Combining reader votes with critic’s choices from Team Empire, here we have it – the latest version of the 100 Greatest Movies list. Films that blow your mind, help you see things from a new perspective, and that continue to shape cinema as we know it today. The best films – from classic movies that have stood the test of time, to contemporary works that changed the game – offer heartwarming comfort, iconic scares, big laughs, and pulse-pounding suspense, becoming firm audience favourites and garnering critical acclaim.Įmpire asked readers to share their picks for the best films of all time – ones that comfort, challenge and pioneer. It’s paid off.The greatest movies of all time endure for many reasons – they give us characters to fall head-over-heels for, plots that twist and turn in unexpected ways, depict experiences that change us, and thrill us with incredible filmmaking craft. He returns to the ‘70s a lot in his movies, and thank God for that because he’s one of the few directors around who can frame that fascinating decade in the dirty, sinister, decadent way it deserves.Įspecially, though, good on Anderson for taking a gamble on a newcomer to play his impeccably written leading man. The director’s work is also easy on the eyes. They make epics of two-minute cameos, unlike the A-list “Dispatch” actors, who each said one monotonous line and called an Uber. But the cast list is not a gimmick and nobody is cashing a check. Reilly, Maya Rudolph, Harriet Harris (you will howl when she says “you’re a fighter!”).
#BEST MOVIE ER MOVIE#
This Anderson goes right where another Anderson (Wes) went wrong earlier this year in “The French Dispatch.” The movie is packed with stars in supporting roles: Sean Penn, Bradley Cooper (untethered and hysterical as Barbra Streisand’s ex Jon Peters), John C. Haim takes her character’s depressing life and makes it lovable, relatable and human. Alana is going through what millennials termed a “quarter-life crisis.” She’s approaching 30, has no career or romantic prospects and still lives with her parents. The other big question on viewers’ minds is can Haim act? She’s famous for being one-third of the music group Haim (both of her sisters and parents are in the movie, too). However, it’s our mixed feelings about the gap and the actors’ incredible chemistry that make the movie so riveting and sneakily powerful. On paper, you raise your brow at the pair’s age difference. Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman star in “Licorice Pizza.” Courtesy MGM StudiosĪnd so begins one of the most memorable and complex on-screen romances in years. One day at school, Gary meets 25-year-old Alana (Alana Haim), a yearbook headshot photographer, chats her up and manages to get her number. Most nights, Gary haunts the Tail ‘o the Cock - the sort of Old Hollywood-style eatery that you still see in Palm Springs - and sits at the bar, schmoozing with the maitre ‘d while nursing a Coke as if it’s straight gin. firm for local restaurants and opens a water bed shop. He’s a charming old soul who acts in tiny film roles and uses the money to start weird side businesses. Hoffman plays Gary Valentine, a 15-year-old Cyrano de Bergerac/Harold Hill/Doogie Howser mix in 1973 California. He gives a teen turn on par with Tom Cruise in “Risky Business” or Matthew Broderick in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” but - and I recognize the weight of this comment - goes much deeper than they did as young men. The “Boogie Nights” director, who is deathly allergic to making bad films, has found the perfect blend of role and actor with Hoffman. The moment the credits rolled I wanted to rewind and watch it again. The film is a highlight reel of fantastic acting. It’s a totally unique and endlessly surprising coming-of-age tale that is carefully sentimental and knock-down, drag out funny. “Licorice Pizza” is a movie you will cherish for a long time after the lights come up. This wonderful kid should be in the Oscar race, but we’re too predictably infatuated with big names. What we never could have imagined, though, is that Cooper’s freshman performance (he’s so green, his IMDB page doesn’t have a photo yet) would be one of the best of the year in what is easily the best film of 2021, Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant “Licorice Pizza.” His father, an Oscar-winning genius, died in 2014. It was always going to be an emotional experience watching the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son Cooper Hoffman make his acting debut. Rated R (language, sexual material and some drug use).