40. “Dances With Wolves” (1990)
There was a fair amount of debate over this one, but we’re somewhat going to swim against the tide of revisionist opinion by suggesting that Kevin Costner’s epic western deserves its top 40 spot and is more than the vanity project detractors now see it as (those would come later). A meticulous, thoroughly researched, elegiac movie, it’s old-fashioned in a good way, though maybe too cautiously PC to have as much bite as it could.
39. “Terms Of Endearment” (1983)
Sentimental and occasionally overwrought though it might be, James L. Brooks‘ movie is also a tremendously entertaining, engagingly performed ‘80s take on the women’s picture that gifts Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger with two exceptional roles as a spiky mother and daughter. Jack Nicholson is a further treat, for once adding color to the background rather than dominating proceedings.
38. “You Can’t Take It With You” (1938)
There’s probably an argument to be made that, when compared to “It Happened One Night” or “It’s A Wonderful Life,” “You Can’t Take It With You” is rather minor Capra. But minor Capra is major anyone else when it comes to this kind of comedy, and his adaptation of Kaufman and Hart‘s stage play, which sees Jimmy Stewart’s real estate magnate woo Jean Arthur, despite his snooty family and her eccentric one, is a delight, not least in the pairing of its leads, who are on top form here.
37. “Mutiny On The Bounty” (1935)
The best film based on this famous story by quite some distance, what is essentially a parable about clashing leadership styles is given real dramatic heft by Frank Lloyd, who also directed “Cavalcade” (no. 76), and by pretty definitive portrayals of Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian by Charles Laughton and Clark Gable, respectively.
36. “From Here To Eternity” (1953)
As a performance showcase, this Fred Zinnemann melodrama about the romantic and professional entanglements of a group of U.S. Army servicemen stationed in Honolulu just prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, still shines — Frank Sinatra, Ernest Borgnine and Montgomery Clift in particular. But its claim to icon status lies mainly in one deliriously romantic scene as Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr enjoy an extra-marital clinch in the nighttime surf.
35. “Patton” (1970)
Spectacular 70mm WWII biopic of the legendary general, dominated by a titanic performance by George C. Scott. Caught a little awkwardly between Franklin J. Schaffner‘s Old Hollywood and writer Francis Ford Coppola‘s New, but compulsively watchable all the same.
34. “An American In Paris” (1951)
Gene Kelly’s dazzling and still surprisingly weird musical may stumble whenever it’s required to do anything as rote as plotting, but the dance numbers here are the real point, and not just the window dressing. From its exaggerated painterly Paris to the 13-minute climactic ballet to the Gershwin music it’s all set to, this is the average musical, concentrated.
33. “In The Heat Of The Night” (1967)
The winner of one of the most heated and controversial years in Oscar history might not have had the same legacy as “The Graduate” and “Bonnie & Clyde” did, but it’s a damn fine film nevertheless. Sidney Poitier‘s big-city cop and Rod Steiger‘s bigoted police chief team for a Mississippi murder investigation, and it’s atmospheric, textured stuff that transcends its genre trappings.
32. “The English Patient” (1996)
Harvey Weinstein‘s first massive Oscar success has come to represent a certain kind of Lasse Hallström-esque middlebrow effort in retrospect, but a rewatch suggests that’s a bit unfair. This one is thrilling, romantic and more than anything a cracking story, beautifully told by Anthony Minghella, who keeps it just this side of melodrama, but still bursting with feeling. The kind of film that they say they don’t make anymore.
31. “Wings” (1927)
Silent era “It Girl” Clara Bow is the nominal star of this film which has the distinction of being the first Best Picture winner ever, but it’s the still-impressive aerial photography of WWI dogfights that are the centerpieces now. Director William Wellman and fourth-billed star Gary Cooper would go on to make the transition to talkies more smoothly than Bow, but this does also provide a taste of what made her one of the biggest stars of her day.
