Where Kaye, her “proper” WASP-wife analogue, is a blonde, college-educated school teacher who (at least at the outset) loves Michael unconditionally, embodying both familial innocence and a “New World” kind of feminine consumeristic contentment (she’s shown buying Christmas presents, organizing trips, going to the theater, getting ready to settle down with Michael), To Die For goes out of its way to stress that Suzanne is only partially educated (“junior college” her father reluctantly admits), and anti-maternal, a seducer of school children, a would-be working woman destined to failure by her own vanity and shallowness. As the previous quote suggests, many reviews continually emphasized Suzanne’s lack of intelligence – or, per National Review, “just the right amount of dumbness” – and it’s this dimwittedness, paired with an overdeveloped sense of elitist entitlement, that leads to Suzanne’s ultimate demise. “Vaguely feminist emotions stir in my breast,” David Denby wrote of this aspect of Suzanne’s character (somewhat ironically given his own misogynistic description of the character),“Henry and Van Sant have hallowed [her] out, as if an ambitious driven woman needed to be exposed as a jerk. What would happen if “Matt Dillon were the ambitious one?” he asks. Well, he might have been Michael Corleone.
At the same time, Suzanne is no Kaye either. While Kaye’s WASPy purity and innocence frame her as a potential oasis of all-Americanness for Michael, Suzanne’s surface-level similarities to Kaye are framed as a sterile trap for Larry. “She’s so pure and delicate” Larry initially marvels, comparing her looks to a fragile china doll, “You just have to look at her and you wanna take care of her the rest of your life.” But Suzanne doesn’t want Larry’s care, she wants independence and success, and she will kill to get it, despicable in part because the movie posits she was never smart enough to make it. When Larry asks whether she wants kids, Suzanne spits, “If you wanted a babysitter you should’ve married Mary Poppins.” She’s bewitching, but deadly, a feminine monster who’s repeatedly associated with witches through cuts to Bell, Book and Candle on TV in the background and the use of Donovan’s ‘Season of the Witch’ at the film’s conclusion. Like a witch who enchants men for her own purposes, Suzanne is hyper-performative and über-pragmatic, using the racist, classist, elitist logics of television as her yardstick for life.
Suzanne views her doll-like “ice queen” beauty as a means to an end, weaponizing her status as an avatar for the televisual beneficence Kaye types typically represent. She religiously preserves her pallor (or her “pure” whiteness in contrast to what she calls the “ethnic” disadvantages of anchors like Connie Chung), constantly tries to lose the five pounds the camera adds, and wears her pastel miniskirts and kitten heels like an army uniform, no matter how schlubbily her coworkers may dress for the office. She tells everyone around her to “optimize” themselves to “succeed,” and finally uses “trailer trash” teens to kill Larry. Lacking the excuses Michael has for his actions, she weaponizes the familiar narrative true crime tropes her Kaye-like exterior offers – innocence and victimization – turning them on her husband and drawing the cameras she so desperately craves in the process. “Who are they gonna believe?” she asks primly, “I come from a good family.” One review put it this way: “What jury would convict such an attractive and popular TV weather girl? (ask O.J., he’ll tell you).”
Only Larry’s sister, Janice (Illeana Douglas), sees through this delicate façade, calling Suzanne “an ice queen” and “a four letter word: C‑O-L‑D, cold.” Where Michael Corleone’s signature coldness is presented as an extension of the American capitalist imperative, Suzanne’s status as an “ice queen” is presented as a monstrous extension of that all-American medium of “New World” modernity, television. In this sense, Suzanne’s relative “coldness” is her defining characteristic and the principle that unifies the film’s themes – as Marshall McLuhan suggests, television is a cool medium, mesmeric and passifying, and, icy though she may be, it’s her “avidity,” her passionate desire to make it (her failure to truly embody Michael’s businesslike “New World” mentality) that fails her. “She looks very fragile and delicate right?” Larry tells Janice when they start dating, “But when we’re– when I’m… the details are too graphic, but she’s like a volcano.”
When it comes to making your home feel more comfortable, stylish, or functional, sometimes it’s the smallest changes that have the biggest impact. You don’t always need a full renovation to refresh a space. Thoughtful, affordable updates can transform your everyday living experience in subtle but meaningful ways. From lighting tweaks to sensory touches, here are a few ideas to consider.
Get the Right Fit with a Lamp Shade Reducer Ring
Lamps are one of the most versatile ways to alter the mood of a room, but finding the perfect shade to match your existing fittings isn’t always straightforward. A lamp shade reducer ring solves the common problem of mismatched fittings between lamp bases and shade openings. These handy little rings allow larger European-style shades to fit standard UK lamp holders, giving you more freedom when choosing a new shade.
Instead of having to replace your lamp entirely or settle for limited designs, a reducer ring opens up your options, making it easy to experiment with style, colour, or fabric. It’s a small detail, but one that can quickly update a room without major cost or effort.
Create a Welcoming Atmosphere with Home Diffusers
Fragrance plays a powerful role in shaping the atmosphere of your home. A carefully chosen home diffuser can add a constant, subtle scent to any room, enhancing both comfort and cleanliness. Whether you prefer calming lavender in the bedroom or a zesty citrus blend in the kitchen, diffusers are a simple yet effective way to set the mood.
Many modern diffusers are elegantly designed to fit with a range of interior styles, from minimalist glass bottles to rustic ceramic vessels. Reed diffusers require no electricity and last for weeks, making them both practical and decorative. They’re an excellent finishing touch to create a space that feels thoughtful and well cared for.
Upgrade Your Switch Plates and Handles
One of the most overlooked improvements in the home is the hardware we use every day—light switch plates, door handles, and cabinet knobs. Replacing these small elements with modern, coordinated alternatives can lift the feel of a whole room. Brushed brass handles, matte black switches, or even ceramic drawer knobs can turn functional fittings into eye-catching details.
These updates require minimal tools and time, yet they bring a polished, cohesive look to spaces like kitchens, bathrooms, or entryways. It’s a great way to refresh your home with very little disruption or expense.
Use Mirrors to Expand Space and Light
Another clever improvement is the strategic use of mirrors. Placing mirrors in the right spots can make small rooms feel larger and lighter. Positioning a large mirror opposite a window, for instance, maximises natural light and visually expands the space. Decorative wall mirrors can also act as art pieces, adding depth and interest.
Whether you opt for a full-length mirror in the hallway or a collection of smaller ones in a living room, this trick works in almost every setting. It’s simple, stylish, and incredibly effective.
Here are all 10 Quentin Tarantino movies ranked, in honor of his 62nd birthday today.
What’s that you say? Why yes — we do believe there are 10 Quentin Tarantino movies, despite the director’s assertion that his next film will be his 10th and last.
Why 10? Because we insist that Kill BillVol. 1 and 2 are two separate, wonderful films.
Here are all 10 Quentin Tarantino movies ranked.
The Hateful Eight (2015)
The Weinstein Company
We love The Hateful Eight, as we love all Quentin Tarantino movies, but something had to be lowest ranked on our list, and this is it.
Tarantino became known early in his career for certain hallmarks — pop-culture references, impeccable left-field song choices, a very modern sense of cool — and after his initial success, went about proving he could make great films without any of them. The Hateful Eight, set in snowy Wyoming in the late 1800s after the Civil War, leaves Tarantino with no attention-grabbing gimmicks to rely on. But he does have his most reliable tools: a terrific, twisty script, and magnificent actors.
The Hateful Eight puts Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kurt Russell, Tim Roth, Walton Goggins, Channing Tatum, and other excellent actors under one roof and lets all hell slowly break loose. The stakes aren’t as high as they feel in some of his other films, but the movie is still a warm cinematic fire.
Death Proof (2007)
The Weinstein Company
Death Proof is one of the flashiest Tarantino movies, filled with car crashes, mayhem, dancing girls, and cool music. Designed as a parody/homage to exploitation films, as part of Tarantino’s Grindhouse double feature with Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, it pulls out all the stops to entertain — and it does, relentlessly.
Death Proof is Tarantino at his most unchained — it starts with a long shot of female feet, which feels like a jokey middle finger to everyone who ever accused him of a foot fetish — and inspired hand-wringing about whether Tarantino was objectifying or celebrating his heroines (played by Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan Ladd, Rose McGowan, Tracie Thoms, Sydney Poitier, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Zoe Bell).
Death Proof has it both ways: It’s lascivious while making fun of the lasciviousness of 1970s grindhouse films. It works, and it’s a nice breather between the epic scale of the Kill Bill films — which preceded Death Proof — and Inglorious Basterds, which followed it. It may be Tarantino’s least important movie, and that’s fine — sometimes you just want to have fun.
Smaller in scale than any other Tarantino movie, Reservoir Dogs introduces many of his trademarks: pop culture dissertations dropped into scenes that, in the hands of other directors, would be ultra-serious; shocking violence; cool twists; and an out-of-nowhere soundtrack that — like so many things in a Tarantino movie — shouldn’t work but absolutely does.
Reservoir Dogs also introduced Tarantino’s phenomenal way with actors and skill at bringing out their best work. Harvey Keitel, Michael Madson, Steve Buscemi and many others shine with dialogue different than we’d previously heard in any crime movie… but then heard throughout the ’90s, as countless other screenwriters tried to copy QT.
Jackie Brown (1997)
Miramax Films
Even more than The Hateful Eight, Jackie Brown feels like Tarantino setting out to prove he can make a movie that doesn’t rely on his most-familiar moves. It’s a beautiful meditation on aging, and continuing to hustle as you age, with a little more wisdom and a lot of disappointment behind you.
After the back-to-back success of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Tarantino could have done anything — and chose to elevate his genre heroes. The film is the only one of his movies that isn’t based on his own original story, and is instead adapted from the Elmore Leonard novel Rum Punch.
The director cast as his leads two actors who were not in especially high demand: Robert Forster, a new Hollywood star for 1969’s Medium Cool who later appeared in films films Alligator and Delta Force, and Pam Grier, a Blaxploitation icon for roles in Coffy and Foxy Brown who had not yet gotten the respect she deserved from mainstream Hollywood.
In another unconventional casting choice, he placed A-listers like Robert De Niro, Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson in smaller roles, where they waited, like little bombs, to explode.
Tarantino also personalized the material by moving the setting from Florida to L.A.’s South Bay, and setting key moments at the Del Amo Mall, where he (and I) saw many a movie in the ’80s.
Tarantino hit on a brilliant formula with Inglorious Basterds and continued it in DjangoUnchained: Find a bad guy so repugnant that you’ll be passionately invested in the hero’s success. Inglorious Basterds let us delight in the killing of Nazis, and Django lets us thrill in a revenge story against American slavers, as Jamie Foxx’s Django and Christoph Waltz’s Dr. King Schultz take on the repugnant Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his aide Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) to rescue Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington).
Django does many audacious things, including holding back on the introduction of its biggest star, DiCaprio, and making Candie’s enslaved servant, Stephen, a bad guy. All the risks pay off.
Django is also fascinating for Tarantino’s exacting use of violence. The pain inflicted on slaves in the film is as real as the violence they suffered in real life. But the fantasy revenge carried out by Django on the slavers is fantastical, even comical.
The film makes us wish the slavers suffered violence as real as the violence they inflicted in real life, but there’s a vast emotional chasm between reality and the wish fulfillment on screen. Tarantino thrives in that chasm.
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Miramax
Pulp Fiction is a little like Shakespeare — you’ve seen it imitated so many times it’s easy to forget that when it first appeared, it was completely groundbreaking and new.
Tarantino and co-writer Roger Avary explicitly elevated inspirations once dismissed as trashy — like the pulpy novels of the title — and combined flashy dialogue and set pieces with grounded, troubled characters, hopeful strivers caught in the muck of violence.
It pulls off a barrage of cool narrative tricks that amuse on a surface level, then drill into and confuse our lizard brains — like having one character we love kill another, in a way that thrills and then horrifies us. And it manages an ambitious spirituality that, again, shouldn’t work but does.
It also marks the first of many collaborations between Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson, and the start of his partnership with Uma Thurman, who will turn up again in our next entry.
Kill Bill, Vol. 2 (2004)
Miramax
After three smaller-scale films, with very ground-level characters, Tarantino made epics with the Kill Bill films. They were originally intended as one movie, then were released in two parts, Kill Bill Vol. 1 in 2003 and Kill Bill Vol. 2 in 2004. We love them both.
Once again, Tarantino elevated his genre inspirations, this time martial arts films. Uma Thurman’s heroine, The Bride, aka Beatrix Kiddo, even wears a yellow jumpsuit modeled on Bruce Lee’s in Game of Death.
Vol. 2 has some of Tarantino’s most showstopping moments, including The Bride’s trailer fight with Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), her escape from being buried alive, and a final faceoff with Bill (David Carradine), whose speech about Superman is one of Tarantino’s greatest pop-culture monologues.
But we still like Kill Bill Vol. 1 better, for reasons we’ll soon explain.
Inglorious Basterds (2009)
The Weinstein Company
This is the Tarantino film with the highest stakes: Brad Pitt’s ragtag group of Nazi-killin’ commandos, including Eli Roth’s magnificent, bat-wielding “Bear Jew,” are out to kill Adolf Hitler himself.
Inglorious Basterds has one of the best opening scenes of any movie, as Christoph Waltz’s charming but evil Hans Landa builds up unbearable tension while persuading a French farmer to give up the Jewish family he’s been protecting. But it gets even better from there, building to a climax absolutely no one would expect.
More than almost any other movie, Inglorious Basterds asks, “Why can’t you do that?” and then does it. It thrives, once again, in the chasm between cinematic fantasy and reality — between what we wish would have happened, and what actually did.
And the cast, including Melanie Laurent (above), is perfect.
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
Columbia Pictures
Speaking of that chasm: Quentin Tarantino uses our knowledge of the Manson murders to keep us utterly rapt, terrified, on the edge of our seats, through three hours of relatively low-stakes drama involving rising star Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), washed-up actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), and Dalton’s dangerous assistant, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt).
We watch them over two fairly uneventful days — at one point joining Tate on an errand and a trip to the movies — as Dalton and Booth reckon with their faltering prospects in life. Everything is imbued with a sense of menace (wait — is that Charles Manson?) because we know the real Tate’s fate.
But on the third day, Tarantino plunges us deep into his chasm — the place between what we know really happened, and what we wish could have happened. And he delivers cinematic wish fulfillment unmatched by any film, except perhaps his own Inglorious Basterds.
The film is also very fun for the chance to see early appearances by future stars Mikey Madison, Austin Butler, and Margaret Qualley.
Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)
Miramax
I mentioned growing up in L.A.’s South Bay in the ’80s. If you, like Quentin Tarantino and I, spent any amount of time watching TV in that place and time, you became very familiar with an ad that ran constantly on local TV for a two-record or two-cassette collection of songs by “Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute,” available for $19.98 by credit card phone order and pointedly not sold in stores.
It was the embodiment of dull-day, depressing TV schlock, when no one had the internet and not everyone even had cable. The Zamfir ad, like the ad for a four-record or three-cassette collection called Freedom Rock, was a thing you would endure or openly mock during commercial breaks between replays of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly or reruns of Gimme a Break, hating yourself a little for not having something cooler to do.
It took Quentin Tarantino to recognize its power. With his knack for elevating the most seemingly disposable elements of our culture, he realized that Gheorghe Zamfir’s version of “The Lonely Shepherd” was the perfect way to end Kill Bill, Vol. 1. In doing so, he created, for my money ($19.98), one of the best endings of any movie.
It comes after a stunning battle between The Bride and the Crazy 88s and Gogo Yubari, which leads into a cathartic faceoff in the falling snow between O-Ren Ishiii (Lucy Liu) and The Bride. The movie could have ended with O-Ren’s defeat, but instead continues with a montage as The Bride flies home in a plane, against a blood-red sky, as the film’s central characters take stock of her revenge mission, Zamfir playing softly behind them.
Bill delivers a final line that changes everything, as the drums and horns kicks in behind the pan flute. It’s devastating and hopeful: The chasm opens wide.
Liked Our List of All 10 Quentin Tarantino Movies Ranked?
These movie masks are the coolest in cinematic history.
Remember when everyone was wearing masks all the time?
We’re glad we don’t have to do that anymore.
The Bane Mask in The Dark Knight Rises
Tom Hardy as Bane, Christian Bale as Batman – Credit: Warner Bros
We’ve all replicated the “Bane mask voice” by cupping our hands around our mouths and talking with a high-pitched British accent.
But the mask also gives Bane an aura of mystery: Does it help him breath? Does it hide scars? Bane’s mask is as enigmatic and stylish as the man who wears it.
The Ghostface Mask in the Scream Saga
Matthew Lillard as Ghostface – Credit: Miramax
The Scream Ghostface-slasher mask is somehow silly, pulpy, and menacing all at once. Its innocuous simplicity hides the dreadful killer(s) underneath.
It would be very unusual to experience a Halloween absent of this costume, built around one of the most immediately recognizable movie masks.
The Hannibal Lecter Mask in The Silence of the Lambs
Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter – Credit: Orion
Hannibal Lecter technically wears two famous movie masks in the greatest Thomas Harris adaptation, The Silence of the Lambs. The first is his terrifying muzzle, a Jason Vorhees-esque mask with bars blocking his mouth.
The second is not nearly as stylish — it’s an actual human face.
The former has certainly been more integrated into pop-culture more than the latter, but both are worth mentioning.
The Jason Mask in the Friday the 13th Films
Derek Mears as Jason Voorhees – Credit: Paramount
The cinematic influence of the Jason Vorhees hockey mask is incalculable. So many films reference Jason Vorhees’ crude face-covering that it is practically expected every time a bank robbery is depicted on screen.
Fascinatingly, the mask that would become the trademark of Friday the 13th — and slasher movies in general – didn’t make it to the screen until Friday the 13th Part III, released in 1982.
The hockey mask is a cheap yet effective symbol of dread that won’t be disappearing from the zeitgeist anytime soon.
Tie: All the Eyes Wide Shut Masks
Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut – Credit: Warner Bros
The Venetian masks that appear in the secret party sequence of Eyes Wide Shot represent exactly the kind of extravagance and costume work we expect from a Stanley Kubrick film.
They are ethereal and refined — a beautiful piece of ironic characterization designed to protect the identities of those about to become intimate. Among the most jarring and tragic movie masks.
The Darth Vader Mask
David Prowse as Darth Vader, Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia – Credit: 20th Century Fox.
The most obvious, and inevitable choice is still a correct one for this list. Darth Vader’s masked visage is still the most awe-inspiring in the history of movie villains. It made countless other filmmakers realize great movie masks are among the most cost-effective storytelling devices.
Max’s Mask in Mad Max: Fury Road
Tom Hardy as Max – Credit: Warner Bros.
Though he spends the majority of his time with the mask attempting to forcefully remove it, Max’s metal face protector is nonetheless visually compelling.
There is a running joke in the film world that every director Tom Hardy works with makes him cover his face. He could easily have made this list more than twice.
The Guy Fawkes Mask in V for Vendetta
Hugo Weaving as V – Credit: Warner Bros.
The Guy Fawkes mask that V wears in V for Vendetta was infamous long before the film was released.
But the rhyming swashbuckler certainly provided it with a new flair, and turned it into one of the best movie masks of this century.
The Dread Pirate Roberts Mask in The Princess Bride
Cary Elwes as Wesley, aka The Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride. 20th Century Fox.
As you wish. Wesley returns to save his Princess Buttercup disguised as the Dread Pirate Roberts, and his mask allows him to find out if he’s still her true love.
Sporting a new mustache and elegant, black mask-scarf, he is skilled, debonair, and frightening, no longer the farm boy she once knew.
The Princess Bride is captivating even before the Dread Pirate Roberts arrives, but then he takes the movie into the stratosphere. With a detour through the Fire Swamp, of course.
The Mask of Zorro in The Mask of Zorro
Antonio Banderas as Zorro – Credit: C/O
See what we did there?
Antonio Banderas’ incarnation of Zorro is overflowing with charisma. His classic combination of black mask, large gaucho hat, and flowing cape never disappoints.
There have been many Zorros throughout cinematic history — in fact, Zorro helped inspire Batman to become a vigilante, decades ago. But Banderas’ Zorro is our favorite.
When the handsome David Aames (Cruise) has his face disfigured in a car crash, he takes to wearing a blank, expressionless mask to cover his scars and deformity.
The mask’s total absence of expression suggests that all life and joy has gone out of David, and maybe it has. But Vanilla Sky still has plenty of twists ahead.
The Michael Myers Mask in Halloween
Credit: C/O
Sometimes simplest is best.
Tasked with finding a suitable mask for Michael Myers, the monster of John Carpenter and Debra Hill’s horror masterpiece, production designer Tommy Lee Wallace went to a Hollywood Boulevard magic shop, where he found a Captain Kirk mask designed to look like Star Trek star William Shatner. He painted it white, changed the hair, and Michael Myers was born.
Wallace later directed Halloween III: Season of the Witch — which is all about masks. Specifically, a plot to take over people’s minds through microchipped Halloween masks.
Here are the 12 coolest time travel movies of all time — and all times.
Cinema’s obsession with time travel makes perfect sense, given that movies may be the closest most of us will ever get to it: The filmmakers of the past told stories for the audiences of the future. As the gap between creation and audience grows, so does every film’s value as an artifact of its time.
As people and places disappear, films can become our best ways to remember them, and experience something like immersion in times we may remember only faintly, if at all.
So in a way, all movies are time travel movies. But the following films are explicitly about people starting in one time, and traveling to another.
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Donna Reed, Jimmy Stewart and Karolyn Grimes in It’s a Wonderful Life. RKO Radio Pictures
If you think It’s a Wonderful Life isn’t a time travel movie, we would ask: How is it not? The dark Christmas classic from Frank Capra follows George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart at his best) revisiting his past — or rather an alternate version of his life in which he was never born.
Rather than going back and changing the past, George has to endure the present — and in doing so, shape the future. Just like all of us do every day.
As popular as the multiverse concept is today, it’s notable that It’s a Wonderful Life hit on it long, long ago. Credit goes to Capra and co-writers Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, as well as Philip Van Doren Stern, who wrote the story upon which It’s a Wonderful Life was based.
The Time Machine (1960)
When Morlocks attack: Yvette Mimieaux as Weena in The Time Machine. MGM
No discussion of time travel is complete without bowing to H.G. Wells’ 1895 novel The Time Machine, one of the most influential stories of all.
George Pal’s adaptation of the novel presents a two-caste future in which humans have evolved into Eloi and Morlocks. The passive, vegetarian Eloi seem to have it good: They live a pleasant, idyllic existence — above ground, no less.
It all seems very nice until we realize the Eloi (including Yvette Mimieaux as Weena, above) are basically veal for the Morlocks, the scrappy, resentful subterraneans who emerge occasionally from their caves to feed on their pampered cousins.
The Time Machine is a great time travel movie, and inspired many others on this list., sometimes quite overtly. But it’s also a provocative, still-relevant piece of social commentary.
La Jetée (1962)
Hélène Châtelain in La Jetée. Argos Films.
Chris Marker’s La Jetée explains to audiences that it is “the story of a man marked by an image of his childhood” — a violent image he witnessed “sometime before the outbreak of World War III.”
He comes to understand it only by experiencing it again and again, in a time loop that the short film illustrates almost entirely illustrated in still photos. His link to the past is a memory of a woman (played by Hélène Châtelain, above) he once encountered on the observation platform, or jetty, of Paris’ Orly Airport.
Between its deliberate repetition, black-and-white photography and unsettling setting — we are watching the past’s vision of our own possible future, which feels simultaneously dated and far beyond us — La Jetée is hypnotic.
Time After Time (1979)
Malcolm McDowell and Mary Steenburgen in Time After Time. Warner Bros.
Nicholas Meyers’ Time After Time has one of the best setups of any film. Pointedly inspired by The Time Machine, it begins in Victorian London, where Jack the Ripper (aka Dr. John Leslie Stevenson, played by David Warner) has just struck again.
He joins a gathering at the home of his friend H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell), who unveils a time machine he’s a bit apprehensive about using.
When the police close in, Stevenson flees to the future in the time machine — and H.G. follows him. They end up in 1979 San Francisco, where fish-out-of-water Stevenson adapts swimmingly to the violence of the (then) modern age, while gentle H.G. tries to stop him from killing again.
He’s aided by bank employee Amy (Mary Steenburgen), who becomes Jack’s target. Things build to kind of a disappointing climax, but there’s so much thoughtfulness and delight along the way that it’s silly to linger on it.
And in a sweet behind-the-scenes ending, Steenburgen and McDowell fell in love and were married for a decade.
The Terminator (1984)
Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn in The Terminator. Orion Pictures. – Credit: C/O
When the low-budget Terminator emerged in 1984, some people dismissed it as a dumb, violent shoot-’em-up about a killer robot.
While it’s undeniably one of the best killer robot movies ever made, it also offers one of the coolest takes on how time travel works.
In the world of The Terminator, time travel is like an inevitable loop that transgresses calendar years: Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) is sent back in time to save Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) so she can give birth to her son John, the savior of humankind in a dark, robot-infested future. But he also ends up fathering John — who, in turn, is the one who sends him back in time.
Brilliant.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. TriStar Pictures – Credit: C/O
Yes, we’re going with two Terminator movies, because the inevitable-loop concept ramps up to another level when we learn in T2 that the arrival of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 in the first Terminator was the cause of the Judgment Day that sparks the A.I. takeover.
In short, the last remaining piece of technology from the T-800’s final battle against Sarah and John becomes crucial to Cyberdyne, the company that creates SkyNet, which quickly makes things very tough for humanity.
The past creates the future which creates the past which creates the future. At least, that’s how it goes in The Terminator.
The next time travel movie on our list has a different theory about it all works.
Back to the Future (1985)
Crispin Glover, Lea Thompson and Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. Universal Pictures.
One of the most flat-out entertaining movies ever, Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future embraces the geekiness of time travel and makes it as goofily cool as possible — while grounding everything in a very human story.
1980s teen Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travels back to the 1950s thanks to a time traveling DeLorean built by his mentor, Doc Brown (Christopher LLoyd). But upon arrival, Marty prevents a crucial meeting of his young parents (Crispin Glover and Lea Thompson).
Worse, his mom develops a crush on him — which is a huge problem for many reasons. But it’s arguably most troubling because in the Back to the Future school of time travel, nothing is inevitable, even Marty’s existence. If he can’t get his parents together, he and his siblings will never be born.
Things get more complicated (and occasionally even more fun) in Back to the Future 2, in which Marty is propelled into the future, and back to the past — and has to avoid running into himself. And Back to the Future 3 goes for pure Western thrills.
Diehard fans of time travel movies will note that in the latter, Mary Steenbergen plays a character in a similar situation to the one her character faced in the aforementioned Time After Time.
Groundhog Day (1993)
Andie McDowell and Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Columbia Pictures – Credit: C/O
Harold Ramis’ masterpiece stars his Ghostbusters castmate Bill Murray as a weatherman cursed to repeat the same holiday again and again. It enlivened the time travel movie genre and popularized the time-loop format. It’s also another of the best movies ever made.
Screenwriter Danny Rubin, who was steeped in Anne Rice’s vampire novels, became interested in the idea of immortality, and of repeating the same day over and over again. He and Ramis turned his original script into a meditation on life itself, and how all of us have the choice, each time the alarm goes off, to make each day a grinding re-enactment of the one before, or to take it in an entirely new direction.
Assemble enough of those decisions together, and you’ve completed a lifetime.
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)
Michael York as Basil Exposition in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. New Line Cinema
In the first Austin Powers film, 1997’s Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Mike Myers’ swinging ’60s spy is frozen in 1967 and thawed out in the ’90s.
In the sequel, Austin must travel back — this time to 1969 — to match wits with Dr. Evil (also Myers) who has stolen Austin’s mojo. The ramifications of crossing paths with his (frozen) past self causes Austin to go cross-eyed — but the wise Basil Exposition gives him some advice.
“I suggest you don’t worry about this sort of thing and just enjoy yourself,” he says.
Then he and Myers turn smilingly to the audience, as Basil adds, “That goes for you all, too.”
Thus freed from thinking about the space-time continuum, we’re able to just enjoy Austin returning to the past to dance and fight alongside Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham.)
Midnight in Paris (2011)
Midnight in Paris. Sony Pictures Classics
Woody Allen’s beguiling Midnight in Paris skips any concern about how time travel works in favor of charm. Owen Wilson’s character, who is having trouble with his fiancée (Rachel McAdams), travels back in time simply by stepping inside a 1920s car each night at midnight.
It transports him to glorious 1920s Paris, where he mingles with the likes of Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll), F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston), Zelda Fitzgerald (Alison Pill), Salvador Dali (Adrien Brody) and Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates). He also becomes captivated by Adriana, Picasso’s mistress, played by Marion Cotillard.
Instead of a new take on how time travel works, Midnight in Paris lays out a universal truth: Some people will always prefer to live in the past.
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt in Edge of Tomorrow. Warner Bros.
This Tom Cruise-Emily Blunt gem takes the Groundhog Day concept into the realm of action and sci-fi. But it’s also funny, in a different way than Groundhog Day.
Cruise plays against type as a man who, like Murray in Groundhog Day, must re-live the same day again and again. But Cruise, known for playing ultra-competent heroes like Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible films and Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun, goes against type by portraying a bit of a bumbler.
He’s a PR man who dies in a series of darkly amusing ways under the tutelage of Blunt’s experienced super soldier, Sergeant Rita Vrataski.
The film was a box office disappointment, but has gained much respect since its initial release. Based on the Hiroshi Sakurazaka novel All You Need Is Kill, it was almost given director Doug Liman’s preferred title, Live Die Repeat, which became the film’s tagline.
Spoiler Warning: The next and final film on this list isn’t obviously a time travel movie until its incredible ending.
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Charlton Heston and Linda Harrison in Planet of the Apes. 20th Century Fox.
Like we said, the presence of this film on this list is a spoiler — we’re sorry. Then again, the original Planet of the Apes has been out for 57 years, so you’ve had time to see it.
What’s coolest about Planet of the Apes is that for almost its entire running time, you don’t realize you’re watching a time travel movie. It just seems like a nightmarish sci-fi film in which a trio of astronauts led by Charlton Heston’s George Taylor crash-land on a planet ruled by apes. They treat humans — including Nova (Linda Harrison) — like animals.
If these time travel movies have taught us nothing, it’s that it’s much easier to prevent an apocalypse now than to try to build a time machine and go back to prevent one later. Good luck, everyone.
Main image: Yvette Mimieaux, as the Eloi Weena and Rod Taylor as H. George Wells in The Time Machine. MGM
Editor’s note: Corrects error in Time After Time item. Jack the Ripper flees into the future, not the past.
Here are all 6 Joker actors ranked, from worst to best.
Also, we’re only counting film Jokers, and not animated ones.
Disagree? Great, that’s what the comments are for. Here we go.
Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Phoenix in Joker. Warner Bros. – Credit: Joaquin Phoenix in Joker, Warner Bros.
The emperor has no clothes. We know: Joaquin Phoenix’s take on The Joker in Joker was a spectacular success, bringing in a billion dollars and winning Phoenix an Oscar for Best Actor.
Well, everyone was wrong. It was painful to watch Phoenix’s Joker ham it up through some nonsensical psychological condition cobbled together from superior movies like Taxi Driver and Fight Club.
Phoenix’s Joker was cool visually — his emaciated body was more resonant than any of his dialogue — but his knockoff Travis Bickle felt so disconnected from any real human being that he and his movie had no stakes. He was the last thing the Joker should be: boring.
Jared Leto
Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn and Jared Leto as The Joker in Suicide Squad. Warner Bros.
What if The Joker were hot? That seems to be the odd approach to Jared Leto’s Joker of Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey, and Zack Snyder’s Justice League. He came off like one of those sexy influencers constantly insisting that they’re “deep” and “complex.” Not one for subtlety — he’s The Joker — he even had the word “Damaged” tattooed on his forehead.
This is a matter of personal taste, but we prefer the idea of The Joker as a miscreant who could never survive in polite society, no matter how hard he might try, who turns to The Joker persona out of desperation. Leto’s Joker could have just quit crime to go into modeling.
There were some cool things about Jared Leto’s Joker, for sure. He had the best clothes of any Joker, and we liked how he took fashion and tattoo inspiration from East L.A. gangsters. But maybe he should have just been a new character, not The Joker.
Barry Keoghan
Barry Keoghan as The Joker in The Batman. Warner Bros.
2022’s The Batman went in the opposite direction from Jared Leto’s sexy Joker, portraying The Joker as having some kind of complicated skin condition that looks like a cross between burns and syphilis, in addition to his demented grin.
We think Barry Keoghan is one of the best actors around, but we can’t abide by the decision to give him glorified cameo status as an fellow Arkham resident who cheerleads Paul Dano’s (terrific) Riddler. Keoghan gets more to do in a deleted scene that really should have been in the movie.
Many versions of The Joker seems to use a pretense of comedy to mask profound despair and depression, but Keoghan’s seems to be just depressed and low energy. He doesn’t have the undeniable presence of the best Jokers.
He’ll reportedly return in the next Batman film, and will hopefully have more to do.
Jack Nicholson
Kim Basinger as Vicki Vale and Jack Nicholson as The Joker in Batman. Warner Bros.
It was great to see Jack Nicholson pop up at the Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary show on Sunday, reminding everyone of what a cool screen presence he’s always had.
Speaking of cool: He seemed a little above Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman — he didn’t phone it in, exactly, but he also avoided exploring any real pain or messiness in his version of the Clown Prince of Crime. He just seemed like he was having fun.
One thing we especially like about Nicholson’s Joker is that unlike all the others, he really did have pale skin and green hair, a consequence of a long dip in a huge vat at Axis Chemicals. We weren’t as sold on his interest in art, which seemed like too many things, or the notion that he killed Bruce’s parents, which felt a little on the nose.
Cesar Romero
Cesar Romero as The Joker and Phyllis Douglas as Josie Miller in Batman. ABC
Some people would deduct points for Cesar Romero’s refusal to shave his mustache to play The Joker in the 1966 Batman film and the 1966-68 TV series. But we love it: It’s the most Joker thing he could possibly do. It’s a completely anarchic, middle-finger-to-the-world level of commitment — or refusal to commit — that is as Joker as you can get.
We also find Romero’s Joker effortlessly creepy in a way no other Joker is. He’s kind of suave and dashing, which makes him somehow even more grotesque. His voice, alternately sinewy and gravelly, is compelling. And his laugh is the best of any Joker’s. He also had the best hair, especially when it bounced as he shook with rage.
You got the sense that he thought his whole ensemble — the purple suit, the green hair — looked good. Rather than seeming ashamed of his appearance, he seemed vain, which gave him an unnerving element of narcissism. You can say his Joker was too broad, but come on: He’s a criminal who dresses like a clown to play to the cheap seats. He set the standard for all future Jokers.
Heath Ledger
Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight. Warner Bros – Credit: Warner Bros.
Only one actor has gotten The Joker exactly right, honoring the comic-book legacy of The Joker while grounding him completely in reality. In Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger delivered a Gen X Joker, pragmatic and detached — so detached that he seems meta.
He refuses to disclose an origin story, instead offering several — one of many ways he maintains a jittery sense of perpetual menace. But the real pleasure of The Dark Knight is realizing that despite his disheveled appearance and chaotic appearance, the war-painted misanthrope is the most meticulous planner in Gotham, whether robbing a bank of staging a moral showdown between ferry passengers.
“His Joker was deeply, deeply warped and damaged, though you never find out exactly why, or what he’s really looking for,” Ledger’s Dark Knight co-star, Michael Caine, observes in his recent memoir. “Looking back, I think Heath’s excellence made all of us raise our game. The psychological battle between The Joker and Batman is completely riveting. Are they in any way the same? What nudges one man to do good, and the other to do evil? The Joker wants to torment Bruce by convincing him that they’re two of a kind.”
Ledger earned a posthumous Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film. Sadly, he died before its release.
Liked This List of All 6 Joker Actors, Ranked?
Michael Keaton as Batman and Jack Nicholson as The Joker in Batman. Warner Bros. – Credit: Warner Bros.
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