Stanley Kubrick might not have released any films between 1987 and 1999, but it wasn't for the want of trying. Holocaust movie The Aryan Papers, a long-gestating project (is there any other kind with Kubrick?), was abandoned partly because it was depressing the shit out of him and partly because Steven Spielberg beat him to it, knocking out Schindler's List in roughly the time it took Kubrick to make a sandwich. And after a frustrating experience with unsatisfying screenplay drafts and crap special effects tests, Kubo also gave up on the futuristic robo-Pinocchio fairytale that would become A.I. Artificial Intelligence, handing it over to Spielberg in order to stop him pinching any more of his ideas.
But languishing at the back of the Kubemind since the late '60s was an idea for an adaptation of 1926 Austrian novella Traumnovelle: a weird and mildly horny parable about jealousy, faithfulness and - to quote Alan Partridge's PA Lynn Benfield - "sex festivals". With half an eye on the success of films like Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct, Kubrick decided it was time for his own take on the erotic thriller, so he grabbed the sexiest Hollywood couple he could get his hands on, hid all their clothes and made them stand around in the nip for over a year. The result, surprisingly, was his most mature film, and one which - were it not for the matter of his subsequent and really quite irritating death - should have heralded the beginning of Kubrick's late period.
Eyes Wide Shut begins with a full length shot of Nicole Kidman getting her bum out, and fap-happy cinemagoers the world over must have been overjoyed - and possibly a little daunted - at the thought of 165 more minutes of this kind of thing. But the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was luring you into a film with the promise of nearly three hours of uninterrupted clunge-plunging betwixt Kidman and her then-husband Tom Cruise, only to deliver a long and almost comically slow study of marital stamina and the nature of temptation. This is almost certainly the reason for Eyes Wide Shut's general reputation as a weird, unsexy disappointment, but the film benefits enormously from the recalibrated expectations of repeat viewings. I've only seen it three times, but it's a much more satisfying experience now than when I first saw it twenty years ago. Being married probably helps, but being older is the key.
Cruise and Kidman play the wealthy, beautiful and crushingly dull Bill and Alice Harford, a couple sleepwalking towards the end of their first decade of marriage. Bill is a doctor, and they're off to a Christmas party thrown by one of his obscenely super-rich patients, Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack). Separated during the course of the party, an increasingly tipsy Alice is the amused recipient of a silky smooth come-on from a Hungarian lothario, while Bill receives the flirty attentions of two models who seem entirely undeterred by his cringingly awful small talk, his insistence at laughing at his own shit lines ("That is the kind of hero I can be sometimes") and his freaky central upper incisor. It's our first hint that there are exterior forces threatening the Harfords' marriage, but while Alice declines to discover exactly how well Hungarian her admirer is, Bill seems quite happy to see how far his own morals will let him go.
He never finds out though, because the adulterous Ziegler needs help with Mandy, the nearly-dead, stark-naked prostitute he's been thrusting his ugly old self into in his bathroom while she - quite understandably - ingests massive amounts of narcotics. Ziegler and Mandy's affair, and her surprisingly matter-of-fact nudity, are early indicators of a secret, permissive society that exists outside Bill and Alice's (and, in the majority, the audience's) contained, rule-driven world. While Bill appears to take it in his professional stride, Pandora's box has been opened and his interest piqued. Kubrick's gallery of flawed male protagonists has acquired its final exhibit.
The following evening, Bill and Alice argue over the relative potential of husbands and wives to cheat on their spouses, which leads to Alice's confession that the previous year she came super close to leaving her husband and daughter for some random bloke in a sailor suit. Bill's pride is shattered, but before he can process what he's just heard the phone rings, precipitating the film's centrepiece: a nocturnal odyssey that sees him haul his wounded ego around New York (or at least a Pinewood-based, woozily unreal version of it), half-heartedly planning extramarital revenge on Alice for daring to think about another man.
This sequence takes in a bewildering array of events and emotions, shifting effortlessly from awkwardness in the presence of death, through uncomfortable will-he-or-won't-he with a prostitute, to outright farce as Bill attempts to stealthily procure an outfit from a costume shop while the proprietor catches his teenage daughter in flagrante delicto with two old Japanese transvestites. Its culmination, though - the centrepiece of the centrepiece - is the masked ball into which a curious Bill inveigles his way, and which sees Eyes Wide Shut taking a turn for the (literally) balls-out bonkers. Lynn: these are sex people.
Kubrick stages the orgy and its rituals with his maestro's ability to push absurdity to the very point just before it tips over into comedy. It helps that everybody in Eyes Wide Shut talks and moves at a glacial pace, as if they're wading through treacle, because if anybody got a shift on we'd be in Benny Hill territory by now. But Jocelyn Pook's ominous, backward-chanting score and Kubrick's stately command of the Steadicam imbue proceedings with deadly seriousness; it's probably why the sight of dozens of naked bodies (mostly women, it should be pointed out) and assorted organ-grinding feel about as sexy as a cup of cold tea. But it does feel dangerous, exciting and tempting, because we're in Bill's boots, not to mention his robe and mask. We've finally gained access to that secret world where anything goes, guilt doesn't exist, and the line between fantasy and reality is a murky, sexy blur. Kubrick taps into our basest, most dangerous desires, offering everything on a plate, and reels us in, helpless; he is truly a master baiter.
The orgy is so heightened and dreamlike that it could almost be a figment of Bill's imagination; a metaphor for temptation. It's certainly no coincidence that the password for entry is FIDELIO, Latin for 'fidelity' (although look closely when Bill's pianist pal writes the password on a napkin: Kubrick's penchant for multiple takes is evident in at least three different napkins intended to be the same one - the third of which actually says FEDILIO). But things come crashing back down to Earth when Bill is literally unmasked as an intruder and embarrassingly ejected, on the condition that a female guest takes his punishment. Bill seems uncharitably relaxed about this turn of events, but then that is the kind of hero he can be sometimes.
Bill's actions the following day are those of a man who doesn't seem to grasp how lucky he is to be alive (even though it's spelled out to him in a blaring headline on page one of the New York Times), but like all Kubrick's men, his notion that he's somehow in control of events is short-lived. Further attempts to get his end away are pathetic failures, death stalks him at every turn (a little over-dramatically, with that hammering piano following him around) and his old pal Victor reminds him exactly of his place, which is - as he's known all along - by his wife's side. The doors to Pandora's box are firmly shut in Bill's face and the poor bastard has to make do with his ludicrously fit missus offering to fuck him in Hamley's.
Stanley Kubrick died just a few days after finishing Eyes Wide Shut, thereby avoiding having to see it spectacularly misunderstood by audiences gagging for a glimpse of Cruisepeen and Kidmuff. True to form, every mystery his final film threw up remains resolutely unanswered at its climax, but the messages are clear and as perfect an epitaph to Kubrick's canon of visual essays on humanity as you could hope for. Never underestimate your own cosmic insignificance, never assume you're in control and never forget that man's eternal fate is self-destruction through hubris. But, in the words of Sydney Pollack's faux-wise old man: "Life goes on. It always does... until it doesn't. But you know that, don't you?"
Unbelievably (despite time being a constant), it's one-tenth of a century today since this ridiculous excuse for a website winked into existence. 1,168 blog posts later, somebody at The Incredible Suit HQ thought it would be a good idea to celebrate by collating the entire team's 100 favourite films and ranking them for you to ignore at your leisure. So we took all the votes, assigned points, divided the results by the total number of staff, fed the whole lot to a diarrhitic cow and what fell out of the other end can be found below.
Now this is very much a combination of what might loosely be described as "best" and "favourite" films, so yes it's quite Hitchcock-heavy, yes there are a few Bond films that probably won't be troubling the Sight & Sound top ten any time soon, and no Citizen Kane isn't in there even though it's obviously brilliant. It's just, what would you rather watch, Kane or Licence To Kill? Exactly.
So without further ado, and the obvious caveat that despite the wealth of knowledge and experience across the board, nobody at The Incredible Suit has seen all of the films ever made, here goes. See you in another ten years for the 100 worst films.
*
100. THE MACHINE THAT KILLS BAD PEOPLE (Roberto Rossellini, 1952)
Rossellini blends social commentary with commedia dell'arte in a politically turbulent post-war Italy; the result is as incisive and comprehensive a jab at human failings as you'll find in all of cinema. An underrated, underseen gem.
99. BARRY LYNDON (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
Long, slow and low on incident, yet hypnotically wonderful and - thanks mainly to Michael Hordern's droll voiceover - devilishly funny. Show me a better 18th century period tragicomedy and I'll pretend I can't hear you.
98. RAISING CAIN (Brian De Palma, 1992)
John Lithgow at his most deliciously hammy, a ridiculous surprise every five minutes and some inspired twists on De Palma's mandatory Hitchcock nods. The best film with a two-word title wherein the second word is, or is a slight variation of, "Cain".
97. DAISIES (Věra Chytilová, 1966)
The Thelma & Louise of the Czechoslavakian new wave tear society a new one in this gleefully provocative, adorably bonkers blast of kaleidoscopic anarchy. Features the kind of cinematic women I'd love to hang out with if I didn't think they'd eat me for breakfast.
96. PILLOW TALK (Michael Gordon, 1959)
Gloriously 1950s in its production design yet driven by surprisingly modern sexual attitudes, Pillow Talk boasts a crackling, innuendo-laden script in which Doris Day and Rock Hudson become embroiled in a hilarious battle of the sexes. Delightful.
95. THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (Robert Wiene, 1920)
A multi-layered murder-mystery set in a splintered, spiky dreamscape, this bastard-mad nightmare is a skewed comment on its own unique historical context and an undeniable template for the next century of filmmaking: Alfred Hitchcock and Tim Burton would have been fucked without it.
94. DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE (John McTiernan, 1995)
Obviously not a patch on the original, but this final film in the Die Hard series is a fitting end to the trilogy. It's a pity they never made any more Die Hard films, but there you go. Nothing lasts forever.
93. ANIMAL KINGDOM (David Michôd, 2010)
Michôd treats his audience with absolute respect in this intelligent and shattering drama about loyalty, conscience and finding your place in the world. Also features terrifying bastard Ben Mendelsohn at his most terrifyingly bastardy.
92. BATMAN BEGINS (Christopher Nolan, 2005)
More gripping and emotionally complex than the Burton/Schumacher years, Begins gave me everything I wanted from a Batflick: ferocious fight scenes, a Gotham City risen from Hell itself and a Batman who, if you met him in a dark alley, would actually make you do a poo in your trousers.
91. THE DARK KNIGHT (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
Nolan takes the duality motif that drives the Batman mythology and cranks it up to 11 in his sequel, but never lets the immense scale of his film overwhelm it. Obvious MVP: Heath Ledger, for straight up pretending Jack Nicholson never existed.
90. DRIVE (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011)
Genre-defying retro-neo-noir in which Ryan Gosling does very little apart from pootle about in a car and beat a few people up, but does it in such inimitable style and backed by an achingly hip soundtrack that it's impossible to take your eyes off him.
88. E.T. THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL (Steven Spielberg, 1982)
Like the best kids' films, E.T. deals with the misery of growing up: the magical twilight of the first half, with its faceless grown-ups (except for Mom) and literal wide-eyed optimism, gives way to a harshly-lit second full of mean adults, death and loss. Fun for all the family!
87. MEAN STREETS (Martin Scorsese, 1973)
Scorsese's youth splashed across the screen in deathly blacks and hellish reds. Evocative and original, this is effectively Ground Zero for both the Scorsese brand and decades of pale imitations to come.
86. LOLITA (Stanley Kubrick, 1962)
Kubrick makes you pity a paedophile in this indefinable oddity. Controversial, sure, but more importantly funny as fuck, with fully-drawn characters that blow Kubrick's false rep as a cold, dispassionate director out of the water.
85. THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940)
To me this is much richer than that other Jimmy Stewart Christmas film they keep banging on about: I love Lubitsch's effortless blend of frothy romcom with a darker edge that opens up the comedy like the bitters in a martini.
84. PADDINGTON 2 (Paul King, 2017)
As bursting with heart, charm and barely-tolerable delightfulness as its predecessor. Everything here is wonderful, from Peter Capaldi's all-too-brief turn as the Daily Mail in human form to Ben Whishaw's unfailingly affable delivery in his role as the ultimate care bear.
83. MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON (Maya Deren, 1943)
Deren's wacky avant-garde adventure still has the power to baffle and unsettle in equal measure. Unbelievable that chrome ping-pong-ball glasses didn't take off after this was released.
82. JAWS (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
I still maintain the first half is the best: the island-based tension, the pig-headedness of Mayor Vaughn (the film's true villain), Spielberg's impeccable deep staging and the terror that comes from never seeing the shark are all more fun than the second half's Alien-on-a-boat stuff. But, you know, it's Jaws.
81. THE LODGER: A STORY OF THE LONDON FOG (Alfred Hitchcock, 1927)
Hitchcock's first masterpiece: a mesmerising combination of German Expressionism, Hollywood stylings and distinctly British humour. Even Ivor Novello's decision to act like he has an awkwardly-shaped object stuck up his bum can't spoil the mood.
80. TRAINSPOTTING (Danny Boyle, 1996)
I don't actually remember most of the time I spent shooting up skag in mid-'90s Edinburgh, but Trainspotting is so exquisitely evocative of that time that I'm convinced I must have done.
79. THE CLOCK (Christian Marclay, 2010)
I'll be honest, I haven't seen it all (it's twenty-four hours long, do me a favour) but what I have seen was so unbelievably well done and dangerously addictive that there's no way it shouldn't be on this list.
78. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (Brian De Palma, 1996)
Still the best Mission, yeah whatever Chris McQuarrie. The Langley break-in is one of the greatest set-pieces in action cinema, and all that train stuff is fab too. Let's not talk about the "internet" bits.
77. ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (Peter Hunt, 1969)
Takes more risks than any Bond film before or since, and it's all the better for it. The first act plays out like a romantic melodrama and culminates in a full-on cheesegasm that sits oddly in the canon, but from then on it's vintage Bond action all the way to its shattering climax.
76. ROBOCOP (Paul Verhoeven, 1987)
Mild-mannered police officer Rob O'Cop is shot to shreds and reborn as a walking justice machine, with hilariously gory consequences! Verhoeven makes his villains so unbelievably horrible that every splattery death is air-punchingly satisfying.
75. THE FLY (David Cronenberg, 1986)
Stomach-churningly gross but razor sharp critique of the dangers of technological hubris, or useful primer on home preserving and pickling? Hard to say.
74. CLOVERFIELD (Matt Reeves, 2008)
Twenty minutes of zippy setup followed by fifty minutes of sheer balls-out action, nerve-shredding tension and sphincter-clenching terror. Found footage movies peaked with this, as did the Cloverfield franchise.
73. SKYFALL (Sam Mendes, 2012)
Probably the most thematically rich Bond film, with notions of honour, loyalty and mortality woven into almost every scene. Bond as a character and a franchise undergo some surprising existential evaluation before deciding that yes, it's all brilliant, keep up the good work. And then they made Spectre.
72. JURASSIC PARK (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
The grand convergence of all Spielberg's talents in one glorious, toothy package. Everything he ever did well, he does perfectly here, aided by across-the-board technical excellence in an opus of peerless entertainment.
71. SCHOOL OF ROCK (Richard Linklater, 2003)
Joan Cusack and a bunch of schoolkids hold their own against Jack Black at his Jackest Blackest. An absolute happy place of a film.
70. SPEED (Jan de Bont, 1994)
Absolutely shameless popcorn flick that has no right to be as good as it is, nor as emotionally affecting. Every time the bus ploughs through the pram I want to hold Sandra close and tell her it's fine, it's just full of cans. It's just full of cans.
69. THE LORD OF THE RINGS (Peter Jackson, 2001-2003)
Lumping the trilogy together because its constituent parts are beautifully consistent in tone and style, which is just one of the many things that makes it one of the greatest achievements in cinema. Maybe one day they'll make a film of The Hobbit?
68. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (Terence Young, 1963)
Shot through with paranoia, double-crosses and shadow-cloaked deaths at every turn, this is Bond's greatest Cold War adventure. The formula hasn't settled yet so it's not quite A James Bond Film, but it is a great film with James Bond in it.
67. BEFORE SUNSET (Richard Linklater, 2004)
Romantic idealism meets cold reality in a stream of Parisian waffle, and it's as lovely as (but, crucially, even shorter than) the first one.
66. THELMA & LOUISE (Ridley Scott, 1991)
Cinema's greatest female double act since Daisies leaves a trail of empowering, feminist destruction across the US and a scar across my heart. Makes me want to rush to the Grand Canyon with a massive net.
65. THE MAN WHO HAUNTED HIMSELF (Basil Dearden, 1970)
Roger Moore's best film, this sees him in a dual role as a starched exec and his mysterious, antagonistic doppelgänger, a womanising bounder intent on taking over his dull counterpart’s life. As mad as it sounds, and then some.
64. NOTORIOUS (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)
With impressively tight storytelling across a bare minimum of scenes, Hitchcock handles the script's various discoveries and revelations impeccably, driving the film to its perfect climax in typically classy style. Bergman and Rains are untouchable.
63. TOY STORY (John Lasseter, 1995)
It's one thing to make an entire film inside a computer; it's another thing entirely to make it THIS GOOD. I mean that computer must have been amazing, like a Spectrum 128K +2 or something.
62. MONSTERS, INC. (Pete Docter, 2001)
The point at which it became clear Pixar were just going to be tossing these masterpieces off like clipped toenails every couple of years. Imagine knowing then that they'd eventually be doing it every six months or so.
61. CASINO ROYALE (Martin Campbell, 2006)
Daniel Craig grabs James Bond by the lapels and turns him into a box office juggernaut, a sharply-dressed bricklayer and an emotional wreck. The long-term effect on the franchise is still anyone's guess, but as a standalone film this is one of the 21st century's greatest action movies.
60. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (Lynne Ramsay, 2011)
Possibly the most effective method of contraception on the market. If you still want kids after seeing this then you should probably consider some kind of therapy. Tilda Swinton predictably knocks it out of the park, but the three youngsters who play Kevin give the film its spine-chilling spine.
59. INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (Steven Spielberg, 1984)
Breathlessly exciting and gleefully dark se/prequel. Every fight and stunt matters, every set-piece is seared into action cinema lore and the script is emblematic of the wit that characterises the Golden Age of Spielberg. Temple Of Doom is Raiders' evil twin, and anyone who prefers Last Crusade is an unbearable goody-goody.
58. GOLDFINGER (Guy Hamilton, 1964)
Established the formula the series would employ repeatedly, with varying degrees of success, over the next forty-odd years, so cannot be underestimated. Every frame oozes impeccable style, 1960s cool and a sense of fun that mark it out as the definitive Bond Film.
57. THE APARTMENT (Billy Wilder, 1960)
Despicable, Fred MacMurray-wise; adorable, Jack Lemmon-wise; delightful, Shirley Maclaine-wise and wonderful, otherwise-wise.
56. BEFORE MIDNIGHT (Richard Linklater, 2013)
The best of the trilogy, only because it's so brutally honest and real. Hard as fuck to watch, mind, like seeing your mum & dad rowing (as in having a row, not rowing a boat).
55. THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS (John Glen, 1987)
Timothy Dalton reboots Bond as a vaguely realistic human being twenty years before audiences were ready for it. Audiences are fucken idiots.
54. LICENCE TO KILL (John Glen, 1989)
Dalton ensures that Ian Fleming's James Bond - largely absent from his own film series since From Russia With Love - makes a welcome reappearance in this, the best James Bond film shut up.
53. MOULIN ROUGE! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)
Like shoving a lit firework up your bottom and having it explode behind your eyeballs for two hours. Audacious contemporary songs and retina-terrorising production design combine with a beautiful, passionate love story. Also Nicole Kidman is well fit.
52. THE INCREDIBLES (Brad Bird, 2004)
Still one of Pixar's finest, with their most thrilling set pieces, the coolest music and Samuel L Jackson’s greatest ever scene, in which he attempts to locate his costume against the wishes of his obstreperous missus.
51. THE LADY VANISHES (Alfred Hitchcock, 1938)
A deliciously tongue-in-cheek love letter to Hitchcock's fellow countrymen, The Lady Vanishes simultaneously embraces and mercilessly lampoons the idiosyncracies of the English like a 1930s Paddington.
50. THE TERMINATOR (James Cameron, 1984)
The simplest of plots spiced up with a little cheeky time travel and some hilarious ultraviolence are all well and good, but Schwarzenegger knocks everything up a notch. Who can forget his brilliant catchphrase, "I'll come back later on, say 7ish"?
Absolutely belting wartime thriller that racks up more inventive set-pieces, humour and diabolical intrigue than most of its modern-day counterparts: the sixteen-minute Amsterdam sequence alone is slicker and more exciting than most of what Ethan Hunt or James Bond have managed recently.
48. X2 (Bryan Singer, 2003)
Roughly the point where superhero films stopped being silly and became epic, thoughtful metaphors for real-world issues. Also the point where it became clear that Hugh Jackman is a god amongst mortals.
47. SPIDER-MAN 2 (Sam Raimi, 2004)
Still the best Spidey film, mostly down to Doc Ock, who's written and played to perfection. Also my favourite superhero film; everything both amazing and shitty about being a super are in here. Looks exactly like a comic book, too.
46. REAR WINDOW (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
The way Jimmy Stewart pieces a murder mystery together from the available information is a delicious reflection of Hitchcock's own storytelling technique. A film about films, full of tiny cinema screens, told by a master manipulator.
45. INSIDE OUT (Pete Docter, 2015)
A party bag of visual delights backed up by Pixar's trademark emotional wallop, Inside Out packs enough of a punch to put you in intensive care at Feels General. A ridiculously triumphant comeback for the studio after a run of lesser films and a miserable hiatus.
44. BRIEF ENCOUNTER (David Lean, 1945)
The most buttock-clenchingly British film ever made, in which two painfully repressed toffs meet, fall in love when they shouldn't and fuck like Duracell bunnies whenever they're off camera. So classy.
43. PATHS OF GLORY (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
Kubrick's first masterpiece is a devastating, furious assault on the injustices committed in wartime in the name of patriotism. Staggering in all the best and worst ways, with Kirk Douglas magnetic as one of Stan's few heroes.
42. TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (James Cameron, 1991)
An object lesson in how to make a bigger, better sequel without shitting on the spirit of the original (all other Terminator films have failed to learn this lesson). Arnie is absolutely perfect; never has a star been so irreplaceable in a role.
41. SPIRITED AWAY (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
Everything Miyazaki cares about, and everything he was a master of, is woven into this film in exactly the right proportions, making it both the ideal introduction to his work and the definitive Miyazaki masterpiece.
40. TOY STORY 2 (John Lasseter, 1999)
Themes of friendship and belonging, wrapped in an existential crisis undergone by a cowboy doll made of pixels, masquerading as a hilarious action adventure. Still Pixar's greatest achievement, which is really saying something.
39. 12 ANGRY MEN (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
Gloriously sweaty courtroom drama about tolerance, selflessness and not being a prick that everyone who is an intolerant, selfish prick should watch. Henry Fonda is cinema's least exciting (but genuinely heroic) hero.
38. THE COLOR PURPLE (Steven Spielberg, 1985)
Whoopi Goldberg is terrific as the downtrodden housewife who just about keeps a slender grip on her pride in Spielberg’s first “grown up” film. The Colo(u)r Purple wrings joy from small kindnesses, lacing a potentially crushing experience with the sweet potential of hope. Cried my tits off.
37. THE BIRDS (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)
Hitchcock's fourth masterpiece in a row ends cinema's most phenomenal purple patch in technically breathtaking style. A story about men and women, mothers and children, and birds and bees. Mostly birds, to be fair. The clue's in the title.
36. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (George Cukor, 1940)
Delightfully perfect and perfectly delightful example of Hollywood's Golden Age at its goldenest. Jimmy Stewart's drunk chat with Cary Grant is bigger than Jesus.
35. FUNNY GAMES (Michael Haneke, 1997)
Enough to put you off films for life. (This is a recommendation)
34. ARRIVAL (Denis Villeneuve, 2016)
The kind of smart, elegant sci-fi that Christopher Nolan routinely overcomplicates. Takes time to get where it's going, but when it does, WOAH.
33. THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT (Jacques Demy, 1967)
The Frenchest thing I've ever seen, and also among the most delightful musicals. Michel Legrand's songs are ooh la la, Gene Kelly is magnifique and the serial killer subplot is incroyable.
32. TAXI DRIVER (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
A hallucinatory tale of shattering loneliness and misguided vengeance. Scorsese commands a din of inscrutable characters and mysterious stylings to accompany one man's descent from amusing social awkwardness to ferocious, guns-blazing psychopathy.
31. ALIENS (James Cameron, 1986)
Two ideologically-opposed mother figures snipe at each other like they're on a sci-fi Mumsnet, while James Cameron amps everything up for a change in this tremendous, balls-to-the-wall sequel.
30. PADDINGTON (Paul King, 2014)
A sweet, intelligent, tears-streaming-down-your-chops joy which celebrates and commemorates the idiosyncracies of the English with pinpoint accuracy.
29. TOP HAT (Mark Sandrich, 1935)
Almost unbearably delightful hoofer in which weapons-grade farce is deployed to bring Fred & Ginger together against all odds. Spellbinding dancing, gorgeous songs and high camp combine to spoil the audience rotten.
28. SCHINDLER'S LIST (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
Few directors have been in a position to adequately convey such inexplicable evil to a mass audience; Spielberg recognises and respects his awesome responsibility, and the result is a devastating lesson in the consequences of intolerance that's no less relevant now than it was 25 years ago.
27. GROUNDHOG DAY (Harold Ramis, 1993)
I've watched this over and over and over and over and over again but no matter what I do, it always ends up being hilarious, touching and totally brilliant.
26. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1952)
An absolutely charming film, full of delightful songs and dances, that whimsically tells the tale of how three smug bastards conspire to publicly humiliate and destroy the career of an established actress, leading to her offscreen depression and eventual suicide.
25. KING KONG (Merian C Cooper & Ernest B Schoedsack, 1933)
Few monster movies have come close to the genius of the genre's grandaddy; most of them fail hopelessly at the first roar. Kong oozes personality thanks to the groundbreaking special effects, and that's why he's King.
24. 12 YEARS A SLAVE (Steve McQueen, 2013)
An astonishing true story of tenacity and endurance so harrowing and excruciating that it's near-unbearable, yet buoyed by hope and the kindness that exists in a world of horror.
23. GROSSE POINTE BLANK (George Armitage, 1997)
There's a reason why I connect with this film so hard but I'm not sure I want to know what it is. Cinema's most enjoyable existential crisis, featuring an adorable pair of leads with genuine chemistry, flawless support all round and shit hot action ("Thank you for the pen"), all set to a catalogue of '80s bangers. Popcorn!
22. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
Alfredson pitches every moment of horror and trope of vampire lore with the accuracy of a marksman, slowly but inexorably building towards that triumphant and deliriously satisfying swimming pool scene. Gorgeously terrifying.
21. NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (Jared Hess, 2004)
Everything about this weird little gem is adorable. It has a bigger heart than romcoms and love stories with ten times the budget, and it's ridiculously funny to (sweet moon)boot. I love it like Tina loves ham.
20. DIE HARD (John McTiernan, 1988)
Nobody puts a glass-shredded foot wrong in this masterpiece of tension, wit and perplexing F-bombs. Still no idea what “I’ll kiss your FUCKIN’ dalmatian!” is supposed to mean.
19. THE GODFATHER PART II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
A sequel that fucked with the rules of what sequels were supposed to be, GF2 expands the Corleone legacy in every direction, all of them amazing.
18. THE GODFATHER (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
This insanely ambitious and lavish epic is so rich in detail and character that you can't afford it. Michael Corleone's arc might be the greatest combination of writing and acting in all of cinema. All critics please note I am putting this and Part II separately because THEY ARE TWO TOTALLY DISTINCT FILMS.
17. GOODFELLAS (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
Breathlessly entertaining and unconventionally structured, GoodFellas feels like the picture Scorsese had been building to since film school. A handful of his movies since have come close, but this would be the Lufthansa heist of his career: spectacular, audacious and long-investigated.
16. ALIEN (Ridley Scott, 1979)
Unbearably atmospheric pant-shitter that launched the movies' greatest heroine / villain combo. Shame Ridley Scott shat all over his own legacy worse than George Lucas ever did.
15. RAGING BULL (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
Scorsese put himself into therapy with Raging Bull: a bruising comeback fight that spatters the director's own self-destructive tendencies across the canvas in stark, unforgiving monochrome.
14. THE GENERAL (Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, 1926)
Buster Keaton’s greatest comedy is as dazzling now as it was 93 (NINETY-THREE) years ago. Still hard to believe it was all done for real, but it’s that blend of breathtaking stunts and timeless wit that makes it what it is, which is the 14th best film I’ve ever seen.
13. STAR WARS (George Lucas, 1977)
Still as magically exciting, beguiling and brilliant as ever. Obviously nostalgia is a massive variable in the Star Wars Amazingness Formula, but let's be honest, EVERYTHING works here.
12. THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (Irvin Kershner, 1980) The Empire Strikes Back deserves every ounce of pomp heaped on it over the last 40 years, and I'm not about to change that. Every character and their connections to each other are deepened, the significance of every action is dramatically weighty and everything is accomplished with cast iron confidence.
11. PSYCHO (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
So Hitchcock it hurts, but Psycho is very much a team effort: the slicing score, crisp, high-contrast cinematography, flawless editing and Anthony Perkins' bewitching performance all stamp their own mark on the film. Even Janet Leigh's mascara feels like it should get its own credit.
10. THE 39 STEPS (Alfred Hitchcock, 1935)
Perhaps Hitchcock's most efficient thriller: an episodic odyssey in which an innocent chump-on-the-run is bounced from one adventure to another like an immaculately-moustachioed pinball, it swings from tragedy to comedy with breathless economy.
9. NORTH BY NORTHWEST (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
A Bond film from the girl's point of view, with Cary Grant as the girl and Eva Marie Saint as the secret agent using sex to further the mission. Hitchcock's slickest version of The 39 Steps surfs a rogue wave of ludicrous fun from start to finish.
8. ROPE (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948)
Lip-smacking chamber piece about the smug entitlement of the over-privileged, and therefore never not relevant. Jimmy Stewart is incredible as the smart-arse who inadvertently radicalises a sycophantic psychopath; his final speech, in which he tries to extricate himself from his own terrible responsibility, is spine-tingling.
7. SE7EN (David Fincher, 1995)
The last great serial killer movie, and one which is as grand and horrific a statement of intent from its director as John Doe’s gruesome, misguided retribution is.
6. THE SHINING (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
Not many horrors on this list because I’m a massive pussy and they’re mostly rubbish, but The Shining gets everything just right in its quest to entertain and terrify. It crawls under my skin and slowly picks my nerves apart until I can barely take it.
5. CASABLANCA (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
I always get depressed after watching Casablanca because it feels like nothing else could possibly be as good so what’s the point? Turns out there are four films just as good, if not better, so this list hasn’t been a complete waste of time after all. (Narrator: "It has")
4. BACK TO THE FUTURE (Robert Zemeckis, 1985)
Proof that if your script is good enough (and this one is flawless), you can make a great family film about a teenager who hangs around with a weird old man and actively encourages his mum to try and fuck him.
3. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (Steven Spielberg, 1981)
Heroes don't get more heroic than Indiana Jones, and his first outing is the greatest action adventure of all time, combining thrills and LOLs with copious Nazi-punching and Harrison Ford's winning everyman performance.
2. VERTIGO (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
A tall tale about a tall tale, with manipulated actors and sadistic directors in both, Vertigo's storytelling audacity and refusal to limit the depths to which it plunges its characters make it Hitchcock's most awful, brilliant achievement.
1. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Kubrick's greatest triumph is a beautiful, terrifying mindfuck that asks all the biggest questions and answers precisely none (except how to do a poo in zero gravity). For a film with almost no plot and whose only interesting character is a computer, It's a miracle 2001 is even watchable, let alone THE GREATEST FILM EVER MADE ACCORDING TO THE INCREDIBLE SUIT WHICH IS TEN YEARS OLD TODAY.
*
What have I missed? What should be number one? What have I got against the MCU? Leave your valued comments in the goddamn toilet where they belong.
Lukewarm on the heels of my all-consuming Alfred Hitchcock project, I spent much of 2016 rewatching (and, in some cases, having my first go on) the films of bearded genius and double-denim advocate Steven Spielberg. The Berg's first official theatrical release, The Sugarland Express, came out the year I was born, so it logically follows that he's been making films specifically for me for my whole life, and for that I am eternally grateful.
It's impossible to underestimate the impact Stevo has made on both the global cinematic landscape and on me as a tedious film nerd; anyone who grew up in the cinema in the '80s will know that he was always there, whether directing or producing, presenting you with an invaluable gift or two each year by which you would come to define your childhood. And having reeled us in as kids and teens with aliens, archaeologists and dinosaurs, he ensured an in-built audience for his grown-up tales of war, slavery and terrorism.
Watching his thirty features, it wasn't how few duffers (let's say eight for the sake of argument) or works of sheer genius (seven) he's directed that struck me, so much as the other half of his output in between: a rock-solid brick wall of beautifully-crafted, endlessly engaging stories, any one of which most directors would kill to have created in their career. These are the films it's hardest to rank, suggesting that this entire exercise might have just been a complete waste of time ahahahahaha.
So here goes, and don't @ me because I've included Duel; despite being made for TV it did eventually get a theatrical release, and besides it's precisely one spillion times more cinematic than most telly was in the early '70s. OK? Good. Let's Bergolate!
30.
2016
If further proof were required of just how awful 2016 was, then the fact that it vomited up Steven Spielberg's worst film is it. Both Sophie and BFG lack any of the charisma with which Roald Dahl imbued them, the giants are all lifelong residents of the uncanny valley, and the innovation and inspiration of E.T. or Tintin - this film's closest cousins - have utterly eluded Spielberg here. It's a limp, lifeless slog through scenes that drag on for days without any sense of urgency or aim, and the absence of any kind of momentum is deeply concerning. And like Hook and War Horse before it, The BFG dishes up another example of Spielberg's comically romanticised, chocolate-box idea of England, making you wonder why Sophie would ever want to leave it to live with a man whose bogeys are bigger than she is.
29.
1987
This is Spielberg's third film tinkering around the edges of World War II, as if he's gently prodding the beast before plucking up the courage to launch the full-scale assaults of Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan on it. He hasn't quite worked out his plan of attack yet though, and Empire Of The Sun fails to adequately convey both the geopolitical situation of Japanese-occupied China and the microcosmic story of JG Ballard's own personal war. A disjointed, uncertain and consequently dull meander through Ballard's memoirs, it hinges on the performance of young Christian Bale, who - while never bad - is largely unlikeable and annoying. Spielberg lets his visual metaphors get out of hand too, many of them feeling more at home in a soft rock music video than a wartime drama.
28.
1979
Exhausting levels of visual carnage and prolonged shouting characterise this blip in Spielberg's otherwise solid run of early films. The lightness of touch he usually combines with megabudget spectacle evades him on this occasion, and while watching an entire house fall off a cliff (for example) might be fun, it's not necessarily funny. The dance hall sequence is a blast though, and while it's hard to identify with most of the characters, I can, at least, fully appreciate the appeal of getting Nancy Allen into an aeroplane.
27.
2008
It isn't that Harrison Ford's too old for this shit, it's that this shit's too old for Harrison Ford. There's enough charm in the franchise and fizz in Spielberg's bottle to make this work if only the script wasn't so dumb and overwritten: the trail of the crystal skull is needlessly complicated, both Mutt and Mac are dead weights to the plot, and there's more than one unnecessary set-piece that ends with our heroes exactly where they were when it began. Spielberg's comic-strip compositions rekindle a little of the magic, but he loses his touch in the drawn-out jeep chase and his over-reliance on CGI. CG gophers are one thing, but CG scorpions, CG ants, CG monkeys and - most egregiously - CG fucking aliens make you yearn for the spiders, bugs and snakes of what I fear we may soon be referring to as The Original Trilogy.
26.
2011
After the breathless excitement of Tintin it only seems logical that Spielberg might want to spend half an hour showing a bloody horse ploughing a bloody field, but personally I could have done without it. Everything post-plough marathon is fine though, provided you're an incredibly patient under-12-year-old; as the equine Forrest Gump leads us through a bloodless first world war, carrying us from one syrupy tale of human kindness to another, only the cynicism-free innocence of a child could stand the amount of cheese that flows from every frame. Tremendous to see Hiddleston and Cumberbatch go head-to-head, but otherwise I could cheerily boil this down for glue.
25.
1991
There's magic sprinkled all over the place here, from the riotous production design to John Williams' swashbuckling score, but even the happiest thoughts can't make Hook fly. Its middle is as flabby as Peter Banning's (A HUNDRED MINUTES elapse before Peter fully Pans out) and Robin Williams is miscast, looking understandably uncomfortable in those tights. Hoffman gives good sneer though, Julia Roberts is delightful, and it's fun to see the genesis of Jurassic Park's lawyer-munching scene in Captain Hook's death-by-croc-from-above.
24.
1997
Part 1 of Spielberg's The Trouble With Slavery double bill is an even lower-key affair than Lincoln, to the point of being bone dry for much of its running time. A harrowing flashback at the mid-point injects some much-needed emotional fuel, and from then on Amistad becomes a semi-gripping depiction of the neverending fight for justice in the face of entrenched bigotry. Perhaps for the first time in his career, Spielberg's Spielbergery is kept to a respectful minimum, the performances (notwithstanding Anthony Hopkins' hammed-up, accent-ambivalent John Quincy Adams) doing the talking instead. Worthy, but lacking the watchability of the equally noble Schindler's List.
23.
2004
This Chaplinesque oddity begins well, before descending into an overstretched 'What if...?' scenario that can't satisfactorily answer its own question. What could have been an incisive allegory for the immigrant experience (particularly post-9/11) gets bogged down in a tedious romantic subplot and an unsustainable personal war between The Little Guy and The Man. Tom Hanks handles the physical comedy well but his casting as an Eastern European outsider is uncomfortable, reminding you that Spielberg is often risk-averse with his leading roles (he's never cast a person of colour as the lead in a film that isn't specifically about people of colour). Still, nice to see Zoë Saldana as a Trekkie, five years before she played Uhura.
22.
1989
A rickety, insubstantial machine powered by the twin engines of Richard Dreyfuss and Holly Hunter at their most lovable, Always is Spielberg's barely-concealed dream of working in Hollywood's golden age come true. Unashamedly romantic and absolutely awash with cheese, it doesn't stand up to much scrutiny (Dreyfuss' replacement in Hunter's affections, Brad Johnson, is a charisma vacuum; Marg Helgenberger disappears mid-movie) but is as good a way as any to spend a couple of hours having your heartstrings tugged at by a master heartstring-tugger.
21.
1997
There's as much daftness in Jurassic Park as there is in its unfairly-overlooked sequel, it's just hidden less well here. Granted, the story doesn't take us anywhere new (barring the misjudged San Diego excursion), but the darker tone - which matches Spielberg's only other Part 2, Temple Of Doom - and the masterful execution of the set pieces are enough to warrant the film's existence. Jeff Goldblum makes for a refreshing anti-action hero, arguably underwritten but magnetic enough not to be overshadowed by the CG spectacle surrounding him.
20.
1998
Spielberg's first men-on-a-mission movie is, of course, not a men-on-a-mission movie at all, but a real-individual-human-beings-with-lives-dreams-and-mothers-on-a-mission movie. Like Captain Miller's quest to find one man among tens of thousands of soldiers, though, the script's search for the individual among the many is worthy but beset with hurdles. Every cross in that Normandy graveyard is a person, Spielberg says, but it's tough to identify with any of them bar Jeremy Davies' Corporal "they don't like it" Upham, and a quarter of the film is over before we're plucked from Miller's safe (if shaky) arms and handed over to the one character who reacts like most of us would in a warzone.
The battle scenes are an undeniably visceral cinematic achievement, but without a consistent pair of eyes to see them through or any characters to truly cling to, Saving Private Ryan is ultimately "just" a very well-made war film. Without any disrespect to Davies, a 25-year-old Tom Hanks as Upham and a 45-year-old hardass like, say, Clint Eastwood as Miller, might have put this a step closer to achieving its mission.
19.
2002
There's an exceptional murder-mystery-slash-chase-movie with a futuristic spin screaming to be set free from the shackles of a Tom Cruise summer blockbuster here. Cruise's presence (and, in fairness, his ownership of the rights to the story) undoubtedly got the film made - and made by Steven Spielberg - but a couple of the set-pieces are blatantly crowbarred in to please plot-phobic audience members and sell a few videogames. Still, the world-building is flawless, the eye motif is fun and Colin Farrell's angry palm-punching is never not hilarious. I could have done without the aggressively twee coda (success and happiness can only be achieved with a complete family unit), and any commentary about the saturation of advertising in the future is self-defeating when it requires intrusive product placement (Nokia are doing surprisingly well in 2054), but it's great to see Spielberg find his fun mojo again after the sentimentality of Saving Private Ryan and A.I..
18.
2012
So dry and bewildering for its first hour that it virtually challenges you to keep watching (I've gone into both my viewings armed with this invaluable primer), Lincoln's rewards for the tenacious are plentiful. Not the least of these, naturally, is Daniel Day-Lewis' mesmerising performance, even if he often seems to be performing a deeply earnest one-man show while Tommy Lee Jones is providing the bulk of the entertainment elsewhere. Every frame feels so steeped in authenticity that watching the 13th Amendment being passed genuinely feels like witnessing history in the making, and the despondency of emerging from an age of hard-won social progress into the cold reality of Planet Trump is tough to bear.
17.
2015
A low-key but perfectly-crafted Cold War drama, Bridge Of Spies often feels more like Janusz Kaminski's film than Steven Spielberg's. While it's hard to fault any of Kaminski's work with The Berg, every frame of this is impressionistic eyeball sex of the most arousing order. It helps that the costume and set design are equally classy; the deep blues and expensive mahoganies of the early scenes - in sharp contrast to the cold greys of the Berlin sections - are divine to behold. Meanwhile Spielberg turns out another lesson in the importance of liberal values at a time when the world needs them more than ever, and sure enough, the world completely ignored him. Just imagine if it hadn't: Trump would've gone away and we'd all be wearing sensible cardigans like Tom Hanks does.
16.
1977
It's more successful as a lyrical but lightweight story about extraterrestrial contact than a study of obsession (and it seems to want to be both), but CE3K sure looks purty and sounds incredible; the early sightings are beautifully eerie while the third act is a full-on John Williams operagasm. I would love to see a special feature in which Vilmos Zsigmond presents his receipt for lightbulbs to Columbia for reimbursement.
15.
1971
Spielberg's (eventual) theatrical debut, a Hitchcockian Twilight Zone episode teased out to feature length, sees the 25-year-old director already letting rip with a fearlessly kinetic camera and lughole-troubling sound design. You can see him experimenting with lenses to remarkable effect, and his natural eye for a shot is, at this stage, an unhoned but powerful tool. To me (although Spielberg and writer Richard Matheson say otherwise), Duel is a hugely unsubtle metaphor about threatened masculinity, with the beefy, macho truck being the first of Spielberg's unstoppable forces (cf. sharks, dinosaurs, Nazis) to be overcome if man - or, in this case, Mann - is going to win back his place in the world. A little overlong and repetitive in places, but it's still the best film to feature a roadside gas-station-slash-herpetarium.
14.
2002
The Bergomeister finds a new twist for his dysfunctional family motif in the tale of a boy running away from one father into the arms of another, albeit somewhat circuitously (if only Tom Hanks' Carl Hanratty and Christopher Walken's Frank Abagnale Sr had just moved in together, this could have been Spielberg's own My Two Dads). Frank Jr's unwitting search for a new family floats on a breeze of effortless storytelling here, punctuated by adoring snapshots of '60s pop culture and the slickly deceptive luxury escapism found in the Pan Am and James Bond brands. Arguably a better film now than on release thanks to the 26-year-old in pigtails and braces who went on to become Amy Adams.
13.
1974
Goldie Hawn is off-the-scale adorable in this deceptively charming road trip caper, with William Atherton a revelation for those of us (i.e. me) who only know him as a pompous prick from the likes of Ghostbusters and Die Hard. Sugarland's trump card, though, is its cast of supporting characters: a menagerie of sharply-crafted bit players, each given a rich vignette or two to enhance the overall comedy. The film's rep has suffered in the shadow of Spielberg's higher-concept fare, but it's obvious that in lesser hands this would have been even more forgotten by now.
12.
2001
Kubrickian pessimism and Spielbergian optimism blend surprisingly well in this worryingly just-about-believable vision of what will happen when Apple finally get around to the iChild. Moral and ethical quandaries taint Spielbrick's uncannily realised world with an eerie discomfort about what we're capable of, matched only by the freaky weirdness conjured up by Haley Joel Osment (surely Stan Winston's greatest animatronic creation). A beautiful film but also a touching tribute to a friend; if anyone was going to bring Stanley Kubrick back to life for a heartbreakingly brief amount of time, it was Steven Spielberg.
11.
2005
Inevitably simplifying a complex operation which took place against an unfathomably bewildering political background, Munich is easily accused of boiling its delicate subject matter down to Eurotrip for amateur assassins. But Spielberg's grown-up dramas have always been about the situation in microcosm; conflict internalised in small groups or individuals. It's his way of humanising the inhuman, and although it's not very subtle here, it is very effective. Personal morals and ethics are stirred into the alphabet soup of international agencies until they dissolve completely, leaving behind only the acrid taste of paranoia.
Even without the presence of one James Bond and two Bond villains (Michael Lonsdale and Mathieu Amalric - playing father and son, no less), Munich would be a fascinating alternative view of government-sponsored killers inhabiting "a world of intersecting secrecies". The futility of knocking off a bad guy only for two more to take his place, combined with the reality of never truly knowing why you're doing the job, fosters the kind of existential crisis that would have driven Bond insane years ago. Spielberg's depressingly obvious conclusion that state-sanctioned violence is eternally self-perpetuating is hauntingly conveyed in the film's final shot, and reveals a bleak despair that suggests his more fun films are as much escapism for him as they are for us.
10.
2005
An exceptionally-crafted disaster movie with jaw-dropping scenes of destruction and carnage, War Of The Worlds - cannily appropriating HG Wells' double meaning of the title to subtly nod at ideological as well as interplanetary conflict - also functions as one of the smartest post-9/11 films to come out of Hollywood. Under attack from malevolent, unimaginably patient and calculating metaphors, humanity's survival instinct is laid bare in its best and worst forms, and Spielberg frequently confronts us with actions of barbaric selfishness with which we cannot help but empathise.
The script stumbles slightly in abandoning the hero's reactionary, gung-ho son once he's fulfilled his symbolic purpose, but given that the remarkable 11-year-old Dakota Fanning is doing all the heavy lifting he isn't missed. And, as with Minority Report, Tom Cruise's presence is a necessity born of the fact that he brought the project to Spielberg but highlights the sense that a better, lesser-known actor might have pulled us further into the film's world.
9.
2011
After a three-year gap to let the stench of Crystal Skull dissipate, Spielberg's comeback was everything Indy used to be: breathless, air-punching adventure from beginning to end. The performance-capture format was a bold move but there's simply no other way this could have worked, and you can feel The Berg's excitement at its possibilities in every frame (not least in that glorious 152-second shot that crowns the tremendous escape from Bagghar). The wait for a sequel continues to rank as one of the worst experiences mankind has ever faced.
8.
1989
A few too many misfiring gags in the first half and an overdependence on getting to another set piece as soon as possible still can't cancel out the winning charm of Lucas, Spielberg and Ford's timeless creation. Casting James Bond as Indiana Jones' Dad is inspired, and more than makes up for the weak villain and villainess. Vic Armstrong's incredible stunt work and the mighty John Williams help make Last Crusade eternally re-watchable, but it's the most dated of the original trilogy. See, I told you we'd all be calling it that soon.
7.
1982
Spielberg's inner child was never more visible than in this tale of a young boy and his intergalactic alcoholic botanist chum. Like the best kids' films, it deals with the misery of growing up: the magical twilight of the first half, with its faceless grown-ups (except for Mom) and literal wide-eyed optimism, gives way to a harshly-lit second full of mean adults, death and loss. Spielberg never forgets the simple innocence of children though, and sees it in every three-quarter lit profile shot of their faces.
6.
1975
As incredible an achievement as this simple tale of a hungry, tuba-playing fish is, I've always felt it loses momentum when it heads out to sea to become Alien on a boat. I miss the island-based tension, the pig-headedness of Mayor Vaughn (the film's true villain), Spielberg's impeccable deep staging and the terror that comes from never seeing the shark. That said, John Williams' score more than makes up for any of Jaws' second-half deficiencies, plugging the gaps where the director's catastrophically unreliable mechanical star let him down. For some reason we still appear to be waiting for Jaws Origins: Quint; this doesn't count.
5.
1993
Welcome... to peak Spielberg: the grand convergence of all the director's talents in one glorious, toothy package. Everything he ever did well, he does perfectly here, demonstrating the finest control over audiences since Alfred J Hitchcock popped his chubby clogs. If the exposition's a little clunky and the plot occasionally nonsense, it simply doesn't matter: Spielberg conducts a symphony of across-the-board technical excellence (of which Gary Rydstrom's eviscerating sound design deserves top billing) that drowns out any flaws in an opus of peerless entertainment. Having said all that, he still made four films that are even better.
4.
1984
I suppose you have to take the questionable ethnic representations and woefully underserved female character in the spirit of the serials and adventures that inspired the Indy films, lest they overshadow what is a breathlessly exciting and gleefully dark se/prequel. Every fight and stunt matters, every set-piece is seared into action cinema lore and the script (barring Screamin' Willie Scott's near-constant wailing) is emblematic of the wit that characterises the Golden Age of Spielberg. Temple Of Doom is Raiders' evil twin, and anyone who prefers Last Crusade is an unbearable goody-goody.
3.
1985
Whoopi Goldberg is terrific in her first screen role as punchbag and doormat to a hardscrabble existence in early 20th century Georgia. Spielberg transforms the gobby New York stand-up into a shy, downtrodden housewife who just about keeps a slender grip on her pride in the director’s first “grown up” film, retaining his effortless visual storytelling tics and necessary sense of humour despite the bleak subject matter. The Colo(u)r Purple wrings joy from small kindnesses, lacing a potentially crushing experience with the sweet potential of hope, but despite all that I definitely did not cry. (I definitely did)
2.
1993
Twelve years after Raiders Of The Lost Ark, SS takes on the SS again - and this time it's war. Schindler's List is a masterclass in balancing tone under the trickiest conditions: it effortlessly shifts from heartbreaking poignancy to unflinching brutality, even finding time for some refreshing LOLs along the way (some of Spielberg's best visual gags can be found in the first hour of this otherwise sombre epic). There's a sense that, in Spielberg's vision, the necessarily horrific depictions of the ghetto liquidation and Płaszów concentration camp took precedence over really understanding Oskar Schindler, but it hardly matters; few directors in the history of cinema have been in a position to adequately convey such inexplicable evil to a mass audience. Spielberg recognises and respects his awesome responsibility, and the result is a devastating lesson in the consequences of intolerance that, tragically, is no less relevant now than it was then.
1.
1981
I've spent my life digging around in this movie for that most elusive of artefacts: a flaw. I'm calling off the search now though, because Raiders is the perfect film - not just my favourite Spielberg, but probably my favourite film ever. Never have a character and actor been so impeccably matched as Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford; John Williams and Douglas Slocombe are right at the top of their considerable games, and Lawrence Kasdan's script is as loving a tribute to its inspirations in serial film as is possible. Tying all this and more together with unlimited invention, charm and wit, Spielberg makes up for previous disaster 1941 and earns himself a Get Out Of Jail Free card for every future indiscretion. Roll on Indy 5! (*crosses everything*)
