Where you can watch the 100 best movies of all time right now

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Milos Forman
- Stacker score: 89.1
- Metascore: 88
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Run time: 160 minutes

“Amadeus” took the best picture Oscar for its opulent dramatization of Mozart’s life and times during 18th century Vienna. The film follows a largely-fictionalized account of the backbiting rivalry between the virtuoso composer, played by Tom Hulce, and his envious adversary Salieri, played by F. Murray Abraham. Lavish costumes, a sweeping score, and acclaimed performances carry this story about the conflicts that arise between talent and mediocrity.

- Streaming: Max Go, DIRECTV
- Director: Kathryn Bigelow
- Stacker score: 89.1
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Run time: 131 minutes

Screenwriter Mark Boal based the story on his own experiences as an embedded journalist during the Iraq war. “The Hurt Locker” is a gritty, suspenseful deep dive into soldiers who dismantle bombs. Director Kathryn Bigelow infuses this best picture Oscar-winner with nail-biting suspense and an unnerving presentation of war. She won the best director Oscar for this film and remains the only woman to be recognized with that award as of 2020.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: George Miller
- Stacker score: 89.1
- Metascore: 90
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Run time: 120 minutes

In the fourth “Mad Max” movie, Tom Hardy takes over for Mel Gibson as the gunslinger Max, in this sci-fi/western mashup that blends the strange with the visceral. Charlize Theron stars as Furiosa, a heroine trying to save the enslaved in a future wasteland where resources are scarce and humans are used as “blood bags.” “Fury Road” boasts what may be one of the most exuberant and surreal car chase sequences in film.

'Mad Max: Fury Road' was the best sci-fi movie of 2015. See what was popular the year you were born, in Stacker's Best sci-fi film the year you were born.

- Streaming: Starz, DIRECTV
- Director: Peter Weir
- Stacker score: 89.1
- Metascore: 90
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Run time: 103 minutes

Comedian Jim Carrey took on a dramatic role as Truman in Peter Weir’s surreal take on the soon-to-be-popular reality TV boom. Truman, who is raised from birth in a televised soundstage disguised as a small town world, slowly awakens to the truth of his existence. Ed Harris plays the show’s producer, a godlike director whose voice beams from above to keep Truman compliant.

- Streaming: Disney+
- Directors: Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich
- Stacker score: 89.1
- Metascore: 90
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Run time: 100 minutes

"Finding Nemo" stands out as one of Pixar's most-beloved animated films, known for its vivid computer-generated images (CGIs) of the undersea home of a dad clown fish and his adorable son. After Nemo gets lured into danger, the film becomes a triumphant and heartwarming tale about reconnection and hope. Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres give voice to the fish buddies on a mission to locate the lost Nemo.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Jonathan Demme
- Stacker score: 89.1
- Metascore: 85
- IMDb user rating: 8.6
- Run time: 118 minutes

“The Silence of the Lambs” is famous for being one of the rare films to win the top five Academy Awards for best picture, director, actor, actress, and screenplay. It’s also the singular strictly horror film to win best picture. Anthony Hopkins gives an iconic performance as the gruesome murderer Hannibal Lecter. Jodie Foster plays a homespun FBI agent tracking down a serial killer who seeks Lecter’s advice.

- Streaming: Prime Video, The Criterion Channel, Kanopy, FlixFling
- Director: Charles Chaplin
- Stacker score: 89.6
- Metascore: 90
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Run time: 72 minutes

Charlie Chaplin, who also wrote and directed this movie, plays his zany Little Tramp character. He joins up with a traveling circus to evade police and falls in love with a performer. The setting proves just right for Chaplin’s signature slapstick antics, that overlay a melancholy take on class status and the experience of outcasts.

- Streaming: Prime Video, Hoopla, The Criterion Channel, Kanopy
- Director: John Ford
- Stacker score: 89.6
- Metascore: 93
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Run time: 96 minutes

John Wayne stars as the Ringo Kid in one of John Ford’s most-iconic Westerns. A stagecoach makes its way across terrain established by the Apache tribe—Native Americans who are represented in the bumbling, savage and racist modes of the era. The motley crew aboard the traveling coach represent the opposing morality embodied by characters such as an alcoholic, a prostitute, an outlaw, and a virtuous woman.

See where 'Stagecoach' ranks on Stacker's 100 best John Wayne movies.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Mel Brooks
- Stacker score: 89.6
- Metascore: 96
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Run time: 88 minutes

Mel Brooks’ directorial debut makes for an exuberantly offensive backstage romp. It’s a satire about a Broadway musical replete with dancing Nazi showgirls and a beatnik Hitler. Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder give slapstick performances as producers trying to put on the worst show of all time who instead, unwittingly stage a hit.

- Streaming: DIRECTV
- Director: Greta Gerwig
- Stacker score: 89.6
- Metascore: 91
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Run time: 135 minutes

Greta Gerwig wrote and directed this acclaimed drama that adapts Louisa May Alcott's popular 1868 novel for contemporary audiences. The source material, which follows the March sisters during the Civil War era, serves as a way to explore modern women's experience from a historical lense. Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, and Laura Dern star, with Meryl Streep as the sisters' imposing, wealthy aunt.

- Streaming: Fubo, Pluto
- Director: Terrence Malick
- Stacker score: 89.6
- Metascore: 93
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Run time: 94 minutes

Terrence Malick’s second film continues to establish his naturalistic, meditative style that uses long takes and a slow pace to show life on a Midwest farm in the early 1900s. Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, and Sam Shepard form a love triangle and find themselves caught in a rhapsodic story of betrayal that plays out against a lush and bleak rural backdrop.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: William Wyler
- Stacker score: 89.6
- Metascore: 92
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Run time: 170 minutes

Harold Russell, who lost both hands during an army training accident, won the best supporting actor Oscar for his affecting portrayal of a veteran struggling with civilian life after World War II. Russell’s first acting role offers a sensitive presentation of disability in a drama about the challenges for three soldiers returning home.

- Streaming: HBO, Hoopla, DIRECTV
- Director: Julian Schnabel
- Stacker score: 89.6
- Metascore: 92
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Run time: 112 minutes

The camera often recreates the limited point of view of a paralyzed man who communicates through blinks in this moving biopic adapted from a bestselling memoir. The film follows the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a successful man of influence whose life changes after a devastating stroke. The film captures the book’s stunning beauty as it presents the imaginative, soulful experience that exists within a changed body.

- Streaming: The Criterion Channel
- Director: Elia Kazan
- Stacker score: 89.6
- Metascore: 91
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Run time: 108 minutes

Elia Kazan’s melodrama is regarded as a semi-autobiographical allegory for McCarthy-era narcs—the director gave names of colleagues to Congress in 1952. Marlon Brando delivers an iconic performance as a mob-connected boxer caught up in systemic corruption in this moody, cynical drama. The film examines criminals and informants within a working-class community of dock workers in New Jersey.

- Streaming: DIRECTV
- Director: Stuart Rosenberg
- Stacker score: 89.6
- Metascore: 91
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Run time: 127 minutes

Paul Newman stands as an embodiment for the counterculture mindset in this prison drama about rebellious wisecracker Luke, who stands up to authority no matter the tragic cost. Stylish direction and searing visuals bring a glossy realism to this film set amid a brutal Southern chain gang. Audiences root for the spirited Luke, who's been convicted for drunken vandalism and finds himself viciously oppressed by merciless guards.

- Streaming: The Criterion Channel, DIRECTV
- Director: Woody Allen
- Stacker score: 89.6
- Metascore: 92
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Run time: 93 minutes

In 1977, “Annie Hall” swept the Oscars, and was regarded as a funny and innovative revamp of classic romantic comedies. Diane Keaton’s award-winning performance as the title character introduced a zany and independent heroine who doesn’t end up settling down. The “boy-meets-girl and girl-eventually-moves on” plot was a progressive outcome during the time period.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Ang Lee
- Stacker score: 89.6
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Run time: 120 minutes

Ang Lee’s visually stunning martial arts fantasy brought wuxia style to mainstream Western audiences with this hugely popular action adventure. Set in 18th century China, Chow Yun-Fat plays a retired warrior pulled into vengeance over a 400-year-old sword. Spellbinding special effects give a gorgeous, kinetic majesty to fight scenes. Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi stand out in roles as powerful fighters.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Curtis Hanson
- Stacker score: 89.6
- Metascore: 90
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Run time: 138 minutes

This stylish homage to old Hollywood noir films links a corrupt police force with the dark side of the entertainment industry as it revels in the seedy underbelly beneath glamour and glitz. Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce had breakout roles as detectives pulled into a web of departmental deceit. Kim Basinger won a best supporting actress Oscar as a sex worker who resembles Lana Turner but has a fierce identity of her own.

- Streaming: Netflix
- Director: David Fincher
- Stacker score: 89.6
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Run time: 120 minutes

“The Social Network” presents the origin story of Facebook as a melodrama about fragile male friendships among the Ivy League elite. Turmoil erupts when human connections get litigated through business transactions, and likeability links to money and status. Jesse Eisenberg gives a compelling performance as Mark Zuckerberg, with Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer, and Justin Timberlake in the supporting cast.

- Streaming: Hoopla, Starz
- Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
- Stacker score: 89.6
- Metascore: 91
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Run time: 122 minutes

The Coen brothers wrote and directed this revisionist Western, adapted from Cormac McCarthy's novel, that infuses law and order with a dark, existential irony. Tommy Lee Jones stars a weathered, seen-it-all sheriff who goes up against a brooding embodiment of senseless evil, played by Javier Bardem. The plot teems with brutal surprises that make Texas appear surreal and bleak.

- Streaming: Starz, DIRECTV
- Director: Michel Gondry
- Stacker score: 89.6
- Metascore: 89
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Run time: 108 minutes

The surreal subconscious provides the setting for romance, both its euphoria and trauma, in this romantic comedy about forgetting a long breakup. Jim Carrey plays the introverted brooder Joel, who undergoes a procedure to have memories of his former girlfriend erased. The girlfriend, played by Kate Winslet, already did the same. Scenes play out in the dreamscape of Joel’s mind as he revisits a past filled with bitterness and beauty that explores whether or not love can disappear.

See which memorable moment in 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' was unscripted in Stacker's Movie trivia for the top 100 films of all time.

- Streaming: Netflix, Showtime, DIRECTV
- Director: Robert Zemeckis
- Stacker score: 89.6
- Metascore: 87
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Run time: 116 minutes

Michael J. Fox shines as Marty McFly, a teenager who travels backward in time and ends up in the middle of his parent’s high school romance. This crowd-pleasing comedy is emblematic of 1980s pop culture, with its nostalgia for post-war life and focus on the DeLorean sports car—the movie’s iconic, futuristic time machine.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Robert Altman
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 96
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Run time: 160 minutes

Robert Altman’s satire entwines the connections between politics and country music as it follows celebrities involved in a music festival set at Nashville’s Parthenon. The film is known for its epic scope as it trails a huge ensemble cast. Altman’s improvisational, realist style moves toward a violent climax that pokes at America’s shallow obsession with celebrity and its fusion with populist politics.

- Streaming: The Criterion Channel, Crackle
- Director: Peter Bogdanovich
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 93
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Run time: 118 minutes

Shot in black and white and set in 1951 rural Texas, “The Last Picture Show” provides an intimate view of life in a small town, where the local movie house is showing John Wayne’s “Red River” before closing down for good. The coming-of-age drama, starring Cybill Shepherd and Jeff Bridges, signals the end of an era, as teens embark on the bleak adulthood that’s already swallowed the lives of their parents.

- Streaming: DIRECTV
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Run time: 108 minutes

Joseph Cotten was perfectly cast against type as the charming Uncle Charlie, a handsome do-gooder on the surface, whose dark character slowly emerges when he visits his small town family that has no idea he's on the lam. Teresa Wright plays Uncle Charlie's adoring niece who is forced to face her family's shadows. Alfred Hitchcock infuses the drama with a slow-burning tension and horror.

- Streaming: HBO, DIRECTV
- Director: John Frankenheimer
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Run time: 126 minutes

Angela Lansbury plays one of the great femme fatales as a Cold War kingmaker, the mother of a Korean war vet, who manipulates him and others with incisive influence. The paranoiac, noir-ish plot focuses on brainwashed sleeper agents who can be activated for assassinations. Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey play haunted veterans, now civilians, who can’t remember what happened.

- Streaming: DIRECTV
- Director: John Ford
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Run time: 119 minutes

Considered one of John Ford’s major Western masterpieces, “The Searchers” influenced countless films with its striking compositions and iconic cinematography that presented a lone cowboy hero at one with the terrain. John Wayne plays a cynical desperado on a search for his niece, played by Natalie Wood, who has been abducted by Native Americans. Wayne’s wayward hero thinks her virtue is too besmirched for proper saving and aims to kill her.

- Streaming: Not available to stream, rent, or buy
- Director: George Cukor
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Run time: 170 minutes

The hugely popular Broadway musical was adapted with extravagant costumes and staging that bring 1912 London society to life on the screen. Rex Harrison plays a well-to-do linguist who bets another expert that he can raise up a cockney-speaking guttersnipe with proper training. Audrey Hepburn plays the raggedy, classless flower peddler pulled into his schemes, in this beloved tale with universal themes on class and status.

- Streaming: Disney+
- Directors: Norman Ferguson, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Ben Sharpsteen
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 99
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Run time: 88 minutes

Considered one of Disney’s best animated films from the classic period, “Pinocchio” presents a coming-of-age story about a puppet who wants to be a real boy. The movie dramatizes the process of taking responsibility and doing the right thing through Jiminy Cricket, the voice of right and wrong. The young puppet must learn the consequences of lying in this beautifully animated movie with a lesson on the dangers of misbehaving.

See where this animated classic ranks on Stacker's Best animated films of all time, according to critics.

- Streaming: Netflix
- Director: Alfonso Cuarón
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 96
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Run time: 135 minutes

Alfonso Cuarón's semi-autobiographical drama recounts a live-in maid's experience with the family she works for during a period of civil unrest in early 1970s Mexico. The film is shot in black and white, and features striking visual compositions. Yalitza Aparicio, in her film debut, plays Cleo, the housekeeper, in a naturalistic performance acclaimed for its depth and complexity.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Richard Linklater
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Run time: 109 minutes

The third, and most-acclaimed, chapter in Richard Linklater’s “Sunrise” trilogy returns to Jesse and Céline, characters introduced in 1995 during an all-night conversation in Vienna. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, who co-wrote the screenplay with Linklater, continue in the same roles, nine years later, now that the two have become a couple with children. The realistic romance continues to focus on the conversations between the two that have carried across a lifetime.

- Streaming: Netflix, Kanopy
- Director: Barry Jenkins
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 99
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Run time: 111 minutes

Barry Jenkins brings a vibrant poetry to his drama about Chiron, a black boy coming of age in Miami as he grapples with relationships and social expectations around masculinity and sexuality. “Moonlight” takes place during three time periods, with a different actor playing Chiron in each sequence. The film offers an intimate and complex representation of Chiron’s experience in evocative, moving expressions of time and place.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Oliver Stone
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 92
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Run time: 120 minutes

Oliver Stone’s blistering critique of the Vietnam War sought to revise the easy notions of heroism and patriotism within classic war films. In “Platoon,” Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger play sergeants with conflicting leadership styles. Charlie Sheen is the young recruit who looks up to the two role models. Keith David is a standout amid an ensemble of actors as young privates in a harsh war zone.

- Streaming: HBO, DIRECTV, USA
- Director: Damien Chazelle
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 93
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Run time: 128 minutes

In this modern ode to the classical Hollywood musical, Emma Stone plays an aspiring starlet looking to finally get her big break. Ryan Gosling is a jazz pianist who romances her with hope for her dreams. The melancholy love story is known for its vivid production design, that sets stunning musical numbers on a Los Angeles freeway and in apartments and poolside parties.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Christopher Nolan
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Run time: 106 minutes

Three alternating timelines crisscross through Christopher Nolan's stirring World War II drama about the evacuation of Allied troops from the beach at Dunkirk as Nazis advance. On the beach, a group of soldiers attempt a harrowing, disastrous escape. Mark Rylance plays a civilian who mans a boat to help. Tom Hardy stars as a pilot who battles to the end in the face of futile odds.

See where 'Dunkirk' ranks on Stacker's 50 best WWII movies of all time.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Damien Chazelle
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 88
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Run time: 106 minutes

J.K. Simmons steals the show in his award-winning performance as a ruthless music professor who demands perfection through merciless manipulation and shaming. Miles Teller plays his tenacious student drummer willing to suffer for the art form. “Whiplash” explores the nature of genius as something hard-won and volatile in this deep dive into jazz performance.

- Streaming: IndieFlix
- Director: Alfonso Cuarón
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 96
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Run time: 91 minutes

Sandra Bullock carries Alfonso Cuarón’s suspense-driven thriller about a woman caught alone in space. George Clooney co-stars as a fellow astronaut with her before a devastating accident. Stunning cinematography gives the sense of the vastness and isolation in space, in a film that explores the will to survive in ways both conventional and poetic.

- Streaming: HBO
- Director: Ridley Scott
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 89
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Run time: 117 minutes

Sigourney Weaver plays the iconic Ripley, the last woman standing, in Ridley Scott’s masterpiece of space terror. The setting serves paranoia around isolation, contagion, and the unknown. The film introduces the xenomorph monster that is just as horrifying in its fetus-like state and as a parasite who affixes over faces. “Alien” also features one of the scariest dinner scenes of all time.

See where 'Gravity' and "Alien' rank on Stacker's 50 best space movies of all time.

- Streaming: Disney+
- Directors: Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 88
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Run time: 88 minutes

“The Lion King” is one of the most popular animated musicals of all time in both VHS and DVD sales. It’s one of the quintessential films kids watched on home video, drawn in by its archetypal, Hamlet-like plot about avenging a slain father. It’s also a feel-good tearjerker, with hit songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, including “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and “Hakuna Matata.”

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Frank Darabont
- Stacker score: 90.1
- Metascore: 80
- IMDb user rating: 9.3
- Run time: 142 minutes

"The Shawshank Redemption" is critically acclaimed as well as a cult favorite, due to its celebration of an human spirit indomitable beyond oppression. Tim Robbins plays Andy, a convict buoyed by a long game breakout scheme across 19 years in a harsh prison. Morgan Freeman is his friend Red in this tragic and uplifting drama that's both sentimental and horrifying.

- Streaming: DIRECTV
- Director: Sam Peckinpah
- Stacker score: 90.6
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Run time: 135 minutes

Sam Peckinpah’s hyper-violent Western revises traditional notions of the American genre. The film follows a gang of outlaws whose ways are quickly becoming obsolete as civilization advances in the early 1900s. Peckinpah’s style is known for kinetic editing and stylized shootouts. The film’s brutal violence was controversial at the time, and ended up pushing norms of movie violence toward the explicit.

- Streaming: Disney+
- Directors: James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, Ford Beebe Jr., Norman Ferguson, David Hand, Jim Handley, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Ben Sharpsteen
- Stacker score: 90.6
- Metascore: 96
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Run time: 125 minutes

Walt Disney’s high-concept animated masterpiece fused classical score with artistic imagery, creating a historical cinematic achievement. The film begins with a live-action orchestra that plays classic symphonies in segments with animated stories and abstract sequences. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice vignette features Mickey Mouse in his iconic turn as a bumbling but adorable would-be wizard.

- Streaming: Netflix
- Director: Noah Baumbach
- Stacker score: 90.6
- Metascore: 93
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Run time: 137 minutes

Laura Dern, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for the role, steals her scenes as a cutthroat divorce attorney totally at home with litigative evisceration. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson play a theatrical couple—he’s a writer/director and she’s an actress—whose marriage unravels as they separate and live on two coasts.

- Streaming: Prime Video
- Director: Kenneth Lonergan
- Stacker score: 90.6
- Metascore: 96
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Run time: 137 minutes

Casey Affleck plays Lee, a working-class man dealing with the aftermath of unspeakable tragedy in this naturalistic drama. After Lee’s brother dies, he takes charge of his teenage nephew, which brings him back to a location he’d rather leave behind. Michelle Williams plays his ex-wife, in a story told through increasingly-tragic flashbacks.

See where 'Manchester by the Sea' ranks on Stacker's 100 most critically acclaimed movies from the last decade.

- Streaming: Netflix
- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Stacker score: 90.6
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Run time: 209 minutes

Martin Scorsese's "The Irishman" returns to his familiar subject of gangsters and their exploits across an epic time period. Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro play sedate, longtime mobster friends who team up to deal with Jimmy Hoffa, played by Al Pacino. The acclaimed drama delves into the memories of a criminal hit man contemplating his deeds in old age.

- Streaming: Starz, DIRECTV
- Director: Roman Polanski
- Stacker score: 90.6
- Metascore: 92
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Run time: 130 minutes

Jack Nicholson plays Jake Gittes, a private eye pulled into water utility corruption in this neo-noir that offers a color update to the shadowy classics set in Los Angeles. The movie is known for its harrowing, shocking ending that goes along with noir themes around deep criminality with no way out.

- Streaming: IMDb TV
- Director: Tom McCarthy
- Stacker score: 90.6
- Metascore: 93
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Run time: 129 minutes

“Spotlight” was an out-of-left-field winner for the best picture Oscar. The film follows the true story of the Boston Globe’s team of dogged investigative reporters who uncover widespread child sexual abuse by priests that was concealed by the Catholic church. John Slattery, Rachel McAdams, and Mark Ruffalo are part of the ensemble cast.

- Streaming: DIRECTV
- Director: Peter Jackson
- Stacker score: 90.6
- Metascore: 87
- IMDb user rating: 8.7
- Run time: 179 minutes

The second installment in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy is somewhat overshadowed by the excellence of the first chapter and the critical supremacy of the third. It’s still a highly-regarded adventure epic known for its spectacular scale and superb visuals of middle-earth. It continues the exposition and world building as the characters move toward the final act.

- Streaming: Hulu, DIRECTV
- Director: Christopher Nolan
- Stacker score: 90.6
- Metascore: 84
- IMDb user rating: 9
- Run time: 152 minutes

Director Christopher Nolan infuses the Gotham City cityscape with an expressionistic despair in this sequel to “Batman Begins.” “The Dark Knight” brought a sense of depth and brooding to the superhero genre, and is regarded as a masterpiece. Christian Bale portrays the action hero, with Heath Ledger giving an astounding and complex performance as the villainous Joker.

- Streaming: The Criterion Channel
- Director: Otto Preminger
- Stacker score: 91.1
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Run time: 161 minutes

"Anatomy of a Murder" is the quintessential American courtroom drama, a genre that allows the audience to act as judge and jury as evidence and details are revealed. James Stewart plays a showboating attorney working on an insanity plea, in a murder trial where the crime was motivated by a rape. Lee Remick gives a subversive performance as a victim who doesn't play by the rules.

- Streaming: DIRECTV
- Director: George Cukor
- Stacker score: 91.1
- Metascore: 96
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Run time: 112 minutes

Kathryn Hepburn fends off multiple marriage proposals as Tracy, a rich socialite, in this popular romantic comedy from classic Hollywood. Cary Grant plays her dashing ex-husband while James Stewart is a reporter who covers her wedding weekend to another obviously-wrong man. Hepburn shines in a role that highlights her winning charisma.

- Streaming: Prime Video
- Director: John Ford
- Stacker score: 91.1
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Run time: 123 minutes

Another of director John Ford’s classic Westerns, this one stars John Wayne and James Stewart in a meditation on what makes a true hero. Both lead actors bring the full measure of their movie star personas as representations of the two sides of heroism. The film revolves around the political ascension that’s enabled by slaying a villain in a world where myths mean more than facts.

See where 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' falls on Stacker's 100 best Westerns of all time.

- Streaming: Prime Video
- Director: Frank Capra
- Stacker score: 91.1
- Metascore: 89
- IMDb user rating: 8.6
- Run time: 130 minutes

Frank Capra’s sentimental allegory has become standard viewing during the holiday season, marking it as one of the films that’s watched and enjoyed again and again. It was critically acclaimed during its initial theatrical run, but didn’t become widely popular until TV broadcasts. James Stewart stars as a distraught man visited by a Christmas Eve angel who shows him his effect on the world.

- Streaming: Disney+
- Directors: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise
- Stacker score: 91.1
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Run time: 84 minutes

This beloved Disney classic became the first animated film to be nominated for a best picture Oscar. The romantic fairy tale is known for its spectacular “Be Our Guest” number, where Jerry Orbach voices the exuberant Lumiere. Angela Lansbury sang the Oscar-winning title song, and Robby Benson made for an unlikely, but unforgettable baritone as the voice of the Beast.

- Streaming: Netflix, DIRECTV
- Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
- Stacker score: 91.1
- Metascore: 93
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Run time: 158 minutes

Paul Thomas Anderson's gripping drama takes on myths about American bootstrapping and empire building. Daniel Day-Lewis won an Oscar for his performance as a ruthless oil tycoon who seems to embody capitalism incarnate. The acclaimed film offers a cynical look at greed, set amid the spare desolation of the rural Southwest in the early 1900s.

- Streaming: Disney+, DIRECTV
- Director: Lee Unkrich
- Stacker score: 91.1
- Metascore: 92
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Run time: 103 minutes

“Toy Story 3” is considered to have topped the first two entries in the franchise, buoyed by advances in CGI during the decade in between premieres. The third entry had a new story that ups the heart factor—with Andy heading off to college, the family toys are accidentally thrown away.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Directors: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley
- Stacker score: 91.7
- Metascore: 97
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Run time: 102 minutes

Errol Flynn embodies the mythic, larger-than-life Robin Hood in this rousing action adventure shot in Technicolor. The vibrant color process makes the screen burst with vivid splendor. Anchored by Flynn’s signature swashbuckling, this is considered one of the great Hollywood spectacles, as it presents a rebel hero who exudes effortless charm and joy.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: John Ford
- Stacker score: 91.7
- Metascore: 96
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Run time: 129 minutes

John Ford’s Depression-era melodrama adapts John Steinbeck’s novel, and both works are considered masterpieces on the American experience of poverty. Peter Fonda gives an acclaimed performance as the downtrodden Tom Joad, who’s steeled with hope amid devastation. The film follows a family that loses its farm, then heads toward California where hardships mount.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Elia Kazan
- Stacker score: 91.7
- Metascore: 96
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Run time: 122 minutes

The movie version of Tennessee Williams’s stormy stage play set in New Orleans is known for its award-winning performances. Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Vivien Leigh play frenzied, eruptive characters in scenes charged with tension and unrest. Brando’s perfectly-overwrought turn as the brutish Stanley remains iconic. Leigh plays the fading Southern belle Blanche Dubois with a perilous fragility that suggests social conventions are destructive relics.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: John Huston
- Stacker score: 91.7
- Metascore: 96
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Run time: 100 minutes

Humphrey Bogart stars as the hard-boiled gumshoe Sam Spade in this quintessential film noir classic. John Huston's directorial debut adapts Dashiell Hammett's novel into a suspenseful thriller centered on a double-crossing femme fatale, played by Mary Astor, who pulls Spade into her web of deceit. The twisty plot structure matches the hero's tangled slide as he's further ensnared in the quest for a valuable statue.

- Streaming: Prime Video, Hulu, DIRECTV
- Director: Roman Polanski
- Stacker score: 91.7
- Metascore: 96
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Run time: 137 minutes

“Rosemary’s Baby” made a newborn’s rocking bassinet an image of terror. Mia Farrow plays a newly-married housewife whose seemingly ideal domestic life takes a turn to the bizarre after neighbors pull her into cult rituals she can’t quite remember. The film twists conventional social norms into depravity once cocktail party small talk turns to “Hail, Satan” and the like.

- Streaming: Disney+, Vudu, DIRECTV
- Directors: Pete Docter, Ronnie Del Carmen
- Stacker score: 91.7
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Run time: 95 minutes

“Inside Out” is known for its original vision as it creates a dazzling landscape for inner feelings and shows their effects on the outside world. A young girl struggles to adjust after she relocates to a new city with her parents. Meanwhile, her emotions are personified characters who manage her core memories from a control center in her mind, in this deeply-moving animated comedy.

- Streaming: Disney+
- Directors: Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava
- Stacker score: 91.7
- Metascore: 96
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Run time: 111 minutes

Audiences fell in love with Remy, a rat who is passionate about gourmet cuisine, in Pixar’s animated hit “Ratatouille.” Patton Oswalt gave humor and depth to the aspiring rodent chef, and Lou Romano voiced his partner Linguini, a kitchen boy who also dreams of creating the perfect dish. Visually-stunning imagery and uplifting themes make this feel-good comedy a feast for all.

- Streaming: Disney+, DIRECTV
- Director: George Lucas
- Stacker score: 91.7
- Metascore: 90
- IMDb user rating: 8.6
- Run time: 121 minutes

The original “Star Wars” landed with the same force the franchise has maintained to this day. It was hugely popular at the box office and was a rare science fiction film to be nominated for a best picture Oscar. This first film in the franchise introduced the Skywalker saga and launched Harrison Ford as a major movie star for his turn as Han Solo, the roguish space pirate with a heart of gold.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Billy Wilder
- Stacker score: 92.2
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Run time: 125 minutes

Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray star in Billy Wilder's cynical look at modern love in Manhattan. Lemmon plays a clerk who falls for a girl embroiled in an affair with an exec who's using his apartment as a love nest. She ends up in heartbreaking despair, but the dark themes are also infused with humor and hope.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Steve McQueen
- Stacker score: 92.2
- Metascore: 96
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Run time: 134 minutes

“12 Years a Slave” won the best picture Oscar and was based on the true story of Solomon Northup, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, an enslaved black man kidnapped and sold by white men in the 1840s. Lupita Nyong’o won the best supporting actress Oscar for her riveting portrayal of Patsey. Michael Fassbender portrays a brutalizing slaver and plantation owner.

- Streaming: Netflix, DIRECTV
- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Stacker score: 92.2
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Run time: 114 minutes

Robert De Niro plays the Vietnam vet Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese’s vibrant drama about vigilante justice. Bickle’s obsesses over a child sex worker, played by Jodie Foster, and a campaign worker, played by Cybill Shepherd, leads to his increasing derangement. De Niro gives a vivid, kinetic performance as an unhinged man on a mission.

See where 'Taxi Driver' ranks on Stacker's list of 50 Best Robert De Niro movies.

- Streaming: Hulu
- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Stacker score: 92.2
- Metascore: 90
- IMDb user rating: 8.7
- Run time: 146 minutes

Joe Pesci’s Oscar-winning portrayal of a trigger-happy wiseguy made his screen time sizzle with a sense of unrest in “Goodfellas.” Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta co-star as mobsters in Martin Scorsese’s epic based on the nonfiction book “Wiseguy” by Nicolas Pileggi. Elaborate long takes, freeze frames, and fourth wall breaks make for a thrilling cinematic style.

- Streaming: DIRECTV, Fubo
- Director: Steven Spielberg
- Stacker score: 92.2
- Metascore: 91
- IMDb user rating: 8.6
- Run time: 169 minutes

The innovative opening battle sequence immerses audiences in 25 minutes of chaotic combat, as soldiers make their way up the Normandy beach on D-Day. “Saving Private Ryan” is still renowned for offering a new realism in war movies. It premiered during the turn-of-the-millennium fascination with World War II as the boomer generation reached middle age.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Billy Wilder
- Stacker score: 92.7
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Run time: 107 minutes

Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray deliver crackling dialogue in this film noir masterpiece about the dark despair that runs beneath middle-class life under capitalism. "Double Indemnity" was controversial with censors when it premiered, for seeming to glamorize violence while offering a "how-to" on committing murder and insurance fraud. Normal settings like living rooms, corporate offices, and grocery stores are shot with shadow and coated in corruption.

- Streaming: DIRECTV
- Directors: Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood
- Stacker score: 92.7
- Metascore: 97
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Run time: 238 minutes

“Gone with the Wind” mounted an epic scale in its historical recreation of antebellum Southern plantations, the burning of Atlanta, and the collapse of the Confederacy. One iconic crane shot pulls back to reveal the thousands of wounded, dead, and dying during the Civil War. The film offers a rhapsody on the lost South and a sympathetic view of white enslavers. Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, and Hattie McDaniel star.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Francis Ford Coppola
- Stacker score: 92.7
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Run time: 147 minutes

Francis Ford Coppola’s war epic features a strange visual poetry as it depicts the brutality of the Vietnam War. Marlon Brando plays an AWOL colonel rumored to have descended into madness in a jungle outpost. Martin Sheen plays the captain sent to find him, who proceeds down a similar path of insanity and violence.

- Streaming: Disney+
- Director: John Lasseter
- Stacker score: 92.7
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Run time: 81 minutes

Pixar’s blockbuster hit was the first computer-animated feature film, inaugurating the technology as the new standard for family entertainment. The story brought to life a child’s toys who vied for his attention and embarked on charming adventures. The iconic Buzz and Woody inspired an enormously-popular franchise based on feel-good frolic, the joys of childhood, and sweetly nostalgic humor.

- Streaming: Prime Video
- Director: Charles Laughton
- Stacker score: 93.2
- Metascore: 99
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Run time: 92 minutes

Robert Mitchum plays a charming preacher who descends upon a small town and preys upon a widow with two young children. Mitchum’s performance is lauded for lacing charm with an unctuous evil as he conceals his true nature as a serial killer. Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish also appear in this dark thriller that features nightmarish, expressionistic visuals.

- Streaming: FlixFling
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Stacker score: 93.2
- Metascore: 100
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Run time: 102 minutes

Alfred Hitchcock's espionage thriller stars Ingrid Bergman as a spy at the center of a love triangle. Cary Grant plays the agent who falls for her despite questioning her loyalties and her past. Her mission involves seduction, and eventually marriage, in a plot that offers a cynical version of romance based in suspicion and double cross.

- Streaming: Eros Now
- Director: Orson Welles
- Stacker score: 93.2
- Metascore: 99
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Run time: 95 minutes

Orson Welles’s film noir thriller opens with a brilliant long take that moves through a city block before ending with an explosion. Charlton Heston plays a Mexican detective caught in a web of corruption that ensnares his wife, played by Janet Leigh. Welles also stars in the film, along with Marlene Dietrich as a madam.

- Streaming: Prime Video, The Criterion Channel, Fubo, Watch TCM
- Director: Billy Wilder
- Stacker score: 93.2
- Metascore: 97
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Run time: 121 minutes

In this classic Billy Wilder comedy, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis play musicians who dress in drag to avoid gangster hit men. The two hook up with an all-woman band, led by singer Sugar Kane, played by Marilyn Monroe. Gender mayhem, packed with subversive glee and witty zingers, ensues.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Richard Linklater
- Stacker score: 93.2
- Metascore: 100
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Run time: 165 minutes

Richard Linklater’s experimental drama was filmed across 12 years, tracking actor Ellar Coltrane as he grew from 6 to 18. Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette play the boy’s parents, who also change drastically across the 12 years. Linklater began with a basic premise, but wrote the script along the way to highlight and incorporate changes in the actors as production progressed.

- Streaming: Disney+
- Director: Andrew Stanton
- Stacker score: 93.2
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Run time: 98 minutes

Pixar’s animated sci-fi adventure won praise for bringing depth and vision to its future apocalypse, where humans have become slothlike and reliant on machines. The hero WALL-E is a charming trash compactor that falls for a robot that is scanning for life, in a film filled with striking visuals and heartwarming humor, which spoke to kids as well as adults in the audience.

Read Stacker's Best Pixar films according to critics to see where 'WALL-E' ranks.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: John Huston
- Stacker score: 93.8
- Metascore: 98
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Run time: 126 minutes

Humphrey Bogart stars in John Huston's action adventure about the source of corruption. The film follows transient migrants who hook up with a gold prospector while looking for a break. The jackpot proves deadly as greed overtakes friendship and reason. The film has humor and irony, despite its dark themes on the way wealth wreaks havoc on those who desire it.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
- Stacker score: 93.8
- Metascore: 98
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Run time: 138 minutes

“All About Eve” is still one of three films with the most Oscar nominations—a total of 14. Bette Davis plays a legendary Broadway actress, the acerbic Margot Channing, in this drama about rivalries between women. The film presents the younger Eve, portrayed by Anne Baxter, scheming against the elder actress in a film with themes about women’s roles, not only on stage, but in a wider culture that overvalues youth.

- Streaming: Sling, TNT, Fubo
- Directors: Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Mervyn LeRoy, Norman Taurog, Richard Thorpe, King Vidor
- Stacker score: 93.8
- Metascore: 100
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Run time: 102 minutes

“The Wizard of Oz” is one of the most influential films of all time, due to its universal story about exile from one’s home. It’s famous for its masterful switch from black and white to Technicolor to depict the transition from bleak Kansas to the fantasy world of Oz. Judy Garland, as Dorothy, is known for her virtuoso performance of the enduring “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Francis Ford Coppola
- Stacker score: 93.8
- Metascore: 90
- IMDb user rating: 9
- Run time: 202 minutes

Robert De Niro plays the young Vito Corleone in a sequel that’s often praised for surpassing the excellence of the first “Godfather” film. The structure moves between two different time periods, depicting young Vito’s rise as a mafia don in the 1920s and Michael Corleone’s continuing descent into criminality in the late 1950s.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Peter Jackson
- Stacker score: 93.8
- Metascore: 92
- IMDb user rating: 8.8
- Run time: 178 minutes

An all-star cast, with Ian McKellen as Gandalf and Elijah Wood as the hobbit Frodo, bring J.R.R. Tolkien’s wondrous middle-earth adventures to life in the first film in the epic trilogy. Peter Jackson directed a production known for its innovative, technical brilliance and spectacular scale. Fantastical visuals provide the backdrop for this hero’s journey centered on a magical ring.

- Streaming: Prime Video
- Director: Alexander Mackendrick
- Stacker score: 94.3
- Metascore: 100
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Run time: 96 minutes

This jazz-fueled noir takes place in New York's media world, exposing the sleaze beneath good press as well as the life-destroying variety. Tony Curtis stars as a PR agent who schemes with a newspaper columnist played by Burt Lancaster to destroy a musician's reputation. The film's stylish look makes Manhattan appear gritty, slick, and rife with corruption and despair.

- Streaming: Hoopla, The Criterion Channel, Kanopy
- Director: Charles Chaplin
- Stacker score: 94.3
- Metascore: 96
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Run time: 87 minutes

Charlie Chaplin directs and stars in his final silent film, that adds in occasional sound effects and voices amid the intertitles. “Modern Times” satirizes the industrial age and modern machinery as it follows the popular Little Tramp character, a factory worker and frequent convict, coping with being human in a mechanized world. It’s a deft critique of Depression-era society, filled with Chaplin’s usual slapstick humor.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Stacker score: 94.3
- Metascore: 98
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Run time: 136 minutes

“North by Northwest” is famous for the scene where Cary Grant, an ad exec mistaken for a spy agent, gets chased by a deranged crop duster in the middle of nowhere. The action thriller also features a harrowing climax atop Mount Rushmore. Hitchcock’s signature suspense is in top form during stylish, edge-of-your-seat action sequences.

- Streaming: The Criterion Channel, Crackle, Fubo
- Director: Stanley Kubrick
- Stacker score: 94.3
- Metascore: 97
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Run time: 95 minutes

Stanley Kubrick’s scathing dark comedy satirizes the Cold War and the nationalist brio that drove the conflict. Peter Sellers and George C. Scott lead a cast that plays various bomb-crazy military men anxious to drop the big one. The film premiered in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and allowed audiences to laugh at nuclear warfare that seemed both terrifying and strangely realistic.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Directors: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly
- Stacker score: 94.8
- Metascore: 99
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Run time: 103 minutes

“Singin’ in the Rain” remains one of the most exuberant and beloved musicals of the classic Hollywood era. Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor play actors who team up with Debbie Reynolds, a bit player with a great singing voice, during the industry’s switch from silent movies to talkies. The film is known for lavish dance numbers and an over-the-top feel-good style that captures the joy of cinema.

See which three songs from 'Singin' in the Rain' made Stacker's list of 100 greatest movie songs from 100 years of film.

- Streaming: DIRECTV, Fubo
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Stacker score: 94.8
- Metascore: 97
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Run time: 109 minutes

Janet Leigh plays an adulterous woman who embezzled money from her boss, then pulls over at the Bates Motel on her way out of town. Hitchcock ups the creep factor in this iconic slasher film with the famous shower scene that offers visceral horror through brilliant editing techniques. Leigh delivers her infamous screams, and Anthony Perkins plays the seemingly harmless oddball who runs the roadside inn.

- Streaming: Fubo
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Stacker score: 95.3
- Metascore: 100
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Run time: 128 minutes

Kim Novak plays another of Hitchcock’s icy blondes in a thriller about a man’s obsession with icy blondes. James Stewart plays a detective with a severe fear of heights who gets embroiled in a case following an old friend’s wife, where no one is who they seem. Gorgeous visuals capture the psychological disorientation of vertigo, madness, and romantic love.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Orson Welles
- Stacker score: 95.3
- Metascore: 100
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Run time: 119 minutes

Widely considered one of the best American films of all time, “Citizen Kane” is all the more impressive since its co-writer, director, and star, Orson Welles, was just 26 during production. The story about a powerful business magnate’s life and times is presented through innovative technical brilliance in its use of deep focus, superimposition, and shot compositions that still amaze.

- Streaming: Starz
- Director: Steven Spielberg
- Stacker score: 95.3
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 8.9
- Run time: 195 minutes

“Schindler’s List” proved a triumph for director Steven Spielberg, who was previously known for popcorn thrillers like “Jaws” and “E.T.” The World War II drama depicts the true story of Oskar Schindler, played by Liam Neeson, a German businessman who uses his bargaining acumen to save Jewish people who would otherwise end up in death camps. Spielberg won the best director Oscar and the film took best picture.

- Streaming: DIRECTV, Fubo
- Director: Peter Jackson
- Stacker score: 95.3
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 8.9
- Run time: 201 minutes

The final chapter in Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy swept the Academy Awards and still holds the record for winning every Oscar for which it secured nominations—a total of 11. The fantasy epic is known for thrilling battle sequences created with state-of-the-art CGI to create the breathtaking grandeur of J.R.R. Tolkien’s vast middle-earth and its otherworldly inhabitants.

See where the third installment of Jackon's movie trilogy ranks on Stacker's 100 most critically acclaimed films of the 21st century.

- Streaming: Starz
- Director: Quentin Tarantino
- Stacker score: 95.3
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 8.9
- Run time: 154 minutes

Quentin Tarantino's madcap masterpiece remains influential due to its stylized violence, campy dialogue, and nonlinear structure. Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta play hit men whose lives entwine with a gangster and his associates and enemies. The movie is structured through vignettes that portray Los Angeles underworld life in a style that mixes pulp material with the avant-garde.

- Streaming: Kanopy, The Criterion Channel
- Director: Charles Chaplin
- Stacker score: 95.8
- Metascore: 99
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Run time: 87 minutes

Charlie Chaplin, who wrote, directed, and composed the score, also stars as his popular Little Tramp character, a hobolike, charming Everyman. In “City Lights,” Little Tramp falls in love with a blind woman who he woos with kindness since she can’t see his down-and-out status. Little Tramp gets both saved and rejected by a drunken millionaire in a film that critiques the ways the wealthy treat the poor.

- Streaming: DIRECTV, Fubo
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Stacker score: 95.8
- Metascore: 100
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Run time: 112 minutes

Alfred Hitchcock’s suspense masterpiece dramatizes the larger experience of audiences held captive by images on the big screen. James Stewart plays a photographer, known for sensationalism, who spies on his neighbors through a rear window after an injury confines him to a wheelchair. The audience experiences his limited point of view as he watches increasingly-depraved events but can’t act while trapped as a mere observer.

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Michael Curtiz
- Stacker score: 96.4
- Metascore: 100
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Run time: 102 minutes

“Casablanca” usually sits near the top of most all-time best movie lists. The World War II romance captures a universal nostalgia for love stories about the one who got away. Humphrey Bogart plays Rick, a jilted nightclub owner who helps refugees escape to America. Ingrid Bergman is the woman who once broke it off, but now considers ditching her marriage and safety to give it another go.

- Streaming: Prime Video
- Director: Sidney Lumet
- Stacker score: 96.4
- Metascore: 96
- IMDb user rating: 8.9
- Run time: 96 minutes

Sidney Lumet’s acclaimed drama was adapted from a popular teleplay. The film takes place in a single location—a sweltering, locked jury room—as 12 men decide the fate of a Puerto Rican teenager accused of murder. Henry Fonda gives an acclaimed performance as a critical thinker willing to question an otherwise open-and-shut guilty verdict for a defendant some jurors call “trash” and “a menace.”

- Streaming: Only available to rent
- Director: Francis Ford Coppola
- Stacker score: 100
- Metascore: 100
- IMDb user rating: 9.2
- Run time: 175 minutes

Francis Ford Coppola's mobster masterpiece presents the saga of the Corleone crime family. Marlon Brando plays the iconic patriarch during a period of upheaval and retaliation. Al Pacino and James Caan give memorable performances, as brothers in line to take over an underworld empire and do what it takes to protect it. The film presents gangster life as a force that seduces as it horrifies.

See which quote from 'The Godfather' ranked #2 on Stacker's 100 greatest movie quotes from 100 years of film.