Woody Allen Ranked
Portrait credit: Spraygraphic Community – Leahsixpointoh
In celebration of the release of Woody Allen’s newest feature film, Midnight in Paris, Marya and I have gone through the director’s filmography, ranking his films according to personal preference.
We’d like to emphasize that this is based on “favorites” and not “bests.” Also, feel free to disagree with us and leave comments!
42.
Juan
Anything Else (2003) – Woody Allen must have run out of material because he just rehashed every single thing from his previous movies possibly, with unlikable characters and uninteresting dialogue.
Marya
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) The only thing in this film that works is Charlize Theron and she only gets about ten minutes of screen time.
41.
Juan
Celebrity (1998) – Major misfire for me that turned out to be a bad attempt at recreating Fellini’s La Dolce Vita.
Marya
Anything Else (2003) – Horrid rehashing of everything Allen already did (only he did it better earlier), this time with wholly unlikeable characters.
40.
Juan
A Midsummer Night’s Comedy (1982) – Could have been interesting, but it felt strained and left me really disappointed.
Marya
Cassandra’s Dream (2007) – Just doesn’t work on any level.
I just gotta come here and say that… I’m not really familiar with Woody Allen’s filmography as a whole. LOL – Some people I’ve talked with have told me that I just don’t get Jewish humor (??) – I got that with A Serious Man too. Can anyone explain? LOL
Having said that, I do like Vicky Christina Barcelona… and next to Penelope Cruz (was never really sold on her until that), Rebecca Hall was right next to her. I also liked Match Point, but in a different sense…
I did think Whatever Works and Tall Dark Stranger were pretty bad though.
Oh… and I’m admitting this here:
Annie Hall… I didn’t feel it. LOL
@amy, Allen’s work is definitely not for everyone.
@cinema-fanatic, no one wants to explain “jewish humor” to me. LOL
@amy, I’m not sure that is it explainable. lol.
@amy, I’m with you but Woody is funny from time to time but a Serious Man (by the Cohens) might be the most internal film in a while…
Wow very impressive that you ranked all 42 of his movies. I really haven’t seen too many of his work and I need to fix that! A bit surprised that Annie Hall is outside of the top 2 :) Highly looking forward to Midnight in Paris this weekend!
@Castor, I thought it was pretty great that Juan and I had Annie Hall in the exact same spot on both our lists. the only other film that did that was Interiors.
I will shamefully admit that I only watched two films involving Woody Aleen and one of them wasn’t with him as the director.
Still, very impresssive to see you guys ranking all of his movies.
@Rodrigo, yay. we’re on the same boat. Kinda xD
I wish you guys made two separate lists or agreed on an order, as much as I loved what you both had to say I found it difficult to keep track of both lists at the same time considering the amount of films Woody has made.
@Callahan, kind of agree on this comment actually but its still a great ranking piece.
This post is fantastic! I’m a huge Woody Allen fan and both of you guys had really insightful things to say about each movie. Congrats on finishing his entire filmography, wow! And Manhattan is my favorite Allen film as well :D
Great list – it’s nice to see Zelig getting some plaudits. It was years ahead of its time. I think my favourite is Manhattan Murder Mystery, just because it’s so funny and perfectly acheives what it sets out to do.
It’s a little bit hard for me to admit this, but after two viewings of Midnight in Paris, I think I’m going to go ahead and say that it’s stolen fourth place on my list.
@Juan Barquin, after seeing Broadway Danny Rose on the big screen I realize it needs to be SO MUCH HIGHER on my list.