# What is the best Richard Linklater movie?

> One director, three decades, and a filmography that swings from a twelve-year experiment to a rock comedy for kids. Ranking it is the hard part.

*By YPB Team · Published September 13, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-richard-linklater-movie*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Boyhood** — score 1000/1000
   A coming-of-age drama shot with the same cast over twelve years.
2. **Before Sunrise** — score 763/1000
   Two strangers meet on a train and spend one night walking Vienna.
3. **Everybody Wants Some!!** — score 728/1000
   A 1980 college baseball weekend, billed as a spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused.
4. **Waking Life** — score 624/1000
   A rotoscoped dream about consciousness and free will.
5. **A Scanner Darkly** — score 560/1000
   A rotoscoped Philip K. Dick adaptation about narcotics and identity.
6. **Hit Man** — score 485/1000
   A professor moonlighting as a fake contract killer falls for a client.
7. **SubUrbia** — score 485/1000
   A 1996 adaptation of Eric Bogosian's play about friends outside a convenience store.
8. **Slacker** — score 485/1000
   Linklater's 1990 debut, drifting between Austin characters for a day.
9. **Apollo 10 1/2** — score 485/1000
   An animated memory of growing up in Houston during the moon landing.
10. **Tape** — score 397/1000
   Three people, one motel room, shot on digital video in real time.
11. **Before Sunset** — score 397/1000
   The 2004 sequel, reuniting the pair nine years later in Paris.
12. **Before Midnight** — score 397/1000
   The 2013 closing chapter, set during a Greek holiday.
13. **Last Flag Flying** — score 397/1000
   Three Vietnam veterans reunite to bury one man's son.
14. **Fast Food Nation** — score 397/1000
   A fictional companion to Eric Schlosser's book on the meat industry.
15. **The Newton Boys** — score 397/1000
   A 1998 period piece about four bank-robbing brothers from Texas.
16. **School of Rock** — score 291/1000
   Jack Black as a failed guitarist who fakes his way into teaching.
17. **Dazed and Confused** — score 0/1000
   A 1993 ensemble comedy about the last day of school in 1976 Texas.
18. **Me and Orson Welles** — score 0/1000
   A teenager talks his way into Welles's 1937 Mercury Theatre.
19. **Bernie** — score 0/1000
   Jack Black as an East Texas mortician in a true-crime comedy.
20. **Bad News Bears** — score 0/1000
   A 2005 remake with Billy Bob Thornton coaching a hopeless little-league team.

Tags: movies, directors, indie, richard linklater