The 27 Best Modern Black-and-White Films

Monochrome by choice, not by age: shot in the era of color and still worth the contrast. Festival darlings, studio epics and shoestring oddities share one palette.

1. 1
   Schindler's List

   Steven Spielberg's 1993 Holocaust drama shot in stark black and white, with one girl in red as its only color.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Mank

   David Fincher's 2020 look at the writing of Citizen Kane, styled like a 1940s studio picture.
   943pts
3. 3
   Roma

   Alfonso Cuarón's 2018 semi-autobiographical portrait of a domestic worker in 1970s Mexico City.
   900pts
4. 4
   C'mon C'mon

   Mike Mills' 2021 gentle road movie about a radio journalist traveling with his young nephew.
   877pts
5. 5
   Satantango

   Bela Tarr's seven-hour 1994 epic about a collapsing farm collective in rural Hungary.
   771pts
6. 6
   The Artist

   A 2011 silent homage to Hollywood's transition to sound, which won the Best Picture Oscar.
   771pts
7. 7
   Ida

   Pawel Pawlikowski's 2013 Polish drama about a novice nun who uncovers her family's wartime past.
   692pts
8. 8
   Belfast

   Kenneth Branagh's 2021 coming-of-age story set in Northern Ireland at the start of the Troubles.
   692pts
9. 9
   Dead Man

   Jim Jarmusch's 1995 hallucinatory Western following a doomed accountant played by Johnny Depp.
   692pts
10. 10
    The White Ribbon

    Michael Haneke's 2009 chilling study of a German village before the First World War.
    692pts
11. 11
    Good Night, and Good Luck

    George Clooney's 2005 drama of Edward R. Murrow's broadcast stand against Senator McCarthy.
    600pts
12. 12
    A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

    Ana Lily Amirpour's 2014 Persian-language vampire western set in a ghostly Iranian town.
    600pts
13. 13
    Ed Wood

    Tim Burton's 1994 biopic of the endearingly hopeless cult director, starring Johnny Depp.
    491pts
14. 14
    Nebraska

    Alexander Payne's 2013 road movie about a stubborn old man convinced he has won a million dollars.
    491pts
15. 15
    The Lighthouse

    Robert Eggers' 2019 two-hander about two keepers sliding into madness on a remote island.
    491pts
16. 16
    The Man Who Wasn't There

    The Coen brothers' 2001 noir about a quiet barber whose small scheme goes badly wrong.
    491pts
17. 17
    Following

    Christopher Nolan's 1998 low-budget debut about a young writer who trails strangers around London.
    491pts
18. 18
    Frances Ha

    Noah Baumbach's 2012 comedy about a drifting young dancer in New York, starring Greta Gerwig.
    491pts
19. 19
    Pi

    Darren Aronofsky's 1998 grainy paranoid thriller about a mathematician hunting for patterns in numbers.
    491pts
20. 20
    Cold War

    Pawel Pawlikowski's 2018 love story of two musicians across decades of Cold War Europe.
    491pts
21. 21
    Coffee and Cigarettes

    Jim Jarmusch's 2003 collection of deadpan conversations over, yes, coffee and cigarettes.
    491pts
22. 22
    Persepolis

    A 2007 animated memoir of growing up during the Iranian revolution, drawn in stark monochrome.
    360pts
23. 23
    The Tragedy of Macbeth

    Joel Coen's 2021 stripped-back Shakespeare adaptation with Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand.
    360pts
24. 24
    The Turin Horse

    Bela Tarr's 2011 austere, hypnotic final film about six days in a farmhouse.
    360pts
25. 25
    Clerks

    Kevin Smith's 1994 microbudget comedy about one long day behind a convenience store counter.
    0pts
26. 26
    La Haine

    Mathieu Kassovitz's 1995 raw drama of three friends in a Paris banlieue over a single day.
    0pts
27. 27
    Frankenweenie

    Tim Burton's 2012 stop-motion tale of a boy who revives his dead dog.
    0pts

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