My 25 favorite movies of all time
By Jacob Skubish
The movie world, like the rest of the world, is on pause. So I decided this was as good a time as any to finally put together my 25 favorite movies of all time. Choosing which to include was hard enough, so I didn’t try to rank them. They are below in alphabetical order.
Before Sunset (2004)
At the heart of every Richard Linklater movie is a fascination with how time functions in our lives: how we reconstruct the past, misread the future, and fail to appreciate the present. In Before Sunset, the second of Linklater’s Before trilogy, all of this happens at once, as Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) reconnect after nine years apart. The film changes every time I watch it: sometimes the possibility of their romance feels like the most important thing in the world, and sometimes it feels like an awful idea. But the depth of their connection always matters in the present.
City Lights (1931)
One of the great love stories in movie history, Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights follows the Tramp as he tries to win the affection of a blind woman. But ever the subversive, Chaplin also makes the film about class struggle and the daily life of working people. When the Tramp tries to arrange for a surgery to cure the woman’s blindness, the tension is not just in whether she will love him, but whether she can love a man of his economic status. It’s profound, and deeply romantic.
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Cool Hand Luke, the story of a man who repeatedly tries to escape his confinement in a prison, is the classic tale of a rebellious spirit that can’t be contained by society. What elevates the film to greatness is the scheming eyes of Paul Newman, one of the most magnificent stars to ever grace the big screen. His face says that he is not just fighting back, but that he knows something about life the rest of us could never see. Nobody else could ever make eating 50 eggs look so damn cool.
dazed and Confused (1993)
Congratulations to Richard Linklater, the only director with two films in my top 25. The prevailing sentiment of Dazed and Confused is that the present is something to both be enjoyed to the fullest but inevitably undervalued. It’s tragic, and beautiful. There are not many perfect movies. Dazed and Confused is one of them.
Die Hard (1988)
The greatest action movie ever made. You can read into the depth of the movie if you want to, but the reason Die Hard is so effective is its simplicity: it has great characters, a unique evil villain, and a litany of nuanced supporting players. And unlike many of the Schwarzenegger-y muscle movies of the 80s or the superheroes of today, Bruce Willis’ John McClane charms because he’s not more than human; he’s just a guy stuck in a bad situation trying to do the right thing. Oh, and it happens to be the best Christmas movie of all time, too.
Donnie Darko (2001)
Donnie Darko is beloved by many, but I fear there’s a misconception among wider moviegoing audiences that this is some sort of weird, emo movie about a high school loner. That’s the costume it comes in, but there’s so much more underneath. Donnie Darko is about creativity, about living life genuinely, and about living in the world with a love for those around you. When everything comes together by the film’s conclusion, you can see it for all that it is.
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee’s greatest achievement, ends with two quotes, one from Martin Luther King, Jr. and the other from Malcolm X. The King quote tells us that “Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral,” while the X quote tells us that "I don’t even call it violence when it’s self-defense, I call it intelligence.” It’s not clear which side Spike’s film lands on, or if it’s intended to praise both, or even neither. But it does celebrate the righteous vindication of those fed up with American racism. Do the Right Thing might not tell us what the right thing is, but it forcefully argues that the world we live in today isn’t close.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Probably my favorite movie of all time, if only for the fact that it captures damn near everything I love about movies. It’s an action movie, a comedy, a drama, a romance, a mystery, and a sci-fi adventure all wrapped into one. It’s visually innovative and narratively complex, yet it’s not difficult to follow. The performances are suberb but never showy, and they’re always backed up by great writing. The score is like nothing I’d ever heard before or since. And the blend of tragedy and joyousness at the absurdity of life in the film’s ending gets me every time.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
John Hughes movies are defined by teens rebelling against their parents (Judd Nelson yelling “Hey, smoke up, Johnny!” in The Breakfast Club immediately jumps to mind). Ferris is special because this isn’t quite the case. Sure, he’s cutting class, lying to his parents, and pissing off the principal. But more than an act of defiance against authority, Ferris is taking a day off because he knows moments like these go by quickly in life, and they are meant to be grasped tightly and enjoyed in the fleeting time they occur. I’ve been trying to be as cool as Ferris Bueller every day of my life since I was 13.
Groundhog Day (1993)
Twenty-five years later, Groundhog Day’s structure is not only iconic, but standard in American popular culture. I’m not sure there’s any single reason there have been so many films that have repurposed the Groundhog Day template in recent years. But maybe the reason Groundhog Day has been so often imitated over time is because recognizing our default mode of operation and changing for the better is a really hard lesson to learn, albeit a profound one, and only possible if we have the chance to step back and see it. And I think, to some small degree, that having Groundhog Day exist as a commonly understood touchpoint in our cultural lexicon can help us get there.
Goodfellas (1990)
“As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster.” So begins Goodfellas, with one of the great opening lines in movie history. Martin Scorsese’s landmark crime movie is a hell of a good time, but beneath the surface of the violence is the painful pang of regret at a life gone awry. In Scorsese movies, everyone has a plan, until suddenly nothing is in their control any longer. But as long as it is, I never want to stop watching.
Jaws (1975)
After a hard-fought battle with E.T., Jaws emerged as the one Spielberg movie I’m limiting myself to on this list. As an adventure film it remains thrilling 45 years after its release, and as a template for the Hollywood blockbuster it remains unparalleled in influence. When you watch a great Spielberg movie you feel like you are eight years old again, awed anew by the magic of the world, and few other directors can pull off such a distinct feeling in their movies.
Little Women (2019)
The most recent film to earn a spot on this list, I recently rewatched Little Women to make sure it deserved to make my top 25. The question I had after the rewatch was whether Greta Gerwig’s adaptation is my favorite movie ever made. The meta-textual genius of Gerwig’s screenplay, about storytelling in both its content and structure, is astonishing. The film covers wealth, gender, art, creativity, love, and how to live a good life by living for other people. On top of all of that, Saoirse Ronan may end up being the best actress in history, and every other scene makes me weep like a baby. Gerwig has directed two movies, and they’ve both been perfect. I’m there on day one for whatever she does next.
Moonlight (2016)
Moonlight is a heartache of a film, and it’s stunning for the way it lends transformative power to the small moments in life. Chiron’s identity is forged in schoolyard scuffles and swimming lessons, and the episodic nature of his growth supplies every moment in the film with a palpable gravitas. The deep emotional consequence of Chiron’s loneliness stems from this arc: he is the sum of these experiences, no matter how much he tries to start over, and these experiences are largely outside of his control.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
One of the movies that first made me fall in love with cinema. Jack Nicholson is the all-time “what the fuck is he doing?” actor; what everyone loves Nicholas Cage for ironically, Nicholson pulls off genuinely. Like Cool Hand Luke, another story of a man rebelling against an oppressive system, with heart-wrenching results.
Roman Holiday (1953)
I’ll be honest: I don’t know if Roman Holiday is one of my 25 favorite movies. It’s probably close. But I couldn’t construct this list without including an Audrey Hepburn movie on it. She’s the most captivating actress in the history of movies, and every time she smiles it’s a small miracle.
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Billy Wilder’s 1959 film considers gender dynamics in a way that was ahead of its time, and the writing is top-notch. But the reason to watch is Marilyn Monroe, who stars as a member of a band who Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis’s characters each fall in love with. Monroe was a divine comic performer, and her notorious sexiness on screen was always subversive and self-aware. Stick around till the end for one of the great closing lines in movie history.
The Dark Knight (2008)
The Dark Knight is the movie that got me into movies. I might see a better movie in my lifetime, but nothing will ever be as exciting as the first time that sixth-grade me saw this one in the theaters. Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker remains, and will likely long remain, my favorite villainous performance in any movie.
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
When people parody Wes Anderson movies they often portray his idiosyncrasies as overly rigid or unfeeling. But the tight-lipped, finely constructed universe of Anderson movies tends to get at a deeper level of emotional wisdom than most dramas with weepy dialogues could ever dream of.
Anderson characters are usually tight-lipped for one of two reasons: they are so emotionally stunted that they can’t communicate what they really want to say, or they are so emotionally enlightened that they don’t need to say much for you to understand everything. Tenenbaums has both in spades, all set to one of the best damn soundtracks ever created.
The Social Network (2010)
My favorite writing in any movie, ever. At breakneck speed, Aaron Sorkin turned the story of a nerdy college student inventing a time-sucking website into the most thrilling procedural of the past twenty years. There are so many lines I will never stop quoting (I’m 6’5’’, 220, and there’s two of me; if you were the inventors of Facebook you’d have invented Facebook; etc. etc.). But mostly, I’m grateful for this movie so I can keep shouting MARK every day of my life.
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
How do you describe a movie as big as The Wizard of Oz? It almost feels like words cannot do it service. It’s not just one of the great movies; it is the movies.
The Wizard of Oz is pure magic, visually groundbreaking, and endlessly satisfying. If we remember any movie in 500 years it’s going to be this one, because the metaphor is malleable in a way that feels biblical. As Roger Ebert put it: “The Wizard of Oz touches on the key lesson of childhood, which is that someday the child will not be a child, that home will no longer exist…but you can ask friends to help you.” Amen.
‘Up’ series (1964-2019)
The documentary genre tries to capture a slice of life and generalize its lessons: this thing happened to these people, and this is what that means for you. The Up documentary series does this for life itself. Beginning in 1964 and continuing every seven years, this series follows a dozen or so British citizens from the time they were seven years old (the most recent installment, released last year, checks in on them at age 63). There are sociological implications aplenty in how their lives unfolded, but the emotional gravitas of watching a life happen is unparalleled. No movies have ever made me more aware of how fragile, or beautiful, life really is. It’s a cheat to include nine movies in one slot, but I couldn’t possibly leave off these documentaries.
Vertigo (1958)
According to the British Film Institute Vertigo is the best movie of all time. Why? Somehow, I think its lack of explicit meaning is what elevates Vertigo as one of the great films in history. Vertigo is a purely sensory experience, and more than almost any film evokes a sense of implacable wonder. It’s about the feelings that films have the capacity to give us. Or, more than that, it is those feelings. It also happens to be Hitchcock’s best.
Wall-E (2008)
Pixar movies were the logical choice to include at least one animated film on this list, and it was so hard to choose between Wall-E and Ratatouille. Ultimately, the reason Wall-E takes it is because, in the long stretches without dialogue in the film, director Andrew Stanton tells this story in breathtaking visual detail, and gets at the essence of what makes animated movies exciting.
When Harry Met Sally (1989)
The quintessential rom-com that single-handedly influenced every rom-com in the 30 years since. Long before New York As A Character or fussy-beauty-bickers-with-Jewish-neurotic became cliches, writer Nora Ephron was inventing an entirely new type of story. And as Sally, Meg Ryan gives one of the great romantic lead performances of all time.