It’s good to be a guy. Too good, if we’re being honest. Practically every aspect of the pop culture landscape seems to be geared directly toward the masculine mindset, appealing to men, boys and the awkward, nebulous, pubescent y-chromosome people in between. That’s a problem, of course. And most of these so-called “guy movies” are just trying to take our money by catering to men’s prurient mindsets, offering sexiness and explosions and ignoring little things like substance. Or at least, failing to use those macho preoccupations to say anything meaningful.
That’s why, here at CraveOnline, we have put our heads together to come up with The 100 Guy Movies Everyone Should See. These are the guy movies that don’t just placate men’s desires to see their supposed interests captured on camera, but also say something about men for enjoying them. They say something about men’s place in this screwy world of ours, for better and very often for worse. Even the cheesier films that made our list of the Top 100 Guy Movies are so outlandish that they – perhaps accidentally – become statements in and of themselves.
(Please note that this is simply a list comprised of films made about men that are typically considered “guy movies.” Everyone of all genders is encouraged to watch and enjoy them as well. We are merely discussing motion pictures that appear to intentionally cater to a perceived demographic, for better or worse, and highlighting the films that do so effectively, meaningfully or at least with particular aplomb.)
We invited our four film critics to come up with their individual lists of the Top 50 Guy Movies Ever Made, then assigned point values to their choices (50 points for the top film, 1 point for the film at the bottom of their list, and so on), and created the following aggregate list. Each of the finalists for The Top 50 Guy Movies come with commentary from one of the film critics who championed its inclusion. The bottom 50 are listed underneath the slideshow in order. You should see all of those movies too.
The list itself ranges from action movies to comedies, dramas to horror movies, and even a single, solitary documentary sitting pretty at #47. The oldest film, from 1941, is ranked #42 on our list of The 100 Guy Movies Everyone Should See. The newest film, from 2012, is ranked #55.
Robert De Niro and Arnold Schwarzenegger both own this list, each of them starring or co-starring in six films a piece. (De Niro even has two films in the Top 10.) Coming in second are Lee Marvin, Robert Duvall and Al Pacino, each of whom starred or co-starred in four films on the list.
The directors are more spread out. Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, John Woo, James Cameron, Quentin Tarantino and Paul Verhoeven each came in with three films on the list. Tony Scott, Edgar Wright, John Sturges, John Carpenter and Oliver Stone each had two films making appearances throughout the rankings.
So… how many have you seen?
Slideshow: The Top 50 Guy Movies
The 50 Runners-Up:
51. Top Gun (dir. Tony Scott, 1996)
52. Badlands (dir. Terrence Malick, 1976)
53. Pulp Fiction (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
54. Reservoir Dogs (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 1992)
55. The Master (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)
56. Platoon (dir. Oliver Stone, 1986)
57. Boyz n the Hood (dir. John Singleton, 1991)
58. Brokeback Mountain (dir. Ang Lee, 2005)
59. The Fast and the Furious (dir. Rob Cohen, 2001)
60. Two-Lane Blacktop (dir. Monte Hellman, 1971)
61. The Rock (dir. Michael Bay, 1996)
62. Revenge of the Nerds (dir. Jeff Kanew, 1984)
63. Unforgiven (dir. Clint Eastwood, 1992)
64. Scarface (dir. Brian De Palma, 1983)
65. Big (dir. Penny Marshall, 1988)
66. Straw Dogs (dir. Sam Peckinpah, 1971)
67. Enter the Dragon (dir. Robert Clouse, 1973)
68. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (dir. Peter R. Hunt, 1969)
69. Wall Street (dir. Oliver Stone, 1987)
70. Caddyshack (dir. Harold Ramis, 1980)
71. Dirty Harry (dir. Don Siegel, 1971)
72. Hot Fuzz (dir. Edgar Wright, 2007)
73. Inglourious Basterds (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2009)
74. Road House (dir. Rowdy Herrington, 1989)
75. Animal House (dir. Ivan Reitman, 1978)
76. The Wages of Fear (dir. Henri Georges-Clouzot, 1953)
77. The Warriors (dir. Walter Hill, 1979)
78. The Big Lebowski (dirs. The Coen Brothers, 1998)
79. The Deer Hunter (dir. Michael Cimino, 1978)
80. Happy Gilmore (dir. Dennis Dugan, 1996)
81. The Samurai Trilogy (dir. Hiroshi Inagaki, 1954-1956)
82. Y tu mamá también (dir. Alfonso Cuarón, 2001)
83. Crimson Tide (dir. Tony Scott, 1995)
84. In the Company of Men (dir. Neil LaBute, 1997)
85. The Magnificent Seven (dir. John Sturges, 1960)
86. Midnight Cowboy (dir. John Schlesinger, 1969)
87. Big Trouble in Little China (dir. John Carpenter, 1986)
88. The Big Red One (dir. Sam Fuller, 1980)
89. The Graduate (dir. Mike Nichols, 1987)
90. Casino Royale (dir. Martin Campbell, 2006)
91. The Matrix (dirs. Wachowski Starship, 1999)
92. The Right Stuff (dir. Philip Kaufman, 1983)
93. Con Air (dir. Simon West, 1997)
94. Basic Instinct (dir. Paul Verhoeven, 1992)
95. The Bad News Bears (dir. Michael Ritchie, 1976)
96. The Blues Brothers (dir. John Landis, 1980)
97. Face/Off (dir. John Woo, 1997)
98. MASH (dir. Robert Altman, 1970)
99. Smokey and the Bandit (dir. Hal Needham, 1971)
100. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (dir. Adam McKay, 2004)
The Top 50 Guy Movies
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50. Conan the Barbarian (1982)
Some may consider this unfortunate, but males my age received their masculine ideals from three places: The WWF, “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe,” and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Male strength could essentially be defined as an exploded little boy power fantasy about beating other people in the face, swinging a Freudian sword, and murdering people with a machine gun. There are no guns in Conan the Barbarian, but there is a giant muscular man-giant (Schwarzenegger), a life devoted to revenge, and an exemplification of the Dark Ages sword-wielding fantasy. All about the single manliest person of the millennium. If a man is to express emotions in a “guy” film, then it's only in the guise of revenge. And Conan is a half-naked killer who lives for revenge killing.
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49. The Evil Dead (1981)
So, other than being an awesome horror film that is equal parts laughs and blood spurts, what makes Sam Raimi’s original Evil Dead a great guy movie? Well, it’s one of the very few horror films that’s actually centered around the main guy’s survival. Most horror films have a heroine (usually virginal) who has to fight off demons, ghosts, home invaders and smarmy dudes.
Sam Raimi has a man front and center in The Evil Dead, and that man’s name is Ash. He is played by Bruce Campbell. Whilst battling rural Tennessee demons summoned from The Book of the Dead, the resourceful and quick-thinking Campbell cackles and chainsaws his way deep into our dude hearts.
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48. The Killer (1989)
John Woo simultaneously constructed and deconstructed the glamor of violent machismo in his 1989 classic The Killer. Chow Yun-Fat stars as a hitman who accidentally blinds a nightclub singer (Sally Yeh) during his latest, stylish, slow-motion killing spree. Riddled with guilt, he begins taking assignments just to pair for her reparative surgery, bringing him into conflict with a vicious crime boss and a cop (Danny Lee) who hates our antihero’s crimes but gradually begins to respect his motives.
The Killer may have been inspired by the razor-like noir films of Jean-Pierre Melville, but Woo brings a unique style to a film many have called his masterpiece. Chow Yun-Fat epitomizes quiet cool, violent skill and self-sacrifice, and his relationship with Danny Lee - particularly as they hold each other at gunpoint but talk like old friends so Sally Yeh doesn’t notice - is among the richest, and most badass bromances in movie history.
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47. Grizzly Man (2005)
One of the biggest components of being a man is having a fear of failure. That fear of failure is the driving force behind numerous films, corporate empires and jail sentences. In Werner Herzog’s documentary, Grizzly Man, that fear of failure is a regression to a boyhood fantasy.
After Timothy Treadwell lost out on the Woody role on “Cheers” to Woody Harrelson, he battled alcoholism, heroin addiction and depression. When he made it to Alaska, he was sober, clean, reborn and reborn as a boy, who felt the need to live with Alaskan grizzly bears. He names the foxes and bears and documents his excitement. But he also trusts them like a child, giving them anthropomorphic traits and feeling as though they’d never harm him. Herzog believed that this was really a man with a death wish, who wanted to live out a boyhood fantasy as his last act.
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46. The Terminator (1984)
In many ways, the original Terminator already tells the whole story that its sequels continue to work through. A robot from the future (Arnold Schwarzenegger) comes to present day 1984 to murder Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who will give birth to the human leader who will defeat them. Connor himself sends back Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) to protect his mother, knowing all along that they will conceive him. The time loop is already set no matter how many sequels they make, and a deleted subplot even kiboshes Connor’s plans to prevent Skynet from ever being built. Good thing they saved that for the sequel. Good old car chases, men fighting robots and a tragic romance make The Terminator a classic.
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45. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Frank Darabont's prison saga The Shawshank Redemption has an awkward title, no love interests, no dramatic thrust to speak of, and it's still one of the most inspiring motion pictures ever made. That's partly because the story, based on a novella by Stephen King, is rife with detail and fully realized characters (big and small), and partly because this tale of a wrongfully imprisoned accountant refusing to give in to despair in the most desperate environment imaginable is something we would all like to think we can relate to. It is a story of men finding relying in one another - as friends or simply as tools - to get through a very, very harsh life. And it thrills.
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44. Superbad (2007)
Superbad is full of testosterone and, literally, has binders full of penis jokes – but it’s never a macho movie. The ability to be a man in Superbad appears to be as simple as being able to get alcohol for a high school party. But what being a man really is in Superbad, is the ability to be a friend.
The Seth Rogen-Evan Goldberg scripted film has Jonah Hill (Seth) and Michael Cera (Evan) playing versions of themselves as high school friends. They need to get beer. If they get beer they might get laid. But really they need to get beer because they want to be heralded as the saviors of the night. As they prepare to go to different colleges, they’re unprepared to not have their best bud by their side. So, they’re looking for worthy female companion replacements. But is a girl who has sex with you an upgrade over buddy companionship? Cue future Judd Apatow-relationship movies, which haven’t been as funny as this one.
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43. Shaun of the Dead (2004)
What could be better than drinking pints with your best mate and killing zombies together? Edgar Wright reinvented the Romero zombie movie as a British rom-com with Simon Pegg as the loser who needs to get his shit together to win back his girl. Nick Frost is Pegg’s real life best friend, and their chemistry shows on screen in every movie in which they costar, but their Shaun banter is enough to make us jealous of their bromance. What makes Shaun of the Dead work is that it’s not a spoof of anything. It is a legit zombie movie with these ridiculous characters sincerely navigating through it.
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42. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The coolest and most capable of all motion picture private detectives, Sam Spade, is at the center of The Maltese Falcon. John Huston’s ripping, complicated and yet somehow breezy film noir stars the great Humphrey Bogart as a man caught between a murder case and the search for a priceless artifact, the ‘Maltese Falcon’ that gives this classic mystery its title. As a cast of impeccable character actors - headlined by Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre - loses their heads in the search of “the stuff dreams are made of,” Sam Spade proves himself a macho icon by keeping his wits about him, and refusing to let the temptations of love, sex, and incomparable wealth get in the way of his job, or his principles. Humphrey Bogart cannot be dominated, even by his own temptations. He’s the living embodiment of lessons that everyone might want to learn.
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41. The Godfather, Part II (1974)
For the sequel to The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola continues to romanticize Vito Corleone (played here in flashbacks by Robert De Niro) but use his son, Michael (Al Pacino) as the counterpoint to the romance of criminal families. Our fathers are romanced for mythical stories passed down. Vito has a double life. He murders a mafia chief, then comes home to his family, cradling baby Michael. But Michael is living in the now and there is no romance, it’s all business. He’s in Havana, surrounded by politicians, dividing a cake with the Cuban flag on it (everyone gets a piece!).
The Corleone headquarters is in a hotel in Las Vegas, where people come from all across the country to drown their last-ditch dreams and dissolve their families. Michael treats his family like employees, and everything – including murdering a family member – is a business decision.
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40. About a Boy (2002)
Any guy who’s seen About a Boy knows it is one of the ultimate guy movies and probably cites it as one of their favorites. The fact that it’s a guy movie in disguise as a chick flick makes it a stealth pick. Hugh Grant really found his calling when he played an A-hole in Bridget Jones’s Diary and About a Boy is the ultimate Hugh Grant A-hole role. He’s a rich trust fund bachelor who admits he just wants to date and be left alone. So he comes up with a perfect plan to date single mothers, who will abandon him before it gets too serious. Trouble is, the son of a real single mother catches him. About a Boy never apologizes for Grant’s behavior. He’s got a pretty great man cave he’s keeping all to himself, and he doesn’t really change in the movie. He just finds a place for his selfish behavior in someone else’s life.
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39. The Fly (1986)
David Cronenberg’s The Fly is Revenge of the Nerds as a body horror film. Scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) is awkward at parties, brilliant in the laboratory. He wins over a beauty (Geena Davis) and transports a baboon from one side of his flat to the other. He’s about to be the most famous scientist in the world. But then he teleports himself without supervision (the computer recognized that a house fly was inside), and he starts to mutate.
Why do I say Revenge of the Nerds? Brundle starts to transform. A new type of masculinity emerges within him. Brundle starts using his new strength to break forearms in arm-wrestling matches and going home with bar bimbos. But then parts of his body start falling off as the insect inside him starts pushing off his nerd-pod flesh. And Brundle-Fly wishes he was no longer an alpha male. Because they’re pests.
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38. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Guys like war. We're trained by our toys to be soldiers. And while most modern-day (i.e. post-WWII) war films tend to focus on the destruction and tragedies of war, certain wartime enthusiasts can still trace backwards through battle history and typically discover a comforting epoch that seems downright romantic. For me, that epoch was the maritime battles of the Napoleonic wars. And the film that exemplifies that time is Peter Weir's amazing Master and Commander, based on the books by Patrick O'Brien. Accurate to the point of being persnickety, and made with a stirringly virtuosic eye by Weir, Master and Commander follows the exploits of the HMS Surprise on the high seas, and all the incidental glories of living on a ship at the time. This is about what male soldiers did on the high seas during the high and the low moments, singing chanties, firing cannonballs, fighting, exploring, and missing their womenfolk. It's one of the best films of the '00s.
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37. Star Wars (1977)
The simple fantasy of a young farmhand claiming his birthright to become a hero who saves the princess, befriends a pirate and fights a Black Knight is not a tale intended for grown-ups, it is intended to engage the imagination of the young and the young at heart. It is simple, it is filled with action, it has a little bit of romance but it never fully commits to the emotional significance of actual love. It is a story about young irresponsible guys who have responsibility thrust upon them by serious circumstances and the wisdom of their elders. It is a movie to grow up with, not grow into, which is why it will perhaps always be beloved. But that's also why it doesn't rank even higher on our list.
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36. Point Blank (1967)
Director John Boorman (Deliverance) drops Lee Marvin into the swingin’ 60s and lets him swing at it. Marvin is Walker. He’s a tough guy with a fee. When he is double-crossed and his fee is stolen from him he sets out to get it back at all costs. The fee is inconsequential (and for movies, not substantial). It’s the fact that it was stolen from him that’s eating at Walker.
Marvin is as menacing as ever. Even though he’s in a modern time and setting that’s more interested in acid, soul, free love and sleek cars, Boorman reminds us that there were still typical toughs in the 60s. During a nightclub scene where a singer shrieks “yeah” over and over, Marvin is behind the stage repeatedly kneeing someone in the nuts.
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35. Hard Boiled (1992)
What's the story of John Woo's Hard Boiled? I'll defer to the Internet Movie Database, as I couldn't possibly make it more succinct. I quote: "A tough-as-nails cop teams up with an undercover agent to shut down a sinister mobster and his crew." There. Done. Easy. But what Hard Boiled truly offers is, far more than its crime plot, its level of then-unprecedented unbelievably spectacular gun violence. John Woo introduced a level of firearm fetishization into feature films that had never been seen before with films like Hard Boiled and The Killer. Why fire one hand gun once, when firing two at the same time whilst diving through the air is far more amazing? With John Woo, the practical mechanics of a bun battle flew out the window, and all that was left was a level of action we hadn't yet seen. It's brutal and balletic at the same time.
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34. Boogie Nights (1997)
There are many reasons why guys really like Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg). He’s earnest, likable and, as a porn star, he’s a terrible actor who has a massive dick. You’d kinda like to have a chesseburger with him after he fucks on set. But let's admit, deep down, with man’s preoccupation with endowment, that there’s a big portion of Diggler fans who also are glad that even though he was gifted such a glorious penis from God’s great designs, that he also took that penis a little too close to the sun and was punished for it.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s film is a loving portrait of discarded folks who become a makeshift family (the family that sleeps together sticks together). But there is also a nerdy parallel of how porno’s (movies’) inventiveness in the 1970s was destroyed by simpler tactics used in home video technology of the 80s.
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33. Swingers (1996)
This was actually my number one vote for the ultimate guy movie. Mike (Jon Favreau) is a struggling L.A. actor whose best friend Trent (Vince Vaughn) has tons of advice on picking up girls. Mike, Trent and their gang of friends hang out in L.A. bars and try to meet someone. Maybe I’m biased because I’m in show business, but I think it’s only incidental that the gang is a group of actors. Swingers manages to portray the universal male desire for female companionship without being sleazy. Yes, we’re sensitive and we miss our exes and we get overeager when we get a phone number. That answering machine scene is a classic, as is the trip to Vegas and the gang standoff. The only fiction is that Mike picks up Heather Graham, who is somehow all by herself in a Los Angeles bar.
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32. Brian's Song (1971)
If there’s one thing to take away from the horrible press that football has had concerning domestic abuse and whoopin’ children in the NFL, and that college football has had with years of protecting players and coaches embroiled in rape culture and sexual abuse, it’s that – because of its immense popularity with men – impropriety in football is one of the few things that seems to effectively shed light on the ugly side of male behavior in the public. And attempt to change it long term.
This 1971 film – a true story of two Chicago Bears running backs, Gale Sayers (Billy Dee Williams) and Brian Piccolo (James Caan) who, as friends and competitors, tackled segregation and cancer – was, for a long time, considered the only acceptable movie for a man to cry with. It involved men being tender and thoughtful to each other in the context of a sports team. For anyone that’s saying that we’re becoming a “nation of wussies,” show them Brian’s Song and pass them the Kleenex. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to sit there and feel bad for life’s injustices. And don’t beat yourself – or anyone else – up about it.
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31. Ghost Busters (1984)
Is Ghost Busters the ultimate celebration of the blue-collar spirit? Maybe: Ivan Reitman’s classic supernatural comedy about a trio (later a quartet) of enterprising, mismatched dudes - one a nerd, one a dork, one a sleaze and another just looking for an honest job - clearly values the working man over bureaucratic nitwits whose efforts to keep them down backfire into the chaotic, nearly apocalyptic destruction of New York City, an uprising of spectral cab drivers who rebel against their white collar passengers to dangerous effect.
And if that’s too brainy for you, Ghost Busters is just a hell of a lot of fun, combining memorable characters, quotable dialogue and a still-ingenious blend of the fantastic and the mundane. Incredible feats of sci-fi/fantasy wizardry are just another day on the job for Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson. Nobody appreciates just how much backbreaking work goes into putting food on the table. Ghost Busters makes the soul crushing day jobs that everyone has to endure fun, funny, and cool.
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30. Commando (1985)
Mark Lester's infamous Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle is probably the crown jewel in Reagan-era action genre commonly referred to as Badass Cinema. Predator may be more celebrated and more exciting to watch (an invisible alien is more alluring than bland groups of machine-gun-toting thugs), but Commando outstrips Predator in terms of badassery in one vital regard: it is gloriously and unapologetically morally irresponsible. Arnold plays a fellow named John Matrix (uh-huh), who is given moral license to murder about 1,000 people when his young daughter is kidnapped by would-be South American dictator Dan Hedaya. It also has some of the most horrible/wonderful one-line howlers of any unintentionally hilarious screenplay this side of Road House. Clunky, dumb, and wonderful, Commando is full of a particular brand of 1980s machismo that my generation is unable to escape.
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29. Total Recall (1990)
What makes Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall more of a guy movie than the remake (besides being worlds better)? It’s a double fantasy. Not only do we get to watch Arnold Schwarzenegger live out a fantasy of being a double agent on Mars with his “sleazy” sidekick – but filmgoers also get the fantasy of seeing Schwarzenegger (the biggest action star of the decade) as, in his own mind, a loser.
As Douglas Quaid, Schwarzenegger is a construction worker who is about eight times larger than his coworkers. He is married to a total 90s babe (Sharon Stone). But he can’t afford a trip to Mars and his wife doesn’t want to let him go. So he pays for a fantasy service to make himself believe he’s a spy hero on a mission with an 80s permed (and tougher) babe (Rachel Ticotin). Or does he?
Verhoeven, the magnificent satirist of American action films who, simultaneously, also directs great action movies, gives us many jokes about our fascination with the action film body. Including a woman with three boobs.
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28. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
If it’s good enough for Ron Swanson, it’s good enough for me. Nick Offerman’s “Parks and Recreation” character has only seen three movies, and this is the one he watches on his birthday. An all star cast (William Holden, Alec Guinness and more) play WWII POWS assigned to build a bridge for the Japanese, knowing all along that the Allies plan to destroy it. The epic POW drama is intense and the explosive conclusion is thrilling, but what lingers is the poignant statement about the “madness” of it all.
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27. The Dark Knight (2008)
Batman is the one superhero everyone has agreed to accept 100% as he is, no matter how silly those pointy ears are out of context. (And even in context, they're still a little absurd.) Christopher Nolan's second outing as a Batman director, The Dark Knight, takes the billionaire hero more seriously than ever before, placing him into a violent yet somehow plausible world in which his polar opposite - The Joker, played by an almost unbelievably good Heath Ledger - repeatedly demonstrates the fragility of society, forcing our hero to strive ever harder to solidify his position as a figure of infallibility and strength. That he can only defeat his enemy, in the end, by a disappointing moral compromise only shows just how complex a world of Batmen and killer clowns can be, and how effective a superhero can be at illustrating the difficult realities we face in a world without them.
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26. The Thing (1982)
There's nothing inherently manly about the story of John Carpenter's 1982 film The Thing (itself a remake of a 1954 Howard Hawks film), as it could be considered a boilerplate, low-budget alien invasion flick. Indeed, in the limp prequel-cum remake (remember that one?), the lead character was transformed into a young woman. What the Carpenter film offers in terms of manliness is its all-male setting. At a remote Antarctic outpost, a group of grumpy, hard-fisted males, locked in together in a chilly cabin, have to face off against a creature that can change its shape. This is not a film about understanding, togetherness, or teamwork. This is a film about anger, paranoia, and suspicion. It's about beards and fire and destruction. It's also one of the best suspense movies ever.
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25. First Blood (1982)
Sylvester Stallone has another movie on this list, and pretty much every movie he makes is about masculinity as an intellectual and emotional concept. John Rambo was a poignant figure, a Vietnam War veteran who returned only to be rejected at home too. This was 1982 so a little past massive anti-veteran protestors, but a small town sheriff (Brian Dennehy) arrests Rambo on phony charges, and when Rambo snaps in a POW flashback, he takes out the whole police force. (The “one man against an army” story is actually an effective precursor to Die Hard.) I think we’d all aspire to be as tough as Rambo, but maybe without the traumatic Vietnam War experience. Cleaning his own wounds, setting traps in the forests, and eating what would make a billy goat puke makes Rambo one of the all time great heroes.
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24. L.A. Confidential (1997)
One of the best films of the 1990s, Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential tells a hard-boiled tale of police corruption in 1950s Los Angeles with a degree of exacting complexity and intelligence that most cop movies don't even try for. The story is plenty complicated, but L.A. Confidential is more of a three-pronged character study, analyzing, through its three main characters, what can be considered the three levels of manhood. Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) is the intellect. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is the vain ego. Bud White (Russell Crowe) is the brutal id. This is a film that hates misogyny, but faces it through violence and murder. L.A. Confidential is about how the police once put on a clean and righteous face, but was as corrupt, evil, and violent as ever. Man oh man, do I love this movie.
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23. Predator (1987)
John McTiernan was almost too clever for his own good when he made Predator, a film about angry male impotence wrapped in muscles, mayhem and sci-fi wonder. Some of Predator's avid fans still haven't picked up on the metaphor. Arnold Schwarzenegger leads a team of badasses into the jungle on a clandestine mission, but they are hunted on the way back to the choppa by an invisible alien in search of the perfect hunting trophies. It ends in a spectacular battle between a mud-covered Schwarzenegger and a nearly unstoppable monster, but before that it's just scene after scene of perfect specimens of manliness getting ripped to shreds by a creature that reduces their egos to nothingness. The scene where our heroes unload thousands of rounds into the wilderness and only barely graze their prey is an on-the-nose illustration of male overcompensation, and the limited benefits that come from thinking with your gun, and not with your head.
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22. Aliens (1986)
The first Alien was an excellently atmospheric, slow-moving sci-fi horror movie about a near-indestructible creature. In its hugely different sequel, director James Cameron took that creature, multiplied it by about a hundred, and squared them off against a team of military toughs that are, in effect, truckers with guns. No longer a horror or sci-fi film, Aliens is resolutely action, through-and-through. And while we critics like to focus on the special effects of the flick (which are impressive) or its themes of motherhood (which are stretched), what really brings us back to Aliens is its, well, awesomeness. This is a film that is more about robots fighting monsters than it is about anything else. And a generation of boys look up to Aliens as one of the most awesomest movies ever made. No 11-year-old boy can see Aliens without being marked.
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21. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
“A boy and his terminator” is how they described the sequel to James Cameron’s real debut (Piranha II doesn’t count) and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s defining role. What boy wouldn’t want his very own robot? Young John Connor (Edward Furlong) even taught his terminator not to kill people, only to maim them, while protecting him from the T-1000 (Robert Patrick). The liquid metal killer was mind-blowing in 1991 and still holds up because of the creativity behind the visual effect. Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) bulked up to prepare for the impending nuclear holocaust and was perhaps the first time many of us saw a beautiful woman with muscles. It speaks to growing up, father figures, mother issues and more, but mainly T2 was just plain awesome.
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20. Raging Bull (1980)
While I do personally know women who enjoy the films of Martin Scorsese, he is most certainly a director who operates within the milieu of men most of the time. Scorsese has produced multiple masterpieces in his career, and will likely give us more. In 1980, he gave us one of the best films of that decade with Raging Bull, the true story of boxer Jake LaMotta, played by Robert De Niro. What Raging Bull does is let LaMotta – a dumb, callow brute – indulge in his every irresponsible whim and paranoid fantasy. LaMotta is not a good guy, but Raging Bull allows us to relate to him. And many of us men look at LaMotta, and we wish we were that tough and resolute, even as we shy away from his more irresponsible fits of rage. Raging Bull is awesome.
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19. The Road Warrior (1981)
Ladies, here's a secret about men: We all have fantasies about the world ending. We kind of want to see the world end. Why? Because once all the buildings are destroyed, and all of civilized society's rules crumble, we think we will be able to rise up, not beholden to any rules, as lords of the wasteland, creating cities according to our own rules. This is why boys like movies like The Road Warrior, still one of the best post-apocalypse movies ever made. In it, the world is now an endless desert, and surviving post-nuclear factions of dune-buggy-driving goons fight for dominance over the world's dwindling petrol supply. Mad Max (Mel Gibson) steps into this world to aid a peaceful community from a group of bandits. Some boys love imagining themselves to be Mad Max, but I think more of us gravitate to Lord Humungus, the mask-wearing leader of the bandits. We want to be a half-naked wasteland lord. Sorry. It's just part of who we are.
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18. RoboCop (1987)
Paul Verhoeven took one of the dumbest titles in movie history (Get it? He's a robot and a cop!) and transformed it into a broadly satiric, wildly violent, yet sincerely powerful tale of a man fighting to reclaim his identity from a corporation that thinks it owns him. Who among us hasn't felt like our job was taking over our lives? As Murphy, Peter Weller plays the family man idealist whose faith in authority is challenged, and then destroyed by the corruption of the rich and powerful who see little people as easily disposable pawns in a bigger, yet somehow shallower conflict for money and power. But you can't control a person unless they let you. As the cyborg property of big business, Robocop rebels against his masters like a Frankenstein's monster, but emerges as a hero for the people, who are all living through a similar, albeit less specific nightmare.
"What's your name, son?" "Murphy." Fuck yes.
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17. Point Break (1991)
Cops and robbers, surfers and skydivers. Who knew a high concept summer lark would become one of the all time guy movie classics? Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) goes undercover as a surfer to find a gang of masked bank robbers. He is taken in by Bodhi (Patrick Swayze), who turns out to be the leader of the Ex-Presidents. Always looking for a bigger thrill, they jump out of planes too. The conflicted bond between Bodhi and Utah, as well as Utah’s tragic partnership with Pappas (Gary Busey) is so powerful it fueled Hot Fuzz’s character dynamic’s over a decade later. Director Kathryn Bigelow crafted intense action and a timeless look at athletic male society that even a couch potato can love.
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16. The Great Escape (1963)
I don't know any males who don't like The Great Escape. It might be fair to say than most war pictures are intended to appeal to a male audience, but The Great Escape does us one better by combining the all-male world of WWII (seriously; there are literally no women in this film) and all the wartime angst implicated therein, combining it with an often-playful adventure film about men on a mission. For the film's first half, we see a group of soldiers – all known for being able to escape POW camps, all gathered in a single camp – resourcefully gathering what they need to tunnel out of a Nazi camp. It's not until the second half that the action turns serious. Wartime drama and little boy escape fantasy, all rolled into one enormously entertaining film.
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15. Goldfinger (1964)
Whether Goldfinger is the "best" James Bond movie is a matter of some debate, but it is almost inarguably "the" James Bond movie, the epitome of male swagger and over the top suave heroism that came to define the franchise in the decades that followed. As the world-travelling super spy, Sean Connery walks into every room like he knows exactly how to get out of it, and he has a ton of fun playing his enemies for saps. He drinks, he seduces, he fights, he defuses a nuclear bomb and even manages to sneak in a round of golf while he's at it. It's a miracle that the world gets saved at all, he's so busy being cool. But he inevitably gets the job done without sacrificing one moment of boyish fantasy fulfillment, stopping an absurd gold-obsessed mastermind from robbing Fort Knox with his army of sexy sirens. But men, be aware: this James Bond (and pretty much all the others) is disappointingly, sometimes painfully sexist. Don't let that be the part of the Bond fantasy that appeals to you.
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14. Jaws (1975)
Being a man doesn’t just mean providing for your family, as police chief Brody (Roy Scheider), does. It’s becoming the most capable of men in a crisis.
Brody fled the stress and threats of city policing by taking a post in a quiet town. But when a shark terrorizes the sleepy summer vacation spot, Brody has to man up. He has no scars to compare with Quint (Robert Shaw), the manliest of men, and Hooper (Richard Dreyfus), the most accomplished in his field. In fact, Brody can’t even tie a knot. But the thing about men who boast about scars is: they’re bound to lose a battle after tempting so many. So don’t rely on them. Be a man. Have your own plan of attack. Even if the manly men scoff at it.
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13. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Indiana Jones lives the life we’d like to live, going on exotic adventures finding mythological artifacts. His first adventure on screen remains a masterpiece of adventure cinema. Steven Spielberg crafted one of the greatest opening scenes of all time, and followed it up with perfectly crafted chase sequences. Archaeology professor Jones (Harrison Ford) is sent to locate the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis dig it up for Hitler. We love watching Indy beat up Nazis and the desert romance between him and Marion (Karen Allen).
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12. Heat (1995)
You can't stop a "real" man from doing his job, whether it's stopping criminals or committing crimes. Michael Mann's impressively slick, efficient and powerful saga of two "real" men - Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, who never appeared on screen together before this - is a tale of inevitability and tragedy on both sides of the world of crime. Both men watch as their private lives crumble in the wake of their responsibilities to their jobs, and find just a moment of solace with an enemy who, if nothing else, understands exactly where their nemesis is coming from. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, and in Heat Michael Mann does it just right.
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11. The Wild Bunch (1969)
There’s a lot of groupthink vs. solitary man discussion on this film list. What makes Sam Peckinpah’s neo-western great is that he focuses on a group of outlaws. In a genre that either saw outlaws as solitary rogues or hyah-hyah trail-of-dust followers of one awful leader, this bunch (William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates and Ben Johnson) are banded together by a strict outlaw code. They may steal and fire weapons, but they won’t stand by if someone’s being tortured or ridiculed.
Peckinpah was a Korean War vet and Bunch was released at the height of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. His outlaws take their stand against a war-mongering general. And the Bunch foolishly, sacrificially, go straight to his lair.
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10. The Dirty Dozen (1967)
No director could capture maleness better than Robert Aldrich (The Longest Yard, Kiss Me Deadly, The Flight of the Phoenix), and his 1967 war picture The Dirty Dozen is easily one of his most masculine (that he also directed queer-ish movies like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte is a discussion we can have later). I'm also having trouble thinking of an actor who was more assertively, blusteringly manly as Lee Marvin, who would blow his nose on some of the films on this very list for not being manly enough. In The Dirty Dozen, Marvin plays an Army general who is assigned to train convicted murderers to be soldiers and to engage in a high-stakes assassination mission. There's yelling, violence, and the lingering threat of death over it all. If that premise doesn't make your chest hair grow, I don't know what can.
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9. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1967)
Sergio Leone directed many classic westerns, all of which played up and melted down the idea of masculinity as an ideal in a frontier world of anger, vengeance and tragedy. But his masterpiece, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, seems to encapsulate all of his other films at once. A stoic do-sometimes-gooder (Clint Eastwood) and a seedy wretch with unexpected emotional depths (Eli Wallach) are searching for lost treasure when they're not trying to kill each other. A determined, despicable killer (Lee Van Cleef) is trying to stop them. Leone paints his epic against a canvas of brutalized men and women, the war-torn American frontier and the falsehoods the ugliest men believe to make themselves seem just a little less bad. This movie is impossibly good.
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8. Goodfellas (1990)
When Henry Hill (Christopher Serrone) gets busted for selling cigarettes, he doesn’t squeal on his smalltime superiors, he goes to jail. The older neighborhood men tell him he “busted his cherry.” His manhood is achieved by serving time and protecting those above him, which is the road to success and respect in gangsterdom.
The greatest (Martin Scorsese tracking shot) example of his success at gangster-manhood comes when grown Hill (Ray Liotta) takes his date, Karen (Lorraine Bracco), to a nightclub. They get to skip the line, head straight to the back and everyone toasts him along the way. Despite this air of importance, when Karen asks Henry what he does for a living, he says, “construction.” Hill chooses the manliest of jobs as his lie – but one that does not receive the level of respect that he just received. He’s a new breed of man, who wants the double benefits of also being perceived as a man’s man.
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7. Taxi Driver (1976)
Martin Scorsese's examination of the vilest recesses of the male imagination remains one of his most powerful films. Robert De Niro plays the title character, an ex-Marine whose job as a faceless chauffeur to the denizens of 1970s New York City makes him privy to the base desires and hangups of the people who surround him on all sides, making him incapable of relating to others except as a savior, a judge or a seemingly harmless perv. As Travis Bickle begins to arm himself for a battle against an enemy we're not sure exists, we see the desperation of the male ego. He will emerge as a man capable of changing this disgusting environment. Whether he succeeds is still up for interpretation, but what you decide to take away from Taxi Driver is the whole point. What was Travis Bickle? Who are you?
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6. Apocalypse Now (1979)
In groups, men respond to the masculinity they see in others. Once isolated, they’re more likely to process their own actions within groups. And in Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola’s detached Vietnam War opus, these men go mad when they’re alone.
We’re introduced to Captain Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen) while he’s on leave from the war. He beats up his hotel room and cries in bed about what he’d seen, what he’d done. Recomposed, he’s tasked to kill Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) who’s deemed, by the army, to have gone mad. Apocalypse Now is a fantastic movie with lots of themes. Most prominent is that men have difficulty acknowledging internal problems (in units, in minds). They treat everything like war: find the problem and kill it. It’s telling that whenever Willard, Kurtz or Chef (Frederic Forrest) move away from the other men in their unit, they lose control of all of their emotions.
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5. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Stanley Kubrick was one of the most male of directors. Not because he skewed toward machismo or male posturing (which he did do, albeit only occasionally; who can forget Alex DeLarge?), but because he was exacting, distant, and intellectual rather than emotional or relatable. In his wartime drama Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick dissects wartime training (perhaps more appropriately called conditioning), showing that the American military system is designed to perpetuate, encourage, and amplify all of the malekind's worst habits: R. Lee Ermey's indelible drill instructor barks at his charges, ordering them to be cold, violent, cruel, misogynist murderers who think with their genitals and their rifles (one is for fighting, one is for fun). It may be an ironic glorification of maleness, but Full Metal Jacket wears its Y chromosome on its sleeve.
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4. Die Hard (1988)
If, like me, you grew up in the ‘80s, Die Hard began as a fun ride. Decades later, after annual Christmas viewings, the layers and art of it become more resonant. NY cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) flies to California to attend his wife (Bonnie Bedelia)’s office Christmas party, and hopefully patch things up. When terrorists take over the building, McClane takes them out one by one and saves the day. Die Hard is such a masterpiece of suspense that you can tune in to any point midway through and feel the palpable tension. Director John McTiernan layered the set with visual cues to let us know on what floor the action was taking place. There’s a reason “Die Hard in a...” became a powerful formula, but Die Hard is also a reflection on male heroism. McClane even credits Gary Cooper in his taunts against Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman).
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3. Fight Club (1999)
It's ironic that so many men have rallied behind David Fincher's Fight Club, since his disdain for masculinity oozes off of every frame. Ed Norton plays an insomniac whose chance encounter with the charismatic, possibly villainous Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt, never better) sets off a chain reaction. They attract exclusively male followers who just want to beat each other senseless, and then take the world into the ring with them. Fight Club's cynical vivisection of the modern male - visually glorifying his testosterone-fueled fantasies while thematically damning him for his infantile, cult-like commitment to long outdated masculine ideals - is horrifying and seductive. It's the perfect cinematic expression of the self-destructive power we all have within us and are frequently, disappointingly tempted to use. Unleashing our might would be briefly glorious, but ultimately perverse.
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2. Rocky (1976)
Man, nobody understands the fragility of the male ego like Stallone. Every movie he makes is about a man just trying to do what he's gotta do. People may doubt him, women may not get him, but if he just works hard enough, he’ll at least go the distance. Rocky would have to be the ultimate example, although it's the theme of each of the sequels too. Local boxer Rocky Balboa (Stallone) gets a match with heavyweight champ Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) when the real contender falls through. Balboa is dangerous, working as muscle for the local loan sharks, but he has a good heart. Seriously, guys, pay attention to that ice skating date Rocky takes Adrian (Talia Shire) on. What Rocky lacks in his ability to block punches in the ring, he makes up for with his moves on the ladies.
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1. The Godfather (1972)
Francis Ford Coppola's peerless classic is often considered the best of all crime movies, the best movie of the 1970s, and even one of the best of all American films. And while my effete critical mind can easily stretch its legs on this one, delving happily into the grand, operatic, near-Shakespearean level of amazing tragedy that Coppola present to us, I also need to openly acknowledge that The Godfather is adored by dudes the world over for its hermetically sealed-off world of overwhelming maleness. This is a world that practically defines machismo for the modern urban male, displaying what the violence-comfortable entrepreneur can accomplish through murder and male-centric legacy. And the last thing to happen in The Godfather? We close a door on the woman's face. Women may love The Godfather, but this is a world of men. And it's one of the best movies of all time. So number one it shall be.
