Five Star Films

The films I deem are five stars; earned through sentimental connections, awe inspiring technical craft, favourite characters and emotional connection. This is not therefore a list of my all time favourites, but rather the films I just cannot fault. Nor is it a list of the best films I have ever seen.

Mr Smith Goes to Washington (Capra, 1939)

The Third Man (Reed, 1949)
Ikiru (Kurosawa, 1952)
Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954)

The Bridge on the River Kwai (Lean, 1957)
Lawrence of Arabia (Lean, 1962)
Goldfinger (Hamilton, 1964)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone, 1966) 
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone, 1968)
The Italian Job (Collinson, 1969)

The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)

Chinatown (Polanski, 1974)
The Outlaw Josey Wales (Eastwood, 1976)
Star Wars (Lucas, 1977)

Alien (Scott, 1979)

Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
The Empire Strikes Back (Kershner, 1980)
Ran (Kurosawa, 1985)
Big (Marshall, 1988)
Home Alone (Columbus, 1990)

Unforgiven (Eastwood, 1992)
Heat (Mann, 1995)

Toy Story (Lasseter, 1995)
L.A. Confidential (Hanson, 1997)

Toy Story 2 (Lasseter, 1999)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Jackson, 2001)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Jackson, 2002)
Finding Nemo (Stanton, 2003)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Verbinski, 2003)
The Last Samurai (Zwick, 2003)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Jackson, 2003)
The Incredibles (Bird, 2004)
The Departed (Scorsese, 2006)

3:10 to Yuma (Mangold, 2007)
The Dark Knight (Nolan, 2008)

How to Train Your Dragon (Sanders, 2010)
Inception (Nolan, 2010)

Toy Story 3 (Unkrich, 2010)

The Dark Knight Rises (Nolan, 2012)

Prisoners (Villeneuve, 2013)
Interstellar (Nolan, 2014)
Inside Out (Doctor, 2015)
Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller, 2015)
The Revenant (Innaritu, 2015)
La La Land (Chazelle, 2016)
The Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Waititi, 2016)
Blade Runner 2049 (Villeneuve, 2017)

Top Gun: Maverick (Kosinski, 2022)