Empire's 500 Greatest Movies Of All Time

314

Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)
Director: Alexander Mackendrick
An extraordinary, unrivalled, utterly cynical piece of Hollywood noir, as Tony Curtis' sleazoid press agent rubs up against Burt Lancaster's formidable J. J. Hunsecker, the Broadway columnist who can make or break careers. Read Review

313

Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Director: Sergei Eisenstein
Eisenstein's dramatisation of the Russian naval mutiny, cited as the kick-off point for the revolution itself, put down a breathtaking blueprint for what cinema could do. Read Review

311

American History X (1998)
Director: Tony Kaye
Hugely controversial in its day, Kaye's black-and-white tale of neo-Nazi redemption has, scarily, only grown in relevance. Edward Norton, who re-edited amid a directorial spat lends chilling reality to the idea of the intelligent brute. Read Review

312

Suspiria (1977)
Director: Dario Argento
All of the Italian horror maestro's Gothic flamboyance is on display in this operatic horror set in a ballet school run by homicidal witches, draping his bodily carnage in the gloss of art. Best death: the girl who plunges into a pit of barbed wire. Read Review

310

Cover Movie View Cover
Gremlins (1984)
Director: Joe Dante
Dante' brilliant horror pastiche of cute puppets transforming into swarms of anarchic devils. Arguably, though, it was producer Spielberg's emphasis on keeping Gizmo front-and- centre that made the difference. 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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