The films of Richard Linklater, ranked

A unique player from the 1990s independent film era, Richard Linklater perhaps never quite reached the ubiquitous directorial status of his peers like Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, Cameron Crowe, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Doug Liman. Yet he never vanished into obscurity either, like other beloved '90s directors (Abel Ferrara, Allan Moyle, and Whit Stillman, for instance). Instead, Linklater has remained a stalwart of non-mainstream cinema for decades.

The director's career is practically upside down. His big-budget films tend to be his worst efforts, falling flat when he signs on to direct noteworthy movie stars or adapts popular source material. Same goes for his scripts, where the more the plot drives the story, the more Linklater loses his singular, authentic vision of human ties and triumphs. So, inversely, Linklater is America's arthouse king because he shines the brightest when the stakes appear to be the lowest. Give him a few talented (but not too famous) actors, a character-driven story with a handful of locations, and pages of true-to-life dialogue, and Linklater will (more often than not) alchemize a masterpiece.

Below is a ranking of his 21 narrative features thus far (documentaries, shorts, and TV work not included). Scroll down to find out what tops EW's list of Linklater's best movies, ranked.

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21. It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988)

Richard Linklater in 'It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books' (1988). The Criterion Collection

It is almost unfair to list this film because it is only available as a special feature on the Criterion Collection DVD/Blu-ray of Slacker (1990), despite the fact that the two movies have nothing in common beyond Linklater's direction. It's an ultra-low-budget first feature film from a director who would later blossom into one of the best creatives in the industry, making it more of an artifact than a cohesive entity.

A nearly wordless, plotless, 86-minute feature, It's Impossible follows a young man as he travels by train across America. Linklater wrote, directed, shot, edited, and starred in the film, on a budget of $3,000. But it's honestly not worth finding unless you're a Linklater completist or a diehard fan.

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20. SubUrbia (1996)

Jayce Bartok and Parker Posey in 'SubUrbia' (1996). Sony Pictures/Everett Collection

A classic 1990s subgenre — kids hanging out and complaining about life — SubUrbia is an also-ran in a stacked field of movies about lost young adults. The cynicism of the source material (a play by Eric Bogosian) is a bad fit for Linklater's laid-back aesthetic. This is a dark and disturbing script that, circa 1996, would have been better handled by Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream) or David Fincher (Fight Club).

Nearly all of Linklater's movies have a reluctant hopefulness with a layer of nostalgia at their core, but his direction here never fully taps into the dismay of these characters. It is almost as if he doesn't want to spend much time with them, and, in turn, neither do we. All the actors here (Giovanni Ribisi, Parker Posey, Steve Zahn, and Nicky Katt) act their hearts out, but the end result is forgettable. Far better — and far lighter — movies exist in this genre: See Kevin Smith's '90s output, Ben Stiller's Reality Bites (1994), or Doug Liman's Swingers (1996), to name just a few.

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19. Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019)

Cate Blanchett in "Where'd You Go, Bernadette' (2019). Wilson Webb/Annapurna Pictures

A best-selling novel, an A-list cast (Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, Laurence Fishburne, Kristen Wiig), and a talented director should have been a slam dunk. Yet, Linklater couldn't score. This is a plot-driven film — a wealthy woman goes on an adventure to find herself and reconnect with her creative passions — that never takes off, in part because Linklater is the wrong director for this material. His natural and unfussy visual aesthetic comes off as flat and uninteresting here.

He is a great director of actors with a keen ear for dialogue, but when he has to keep the engine of the plot moving, Linklater seems bored, and it shows. This should have been a rousing emotional film along the lines of 2010's Eat Pray Love, yet Where'd You Go, Bernadette instead comes off thin and twee.

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18. Fast Food Nation (2006)

Luis Guzmán in 'Fast Food Nation' (2006). Matt Lankes/Fox Searchlight

Eric Schlosser's 2001 nonfiction book Fast Food Nation — an examination of consumer culture, food systems, and advertising in America — makes you question all your life choices. Meanwhile, Linklater's adaptation — a star-studded, narrative feature film — only makes you question why you watched it in the first place.

The choice to fictionalize Schlosser's journalism robs the story of its true impact by muddying the factual waters. It's a mismatch of directorial vision and hard-and-fast material, resulting in a film that — despite Linklater's attempts at lightheartedness and an all-star cast including Greg Kinnear, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Luis Guzmán, and Bruce Willis — is never truly enjoyable to watch. If Linklater wanted to turn Schlosser's book into a movie, he would have been better off making a documentary.

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17. Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022)

Milo Coy as Stan in 'Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood' (2022). Netflix

It's hard to tell who Apollo 10½ is for. This adult animated film (a combination of hand-drawn animation and rotoscoping) with a child protagonist and far-fetched, kids-movie stakes is also a slow — though charming — nostalgia trip through 1960s Texas.

The plot centers on a child who is plucked from suburbia for a secret mission to the moon, but the movie spends much of its runtime wandering through Houston, examining this moment in history from a street-level view. While the Saturday morning-style animation gives this good-natured story some rosy retrospection, and the voice acting is universally great (Jack Black, in particular), it feels a tad too dull for children and inconsequential for adults.

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16. Last Flag Flying (2017)

Laurence Fishburne, Steve Carrell, and Bryan Cranston in "Last Flag Flying' (2017). Wilson Webb/Amazon

There are some wonderfully tender and funny moments in Last Flag Flying, a downbeat film about three Vietnam vets (Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston, and Laurence Fishburne) who reunite to bury one of their sons, a marine killed in action in Iraq. But Linklater is a tad out of his depth as he struggles to marry his anti-establishment tendencies with the complex dynamic between veteran and country.

The results are a sloppy mix of moralistic speeches and patriotic pablum, interwoven with thoughtful scenes of friendship, and wrapped in a story EW's critic deemed both "maddeningly withholding and frustratingly obvious."

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15. Bad News Bears (2005)

Ridge Canipe and Marcia Gay Harden in 'Bad News Bears' (2005). Deana Newcomb/Paramount

This film is Linklater's biggest swing for the mainstream fences — and one of his biggest misses. It's a remake of the 1976 classic about a hard-luck little league baseball team and their cantankerous coach that should have been a good fit for Linklater's childhood-loving, nostalgic vibe. But the script isn't family-friendly enough ("In the first movie, he takes [the kids] to get hot dogs. In this one, he takes 'em to a Hooters," Linklater told EW in 2005), and the adaptation hews too closely to the original without spawning something notable and new.

As a former baseball player himself, Linklater could have given this story a more lived-in, true-to-life aura, but his work here feels generic. In the end, this is a studio-made remake of existing intellectual property and not a Linklater film. So, despite another great disgruntled turn by Billy Bob Thornton as the coach, this Bad News Bears is never as winning as the original.

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14. Tape (2001)

Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke in 'Tape' (2001). Lions Gate/Everett Collection

This experimental film stars a live-wire (and frequent Linklater collaborator) Ethan Hawke, a tightly-coiled Robert Sean Leonard, and a sensitive Uma Thurman as three high school friends who reunite for one fateful evening to confront their past mistakes.

Linklater succeeds in making the film's one location feel claustrophobic and tense while never veering into stage play territory, but the story itself is uneven, whiplashing between gritty realism and afterschool special. Yet, beneath it all, Linklater, Hawke, Leonard, and Thurman are all so dialed in that they manage to make it all work. In the end, however, this is a low-budget drama that was sadly shot on an obsolete medium, with the rough edges of early-2000s digital video and less-than-satisfactory sound serving as constant distractions.

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13. The Newton Boys (1998)

Ethan Hawke and Matthew McConaughey in 'The Newton Boys' (1998). 20th Century Fox/Everett Collection

Leave it to Linklater to make a crime film about non-violent bank robbers. The Newton Gang were four brothers who robbed banks in Texas in the early 20th century and salvaged their consciences with the knowledge that the insurance companies would pay the banks back.

But that nuance wasn't enough to buoy the overall film, as Linklater again struggled to score at the box office or with critics. Despite great chemistry between stars Matthew McConaughey, Ethan Hawke, Skeet Ulrich, and Vincent D'Onofrio, The Newton Boys is a crime film without much tension that devolves into a hangout picture without the humor or wit of his better, well, hangout pictures.

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12. Me and Orson Welles (2008)

Christian McKay and Zac Efron in 'Me and Orson Welles' (2009). Liam Daniel/Freestyle

EW's initial review was right on the money when our critic said, "There's one great reason to see the movie, and that's Christian McKay's performance as Welles." Sadly, the rest of the movie doesn't live up to his performance. A low-stakes period drama set during Welles' 1937 theatrical production of Caesar, the film also stars a low-wattage Zac Efron as a new, young actor who falls for the theater's secretary (Claire Danes).

The pacing is slow, the chemistry between Efron and Danes is non-existent, and Linklater's direction frankly struggles to capture the energy of live theater. The last line of EW's review says it all, "Me and Orson Welles has so little fire that Welles himself would have wondered out loud what he was doing stuck in the middle of it."

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11. Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)

Temple Baker, Blake Jenner, and Glen Powell in 'Everybody Wants Some!!' (2016). Van Redin

A spiritual cousin of Dazed and Confused (1993) — in that they both are semi-autobiographical for Linklater — Everybody Wants Some!! follows a group of baseball players in 1980 on their first day of college. But unlike the far superior Dazed — which tapped into the more universal experience of high school — it never comes together into anything more than a nostalgic look at white, middle-class, early-1980s college life.

While not a bad film by any means, it lacks the acting talent, the pitch-perfect dialogue, and the insights into human existence that Linklater's better films possess. "If you step back and think about it too much, Linklater's movie is really just two hours of spying on a bunch of goofy guys bonding and partying," says EW's review. "So maybe the best way to watch it is to not take that step back and think about it at all, and just let the good times roll."

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10. Bernie (2011)

Jack Black in 'Bernie' (2011). Deana Newcomb/Millennium

In the hands of another director, Bernie could have easily been a dark, twisted, and violent crime film. Instead, Linklater turned this true crime story into the tender-hearted, horrendously funny story of a quirky Texas town.

Jack Black shines as a kind, beloved mortician who befriends a much-hated local millionaire only to snap and kill her. Black stars opposite a toxically funny Shirley MacLaine and an always laid-back Matthew McConaughey in a film that never found a wide audience, but absolutely deserves one for its dark comedic brilliance and Black's career-best performance. Loved by those who have seen it, Bernie ranks among the best of Linklater's efforts.

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9. A Scanner Darkly (2006)

Keanu Reeves in 'A Scanner Darkly' (2006). Warner Bros.

Like many Philip K. Dick adaptations, A Scanner Darkly feels more relevant today than ever, being a rotoscoped, drug-induced trip through a paranoid and politically unnerved world. Set in the not-too-distant future, this film follows an undercover cop on his journey through a totalitarian state as he investigates a new, mind-altering and brain-damaging drug. With each new clue, the line between truth and fiction fades until we find ourselves in a reality not too unlike the conspiracy-riddled world of today's internet culture.

Starring Keanu Reeves, a pre-Iron Man Robert Downey Jr., and an always-game Woody Harrelson, A Scanner Darkly is a fun film that manages to be at turns tense, goofy, and prophetic.

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8. Waking Life (2001)

Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke in 'Waking Life' (2001). Fox Searchlight

Every stoner armchair philosopher's favorite film, Waking Life is the best instance of Linklater's rotoscoping, creating a dreamlike world that is neither fantasy nor reality. The film follows a young man (Wiley Wiggins) through his lucid dream as he meets many different people and discusses the meaning of life, the universe, and existence.

With down-right trippy visuals and a non-stop parade of existential questions, it would make for a great double feature with Linklater's earlier classic Slacker (see below). Waking Life feels deep while you are watching it, but — like all good trips — the film ultimately leaves you with more questions than answers (and is best viewed if you are in an altered state yourself).

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7. Slacker (1990)

'Slacker' (1991). Orion Pictures/Everett Collection

There was no sophomore slump for Linklater with this second feature film, which kicked off his career, premiering to rave reviews at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival and earning a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize.

Influenced by Robert Bresson's L'Argent (1983), Slacker bounces through town following the next interesting person to cross the frame in a daisy chain of oddballs and misfits. Imminently rewatchable (especially if you're in the mood for meeting new people from the comfort of your sofa) Slacker is a time capsule of late-1980s Austin, a love letter to the city, and an enduring classic of American independent cinema.

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6. School of Rock (2003)

Jack Black and Kevin Alexander Clark in 'School of Rock' (2003). Paramount/Everett Collection

By far Linklater's most successful mainstream film and his biggest box-office hit, grossing over $131 million worldwide, School of Rock is a non-stop blast. Jack Black stars as an out-of-work rock musician who fakes his way into a substitute teaching gig only to transform the students into a rock band.

Rambunctiously funny with an always-beating heart, School of Rock is one of the best pairings of comedian and material since early Jim Carrey, a winning family film that is just as quotable as Linklater's other youthful efforts — but with far less underage drug use.

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5. Dazed and Confused (1993)

Rory Cochrane and Matthew McConaughey in 'Dazed and Confused' (1993). Everett Collection

Riding a wave of bong water through video rental stores in the 1990s, Dazed and Confused is a quintessential cult classic that introduced us to many soon-to-be-famous actors (Ben Affleck, Mathew McConaughey, Parker Posey, Cole Hauser, Milla Jovovich, Adam Goldberg, Anthony Rapp, Joey Lauren Adams, and more). What makes Dazed and Confused a permanent fixture in the zeitgeist is its kaleidoscopic look at the end of high school, never just focusing on any one clique, but, instead, daring to try and capture them all. And, yes, potheads may think this is purely a stoner film, but everyone feels like they own a piece of this movie.

From jocks to nerds, cheerleaders to shy kids, Dazed captures the universality of being a young person on the cusp of truly entering the world, whether you're actualized or not. As a film made in the '90s about the '70s, there are several elements that haven't aged well (See McConaughey's oft-quoted line about high school girls, for instance). But with dialogue this authentic, actors who are perfectly cast, and a wandering camera that manages to stitch it all together, Dazed remains one of Linklater's best movies — and one of the most iconic independent films of the 1990s.

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4. Before Midnight (2013)

Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke in 'Before Midnight' (2013). Despina Spyrou/Sony Pictures Classics

The Before trilogy is both one story and three films. It follows two people, played by the same actors, across decades. Each is spaced and shot nine years apart, creating a truly original, daring saga — and it may just be the most honest look at love to have ever graced the screen. As one story, it would easily top this list and any list of best romances in film history. But since it's composed of three separate films, one must be the lowest, and Before Midnight gets that unceremonious distinction.

Eighteen years since they met on a train (Before Sunrise), and nine years after their fateful reconnection in Paris (Before Sunset), Jesse and Céline (the ever-magnetic Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) now find themselves middle-aged, married, and in Greece for yet another fateful night, struggling to understand what has happened to their lives, their youth, and their love. Before Midnight reflects on the complicated nature of their love and past moments of infidelity, allowing these two characters to age into the couple they have unwillingly become, wrinkles and all. As part of a triptych where we literally watch their relationship evolve through the years, Before Midnight is essential viewing and a powerful, honest coda to a decades-long love affair between Jesse and Céline.

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3. Boyhood (2014)

Ellar Coltrane in 'Boyhood' (2014). Matt Lankes/IFC Films

For concept and execution alone, Boyhood rightly belongs in the annals of film history. This is Linklater's most acclaimed film by far, earning five Golden Globe nominations, winning Best Drama, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress (Patricia Arquette); five BAFTAs, winning Best Director and Best Film; and six Oscar nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress (Arquette).

Following one boy from first through 12th grade, Boyhood was filmed for a couple of weeks each summer for 12 years with a steadfast cast. The same actors returned year after year to build this beautiful look at the passage of time in a single family, starring Ethan Hawke, Arquette, and then-unknown Ellar Coltrane as Mason, our human portrait of childhood, adolescence, and near-adulthood. While it might not be as rewatchable as Linklater's other top features, Boyhood captures a life, yet remains a work of fiction, sneaking up on you and showcasing the true magic of growing up. That is a staggering achievement — and one that remains unrivaled in cinema.

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2. Before Sunset (2004)

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in 'Before Sunset' (2004). Emilie De La Hosseraye/Warner Indie

The rare great sequel, Before Sunset is the most well-structured of the three films in the Before trilogy, taking place (and was shot) nine years after Jesse and Céline's beautiful meeting in Vienna. Now, an unhappily married Jesse has written a novel about that night and is in Paris for the last stop of his European book tour. With only hours before he has to catch his flight back to America, Jesse looks up to find Céline standing in the back of the bookshop. As the two catch up, the giant question mark left by the ending of the first film is finally answered, and the two realize that there is still so much they want to say to each other.

Every element of this seemingly meandering, low-stakes film is laid out perfectly — almost invisibly — in the film's first half. Then before you know it, the film has trapped you. The ticking clock turns this story into a heart-stopping will-they-or-won't-they that keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very last shot. And the only reason this film doesn't rank one spot higher is because the true depth and beauty of this story is only fully appreciated when you've already seen Before Sunrise.

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1. Before Sunrise (1995)

Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke in 'Before Sunrise' (1995). Everett Collection

In the gentle hands of Richard Linklater, a simple story — boy meets girl on a train and they spend a night together in Vienna — transforms into an awe-inspiring opus on falling in love. Linklater's direction has never been better, leaning into simplicity in a film mostly composed of long takes of two strangers walking and talking. The director never draws attention to the length of the take or the complicated nature of the shots. He chooses, instead, to allow the technical aspects to disappear in service to the story. What he achieves then is a remarkable synthesis of directing style and story that puts a spell on the audience, allowing you to fall in love right along with Jesse and Céline.

But the true beauty of Before Sunrise lies in its mise en scène. The universal truth of falling in love for the first time is that you feel as if you are the only two people in the entire world. Linklater imbues every frame of this film with that very feeling. Many lesser directors would have populated the frame with people, wrongly believing that production value is the same as narrative value. Rather, Linklater's Vienna is a sleepy town whose villagers are few and who all politely disappear as the night goes on, until we are left with only our two lovers. And perhaps, for a night, they are all there is anywhere. Far more than a time capsule, Before Sunrise is a true classic — and the beginning of one of the greatest depictions of love ever put to film.

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