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.
Linklater rarely makes sequels (with one notable exception, which we'll get to), but this one is truly a rarity in his filmography: the original film wasn't even his. Technically, though, it's an adaptation of Darryl Ponicsan's novel of the same name, a sequel to his earlier novel The Last Detail that was made into an excellent 1973 feature film by Hal Ashby. Linklater's film, which finds three Vietnam veterans reuniting when one of their sons dies while serving during the Iraq War, did not receive the same accolades despite an impressive cast led by Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston, and Laurence Fishburne.
“Last Flag Flying lacks the casual, lived-in realism you usually find in a Linklater film. You don’t buy the men as long-separated pals, and so you don’t really buy the premise — the connection that caused Doc to seek out these men is not visible on screen.” —Gary Thompson, Philadelphia Daily News
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