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The 18 Best Films About American Suburbia

By YPB Team

Eighteen films that treat the cul-de-sac as a crime scene, a punchline or a haunted house, depending on who is holding the camera. Rank them and see what your neighbours think.

  1. Blue Velvet — ranked #11
    Blue Velvet
    David Lynch's 1986 mystery that starts with a severed ear found in a quiet neighbourhood field.
    1000pts
  2. American Beauty — ranked #22
    American Beauty
    Sam Mendes's 1999 Best Picture winner about a father unravelling behind a tidy suburban front lawn.
    889pts
  3. Pleasantville — ranked #33
    Pleasantville
    A 1998 fantasy in which two teenagers land inside a black-and-white 1950s sitcom town.
    694pts
  4. The Ice Storm — ranked #44
    The Ice Storm
    Ang Lee's 1997 drama following two Connecticut families through a 1973 Thanksgiving weekend.
    630pts
  5. The Stepford Wives — ranked #55
    The Stepford Wives
    A 1975 thriller about a photographer who notices the local women are all impossibly content.
    621pts
  6. Safe — ranked #66
    Safe
    Todd Haynes's 1995 film about a San Fernando Valley housewife who becomes allergic to her own environment.
    621pts
  7. Donnie Darko — ranked #77
    Donnie Darko
    A 2001 cult film about a sleepwalking teenager, a jet engine and a man in a rabbit suit.
    555pts
  8. Edward Scissorhands — ranked #88
    Edward Scissorhands
    Tim Burton's 1990 fable dropping an unfinished creation into a street of pastel houses.
    555pts
  9. A Serious Man — ranked #99
    A Serious Man
    The Coen brothers' 2009 film about a physics professor in a 1967 Minnesota subdivision losing everything at once.
    555pts
  10. Ordinary People — ranked #1010
    Ordinary People
    Robert Redford's 1980 Best Picture winner about a wealthy family failing to speak after a son's death.
    481pts
  11. Far from Heaven — ranked #1111
    Far from Heaven
    Todd Haynes's 2002 melodrama about a 1957 Connecticut housewife whose marriage and friendships break along race and sexuality.
    481pts
  12. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial — ranked #1212
    E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
    Steven Spielberg's 1982 film about a stranded alien hidden in a California tract house.
    481pts
  13. Little Children — ranked #1313
    Little Children
    Todd Field's 2006 drama about adultery, shame and a registered sex offender in a New England suburb.
    397pts
  14. The Graduate — ranked #1414
    The Graduate
    Mike Nichols's 1967 comedy about a graduate drifting between a pool, a party and Mrs Robinson.
    397pts
  15. Halloween — ranked #1515
    Halloween
    John Carpenter's 1978 horror film that put a masked killer on an ordinary Illinois sidewalk.
    397pts
  16. The Virgin Suicides — ranked #1616
    The Virgin Suicides
    Sofia Coppola's 1999 debut about five sisters watched from across a Michigan street.
    299pts
  17. Revolutionary Road — ranked #1717
    Revolutionary Road
    A 2008 adaptation of Richard Yates's novel about a 1950s couple suffocating on a Connecticut street.
    299pts
  18. Poltergeist — ranked #1818
    Poltergeist
    A 1982 horror film about a planned community built on ground the developers should have left alone.
    185pts

#movies653#usa310#classics482#suburbia1

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