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
All About Eve (1950)
8.3/10
Director: Joseph L Mankiewicz
Starring: Anne Baxter, Bette Davis, George Sanders, Marilyn Monroe
Six Oscars were awarded this cynical and entertaining examination of life as it exists on the Broadway theatre scene. Bette Davis glows as the ageing... Read more
Rashomon (1950)
8.3/10
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori
Akira Kurosawa's first huge international success is this superlative study of truth and human nature; four people involved in a rape-murder tell vary... Read more
All About Eve (Blu-ray) (1950)
8.2/10
Director: Joseph L Mankiewicz
Starring: Anne Baxter, Bette Davis, George Sanders, Marilyn Monroe
Six Oscars were awarded this cynical and entertaining examination of life as it exists on the Broadway theatre scene. Bette Davis glows as the ageing... Read more
The Third Man ( Blu-ray ) (1949)
8.2/10
Director: Carol Reed
Starring: Alida Valli, Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard
Joseph Cotten is pulp fiction writer Holly Matins, who arrives in Vienna to work for his friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to be told that Lime h... Read more
Late Spring (1949)
8.3/10
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Starring: Chishu Ryu, Setsuko Hara, Haruko Sugimura, Yumeji Tsukioka
One of the most powerful of Yasujiro Ozu's family portraits, "Late Spring" tells the story of a widowed father who feels compelled to marry off his be... Read more
The Third Man (1949)
8.2/10
Director: Carol Reed
Starring: Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard
Joseph Cotten is pulp fiction writer Holly Matins, who arrives in Vienna to work for his friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to be told that Lime h... Read more
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
8.1/10
Director: Robert Hamer
Starring: Alec Guinness, Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood, Valerie Hobson
A superb black comedy about a man who ruthlessly eliminates eight of his relatives (all played to perfection by Alec Guinness) in order to inherit a t... Read more
Bicycle Thieves ( aka The Bicycle Thief ) ( Blu-ray ) (1948)
8.3/10
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Starring: Enzo Staiola, Lamberto Maggiorani, Lianella Carell
Aka 'The Bicycle Thief.' Vittorio De Sica's remarkable 1948 drama of desperation and survival in Italy's post-war depression earned a special Oscar fo... Read more
The Red Shoes ( Blu-ray ) (1948)
8.3/10
Director: Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell
Starring: Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann, Esmond Knight, Al...
'The Red Shoes', the singular fantasia from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is cinema's quintessential backstage drama, as well as one of the m... Read more
Bicycle Thieves ( aka The Bicycle Thief ) (1948)
8.3/10
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Starring: Lianella Carell, Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola
Aka 'The Bicycle Thief.' Vittorio De Sica's remarkable 1948 drama of desperation and survival in Italy's post-war depression earned a special Oscar fo... Read more
Letter From An Unknown Woman (1948)
8/10
Director: Max Ophuls
Starring: Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, Mady Christians
Joan Fontaine stars in this classic tearjerker playing a lonely woman who is seduced and abandoned by pianist Louis Jourdan. She marries another, but... Read more
The Red Shoes (1948)
8.3/10
Director: Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell
Starring: Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann, Esmond Knight, Al...
'The Red Shoes', the singular fantasia from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is cinema's quintessential backstage drama, as well as one of the m... Read more
Red River (1948)
7.8/10
Director: Howard Hawks
Starring: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Walter Brennan
One of the great American adventure films. John Wayne plays the cattle baron while Montgomery Clift, the son, is at odds over the way dad runs his emp... Read more
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre ( Blu-ray ) (1947)
8.3/10
Director: John Huston
Starring: Bruce Bennett, Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt, Walter Huston
Pauline Kael calls this 'one of the strongest of all American movies'. Three Americans strike it rich and greed takes over. With Bogart, Walter Huston... Read more
Black Narcissus ( Blu-ray ) (1947)
8/10
Director: Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell
Starring: David Farrar, Deborah Kerr, Jean Simmons, Sabu
Plagued by uncertainties and worldly desires, five Protestant missionary nuns, led by Deborah Kerr's Sister Clodagh, struggle to establish a school in... Read more
Out of the Past (Blu-ray) (1947)
8/10
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 Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1947)
8.3/10
Director: John Huston
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt
Pauline Kael calls this 'one of the strongest of all American movies'. Three Americans strike it rich and greed takes over. With Bogart, Walter Huston... 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
Black Narcissus (1947)
8/10
Director: Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell
Starring: Deborah Kerr, David Farrar, Sabu, Jean Simmons
Plagued by uncertainties and worldly desires, five Protestant missionary nuns, led by Deborah Kerr's Sister Clodagh, struggle to establish a school in... Read more
It's A Wonderful Life ( Blu-ray ) (1946)
8.6/10
Director: Frank Capra
Starring: Beulah Bondi, Donna Reed, Gloria Grahame, Henry Travers, James Stewart, Lionel B...
Classic bittersweet comedy/drama that is the quintessential Frank Capra film. James Stewart is a banker living in the typical American small town of B... Read more