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.
The director's second film released in 2001 is an adaptation of Stephen Belber's play of the same name. The three-hander takes place in real time within a motel room, where a reunion between two former high school classmates turns ugly when one accuses the other of raping his ex-girlfriend. Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, and Uma Thurman star.
“The writing, acting and direction are so convincing that at some point I stopped thinking about the constraints and started thinking about the movie's freedoms.” —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times