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- DirectorIrvin KershnerStarsMark HamillHarrison FordCarrie FisherAfter the Rebel Alliance are overpowered by the Empire, Luke Skywalker begins his Jedi training with Yoda, while his friends are pursued across the galaxy by Darth Vader and bounty hunter Boba Fett.USP: Where Star Wars had been an unabashedly exciting space adventure, Empire Strikes Back introduced complexity and uncertainty to the galaxy far, far away. The stakes are raised, the characters relationships tested and evolved in surprising ways, and a dash of pure black is mixed into those primary paint colours. As George Lucas himself describes it in our issue, "It's soulful, but in a different way from Episode IV. It's a little bit more adult. I'm more of a goofy director. Star Wars skews slightly younger than you'd expect; it was a film for 12-year-olds. Empire's like that but a bit of the goofiness has been shaved off it. [Director Irvin] Kershner was much more of a serious person. He loved the whole religious aspect of it, Luke learning the Force."
MVP: Mark Hamill as Luke. Last time we saw him, he'd been making eyes at Princess Leia and gazing about in wide-eyed wonder. Here, he is battle-hardened even before he is reforged by Yoda into something approaching the zen master he will become. But that self-control is tested to breaking point and beyond with Darth's revelations during their duel below Cloud City. It's a huge twist, and it's Hamill's anguished reaction that gives the moment such power and impact.
OMG: While the Skywalker family soap does most of the heavy dramatic lifting of the film, and the comedy is handled by Yoda and R2, another addition to Empire that was largely absent from its predecessor is that of a love story. Han and Leia are perfectly mismatched, and from that brilliant first kiss ("I'm nice men") things seem to be building nicely until their last, desperate moments together. "I love you," she finally admits. "I know," he says, as he's lowered into the carbon chamber. HOW COULD YOU LEAVE THIS ON A CLIFFHANGER? - DirectorFrancis Ford CoppolaStarsMarlon BrandoAl PacinoJames CaanThe aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.USP: Not just one of the most quotable, and quoted, scripts in cinema ("I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse"), it's also one of the most impressive silk-purse-of-a-sow's-ear jobs in screenwriting history, magicking mediocre source material into a grand criminal opera. Put a lot of cannoli kids through school, too.
MVP: Gordon Willis, whose top lighting of Brando (and cat) made Don Corleone into a shadowy crime deity. Not everyone flocked to lionise the 'Prince of Darkness' at the time – "I got a lot of criticism," Willis would later remember, "because they said, well, you can't see Brando's eyes!" – and Paramount fretted for the viewing experience of drive-in audiences, but they all missed the essential point. "I deliberately didn't want to see his eyes", the late, great DP pointed out, "so you saw this mysterious human being thinking about something, but you didn't know what the hell was going on." Like a whack-happy Rembrandt subject, the results could easily hang in a gallery.
OMG: When studio honcho Jack Woltz declines to cast Vito's godson in his next picture, he finds out the hard way why the horse's head is the Mafia's bedfellow of choice. Well, apart from the fishes. - DirectorChristopher NolanStarsChristian BaleHeath LedgerAaron EckhartWhen the menace known as the Joker wreaks havoc and chaos on the people of Gotham, Batman must accept one of the greatest psychological and physical tests of his ability to fight injustice.
- DirectorFrank DarabontStarsTim RobbinsMorgan FreemanBob GuntonOver the course of several years, two convicts form a friendship, seeking consolation and, eventually, redemption through basic compassion.USP: The highest-ranking debut on the list (and the only film that's retained the exact same placing since our last Greatest Movies poll), Frank Darabont's Stephen King adaptation is the perfect mix of modern sensibilities (man, it is brutal) and classical storytelling nous. Yet it resonates because the relationship between Tim Robbins' Andy and Morgan Freeman's Red is one of cinema's greatest friendships: earned, touching and true. Twenty years later, even if you know its secrets, the ending is still devastating.
MVP: Morgan Freeman in general and Morgan Freeman's voice in particular - his golden tones turn a potentially on-the-nose narration into poetry.
OMG: Andy Dufresne locks the warden's door and blisses out to Mozart's The Marriage Of Figaro - blaring out over the PA system, the whole prison yard is transfixed. In a tough 142 minutes, it is a beautifully realised moment of grace. - DirectorQuentin TarantinoStarsJohn TravoltaUma ThurmanSamuel L. JacksonThe lives of two mob hitmen, a boxer, a gangster and his wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.USP: Quentin Tarantino's three-classic-crime-pitches-for-the-price-of-one remains his masterpiece, a gourmet smorgasbord of movie lore — from Howard Hawks to Jean-Luc Godard via Douglas Sirk — transformed into something original, vital and still essential. Chock-full of powerful performances, classic scenes, tricksy yarn-spinning, great tunes you'd never heard before and all tied up with enough verve and energy to get to the moon and back, if you don't love Pulp Fiction, you must really question whether you love movies at all.
MVP: Tarantino the writer, shared with Roger Avary. Can you think of a film that covers more diverse topics in dialogue as the metric system, foot massages, The Guns Of Navarone, the nature of character, blueberry pancakes, the good old days of robbing liquor stores and Amsterdam's drug laws?
OMG: Vincent Vega (John Travolta) takes Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) on a date and we go along to savour every moment. Even the uncomfortable silences. - DirectorGeorge LucasStarsMark HamillHarrison FordCarrie FisherLuke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a Wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the mysterious Darth Vader.USP: It's hard to think of any studio film that's been green-lit since Empire's birth that sounds as insane as Star Wars must have in 1976. So it's set in space… but a long time ago. There are duelling knights… but also World War II-style dogfights… And it goes from a dusty Western to a rescue-the-princess quest… Yet George Lucas blended all those mythic elements into the ultimate cinematic power smoothie.
MVP: Darth Vader, a perfectly formed screen villain: physically imposing (thanks, Dave Prowse), menacingly stentorian (cheers, James Earl Jones), an evil warrior-monk with an oil-black robo-skull face — that also somehow makes him look a little sad, hinting at buried tragedies within.
OMG: It might be the second-best Star Wars movie, but it has the best opening: the fanfare, the crawl, and that flyover from the biggest spaceship anyone had ever seen. - DirectorPeter JacksonStarsElijah WoodIan McKellenOrlando BloomA meek Hobbit from the Shire and eight companions set out on a journey to destroy the powerful One Ring and save Middle-earth from the Dark Lord Sauron.USP: Not even Smaug the Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities can usurp this from its place as most precioussss Middle-earth instalment. It has a cornucopia of wonders: hissing ghoul-kings, a jolly wizard, goblins that can scuttle up walls and the best fireworks ever. But at its core is a warm heart, personified by four mild-mannered halflings who'd rather be at the pub than leaping across bottomless ravines. Starting as a (relatively) small-scale chase flick and slowly expanding in scope as the Fellowship is formed, it is, hands-down, the most magical men-on-a-mission movie ever made.
MVP: Howard Shore, whose first fantasy score (if you don't count Big) fizzes with imagination. Building from meadowy whimsy to grim Dwarvish chants, it introduces iconic themes that the Hobbit films are still quoting.
OMG: The moment where Bilbo (Ian Holm) transforms into a slavering monster and goes, "GRAAAH!" is still endlessly upsetting. You can almost hear Peter Jackson giggling in the cutting room. - DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsRoy ScheiderRobert ShawRichard DreyfussWhen a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Cape Cod, it's up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down.USP: In different hands, Jaws could have ended up being just another '70s freak-of-nature disaster pic. Or, given the daily calamities of its watery shoot, it could have just simply been a disaster. But Steven Spielberg (then only in his late twenties) snatched victory from the big, rubbery teeth of defeat with a less-is-more approach as far as the Great White (WHO IS NOT CALLED 'JAWS') was concerned and, more crucially, by also nudging the film into an entirely different genre for its second half and turning out what is in fact Hollywood's greatest guys-on-a-fishing-trip movie.
MVP: Composer John Williams, for somehow making two notes scarier than an actual giant shark.
OMG: Yes, it's an obvious one, but it has to still be the EEEEK! appearance of Ben Gardner's severed, fish-nibbled head - apart from anything else, it's solid proof of the value of test screenings and reshoots. - DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsHarrison FordKaren AllenPaul FreemanIn 1936, archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the U.S. government to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis can obtain its awesome powers.USP: It's dropped seven places since our last poll in 2008, possibly due to residual ill-will towards Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. But don't let rubbish digital gophers obscure the genius of Indy's original and best-by-far escapade. Raiders Of The Lost Ark's action is, of course, glorious. Made back when green-screen was just a twinkle in George Lucas' eye, Harrison Ford (or, often, Vic Armstrong) drops into an actual snake-pit, is dragged behind an actual truck and rides an actual submarine in an actual ocean (okay, the face-melting is fake). But what makes it a timeless classic is Lawrence Kasdan's whip-smart script, by turns solemn and silly, with a quotable line always just around the corner. In a thousand years, this movie will still be worth something.
MVP: It's too hard to pick between Spielberg, Lucas, Kasdan and Ford, so we'll go with the Nazi monkey.
OMG: The opening sequence, in which Dr. Jones infiltrates a fiendishly booby-trapped jungle temple, is pure gold. Much like the freaky Chachapoyan Fertility Idol he finds there. - DirectorChristopher NolanStarsLeonardo DiCaprioJoseph Gordon-LevittElliot PageA thief who steals corporate secrets through the use of dream-sharing technology is given the inverse task of planting an idea into the mind of a C.E.O., but his tragic past may doom the project and his team to disaster.USP: Perhaps the most high-brow action film ever made, Inception builds its thrills quite literally from its characters' imaginations. Location, gravity and the weather are all maleable as a team of gifted thieves try to con a wealthy daddy's boy into giving them the key to his fortune. Nolan keeps the pace moving so briskly that audiences barely have time to get confused, and sets a story of existential confusion against a backdrop of fantastical dream worlds.
MVP: Christopher Nolan, first for selling a major studio on the most expensive, least obviously commercial film premise in recent history, and then for delivering a blockbuster hit that enthralled audiences everywhere.
OMG: Arguably the film is one long OMG moment, but the sight of Paris streets folding into the sky like pages of a book is one that still boggles our mind. - DirectorRidley ScottStarsHarrison FordRutger HauerSean YoungA blade runner must pursue and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.USP: Ridley Scott's slick future noir infamously tanked on release, yet came to define a whole new wave of dark sci-fi.
MVP: Futurist Syd Mead, for his invaluable contribution to the film's iconic look.
OMG: There's something about the disturbing way Pris (Daryl Hannah) flips out when Deckard shoots her that never quite leaves you. - DirectorPeter JacksonStarsElijah WoodViggo MortensenIan McKellenGandalf and Aragorn lead the World of Men against Sauron's army to draw his gaze from Frodo and Sam as they approach Mount Doom with the One Ring.USP: The capstone of Peter Jackson's epic Tolkien trilogy.
MVP: The combined talents of the Weta Workshop and Weta Digital, who brought Middle-earth and its denizens to astonishing life.
OMG: In a word, Shelob. - DirectorMartin ScorseseStarsRobert De NiroRay LiottaJoe PesciThe story of Henry Hill and his life in the mafia, covering his relationship with his wife Karen and his mob partners Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito.
- DirectorDavid FincherStarsBrad PittEdward NortonMeat LoafAn insomniac office worker and a devil-may-care soap maker form an underground fight club that evolves into much more.
- DirectorFrancis Ford CoppolaStarsAl PacinoRobert De NiroRobert DuvallThe early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York City is portrayed, while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on the family crime syndicate.USP: Coppola achieves the seemingly impossible by making an even deeper film than the original Godfather.
MVP: John Cazale as the hapless Fredo.
OMG: Robert De Niro plays the young Marlon Brando. - DirectorJoss WhedonStarsRobert Downey Jr.Chris EvansScarlett JohanssonEarth's mightiest heroes must come together and learn to fight as a team if they are going to stop the mischievous Loki and his alien army from enslaving humanity.USP: Marvel brings its screen superhero roster together for the first time, with spectacular success. Joss Whedon is the ringmaster.
MVP: The surprise casting of Mark Ruffalo makes the third modern Hulk by far the best. He's a great Banner too.
OMG: "Puny god!" - DirectorRobert ZemeckisStarsMichael J. FoxChristopher LloydLea ThompsonMarty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown.USP: Timeless romantic caper comedy from Robert Zemeckis.
MVP: Christopher Lloyd's beyond-eccentric Doc Emmett Brown, inventor of the DeLorean time machine and the flux capacitor.
OMG: Death-defying dangling from the Hill Valley clock tower. - DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsSam NeillLaura DernJeff GoldblumA pragmatic paleontologist touring an almost complete theme park on an island in Central America is tasked with protecting a couple of kids after a power failure causes the park's cloned dinosaurs to run loose.USP: Spielberg's glorious dinosaur theme-park ride.
MVP: Stan Winston and ILM, combining state-of-the-art practical FX and bleeding-edge CGI to bring the beasts convincingly to life.
OMG: Our first arrival on Isla Nublar. - DirectorJames CameronStarsSigourney WeaverMichael BiehnCarrie HennDecades after surviving the Nostromo incident, Ellen Ripley is sent out to re-establish contact with a terraforming colony but finds herself battling the Alien Queen and her offspring.USP: James Cameron constructs an all-out war sequel from the bones of the sombre original.
MVP: Sigourney Weaver, stepping up from embattled survivor to action heroine. Not bad for a human.
OMG: The Alien Queen is revealed. - DirectorFrancis Ford CoppolaStarsMartin SheenMarlon BrandoRobert DuvallA U.S. Army officer serving in Vietnam is tasked with assassinating a renegade Special Forces Colonel who sees himself as a god.USP: Francis Ford Coppola's lunatic bad trip to Vietnam.
MVP: Robert Duvall's insane Colonel Kilgore. He loves the smell of napalm in the morning.
OMG: An elephantine Marlon Brando, mumbling at river's end. - DirectorRidley ScottStarsSigourney WeaverTom SkerrittJohn HurtThe crew of a commercial spacecraft encounters a deadly lifeform after investigating a mysterious transmission of unknown origin.USP: Pulp sci-fi horror elevated to the level of art by Ridley Scott.
MVP: H. R. Giger whose designs created a classic monster.
OMG: John Hurt's tummy explodes. - DirectorStanley KubrickStarsKeir DulleaGary LockwoodWilliam SylvesterAfter uncovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar surface, a spacecraft is sent to Jupiter to find its origins: a spacecraft manned by two men and the supercomputer HAL 9000.USP: Kubrick's visionary journey into space.
MVP: Douglas Rain, providing implacable menace as the voice of sentient computer HAL 9000.
OMG: A single match cut advances the narrative millions of years in a split-second - DirectorLana WachowskiLilly WachowskiStarsKeanu ReevesLaurence FishburneCarrie-Anne MossWhen a beautiful stranger leads computer hacker Neo to a forbidding underworld, he discovers the shocking truth--the life he knows is the elaborate deception of an evil cyber-intelligence.USP: Game-changing cyberpunk action from the Wachowskis.
MVP: John Gaeta and his Manex Visual Effects team, responsible for the execution of bullet time.
OMG: Trinity swings from a helicopter as it crashes into the rippling glass side of skyscraper. - DirectorJoel CoenEthan CoenStarsJeff BridgesJohn GoodmanJulianne MooreJeff "The Dude" Lebowski, mistaken for a millionaire of the same name, seeks restitution for his ruined rug and enlists his bowling buddies to help get it.USP: Labyrinthine, deadpan, Chandleresque mystery from the Coens. With bowling.
MVP: Jeff Bridges' Dude. He really ties the film together.
OMG: A dream sequence that makes Kenny Rogers ineffably cool. - DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsLiam NeesonRalph FiennesBen KingsleyIn German-occupied Poland during World War II, industrialist Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis.USP: Devastating Holocaust drama from Thomas Keneally's famous novel.
MVP: Spielberg, who somehow directed this and Jurassic Park in the same year.
OMG: The banal evil of Ralph Fiennes' Untersturmführer Amon Goeth.