In 1999 American publication, Rolling Stone Magazine, in their end of the year Millennium issue, and film critic Peter Travers published a list of the 100 best maverick movies of the 20th century. Films made by those who “busted rules to follow their obsessions…in the defiant spirit of rock & roll.”
1. The Godfather Trilogy
The Godfather, Part I (1972), The Godfather, Part II (1974), and The Godfather, Part III (1990), Francis Ford Coppola
2. Vertigo (1958), Alfred Hitchcock
3. The Searchers (1956), John Ford
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Stanley Kubrick
5. Citizen Kane (1941), Orson Welles
6. Raging Bull (1980), Martin Scorsese
7. Chinatown (1974), Roman Polanski
8. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), John Huston
9. Blue Velvet (1986), David Lynch
10. Pulp Fiction (1994), Quentin Tarantino
11. King Kong (1933), Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
12. The Manchurian Candidate (1962), John Frankenheimer
13. Fargo (1996), Joel Coen
14. All About Eve (1950), Joseph L. Mankiewicz
15. Do The Right Thing (1989), Spike Lee
16. The Night of the Hunter (1955), Charles Laughton
17. Sherlock, Jr. (1924), Buster Keaton
18. Some Like It Hot (1959), Billy Wilder
19. Nashville (1975), Robert Altman
20. The Wizard of Oz (1939), Victor Fleming
21. Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Alexander Mackendrick
22. Brazil (1985), Terry Gilliam
23. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Don Siegel
24. Badlands (1973), Terrence Malick
25. Don’t Look Now (1973), Nicolas Roeg
26. Gone With The Wind (1939), produced by David O. Selznick
27. Casablanca (1942), Michael Curtiz
28. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Frank Capra
29. Singin’ In The Rain (1952), Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen
30. On The Waterfront (1954), Elia Kazan
31. Jaws (1975), Steven Spielberg
32. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Milos Forman
33. Lawrence of Arabia (1962), David Lean
34. The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Jonathan Demme
35. The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Irvin Kershner
36. Ed Wood (1994), Tim Burton
37. Faces (1968), John Cassavetes
38. Annie Hall (1977), Woody Allen
39. Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Arthur Penn
40. Straw Dogs (1971), Sam Peckinpah
41. The Third Man (1949), Carol Reed
42. All The President’s Men (1976), Alan J. Pakula
43. Bride of Frankenstein (1935), James Whale
44. Rebel Without A Cause (1955), Nicholas Ray
45. Written on the Wind (1956), Douglas Sirk
46. Swing Time (1936), George Stevens
47. The Red Shoes (1948), Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
48. Network (1976), Sidney Lumet
49. Sullivan’s Travels (1941), Preston Sturges
50. The Graduate (1967), Mike Nichols
51. M (1931), Fritz Lang
52. Zero For Conduct (1933), Jean Vigo
53. Rules of the Game (1939), Jean Renoir
54. Children of Paradise (1945), Marcel Carné
55. The Bicycle Thief (1948), Vittorio De Sica
56. The Earrings of Madame De… (1953), Max Ophuls
57. Tokyo Story (1953), Yasujiro Ozu
58. The Seven Samurai (1954), Akira Kurosawa
59. Pather Panchali (1955), Satyajit Ray
60. Breathless (1959), Jean-Luc Godard
61. The 400 Blows (1959), Francois Truffaut
62. La Dolce Vita (1960), Federico Fellini
63. Viridiana (1961), Luis Bunuel
64. Persona (1966), Ingmar Bergman
65. The Conformist (1971), Bernardo Bertolucci
66. Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972), Werner Herzog
67. Seven Beauties (1976), Lina Wertmuller
68. Wings of Desire (1988), Wim Wenders
69. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), Pedro Almodovar
70. The Killer (1989), John Woo
71. City Lights (1931), Charles Chaplin
72. Cabaret (1972), Bob Fosse
73. Quiz Show (1994), Robert Redford
74. A Night at the Opera (1935), Sam Wood
75. The Producers (1967), Mel Brooks
76. Lost in America (1985), Albert Brooks
77. The Terminator (1984), James Cameron
78. White Heat (1949), Raoul Walsh
79. His Girl Friday (1940), Howard Hawks
80. Out of the Past (1947), Jacques Tourneur
81. The Piano (1993), Jane Campion
82. Blow-Up (1966), Michelangelo Antonioni
83. Blow Out (1981), Brian De Palma
84. The Philadelphia Story (1940), George Cukor
85. Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), John Sturges
86. Ninotchka (1939), Ernst Lubitsch
87. Diner (1982), Barry Levinson
88. To Sleep With Anger (1990), Charles Burnett
89. Unforgiven (1992), Clint Eastwood
90. Midnight Cowboy (1969), John Schlesinger
91. Lone Star (1996), John Sayles
92. The Naked Kiss (1964), Samuel Fuller
93. The Crying Game (1992), Neil Jordan
94. Broadcast News (1987), James L. Brooks
95. Dead Ringers (1988), David Cronenberg
96. My Little Chickadee (1940), Edward Cline
97. The Night of the Living Dead (1968), George Romero
98. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Terry Jones
99. Intolerance (1916), D. W. Griffith
100. Freaks (1932), Tod Browning
Peter Travers is an American film critic and journalist, who has written for People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn for ABC News.
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