Empire's 500 Greatest Movies Of All Time

217

The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Director: John Sturges
Can you remember all seven? Really? Get a piece of paper and write them down. You will get six, unless you cheat. Go on, do it. Write in if we’re wrong. Read Review

216

Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)
Director: John Schlesinger
Charting the end of an unconventional affair — Peter Finch and Glenda Jackson are in love with the same man — Schlesinger’s picture is gently tragic: an uncompromising vision of compromised lives.

215

Jackie Brown (1997)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Underrated on release, QT’s third has aged beautifully — appropriate given its characters are facing middle age, regret and last chances. Read Review

214

Army Of Shadows (1969)
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Melville recounts everyday heroism and horrors in a unique World War II thriller. Feels true because it is. Read Review

213

Songs From The Second Floor (2000)
Director: Roy Andersson
A critics’ favourite four years in the making and virtually impossible to describe, though ‘slapstick Ingmar Bergman’ comes close... Can you imagine such a thing? No? Then go see it for yourself.

212

M (1931)
Director: Fritz Lang
A German city is terrorised by Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre), a pudgy young man who compulsively whistles Grieg’s Hall Of The Mountain King as he approaches the children he murders (and, it is implied, molests). Fritz Lang’s first sound film is an incredibly influential psycho-thriller, establishing conventions still used by serial- killer movies as it intercuts the murderer’s pathetic life with the investigation of his outrages. While Lorre provides a horribly sympathetic focus for the film, Lang shows how his crimes affect the entire city — even prompting professional criminals to track him like an animal through the streets after Beckert draws an inconvenient police presence.

This poll was conducted in November 2008. The list was compiled using votes from Empire readers, Hollywood actors, actress and key film critics.

In conjunction with the poll results, we produced 100 individual covers celebrating some of the key films in the list. View 100 Covers

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