Every Sam Mendes Movie Ranked From Worst To Best

1. 1917

But as especially terrific American Beauty and Skyfall might be, Mendes' most recent film just barely squeaks past them.

It would've been easy for 1917, a war film shot and edited to resemble a near-continuous take, to be a beautiful but emotionally hollow spectacle, yet to Mendes' immense credit, he wrings every possible drop of visceral anguish out of this fantastically efficient tale of wartime survival.

Mendes clearly has an over-the-odds emotional investment in the film, which he adapted from stories told to him by his late grandfather, and the result is a technically astonishing, gruelling endurance trial that's both stylistically exuberant and tremendously affecting.

Roger Deakins' sure-to-be-Oscar-winning cinematography in many ways makes him the MVP here, but it works in perfect concert with cracking central performances from George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman, not to mention a superb ensemble cast, and also Thomas Newman's glorious musical score.

Whether it ends up winning Best Picture and/or Best Director Oscars as it's widely tipped to, it's easily the most persuasive and intoxicatingly overwhelming work of Mendes' entire filmmaking career.