The 41 Best Sony Pictures Classics Films

Palme d'Or winners, Oscar darlings and quiet documentaries share the same distributor's shelf. Subtitles optional, strong opinions guaranteed.

1. 1
   Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

   Ang Lee's 2000 wuxia epic that turned martial-arts fantasy into an Oscar-winning global hit.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Whiplash

   A 2014 drama about a young jazz drummer and his terrifying conservatory teacher.
   959pts
3. 3
   Waltz with Bashir

   A 2008 animated documentary in which an Israeli director pieces together his lost memories of the 1982 Lebanon war.
   801pts
4. 4
   Crumb

   A 1994 documentary portrait of underground cartoonist Robert Crumb and his troubled family.
   624pts
5. 5
   Parallel Mothers

   Almodóvar's 2021 drama about two women who give birth on the same night.
   624pts
6. 6
   Persepolis

   A 2007 animated adaptation of Marjane Satrapi's memoir of growing up during the Iranian Revolution.
   624pts
7. 7
   Mr. Turner

   Mike Leigh's 2014 portrait of the final decades of painter J. M. W. Turner.
   624pts
8. 8
   All About My Mother

   Almodóvar's 1999 melodrama about a mother who travels to Barcelona after her son's death.
   577pts
9. 9
   Talk to Her

   Almodóvar's 2002 drama about two men caring for women in comas.
   577pts
10. 10
    Winged Migration

    A 2001 nature documentary that flies alongside migrating birds across the globe.
    523pts
11. 11
    Wadjda

    A 2012 Saudi drama about a young girl determined to buy a bicycle.
    523pts
12. 12
    A Fantastic Woman

    A 2017 Chilean drama about a trans woman confronting prejudice after her partner's death.
    461pts
13. 13
    A Separation

    A 2011 Iranian drama about a couple's divorce that spirals into a legal and moral dispute, and Iran's first Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film.
    461pts
14. 14
    Rachel Getting Married

    A 2008 family drama set around a wedding weekend, with Anne Hathaway as a recovering addict.
    461pts
15. 15
    Leviathan

    A 2014 Russian drama about a man fighting corrupt local officials over his family home.
    461pts
16. 16
    Howards End

    A 1992 Merchant Ivory adaptation of E. M. Forster's novel about class and property in Edwardian England.
    461pts
17. 17
    Amour

    Michael Haneke's 2012 drama about an elderly couple facing one partner's decline.
    390pts
18. 18
    Still Alice

    A 2014 drama about a linguistics professor diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, earning Julianne Moore an Oscar.
    390pts
19. 19
    Before Midnight

    The 2013 third chapter of Richard Linklater's romance series with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.
    390pts
20. 20
    I'm Still Here

    A 2024 Brazilian drama about a mother's search for answers after her husband's disappearance under the dictatorship.
    390pts
21. 21
    Lagaan

    A 2001 Bollywood epic about villagers in colonial India who stake their taxes on a cricket match.
    390pts
22. 22
    Volver

    Almodóvar's 2006 comedy-drama about women in a Spanish family haunted by the past.
    390pts
23. 23
    A Prophet

    A 2009 French prison drama about a young inmate who rises through the ranks of a criminal network.
    390pts
24. 24
    Inside Job

    A 2010 documentary that dissects the causes of the 2008 financial crisis.
    390pts
25. 25
    The Fog of War

    A 2003 documentary built around Errol Morris interviewing former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.
    390pts
26. 26
    Toni Erdmann

    A 2016 German comedy about a prankster father who crashes his daughter's corporate life.
    307pts
27. 27
    Capote

    A 2005 biopic following Truman Capote as he researches In Cold Blood, anchored by an Oscar-winning Philip Seymour Hoffman.
    307pts
28. 28
    The Lives of Others

    A 2006 German thriller about a Stasi officer who surveils a playwright in East Berlin.
    307pts
29. 29
    Foxcatcher

    A 2014 true-crime drama about the Olympic wrestlers and the eccentric millionaire who funded them.
    307pts
30. 30
    The Triplets of Belleville

    A 2003 hand-drawn French animation about a grandmother, her dog and a kidnapped cyclist.
    307pts
31. 31
    The Father

    A 2020 drama that puts the viewer inside the mind of a man losing his memory, with an Oscar-winning Anthony Hopkins.
    307pts
32. 32
    Welcome to the Dollhouse

    Todd Solondz's 1995 dark comedy about a miserable middle-school outcast.
    307pts
33. 33
    The Lunchbox

    A 2013 Indian romance between two strangers who exchange notes through a misdelivered lunchbox.
    307pts
34. 34
    Pain and Glory

    Pedro Almodóvar's 2019 semi-autobiographical drama about an aging director looking back on his life.
    210pts
35. 35
    Blue Jasmine

    Woody Allen's 2013 drama about a fallen New York socialite, which won Cate Blanchett an Oscar.
    210pts
36. 36
    Jodorowsky's Dune

    A 2013 documentary about Alejandro Jodorowsky's legendary unmade adaptation of Dune.
    210pts
37. 37
    Call Me by Your Name

    A 2017 romance set in Italy about a summer love between a teenager and his father's research assistant.
    210pts
38. 38
    Son of Saul

    A 2015 Hungarian Holocaust drama shot in tight close-up on a prisoner working in Auschwitz.
    0pts
39. 39
    Midnight in Paris

    Woody Allen's 2011 comedy in which a writer finds himself drifting back to the 1920s every midnight.
    0pts
40. 40
    The Band's Visit

    A 2007 comedy-drama about an Egyptian police orchestra stranded in an Israeli desert town.
    0pts
41. 41
    Searching for Sugar Man

    A 2012 documentary about the search for Rodriguez, a forgotten Detroit singer who became a star in South Africa.
    0pts

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