Noah Baumbach has been an indie darling for almost twenty years. Ever since breaking onto the scene with 1995's Kicking and Screaming, the director and screenwriter has consistently cranked out bold, often weirdly funny movies that deal with relatable characters navigating challenging situations. Some of his works, like The Squid and the Whale, feel very accurate to real life. Others, like White Noise, are pitched a bit higher, to satiric effect.
Which of these Noah Baumbach movies is the best? Maybe you love the black-and-white comic angst of Frances Ha. Or perhaps your taste runs more toward the dark drama of Margot at the Wedding. If you're a documentary fan, you probably have a preference for De Palma. Look back through the filmmaker's works below and cast your votes for his greatest contributions to cinema.
- 123 VOTESPhoto: Netflix
Premise: Charlie Barber (Adam Driver) and his wife Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) are headed for divorce. She's left the NYC theater group he runs to take a TV job in Los Angeles, and that's just one of their problems. Charlie wants to keep the proceedings civil, but Nicole hires Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern), a shark of a lawyer who intends to win as much for her client as possible.
Why It's Worth Watching: The movie was nominated for six Academy Awards, including best picture. Driver and Johansson were both nominated in the lead acting categories. Dern won best supporting actress. Beyond awards, Marriage Story stands alongside Kramer vs. Kramer as one of the great films dealing with divorce.
Standout Moment: Charlie and Nicole have a blow-out fight. They say the most hurtful things possible to each other. It ends with Charlie dramatically punching a wall, wishing Nicole would die, and falling to the floor in tears. Despite his painful remarks, she attempts to comfort him.
Critical Reception: Marriage Story is one of the best-reviewed films of Baumbach's career. Jordan Hoffman of TV Guide summed up its powerful impact, writing that “The movie is 136 minutes, but the recovery period is, well, at least the rest of the night.” There weren't many pans, but one was written by Andy Crump of Paste, who felt it should have “pared down its fussy indulgences.”
- 221 VOTESPhoto: Samuel Goldwyn Films
Premise: Pretentious, floundering writer Bernard Berkman (Jeff Daniels) finds already existing tensions with wife Joan (Laura Linney) increasing when she gets published and makes a huge splash. As they divorce, each of their two sons, Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and Frank (Owen Kline), takes the side of a different parent.
Why It's Worth Watching: Excellent performances from the ensemble cast are a major highlight. So is the script, which insightfully explores the impact of divorce on children in a truthful, darkly funny way. Baumbach received an Oscar nomination for the screenplay.
Standout Moment: Walt, seeking attention and approval, performs the Pink Floyd song “Hey You” in his school's talent show. The crowd goes nuts, and he wins first prize… possibly because he also claims to have written the song himself.
Critical Reception: The Squid and the Whale was Baumbach's first massive critical success, with a majority of critics offering very positive reviews. The Washington Post's Desson Thomson said the film "feels like it was penned in the filmmaker's own blood." CinemaBlend's Lexi Feinberg was in the minority, dubbing it “a mixed bag of mediocrity.”
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- 322 VOTESPhoto: IFC Films
Premise: Aspiring dancer Frances Halladay (Greta Gerwig) lives in NYC with her best friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner). When Sophie announces that she's moving somewhere else with a different friend, Frances is thrown for a loop. Unable to afford the apartment on her own, she couch-hops for a while, then goes on a comedic journey of discovery, working odd jobs and trying to deal with what she perceives as Sophie's betrayal.
Why It's Worth Watching: By all accounts, this film marked Greta Gerwig's breakthrough acting role, thanks to her witty, charming, and hilariously neurotic lead performance. Stunning black-and-white photography - an homage to the French New Wave of cinema - sets the film apart from other indies. A (then) up-and-coming actor named Adam Driver has a supporting role.
Standout Moment: Frances alternately runs and dances down a Chinatown street while David Bowie's “Modern Love” blasts on the soundtrack. She does this joyously and without a shred of self-consciousness. Her spins through a crosswalk are especially impressive.
Critical Reception: Frances Ha was widely embraced by critics, including ScreenCrush's Matt Singer, who said it “has an endless supply of small but brilliant comic observations.” One of the few naysayers was Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News. He called the film “a well-meaning blunder.”
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- 420 VOTESPhoto: Paramount Vantage
Premise: Margot Zeller (Nicole Kidman), a dysfunctional short story writer, reluctantly travels with her son Claude (Zane Pais) to the wedding of her estranged sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh). It doesn't take long for her to wreak havoc, suggesting that Pauline might be slumming by marrying Malcolm (Jack Black), whose easygoing demeanor hides a raging temper. Before long, the family members are fighting and the wedding is in jeopardy.
Why It's Worth Watching: The casting of Kidman, Leigh, and Black is tantalizing. They all give incredible, emotionally detailed performances. The movie's portrait of a toxic woman spreading her toxicity creates plenty of juicy drama.
Standout Moment: Margot, Claude, Pauline, and Malcolm play what should be an innocuous game of croquet, but Malcolm proves unexpectedly competitive. When things don't go his way, he yells profanities and even throws his mallet. Meanwhile, Margot gets fed up with Claude's lack of seriousness, storming off and saying she hates games. The scene encapsulates the tension simmering underneath all of the wedding festivities.
Critical Reception: Reviews for Margot at the Wedding were mixed. The Hollywood Reporter called it a “wryly observed, giddily cringe-inducing, bracingly original winner," but Lou Lumenick of the New York Post quipped, “I've had root canals that were more enjoyable.”
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- 59 VOTESPhoto: Trimark Pictures
Premise: The story follows a group of friends who have recently graduated from college and are daunted by entering post-academic life. Chet (Eric Stoltz) continues to hang around campus, claiming to be working on a dissertation. Meanwhile, Grover (Josh Hamilton) is stunned to learn his girlfriend Jane (Olivia D'Abo) is actually following through on plans that will take her to another country.
Why It's Worth Watching: Kicking and Screaming astutely portrays that moment in life when you finish school and are dragged - kicking and screaming, as the title says - into the real world. Snappy dialogue generates a lot of laughs of recognition. The film also has winning performances from a cast of '90s up-and-comers, including Parker Posey. Anyone who felt scared after leaving college will relate.
Standout Moment: Grover learns that Jane has accepted a fellowship in Prague. He asks how that will work when she's living with him in Brooklyn. Her reply: "It'll be the same, except I'll be in Prague."
Critical Reception: Reviews were pretty evenly split down the middle. Newsweek's David Ansen called it “a smart and delicately rueful comedy,” but Barbara Shulgasser of the San Francisco Examiner wrote that “Baumbach fails to realize that too often movies about boring people are, well, boring.”
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- 616 VOTESPhoto: A24
Premise: Middle-aged couple Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia Srebnick (Naomi Watts) strike up an unlikely friendship with another couple, Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried), who are about 20 years younger. The Srebnicks enjoy recapturing a hint of their youth, especially Josh. They abandon their same-aged friends to hang out with the youngsters, only to discover some aspects of the two-decade age difference are impossible to overcome.
Why It's Worth Watching: Stiller, Watts, Driver, and Seyfried are quite an appealing combination. You don't get a cast much more impressive than that. Baumbach's trademark dialogue really benefits the story here, delivering lots of hilarious observations about hitting middle age and missing youth.
Standout Moment: A laugh-out-loud montage captures the generation gap between the couples. The younger couple veers toward old-school technology like VHS, vinyl records, and board games. The older couple, meanwhile, goes for modern stuff like DVDs, CDs, and apps. The point is that technology from a different generation often seems cooler or more romantic than stuff from one's own.
Critical Reception: Kenneth Turan of The Los Angeles Times was one of the many critics who heralded the movie, which he called “a delicious satire about aging hipsters and their discontents.” Slant's Christopher Gray was not as charitable, saying it was “frantic and wearisomely superficial.”
- 710 VOTESPhoto: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Premise: Tracy Fishko (Lola Kirke) is a freshman at Barnard College. When she has trouble adjusting, her mother suggests she reach out to Brooke (Greta Gerwig), who is about to become her step-sister. They form a bond, which later becomes strained when Brooke gets in debt, and when Tracy writes a short story inspired by Brooke that is less than complimentary. After these setbacks, the women have to determine if there's any way to maintain their relationship.
Why It's Worth Watching: Baumbach and Gerwig wrote the script together (long before Barbie) and it bears the hallmarks of their collaborations. The film has strong characterization, snappy dialogue, and shrewd thoughts about life.
Standout Moment: Brooke grouses about a friend who stole her red pants. This leads to a litany of other complaints about other friends, including one who stole her t-shirt idea and made a fortune off it. Meanwhile, Tracy rummages through Brooke's closet and attempts to be supportive. The sequence showcases their off-kilter chemistry perfectly.
Critical Reception: As with most of Baumbach's work, Mistress America was generally well-received. Tom Lang of the The Detroit News called it “thoughtful and real while consistently riotous.” Less enchanted was Seth Stevenson of Slate, who griped that “the script gets stagy, the jokes fall flat.”
- 87 VOTESPhoto: Lions Gate Films
Premise: Lester Grimm (Eric Stoltz), who has been skeptical about relationships ever since his teenage girlfriend cheated on him, is now an adult dating Ramona Ray (Annabella Sciorra). He grows envious upon learning her ex is Dashiell Frank (Chris Eigeman), a well-respected author. To surreptitiously learn more about her time with Dashiell, Lester joins the writer's therapy group under the assumed name of his friend Vince, not letting on their shared connection.
Why It's Worth Watching: Baumbach's confidence visibly grows in his second feature. The film is smartly written, with many insights into relationship insecurity. Stoltz gives a charming, funny performance in the lead role.
Standout Moment: During an encounter on the street outside the therapy room, Lester's cover is blown, Ramona learns he's been acting with duplicity, and Dashiell figures out Lester and Ramona know each other. On one hand, it's a masterfully comedic moment as all the characters' secrets are spilled. At the same time, Stoltz and Sciorra infuse the scene with genuine emotion.
Critical Reception: Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle wasn't a fan, calling Mr. Jealousy “a slight contrivance.” Josh Larsen of Larsen on Film was more charitable, showing appreciation for the story's lighter moments feeling like a “hilarious farce.”
- 91 VOTESPhoto: Netflix
Premise: In this adaptation of Don DeLillo's novel of the same name, Adam Driver plays college professor Jack Gladney. When a freak train accident sends a large toxic cloud floating over their town, Jack, his wife Babette (Gerta Gerwig), and their children try to make their way to a designated quarantine center. In the aftermath, Babette becomes addicted to a pill that supposedly cures the fear of death.
Why It's Worth Watching: DeLillo's book is notoriously complex, so it's interesting to see how Baumbach pares down its events and themes. An ace supporting cast includes Don Cheadle, Jodie Turner-Smith, and André Benjamin, AKA Outkast's André 3000. The subject matter additionally marks Baumbach trying a different, more exaggerated form of satire.
Standout Moment: It doesn't have anything to do with the proper plot, but White Noise contains a hall-of-fame closing credit sequence. All the story's prominent characters - and a couple dozen extras - carry out an elaborately choreographed musical number inside a supermarket, set to an LCD Soundsystem song written specifically for the soundtrack. It's seven minutes of visual bliss.
Critical Reception: Because of its wild ambition and eccentric tone, White Noise had a more mixed reception than much of Baumbach's other work. Writing for Rolling Stone, K. Austin Collins said the movie “is unsuccessful because its various energies eventually begin to feel mismeasured.” On the flip side, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian defended it as “a fascinating, invigorating spectacle.”
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- 104 VOTES
The Meyerowitz Stories
Photo: NetflixPremise: Harold Meyerowitz (Dustin Hoffman) is a respected sculptor and art professor whose lifetime of work is about to be celebrated at a big event in NYC. This brings together his dysfunctional adult children - Danny (Adam Sandler) and Matthew (Ben Stiller), two very different men who often clash. Family tensions emerge further when Harold becomes terminally ill.
Why It's Worth Watching: Baumbach puts together an all-star cast, which includes Emma Thompson, Adam Driver, and Candice Bergen. It's a treat to watch all of these titans share the screen, portraying the alternately humorous and bittersweet dysfunctional family dynamics Baumbach is so skilled at conveying.
Standout Moment: Danny and Matthew are on a college campus for the event honoring their dad. In the quad outside, Danny apologizes for not being a better brother. His apology slowly morphs into an airing of grievances against his brother. That, in turn, evolves into a series of resentments pouring from both guys. It ends with a physical fight, with the two wrestling on the ground like children.
Critical Reception: Anthony Lane of The New Yorker was one of the film's many admirers, declaring it to be “Baumbach's ripest and wisest film to date.” Countering that was The Playlist's Jessica Kiang, who thought that it “doesn’t resemble real life as much as it resembles other movies we’ve been fond of before.”
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- 110 VOTES
De Palma
Photo: A24Premise: Baumbach's sole excursion into documentary territory - which he co-directed with Jake Paltrow - is this in-depth examination of the work of one of his heroes, Brian De Palma. The famed director discusses his landmark works, which include Carrie, Blow Out, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, and The Untouchables.
Why It's Worth Watching: Brian De Palma has had a fascinating career made up of huge hits and notorious flops (remember The Bonfire of the Vanities?). He's a notoriously outspoken person, so he holds nothing back in discussing his work and the various receptions to it. The documentary offers wall-to-wall insights into a bold, risk-taking cinematic legend who does things his own way.
Standout Moment: In one of those moments that gets you imagining a whole other universe, De Palma reveals that he had a beef with good friend George Lucas in the '70s. De Palma was getting ready to shoot Carrie; Lucas was about to embark upon Star Wars. They were auditioning the same actors and were both interested in casting Carrie Fisher. Lucas won out, leading De Palma to cast Sissy Spacek, and the rest was history for everyone.
Critical Reception: Unsurprisingly given the subject matter, critics were almost unanimous in their celebration of De Palma. David Jenkins of Little White Lies expressed the positive sentiment shared by many reviews, calling the documentary “riveting and highly entertaining.” One of the few outliers was Noah Gittell of Washington City Paper, who felt it was “more of a visual IMDb page than a film.”
- 120 VOTESPhoto: Lions Gate Films
Premise: Newlyweds Travis (Christopher Reed) and Diane (Lauren Katz) want to have more socialization in their lives. To that end, they throw three parties over the course of a year - a birthday party, a Halloween party, and a New Year's Eve party. Their friends come, only to find things growing awkward and weird.
Why It's Worth Watching: Baumbach certainly assembled a cool cast, including frequent collaborator Eric Stoltz along with Justine Bateman, Ally Sheedy, Rae Dawn Chong, and famed director Peter Bogdanovich. Much of the film was shot in less than a week in 1997, but Baumbach abandoned the project; it was released on DVD in 2002 with his name removed. Given the unceremonious debut and relative obscurity of the movie, watching it contains an undeniable curiosity factor, especially for fans of the artists involved.
Standout Moment: During the first party, a magician (Dean Cameron) shows up to perform. His act consists of making silly faces and doing tricks that are not very impressive. For his grand finale, he accidentally lights himself on fire.
Critical Reception: Not many critics bothered to review Highball when it premiered on DVD. Only five reviews are posted at Rotten Tomatoes, where the film holds a 40% approval rating. The most noteworthy criticism comes from Baumbach himself, who told The AV Club that “we didn't have enough time, we didn't finish it, it didn't look good, it was just a whole… mess.”
- 131 VOTESPhoto: Focus Features
Premise: Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) is not a happy person. His music career failed to launch, and now he's working as a carpenter instead. When he agrees to house-sit for his brother, life looks up a little bit due to a friendship he develops with his brother's assistant, Florence (Greta Gerwig). As they bond, they help each other heal their respective emotional wounds.
Why It's Worth Watching: Stiller and Gerwig are a dream team, and supporting players Brie Larson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Ryhs Ifans sweeten the deal. The movie was a big player at the Independent Spirit Awards that year, earning four nominations including best feature.
Standout Moment: Roger and Florence take his brother's sick dog to the vet's office. They grow bored sitting in the waiting room, then try to decide which of them will approach the desk to see how long it will be before the animal is seen by a doctor. On the surface, not much is happening in this scene, but it perfectly captures the quirky vibe between the two characters. It's also the turning point where their relationship goes to the next level.
Critical Reception: Sight & Sound's Nicholas Rapold echoed the majority of critics when he called Greenberg “a great spectacle of toxic emotional stasis.” David Edelstein of New York Magazine was on the negative side, suggesting that “Greenberg would be a heckuva movie if we could just get Greenberg out of there.”
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