_The 100 Best Films of All Time (29-25)

29. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Director: Milos Forman
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Brad Dourif
Genre: Comedy
Academy Awards: 5 (including Best Picture)
Year: 1975
Imdb-Rating: 8.7
Critic's opinion (Chad Polenz):
"One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" is good but has even more potential. Because the film remains so lighthearted, the message isn't as poetic as it should be, but it's still fun.

28. The Third Man

Director: Carol Reed
Cast: Joseph Cotten, Trevor Howard, Orson Welles
Genre: Film Noir
Academy Awards: 1
Year: 1949
Imdb-Rating: 8.5
Critic's opinion (Brian Koller): "The Third Man" is one of the best films of the 1940s. It is an outstanding film, with a script so dense that its quality cannot be fully appreciated with a single viewing. The quirky score, featuring a zither, puts a light touch on what would otherwise be a very tense film. The cast is first-rate, and there is some fine cinematography of Vienna's bombed out buildings and underground sewers.

27. Jaws

Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw
Genre: Thriller, Horror
Academy Awards: 3
Year: 1975
Imdb-Rating: 8.2
Critic's opinion (Brian Koller): "Jaws" is one of the best horror films of all time. Most of the film is consumed by Chief Brody (Roy Scheider), his humdrum family life, his conflicts with the Mayor (Murray Hamilton) and his male bonding with shark hunters Quint (Robert Shaw) and Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss). But the film still has similarities to slasher films, with the aquatic version of Freddy Krueger scoring five victims in gruesome fashion.What separates "Jaws" from its landlubber successors (the currently-playing version is "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer") is that the monster is more credible, the victims are not limited to comely teenagers, the script (based on Peter Benchley's bestselling potboiler, the screenplay co-written by Benchley and Carl Gottlieb) is much better, and Director Steven Spielberg is much more skilled at making horror suspense not seem like bad horror comedy. Of course, the cast is better as well. Scheider skilfully underplays, allowing scenes to be stolen by excitable Dreyfuss and salty Shaw. Hamilton also gives a great supporting performance. His character is in denial, hoping that the shark will just go away so that the tourists will return.

26. Blade Runner

Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young
Genre: Sci-Fi
Academy Awards: 0
Year: 1982
Imdb-Rating: 8.2
Critic's opinion (Dragan Antulov): Some movies aren't just good because of their own quality. They are also good because of the viewers feedback, especially when they inspire them to ask questions and get often very different answers. In the case of BLADE RUNNER, the followers of cult had a great schism due to the great replicant controversy - issue that was adressed in a 1992 released Director's Cut. Another endless debate is between those fans who like the voice-overs in original 1982 version as a tribute to the great film noires of 1940s, and those who consider them as unnecessary dumbing-down. Anyway, although some argue that those controversies can prove the lack of perfection in BLADE RUNNER, the author of this review thinks that they can be just another reason for people to enjoy this movie.

25. Pulp Fiction

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson
Genre: Crime
Academy Awards: 1
Year: 1994
Imdb-Rating: 8.7
Critic's opinion (Brian Koller): "Pulp Fiction" was the follow-up to Quentin Tarantino's second film as both Director and Screenwriter, "Reservoir Dogs". Although "Dogs" is an even better film, "Pulp Fiction" benefitted from the momentum of "Dogs", a cast with greater name recognition, and less graphic (although still shocking to the innocents) violence.