Every Richard Linklater Movie, Ranked
Updated March 2022 to add Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood.
First emerging during indie cinema's golden age in the early 1990s, Linklater has (with just a few exceptions) stayed true to his indie (and Austin) roots, earning mostly stellar reviews along the way. While only 4 of his films have grossed more than $10 million, all but two of his features received acclaim from critics, making him one of the finest directors of the past 30 years. In the gallery above, we rank every one of his films from worst to best by Metascore.
This 2012 dark comedy reunites Linklater with his School of Rock star Jack Black and his Dazed and Confused lead Matthew McConaughey for a based-on-a-true-story tale of a small-town Texas mortician (Black) who befriends an elderly, ornery, wealthy widow (Shirley MacLaine) and eventually murders her.
“This is writer-director Richard Linklater at his wry, whimsical best, and considering he was the filmmaker behind 1993's 'Dazed and Confused,' that makes the movie something of a milestone.” —Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times