Empire's 500 Greatest Movies Of All Time

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Donnie Darko (2001)
Director: Richard Kelly
An '80s-nostalgia high-school movie with Lynchian atmospherics and a time-travel twist. A film to constantly revisit because it makes you think and feel while you try to figure out the nutty narrative. Read Review

8 1/2 (1963)
Director: Federico Fellini
A film about a director who can't make a film, this mixes childhood flashbacks, doomed relationships between Marcello Mastroianni and gorgeous women, and Fellini's love of circus-style bizarros.

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The Shining (1980)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Stephen King is largely ignored, as Jack Nicholson descends into a visceral hell of his own making, and, with astonishing visual power, Kubrick redefines the horror genre as he did with sci-fi and 2001. Read Review

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Seven Samurai (1954)
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Kurosawa borrowed from Japanese history and John Ford Westerns to create this epic, amazingly influential picture. A long, complex build-up pays off with one of the movies' greatest battle scenes. Read Review

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Evil Dead 2 (1987)
Director: Sam Raimi
How did this happen? How did a low-budget schlocker that made bugger-all when it opened in 1987 finally get its own Empire cover? Here are just ten reasons why Evil Dead 2 is the 49th greatest film of all time� 1. Sam Raimi: young, brilliant and bursting at the seams with ideas for virtuoso camera moves and demented montages. 2. Star Bruce Campbell's Ash: half-Stooge, half-Rambo. 3. The chainsaw/shotgun combo... "Groovy." 4. There's a gleeful disregard for convention throughout: the breakneck first five minutes remake the original movie. 5. High gore factor: walls spurt blood, eyeballs land in mouths. 6. The bit where Ash's hair turns grey. Genius. 7. It's hugely influential (ask Edgar Wright and Louis Leterrier). 8. It's goofily hilarious - the possessed demon hand is a hoot. 9. Its ending is perverse and Planet Of The Apes-perfect. 10. Oh, and it has a laughing moose head. Every movie should have a laughing moose head. Read Review

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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