Obviously, pop culture is subjective. There’s no score like in sports. While clearly some movies and TV shows are “better” than others – Raging Bull and Succession are better than Air Bud and CSI: Miami, I think we can easily agree? – for most things in the realm of art, what’s “best” falls to the eye of the beholder.
Part of Pop Thruster’s mission statement – pinky in the air and all – is to help point out what I consider to be “best” based on a lifetime of absorbing pop culture and developing something of a worldview.
Which, by its very nature, is a very specific one. The hope with Pop Thruster’s best 10 movies ever is that it might point you to rewatching a movie that you haven’t seen in a while with a new eye or, even better, turn you on to a flick that you haven’t seen before.
Pop Thruster’s best 10 movies ever
1. Goodfellas
If you head over to Pop Thruster’s best 100 TV shows ever, you’ll quickly note that The Sopranos is in the number one slot. I’m a massive fan of crime dramas – and, you’ll note that I limited myself to just one in this piece – and this is the best one I’ve ever seen (sorry, Godfather stans, and know that I respect y’all).
I’m also a massive fan of dramas packed with dark comedy, and Goodfellas (and Tony and his North Jersey crew) pays off in spades here as well. Martin Scorsese also crafts an airtight structure and executes with supreme craftsmanship: we see the clear allure of joining the mafia from the perspective of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), and then we see how hollow it (and the excesses of unchecked capitalism) is.
Goodfellas also sizzles along, powered by one of the best uses of music ever put to film. I’ve watched it countless times and always get something new out of it.
2. Adventureland
It’s the perfect dramedy, with a cast jam packed with megastars at the perfect time in their careers (Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, Martin Starr, Margarita Levieva, Bill Hader, and Kristen Wiig for starters).
That’s well enough on its own, but for me, Adventureland takes on deeper resonance as it touches a deep nostalgia for a certain awkward coming of age stage, an era which for me brushed up against the same kinds of crappy, run down theme parks that forms the setting of Adventureland. And in fact, Adventureland was initially set to be filmed in the actual crappy, rundown theme park I spent time in as a kid, the one which is the setting for the Safdie brothers’ jittery, nerve jangling Good Time.
3. Superbad
It’s my favorite pure comedy of all time, and I love a good pure comedy (there was a period in the ‘90s where there wasn’t a week that went by that I wasn’t watching one of Billy Madison, PCU, or The Hudsucker Proxy). The writing, by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, is teenage hilarity perfection, and the entire cast – Michael Cera (who makes this list twice!), Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse (old McLovin himself), Bill Hader, Emma Stone – is divine. Best of all, it’s a blast of comedy with real heart and a core friendship that feels like it has real stakes at its core. Bonus: Greg Mottola directed this one and Adventureland!
4. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Depending on the day, Quentin Tarantino is my favorite director of all. And for decades, I’d maintain that Pulp Fiction is the best of all his flicks, with the brutal, more minimalist Reservoir Dogs rolling up second. But in recent years, Once Upon a Time… has continued to captivate me time and time again. Much like Goodfellas, I love watching this one in different ways: for the alternative history, for the sun speckled version of 1969 LA, for its pop culture drenching of radio, TV, movies, and advertising throughout, or just behold the all-world tandem of Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt doing their thing as middle aged dudes uncomfortably dealing with a rapidly changing world.
5. Sideways
Speaking of middle-aged dudes poorly adjusting to where life has taken them, Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church crush it in an absolute gem of a dramedy. Until recently, Swingers would have proudly sat in this slot. But as I’ve gotten older, I realized that Sideways is Swingers’ spiritual sequel in some ways – and like a good bottle of wine, it has aged remarkably well.
6. Boogie Nights
Unlike many, I’m not really a huge Paul Thomas Anderson fan. If anything, I’m more of an early PTA guy (Hard Eight, his first movie, is tremendous). That being said, I strongly subscribe to Boogie Nights as his masterpiece, a sprawling, shaggy, hilarious, poignant, and occasionally terrifying portrait of the porn-and-cocaine scene circa the late ‘70s and early ‘80s in the San Fernando Valley.
7. Trading Places
A perfect satire that’s more relevant and prescient than ever four decades on. But more than anything, Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, and Jamie Lee Curtis are just delightful in it. It’s also weirdly a great Christmas movie, though just be careful with a family viewing as there are a few very throwback to the ‘80s R-rated scenes!
8. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
By far Edgar Wright’s best movie to date, a dazzling and often hilarious graphic novel brought to film. Its first half is perfection, the second half merely very good. Michael Cera proves he can ably lead a movie here (battling seven evil exes while he’s at it), and Kieran Culkin steals every scene he’s in.
9. The Graduate
There are so many things to love about this one, but maybe most of all I dig that it doesn’t really explain to you how to take it in. The meticulous direction from Mike Nichols rewards repeat viewings, and the acting from Dustin Hoffman (in his first leading film role), Anne Bancroft (off the charts great), and Katherine Ross is just sublime.
10. Vanilla Sky
While I deeply love Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything and Almost Famous – each deeply rewatchable – Vanilla Sky is the Crowe film that conjures in me something closer to awe. Based on Abre Los Ojos (or Open Your Eyes), it’s a deeply weird and mesmerizing film that I still think about often for the ideas and thoughts it conjures. It’s also one of many movies that makes you think, “Man, say what you want about Tom Cruise but the guy has been in a ton of incredible movies in his career.”