Empire magazine has crowned Steven Spielberg's 1975 shark thriller Jaws as the greatest film of all time in its updated list of the 100 greatest films ever made. Chief film critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh calls the result 'staggeringly wrong,' arguing the list is a safe, male-dominated collection of mainstream classics that fails to reflect the breadth of cinema.
The list's composition and omissions
The top ten includes The Godfather (#2), The Shawshank Redemption (#3), Star Wars franchise entries (#4 and #8), Inception (#6), Goodfellas (#7), and The Lord of the Rings (#9). The list features seven Spielberg films, five Nolan films, and works from Scorsese, Cameron, Coppola, and Tarantino. Ivan-Zadeh notes only six foreign-language films and a handful of female-directed entries, all clustered near the bottom. Citizen Kane sits at #52, below an Avengers film.
A critic's alternative picks
Ivan-Zadeh suggests Tokyo Story (1953) by Yasujiro Ozu as a candidate for 'greatest,' calling it 'an elegant, intensely devastating family drama.' She also recommends Some Like It Hot (1959) as 'surely the greatest comedy ever made' and Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) as a provocative choice. Her personal favourite is the folk horror The Wicker Man (1973), praising its 'pagan weirdness' and 'unsettling soundtrack.'
The purpose of a list
Ivan-Zadeh argues that a good list should 'irritate you awake' and spark conversation, not settle arguments. She cites Quentin Tarantino's recent claim that no good film has been made since the pandemic—a statement she disagrees with, countering with films like The Zone of Interest and Backrooms—but acknowledges it generated debate. 'The best lists should make cinema feel bigger, not smaller,' she writes. 'They should be a discovery.'
