There’s a class of film that we all can agree on in calling “classics”: a bout of unflappable, stone-cold crowd pleasers that even the most erudite of film snobs can appreciate. These undisputed classics have it all, but offer something beyond just a simple distraction. While their intentions may be as simple as hitting all four quadrants and making a boat-load at the box office, there lies something sublime in their construction that elevates these films past just mere objects of fascination. We study these films just as we would anoffering from Bergmanor Ozu, but can also talk to any random person in a grocery store about them with the same voracity.
The idea of “pure entertainment” gets thrown around a lot. Should a film meant to sell in every market be non-confrontational and devoid of meaning? In order to appeal to everyone, does a film have to be made (in a roundabout way) for no one at all? These 20 films prove those ideas to be false, as they accomplish the unthinkable: approaching the denomination of “pure entertainment.” These are the movies that everyone you know loves whether they took a film class in college or couldn’t tell you the difference between Paramount+ and Peacock. This is the list of 20 movies that are pure entertainment, ranked.
20Avatar: The Way of Water
It’s hard to overstate how influential James Cameron has been on the modern sensibilities of blockbusters, especially considering the guy now has three films in the top five highest-grossing films of all time.Avatar: The Way of Wateris just the latest in a long string of unfathomable and irreproachable success that Cameron has been riding sinceThe Terminator.
The Way of Watercontinued the story of the firstAvatarfilm, while opening up the scope of the world and story so that an entire new generation of filmgoers were able to jump into the world of Pandora without much table-setting. The most complicated aspect of this film is the technical prowess and level of visual effects on display, which means that very little is standing in the way of each and every person in the audience from clamoring to this film. Let’s see if Cameron can do it againwithAvatar 3.
Related:20 Movies That Pushed the Boundaries of Censorship
19Limitless
One part of the trifecta of films that cemented Bradley Cooper as one of the greatest living movie stars (in cooperation withThe HangoverandSilver Linings Playbook),Limitlessis just one of those movies that you’ve seen 10 times and enjoy a little more each time. A staple of mid-2010s cable movie presentations,Limitlessoffers audiences a movie with Cooper at the peak of his scummy but affable character streak with quite a simple premise: what if there was a pill that gave you everything you ever wanted in life?
What ensues is a lavishly depicted and simply constructed drama that sees Cooper get to play both high and low status to great effect. Throw in a bit part from Robert De Niro that results in the two going toe-to-toe years before they would reunite inSilver Linings Playbook, and you have a recipe for a great midday watch.
18Top Gun: Maverick
The movie that everyone and their mother saw in the summer of 2022,Top Gun: Maverickis the sort of earth-shatteringly massive blockbuster that audiences had been deprived of for years. Among the glut of overstuffed comic-book movies and non-starter franchise fare,Maverickfelt like a return to the golden age of popcorn cinema: to the days of Jerry Bruckheimer productions and Tony Scott-driven bombast. It certainly helps that the film had Tom Cruise to anchor down what could have easily turned into yetanother legacy sequel.
Cruise lends his otherworldly charisma and death-defying dedication to the film in a manner that renders each and every scene — no matter how cliché some are in construction — a certain level of power and gravitas.Top Gun: Maverickis just the pinnacle of modern blockbuster entertainment, fusing together everything that worked about the blockbusters of yesteryear and what we’ve learned in the time in between.
17The Dark Knight
One might say thatInceptionwas the peak of Christopher Nolan’s power as a blockbuster machine. Sitcoms, daytime talk shows, and everything thing in between dedicated entire episodes and extended bits to joke and jeer about “not understandingInception.” But, at the end of the day, there is one film that every third or fourth person you meet will regard as one of the greatest films of all time — and it isn’tInception.
The Dark Knightjust felt like a lightning bolt moment in popular film culture, shifting the focus of studios and how they made comic book films for years after its release. Heath Ledger’s instantly iconic performance as The Joker is, of course, the big thing that everyone remembers from the film, but for good reason. Without Ledger, the film doesn’t have as much tension in all of its immaculately constructed set pieces. It’s a testament to not only Ledger as an actor, but Nolan as a filmmaker that he fundamentally understood what each scene needed to pump them up to tip-top shape. For a film that we haven’t stopped talking about since it came out, the conversation doesn’t seem like it’ll ever end.
16The Sixth Sense
Instantly iconic due to the twist ending to end all twist endings, M. Night Shayamalan announced himself as a talent to be reckoned with after makingThe Sixth Sense. We’ve all seen the various parody versions of some of the most iconic scenes from this one, but it gets a little bit lost on people how genuinely fantastic this film is even outside the obvious bits.
Bruce Willis is incredibly tapped into the haunting uncertainty of his character, while Haley Joel Osment gave the child screen performance to end them all. Toni Collette also deserves the same recognition for being astoundingly brilliant as Osment’s mother, but rarely gets uttered in the same breath as the other actors in the film. Really,The Sixth Senseis a broadly appealing, but still genuinely unnerving thriller that approached the sublime with gusto.
15Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
While maybe not everyone’s cup of tea,Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Worldmay as well be the best video game movie ever made — even though it isn’t based on a video game. Borrowing the aesthetics of both the original series of graphic novels and classic arcade games, Edgar Wright’s fourth feature failed to impress at the box office on release, yet found a cult audience soon after.
Now, its one of the most celebrated films of the 2010s, and for good reason.Scott Pilgrimis bombastic and irreverent like all of Wright’s films, but managed to toe the line between kitschy and referential perfectly. The whole extended cast — from Michael Cera and Mary Elizabeth Winstead to Kieran Culkin and Brie Larson — is pitched to the absolute breaking point of believability, but it ultimately works in the films favor. Like the best, most effective video game,Scott Pilgrimis exhilarating and emotionally resonant all at the same time.
14Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
For the second time on this list, we must speak on the influence and importance of one Tom Cruise. His contributions to cinema have been plentiful, but none more influential or entertaining as theMission Impossibleseries.Ghost Protocol, the fourth entry, was where the franchise reached a precipice: where the films ceased to be about espionage and gadgets and more about the insanity of thestunts that Cruise was willingto put his body through.
The sequence wherein Ethan Hunt (Cruise) scales up the side of the Burj Khalifa with nothing more than some futuristic suction cups at his disposal was where audiences all got clued in that Cruise was willing to die for their entertainment. We’ve never looked back, as theM:Imovies get crazier and crazier, and we continue to be entertained.Ghost Protocolwas the beginning of all of that.
13Catch Me If You Can
While still rooted in the same solemn sentimentality that Steven Spielberg is known for,Catch Me If You Canmight be the most out-and-out comedic film he ever made (barring his misguided WWII comedy1941). Pitting young Leonardo DiCaprio against Tom Hanks is bound to result in some truly fun setpieces, butCatch Me If You Cangoes full force into cat and mouse antics.
The ebbs and flows of their predator-prey relationship results inCatch Me If You Canfeeling like this globe-trotting, mile-a-minute romp, while the down tempo moments ground it with the kind of genuine humanity that only Spielberg can mine out of a screenplay. DiCaprio is charming and wry as lead con man Frank Abagnale Jr., while Hanks' G-man character Carl Hanratty provides the perfect foil to Abagnale’s antics. This is far from the only time Spielberg will appear on this list, but it feels appropriate to give this particular film a shout-out.
It wouldn’t be a list about entertaining movies if Michael Bay didn’t make an appearance. Bay’s first featureBad Boyswas not only the launch pad for his long and storied career, but also catapulted Martin Lawrence and Will Smith from just television actors to full-on movie stars. The film’s crass but off-the-cuff dialogue was often improvised, leading to extended sequences of Smith and Lawrence just mining the scene for all the comedic gold at its core.
Bay’s instincts when it comes to directing action were obvious from the jump, as his slate of tools and shot choices make for a dynamic and breathlessly exhilarating action film. At the end of the day, however, the greatest strength ofBad Boysis the chemistry between the two leads. If it weren’t for how genuinely charismatic and funny both Lawrence and Smith are, the film just wouldn’t come together quite as well.
11The Incredibles
Pixar has made a whole host of films that are endlessly entertaining, but people of a certain age will rememberThe Incrediblesas being the one that really got to them. The ragtag family of superheros that must defeat a misguided product of their own hubris is as strong a premise as they come, and Pixar and director Brad Bird really were able to make this whole affair as perfect as it could be.
Incredibly strong voice performances from the entire cast fused with the bombastic and eccentric direction pair to create something that is almost as good as animation can get. While it might not be everyone’s favorite Pixar film (which we will get to eventually), but it is undoubtedly up there with the best of the best.
