Stephen Garrett

Even for someone who’s been mainlining movies since they were in diapers – and one of those film geeks who wants to know what the thousandth and second film they need to watch before they die is – I’m constantly awed by the cinematic canon. From the early silents of Keaton, Chaplin, Wiene and Eisenstein, which established the building blocks for the horror, comedy and action movies we still flock to see today, not to mention their editing and storytelling techniques, to the epic visions of contemporary auteurs like Christopher Nolan, film is an artform that continues to evolve and astonish. The medium has survived the advent of telly, the arrival of streaming and the filmography of Pauly Shore, and I’m optimistic it will continue to blow us away for decades to come. So what are those definitive masterpieces that continue to dazzle and delight many years after they first came out? Our team of experienced film writers debated, squabbled like kids and finally parsed down thousands of choices into a list of a mere hundred. It’s totally subjective, of course, but we believe this century of classics belongs in the pantheon. And even if you disagree with the picks, my hope is that every one of them will spark joy – whether for new viewers or anyone looking to revisit them. Possibly for the umpteenth time in the case of The Godfather, Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark and a few others. Have a browse and share your thoughts with us on social media.  🔥 The best films of 2024 (so f

Naturally, there are a lot of movies set in Los Angeles – it’s literally where American movies come from, after all. And yet, ‘LA movies’ seem less exalted than, say, New York movies or Paris movies. Maybe it’s because the city is harder to romanticise than other major cities, what with all the traffic, cosmetic tweakments and obsession with kale. Whatever the reason, it makes coming up with a list of truly great LA movies a tough task. But the great ones are really great. In terms of tone and subject matter, they’re as sprawling as the landscape itself, covering everything from showbiz dramas and inner-city thrillers to fizzy musical comedies and shadowy noirs. Here are our all-time favourites. Recommended: 🗽 The 101 best New York movies of all time🌭 The 27 best Chicago movies of all time💂 The 32 best London movies of all time🥖 The 54 best movies set in Paris

Everyone has their favorites – that’s why any debate over what makes the best movies of all time can take hours (or, in our cases, a lifetime). Can there ever be one list to rule them all? A canon, as critics like to call it, updated with today’s game changers, that would glance upon all tastes, all genres, all countries, all eras, balancing impact with importance, brains with heart? The challenge was daunting. We just couldn't resist. Our list includes some of the most recognized action, feminist and foreign films. Please let us know how wrong we got it. Written by Abbey Bender, Dave Calhoun, Phil de Semlyen, Bilge Ebiri, Ian Freer, Stephen Garrett, Tomris Laffly, Joshua Rothkopf and Anna Smith RECOMMENDED:– The best movies on Netflix right now– The 100 best comedy movies– The best romantic movies of all time– The 101 best action movies ever made– The best documentaries on Netflix

Multiple rapes. Infanticide. Aboriginal strange fruit. You’ve been warned. Brutal is too soft a word to describe ‘The Nightingale’, a brilliantly harrowing indictment of white male oppression set in British-ruled Australia circa 1825. If you thought Jennifer Kent pulled no punches in her terrifying supernatural debut ‘The Babadook’, brace yourself for the existential evil that lurks in the hearts of men – not figures out of a children’s storybook but a keenly observed sense of historical place. Newlywed mother Clare Carroll (Aisling Franciosi of ‘Game of Thrones’, hypnotically fierce), a convicted Irish street urchin sent to a Tasmanian penal colony, sings for randy, rum-soaked soldiers when she’s not suffering derision as a scullery maid. The local sadistic commander, Lieutenant Hawkins (Sam Claflin), helplessly infatuated with Clare, taunts her with the promise of freedom along with his special brand of toxic, self-loathing abuse. After learning that his only chance at promotion is a four-day trek to personally petition his superiors, Hawkins spitefully obliterates any chance of Clare’s happiness by attacking her and her family. The viciousness is off the charts. Left for dead, Clare is transformed into an avenging angel, enlisting a shrewd Tasmanian tracker named Billy (Baykali Ganambarr, sly and spiky) to help her hunt down Hawkins and his crew. And so begins a dark journey into the unmapped wilds of Van Diemen’s Land, where white devils plunder with impunity while a deva