88. Whiplash
89. The Theory of Everything
90. Crazy Heart
91. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
92. The Lives of Others
93. Hell or High Water
94. Selma
95. Silence
96. The Town
97. Darkest Hour
98. The King’s Speech
99. The Holdovers
100. Nightcrawler
Best Pure Comedies:
1. The 40-Year-Old Virgin
2. Meet the Parents
3. Superbad
4. 21 and 22 Jump Street
5. Bridesmaids
6. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
7. Wedding Crashers
8. Knocked Up
9. Old School
10. Borat
11. Mean Girls
12. Rush Hour 2
13. Next Friday
14. Me, Myself & Irene
15. The Hangover
16. Anchorman
17. Talladega Nights
18. Dodgeball
19. Popstar
20. Napoleon Dynamite
21. Zoolander
22. Legally Blonde
23. Best in Show
24. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
25. The Nice Guys
26. Austin Powers in Goldmember
27. American Pie 2
28. Road Trip
29. Why Him
30. This is the End
31. Sideways
32. Trainwreck
33. Tropic Thunder
34. I Love You, Man
35. Booksmart
36. Bruce Almighty
37. Long Shot
38. Hot Fuzz
39. Kicking and Screaming
40. The Campaign
41. Blockers
42. The Other Guys
43. All About the Benjamins
44. Blades of Glory
45. Step Brothers
46. Dude Where’s My Car
47. Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle
Honorable mentions:
101. Beautiful Boy
102. Boy Erased
103. Letters from Iwo Jima
104. Zero Dark Thirty
105. Ad Astra
106. Beasts of No Nation
107. BlacKkKlansman
108. Downsizing
109. Goodbye Christopher Robin
110. Juno
111. Brooklyn
112. Loving
113. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
114. If Beale Street Could Talk
115. Les Misérables
116. Of Gods and Men
117. The Martian
118. The Prestige
119. First They Killed My Father
120. The Messenger
121. Top Gun: Maverick
122. Never Look Away
123. Only the Brave
124. Past Lives
125. The Reader
126. Wind River
127. The Shape of Water
128. The Front Runner
129. Mudbound
130. The Place Beyond the Pines
131. Saltburn
132. Green Book
133. Society of the Snow
134. Richard Jewell
135. Valkyrie
136. Thank You for Your Service
137. Traffic
138. The Revenant
139. Molly’s Game
140. Other People
141. Dope
I did not rate or write down my thoughts on these after I watched them. They could very well merit a top-100 spot.
1. 127 Hours
2. About a Boy
3. Adaptation
4. The Aviator
5. Across the Universe
6. American Psycho
7. Babel
8. Billy Elliott
9. The Big Short
10. Black Hawk Down
11. Brokeback Mountain
12. Capote
13. Cast Away
14. Charlie Wilson’s War
15. Cold Mountain
16. Dallas Buyers Club
17. Erin Brockovich
18. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
19. Flags of Our Fathers
20. Hidden Figures
21. The Hurt Locker
22. The Hurricane
23. The Illusionist
24. In Bruges
25. Kill Bill films
26. Moneyball
27. No Country For Old Men
28. Ocean’s Eleven
29. Once
30. Pan’s Labyrinth
31. Shrek
32. Sicario
33. Spotlight
34. Shutter Island
35. Up in the Air
36. Walk the Line
37. Winter’s Bone
38. Y Tu Mama Tambien
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