Mendes. Few modern auteurs have a resume that includes the 1-2 punch of American Beauty and The Road to Perdition and can (with confidence) boast that they’ve made the best James Bond film (it’s right there with Goldfinger). Jarhead and Revolutionary Road (as evidenced below) are far from misses as well. His work may be a little less authorial distinct than some of his peers (like a Lynn Ramsay who I’ll be getting to shortly on this list) but he has 1 top 500 film, 3 films that are in the top 100 of their decade, and makes gorgeous films.
Best film: American Beauty. I’m not going to relitigate the “best debut of all-time” here but it’s safe to say there aren’t many with a stronger first film than Mendes. Welles, Godard, Truffaut to name a few. But I think Mendes debut is better than the Coen’s Blood Simple and many others typically mentioned when the topic comes up. Mendes’ film blends strong imagery, a throughout engaging narrative, and repetition in the surrealism sequences that indicate superior film form is on display.
total archiveable films: 5
top 100 films: 0
top 500 films: 1 (American Beauty)
top 100 films of the decade: 3 (American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Skyfall)
most overrated: Mendes doesn’t have an overrated film. For some reason his films (as I’ll get to in the category below) are depressingly underrated. American Beauty is his only film in the TSPDT top 1000 and it’s at #808. I’m at #294 – but 1999 is semi-recent so that’s not awful.
most underrated: Road to Perdition is superb. Of course it’s not in the TSPDT top 1000— so I went to the 21st century list and it is ranked as the #57 film (not bad, right?)—- well sort of— it’s ranked as the #57 film of 2002!!! Haha. Ahead of it are films like Chicago, About a Boy, Bend it Like Beckham… absolutely ridiculous.
gem I want to spotlight: Skyfall. After 2009’s Away We Go (I’ve only seen it once and didn’t love it) Mendes was at a weird spot in his career (Jarhead and Revolutionary Road didn’t get great reviews either). He rebounded and brought his high-art style to a franchise that, even when it has been good in the past, has never had this kind of artistic ambition. The results are remarkable.
stylistic innovations/traits: I’ll start with Sir Ridley Scott’s quote again because it’s one I love so much—“People say I pay too much attention to the look of a movie but for God’s sake, I’m not producing a Radio 4 Play for Today, I’m making a movie that people are going to look at.” – Ridley Scott. Look at Mendes’ images here- unless you’re blind or you prefer to read your cinema on the page it’s clear he’s one of the great talents to emerge on or since 1999. Mendes is simply a modern master of production design—staggeringly beautiful compositions. His first two films were collaborations with the great Conrad Hall as his photographer and then Jarhead, Revolutionary Road and Skyfall were all with Roger Deakins. Before you try pushing artistic credit onto those two all-time great DP’s you’d have to consider what that would be saying about the career of say the Coen Brothers (the only directors to collaborate with Deakins more frequently—the Coen Brothers and Deakins have collaborated 12 times)—and look at Conrad Hall’s career— 1967 is tough to beat with In Cold Blood and Cool Hand Luke but I think you could argue it’s Hall’s career that needed Mendes’ as much, if not more, than the other way around.
top 10
- American Beauty
- Road to Perdition
- Skyfall
- Jarhead
- Revolutionary Road
By year and grades
| 1999- American Beauty | MS |
| 2002- Road to Perdition | MS |
| 2005- Jarhead | R |
| 2008- Revolutionary Road | R |
| 2012- Skyfall | HR |
*MP is Masterpiece- top 1-3 quality of the year film
MS is Must-see- top 5-6 quality of the year film
HR is Highly Recommend- top 10 quality of the year film
R is Recommend- outside the top 10 of the year quality film but still in the archives
Perfect timing.
@KidCharlemagne– haha I know. I still haven’t seen 1917 (isn’t out here until Friday) but it is good to see Mendes get some recognition.
what would you rate 1917 ??
@Tanishk Shingala- good question, I’d like to give American Beauty another look but if forced right now I think I’d lean towards 1917–all three films at the top are very strong
Road to Perdition as #57 of 2002 made me laugh out loud for like 30 seconds. Ranks pretty high amongst the most mind bendingly preposterous things I have ever read. Absolutely brilliant film. There’s no doubt in my mind that the shootout in the rain is one of the greatest scenes of the 21st century; the lighting, choice to forgo sound in favor of a minimalist piano score, arrangement of figures, with Paul Newman’s back turned and a countenance of pained acceptance. Haunting.
@Max- haha glad we’re on the same page here with Road to Perdition. It is an embarrassing miss from the consensus
I just rewatched Revolutionary Road and God was I wrong about it. It’s a top tier movie. It’s first rate. From the production design to the cinematography to the exceptional screenplay but to me the movie still is all about Winslet’s performance. It’s auteur cinema at it’s finest. It’s better than American beauty and for me has become 2nd best Mendes film after road to predation and followed by 1917 and American beauty. It’s a major achievement for Deakins, mendes and Winslet but also it’s one of the year’s best screenplays and the production design and costuming is the beating heart of the movie. Winslet won an Oscar for the reader the very same year , although we do have Michelle Williams’ raw tour de force but if it had to be Winslet, it should’ve been this.
I’ll safely put this movie into the short little group of films like who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf, scenes from a marriage, blue valentine, before sunset and marriage story.
It’s a HR/MS for me.
@M*A*S*H- Thank you for putting this together- and quite right about that short little group of films that belong together
@Drake- It should be Before Midnight not Before Sunset. Sorry
@M*A*S*H- all good- I made the same mistake several times on my page so I did not even realize. But you’re right. Midnight is the marriage film that makes more sense in this grouping.
@M*A*S*H – The beach scenes for Revolutionary Road were shot in my town, I worked as a lifeguard as a summer job that summer in between college semesters, it was pretty cool.
American Beauty MS
Road to Perdition R
Jarhead —
Revolutionary Road R
Skyfall R
1917 R