Sex, Lies, Ocean’s, and Magic Mike: Ranking Steven Soderbergh’s 20 best films
Name a style—heist comedies, gritty crime thrillers, exotic dance—and chances are Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh has pulled it off
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The return of Mike is as good a time as any to consider the work of the director whose lens first captured Channing Tatum’s exotic dancer in all his magic. Director-writer-editor-cinematographer Steven Soderbergh can seemingly do it all, from heist comedies to gritty crime thrillers to social statement films and, of course, lots and lots of Channing Tatum. Perhaps Soderbergh remains such an essential creative force in Hollywood because of how wildly varied his filmography has been since the indie breakout that was Sex, Lies, And Videotape. Whether you’re in the mood for his Oscar-winning fare like Traffic and Erin Brockovich or oddball character studies like The Informant! or Behind The Candelabra, a Soderbergh film has an entertainment value guarantee. Let’s round up and rank his best ones, shall we?
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Not a bad ranking of his films actually. Though I personally don’t love Ocean’s 11 as much as most seem to, so I’d have that much lower, and I’d include the underrated Unsane in here somewhere. Oh, and his Solaris film seems to get a mostly bad rap but I like that one quite a lot (though not as good as the Tarkovsky film). The visuals and musical score in Soderbergh’s Solaris are probably the best in his filmography. Out of Sight and Sex, Lies and Videotape would my top 2 ranked films from the ‘bergh.
I personally think Solaris is his most underrated film. It’s gorgeous, impeccably acted, and emotionally devastating. It’s biggest faults are that it dared to remake the Tarkovsky film (ensuring that critics would step into the theater with a chip on their shoulder), and that it was marketed as a film coming from Soderbergh (“The director of Ocean’s Eleven!”) and James Cameron (“The director of The Terminator, Aliens and Titanic!”) which misled audiences into thinking they were going to be watching a much different type of sci-fi film.
Totally agree…I love his take on Solaris…It’s one I like to watch when I feel like getting away from the world. (Pun intended) Very quiet and Zen…hypnotic…totally marketed wrong!
Contagion is the movie I wanted World War Z to be, albeit with fewer zombies.
The Limey is my favorite of his films, so I would have topped a list with it, but I can’t argue Out of Sight. That’s probably my second. The top five here is pretty solid, though Traffic does nothing for me.No Sudden Move, or me (and it sounds like for the writer) was thoroughly satisfying, and I think deserves higher than most of the bottom half of the list. Also, I know whatshername is persona non grata but Haywire has some kickass action. A little hollow, but a good time.
Everyone should see The Limey. That is all.
“For me” not “or me”…
The Limey all the way. “Tell him I’m fucking coming!” Absolutely perfect and lean.
thanks a lot Traffic, for ushering in the Mexico Coffee Filter Lens Tint
“As you can see, we are now in Mexico because everything is vaguely orange and desaturated.”
I haven’t seen No Sudden Move and I know reception was mixed, but ranking it worse than The Girlfriend Experience is surprising.
The Limey and Haywire – fuck yes. He is a fucking genre maestro.
Logan Lucky is one of my favorite ways to spend a lazy Saturday afternoon. Daniel Craig has an absolute ball chewing every bite of the scenery. ‘I. am. In. Car. Cer. Ated!!’
I’d probably swap his Solaris in place of Haywire, but overall I can’t find a lot of fault in this list. My top 3 would probably be Contagion (my bias for movies where humanity gets offed is showing), The Limey, Sex Lies & Videotape.
Side Effects at #15? Come on, it’s at least better than the first Magic Mike.
I really love the murky morality of Side Effects. Jude Law and Rooney Mara’s characters are cut from the same cloth, it’s just that Mara’s character is much more sociopathic. Hitchcockian in the best way imaginable.
I get excluding Oceans 12, but Oceans 13 rules.
Yeah, I was surprised Oceans 13 didn’t make the list. It’s just a crazier version of Oceans 11.
Ocean’s 13 and Ocean’s 11 are on TV all the time, and I will always watch either one until the end whenever I catch them… and hope that the other one is on right after. Sometimes you just wanna see a bunch of movie stars be movie stars in a lighthearted heist movie, and I honestly can’t think of two other heist movies I’d rather watch than those two. Heck… I would still probably put Ocean’s 12 in the top 10.
I agree completely. Pacino makes such a smarmy villain in Ocean’s 13 that it outshines the earlier two. Ocean’s 11 was fun, meeting all the characters, but Ocean’s 12 was a snore.
That was the pitch from screenwriter Rebecca Blunt that proved too tempting for Soderbergh to pass up, taking him out of a four-year retirementRebecca Blunt was a pseudonym used by Soderbergh’s wife Jules Asner. He came out of retirement to direct his wife’s script. In fairness, it was a great script and we’re all glad he did it.
this heist is set at a NASCAR speed track in North Carolina?Look, I realize most AV Club writers aren’t into racing, or NASCAR, or cars in general, but speed track? That’s a new one. It’s a racetrack, or track.Calling it a speed track is like going to a baseball game and calling it a ball stadium.
Much like King of the Hill, I think The Underneath is an underappreciated film that gets lost in the shuffle because it came out in his pre-Out of Sight days. It definitely doesn’t help that it was followed by the near universally-panned Schizopolis. But it’s a decent little crime flick, with Soderbergh beginning to use color-coding to distinguish various timelines in the story. I would have ranked it above No Sudden Move.
Underneath is one of my favourites. I love to compare it to the book and with the first adaptation, both called Criss Cross. Oh pulpy noir, how underrated it is yet on its country of origin.
Soderbergh is my favorite working director – possibly because he works so damn much!
Oh man… I haven’t thought about Spalding Gray in a long time. It’s amazing how riveting a single person on stage giving a monologue can be. Such an engaging person and also so tragic. I’m going to have to track this stuff down.
They’re hard to find these days, but I used to watch Monster in a Box, Swimming to Cambodia, and Gray’s Anatomy about once a year. Hard to explain how utterly watchable they are – you just have to see them.
A pretty solid list overall. I’m one of the few who don’t love Logan Lucky – I get why people do (it is fun), but it seems to retread a lot of other films to me. On the other hand, I like some of his weirder stuff, so I’d probably have made room for at least one of Kafka, Schizopolis, or Bubble. And I think I must be the only one who likes The Good German.
I felt the same way about Logan Lucky. It’s fine, but there was a definitely feeling of forced whimsy layered on top of a redneck Ocean’s 11 plot. Craig killed, though. I love that everyone gets pissed at him for stopping to buy snacks and drinks inside the track gates and it turns out that’s what he’s making his bomb with.
I knew exactly what Number 1 was going to be, but I was not disappointed. Out Of Sight is a stone cold classic.
“You wanted to tussle. We tussled.”
“You know, in a situation like this, there’s a high potentiality for the common motherfucker to bitch out.”
Is there a list here? When I scroll up and down I can’t find anything
It’s a slideshow. You can either click through all of the slides, or make the browser window narrow until it all appears on one page. Or read it on a phone as one page.
I enjoyed Full Frontal, but looking over the list… Full Frontal is fine where it is.
I feel sorry for anyone who cannot connect w Soderbergh’s BEST (most personal) feature Solaris (2002): about the quandary of thought and body while also being deeply romantic & affecting imo.Solaris is a deceptively complicated piece that most deemed terribly pretentious for asking the big questions in its relatively brief running time—but techno poetry all the same.
I still miss Spaulding Grey.