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About 4 Star Films

I am a film critic and historian preserving a love of good movies. Check out my blog, 4 Star Films, and follow me on Twitter @FourStarFilmFan or Letterboxd. Thank you for reading!

Great Films by The Guardian

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Brief Encounter
Casablanca
Before Sunrise
Before Sunset
Breathless
In the Mood for Love
The Apartment
Hannah & Her Sisters
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Room With a View
Jules et Jim
All That Heaven Allows
Gone with the Wind
An Affair to Remember
Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Lost in Translation
Roman Holiday
Wall-E
My Night With Maud
Voyage to Italy
Dr Zhivago
Harold & Maude
When Harry Met Sally
Say Anything….
Fabulous Baker Boys
A Matter of Life & Death
Chinatown
Touch of Evil
Vertigo
Badlands
Rashomon
Double Indemnity
Get Carter
Pulp Fiction
Hidden
Goodfellas
The Conversation
Bonnie & Clyde
The Killing
French Connection
The Big Sleep
La Ceremonie
Point Blank
Hard Boiled
Long Good Friday
A Prophet
Heat
Scarface (1983)
Miller’s Crossing
Postman Always Rings Twice  (1942)
Jour Se Leve
Annie Hall
Borat
Some Like it Hot
Team America
Dr Strangelove
The Ladykillers
Duck Soup
Rushmore
Kind Hearts & Coronets
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
Airplane!
Election
His Girl Friday
The Big Lebowski
This Is Spinal Tap
Bringing Up Baby
There’s Something About Mary
Dazed and Confused
MASH
Groundhog Day
Clueless
The Great Dictator
Clerks
The Jerk
Shaun of the Dead
Apocalypse Now
North by Northwest
Once Upon a Time in the West
The Wild Bunch
Deliverance
City of God
Paths of Glory
The Wages of Fear
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
The Thin Red Line
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Bullitt
Ran
Die Hard
The Adventures of Robin Hood
The Searchers
Goldfinger
Full Metal Jacket
Last of the Mohicans
Deer Hunter
Gladiator
Rome Open City
Butch Cassidy
Where Eagles Dare
The Incredibles
Andrei Rublev
Mulholland Dr
L’Atalante
Tokyo Story
Citizen Kane
A Clockwork Orange
Days of Heaven
Wild Strawberries
White Ribbon
The Gospel According to St Matthew
Aguirre Wrath of God
Pather Panchali
The Conformist
Death in Venice
The Godfather Parts I and II
The Graduate
There Will Be Blood
Battleship Potemkin
Rules of the Game
Shadows
Distant Voices Still Lives
Passion of Joan of Arc
La Dolce Vita
Breaking the Waves
Spirit of the Beehive
2001: A Space Odyssey
Metropolis
Blade Runner
Alien
The Wizard of Oz
ET
Solaris
Spirited Away
Star Wars  (1977)
Close Encounters
King Kong
Terminator/Terminator 2
The Matrix
Alphaville
Back to the Future
Planet of the Apes
Brazil
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Dark Star
Day the Earth Stood Still
Edward Scissorhands
Akira
Princess Bride
Pan’s Labyrinth
Starship Troopers
Psycho
Rosemary’s Baby
Don’t Look Now
The Wicker Man
The Shining
The Exorcist
Nosferatu  (1922)
Let the Right One In
Vampyr
Peeping Tom
The Innocents
Ringu
The Haunting
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Dead of Night
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari
Halloween
Bride of Frankenstein
Les Diaboliques
Audition
Dracula   (1958)
The Blair Witch Project
Evil Dead/Evil Dead II
Carrie
Les Vampires (1915)

Top 300 Films of the 20th Century by AMC Filmsite

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The Birth Of A Nation (1915)
 Intolerance (1916)
Broken Blossoms (1919)
The Kid (1921)
 Greed (1924)
Sherlock, Jr. (1924)
The Thief of Bagdad (1924)
The Big Parade (1925)
The Freshman (1925)
 The Gold Rush (1925)
 The General (1927)
The Jazz Singer (1927)
Metropolis (1927)
 Sunrise (1927)
 The Crowd (1928)
The Wind (1928)
All Quiet On The Western Front (1930)
Little Caesar (1930)
 City Lights (1931)
Dracula (1931)
Frankenstein (1931)
The Public Enemy (1931)
Freaks (1932)
I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932)
Scarface: The Shame of the Nation (1932)
 Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Dinner at Eight (1933)
 Duck Soup (1933)
Footlight Parade (1933)
 42nd Street (1933)
 King Kong (1933)
Queen Christina (1933)
She Done Him Wrong (1933)
Sons of the Desert (1933)
 It Happened One Night (1934)
It’s a Gift (1934) (tie)
The Scarlet Empress (1934)
The Thin Man (1934)
 Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
 A Night At The Opera (1935)
The Thirty-Nine Steps (1935)
 Top Hat (1935)
Camille (1936)
Dodsworth (1936)
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
 Modern Times (1936)
My Man Godfrey (1936)
Swing Time (1936)
The Awful Truth (1937)
 Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Way Out West (1937)
 The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
 Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Jezebel (1938)
Pygmalion (1938)
Dark Victory (1939)
 Gone With The Wind (1939)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
 Ninotchka (1939)
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
 Stagecoach (1939)
 The Wizard of Oz (1939)
 Wuthering Heights (1939)
The Bank Dick (1940) (tie)
 Fantasia (1940)
 The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
The Great Dictator (1940)
 His Girl Friday (1940)
The Letter (1940)
 The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Pinocchio (1940)
 Rebecca (1940)
 Citizen Kane (1941)
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
 The Lady Eve (1941)
 The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
Bambi (1942)
Casablanca (1942)
Cat People (1942)
Kings Row (1942)
 The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Now, Voyager (1942)
The Palm Beach Story (1942)
To Be or Not to Be (1942)
 Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
Cabin in the Sky (1943)
The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
 Double Indemnity (1944)
Gaslight (1944)
Henry V (1944) (tie)
Laura (1944)
 Meet Me In St. Louis (1944)
Murder, My Sweet (1944)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
The Lost Weekend (1945)
Mildred Pierce (1945)
 The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
 The Big Sleep (1946)
Brief Encounter (1946)
 It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
The Killers (1946)
 My Darling Clementine (1946)
 Notorious (1946)
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Stairway To Heaven (1946), aka A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
 Out Of The Past (1947)
Key Largo (1948)
The Lady From Shanghai (1948)
 Letter From an Unknown Woman (1948)
 Red River (1948)
The Red Shoes (1948)
 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Adam’s Rib (1949)
All the King’s Men (1949)
The Heiress (1949)
 The Third Man (1949)
White Heat (1949)
All About Eve (1950)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Gun Crazy (1950)
In a Lonely Place (1950)
 Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Winchester ’73 (1950)
 The African Queen (1951)
 An American In Paris (1951)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
A Place in the Sun (1951)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
 A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
The Thing (From Another World) (1951)
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
 High Noon (1952)
 The Quiet Man (1952)
 Singin’ In The Rain (1952)
The Big Heat (1953)
From Here to Eternity (1953)
 Roman Holiday (1953)
 Shane (1953)
 On The Waterfront (1954)
 Rear Window (1954)
 A Star Is Born (1954)
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
East of Eden (1955)
Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Marty (1955)
 The Night of the Hunter (1955)
 Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Baby Doll (1956)
Bus Stop (1956)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
The Killing (1956)
 The Searchers (1956)
Written on the Wind (1956)
 The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)
Jailhouse Rock (1957)
 Paths of Glory (1957)
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
12 Angry Men (1957)
Witness For the Prosecution (1957)
 Touch Of Evil (1958)
 Vertigo (1958)
 Ben-Hur (1959)
 North By Northwest (1959)
 Some Like It Hot (1959)
The Apartment (1960)
Inherit the Wind (1960)
 Psycho (1960)
Spartacus (1960)
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
The Hustler (1961)
Splendor in the Grass (1961)
 West Side Story (1961)
 Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
 To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)
What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962)
The Birds (1963)
 Dr. Strangelove or: (1964)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
My Fair Lady (1964)
Repulsion (1965)
The Sound of Music (1965)
Blow-Up (1966)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
A Man For All Seasons (1966)
 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
 Bonnie And Clyde (1967)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
 The Graduate (1967)
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
The Lion in Winter (1968)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Planet of the Apes (1968)
The Producers (1968)
Romeo and Juliet (1968)
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Easy Rider (1969)
 Midnight Cowboy (1969)
 The Wild Bunch (1969) 
Five Easy Pieces (1970)
M*A*S*H (1970)
Patton (1970)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
The French Connection (1971)
The Last Picture Show (1971)
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
Cabaret (1972)
Deliverance (1972)
 The Godfather (1972) (tie)
Last Tango in Paris (1972) 
American Graffiti (1973)
Badlands (1973)
Don’t Look Now (1973)
Enter the Dragon (1973)
The Exorcist (1973)
Mean Streets (1973)
Sleeper (1973)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
 Chinatown (1974)
The Conversation (1974)
 The Godfather Part II (1974) (tie)
Young Frankenstein (1974)
 Jaws (1975)
The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
 Nashville (1975)
 One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Network (1976)
Rocky (1976)
 Taxi Driver (1976)
 Annie Hall (1977)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
 Star Wars (1977) (tie)
Days of Heaven (1978)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Halloween (1978)
Alien (1979)
 Apocalypse Now (1979)
Being There (1979)
Manhattan (1979) 
Airplane! (1980)
The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (tie)
 Raging Bull (1980)
The Shining (1980)
Atlantic City (1981)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
 Blade Runner (1982)
 E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Poltergeist (1982)
The Road Warrior (1982)
Tootsie (1982)
The King of Comedy (1983)
Amadeus (1984)
The Terminator (1984)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Brazil (1985)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Platoon (1986)
A Room With a View (1986)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
The Last Emperor (1987)
Bull Durham (1988)
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Field of Dreams (1989)
Glory (1989)
Henry V (1989) (tie)
When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
GoodFellas (1990)
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
JFK (1991)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Thelma & Louise (1991)
The Crying Game (1992) 
Unforgiven (1992)
Groundhog Day (1993)
The Piano (1993)
 Schindler’s List (1993)
Forrest Gump (1994)
 Pulp Fiction (1994)
 The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Babe (1995) 
Toy Story (1995) (tie)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Fargo (1996)
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Titanic (1997)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
American Beauty (1999)
The Matrix (1999)
Toy Story 2 (1999)

 

The Best Films of Fred Zinnemann

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1. High Noon
2. From Here to Eternity
3. The Search
4. A Man For All Seasons
5. A Nun’s Story
6. Oklahoma
7. The Men
8. Act of Violence
9. The Day of the Jackal
10. The Seventh Cross
11. Julia
12. People on Sunday

100 Greatest Movies by Entertainment Weekly

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1. The Godfather (1972)
2. Citizen Kane (1941)
3. Casablanca (1942)
4. Chinatown (1974)
5. Raging Bull (1980)
6. La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life) (1960) (It.)
7. The Godfather, Part II (1974)
8. Gone With The Wind (1939)
9. Some Like It Hot (1959)
10. Singin’ In The Rain (1952)
11. Psycho (1960)
12. Seven Samurai (Shichinin no Samurai) (1954) (Jp.)
13. The Searchers (1956)

14. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying… (1964)

15. The Gold Rush (1925)

16. Star Wars (1977)
17. On The Waterfront (1954)
18. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
19. Vertigo (1958)
20. E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
21. All About Eve (1950)
22. The Bicycle Thief (Ladri di Biciclette) (1948) (It.)
23. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)
24. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
25. Intolerance (1916)

 26. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

27. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
28. Sunset Boulevard (1950)
29. Pulp Fiction (1994)
30. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
31. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
32. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
33. Jules and Jim (Jules et Jim) (1962) (Fr.)
34. Sherlock, Jr. (1924)
35. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
36. 8 1/2 (Otto e Mezzo) (1963) (It.)
37. Blue Velvet (1986)

 38. Nashville (1975)

39. Swing Time (1936)
40. Schindler’s List (1993)
41. Taxi Driver (1976)
42. Aliens (1986)

 43. Duck Soup (1933)

44. North By Northwest (1959)
45. The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde Inseglet) (1957) (Swd.)
46. The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)
47. King Kong (1933)
48. Bonnie And Clyde (1967)
49. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
50. Double Indemnity (1944)
52. Jaws (1975)
53. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
54. Touch Of Evil (1958)
55. The Graduate (1967)
56. It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
57. The Wild Bunch (1969)

 58. The Rules of the Game (La Regle du Jeu) (1939) (Fr.)

59. The Lady Eve (1941)

60. Annie Hall (1977)
61. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
62. Henry V (1944) (Br.)

 63. Breathless (A Bout de Souffle) (1960) (Fr.)

64. Mean Streets (1973)

 65. The Third Man (1949)

66. Notorious (1946)
67. Airplane! (1980)
68. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
69. The Conformist (1970) (It./Fr./WGer.)
70. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
71. To Be or Not to Be (1942)
72. M (1931) (Ger.)

 73. Great Expectations (1946) (Br.)

74. Funny Face (1957)

 75. Tootsie (1982)

76. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
77. Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potyomkin) (1925) (USSR)
78. White Heat (1949)
79. It’s a Gift (1934)
80. Nosferatu (1922) (Ger.)
81. Do the Right Thing (1989)
82. Diabolique (Les Diaboliques) (1955) (Fr.)
83. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) 
84. Blow-Up (1966) (Br.)
85. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) 
86. Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
87. L’Age d’Or (1930) (Fr.)

 88. The Producers (1968)

89. Wings of Desire (Der Himmel uber Berlin) (1988) (WGer./Fr.)
90. Pickup on South Street (1953)
91. Mildred Pierce (1945)
92. Sunrise (1927)
93. The Road Warrior (Mad Max 2) (1981) (Austr.)

 94. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

95. Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari) (1953) (Jp.)
96. The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
97. The Piano (1993) (Austr.)

 98. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

99. Swept Away… (1975) (It.)
100. Celine & Julie Go Boating (1974) (Fr.)
“JUST TOO BELOVED TO IGNORE”

The African Queen (1951)
American Graffiti (1973)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
Bull Durham (1988)
Five Easy Pieces (1970)
From Here to Eternity (1953)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964) (Br.)
It Happened One Night (1934)
The Last Picture Show (1971)
National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Once Upon a Time in the West (C’era una Volta il West) (1968, It.)
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
A Star is Born (1954)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
The Verdict (1982)
West Side Story (1961)
Woman of the Year (1942)
Written on the Wind (1956)

The Best Films of Howard Hawks

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“I’m a storyteller – that’s the chief function of a director. And they’re moving pictures, let’s make ’em move!”

1. Rio Bravo
2. The Big Sleep
3.His Girl Friday
4. Bringing up Baby
5. Ball of Fire
6. Red River
7. Sergeant York
8. To Have and Have Not
9. Scarface
10. Only Angles Have Wings
11. Twentieth Century
12. El Dorado
13. The Dawn Patrol
14. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
15. Come and Get It
16. Air Force

OTHER FILM LISTS

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Top 300 Films of the 20th Century by AMC Filmsite

100 Essential Films by National Society of Film Critics

WGA 101 Greatest Screenplays

Greatest Films by TIME Magazine

Rolling Stone’s 100 Maverick Films

100 Greatest Films by Entertainment Weekly

Village Voice Top 100

Great Films by The Guardian

Empire’s 100 Best Films of World Cinema

Empire’s 500 Greatest Films of All Time

TV Guide’s 50 Greatest Films

Vanity Fair’s 50 Greatest Films

500 Classic Film Stars

AMC Great Actors and Actresses

AMC Great Directors