TF LIST

We don’t turn 350 every month, and reaching that not insignificant milestone has got us looking back over our previous issues to select the best (and worst!) films we have featured on our cover. Before making our choices, though, we decided to set a few ground rules. No director would be allowed to have more than one film in our countdowns (not even you, Sir Christopher!); we turfed out year/decade-in-review editions; and we omitted films that didn’t debut within our 27-year life span. Got that? Fab. All we need now are 350 candles and a whopping big cake…

Top Grier

JACKIE BROWN

ISSUE 15, APRIL 1998

Total Film was only 15 issues old when Quentin Tarantino’s classy and mature adap of Elmore Leonard’s Rum Punch took over our cover, with blaxploitation icon Pam Grier striking a distinctly Bond-ish pose as its resourceful flight-attendant heroine. And while our team had just as much love for Tarantino’s next opus, Kill Bill (issue 82, November 2003), in the end our ‘one film per director’ rule meant we absolutely, positively could accept no substitutes. All these years later, it still tickles us how Michael Keaton’s Ray Nicolette was able to flit between this film and Steven Soderbergh’s contemporaneous Leonard yarn Out of Sight.

WHAT THEY SAID ‘I want all my movies to be special, all the way down my filmography. There are people not even born yet who are going to dig my movies.’ (Quentin Tarantino)

GLADIATOR

ISSUE 41, JUNE 2000

Are you not entertained? We certainly were by Ridley Scott’s Roman epic, a brutal and bloody loin-girdler that triumphantly resurrected the sword-and-sandal genre to Oscar-winning effect. One of those accolades rightly went to cover star Russell Crowe for his mesmerising turn as Maximus, a soldier turned showman who will have his vengeance in this life or the next against the emperor who murdered his family (Joaquin Phoenix). And while we are stoked to find out how Scott and Paul Mescal will continue the story in Gladiator 2, it’s probably asking too much for it to best an original so beloved.

WHAT THEY SAID ‘I hired a gangbuster of a cast and put my faith in them. Despite all the problems, I think they did a pretty good job.’ (Ridley Scott)

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS

ISSUE 72, JANUARY 2003

The Return of the King (issue 84, January 2004) may have swept the board at 2004’s Oscars, winning Best Picture and 10 more prizes besides. For our money, though, it’s the second instalment in Peter Jackson’s original Tolkien triptych that remains his most towering achievement. Not only did this film give us the Battle of Helm’s Deep – surely the most heart-stopping, awe-inspiring armoured face-off in all of fantasy cinema – but also Andy Serkis’ Gollum in all his psychotic, emaciated glory. The scene in which the corrupted hobbit’s two personas bicker, cajole and bargain is mo ‐cap acting at its finest and most ingenious.

WHAT THEY SAID ‘This has a lot more action than the first one. There are new creatures and places, over 600 CGI shots and huge battle scenes. Audiences should get swept up by it.’ (Peter Jackson)

SPIDER-MAN 2

ISSUE 91, SUMMER 2004

There have been 10 standalone Spider-Man movies in our lifetime, and that’s not counting the three films in which he’s appeared as part of the MCU. Of all the Spideys we’ve put on our cover, however, it is the second part of Sam Raimi’s Tobey Maguire trilogy that sits masked head and shoulders above them. Have adventure, drama and romance ever been so seamlessly united in one superhero movie? And has any supervillain since been quite so cool as Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock? Well, maybe one (see overleaf). Yet the real marvel is undoubtedly how fresh it still feels, even 20 years on.

WHAT THEY SAID ‘I wasn’t setting out to make this one better than the last. My job was to find out what was interesting about the first picture and develop it.’ (Sam Raimi)

CASINO ROYALE

ISSUE 122, DECEMBER 2006

Pierce Brosnan was Bond when TF was born, and he made several appearances on our covers. When Daniel Craig was cast as his successor, though, it was clear from the off we were in for something different. Martin Campbell’s film – his second Bond after 1995’s GoldenEye – delivered on that promise with a tough, gritty do-over that took its cue from its leading man’s game-changing portrayal. Craig’s days in the tuxedo weren’t always golden, yet his willingness to be as vulnerable as he was ruthless, and as human as he was heroic, ensured his dynamic double-O debut was damn near definitive.

WHAT THEY SAID ‘We’re not doing Hamlet, but having an actor of Dan’s ability makes a huge difference. The book formulates the character of Bond, and Dan encapsulates what Fleming was talking about.’ (Martin Campbell)

WALL•E

ISSUE 142, SUMMER 2008

Pixar was just getting started when TF’s presses began rolling, and it took a while for us to land on the perfect cover-worthy film from the game-changing animation studio. By the time Andrew Stanton introduced us to his lovelorn robot trash-picker, however, every new Pixar release had become an event, meaning it was a relative no-brainer for us to make its metal lead our only animated cover star. Watching WALL•E wordlessly fall for the sleek and hi-tech EVE touched our team’s hearts in ways we never thought were possible. The result was an animated 2001 every bit as warm as Kubrick’s was arctic.

WHAT THEY SAID ‘I wrote the first act of the movie in a couple of months. It’s a simple love story of a guy robot and a girl robot.’ (Andrew Stanton)

THE DARK KNIGHT

ISSUE 143, JULY 2008

We were on something of a roll in 2008, the issue with WALL•E on the cover having a blockbuster sequel of its own in an edition dominated by Christopher Nolan’s landmark Batman follow-up. In truth, its predecessor could have also made it onto this list. However, we opted to give The Dark Knight the edge over Batman Begins for its superior action, dystopian daring and a rogue element that no one saw coming: Heath Ledger’s Joker, a bonkers force of twisted nature that instantly became the jewel in the crown of its late creator’s posthumous big ‐screen legacy.

WHAT THEY SAID ‘The sequels I’ve really liked have been films like The Empire Strikes Back or The Godfather Part II. We were looking to try to emulate them in terms of our ambition.’ (Christopher Nolan)

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

ISSUE 231, MAY 2015

We weren’t around when George Miller released his original Mad Max trilogy, but we were here for Fury Road, as audacious and jaw-dropping a reboot as any we’ve had the pleasure of witnessing. Tom Hardy’s re-energised Rockatansky occupied the foreground in our cover two-shot, with Charlize Theron’s Furiosa located subtly behind him. In the film itself, though, it was Theron who took the reins, her buzzcut-sporting, metal-armed badass establishing herself immediately as an action heroine for the ages. ‘I don’t think anyone’s ever seen anything quite like Furiosa before,’ Miller told us in 2015. To find out how Anya Taylor-Joy compares, flip to page 30.

WHAT THEY SAID ‘Every sequence had some element of risk or stunt. That was the thing that created the most anxiety in me: how are we going to avoid killing someone today?’ (George Miller)

DUNE: PART ONE

ISSUE 315, SEPTEMBER 2021

With Blade Runner 2049 and Dune: Part Two just as worthy of inclusion, it was a hard job deciding which Denis Villeneuve film ought to feature in this rundown. When push comes to shove, however, it’s impossible to look past the first of his Dunes, a masterful exercise in comprehensive world-building that did Frank Herbert’s novel proud in ways David Lynch never could. Admittedly, much of it is scene-setting: a prelude to a second act that was bigger, bolder and grander in its conception and execution. When viewed as a visionary filmmaker’s artistic statement, though, Part One was ultimately purer.

WHAT THEY SAID ‘At the end of the day a movie exists once it’s shared with audience members. It is a relief to know that people are feeling we honoured the source material.’ (Denis Villeneuve)

TOP GUN: MAVERICK

ISSUE 323, APRIL 2022

Six Mission: Impossibles were released between the original Tony Scott Top Gun and its long-in-gestation sequel. It was probably not surprising, then, that there was a touch of the IMF to its story of an older but not necessarily wiser Maverick tutoring the next gen of naval aviators, one of whom (Miles Teller) just happens to be the son of his late pal, Goose. Sky-scorching action was a given in Joseph Kosinski’s jet-propelled people-pleaser, yet what really slayed us was the emotional heights it took us to. Case in point?

A Tom Cruise-Val Kilmer reunion that had us weeping buckets.

WHAT THEY SAID ‘The first film was a rite-of-passage story, and I knew this had to be the same. There had to be an emotional journey for Maverick to go through.’ (Joseph Kosinski)