Best movies to stream on Prime, according to audiences

- Director: Gustavo Pizzi
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.91
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Metascore: 81
- Run time: 95 minutes

This Brazilian film by Gustavo Pizzi turns the everyday lives of Irene, Klaus, and their children into a tender drama. The oldest son plans to move to Europe and leave the family behind. Pizzi shows a family whose love and affection for one another helps them deal with the strife of middle-class life in a way that will certainly touch the hearts of audiences.

- Director: Alma Har'el
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.91
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Metascore: 73
- Run time: 94 minutes

Inspired by actor Shia LaBeouf’s own life, “Honey Boy” tells the story of a child actor and his relationship with his manipulative, damaged father. LaBeouf’s performance in a role based on his own father is enough to give this film a watch. Yet, director Alma Har’el brings even more to the table with a gentle and beautiful approach to a tough father-son story. Make sure there are tissues by the couch during this one.

- Director: Victor Sjöström
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.91
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 95 minutes

There aren’t just recent indie gems on Prime. It has a surprisingly great array of classic films, including this silent film featuring legendary silent actors Norma Shearer, Lon Chaney, and John Gilbert. It delivers a psychological story about a wronged scientist who becomes a circus clown to restart his life. There’s romance, daredevilry, and tragedy all in around 90 minutes.

- Director: F.W. Murnau
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.91
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 94 minutes

If you’re not one for silent movies, F.W. Murnau’s movies are a great place to start. “Nosferatu,” one of his most famous films, is an early horror movie about a vampire. “Nosferatu” precurses Bela Lugosi’s famous “Dracula” performance and exemplifies the German expressionist style of filmmaking of the 1920s. Despite having no sound, “Nosferatu” will undoubtedly creep out most viewers.

- Director: John Ford
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.91
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 93
- Run time: 96 minutes

As John Wayne's tipping point for Western stardom, "Stagecoach" holds a high spot in Hollywood film history. Legendary director John Ford set the standard for Westerns to come for decades. A group of early varying settlers travel together in a stagecoach across America when Geronimo is rumored to attack at any moment. Suspense, drama, and action are at play in this all-American classic.

- Director: Steven Okazaki
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.91
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 86 minutes

The story of the United States’ nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is told by those who survived them in this documentary by Steven Okazaki. While the images are harrowing to watch, the stories of people surviving one of the worst events in history are stories to be heard.

- Director: Yoshishige Yoshida
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.92
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 118 minutes

The entry of a young missing girl into a middle-aged engineer’s life causes him to remember his youth as a revolutionary. This Japanese drama mixes dreamlike flashbacks and dramatic scenes of the engineer's present relationship with the new addition to his family.

- Director: Tobe Hooper
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.92
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Metascore: 75
- Run time: 83 minutes

Tobe Hooper’s “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” found inspiration in the real-life serial killer Ed Gein and has gained its own place in American popular culture since its less-than-success in 1974. The last shot of the film will be worth watching despite the disturbing images that come before it.

- Director: Martin Ritt
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.92
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 62
- Run time: 112 minutes

It’s hard to watch Hollywood heartthrob Paul Newman play a jerk, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t still charming as Hud. This tragedy drama/Western examines humanity in an unglamorous way that isn’t always prevalent in the Western genre. Great performances by other memorable actors Patricia Neal, Melvyn Douglas, and Brandon De Wilde help solidify this movie.

- Director: Sergei M. Eisenstein
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.92
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 66 minutes

The Soviet government commissioned this silent film to depict the Russian uprising of 1905. It contains one of the most famous sequences in film on the Odessa Steps, which is where a pivotal moment in the film takes place. From a historical standpoint, this film is a must-watch to understand the way Russia wanted to be seen at the time.

- Director: Gavin O'Connor
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.92
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 71
- Run time: 140 minutes

An all-star cast is behind this sports drama about an unforgettable mixed martial arts match. Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte, Joel Edgerton bring the underdog story to life with powerful performances and action-packed fight scenes. Like most sports dramas, there is much to tell outside of the ring that will make this story an emotional one.

- Director: Kidlat Tahimik
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.93
- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 93 minutes

Kidlat Tahimik did just about everything in this Filipino film. He wrote, directed, edited, produced, co-shot, and starred in it. A young man becomes infatuated with space travel and Western culture, which leads him to leave his life in the Philippines and move to Europe. Werner Herzog called this hidden gem “one of the most original and poetic works of cinema made anywhere in the seventies.”

- Director: Billy Wilder
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.93
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 84
- Run time: 120 minutes

This exciting escape drama won actor William Holden his only Best Actor Academy Award. Billy Wilder directs the adaptation of a play about a prisoner of war camp during World War II. Holden plays a man accused of leaking information to the Nazis that two men were escaping, resulting in their deaths. He must do everything to find the real informant to save himself.

- Director: Stacy Peralta
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.93
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: 66
- Run time: 90 minutes

Any skateboarder, young or old, should check out this documentary. It features some of the most famous skaters in history, including Tony Hawk and Steve Caballero. They reminiscence about their best times in skateboarding and how they changed the sport forever.

- Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.94
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: 90
- Run time: 89 minutes

Amazon Prime delivers on some true foreign cinema gems, and this Polish masterpiece certainly fits that bill. Pawel Pawlikowski directs a story of everlasting love between two beautiful people in an ugly world—post-World War II Europe. He uses the black-and-white cinematography to create art with serious emotion.

- Director: Liu Chia-Liang
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.94
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 116 minutes

This kung fu thriller is considered one of the best of its kind. A story of revenge brings out gloriously choreographed training scenes and fights. Watching a wronged man turn into an all out kung fu killer couldn’t be more satisfying than this.

- Director: Adolfo Aristarain
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.94
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 112 minutes

Pedro, a notch in the machine of a large company, plans to get his bosses to pay him by faking an accident. He underestimates what the scheme will do to his fellow workers, but won’t stop for anything until he gets what he deserves. This depiction of the working class in Argentina has an ending not to be missed.

- Director: Ang Lee
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.94
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 124 minutes

For a Taiwanese family, the week revolves around Sunday dinner together. The three unwed daughters have lively loves outside of the house, but what goes on affects the entire family. Tender in its story and characters, this movie will satisfy any craving for a heartfelt drama.

- Director: Norman Jewison
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.94
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 75
- Run time: 110 minutes

This portrait of racism in America is legendary and emotionally provoking. Sidney Poitier gives one of his best performances as a black homicide detective assigned to a case in the Deep South. Hollywood rarely addressed racism this explicitly when the movie was released, and it made critics and audiences confront the political reality of their country.

- Directors: Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar, Benjamin Renner
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.94
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 86
- Run time: 80 minutes

This is an adorable animated film for both kids and adults and just might be the perfect next watch. A sweet mouse and bear form an unlikely friendship despite pushback from their perspective communities. This tale is the kind of sweet, short tale that everyone looks for in kids' movies.

- Director: Gregory La Cava
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.94
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 94 minutes

This screwball comedy came at the peak of the subgenre’s popularity during and directly following the Great Depression in the United States. Carole Lombard’s performance as a rich, ditzy socialite who falls in love with her hired butler is one of the iconic roles associated with screwball. The film as a whole is hilarious, light, and full of all the sparkly romance of a classic movie.

- Director: Tony Silver
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.94
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 69 minutes

Public opinions on graffiti art clash in this documentary about vandalism in 1980s New York City. Audiences get a glimpse of the artistic process behind graffiti and the motivation for the art with a soundtrack of classic hip-hop. Culture and systematic oppression coincide with the discussion about art, making this a well-rounded and dynamic documentary.

- Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.94
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 82
- Run time: 156 minutes

The last secretary to Adolf Hitler tells the story of this dictator’s final days in his bunker in this German drama. The country’s downward spiral is represented by several different characters. Hugo Ganz plays a deteriorating Hilter with consideration, but not sympathy. As the subject suggests, this is a dark movie, but a powerful one nonetheless.

- Director: Luis Buñuel
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.95
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 84
- Run time: 103 minutes

The sexual relationship between a middle-aged man and his 19-year-old hired maid is at the forefront of this movie about lust and love. Their relationship is far from typical and creates an unsettling yet impossible-to-look-away-from story.

- Director: Bo Burnham
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.96
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Metascore: 89
- Run time: 93 minutes

Teenage girls hardly ever get the consideration and empathy behind "Eighth Grade." Elsie Fisher's breakout role as Kayla represents a character we've been dying to see in movies about young girls. She's awkward, confused, and a little sexually frustrated, but that doesn't mean she's not cool enough to be the focus of a movie. Comedian Bo Burnham wrote a script that will make audiences laugh, cringe, and then cry within the same scene.

- Director: Xavier Dolan
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.96
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: 73
- Run time: 168 minutes

A transgender woman’s transition is charted over 10 years in this drama penned and directed by actor Xavier Dolan. Laurence struggles with her identity and acceptance from those who knew her before she transitioned. Her relationship with her fiance changes throughout the years, and Laurence deals with the fact that her identity will always receive external judgement.

- Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.96
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 137 minutes

Pier Paolo Pasolini tells the story of the life and death of Jesus Christ through half of the text of Matthew. In this version, Jesus resembles a Marxist leftist as he and his followers rebel against Roman rule. Contested aspects of the film are its political leaning, the director’s own atheism, and the realistic approach to a Biblical story.

- Director: Woody Allen
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.96
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 83
- Run time: 96 minutes

New York City in the 1970s is embodied perfectly in Woody Allen’s controversial comedy “Manhattan.” Many people consider this essential viewing for any fan of movies. Allen’s comedy represented the decade well, but many of the jokes are still relevant today.

- Directors: Edith Becker, Kevin Burns
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.96
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 151 minutes

This documentary goes behind the making of one of the most influential movies on popular culture of all time. “Star Wars” fans discover how their favorite movies were written and made from those who were behind them all, including director George Lucas. Archival behind-the-scenes footage shows how the space story came to life and its everlasting impact on the movie industry.

- Director: Liu Chia-liang
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.97
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 98 minutes

The Shaw Brothers studio in Hong Kong produced yet another great kung fu movie with "The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter." It features the mythical true story of a massacre during the Sung dynasty. The revenge that the surviving members of the Yang family pull on the Mongol general behind the massacre is kung fu magic.

- Director: Hou Hsiao-Hsien
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.97
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 138 minutes

As a Taiwan family moves from the mainland and can never return, the gap between them and their heritage grows. Hou Hsiao-Hsien used much of his own childhood to create this drama that examines death, identity, and life.

- Director: Mamoru Oshii
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.97
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 76
- Run time: 83 minutes

Before Scarlett Johannson’s controversial adaptation of the manga of the same name came the animated version in 1995. This version is well-loved by fans of the story, which follows a robotic officer in a secret police force as she seeks to find a cyber criminal. Fans of anime and sci-fi alike will find something to love in this film.

- Director: Lee Chang-dong
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.98
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Metascore: 84
- Run time: 142 minutes

One woman goes through enough tragedy for three lifetimes in this Korean melodrama. After Shin-ae’s husband dies, she moves to his hometown to be closer to his memory. Another death in her life shakes her world again. While the story is sad, it’s a poetic look at life and death and how to continue living when overwhelmed with tragedy.

- Director: Xavier Burgin
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.98
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 83 minutes

This documentary was originally only available on the horror-centric streaming service Shudder, but it’s made its way to Prime as well. The impact that African-Americans have had on the horror genre is more than underappreciated, but that changes with this highlight of their part in the early days of horror and beyond.

- Director: Matthew Warchus
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.98
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 79
- Run time: 119 minutes

In 2019, actors George MacKay and Andrew Scott of "1917" were on everyone's radar, but in 2014 they starred in this film about LGBT activists in England during the 1980s. They join forces with the miners on strike in solidarity against the government. This unlikely partnership may seem too good to be real, but the film is based on the true story of the Pride March of 1984.

- Director: Luis Buñuel
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.98
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 93
- Run time: 102 minutes

A bougie dinner party continues to get interrupted in this surrealist examination of upper middle-class society. Luis Buñuel uses satire to make fun of the lives of the rich. This comedy won Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards in 1972 for good reason, and it’s worth checking out why.

- Director: Vittorio De Sica
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.98
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 87 minutes

Two friends are torn apart after they are tried for their part in a robbery in postwar Italy. Like “Bicycle Thieves,” this neorealist film depicts the unglamorous and tragic lives of poorer Italians in a society ravaged by World War II.

- Director: Paul Schrader
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.99
- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- Metascore: 85
- Run time: 113 minutes

Many critics believed Ethan Hawke was robbed of an Academy Award nomination for his role as a depressed minister who is losing faith in the world and in God. Director Paul Schrader’s slow descent into despair mounts to a harrowing ending that fans of the film either love or hate. Either way, it is one of the best independent films of the decade.

- Director: Ari Aster
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.99
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Metascore: 87
- Run time: 127 minutes

What qualifies as horror and what does not became the debate of choice when Ari Aster debuted his unprecedented film “Hereditary” in 2018. Toni Collette gives a once-in-a-lifetime performance as a grief-stricken woman who takes her family with her into the depths of madness. Evil lies under every scene in this film, and the images it uses are as horrific as they come. Be warned, the ending will haunt viewers forever, but they’ll love every second of it.

- Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.99
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Metascore: 93
- Run time: 104 minutes

Legendary directors Ethan and Joel Coen perfectly depict the Greenwich Village folk scene in the 1960s, through a not-so-successful singer played by Oscar Isaac. He goes through his days as a defiant artist that is just short of greatness, but unwilling to do anything else. He's bound to go unremembered, but his story is the bleak, lyrical look at what makes genius—talent or pure luck?

- Director: Ted Kotcheff
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.99
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: 88
- Run time: 109 minutes

This Australian film was considered lost until it was restored by Australia's National Film and Sound Archive and AtLab Deluxe. John Grant travels to Bundanyabba in order to catch a plane to Sydney to visit his girlfriend. One night turns into more and he delves into self-destruction.

- Director: Kenneth Lonergan
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.99
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 96
- Run time: 137 minutes

The cast of this movie put out many of the best performances in 2016. Casey Affleck, Lucas Hedges, and Michelle Williams each play characters tortured by tragedies in their lives. This film will move you to tears, but in the best way possible, with beautiful acting that happens only once in a while.

- Director: Werner Herzog
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.99
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 87
- Run time: 103 minutes

In 2003, grizzly bear activists were killed while living among the bears in Alaska. Documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog finds fascinating subjects in those dedicated activists and tells the story of their lifelong dedication to studying bears even to the brink of their deaths.

- Director: George A. Romero
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.99
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 89
- Run time: 96 minutes

Every contemporary zombie movie owes its existence to this small film shot on a shoestring budget in Pittsburgh. George Romero has become a cult favorite and legendary horror filmmaker thanks to this revolutionary movie. Zombies descend on a small town and a group of strangers tries to survive together, but the infected make that harder than expected.

- Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.99
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: 83
- Run time: 154 minutes

Three lives are connected by a horrible car accident in this Mexican drama. Their lives are forever changed, and they try to continue to live in pursuit of love and happiness. This poetic drama is a moving look at everything experienced in life.

- Director: Charles Chaplin
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.0
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 90
- Run time: 72 minutes

Charlie Chaplin’s famous character The Tramp joins a circus and falls in love with one of the acrobats. His funny antics are combined with a sense of melancholy that only Chaplin can balance perfectly. His ability to make audiences laugh and cry without sound is well at work in this comedy.

- Director: Clay Tweel
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.0
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Metascore: 80
- Run time: 110 minutes

After being diagnosed with ALS, former NFL player Steve Gleason decides to live his last 2-5 projected years to the fullest. He tries to help others with his disease in this inspiring documentary compiled from video diaries from Gleason to his newborn son.

- Director: Nabwana I.G.G.
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.01
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 68 minutes

This Ugandan action film was made by a director who has never set foot in a movie theater. It was made on a super low budget, but disrupts the usual images seen in movies set in Africa. It is unlike any action film.

- Director: Greta Gerwig
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.01
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Metascore: 94
- Run time: 94 minutes

Actress Greta Gerwig finally got behind the camera for her directorial debut “Lady Bird.” As one of the most wrought and moving coming-of-age movies to date, Gerwig brought to life adolescent feelings many hadn’t felt in years. Saoirse Ronan shines as teenage rebel Lady Bird, giving an unforgettable personal performance.

- Director: Mary Dore
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.02
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 80
- Run time: 92 minutes

The overlooked aspects of the second wave of feminism finally get their due in this documentary. From the National Organization for Women's formation to the sexual revolution, everything that went into the historical movement is told in an inspiring and entertaining way.

- Director: Howard Hawks
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.02
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 92 minutes

Smart-mouthed career woman Hildy Johnson has been a feminist icon since “His Girl Friday” came out in 1940. Genius studio director Howard Hawks was able to create something entirely unique with this gender-swapped version of “The Front Page.” The chemistry between Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell is palpable and their jokes are quick.

- Director: William Wyler
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.02
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 78
- Run time: 118 minutes

Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck take a scooter ride around Rome in this romance. It’s glamorous and light, but this picture has history as well. It won blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo an Academy Award, even though he had Ian McLellan Hunter take the credit for him. It’s a dazzling love story with a historical tale just as interesting.

- Director: John Sturges
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.02
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 87
- Run time: 172 minutes

This action classic features some of the greatest tough guy actors, including Steve McQueen and James Garner. They plan an escape from a Nazi prison camp in World War II, but can they make it out alive?

- Director: Raoul Peck
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.03
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 95
- Run time: 93 minutes

Raoul Peck reimagines what James Baldwin’s unfinished book would be like in this documentary. He covers the civil rights movement to Black Lives Matter and what it means to live in America as a minority. As poetic as Baldwin would have wanted, this is essential viewing for every American.

- Director: Woody Allen
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.03
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 92
- Run time: 93 minutes

Another Woody Allen classic is this comedy partnership between Allen and Diane Keaton. Allen is at his neurotic best as he falls in love with Annie Hall, who's not like other girls he's known. The ՚70s allowed for more sex in comedy than ever before, and Allen took advantage of that.

- Director: Robert Wiene
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.03
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 67 minutes

Considered a true great from the silent era, there’s a reason this film still ranks high on audience lists today. The crazed Dr. Caligari claims he’s able to use a man who can see into the future. It’s not an innocent venture of fortunetelling however, and murder soon gets involved.

- Director: Robert Mulligan
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.03
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 88
- Run time: 129 minutes

This adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel of the same name is almost as iconic in American culture as the original text. Gregory Peck is forever the face of Atticus Finch, the devoted and moral lawyer father to defiant Scout. This story will make viewers question whether they would stand up for what is right, like Atticus, or be too afraid of the consequences he faces.

- Director: Tony Kaye
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.03
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Metascore: 62
- Run time: 119 minutes

Edward Norton plays Derek, a reformed neo-Nazi skinhead who tries to prevent his brother from commiting his same evils after he’s released from jail. However, his younger brother Danny has been watching and admiring Derek since his white supremicist gang days. Convincing him hate is not worth the energy will not be easy.

- Director: Joe Talbot
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.04
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Metascore: 83
- Run time: 121 minutes

This moving story is also one of the prettiest to look at from last year, and still is even if you didn't get to see it on a big screen. Jimmie Fails wrote and stars in a deeply personal story of class, identity, and family. Viewers will definitely want to watch this now if they missed it last year.

- Director: Hal Ashby
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.04
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 62
- Run time: 91 minutes

This hilarious comedy brings a death-obsessed young man named Harold and a lively old woman named Maude together for a classic adventure. The two become inseparable as they help each other out of trouble. The humor is dark in this comedy, but it has a warm heart as well.

- Director: Nicholas Ray
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.05
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: 83
- Run time: 110 minutes

Joan Crawford begged for this film later in her career and her all-out performance as a strong saloon owner shows she was willing to work for it. She holds her own against the men in this Technicolor Western and brings a dramatic atmosphere to the genre it never had before. Though many of her performances after her Oscar win for "Mildred Pierce" were campy, her overacting fits this film perfectly.

- Directors: Prince, Albert Magnoli
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.06
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: 72
- Run time: 85 minutes

Prince’s glorious stage presence is very much still alive in this concert film. Prince co-directed the film himself, showing off his creative talents that extend outside of just music. He and his band perform hit songs off his double album “Sign ‘o’ the Times” in his flamboyant nature that is greatly missed.

- Director: Ciro Guerra
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.07
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 82
- Run time: 125 minutes

An Amazonian shaman is the last survivor of his people when he encounters two foreign scientists. Together they search for a healing plant in the Amazon, but their partnership is not an easy one. This adventure is entirely original and will satisfy anyone looking for a different kind of quest.

- Director: Mike Nichols
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.07
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 83
- Run time: 106 minutes

Everyone talks about the final shot of this film, and while iconic, everything that leads up to it is just as great. Dustin Hoffman stars as a lost college graduate who is seduced by a family friend, whose daughter he later takes an interest in. Their relationship makes his life hell, but it also makes him realize his life has purpose.

- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.07
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 88
- Run time: 117 minutes

Experience the final concert ever performed by The Band as directed by Martin Scorsese, who also directed "Goodfellas," "Raging Bull," and "The Irishman." The documentary includes appearances by legendary musicians like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, and Muddy Waters. Thanks to Scorsese's direction and the emotional weight of the event, this is an unforgettable concert film for music fans of any genre.

- Director: Lulu Wang
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.08
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: 89
- Run time: 100 minutes

Lulu Wang tells a story based on a real lie she and her family told her grandmother who had been diagnosed with cancer. She examines how immigrating from your family’s country affects your life in every way. Wang delivers funny moments during a dark time in the lives of her characters, rounding out a delightful film.

- Director: David Lynch
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.08
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 76
- Run time: 120 minutes

For anyone looking for something weird, David Lynch always delivers. He creates a subversive look at suburbia through a mystery in “Blue Velvet.” Isabella Rossalini is absolutely hypnotic in her role as a lounge singer caught up with a sociopath. Lynch tests what storytelling can do like he always does, and he freaks audiences out while doing it.

- Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.08
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 117 minutes

This French mystery is often compared to Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, but it is something that is entirely its own. The headmaster of a boarding school becomes the subject of a murder plot by his wife. But what happens in the end is far from what audiences are expecting.

- Director: Werner Herzog
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.08
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 158 minutes

Enrico Caruso sets out to bring an opera house to South Africa no matter what it takes. This elaborate film tells a story not far off from how Werner Herzog went about making this movie. He put his crew through hell to get his vision, just like Caruso.

- Director: Robert Altman
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.09
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: 87
- Run time: 112 minutes

Elliott Gould steps into Phillip Marlowe's shoes for this adaptation of a Raymond Chandler detective novel. However, Robert Altman creates something different than the black-and-white version of Marlowe. This mystery is set in a more colorful 1970s Los Angeles, where the noir provides an unromantic portrait of crime.

- Director: Werner Herzog
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.10
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 95 minutes

This is yet another collaboration between filmmaker Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski, his leading man of choice. Here Kinski plays Lope de Aguirre, a man whose greed and hunger for power drive him deep into the jungles of Peru and into madness. Herzog didn’t spare anything on the locations, making for a gorgeous-looking adventure.

- Director: George Stevens
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.10
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 59 minutes

Hollywood director George Stevens was never the same after making this documentary, which features footage of Allied forces liberating Nazi concentration camps. The images in the film are stark evidence of what the Nazis did during World War II, and that’s why the film was used during the Nuremberg trials to convict former Nazis of war crimes.

- Directors: Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.10
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 150 minutes

The brutal and unthinkable murders of three small boys turn a town into an angry mob looking for vengeance. They find the perfect culprits in three goth teenage boys whom they think were capable of murder in the name of the devil. This remarkable true crime documentary shows one of the saddest cases of mishandled justice.

- Director: John Ford
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.11
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: 94
- Run time: 123 minutes

John Ford, Jimmy Stewart, and John Wayne in the same movie is the formula for a perfect Western. Stewart plays a weathered senator who tells the story of his life and career. He’s the man behind the legend of who shot Liberty Valance, a tale that of course involves a glorious shoot-out.

- Director: Karim Aïnouz
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.12
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 81
- Run time: 139 minutes

Despite being separated from one another, two sisters never give up hope of finding one another one day. This lush drama is set in 1950s Rio de Janeiro with a heartbreaking ending to an emotional story.

- Director: Ron Fricke
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.12
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Metascore: 65
- Run time: 102 minutes

Every frame of this documentary is a work of art and rightfully so—the images are all that are featured for the audience to understand the story. There is no dialogue as the filmmakers travel the world to show what “Samsara” means in Sanskrit: “the ever turning wheel of life.”

- Director: Edward Yang
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.13
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 109 minutes

Three couples’ lives converge during a few weeks in Taipei. This mysterious film has the style which the director calls “a puzzle.” There is no cut-and-dry solution to that puzzle in this movie, but that is what makes it so compelling.

- Director: Francis Ford Coppola
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.13
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 85
- Run time: 113 minutes

Francis Ford Coppola fills audiences with agonizing anxiety throughout this thriller about a surveillance man who becomes obsessed with one of his clients. Gene Hackman gives a riveting performance as a smart but troubled man whose curiosity gets the best of him. With a fantastic score to match, this film will unsettle viewers while impressing them the entire time.

- Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.13
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 82
- Run time: 96 minutes

Before Brie Larson won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in “Room,” she was just one in a cast of other soon-to-be stars in this indie drama. Kaitlyn Dever, Lakeith Stanfield, Rami Malek, and Stephanie Beatriz all went on to bigger success in movies or television after this film, which makes watching them in such a small, yet raw movie even better. Larson plays a woman dedicated to the kids at the at-risk home where she works, but her own life starts to get in the way. Each character brings a heartbreaking story.

- Director: Charles Chaplin
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.13
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 68 minutes

This was Charlie Chaplin's first produced and directed feature film, but would not be his last. Chaplin's Tramp character stumbles upon a crying baby that was just abandoned by his mother. He raises the boy as his adopted son, which makes for laughs but also a tender story that Chaplin knows how to balance so well.

- Director: Billy Wilder
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.14
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 98
- Run time: 121 minutes

The level of talent in this classic comedy is unbelievable, including Billy Wilder, Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Joe E. Brown. Two musicians barely escape the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and join an all-female band to run away from the mob. As they dress up as women, the deception makes for some of the greatest comedy and romance alike.

- Directors: Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.15
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 67 minutes

Buster Keaton’s legendary physical comedy is at its best in this silent movie. He is a man turned away from fighting in the Civil War, but ends up saving the day in a far crazier adventure. There’s romance, comedy, and action in this all-around classic.

- Director: Luis Buñuel
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.16
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 80 minutes

In the poor slums of post-World War II Mexico City, a group of young people are wrapped up in a life of crime and destruction. Luis Buñuel takes a look at the intersection of society and morality in this gruesome tale of fate.

- Director: Roman Polanski
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.17
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 96
- Run time: 137 minutes

Doting old neighbors will forever be suspicious after this movie about Satanism. Director Roman Polanski’s horror film starring Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, and Ruth Gordon is a sophisticated fright that still captivates audiences today.

- Director: Roman Polanski
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.19
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Metascore: 85
- Run time: 150 minutes

Adrien Brody delivers an awe-inspiring performance as a Polish composer swept up in the tortures of World War II. His struggle to survive is as devastating as a war story can be, and his music becomes a haunting reminder that beauty can outlast even the worst circumstances.

- Director: Jean-Marie Poiré
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.21
- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 107 minutes

Jean Reno of “Leon: the Professional” is a medieval knight magically transported to 1990s France. He must undo a curse put on him, which results in a delightful farce. The director Jean-Marie Poiré remade the film in 2001 as “Just Visiting.”

- Director: Anna Muylaert
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.21
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 82
- Run time: 112 minutes

Val has left her daughter Jessica to be raised by relatives as she works as a maid. When her daughter is old enough to take college entrance exams, she wants to visit the mother she hasn’t seen in 13 years. Their relationship is not typical and what happens between them is impeccable.

- Director: Alexander Mackendrick
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.21
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: 100
- Run time: 96 minutes

Public relations agent Sidney Falco, played by Tony Curtis, tries to break up a marriage in order to get his client J. J. Hunsecker, played by Burt Lancaster, some good publicity. The camerawork and score give this film a heightened sense of style that puts the stage play to shame.

- Directors: Joshua Oppenheimer, Anonymous, Christine Cynn
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.22
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 90
- Run time: 117 minutes

Former Indonesian death squad killers reenact their crimes in Hollywood style. This documentary shows them in lavish musical numbers and action scenes in order to examine how they have never had to hide what they did in the past. If it were a movie, it would be unbelievable, but this is definitely stranger than fiction and entirely true.

- Director: Kurt Kuenne
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.23
- IMDb user rating: 8.6
- Metascore: 82
- Run time: 95 minutes

The parents of murder victim Andrew Bagby pay tribute to their son, and Kuenne introduces him as the father he never got to be to his son Zachary. As one of the saddest documentaries available, this story will impact viewers to the core.

- Director: Charles Laughton
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.24
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 99
- Run time: 92 minutes

Robert Mitchum gives a legendary performance as a psychopathic, self-appointed preacher, preying on one family in the name of a warped version of Christianity. A suspenseful story combined with jaw-dropping noir cinematography makes this a great parable and entertaining movie.

- Director: Frank Capra
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.28
- IMDb user rating: 8.6
- Metascore: 89
- Run time: 130 minutes

Every Christmas Eve, many American families revisit this initial box-office bomb for the perfect spirit of the holidays. Frank Capra’s movie about what it means to live a good life has become a touchstone for American culture since its release in 1946. It delves deep into the depths of despair, but when it comes back out, audiences have a new perspective on life.

- Directors: Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.30
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Metascore: 89
- Run time: 100 minutes

Nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 2020 Academy Awards, “For Sama” is a personal story that most could never imagine. Waad Al-Kateab gave birth to her daughter Sama during the chaotic wartime in Syria. Her goal was to show the experience of surviving in Syria both to her daughter and to audiences around the world who weren't aware of the devastation going on in her backyard.

- Director: Sergio Leone
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.32
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Metascore: 80
- Run time: 165 minutes

Henry Fonda and Claudia Cardinale star in this landmark spaghetti Western. The landscapes of the West have never been as breathtaking as the ones Sergio Leone presents in this timeless story. The rich and powerful try to overtake a woman’s land, but she has dangerous men on her side to defend her home. A standoff for the ages ensues that shouldn’t be missed.

- Director: Park Chan-wook
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.33
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: 84
- Run time: 145 minutes

Park Chan-wook, the director behind "Stoker" and "Oldboy," delivers another visual spectacle with "The Handmaiden." Loosely inspired by a Victorian-set novel by Sarah Waters, Park moves the adaptation to 1930s Korea to tell the story of a new handmaiden hired to take care of a wealthy Japanese woman. However, she's part of a plot to rid her boss of her money. It makes for an erotic, entrancing film.

- Director: Stanley Kubrick
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.34
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 88 minutes

The late Kirk Douglas gives the performance of his career in this early Stanley Kubrick epic. Douglas plays a World War I colonel who has to defend his soldiers’ decision to refuse a mission they see as impossible. What they experience on the battlefield questions the point of war and reasons for risking lives.

- Director: Billy Wilder
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.37
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Metascore: Data not available
- Run time: 110 minutes

This Hollywood masterpiece peels back the curtains of a former star, played by silent legend Gloria Swanson, who is forced into isolation after failing to make the leap from silent movies to talkies. William Holden plays a dashing young screenwriter who gets wrapped up in the silent star's scheme for a comeback. Dark, suspenseful, and alluring, this movie is one of Billy Wilder’s greatest achievements.

- Director: Sergio Leone
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.41
- IMDb user rating: 8.8
- Metascore: 90
- Run time: 178 minutes

This is the finale in Sergio Leone’s “Man with No Name” trilogy of spaghetti Westerns that solidified Clint Eastwood’s star power. Considered the “good” part of the title, Eastwood plays the loner sharp-shooter up against bad and ugly in the West. Violence and suspense are not in short supply in Leone’s version of the Wild West and he delivers a beautiful dismount of a final scene.

- Director: Jonathan Demme
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.50
- IMDb user rating: 8.6
- Metascore: 89
- Run time: 88 minutes

Jonathan Demme, who also directed “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Something Wild,” and “Philadelphia,” turns a Talking Heads concert into a piece of pure transcending art with his first documentary effort. He captures the new wave band at its peak in the 1980s, performing with the voracious energy for which they’re remembered. Demme and band leader David Byrne make a perfect pair in delivering everything music can make an audience experience.

- Director: Sidney Lumet
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.52
- IMDb user rating: 8.9
- Metascore: 96
- Run time: 96 minutes

Henry Fonda plays the only man unconvinced of a defendent's guilt during a trial for murder. He and the 11 other jurors are stuck in a room together until they can break the lone proponent for the accused's innocence or until he convinces them to open their minds. Strategically smart dialogue and powerful performances combine for a thrilling look at good and evil.