25 Definitively Best Movies EVER (According To Critics AND Fans)

14. All About Eve (1950)

Score: 92

In the same way that Hollywood proves its love for itself with the adulation for Sunset Boulevard, the critical adoration of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's All About Eve is very much about tinseltown unflinchingly holding up a mirror to itself. Curiously, it's often the grotesque and the tragic elements that the industry is most fascinated with - the idea of crushed dreams, discarded icons and people left behind or trampled on.

All About Eve is about all of that plus the immortal humanist fear of mortality and redundancy. It's about being replaced by someone keener, younger, more attractive and the cycical nature of that anxiety. It's essentially the same story as Toy Story, only with more malice on the part of the Buzz Lightyear-like replacement, more of an acerbic edge to the dark comedy and slightly more maturity. The story is remarkably compelling though and that's what makes it endure so long after its release.

Rotten Tomatoes: 100 Audience: 94 IMDB: 83 Letterboxd: 85 Metascore: 98