IMDb Top 250 2014
This is the IMDb Top 250 as of December 31st, midnight PST, 2014. Which ones have you seen?
Log in to copy items to your own lists.
1.
The Shawshank Redemption
(1994)
Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency. (142 mins.)
Director: Frank Darabont
2.
The Godfather
(1972)
The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son. (175 mins.)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
3.
The Godfather: Part II
(1974)
The early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York is portrayed while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on his crime syndicate stretching from Lake Tahoe, Nevada to pre-revolution 1958 Cuba. (202 mins.)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
4.
The Dark Knight
(2008)
When the menace known as the Joker wreaks havoc and chaos on the people of Gotham, the caped crusader must come to terms with one of the greatest psychological tests of his ability to fight injustice. (152 mins.)
Director: Christopher Nolan
5.
Pulp Fiction
(1994)
The lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangster's wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption. (154 mins.)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
6.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
(1966)
A bounty hunting scam joins two men in an uneasy alliance against a third in a race to find a fortune in gold buried in a remote cemetery. (161 mins.)
Director: Sergio Leone
7.
12 Angry Men
(1957)
A jury holdout attempts to prevent a miscarriage of justice by forcing his colleagues to reconsider the evidence. (96 mins.)
Director: Sidney Lumet
8.
Schindler's List
(1993)
In German-occupied Poland during World War II, Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazi Germans. (195 mins.)
Director: Steven Spielberg
9.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
(2003)
Gandalf 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. (201 mins.)
Director: Peter Jackson
10.
Fight Club
(1999)
An insomniac office worker, looking for a way to change his life, crosses paths with a devil-may-care soap maker, forming an underground fight club that evolves into something much, much more. (139 mins.)
Director: David Fincher
11.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
(2001)
A 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. (178 mins.)
Director: Peter Jackson
12.
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
(1980)
After the rebels have been brutally overpowered by the Empire on their newly established base, Luke Skywalker takes advanced Jedi training with Master Yoda, while his friends are pursued by Darth Vader as part of his plan to capture Luke. (124 mins.)
Director: Irvin Kershner
13.
Inception
(2010)
A thief, who steals corporate secrets through use of dream-sharing technology, is given the inverse task of planting an idea into the mind of a CEO. (148 mins.)
Director: Christopher Nolan
14.
Forrest Gump
(1994)
Forrest Gump, while not intelligent, has accidentally been present at many historic moments, but his true love, Jenny Curran, eludes him. (142 mins.)
Director: Robert Zemeckis
15.
Interstellar
(2014)
A team of explorers travel through a wormhole in space in an attempt to ensure humanity's survival. (169 mins.)
Director: Christopher Nolan
16.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
(1975)
A criminal pleads insanity after getting into trouble again and once in the mental institution rebels against the oppressive nurse and rallies up the scared patients. (133 mins.)
Director: Milos Forman
17.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
(2002)
While Frodo and Sam edge closer to Mordor with the help of the shifty Gollum, the divided fellowship makes a stand against Sauron's new ally, Saruman, and his hordes of Isengard. (179 mins.)
Director: Peter Jackson
18.
Goodfellas
(1990)
Henry Hill and his friends work their way up through the mob hierarchy. (146 mins.)
Director: Martin Scorsese
19.
The Matrix
(1999)
A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers. (136 mins.)
Director: The Wachowski Brothers, The Wachowski Brothers
20.
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
(1977)
Luke 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 evil Darth Vader. (121 mins.)
Director: George Lucas
21.
Seven Samurai
(1954)
A poor village under attack by bandits recruits seven unemployed samurai to help them defend themselves. (207 mins.)
Director: Akira Kurosawa
22.
City of God
(2002)
Two boys growing up in a violent neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro take different paths: one becomes a photographer, the other a drug dealer. (130 mins.)
Director: Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund
23.
Se7en
(1995)
Two detectives, a rookie and a veteran, hunt a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as his modus operandi. (127 mins.)
Director: David Fincher
24.
The Usual Suspects
(1995)
A sole survivor tells of the twisty events leading up to a horrific gun battle on a boat, which begin when five criminals meet at a seemingly random police lineup. (106 mins.)
Director: Bryan Singer
25.
The Silence of the Lambs
(1991)
A young F.B.I. cadet must confide in an incarcerated and manipulative killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins his victims. (118 mins.)
Director: Jonathan Demme
26.
It's a Wonderful Life
(1946)
An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed. (130 mins.)
Director: Frank Capra
27.
Once Upon a Time in the West
(1968)
A mysterious stranger with a harmonica joins forces with a notorious desperado to protect a beautiful widow from a ruthless assassin working for the railroad. (175 mins.)
Director: Sergio Leone
28.
Léon: The Professional
(1994)
Mathilda, a 12-year-old girl, is reluctantly taken in by Léon, a professional assassin, after her family is murdered. Léon and Mathilda form an unusual relationship, as she becomes his protégée and learns the assassin's trade. (110 mins.)
Director: Luc Besson
29.
Life Is Beautiful
(1997)
When an open-minded Jewish librarian and his son become victims of the Holocaust, he uses a perfect mixture of will, humor and imagination to protect his son from the dangers around their camp. (116 mins.)
Director: Roberto Benigni
30.
Casablanca
(1942)
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications. (102 mins.)
Director: Michael Curtiz
31.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
(1981)
Archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the U.S. government to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis. (115 mins.)
Director: Steven Spielberg
32.
American History X
(1998)
A former neo-nazi skinhead tries to prevent his younger brother from going down the same wrong path that he did. (119 mins.)
Director: Tony Kaye
33.
Psycho
(1960)
A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run, and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother. (109 mins.)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
34.
Saving Private Ryan
(1998)
Following the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action. (169 mins.)
Director: Steven Spielberg
35.
City Lights
(1931)
With the aid of a wealthy erratic tippler, a dewy-eyed tramp who has fallen in love with a sightless flower girl accumulates money to be able to help her medically. (87 mins.)
Director: Charles Chaplin
36.
Spirited Away
(2001)
During her family's move to the suburbs, a sullen 10-year-old girl wanders into a world ruled by gods, witches, and spirits, and where humans are changed into beasts. (125 mins.)
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
37.
Rear Window
(1954)
A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbours from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder. (112 mins.)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
38.
The Intouchables
(2011)
After he becomes a quadriplegic from a paragliding accident, an aristocrat hires a young man from the projects to be his caregiver. (112 mins.)
Director: Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano
39.
Modern Times
(1936)
The Tramp struggles to live in modern industrial society with the help of a young homeless woman. (87 mins.)
Director: Charlie Chaplin
40.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
(1991)
A cyborg, identical to the one who failed to kill Sarah Connor, must now protect her young son, John Connor, from a more advanced cyborg, made out of liquid metal. (137 mins.)
Director: James Cameron
41.
Memento
(2000)
A man juggles searching for his wife's murderer and keeping his short-term memory loss from being an obstacle. (113 mins.)
Director: Christopher Nolan
42.
The Pianist
(2002)
A Polish Jewish musician struggles to survive the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto of World War II. (150 mins.)
Director: Roman Polanski
43.
The Green Mile
(1999)
The lives of guards on Death Row are affected by one of their charges: a black man accused of child murder and rape, yet who has a mysterious gift. (189 mins.)
Director: Frank Darabont
44.
Sunset Blvd.
(1950)
A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent-film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity. (110 mins.)
Director: Billy Wilder
45.
Apocalypse Now
(1979)
During the Vietnam War, Captain Willard is sent on a dangerous mission into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade colonel who has set himself up as a god among a local tribe. (153 mins.)
Director: Francis Coppola
46.
The Departed
(2006)
An undercover cop and a mole in the police attempt to identify each other while infiltrating an Irish gang in South Boston. (151 mins.)
Director: Martin Scorsese
47.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
(1964)
An insane general triggers a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically try to stop. (95 mins.)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
48.
Gladiator
(2000)
When a Roman general is betrayed and his family murdered by an emperor's corrupt son, he comes to Rome as a gladiator to seek revenge. (155 mins.)
Director: Ridley Scott
49.
Back to the Future
(1985)
Marty 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. (116 mins.)
Director: Robert Zemeckis
50.
Alien
(1979)
After a space merchant vessel perceives an unknown transmission as distress call, their landing on the source moon finds one of the crew attacked by a mysterious lifeform. Continuing their journey back to Earth with the attacked crew having recovered and the critter deceased, they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun. (117 mins.)
Director: Ridley Scott
51.
The Prestige
(2006)
Two stage magicians engage in competitive one-upmanship in an attempt to create the ultimate stage illusion. (130 mins.)
Director: Christopher Nolan
52.
The Great Dictator
(1940)
Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime. (125 mins.)
Director: Charles Chaplin
53.
The Lives of Others
(2006)
In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police, conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives. (137 mins.)
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
54.
The Lion King
(1994)
Lion cub and future king Simba searches for his identity. His eagerness to please others and penchant for testing his boundaries sometimes gets him into trouble. (89 mins.)
Director: Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff
55.
The Dark Knight Rises
(2012)
Eight years after the Joker's reign of anarchy, the Dark Knight, with the help of the enigmatic Selina, is forced from his imposed exile to save Gotham City, now on the edge of total annihilation, from the brutal guerrilla terrorist Bane. (164 mins.)
Director: Christopher Nolan
56.
Django Unchained
(2012)
With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner. (165 mins.)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
57.
Cinema Paradiso
(1988)
A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist. (155 mins.)
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
58.
The Shining
(1980)
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future. (146 mins.)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
59.
Paths of Glory
(1957)
After refusing to attack an enemy position, a general accuses the soldiers of cowardice and their commanding officer must defend them. (88 mins.)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
60.
American Beauty
(1999)
A sexually frustrated suburban father has a mid-life crisis after becoming infatuated with his daughter's best friend. (122 mins.)
Director: Sam Mendes
61.
WALL·E
(2008)
In the distant future, a small waste-collecting robot inadvertently embarks on a space journey that will ultimately decide the fate of mankind. (98 mins.)
Director: Andrew Stanton
62.
North by Northwest
(1959)
A hapless New York advertising executive is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive. (136 mins.)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
63.
Aliens
(1986)
The moon from Alien has been colonized, but contact is lost. This time, the rescue team has impressive firepower, but will it be enough? (137 mins.)
Director: James Cameron
64.
Citizen Kane
(1941)
Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance. (119 mins.)
Director: Orson Welles
65.
Amélie
(2001)
Amélie is an innocent and naive girl in Paris with her own sense of justice. She decides to help those around her and, along the way, discovers love. (122 mins.)
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
66.
Vertigo
(1958)
A San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her. (128 mins.)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
67.
M
(1931)
When the police in a German city are unable to catch a child-murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt. (117 mins.)
Director: Fritz Lang
68.
Toy Story 3
(2010)
The toys are mistakenly delivered to a day-care center instead of the attic right before Andy leaves for college, and it's up to Woody to convince the other toys that they weren't abandoned and to return home. (103 mins.)
Director: Lee Unkrich
69.
Das Boot
(1981)
The claustrophobic world of a WWII German U-boat; boredom, filth, and sheer terror. (149 mins.)
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
70.
Oldboy
(2003)
After being kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen years, Oh Dae-Su is released, only to find that he must find his captor in five days. (120 mins.)
Director: Chan-wook Park
71.
Grave of the Fireflies
(1988)
A young boy and his little sister struggle to survive in Japan during World War II. (89 mins.)
Director: Isao Takahata
72.
Princess Mononoke
(1997)
On a journey to find the cure for a Tatarigami's curse, Ashitaka finds himself in the middle of a war between the forest gods and Tatara, a mining colony. In this quest he also meets San, the Mononoke Hime. (134 mins.)
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
73.
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi
(1983)
After rescuing Han Solo from the palace of Jabba the Hutt, the rebels attempt to destroy the second Death Star, while Luke struggles to make Vader return from the dark side of the Force. (131 mins.)
Director: Richard Marquand
74.
Once Upon a Time in America
(1984)
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life. (229 mins.)
Director: Sergio Leone
75.
A Clockwork Orange
(1971)
In future Britain, Alex DeLarge, a charismatic and psycopath delinquent, who likes to practice crimes and ultra-violence with his gang, is jailed and volunteers for an experimental aversion therapy developed by the government in an effort to solve society's crime problem - but not all goes according to plan. (136 mins.)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
76.
Taxi Driver
(1976)
A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge for violent action, attempting to save a preadolescent prostitute in the process. (113 mins.)
Director: Martin Scorsese
77.
Reservoir Dogs
(1992)
After a simple jewelry heist goes terribly wrong, the surviving criminals begin to suspect that one of them is a police informant. (99 mins.)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
78.
Double Indemnity
(1944)
An insurance representative lets himself be talked into a murder/insurance fraud scheme that arouses an insurance investigator's suspicions. (107 mins.)
Director: Billy Wilder
79.
Requiem for a Dream
(2000)
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island people are shattered when their addictions run deep. (102 mins.)
Director: Darren Aronofsky
80.
Braveheart
(1995)
When his secret bride is executed for assaulting an English soldier who tried to rape her, William Wallace begins a revolt against King Edward I of England. (178 mins.)
Director: Mel Gibson
81.
To Kill a Mockingbird
(1962)
Atticus Finch, a lawyer in the Depression-era South, defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge, and his children against prejudice. (129 mins.)
Director: Robert Mulligan
82.
Lawrence of Arabia
(1962)
The story of T.E. Lawrence, the English officer who successfully united and lead the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks. (216 mins.)
Director: David Lean
83.
Witness for the Prosecution
(1957)
A veteran British barrister must defend his client in a murder trial that has surprise after surprise. (116 mins.)
Director: Billy Wilder
84.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(2004)
When their relationship turns sour, a couple undergoes a procedure to have each other erased from their memories. But it is only through the process of loss that they discover what they had to begin with. (108 mins.)
Director: Michel Gondry
85.
Full Metal Jacket
(1987)
A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue. (116 mins.)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
86.
Singin' in the Rain
(1952)
A silent film production company and cast make a difficult transition to sound. (103 mins.)
Director: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly
87.
The Sting
(1973)
In Chicago in September 1936, a young con man seeking revenge for his murdered partner teams up with a master of the big con to win a fortune from a criminal banker. (129 mins.)
Director: George Roy Hill
88.
Bicycle Thieves
(1948)
In post-war Italy, a working-class man's bicycle is stolen. He and his son set out to find it. (89 mins.)
Director: Vittorio De Sica
89.
Amadeus
(1984)
The incredible story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, told by his peer and secret rival Antonio Salieri - now confined to an insane asylum. (160 mins.)
Director: Milos Forman
90.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
(1975)
King Arthur and his knights embark on a low-budget search for the Grail, encountering many, very silly obstacles. (91 mins.)
Director: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
91.
Snatch
(2000)
Unscrupulous boxing promoters, violent bookmakers, a Russian gangster, incompetent amateur robbers, and supposedly Jewish jewelers fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond. (104 mins.)
Director: Guy Ritchie
92.
Boyhood
(2014)
The life of Mason, from early childhood to his arrival at college. (165 mins.)
Director: Richard Linklater
93.
Rashomon
(1950)
A heinous crime and its aftermath are recalled from differing points of view. (88 mins.)
Director: Akira Kurosawa
94.
L.A. Confidential
(1997)
As corruption grows in 1950s LA, three policemen - one strait-laced, one brutal, and one sleazy - investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice. (138 mins.)
Director: Curtis Hanson
95.
For a Few Dollars More
(1965)
Two bounty hunters with the same intentions team up to track down a Western outlaw. (132 mins.)
Director: Sergio Leone
96.
All About Eve
(1950)
An ingenue insinuates herself into the company of an established but aging stage actress and her circle of theater friends. (138 mins.)
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
97.
The Apartment
(1960)
A man tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but complications and a romance of his own ensue. (125 mins.)
Director: Billy Wilder
98.
2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968)
Humanity finds a mysterious, obviously artificial object buried beneath the Lunar surface and, with the intelligent computer H.A.L. 9000, sets off on a quest. (149 mins.)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
99.
The Kid
(1921)
The Tramp cares for an abandoned child, but events put that relationship in jeopardy. (68 mins.)
Director: Charlie Chaplin
100.
Some Like It Hot
(1959)
When two male musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in. (120 mins.)
Director: Billy Wilder
Page 1 of 3
Next »