The 100 Best Movies Ever Made

Rebecca (1940) Hitchcock's brilliant argument that there's nothing spookier than marriage.

The Road Warrior (1981) This fun, economical, smirk-free epic of heroic post-Apocalyptic individualism wasn't made in Hollywood because it couldn't have been. Director George Milier's renovation of the loner genre was so good it won't need a new coat of paint for a long time. Especially not from Kevin Costner.

Schindler's List (1993) Who the hell would've thought that immature, moneybags director Steven Spielberg would make a movie that is (a) a serious, grown-up film, and (b) the best movie made by Hollywood in years?

The Searchers (1956) This Western soaper cannot be dismissed (even by us). That door at the finale has reverberating echoes Ibsen only dreamt of.

Shadow of a Doubt (1943) It may be Hitchcock, it may be black-and-white, it may be realistic in style, but it's still the original Blue Velvet.

Shampoo (1975) A Beverly Hills black comedy/soaper closer to Judith Krantz than Molière. Admirably lacerating self-portraits by the entire cast. An entertaining warning against taking Hollywood's political opinions seriously.

Sherlock, Jr. (1924) You'd have selected Buster Keaton's other silent marvel, The General? We prefer this sweet romantic comedy, which provides stunning proof that just about every movie special effect--save morphing--was in-vented by Keaton back in '24.

Singin' in the Rain (1952) In an extraordinarily happy accident, Gene Kelly's de rigueur forced sunniness fails to disguise his steely, "I' d-kill-to-get-ahead" megalomania, which adds a needed touch of truth, and ballast, to what otherwise might have merely been the most entertaining of all show-biz musicals.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) The first of Disney's animated features remains un-equaled in its charm, heart and pure terror--to this day, we've never taken an apple from a stranger.

Some Like It Hot (1959) The "girls" in Tootsie, Priscilla, Wang Foo et al., cannot hope to match, let alone diminish, the stature of Billy Wilder's expertly constructed farce--nor do the latecomers have any-thing like this film's trio of generally uneven stars, each here at career-peak best.

A Star Is Born (1954) Long, Tinseltown soaper closer to Sidney Sheldon than Euripides. Nevertheless, Moss Hart's screen-play makes you understand why Hollywood marriages don't ever work out. Judy Garland, James Mason and director George Cukor are all at the top of their game.

Strangers on a Train (1951) A searing cautionary tale about the advisability of chatting with people to whom one has not been properly introduced--it turns out your mother was right about that.

Sullivan's Travels (1941) This film about a too-successful comedy director who decides to disguise himself as a bum to get the experience he needs for the big "important" movie he feels he must make indulges in its own seriousness and overly-good intentions, but it ends up coming down solidly on the side of laughs (thanks to writer/director Preston Sturges), beauty (thanks to Veronica Lake) and self-effacing modesty (thanks to Joel McCrea).

Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971) An incisive screenplay and excel-lent direction chillingly demonstrate why most gay relationships fail to last--straight and bi ones, too, for that matter.

Sunrise (1927) Murnau's silent has just got to be more interesting than whatever you saw last weekend at the plex. The poetic cinematography by Oscar-winners Karl Struss and Charles Rasher makes Janet Gaynor's feat in ascending above a thankless role all the more amazing, and puts a definite thrill into George O'Brien's transformation from homicidal lout to reborn romantic.

Sunset Blvd. (1950) This valentine to the vagaries of who's up and who's down in the crapshoot that is Hollywood was dipped in acid, giving the black comedy an acrid air of hard-won home truths.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957) Power-crazed media figure comes to regret helping assorted ungrateful unknowns to become stars. A film so close to our own experience at Movie line, we have to go lie down now.

Swing Time (1936) Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Jerome Kern-- all this, plus the art deco dream of the Big Apple. Sublime nonsense, but oh, that fancy footwork!

The Third Man (1949) Carol Reed's vertiginous direction and Robert Krasker's eerie photography take the dark, Post-WWII story of a supposed good guy turned murderous war profiteer on the 1 am in Vienna, and make it so brilliantly black it's like a one-film negation of Victory in Europe.

The 39 Steps (1935) The deceptive speed with which this charming thriller races along remains a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, yes, but also to two of the most charismatic players he ever worked with: Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) This story about how children look at and learn from the world around them, told through the lens of racial injustice in a Southern town, is proof that the best way for well-intentioned filmmakers to move audiences toward generosity is to curb Hollywood's natural inclinations--over-spending, oversimplification, and over-reliance on cheap emotion.

Touch of Evil (1958) Well, more than a touch, actually. The whole subject is evil. Orson Welles, who plays a big, fat, corrupt cop, also directed. The result is a giant, baroque bad-mood piece in which everything is shot creepier-than-life. Certainly no other director would have dared to shoot Welles as unattractively as he appears here.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) Greedy, seedy, badly dressed men behaving unforgivably in a desolate landscape. In other words, virtually our Bible on what to expect here in Hollywood. John Huston's finest hour, not least because he brooked no star non-sense from the cast.

Trouble in Paradise (1932) Ernst Lubitsch's glittering gem about jewel thieves is perfection--the most sophisticated and the most comic of all sophisticated comedies.

True Lies (1994) Go ahead, laugh, but 10 years ago Blade Runner seemed tike no one's idea of a classic, either. Given our divorce-torn times, this movie's downright radical message--that your dream male is right there next to you in the partner you're taking for granted--is a daring and provocative theme which James Cameron has decorated with many of the greatest action set-pieces ever filmed. In years to come. True Lies will be studied not merely for its technical thrill-ride achievements, but to see how they were so deftly interwoven into a timely, pro-marriage update on Nick and Nora Charles.

Two for the Road (1967) The reason most movies end at "and they lived happily ever after" is because marriage is so less upbeat a subject than romance. Here's the exception, however, the result of extraordinary contributions from writer Frederic Raphael, producer-director Stanley Donen, cinematogra-pher Christopher Challis, composer Henry Mancini, and stars Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Why is this cold, oddly optimistic, overreaching sci-fi poem so interesting? Because HAL, the computer on-board the spacecraft flying to Jupiter, has personal problems that make him a more engaging character than any of the humans in this or most other movies of the last few decades.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) The personal problems of three little people do amount to a considerable hill of beans back in the halcyon days of the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.

Vertigo (1958) Hitchcock's autobiographical film about show business investigates the inherent psychological troubles of earthy brunettes who become ethereal blonde screen goddesses--and the attendant problems suffered by men who love the latter but not the former.

West Side Story (1961) Compared with today's drive-by thugs, the '50s homeboys who dance through this musical Romeo and Juliet are suitable for taking home to Mom and Dad. But they still cause enough problems to jerk major tears and support hyper-emotional musical numbers. Think Natalie Wood is miscast as the Puerto Rican Maria? Today you'd get Marisa Tomei, so shut up and enjoy it.

The Wind (1928) One of the great silents, and the grandmother of all women's pictures. Lillian Gish delivers in this film alone a case-closed argument for her legendary status.

The Wizard of Oz (1939) Hopes, dreams and hallucinations in the original land of dysfunctionality. Flawless, even if you can't stand Judy Garland.

The Year of Living Dangerously (1983) Director Peter Weir's sophisticated, uncynical view of love, romantic and otherwise, finds exotic expression in this story of an ambitious journalist in strife-torn Indonesia. The movie was taken to be a political thriller when it was released. It isn't.

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Virginia Campbell and Edward Margulies are the executive editors of Movieline

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