Welcome to MovieJawn’s first ever Sound & Vision Poll, where our writers share why they love their 10 favorite movies of all time!

by Megan Bailey, Staff Writer

When tasked with this top ten list, my general approach was that I wanted to put together a collection of films that I would be thrilled to watch anytime, anywhere. I acknowledge that most of these films are very recent, and coincidentally, they all came out after I was born. That wasn’t on purpose, and there definitely could be some recency bias in play. But while I do think Citizen Kane is a cinematic masterpiece, and I love a lot of Billy Wilder’s movies, for example, I have to be in a certain mood to watch those. This contains my all-time, ride-or-die, rewatchable favorites.

Clueless (dir. Amy Heckerling, 1995)

Just an absolutely perfect teen film. I love a teen adaptation of a classic, and Amy Heckerling’s work here adapting the story beats of Jane Austen’s Emma is incredible. Everything about this one rules: the costuming, the script, the performances...It’s all great stuff! Somehow the dialogue is both dated in a charming way and timeless. It sounds like the ‘90s, but I also want to say “as if!” to anything I don’t like.

Cher’s (Alicia Silverstone) existing friendships, and the one she develops with Tai (Brittany Murphy) over the course of the film, are deceptively close. They seem like shallow girls, but there is, of course, a lot of heart underneath those designer outfits. Plus, I’m not sure there’s a better oh-shit-I’m-in-love scene than the one with Cher in front of the fountain. An iconic moment! Hold on while I start a rewatch right now!

Notting Hill (dir. Roger Michell, 1999)

There are a lot of ‘90s rom-com classics, but for some reason, this is the one that I think of the most! Hugh Grant is at his most charming, and Julia Roberts’s serving up a world famous actress (a very fun role for her, obviously). On top of the iconic moments—“just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her”; the season-changing scene; the ending on the bench—it’s just a joyful little film that packs emotional moments without taking itself too seriously. Sometimes a rom-com is exactly what I need at the end of the day.

The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (dir. Peter Jackson, 2001)

Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a feat in just about every possible area of filmmaking, and the films—along with the extensive making-of appendices that came with the extended editions—enamored me when I saw them as a preteen. Love and care were put into every detail of the worldbuilding, the dialogue, the editing. It’s a masterful work of filmmaking wrapped in a fantasy epic.

But if I have to pick a favorite, it’s Fellowship. The beginning of the journey is slow (though much quicker than the books, to be clear), but it’s imbued with so much wonder that it feels delightful to sink into the world. There are a lot of capital-T Themes in this series, but the one I always come back to is friendship. By the end of the first film, this ragtag collection of wanderers is now a group of friends who care deeply for each other and all grieve Gandalf together. Boromir gives up his life to save Merry and Pippin, Sam walks into the water to after Frodo, and Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli go chase after the Uruk-Hai. There’s just something about found family that warms my heart.

 Stardust (dir. Matthew Vaughn, 2007)

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I love Stardust. And I could talk about it forever. It’s witty, fun, and imaginative. An adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel of the same name, the film definitely stands on its own. This is one of the few adaptations that I’d argue is better than the source material—sorry, Neil! It’s a whimsical action-adventure flick, with a splash of magic and romance mixed in.

Charlie Cox and Claire Danes found their shine in television shows later on in the 2010s, but they’re delightful here. It’s so charming to watch them falling in love with each other, and Danes’s monologue about love is so heartwarming. All the side characters are goofy and pitch perfect, and everyone’s doing their most committed, hammy performance. What a film!

Drive (dir. Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011)

I love so much about Drive, though it’s the film I wrestled most with in terms of whether I wanted to put it on this list. I saw it on a whim with no expectations, and it completely blew me away. I love this as a neo-noir film, and it hits so many of the marks expected of the genre while still feeling fresh and exciting. And the soundtrack! 

The opening sequence with Driver, the montages with “Real Hero” and “Nightcall,” and the incredible camerawork make this film stand out in my mind. There’s also some great acting in this film. And to be honest, the elevator scene is a workshop on building and paying off tension in a film.

But after reading more about the movie, I struggle with Carey Mulligan’s casting for Irene, who was originally written as a Latina character, and with how much work Oscar Isaac had to do to develop his character, Standard, beyond the stereotypical writing that was on the page. These are the kinds of missteps that a white writer (Nicolas Winding-Refn) makes when not taking care to write outside of their own experience, and I acknowledge that they are inexcusable issues with what is an otherwise great movie. 

Snowpiercer (dir. Bong Joon-ho, 2013)

This movie has everything: class critique, creepy classroom sing-a-longs, postapocalyptic conflict, a menacing man cutting open a fish, and incredible cinematography on top of all that. And also Chris Evans’s best performance to date.

Based on a short story, the world of Snowpiercer feels incredibly well-developed. Even though we’re told there isn’t any life outside the train, it does feel as if a whole world existed outside it at one point. And now all the issues from outside the train have redeveloped in each train car. As Curtis (Evans) and the attempted revolutionaries make it from car to car, you can see the resources have pooled up toward the front. Fish tanks, classrooms, restaurants, drugs, all extravagances that the back of the train hasn’t seen in years.

There’s so much to this movie, but possibly my favorite bit is a story about the making of it. Bong Joon-ho straight-up lied to Harvey Weinstein (contender for Worst Person on Earth) about the meaning of the fish-cutting scene, simply because Joon-ho wanted to keep Weinstein from editing it out. From Vulture:

“Harvey hated it. Why fish? We need action!” Bong remembers. “I had a headache in that moment: What do I do? So suddenly, I said, ‘Harvey, this shot means something to me.’ ”

“Oh, Bong? What?” Bong-as-Harvey booms.

“It’s something personal,” Bong replies. “My father was a fisherman. I’m dedicating this shot to my father.”

Weinstein relents immediately: “You should have said something earlier, Bong! Family is the most important. You have the shot.”

“I said, ‘Thank you,’” Bong says, laughing. “It was a fucking lie. My father was not a fisherman.”

Mad Max: Fury Road (dir. George Miller, 2015)

George Miller has a notably wild filmography, and this is him at his best. With the level of camera work required to keep even the most chaotic scenes intelligible to the viewer, this movie is a technological marvel. It’s not a subtle film, but it’s a visceral, high-octane watch that rewards every viewing with spectacle. Charlize Theron is particularly incredible in this movie, and the shot of her crying in the sand is one that will be in my brain forever. I also love the wives—notably the first time I’d ever seen Riley Keough or Zoë Kravitz, who I find really interesting. While the writing for these women is not subtle, I think sometimes hitting us over the hammer with We Are Not Things is appropriate. And in this postapocalyptic world, it plays exactly right.

Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016)

Something about this movie rewired my brain. The exploration of Chiron (played by Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes)—who he is and how he became these different iterations of himself—makes for such a fundamentally moving film. And to return, at the end, to a child Chiron on the beach is such an emotional gut punch. And then the diner scene with Chiron and Kevin (André Holland). But what else sticks out for me in this movie is Chiron’s apologetic mother, Paula (Naomie Harris). Harris’s work in the monologue about how Chiron doesn’t have to love her, but that she loves him? Devastating. Apologetic parents are my weakness in films for reasons we absolutely don’t have time to get into!

I still remember how it felt to watch the tracking shot of teenage Chiron walking through school before he hits his bully with a chair in retaliation, as I could feel the tension building. Every moment of this film is beautiful to look at and an emotional experience. I could watch this movie over and over and still find something new to marvel at.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (dir. Angela Robinson, 2017)

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women is a vastly underrated film. I think it slid under the radar in the very, very overpopulated biopic genre, but this one breaks the mold. While it probably does make Marston (Luke Evans, a great performance) a more likable figure than he was in real life, the film is interested in his relationship with Elizabeth (his wife, played by Rebecca Hall) and Olive (the woman they both fall in love with, played by Bella Heathcote) and the relationship between the women. They have a relationship in their own right, and it’s lovingly put on screen here. While the throuple faces considerable judgment, and Marston takes a lot of flak about his work on the Wonder Woman comics, the love between the three of them grounds them and the film itself. 

The cinematography of this movie is just sumptuous. It’s romantic, sexy, and heartwarming all at once. Each of the sex scenes tells you a little more about the dynamic between the throuple, and there’s a lot of bondage imagery that calls back to the Wonder Woman imagery. It’s a delightful little flick, and if you watch one movie from this list, please make it this one!

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma, 2019)

This was the last film I saw in theaters before the COVID pandemic, and it holds such a special place in my mind for several reasons. For one thing, it’s just beautiful to look at. The costuming, the painting scenes, the landscape, it’s all gorgeous. For another, watching the relationship between Marianne and Héloïse develop is delightful. There’s an incredible dialogue about Orpheus and Eurydice, about making the lover’s choice to look back even when you know it’s doomed, that ties the whole film together. It’s a perfect movie, full stop. And there’s also an erotic shot with a mirror that I will never stop thinking about…If you know, you know!

I do have a few honorable mentions that I feel I need to mention: Legally Blonde, School of Rock, Atonement, and Beyond the Lights. These all sit right outside the top ten, but I could have easily included them on another day depending on my mood. Plus, Everything Everywhere All at Once will probably make its way onto this list on rewatch. This has been a fun little exercise, and I can’t wait to expand my repertoire and find more films to populate my top-ten with.