[This list was originally published in June 2024. It has since been updated with new entries.]

There’s maybe no major auteur in cinema as unassuming as Richard Linklater. A Houston, Texas born film nerd who got his start making DIY, low-budget films around Austin, Linklater has maintained the scrappy, laidback vibe of his first feature even as his prestige has risen and his budgets have grown. The average Linklater film unfolds with a careful sense of effortlessness, loosely moving through vignettes with a keen naturalistic flow.

That’s not to say Linklater is an unambitious filmmaker; far from it. This is a man who took a seemingly small one day romance film in “Before Sunrise” and created an ambitious 20-year trilogy out of it, using the love story of Jesse and Céline as a canvas upon which to explore ideas of aging, growth, and the cruel passage of time. With “Boyhood,” he took a completely new approach to the classic coming-of-age narrative by shooting on and off for the better part of 10 years, watching Ellar Coltrane and his daughter Lorelei Linklater as they grew from sweet little kids to moody teenagers to kind young adults. It’s a mammoth undertaking that he’s doing again, this time as an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s beloved musical “Merrily We Roll Along” starring Paul Mescal, Beanie Feldstein, and Ben Platt; stay tuned for when this list gets updated with it in 2039!

While Linklater has his directorial ticks and obsessions — his love of Texas and frequent tendency towards the autobiographical, his sense of suburban ennui and wistfulness, his signature sharp and naturalistic sense of dialogue — he’s a remarkably varied filmmaker, capable of jumping between comedy, drama, and even rotoscope animation. His sense of adventure when it comes to stretching his abilities unfortunately results in some misfires; he probably has a more uneven batting average compared to his contemporaries like Quentin Tarantino or Wes Anderson, who keep their output a bit more scarce. But it also means you never know what you’ll get from him next. In just his last few films, he’s gone from a scattered female-centric dramedy (“Where’d You Go, Bernadette?”) to a wistful animated semi-autobiography (“Apollo 1/2”) to a crowd-pleasing rom-com (“Hit Man”).

IndieWire is taking a look back at Linklater’s filmography to determine which of his films stack up as the greatest. Revisiting his canon reveals a treasure trove of films that are both of their time and decidedly timeless; to paraphrase a much parodied Matthew McConaughey quote from one of Linklater’s projects, as you get older, his films stay the same. For the purposes of this list, the “Before” trilogy will be counted as one entry. Read on for every Richard Linklater film, ranked from worst to best.

19. ‘SubUrbia’ (1996)

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Dour and dull, Richard Linklater’s adaptation of Eric Bogosian’s play about aimless young adults wasting their lives loitering around a convenience store proves an ill-fitting vehicle for the director’s talents. Linklater’s naturalistic, laid-back style feels jarringly inappropriate for the heightened staginess and sour tone of Bogosian’s work, and most of the actors on screen visibly struggle to add dimension to the unpleasant bunch of Gen X archetypes. There’s just no fun to be had with ‘SubUrbia;’ skip the movie and listen to the banger Sonic Youth-dominated soundtrack instead. —WC

18. ‘Where’d You Go, Bernadette’ (2019)

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At the heart of Linklater’s adaptation of Maria Semple’s ‘Where’d You Go Bernadette?’ is a noble exploration of the mental and physical devastation of a creative rut and how hard it is for those who don’t understand this state of mind to empathize. Unfortunately, this message gets lost in exhaustive plotting and untethered performances from a cast who isn’t quite sure what the movie they’re in is really all about. Cate Blanchett carries the film with a confident portrayal of a woman on the edge, but at the same, we’ve seen her play this role in much better movies (see ‘Carol’ or more recently ‘Tár’) and Linklater doesn’t really do the work to get to the core of the material. Everything is surface-level to the point where the best features of the movie are the aesthetics it captures. As a genius architect, Bernadette has impeccable taste and the spaces she inhabits must too. Linklater reflects this well, especially when the film moves to Alaska and Bernadette’s mind is opened to the possibility of new types of spaces, but while the slog to get to this release may be the point, it’s not all that engaging as a viewer. —HR

17. ‘Bad News Bears’ (2005)

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Linklater had a good starting point with ‘Bad News Bears,’ a remake of the 1976 dirtbag comedy classic about an alcoholic coaching a misfit little league team. And the remake is a solid enough background weekend TV watch, thanks to its cast (Billy Bob Thornton plays the coach in this version) and charming underdog story. But ‘Bad News Bears’ never finds any particular argument for why it exists either; it’s an efficient but boring retread of the original that hits all the beats but doesn’t add anything worth caring about. Linklater has done a lot with his more mainstream projects, but ‘Bad News Bears’ feels like the director on autopilot. *—WC *

16. ‘Tape’ (2001)

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There’s an interesting murky story at the heart of ‘Tape,’ an intimate story about three high school friends who reunite years later in the confines of a motel to hash out the unresolved drama of their teen years. But it’s sabotaged by Linklater’s failed experimental approach, shooting the drama on a camcorder and setting it in real-time (the film was financed as part of an initiative to produce ten films shot on digital video). Watching it now makes it feel like a relic of that early 2000s digital era, and while Linklater is clearly aiming for a certain rawness and authenticity, ‘Tape’ winds up merely ugly and underwhelming. —WC

15. ‘Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood’ (2022)

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Linklater’s third rotoscope film is a thin wisp of a thing that starts with a high-concept premise about a boy recruited by NASA for a top-secret pre-Apollo 11 mission to the moon before unceremoniously casting it aside in favor of nostalgic ruminations of Houston, Texas in 1969. It’s clearly a personal film to Linklater, and often gorgeous in its animation and recreation of the time period. But, while you have to admire his willingness to throw out a more conventional premise for something more rambling, ‘Apollo 10 1/2’ doesn’t envelop you as much as you want. For the first time in his career, Linklater’s tendency towards nostalgia feels a bit grating rather than soothing, and the cartoon feels more like a doodle of an ideal rather than something real. —WC

14. ‘Fast Food Nation’ (2006)

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It’s trendy nowadays to transform a work of nonfiction into a narrative feature, but Linklater’s ‘Fast Food Nation’ exemplifies all of the flaws of that approach. Based on Eric Schlosser’s muckraking look into the fast food industry, ‘Fast Food Nation’ awkwardly translates the reporting into a large ensemble film that rarely ever finds a center. Linklater’s attempt at a comedic approach doesn’t quite scan either, though a strong cast — featuring Greg Kinnear, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Luis Guzmán, and Bruce Willis — manages to keep things generally watchable. —WC

13. ‘The Newton Boys’ (1998)

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‘The Newton Boys’ was seen as a misfire at the time of its release; as Linklater’s first real major studio film, it’s an uneven combination of his hang-out film style with a crime film, telling the story of The Newton Boys, a group of four brothers who robbed banks in early 20th century Texas while avoiding guns. But in some respects, Linklater’s amiable style is a decent fit for a story about not-particularly violent criminals, and the excellent ensemble (Matthew McConaughey, Ethan Hawke, Skeet Ulrich, and Vincent D’Onofrio play the crew) are a pleasure to watch both in action and fooling around. —WC

12. ‘Last Flag Flying’ (2017)

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Maybe the most dad movie there ever was, the film is an adaptation of Darryl Ponicsan’s novel of the same name, as well as an unofficial sequel to Hal Ashby’s adaptation of his preceding novel, ‘The Last Detail.’ While the first part of the story sees two Navy Signalman show a recent recruit one last good time as they escort him to a Naval prison, the sequel sees this group reunite decades later in the wake of one of their son’s being killed in combat. Together, they escort the body home rather than give him a soldier’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery and in the process, reopen old wounds they’ve all found their own ways to heal. Linklater captures the aging of men in ways hilarious and tragic with performances from Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell, and Laurence Fishburne that make the simple, straightforward road movie easy to enjoy, but also surprisingly elegant and poignant. —HR

11. ‘Me and Orson Welles’ (2008)

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One of Linklater’s handful of films to be shot mainly outside the United States, ‘Me and Orson Welles’ struggled to find an American audience despite featuring teen heartthrobs Zach Efron and Claire Danes. It remains largely forgotten, but nonetheless potent, capturing the magic of theatrical collaboration and youth’s first brush with artistic possibility with a lived-in depth despite Linklater’s separation from the time and place being portrayed. Perhaps his best directorial choice in the film was choosing to cast little-known English stage actor Christian McKay as Orson Welles. McKay runs with the role having previously played him in a one-man play, volleying between dedicated craftsman, dictatorial ruler, and inspirational leader with a charming, yet devilish deftness. —HR

10. ‘Hit Man’ (2024)

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Leave it to Linklater to make a film about a hit man such an easy-breezy watch. Well, about a fake hitman anyway; the lead of the director’s Netflix film is Gary Johnson (Glen Powell), a square college professor who moonlights as a sting actor for the New Orleans police department, posing as a hitman to lure unsuspecting suckers with a desire to kill behind bars. It’s a premise that promises some fun crime comedy, but the film most wildly succeeds as a sexy romance between Gary and one of his marks, an abused woman (Adria Arjona) who wants her husband dead. Powell, constantly on the rise for seemingly years, is phenomenal as the elastic, shapeshifting Gary, effortlessly moving from silly to sexy to cool to dorky on a dime. His chemistry with Arjona is no joke, either, and the two make ‘Hit Man’ one of the most purely enjoyable rom-coms in recent memory. —WC

9. ‘A Scanner Darkly’ (2006)

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Philip K. Dick’s novels tend to get very loosely adapted in the translation process from text to screen — see ‘Total Recall’ or ‘Blade Runner.’ Linklater’s ‘A Scanner Darkly’ is easily the most faithful take on the sci-fi author, channeling the paranoia and biting corporate critique through a rotoscoped nightmare. Keanu Reeves stars as an undercover cop in a totalitarian world investigating a new mind-altering drug. The trippy visuals are perfectly suited for this story, internalizing all of the fear and instability Reeves’ hero experiences. It’s unsettling and yet wildly beautiful work. —WC

8. ‘Bernie’ (2012)

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Linklater’s ode to small-town life and the big stories hidden on every corner, ‘Bernie’ exists as part true-crime narrative, part-community ethnography. Utilizing elements of documentary filmmaking and incorporating interviews from actual townspeople from Carthage, Texas where his story takes place, Linklater crafts a piece of Americana that speaks to our entire country’s complex and often misguided handling of justice. Casting Jack Black as the title character, a mortician and community leader who ends up taking the life of the town grump (Shirley MacLaine), Linklater immediately makes us empathize and root for the killer despite his obvious and open guilt. Though Black shines, it’s the townspeople and talking head interviews (one featuring co-star Matthew McConaughey’s mom) that really make this movie such a unique and darkly enjoyable watch. —HR

7. ‘Slacker’ (1990)

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‘Slacker’ is technically Linklater’s second feature, but his first — ‘It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books’ — wasn’t released until it got on ‘Slacker’s’ Criterion release. So for all intents and purposes, this freewheeling feature was most’s introduction to the director, and it’s hard to imagine a more perfect distillation of his style and strengths. Shot on the cheap, ‘Slacker’ bounces around from vignette to vignette, encompassing over 100 quirky, memorable characters. It’s laugh out loud funny, but also a beautiful portrait of ’90s Austin, and an essential text of the decade’s independent cinema. —WC

6. ‘Everybody Wants Some!!’ (2016)

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A spiritual sequel to Linklater’s formative early masterpiece ‘Dazed and Confused,’ what ‘Everybody Wants Some!!’ lacks in relation to its predecessor’s lightning-in-a-bottle, carefree sensibility, it makes up for with a hilariously cocky look at the collegiate experience. Populating his 1980 ensemble comedy with destined-to-be-star talents like Glen Powell, Wyatt Russell, and Zoey Deutch, Linklater resurrects his own school days while at the same time creating a universal tale of freedom and exploration that speaks to the independence we all hopefully find upon leaving home. Heavy on the masculine energy, ‘Everybody Wants Some!!’ does find nuance in its main character figuring out the identity they want to take on, but is definitely okay just being a throwback to the raucous comedies of the time it takes place in. —HR

5. ‘School of Rock’ (2003)

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Has there ever been a kid-friendly studio comedy better than ‘School of Rock?’ An infectious and irresistible shot of pure joy, Linklater’s most successful foray into mainstream filmmaking is difficult to watch without a smile on your face. Featuring a brilliant Jack Black in the lead role as a phony substitute teacher who gets his young students to become a rock band, the movie succeeds so wildly because Mike White’s script never feels cutesy or condescending towards the young audience it’s aimed at, instead telling a universal story of rebellion and artistic triumph that can appeal to anyone. —WC

4. ‘Waking Life’ (2001)

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Linklater’s first experiment with rotoscope is also his best, a dreamy, trippy spiritual successor to ‘Slacker’ that pushes that film’s structure in newer hallucinatory directions. Following a young man as he wanders through a variety of dreamlike realities, it’s a nonstop parade of philosophical musings, which could be insufferable. But it’s brilliant thanks to the visuals, which creates a whole world for Linklater to play in, and thankfully, the director never takes things too seriously, as evidenced by the Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy cameo as their ‘Before’ characters. It’s a dazzling work that leaves your mind slightly fried, like any good acid trip should. —WC

3. ‘Boyhood’ (2014)

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Understandably, most of the press around ‘Boyhood’ was based on the lengthy and unusual process that went into filming it. And yet, what’s remarkable about Linklater’s coming-of-age story is how little you think about the effort that went into it while watching. So much of the beauty of the film is about the moment-to-moment, dropping in on the childhood of Mason (Ellar Coltrane) and experiencing perfectly observed memories and fragments of scenes: bickering with his sister, fishing with his dad, saying goodbye to his mom. There’s plenty of family drama powering ‘Boyhood’ but it’s almost a tool to get us to the moments of beauty that really matter, in this story about how every little moment in one’s life can be precious. *—WC *

2. ‘Dazed and Confused’ (1993)

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Linklater’s first big breakout, ‘Dazed and Confused’ quickly became a canonical stoner classic. And yet, the loose ensemble piece about a group of 1976 Austin teens celebrating their first night of summer is just as fun sober as it is wasted. It’s pitch-perfect from start to finish, free-flowing without ever dragging and funny yet still human. The insanely talented cast launched a thousand stars from its ranks (Ben Affleck, Parker Posey, and Matthew McConaughey are just the three most famous), and they all fill their roles perfectly, feeling like real teenagers you already know. Eminently rewatchable and utterly timeless, ‘Dazed and Confused’ never feels slight; it’s a stone-cold masterpiece. *—WC *

1. ‘Before’ Trilogy (1995, 2004, 2013)

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The story of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) starts as a tale of youthful possibility, develops into a parable on lost chances, then finally becomes a lens on the reality of lasting love. With ‘Before Sunrise,’ Linklater sets out on a journey of instant, yet momentary connection, placing two young characters on a train, making both of them get off in Vienna Austria, then seeing where the night takes them. A romance is sparked, but by night’s end, both must part. They promise to meet again, but the sequel, ‘Before Sunset,’ which takes place 9 years later, reveals they never did. Now faced with the errors of their ways, they try again, spending an afternoon strolling around Paris and rekindling a flame they never got the chance to grow. However, as ‘Before Midnight’ shows us, where there’s a flame, there’s fire, and the scorched earth Jesse and Céline have left in the wake of their nine-year relationship is now all coming home to roost. —HR