Movies: All-Time Greatest, Nos. 50-26

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50. Intolerance (1916)

Everett Collection

Directed by D.W. Griffith

The silent master Griffith did more than anyone else to invent the language of movie storytelling, and this four-part parable of intolerance through the ages is his loopiest, most colossal, and most inspired achievement. The Babylonian sequence seems to exemplify the infinite possibilities of movies.

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NOT RATED

2 of 26

49. Goldfinger (1964)

Everett Collection

Directed by Guy Hamilton

The quintessential James Bond movie because it’s got everything: cool gizmos and a gold-painted girl, a villain of very grand cunning, and Sean Connery at the peak of his debonair invincibility.

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48. It Happened One Night (1934)

Everett Collection

Directed by Frank Capra

The original romantic comedy, in which Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert demonstrate for all time why falling in love masquerades as verbal war. Capra keeps the banter bouncing along with a sublime lightness.

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NOT RATED

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47. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Everett Collection

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Kubrick’s cathartically disturbing — and audiovisually addictive — shock classic is a cautionary tale of youthful hooligans that dares to put you in the jackboots of its punk-sociopath antihero.

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5 of 26

46. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Everett Collection

Directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley

The perfect old-fashioned lighthearted adventure, with swordplay that still sparkles. As Robin the noble bandit, Errol Flynn seems to be having the time of his life, and his spirit is infectious.

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6 of 26

45. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

Everett Collection

Directed by Frank Capra

Anyone who thinks that Capra was a softy should see this wrenching political fable, in which James Stewart, as a novice legislator, discovers — and filibusters to save — a Washington, D.C., as dysfunctional as our own.

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NOT RATED

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44. On the Waterfront (1954)

Everett Collection

Directed by Elia Kazan

Marlon Brando’s unforgettable performance as the longshoreman who ”coulda been a contender” defines Method acting at its most powerful and influential in this brilliantly tough study of dockside politics.

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NOT RATED

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43. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

Everett Collection

Directed by Peter Jackson

Jackson demonstrates the definitive way to translate a popular literary epic for the screen, with sweep and passion and grandeur. He conquers all of Middle-earth!

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PG-13

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42. Taxi Driver (1976)

Everett Collection

Directed by Martin Scorsese

Yes, he’s talkin’ to you. As Travis Bickle, Robert De Niro is pent-up and explosive in Scorsese’s mesmerizing look at how New York City’s scuzzy post-Vietnam streets tip a lonely cabbie toward violence.

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41. The Road Warrior (1981)

Everett Collection

Directed by George Miller

Mel Gibson rules as Mad Max in Miller’s speed-demon action Western in a postapocalyptic Aussie wasteland.

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11 of 26

40. Double Indemnity (1944)

Everett Collection

Directed by Billy Wilder

A delicious film noir, with Fred MacMurray as the ultimate tough sap and Barbara Stanwyck at the height of her powers.

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NOT RATED

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39. The Rules of the Game (1939)

Everett Collection

Directed by Jean Renoir

Renoir’s masterpiece of social satire, set among romping aristocrats at a country château, is part comedy, part tragedy, and totally sublime.

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NOT RATED

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38. Vertigo (1958)

Everett Collection

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

In Hitchcock’s romantic mystery, James Stewart is a detective whose lover (Kim Novak) dies and then comes back to life. It’s the master’s personal poem of longing.

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14 of 26

37. Manhattan (1979)

Everett Collection

Directed by Woody Allen

Allen’s finest portrait of brainy, artistic, neurotic, and deeply lovestruck New Yorkers. Gordon Willis’ black-and-white cinematography and the lush Gershwin score make every moment indelible.

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36. Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Everett Collection

Directed by Roman Polanski

More artful than The Exorcist (and just as disturbing), Polanski’s chiller gives you a magnificent case of the everyday shivers. Mia Farrow is a pregnant New Yorker who never suspects that the quirky old couple down the hall are Satan worshippers.

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35. Apocalypse Now (1979)

Everett Collection

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Coppola’s Vietnam saga is a psychedelic meditation on the evil that men do. The ”Ride of the Valkyries” helicopter attack may be the single most riveting sequence in any war film.

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34. Adam's Rib (1949)

Everett Collection

Directed by George Cukor

Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy play married lawyers arguing the opposite sides of a case — a perfect metaphor for marriage itself.

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NOT RATED

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33. The Graduate (1967)

Everett Collection

Directed by Mike Nichols

The story of a boy, a girl, and a Mrs. Robinson is one of the most revolutionary movies of the ’60s. As Benjamin Braddock, a lad torn between respectability and dropping out (and as confused about it as Hamlet), Dustin Hoffman redefined movie stardom.

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32. Duck Soup (1933)

Everett Collection

Directed by Leo McCarey

The Marx Brothers hit their uproarious, looney-tunes peak in this madcap vision of a political empire gone gleefully berserk.

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NOT RATED

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31. Chinatown (1974)

Everett Collection

Directed by Roman Polanski

Polanski’s moody, labyrinthine thriller about the dark side of 1930s Los Angeles is the richest of all of Hollywood’s political-corruption mazes.

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21 of 26

30. Sunrise (1927)

Everett Collection

Directed by F.W. Murnau

The most heart-wrenching and lyrical of all silent films, Murnau’s rapturous tale uses breathtakingly advanced cinematographic techniques to tell the story of a couple who must fall apart in order to come together.

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NOT RATED

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29. North by Northwest (1959)

Everett Collection

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Hitchcock’s globe-trotting suspense classic, starring Cary Grant as an innocent man mistaken for a spy. It’s the first true contemporary thriller, with an out-of-the-frying-pan existential wildness typified by the famous crop-dusting sequence.

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NOT RATED

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28. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Directed by Victor Fleming

The most powerfully odd and enchanting fairy tale to come out of Hollywood, the adventure of Dorothy in Oz has the enduring magic of a backlot daydream, with a shivery touch of nightmare in Margaret Hamilton’s performance as the Wicked Witch of the West.

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27. The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Everett Collection

Directed by John Huston

Film-noir perfection and the stuff that dreams are made of: Humphrey Bogart is Sam Spade, a detective entangled with a valuable carved bird, unsavory types who covet it, and a divinely shady dame. It was the amazing directorial debut of Huston, who went on to form a beautiful professional friendship with Bogart.

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NOT RATED

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26. Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Everett Collection

Directed by Vittorio De Sica

A workingman and his son look for the father’s stolen bicycle in De Sica’s gloriously simple story, the essential specimen of Italian neorealist style.

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NOT RATED

Replay gallery

Account

Movies: All-Time Greatest, Nos. 50-26

1 of 26

50. Intolerance (1916)

1 of 26

2 of 26

49. Goldfinger (1964)

2 of 26

3 of 26

48. It Happened One Night (1934)

3 of 26

4 of 26

47. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

4 of 26

5 of 26

46. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

5 of 26

6 of 26

45. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

6 of 26

7 of 26

44. On the Waterfront (1954)

7 of 26

8 of 26

43. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

8 of 26

9 of 26

42. Taxi Driver (1976)

9 of 26

10 of 26

41. The Road Warrior (1981)

10 of 26

11 of 26

40. Double Indemnity (1944)

11 of 26

12 of 26

39. The Rules of the Game (1939)

12 of 26

13 of 26

38. Vertigo (1958)

13 of 26

14 of 26

37. Manhattan (1979)

14 of 26

15 of 26

36. Rosemary's Baby (1968)

15 of 26

16 of 26

35. Apocalypse Now (1979)

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17 of 26

34. Adam's Rib (1949)

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18 of 26

33. The Graduate (1967)

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19 of 26

32. Duck Soup (1933)

19 of 26

20 of 26

31. Chinatown (1974)

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21 of 26

30. Sunrise (1927)

21 of 26

22 of 26

29. North by Northwest (1959)

22 of 26

23 of 26

28. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

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27. The Maltese Falcon (1941)

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26. Bicycle Thieves (1948)

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