Best Movies List of Before 2000

The Godfather (1972)

Aggregate Rating: 292 | Imdb: 9 | Metascore: 100 | Earnings: $134.82M

Lead Role: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton, | Director: Francis Ford Coppola,

The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.

Schindler's List (1993)

Aggregate Rating: 282 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 93 | Earnings: $96.07M

Lead Role: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Caroline Goodall, | Director: Steven Spielberg,

In German-occupied Poland during World War II, Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazi Germans.

Psycho (1960)

Aggregate Rating: 282 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 97 | Earnings: $32.00M

Lead Role: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, | Director: Alfred Hitchcock,

A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run, and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Aggregate Rating: 281 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 96 | Earnings: null

Lead Role: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, | Director: Stanley Kubrick,

An insane general triggers a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically tries to stop.

Star Wars (1977)

Aggregate Rating: 279 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 92 | Earnings: $460.94M

Lead Role: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness, | Director: George Lucas,

Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a Wookiee, and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle-station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the evil Darth Vader.

Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966)

Aggregate Rating: 279 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 90 | Earnings: $6.10M

Lead Role: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef, Aldo Giuffrè, | Director: Sergio Leone,

A bounty hunting scam joins two men in an uneasy alliance against a third in a race to find a fortune in gold buried in a remote cemetery.

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Aggregate Rating: 276 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 90 | Earnings: $216.12M

Lead Role: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, | Director: Steven Spielberg,

Following the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.

Goodfellas (1990)

Aggregate Rating: 276 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 89 | Earnings: $46.84M

Lead Role: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, | Director: Martin Scorsese,

The story of Henry Hill and his life through the teen years into the years of mafia, covering his relationship with his wife Karen Hill and his Mob partners Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito in the Italian-American crime syndicate.

Taxi Driver (1976)

Aggregate Rating: 276 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 93 | Earnings: null

Lead Role: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks, | Director: Martin Scorsese,

A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge for violent action, while attempting to save a preadolescent prostitute in the process.

The Godfather: Part II (1974)

Aggregate Rating: 275 | Imdb: 9 | Metascore: 85 | Earnings: $57.30M

Lead Role: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, | Director: Francis Ford Coppola,

The early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York is portrayed while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on the family crime syndicate.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Aggregate Rating: 273 | Imdb: 9 | Metascore: 80 | Earnings: $28.34M

Lead Role: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton, William Sadler, | Director: Frank Darabont,

Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Aggregate Rating: 272 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 100 | Earnings: $6.00M

Lead Role: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins, | Director: David Lean,

The story of T.E. Lawrence, the English officer who successfully united and led the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks.

Back to the Future (1985)

Aggregate Rating: 271 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 86 | Earnings: $210.61M

Lead Role: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, | Director: Robert Zemeckis,

Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown.

Blade Runner (1982)

Aggregate Rating: 271 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 89 | Earnings: $27.00M

Lead Role: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, | Director: Ridley Scott,

A blade runner must pursue and try to terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.

Patton (1970)

Aggregate Rating: 271 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 91 | Earnings: null

Lead Role: George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Stephen Young, Michael Strong, | Director: Franklin J. Schaffner,

The World War II phase of the career of the controversial American general, George S. Patton.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Aggregate Rating: 270 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 84 | Earnings: $130.73M

Lead Role: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Lawrence A. Bonney, Kasi Lemmons, | Director: Jonathan Demme,

A young F.B.I. cadet must confide in an incarcerated and manipulative killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins his victims.

Aliens (1986)

Aggregate Rating: 270 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 86 | Earnings: $85.20M

Lead Role: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser, | Director: James Cameron,

The moon from Alien (1979) has been colonized, but contact is lost. This time, the rescue team has impressive firepower, but will it be enough?

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Aggregate Rating: 270 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 85 | Earnings: $242.37M

Lead Role: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, John Rhys-Davies, | Director: Steven Spielberg,

Archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the U.S. government to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis.

Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Aggregate Rating: 269 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 81 | Earnings: $290.16M

Lead Role: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, | Director: Irvin Kershner,

After the rebels are overpowered by the Empire on their newly established base, Luke Skywalker begins Jedi training with Master Yoda. His friends accept shelter from a questionable ally as Darth Vader hunts them in a plan to capture Luke.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Aggregate Rating: 269 | Imdb: 8 | Metascore: 86 | Earnings: $56.72M

Lead Role: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter, | Director: Stanley Kubrick,

Humanity finds a mysterious, obviously artificial object buried beneath the Lunar surface and, with the intelligent computer H.A.L. 9000, sets off on a quest.