My Five-Star Picks, 2020-2026

Since I’m in celebratory mode and let’s face it everyone doing a blog has an educational bent, wanting to push subscribers into favoring the movies I favor, I thought I would crave your indulgence a little more and remind you of the films I think you should see. I was going to add, “if that doesn’t sound a little pompous,” until I realized that “pompous”, not to perhaps say, a tad “hectoring”, is exactly what it is.  

In reviewing close on 2,000 movies in the past five years, these are the movies I most thoroughly recommend –  the ones that achieve in my eyes at least the ultimate accolade in my eyes of being considered in the five-star bracket. Virtually every genre is represented – western, crime/thriller, drama, sci fi, fantasy, historical epic, war, horror, espionage, road films and comedy. The only exception is musical, though, admittedly, there might be some takers there if I’d actually got round to reviewing every musical made in the decade.

Of westerns, these are my top choices – John Wayne and Rock Hudson in Andrew V. McLaglen’s underrated The Undefeated (1969), Wayne again with James Stewart in John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Sergio Leone’s immaculate Once Upon a Time in the West (1969), The Magnificent Seven (1960), John Huston’s modern western The Misfits (1961), Burt Lancaster in Valdez Is Coming (1971) and Lawman (1971), and the spectacular How the West Was Won (1962).

War is represented by Otto Preminger’s In Harm’s Way (1965) – John Wayne again – The Guns of Navarone (1961), Battle of the Bulge (1965), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), aerial epic The Battle of Britain (1969) and I guess Zulu (1964) fits in here more easily than historical epic.

Horror is represented by The Skull (1965) with Peter Cushing, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) and the ground-breaking Psycho (1960) and The Demon/Il Demonio (1963) with Daliah Lavi in mesmeric form.

You might say drama is over-represented once you take in Otto Preminger’s Hurry Sundown (1967) with Michael Caine and Jane Fonda, Marlon Brando and Fonda again in Arthur Penn’s The Chase (1966), Rod Steiger as The Pawnbroker (1964), Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in John Frankenheimer’s The Gypsy Moths (1969), Lancaster again in The Swimmer (1969) and his Oscar-winning turn as Elmer Gantry (1960), Steve McQueen as The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and Jean Seberg as Lilith (1964).

In the crime/thriller department have a look at French gangster picture The Sicilian Clan (1969) headlining Alain Delon, Richard Burton in Villain (1971), Rock Hudson and Claudia Cardinale in Blindfold (1966), Hudson again in John Frankenheimers Seconds (1966), Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964), and Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in Charade (1963). Add in Claude Chabrol’s Les Biches (1968), Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway caught up in conspiracy in Three Days of the Condor (1973), Dunaway again tracking down thief Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Fred Zinnemann’s Day of the Jackal (1973), Terence Stamp kidnapping Samantha Eggar in William Wyler’s The Collector (1965), Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage in The Rock (1996) and Jules Dassin’s Topkapi (1964)

It’s surprising that two road films – Easy Rider (1969) and Vanishing Point (1971) – have an existential bent. John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix (1966) fits in more easily here I guess.

Sci fi is represented by Charlton Heston stranded on Planet of the Apes (1968), Matt Damon stranded on Mars in Ridley Scott’s The Martian (2015) and Ryan Gosling stranded who knows where in Project Hail Mary (2026).

Numbered among the historical dramas are include Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard (1963) with Burt Lancaster and Claudia Cardinale, James Cameron’s Titanic (1997), The Odyssey (2026) -though you might consider it more suited to fantasy – and Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole in Becket (1964)

In some genres, only one film gets a mention. For fantasy there is Jason and the Argonauts (1963) with Ray Harryhausen in majestic form. Dr No (1962) is the standard-bearer for spy pictures. Billy Wilder’s Some Like it Hot (1959) with Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis performs the same role for comedy.

You might note that the star most often mentioned is Burt Lancaster.