This list was originally published on November 1, 2017. It has been updated to include subsequent Richard Linklater films, including Hit Man . From the moment he picked up an 8mm camera and put himself through DIY film school for $3,000 with It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books in 1988, Richard Linklater has seen the world by way of Austin, Texas — a self-styled outsider whose sensibility is defined by boundless curiosity and wanderlust.
Slacker showed the independent world that great films could come from anywhere and in any form, but Linklater has never boxed himself into any one scene, slipping dexterously from micro-indies to major studio projects, and all points and genres in between. At the same time, there are strong connections that unify and enrich his filmography: the philosophical musings of Slacker and Waking Life ; the personal memories that illuminate Dazed and Confused and Everybody Wants Some!! ; the temporal experimentation of the Before trilogy and Boyhood ; and a more general interest in conversation and human consciousness. Even Linklater’s misfires are compelling.
The worst title on this list, Bad News Bears , is solid entertainment, docked mainly because it’s the only Linklater that doesn’t have a reason to exist. The others may fall short of their ambition, but there are always redeeming values, like the strip-mall blight and bitter ennui of SubUrbia , the period obsession of The Newton Boys and Me and Orson Welles , and the offbe.
