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.
It's Richard Linklater's first commercially released film, but not his first feature. (Technically, the latter would be It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books, a minimalist 1988 film that is included on the Criterion Collection release of Slacker as a bonus.) Still, this portrait of Gen X aimlessness in Austin over a single day served as a calling card for Linklater when it screened at festivals (including Sundance) in 1990 and 1991. And despite (or because of) a mostly non-professional cast and little adherence to film conventions like plot and characters that appear throughout the duration of the film, it won over critics when it opened in theaters later that year, and helped kick off a decade recognized as a high point in the history of indie filmmaking.
“Once you're onto its wavelength (it doesn't take long), Linklater's passing parade starts to ring true.” —Mike Clark, USA Today
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