Smokey and the Bandit
Directed by Hal Needham
1977
It was the second biggest film of 1977 behind Star Wars, which nobody remembers: Burt Reynolds runs beer across state lines in a black Trans Am and grins at the camera throughout.
★ 1.9
The Movies canon
Sourced and screened.
Every film chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 731 films or filter by genre, director, place, and year.
Browse all 731 films or filter by genre, director, place, and year.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Directed by Peter R. Hunt
1969
George Lazenby played Bond once and quit, and it took decades for anyone to admit how good this is: the ski chases are the best in the series, and Diana Rigg is extraordinary.
★ 2.6
Where Eagles Dare
Directed by Brian G. Hutton
1968 · United Kingdom
Alistair MacLean wrote it as a screenplay first and a novel second: Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood go into an Alpine castle after a captured general, and the cable car fight is superb.
★ 2.8
Rush Hour
Directed by Brett Ratner
1998
Jackie Chan had been a superstar everywhere except America and this finally fixed that: he does all his own stunts, and Chris Tucker talks at a frequency nobody else reaches.
★ 3.1
The Spy Who Loved Me
Directed by Lewis Gilbert
1977
The ski jump off the cliff opening a parachute painted like a Union Jack is the single best Bond stunt: Roger Moore's finest hour, with Jaws and an underwater Lotus.
★ 3.1
Big Trouble in Little China
Directed by John Carpenter
1986
It flopped completely and then found everybody on video: Kurt Russell's swaggering trucker is really the useless sidekick, and nothing in it is ever explained to anyone.
★ 3.6
Point Break
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
1991
Kathryn Bigelow made the most physically committed action film anyone had attempted: an FBI agent infiltrates a crew of surfers who rob banks in president masks, and starts preferring their company.
★ 3.9
48 Hrs
Directed by Walter Hill
1982
Eddie Murphy's first film role and he takes the whole thing over: Walter Hill built the interracial buddy-cop formula here, and the bar scene made a twenty-one-year-old a movie star overnight.
★ 4.0
From Russia With Love
Directed by Terence Young
1963
The Bond film that leans on people rather than hardware: Terence Young works a courier scheme through Istanbul and the Orient Express, and stages a train compartment fight in near silence.
★ 4.2
The Avengers
Directed by Joss Whedon
2012
Five years of separate films paid off in one: nobody had tried a shared universe at this scale, and the circling shot of the assembled team explains why every studio copied it.
★ 4.5
Top Gun
Directed by Tony Scott
1986
Theaters in Los Angeles and Detroit let Navy recruiters set up tables in the lobby: Tony Scott shot fighter jets in golden light and sold an entire decade on aviator sunglasses.
★ 4.6
Escape from New York
Directed by John Carpenter
1981
John Carpenter turned Manhattan into a prison on a shoestring and it still looks right: Kurt Russell plays a convict given twenty-two hours to retrieve the president, and enjoys none of it.
★ 4.6
Beverly Hills Cop
Directed by Martin Brest
1984
Sylvester Stallone rewrote the script into an action picture, then quit two weeks before shooting: Eddie Murphy came in days later, and nobody escaped that synthesizer theme for years.
★ 4.6
First Blood
Directed by Ted Kotcheff
1982
Before the sequels turned him into a cartoon, Rambo was a homeless veteran the police would not leave alone: Ted Kotcheff shot the Pacific Northwest cold and wet, and Stallone barely speaks.
★ 4.7
Dr. No
Directed by Terence Young
1962
The Bond series begins here on a million dollars: Sean Connery walks into a casino and says the name, Ursula Andress comes out of the Caribbean, and nobody had met anyone like him.
★ 4.9
Midnight Run
Directed by Martin Brest
1988
De Niro is funnier here than in any comedy he tried to be funny in: a bounty hunter has to move an embezzling accountant coast to coast, and the accountant never stops talking.
★ 4.9
Bullitt
Directed by Peter Yates
1968
The San Francisco car chase runs almost eleven minutes with no music at all, only engines: everything since has been a response to it, and Steve McQueen keeps his talking to a minimum.
★ 4.9
Avatar
Directed by James Cameron
2009
Cameron waited more than a decade for the technology to catch up to his script, then made the highest-grossing film ever released: whatever you make of the story, nothing had looked like this.
★ 5.2
Lethal Weapon
Directed by Richard Donner
1987
Shane Black sold the script at twenty-three and set the buddy-cop template for two decades: one cop is counting down to his pension, the other is a widower nobody trusts to be careful.
★ 5.3
Ip Man
Directed by Wilson Yip
2008
Donnie Yen plays Bruce Lee's future teacher and does his own fighting throughout: Wing Chun filmed at full speed with long takes, in a Foshan under Japanese occupation.
★ 5.4