Alice's 500 Greatest Films
The goal in this compilation was to determine film history's definitive creme de la creme. The titles considered to be the greatest of the great from around the world and throughout the history of film.. So, after an in-depth analysis of respected critics and publications from around the globe, cross referenced and tweaked to arrive at the ranking of films representing, we believe, the greatest cinema can offer.
Scroll, contemplate and enjoy.....
Want a printable list of the 500 greatest to check off? Click here
Harold and Maude (1971)
8/10
Director: Hal Ashby
Starring: Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, Cyril Cusack, Vivian Pickles
With the idiosyncratic American fable "Harold and Maude", countercultural director Hal Ashby fashioned what would become the cult classic of its era.... Read more
Out of the Past (1947)
8.1/10
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas
This masterful brooding film noir has Robert Mitchum playing a man with a past embroiled with murder and deceit at the hands of a reckless woman and a... Read more
The Searchers (1956)
8/10
Director: John Ford
Starring: Ward Bond, Vera Miles, Natalie Wood, John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter
In this revered Western, Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) returns home to Texas after the Civil War. When members of his brother's family are killed or abdu... Read more
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
8.7/10
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, Christopher Lee, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Miran...
With the Fellowship of the Ring splintered, the war for Middle Earth continues in the second Tolkien tale from Peter Jackson. As warriors Aragorn (Vig... Read more
Breaking the Waves (1996)
7.9/10
Director: Lars von Trier
Starring: Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgard, Katrin Cartlidge, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier
The extraordinary story of a young, simple-minded, God-fearing Scottish woman who willingly takes on lovers in the belief that it will cure her paraly... Read more
The Deer Hunter (1978)
8.1/10
Director: Michael Cimino
Starring: Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, John Savage, John Cazale, Christopher Walken
Winner of five Oscars, this harrowing indictment of war from director Michael Cimino stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and John Savage as three... Read more
All the President's Men (1976)
8/10
Director: Alan J Pakula
Starring: Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Hal Holbrook, Jason...
In the Watergate Building, lights go on and four burglars are caught in the act. That night triggered revelations that drove a U.S. President from off... Read more
If.... (1968)
7.7/10
Director: Lindsay Anderson
Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan
A daringly anarchic vision of British society, set in a boarding school in late-sixties England. Before Kubrick made his mischief iconic in 'A Clockwo... Read more
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
8.3/10
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Jared Leto, Marlon Wayans, Jennifer Connelly, Ellen Burstyn
As powerful an anti-drug statement as it is a drama, director Aronofsky's ('Pi') visually hypnotic film graphically tracks the downward spiral of four... Read more
Gone with the Wind (1939)
8.2/10
Director: Victor Fleming
Starring: Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, Leslie Howard, Clark Gable
Based on one of the best-selling books of all time, "Gone with the Wind" stands among the greatest epic dramas ever filmed. Vivien Leigh is the strong... Read more
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
8.1/10
Director: Wes Anderson
Starring: Adrien Brody, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, F Murray Abraham, Harvey Keitel, Jason...
Grand Budapest Hotel recounts the adventures of Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars, and Zero Moustafa, the l... Read more
In The Heat Of The Night (1967)
8/10
Director: Norman Jewison
Starring: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates
Winner of five Oscars including Best Picture. Rod Steiger stars as a red neck sheriff who grudgingly accepts help from Sidney Poitier, a black big cit... Read more
His Girl Friday (1940)
8/10
Director: Howard Hawks
Starring: Cary Grant, Ralph Bellamy, Rosalind Russell
This must-see film has Cary Grant as a conniving editor and Rosalind Russell as a star reporter (and his ex-wife), with Ralph Bellamy as the mama's bo... Read more
My Life As A Dog (1985)
7.6/10
Director: Lasse Hallstrom
Starring: Anton Glanzelius, Tomas Von Bromssen, Anki Liden
A completely enchanting and bittersweet film in which a young boy is shipped off to spend the summer with his uncle after his mother falls ill. A touc... Read more
The Thin Red Line (1998)
7.6/10
Director: Terrence Malick
Starring: Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Jim Caviezel, Elias Koteas, Woody Harrelson, John Cusack
Returning to the screen after a 20-year absence, writer/director Terence Malick adapts James Jones' semi-autobiographical novel about the pivotal WWII... Read more
Babette's Feast (1987)
7.8/10
Director: Gabriel Axel
Starring: Stephane Audran, Jean-Philippe Lafont, Jarl Kulle
Awarded the Best Foreign Language film of 1987 by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Stephane Audran is Babette, an exiled French cook-... Read more
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
8.1/10
Director: Lewis Milestone
Starring: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, Slim Summerville, John Wray
One of the first and most powerful war films ever made, director Lewis Milestone's adaptation of the Erich Maria Remarque novel follows a group of ide... Read more
Cries and Whispers (1972)
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Starring: Harriet Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Kari Sylwan
One of writer/director Ingmar Bergman's most acclaimed films, 'Cries and Whispers' is a dramatically intense story set in a vast manor house in rural... Read more
Stalker (1979)
8.1/10
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Starring: Aleksandr Kaidanovsky, Anatoly Solonitsyn
An extraordinary sci-fi film about an expedition into 'the zone', an eerie no-man's-land created by a meteor strike and depicted as a warped version o... Read more
Ikiru (1952)
8.3/10
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Takashi Shimura, Nobuo Kaneko, Kyoko Seki
A brilliant study of a man who finds he is dying of cancer and determines to spend his final months giving meaning to his life by constructing a child... Read more