Cinema has evolved a lot over the past couple of decades, but there are some movies that have stood the test of time. The best films ever to have been released belong during the 20th century. But a few new kids on the block joined them in the 21st century, and critics were quick to include them in a list they felt would be worthy of a binge watch, or whatever the schedule viewers would want to choose.
The list below includes movies from a range of genres, but they have one thing in common. They’ll leave viewers overflowing with emotions. You will find movies from the 30s, like Modern Times, but also that made their way recently, like Top Gun: Maverick. Let’s see how many of you have seen; we hope that you will enjoy this list a lot.
15. How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
Dragons are mighty mythical creatures, dangerous in their own unique way. But that doesn’t mean all of them will harm you. How to Train Your Dragon is the first movie in the franchise where a boy who is deemed weak by his tribe proves that these fiery legends can be provided training and they’ll be your best friends. The friendship that develops between Hiccup and Toothless is a testament to a human-animal bond.
The film series that was originally developed as a fantasy book for children by Cressida Cowell is spellbinding to even the adults. To that end, even if the adults are mesmerized with its charm, Cowell found the right audience, the child that lives in all of us. The film is followed by a couple of sequels where we can see what life with dragons looks like for the Vikings.
14. Modern Times (1936)
The iconic Little Tramp returns for the last time in Modern Times. As it always has been for him, life has been a mess. The movie portrays the reality of what we call jobs and how one can get stuck in that routine. Interestingly, Tramp finds life in jail much better than this. He tries a lot to land in jail; after a few attempts, his wish does come true. Hope is never lost, and that is one thing you will realize after watching it.
Modern Times came into fruition after Charlie Chaplin entered a discussion about modern technology with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi alongside witnessing conditions during the Great Depression. If The Great Dictator unintentionally predicted the state of humans in this artificial intelligence era, the final Little Tramp movie predicted how the corporate world of today will look like.
13. Rear Window (1954)
You will observe that this movie is about observance. The protagonist of the movie, L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies, is bound to his wheelchair following an accident. People need to open up their windows when a heat wave is on the rise in the region the film is set in so that is what he does. Being a photojournalist, his observational skills are impeccable, which unintentionally leads him into solving a murder mystery.
It was shot at Paramount Studio’s stage 17, containing a setting that replicated a Greenwich Village courtyard. Hal Pereira and Joseph MacMillan Johnson designed the set for the film, which took them six weeks. While the film’s story is great, the story behind the film is no short of music to the years. Studios and agents had to fight for the story’s copyrights after Cornell Woolrich, the original creator, took his last breath.
12. Toy Story (1995)
For most people, purpose is something they keep looking for the rest of their lives and never find. Maybe they never became friends with someone who would show them the right path. The first Toy Story movie is exactly about that. However, it isn’t really about people but toys, as the name suggests. Buzz Lightyear is a new toy in the room and Woody is jealous of him at the beginning before both of them become friends.
Actors Tom Hanks and Tim Allen were behind the voices of Woody and Buzz Lightyear, respectively. John Lasseter, the director of the movie, wanted Tom Hanks for Woody, as he believed the veteran actor could make the character appealing. Billy Crystal was approached to play Buzz Lightyear, who turned down the role and ended up regretting it eventually.
11. The Battle of Algiers (1966)
The Battle of Algiers was a pivotal part of the Algerian War, which lasted from 1954 to 1962. The film focuses on Ali La Pointe, a prominent guerrilla figure during the war. Most of the actors in the movie weren’t professionals but real soldiers who had lived through real battles. Alongside the newsreel-styled visuals, this added a touch of authenticity on the screen.
It was based on Saadi Yacef’s book, namely Souvenirs de la Bataille d’Alger, which he wrote during his confinement under the French forces. He has explained that there are composite characters like Colonel Mathieu to prevent taking certain names in it. The character was based on figures like Jacques Massu, Marcel Bigeard, and Roger Trinquier.
10. On the Waterfront (1954)
The very fine Marlon Brando stars in On the Waterfront alongside Eva Marie Saint, who debuted in Hollywood with it. It is loosely based on the Crime of the Waterfront stories covered by the New York Sun journalist Malcolm Johnson. Brando won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Movie for the role. All in all, it was nominated for twelve Oscars and swiped eight of them, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Marlon Brando’s role in the film is deemed a watershed moment in the history of cinema. The veteran filmmaker Martin Scorsese himself praised his work as Terry Malloy. Later in the same year when the film was released, the writer of the film’s script, Budd Schulberg, released a novel based on the script. In this adaptation of the story, Budd thought of giving Malloy a different fate than in the movie.
9. Chinatown (1974)
The neo-noir mystery film Chinatown tells a story inspired by the California Water Wars. Starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, it was universally acclaimed by the critics, except for one who said Nicholson’s performance was the savior. It has a sequel called The Two Jakes, which failed to meet the bar Chinatown set. This led to the demise of a third film in the series, which was supposed to be titled Gittes vs. Gittes.
When the film was still an idea, Robert Evans, the producer of the movie, asked Robert Towne to write a screenplay for The Great Gatsby. But things took turn as Towne didn’t believe he was up for that prominent a task and instead ended up asking Evans to write Chinatown, which he happily did. All three movies, if the final part came to fruition, would become a trilogy focused solely on the destruction of natural resources.
8. Toy Story 2 (1999)
Focus is somehow turned here in Toy Story 2 as Woody becomes the star in this sequel after Buzz and Woody shared the spotlight along with the many other side characters in the first film. Woody finds out about its origin here and gets along with the Wild West gang. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen returned to voice the characters in it.
John Lasseter and the story team had to face some challenges as they redeveloped the plot after Pixar got disappointed with the original version. Though there were struggles, the film became a box office success. It was followed by a couple more sequels and even a spin-off called Lightyear, where Chris Evans gave his voice to Buzz and told the story of his origins in a more in-depth light.
7. Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
The best leaders are those who don’t really want to be leaders. This is something of a tweaked quote Apple’s Steve Jobs once said about managers. Top Gun: Maverick is the perfect example of this. Tom Cruise returns as the rebellious Maverick after 30 years of his graduation from Top Gun, also known as the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program. As you will see, he has become a legend among the students in the film.
An idea for the film’s sequel emerged following the release but the development began around 2010. Tony Scott in 2010 said that he wanted to make a new movie and not a remake, given the gap between the original one and the idea of a sequel at that time. Sadly, his demise in 2012 brought in some uncertainties for the sequel but then it was finally released in 2022, and it came with a bang.
6. Schindler’s List (1993)
We all know the story of Noah told in the Bible’s Genesis section between 6:11 and 9:19. Schindler’s List is based on the German industrialist and humanitarian Oskar Schindler, who saved 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by providing them employment. Liam Neeson played the character phenomenally in one of the best films ever produced by Steven Spielberg but Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley were equally charming in their own rights.
Poldek Pfefferberg, one of the original survivors working under Oskar, made it a life mission to tell this story to the world. He was the one who inspired Thomas Keneally to write the book Schindler’s Ark in the first place. Later on, Universal Pictures asked Steven Spielberg to direct it. Unsure about it, he eventually agreed to do that, and we thank him for that.
5. Parasite (2019)
There is a big disparity between the lives of rich and poor across the globe, and Parasite sheds a light on this. Empty mind’s are where the devil dwells, and this is clear when the idea of infiltrating the upper-class houses is implemented in the film. When we force our way into something that we should not, things ought to go sideways. It is only a matter of time when the chaos begins.
Parasite is built upon the notions of class conflict, social inequality, and wealth disparity. Some also associate the film’s interpretation with a South Korean term, Hell Joseon. It means that life in modern-day South Korea is equal to living in hell. Without spoiling for people who haven’t watched it, the film ends with a hitting reality for the poor. However, hustlers may disagree that the latter ones will find success in life.
4. Seven Samurai (1954)
Food is the basic need for humans to survive. Seven Samurai is about food only. A few villagers try to save their harvest from bandits by hiring samurai. They aren’t privileged in terms of money but they can offer their recruits food. The strategy works and the villagers and samurai work in tandem to ward off the evil bandits from their land. It’s a pyrrhic victory for the samurai in the film.
The film was supposed to be sort of a Ulysses for a samurai but then writer and director of the film, Akira Kurosawa, found this story about samurai defending farmers. In a way, your can see those villagers as a collective version of Nick Fury assembling the Avengers. An Indian adaptation of the film was released in 1998 and was praised nationwide.
3. Casablanca (1942)
The protagonist Rick Blaine, played by Humphrey Bogart, finds himself in a dilemma when his former lover Ilsa Lund returns in his life, with her husband Victor Laszlo. Casablanca focuses on the protagonist’s stuggle as Laszlo and Ilsa needs something that is in the possession of Rick. Matters of the past concerning his then-lover Ilsa has left him embittered but then things eventually find a middle ground, but not without a pinch of twist.
Casablanca, in actuality, was a play dubbed Everybody Comes to Rick’s which never came to fruition. Later it was adapted into the film. Though the focus of the movie was Rick Blain, special attention was given to Ingrid Bergman who played Ilsa. Her role in the film is deemed as one of the finest in the history of cinema. Many works has drawn inspiration from the movie since, including Passage to Marseille and To Have and Have Not.
2. The Godfather (1972)
Of course, how can we forget this masterpiece in a list talking about the best films ever according to critics. It isn’t simply about the ensembled cast including Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, and more. Robert De Niro also joined the cast in the sequel. Trasformation is always core to any story and charcter development of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone just hits the nail on the head.
And it’s not just the movie that became one of the best films ever. The original story written by Mario Puzo was the best selling published work in history for a good time. Paramount obtained the rights for the novel to adapt it into a film. The film’s cast began rehearsing before the two weeks of filming. This included the family dinner. Francis Ford Coppola was chosen for the direction as Paramount’s Robert Evans needed an American Italian director.
1. L.A. Confidential (1997)
L.A. Confidential takes the top spot due to actors like Guy Pierce and Russell Crowe weren’t really a name in the industry when the film was being made, however, they made it one of the greatest films of all time with their performances and even blowing up their careers in a good way. The story revolves around the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) where associates are trying to better its public image. While there are a few good men there, you will see a hint of corruption in there too.
Director Curtis Hanson has drawn the inspiration for his characters from Crime fiction author James Ellroy’s books. Brian Helgeland wrote the film’s screenplay but it has a good story behind it too. Helgeland and Hanson worked finger to the bone to make this film. Hanson had to turn dowm jobs while Helgeland wrote seven drafts of the film for free. In the end, their hard work and talent paid off.
So these are the movies that critics labeled the best of all time and even recommend everyone to watch atleast once in their lifetimes. If you want to keep reading about some of the worst films by their ratings then we have the list for you.
Anurag Batham is a Writer at Thumb Wars zeroed in on video games but will also throw himself up on anything in association with anime and cinema. As with his favorite video games, give him anything with a linear story, be it Call of Duty or Braid, and he will be happy. He think of stories as food and wants to feed his readers something nutritious, food for thought.
