The coolest movies of all time, from Quadrophenia to John Wick
If you watch these classic movies, you'd better be wearing sunglasses...
Morgan Truder
Before cool became a marketing gimmick, it was a feeling. You knew it when you saw it, in the way a character moved, the music spilling out of a scene, or an outfit that felt instinctive rather than styled.
The films that earn a place on this list aren’t chasing approval or box office dominance; they’re operating on their own wavelength, quietly (or sometimes loudly) shaping taste, attitude and aesthetic in the process.
These are movies that understand vibe as much as plot. They care about the cut of a jacket, the hum of a synth line, the rhythm of dialogue, the spaces characters occupy and the ones they don’t quite belong in. Whether it’s sci-fi noir rain, sun-bleached crime stories or late-night city drift, style isn’t an add-on here it’s the main event.
From cult classics to modern touchstones, what links these films is a confidence that borders on indifference. They don’t ask to be liked. They just exist, fully formed, and let the rest of culture catch up.
20. Sinners
Sinners looks, sounds and moves with absolute intent. Ryan Coogler drenches the film in sweaty Southern atmosphere, where the music thumps with menace, blues, gospel and deep basslines bleeding into one another, and every needle drop feels deliberate rather than decorative.
The clothes do a lot of the storytelling too: sharp tailoring, dust-worn workwear and silhouettes that nod to classic Americana while still feeling confrontationally modern. It’s a film obsessed with texture, heat, fabric, rhythm, and that obsession gives it a unique panache.
19. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Into the Spider-Verse didn’t just refresh Spider-Man, it blew the doors off what an animated blockbuster could look and feel like. The comic-book visuals are explosive and playful, but there’s real heart underneath the sensory overload.
Miles Morales steps into the suit carrying self-doubt, grief and expectation, making this a story about earning confidence rather than inheriting greatness. The multiverse chaos is fun, but it’s the small moments that really stick out. Whilst the films score is an instant favourite on Spotify.
18. The Warriors
The Warriors is a 1979 action thriller and has become a cult New York classic over the years. If you plan on visiting, watch this first – especially if you want to visit Coney Island. The movie is directed by Walter Hill and based on Sol Yurick's 1965 novel of the same name.
It follows the story of a fictitious New York gang that must travel 30 miles from the north of the Bronx back down to Coney Island in Brooklyn after being framed for the murder of a gang leader. This is an action-packed adventure with tense storytelling and brilliant acting, and the soundtrack is also phenomenal.
17. John Wick
Everyone’s definition of “cool” is different, but in our books, there’s no cooler movie than John Wick. The original 2014 movie, John Wick, is where you should start, but we highly recommend you check out the whole franchise – there are three movies in total and a fourth on the way soon. Keanu Reeves plays John Wick, a former hitman forced back into the criminal underworld he thought he’d left behind years before.
It’s super slick and stylish, with plenty of gorgeous-looking rainy city scenes illuminated by neon lights. But it’s the action sequences that truly shine. They are mind-bogglingly fantastic but, somehow, never border on the absurd. This is likely due to director Chad Stahelski, who worked as a stunt double for Reeves on The Matrix trilogy and knows how to craft the perfect fight scene.
16. Oldboy
The film that introduced Korean cinema to a generation 20 years ago. Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy drips style in the choreography of its fight scenes. Oh Dae-Su is imprisoned for 15 years and, on release, hunts down his captors.
Despite being one of the most famous films from South Korea, it is actually the middle chapter in a trilogy, book-ended by Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Lady Vengeance. However, Oldboy is the best, and most stylish, of the three.
15. The Matrix
You may make light of the questionable fashion trends The Matrix sparked off, but the coolness of the film under the surface is much more enduring. It proved hugely inspiration in how its action scenes were shot, and remains a valid cultural touchstone 25 years later.
14. Breathless
Call it continental chic, but come the dawn of the 60s all the hipsters were looking towards France for cool inspiration. The French New Wave, best exemplified by Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (A Bout De Souffle), captured the times perfectly.
Here, Jean-Paul Belmondo – all beat generation cool and proto-mod style – etched himself into pop culture folklore thanks to his devil-may-care attitude and his natty dress sense.
13. The Villainess
According to director Jung Byung-gil, The Villainess is inspired by the film La Femme Nikita, a 1990 French movie by Luc Besson about a girl who was trained as an assassin. Fast-forward to 2017, and The Villainess is released, a South Korean action thriller with a similar story.
It’s about a woman called Sook-hee, an elite assassin, who is on a violent rampage to get revenge, earn her freedom and escape her past. The film has proved incredibly popular since its release and has been praised by viewers and critics for its inventive fight sequences and bold choices, which online reviewers have described as “bloodily inventive” and “riotously fun”.
12. Quadrophenia
The law of cool subsection 3.14 states that mods are cool. The music, the fashion and the attitude still speak to those wanting to locate the essence of hipsterdom almost 50 years on.
Although made a decade and a half after the mods’ initial heyday, Quadrophenia – loosely based on The Who’s rock opera of the same name – remains a reference point for those wanting to mix style and subversion.
11. Drive
![Drive Movie Trailer [HD] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/inTc4Q_gEWQ/maxresdefault.jpg)
This slick 2011 neo-noir action movie is dripping with cool. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (the brains behind Bronson and, more recently, The Neon Demon), it’s based on James Sallis’s 2005 novel of the same name. There’s so much to love about this film, from the beautiful neon-lit city scenes and thumping electro soundtrack to breathtaking performances from the cast, especially Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan.
Gosling stars in the leading role — although we never learn his name — as a Hollywood stunt driver who also works as a getaway driver on the side and gets tangled up in a complicated web of betrayal. It’s a fantastic, tense movie with some beautiful, heartfelt moments – but this is Nicholas Winding Refn, so do expect violence and gore, too.
10. V for Vendetta
V for Vendetta is what happens when a comic-book blockbuster takes its ideas seriously. Beneath the Guy Fawkes mask and the explosions is a story about fear, control and how easily liberty can be traded for the illusion of safety.
Hugo Weaving’s V is theatrical and unsettling in equal measure, but it’s Natalie Portman’s journey from compliance to defiance that gives the film its emotional weight. Set in a Britain gripped by authoritarian rule, it plays like speculative fiction that feels uncomfortably close to home, but most importantly, few things are as iconic as that mask.
9. Rebel Without A Cause
If The Wild One opened the door to a brave new world, Rebel Without A Cause stylishly sauntered in through that door, and nothing would be the same again. James Dean’s iconic performance as the titular troubled teen Jim Stark sent shockwaves through Hollywood.
The realism spoke to teenagers around the world, as men and women alike flocked to witness this authentic portrayal of malcontented youth. Dean’s death a month before the film’s release meant that the film was crystallised in the canon of cool for eternity
8. Pulp Fiction
The film that really cemented Tarantino’s brand of cool in the mind of the mid-90s public, Pulp Fiction is literally the poster child for cinematic cool. It’s the music cue at the diner stick-up. It’s Royale with cheese.
It’s the Tarantino dance-off, it's Samuel L. Jackson and it’s definitely Christopher Walken’s watch monologue. And if these haven’t sparked off memories of watching Pulp Fiction, you clearly need to watch Pulp Fiction, stat.
7. Chungking Express
Chungking Express feels like catching a private thought on the street and holding onto it for 100 minutes. Wong Kar-wai turns loneliness, missed connections and emotional drift into something restless and alive, shot through with pop music, neon light and half-finished conversations.
Split into two loose stories, the film captures that specific kind of heartbreak where nothing is dramatic enough to be tragic, but everything still hurts. Tony Leung’s quiet melancholy and Faye Wong’s off-kilter energy give the film its pulse, while the fragmented style mirrors the characters’ inability to fully connect.
6. Alien
This 1979 sci-fi horror is a classic for a reason. Directed by Ridley Scott, it’s about the crew of the Nostromo, a commercial space tug craft that comes across a mysterious distress signal from an undiscovered moon. They find themselves coming face to face (or is that face to chest?) with a deadly alien set loose on the ship. The cast of this movie is mind-blowing, including Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, and Yaphet Kotto.
What makes it a favourite in our books is that it’s a new take on the sci-fi genre. Don’t expect pristine spaceships and Star Trek-like utopias here. But instead, there are glorious and grotesque designs inspired by the Swiss artist H. R. Giger and industrial-looking tech that’s gritty and grimy. The sequel, Aliens, is well worth a watch but don’t waste your time on the newer movies in the franchise.
5. Blade Runner
Blade Runner was released in 1982, and it’s a science-fiction classic based on Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It’s set in a dystopian future LA in which replicants, synthetic humans, work on space colonies.
A group escapes, and cop Rick Deckard must find them. The cast is strong, with Harrison Ford playing Rick Deckard, and Daryl Hannah and Rutger Hauer playing the lead replicants. It’s bleak yet atmospheric, with a gorgeous score and beautiful, rain-soaked visuals.
4. Le Samouraï
Nope, this isn’t a samurai film. It’s a 1967 French noir thriller. And while a good many of you may not have seen Le Samouraï, it’s one of the most influential flicks on this list. It might be considered a direct descendant of Drive, whose lead character references this movie.
Jef Costello is a contract killer with a killer fedora and trench coat, a sharp look just about as sharp as his samurai instincts. An impassive anti-hero and striking look make this film about as cool as they get.
3. Reservoir Dogs
Unless you were there, it’s difficult to envisage just how uncool suits were in the early 90s. Firstly, acid house had heralded a freer, more relaxed mode of dress among the youth of the late 80s, and then the aforementioned grunge kids came along and were just content to raid the local thrift stores for sartorial (in)elegance.
Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs gave suits a much-needed shot in the arm. Combining a magpie’s eye for pop culture with snappy dialogue and a suite of fully formed characters, Reservoir Dogs set a new benchmark for alternative cinema.
2. The Big Lebowski
Jeff Lebowski was not hip; his demeanour suggested an overgrown slacker; he was unemployed with seemingly little or no prospects.
However, he was The Dude, and for this, he was cool. In a career littered with cult classics (Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Miller’s Crossing, Fargo…), The Big Lebowski is the Coen Brothers' masterpiece. Since its 1998 debut, the film has taken on a life of its own (how many films have a religion in its honour?), and it continues to speak to our confusing times. A case of enduring cool.
1. Back to the Future
Back to the Future works because it never wastes a second. Every joke lands, every setup pays off, and every scene pushes the story forward with near-perfect timing. It’s blockbuster filmmaking at its most disciplined.
Michael J. Fox’s Marty McFly is an ideal lead: sharp, decent, and believable, while Christopher Lloyd’s Doc Brown brings just enough chaos to keep everything unpredictable. The time-travel hook is high-concept, but the film’s real strength is how grounded it feels, a story about confidence, growing up, and learning when to take control of your own life.
40 years on, it still moves faster and smarter than most films trying to do the same thing today.
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