70). Blood Simple (1984, Coen Brothers) – AFI Ranking: #98
“Now, in Russia, they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else… that’s the theory, anyway. But what I know about is Texas, an’ down here… you’re on your own.” -Private Detective Visser (M. Emmet Walsh).
Blood Simple is the Coen Brothers’ directorial debut, and it holds up. There is occasional humor, but it’s darker and less overtly funny than many of their subsequent movies.
You’re just on your own in rural Texas. It’s an exercise in mood. The whole movie just feels dirty and pessimistic. Even Ray (John Getz), who may be immoral, but not necessarily a criminal, seems to know it’s going to end poorly. He proceeds with his course of action anyway. Everyone feels doomed from the start, which adds an air of tension to the viewing experience. M. Emmet Walsh’s slow gait turns the tension up to eleven, particularly at the end of the movie.
69). Drive (2011, Nicolas Winding Refn): AFI Ranking: N/A
Drive rules! I have it replacing The Maltese Falcon (AFI #26) on this list. They’re spiritual cousins, with the differences between the two movies basically providing a perfect outline of the differences between the film noir and neo-noir genres. Drive is more stylish visually, with heart-pounding action sequences, including a car chase straight out of Bullitt or The French Connection. There are brutally violent fight sequences in the motel, the elevator and then at the end when the Driver (Ryan Gosling) goes on a rampage.
It also has better suspense. While much of The Maltese Falcon’s thrills comes from the twists and misdirections of the plot, Drive actually induces more tension in the lead-up to these big action sequences. In the beginning getaway, we’re in the car with The Driver while he waits for the criminals to get to the car. It’s a quieter, tenser version of the opening of The Transporter, which is more action-heavy. Then there’s the pawn shop heist; we’re not sure how it’s going to go down and we’re waiting in the car with The Driver. When things go awry, we’re thrust into the insane car chase, which spikes our adrenaline. Afterward at the motel, while The Driver tries to figure out what is going on and he’s starting to get a little physical with Blanche (Christina Hendricks), which leads into an intense sequence with thugs at the motel. There’s just more anticipation built up over the course of the movie in Drive.
If you’re into romance…there’s sexual tension between The Driver and his neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan). There’s also a lot of subtextual tension between The Driver and Irene’s husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac), who’s newly out of prison and sees The Driver encroaching on his family. You don’t know where any of those scenes are going to lead.
Overall, it’s simultaneously a more active and pensive movie than The Maltese Falcon and other classic noir films, where a wise-cracking detective seems to work out all the moves in his heads while taking on danger with rudimentary fighting skills. Drive is further along on the chart of evolution.
68). Catch Me If You Can (2002, Steven Spielberg) – AFI Ranking: N/A
One of the more fun entries on the list, Catch Me If You Can seems to be highly regarded, but often goes under-appreciated in the shuffle of Spielberg’s deep filmography. It’s based on the true story of Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio), a teenager whose world falls apart after his parents’ divorce so he runs away and basically becomes a world-class conman. It’s enjoyable though because his cons don’t actively hurt individual people, he mostly just charms his way into becoming an airline pilot, a lawyer, and a doctor, receiving millions of dollars in forged checks from big companies.
As noted with The Town, characters are more interesting when they’re good at what they do. You have to respect DiCaprio’s prowess as a conman. He successfully evades capture from federal agents, including Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), who is both clever and driven to catch him. Even once he’s caught at the end, he’s given a work-release option to avoid prison time where he works with Carl to help spot fraudulent check-passing.
A big part of the fun is also his boldness. This isn’t someone who designed a computer program to steal fractions of a penny from a major corporation (like in Office Space). This is a guy who pretended to be a pilot, lawyer and a doctor, three professions where, you know, he would need to show up to work and partake in jobs that require highly specialized forms of training.
The thrills come in seeing what Frank will do next and how he’ll get out of jams. There are inevitable moments where he’s put in a bind, and his ability to improvise is both charming and exhilarating.
I have this movie replacing Lawrence of Arabia (AFI #23). There isn’t much thematic overlap between the two, but for the lead character’s boldness. Arabia is a sprawling epic (based on a true story) that chronicles part of the military career of iconoclastic general, T.E. Lawrence. It deserves its many accolades, but I don’t know if its nearly 4-hour runtime can allow me to consider it a potent thriller.
67). The Conversation (1974, Francis Ford Coppola) – AFI Ranking: N/A
Kind of crazy that Francis Ford Coppola’s “other” movie from 1974 was not on the AFI list. The movie shares similarities with an earlier entry, Blow Out, largely because they were both heavily inspired by Antonioni’s 1966 film, Blow Up.
The Conversation stars Gene Hackman as a paranoid, emotionally closed off surveillance expert hired for a few days to listen in on two people, a man and a woman. When he goes to turn in his work to the man who hired him, he is creeped out by the man’s ominous assistant (Harrison Ford), and decides to keep the recording for himself after he becomes worried that the two people he’s been surveilling may be in danger.
Bit by bit, he tries to piece together what the two people are talking about, but the recordings are eventually stolen by a woman he meets, and given to his employer (Robert Duvall). Hackman meets with Duvall and Ford to find out that the woman he’d been surveilling is Duvall’s wife and her lover. Afraid for their safety, Hackman takes action to try and save their lives. It’s a slow burn, but the movie crescendos to a striking climax.
I have The Conversation replacing Hitchcock’s Rear Window (AFI #14) on my list, a possibly sacrilegious move for a list of thrillers. The thing about these two movies is that they’re clearly related, but Rear Window is less suspenseful because it echoes the heart and optimism of Hollywood in the 50’s. Hitchcock’s classic features the lovable everyman, James Stewart, spying on his neighbors out of boredom while he nurses a broken leg. He begins to get suspicious of one of his neighbors possibly being a danger to his wife. The suspicion builds and, of course, it comes out that he’s right, the man indeed killed his wife! Even though the movie may show Hitchcock’s contempt for people’s voyeuristic natures, it still fell in line with classic tropes of the era, where a likable everyman followed his gut and caught the criminal.
The Conversation is different. Hackman’s character isn’t holed up with an injury, he’s a surveillance expert; a guy who records other peoples’ conversations for money. He is paranoid, always suspicious of everyone and everything, like when his landlord left him a birthday card. He’s emotionally closed off; there’s a woman he sometimes sees, but he won’t share any of his life with her. The movie is rife with the paranoia and general pessimism of the Nixon era. Rear Window is, at least on the surface, more black and white. The Conversation is all shades of grey.
66). Oldboy (2003, Chan-wook Park) – AFI Ranking: N/A
How’s this for a premise: A man is captured and imprisoned for 15 years by an unknown captor, for an unknown reason. One day he is released and encouraged to find his captor to find out why.
That’s certainly unlike any movie I had seen before. Kidnapping, sure. Imprisonment, okay. Deliberately released by his captor without any explanation? We have to find out the who and the why! The above scene isn’t necessarily representative of why Oldboy is a great thriller, but it’s an awesome scene thrown in the middle of this windy mystery that shows us how desperate Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) is to get some answers.
Of course we eventually find out the why, and suffice it to say, it all hits like a ton of bricks.
I have this movie on my list replacing E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (AFI #44) because I will likely never watch E.T. ever again, and I wanted to replace the Spielberg schmaltz with one of the most depraved thrillers of all time.
65). Gladiator (2000, Ridley Scott) – AFI Ranking: N/A
Gladiator, true to its subject, may be the ultimate movie of spectacle. It’s a good movie overall, with good performances from a variety of actors, but it’s all about Maximus (Russell Crowe) and the badass-ery on constant display. The quiet moments are almost lost as we all recover from the adrenaline spikes of all the fight scenes.
The opening battle sequence is awesome in every way. The fighting is well-staged with a great sense of the scope of the battle as well as the chaos of hand-to-hand combat. We see Maximus’ charisma, fighting prowess and bravery. We get why other men would follow this man into battle. It’s good for both entertainment and character development.
Then, in what is usually a contrived or obvious move, the main antagonist, Emperor Commodus, kills Maximus’ family, takes everything from him and we’re set up for a revenge tour.
Rather than roaring through Paris like in Taken, Maximus is sold into slavery, where he must fight as a gladiator. Of course, he fights his way through different arenas, and becomes a legendary gladiator, dubbed the “Spaniard”, by the public. We see the charisma on full display as he brings hope to all of the gladiators.
Every time he fights it’s a thrill. The scenes are well-choreographed, and, unsurprisingly, he faces greater opposition each time he steps into the arena. At first, he’s chained to another man, fighting in a small arena for the first time. Next is the above scene where he’s out by himself and has to fight four guys. Then it’s onto The Coliseum where they’re fighting a small army in the reenactment of a famous Roman battle; a battle which the gladiators were expected to lose. Then he fights a retired legendary gladiator and also some tigers that were allowed in the ring. It’s exhilarating every time, like watching a great athlete.
This movie replaces Ben-Hur (AFI #49), and with good reason, they’re basically the same. Ben-Hur and Gladiator (and also The Revenant) feature a hero completely messed over by someone in power, eventually they become slaves and claw their way back to get a shot at the antagonist. Ben-Hur throws in this extra bit where Ben-Hur meets Jesus Christ. It’s also an hour longer than Gladiator. The latter movie is shorter, more violent, and the star is even more charismatic. Of note, Charlton Heston, Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio all won Best Actor for their roles in these movies. I guess the Academy has a soft spot for charismatic men being stripped of everything and fighting their way back.
64). Black Hawk Down (2001, Ridley Scott) – AFI Ranking: N/A
Back-to-back Ridley Scott movies, from back-to-back years! Black Hawk Down replaces The Bridge on the River Kwai (AFI #58) – a tough choice for me. Bridge might be my favorite war movie, but similar to Lawrence of Arabia (same director), it’s an epic war movie, and epics tend to slow things down. It’s been a spell since I’ve watched Bridge, but outside of the climax of the movie, there aren’t a ton of thrills I can freely recall, which is why I’m okay removing it from the list.
Black Hawk Down doubles down on the “war is stressful” idea. Based on a true story about Army Rangers in Somalia, you could make the argument that if it was about “sexier” wars like WWI, WWII, or Vietnam, it would’ve been a bigger hit.
It’s a brilliantly shot, loud, chaotic war movie focusing on the logistics and horrors of war. There are a ton of raids, gunfights, helicopter crashes and rescue missions. It’s chaos. It’s also brutal and gory. Black Hawk Down is an underrated, highly thrilling war classic.
63). Speed (1994, Jan de Bont) – AFI Ranking: 99th
Speed is a high octane thriller about a brash young police officer (Keanu Reeves) trying to stop a bomb from exploding on a bus. The brilliance of Speed is in its simple conceit: The bomb will go off if the bus dips below 50 miles per hour. So, by virtue of the conceit, the bus has to be moving fast, which ratchets up the intensity and causes a host of other problems: getting civilians off the bus safely is very difficult, getting more officers on the bus is very difficult, and all of the other obstacles on the road (other cars, construction) are potential death traps.
If I had to guess, the AFI did not want to include a movie like Speed on their list. It’s a high concept blockbuster action movie, not their bread and butter, but even they couldn’t deny the thrills of Speed.
62). A Few Good Men (1992, Rob Reiner) – AFI Ranking: N/A
Certainly one of the most fun legal thrillers that culminates in one of the most memorable lines in movie history. Great screenwriter, great director, great ensemble cast with tons of star power; I’m surprised this wasn’t on the AFI’s list.
It has many of the things people love about courtroom dramas but also flaunts convention in certain respects. The biggest star in the movie is on the witness stand. The protagonist (Tom Cruise), doesn’t give a grandiloquent monologue at the end which sways the jury. The protagonist also has more on the line than a typical lawyer; it’s not just his dignity, or financial livelihood, suggesting/asking if a commissioned officers did something illegal in a military court can result in a court marshal, disbarment, etc. But he goes for it anyway.
As the video above explains wonderfully, the drama doesn’t come with a judge’s decision or a jury’s verdict, but the movie is set up as a battleground with an intense final duel between Cruise and Nicholson. If it’s Cruise vs a no-name actor we know which way the movie will go. But Nicholson is a big enough movie star , and the odds are stacked so far against Cruise that the viewer can’t know for sure what will happen.
I have A Few Good Men replacing The Picture of Dorian Gray (AFI #86). There’s no thematic crossover. I haven’t yet watched The Picture of Dorian Gray, but from what I understand, a more interesting replacement on this list would’ve been Fight Club. The tough thing with Fight Club is that I knew the twist before seeing the movie, and I find it impossible to watch it with fresh eyes. I like the movie, and I think the twist was very well-executed, but for whatever reason, the total mind-bending effect is diminished for me because it was spoiled.
61). Toy Story (1995, John Lasseter) – AFI Ranking: N/A
I replaced Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid (AFI #54) with Toy Story. One buddy adventure movie to another. Newman and Redford are both handsome, charismatic actors with good on-screen chemistry either stemming from, or leading to, a close friendship. However, Toy Story was the first Pixar movie, and the world was mesmerized by it. This represented a new visual paradigm for audiences and watching these toys go about their business was engrossing.
It’s Andy’s birthday and they have a recon team to see what kind of presents he’s getting. Just the mechanics of watching these toys maneuver from Andy’s bedroom downstairs to the living room is a lot of fun and something that doesn’t get old in any of the sequels.
One crazy thing looking back is just how fast the movie is. At 81 minutes, they get you invested in Woody and the other toys immediately. All of the progressive complications in the plot raise the stakes and make it seem that much more impossible for Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz (Tim Allen) to get back to Andy. They’re lost at Pizza Planet, stuck at Sid’s house, they escape, but Andy’s family is driving away forever. Watching the creativity and improvisation from the characters is always a joy ride.
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