This week, Paramount Pictures brings the release of Robert Zemeckis’s Allied, a World War II spy romance starring Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard, and as with any new Zemeckis film, it’s a cause for celebration. With that in mind, we’ve gone ahead and ranked every Robert Zemeckis movie, which was no easy task given how many out-and-out classics the man has made over his nearly four-decade career.
Perhaps best known for the Back to the Future trilogy as well as winning a Best Director Oscar for Forrest Gump, Zemeckis was a USC film school grad who got taken under the wing of Steven Spielberg right out of college. He co-wrote Spielberg’s 1941, then started a directing career where he specialized in comedy (Used Cars, Romancing the Stone). After the success of Back to the Future, he began innovating with technology when he blended live action with animation in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and integrated Tom Hanks into historical footage in Gump. In the 2000s, he began a fascination with performance-capture animation, which he explored over several films as both producer and director (Monster House, Polar Express). In recent years he’s gone back to making “real people” movies with a series of dramas including this week’s Allied, which involves a spy who marries another spy who may turn out to be a traitor.
Take a look at our ranking of every Robert Zemeckis movie in the gallery below, and let us know your own favorites in the comments section!
RANKED: Every Robert Zemeckis Movie
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#17: A Christmas Carol (2009)
Zemeckis's third and wholly unnecessary foray into performance capture animation casts Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge AND all the ghosts that haunt him during his night of moral repentance. Charles Dickens' immortal classic is adapted faithfully but with little innovation story-wise, while the technical aspects of the technology were still not quite up-to-snuff.
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#16: Death Becomes Her (1992)
Two old rivals drink a potion that makes them immortal, and they quickly learn the consequences of that as they set out for revenge against each other. While this ghoulish satire on the nature of vanity has its fans, the truth is that the warring frenemies played by Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn are so loathsome that it's hard to elicit anything other than contempt for them, which gets old after awhile.
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#15: Flight (2012)
A kind of bizarro world version of Clint Eastwood's Sully, this drama casts Denzel Washington as a airline pilot who saves hundreds of lives with a daring maneuver. Unfortunately he's also an alcoholic and a drug addict, and may have been intoxicated at the time of the crash. The moral dilemma at the center is quite powerful, but unfortunately a rather pat ending is a bit too simple a resolution for such a complex situation.
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#14: The Walk (2015)
This fictional recounting of high-wire artist Philippe Petit's walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on August 7, 1974 features stunning visuals and a great Joseph Gordon-Levitt performance at the center. Unfortunately it doesn't compare to the simple power of watching the ACTUAL footage of Petit in the 2008 documentary Man on Wire.
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#13: The Polar Express (2004)
Zemeckis's first attempt at utilizing performance capture animation allowed him to let his camera glide through impossible angles and for star Tom Hanks to seamlessly play seven parts including the train conductor, a hobo, Santa Claus and the hero boy. While many complained of the "dead eyes" effect the technology hadn't yet perfected, this is an undeniably revolutionary work by a master filmmaker trying to push boundaries.
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#12: What Lies Beneath (2000)
In-between shooting the "Fat Hanks" and "Skinny Hanks" portions of Cast Away, Zemeckis kept his crew together by shooting this rousing Hitchcock tribute. Michelle Pfeiffer plays a housewife whose ghostly visions may portend to some ghastly doings, and Harrison Ford is her concerned husband trying to come to grips with it. Features a truly shocking third act twist, some of Zemeckis's trademark impossible camera angles and a script by Agent Coulson himself, Clark Gregg!
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#11: I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978)
Zemeckis's first feature as a director is a fun look back at the giddy days of "Beatle Mania" in the United States as a group of wacky teens all converge in New York City to watch The Beatles make their historic performance on "The Ed Sullivan Show." A charming debut film that is widely underappreciated.
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#10: Back to the Future Part III (1990)
After the brilliance of the first one and the subversiveness of the second, the final part in the Back to the Future trilogy's only real fault is it begins to feel like a retread. This time it's Doc who needs to be saved by Marty as the teen travels back to 1885 and is forced to rough it out in the old west version of Hill Valley. Mary Steenburgen is perfect as Doc's love interest Clara, and the finale puts the perfect button on what is one of the most consistent and cherished trilogies in moviedom.
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#9: Cast Away (2000)
Tom Hanks is a one-man show as a Fed Ex employee who gets washed up on an island for years with no one but himself and his volleyball companion "Wilson" to keep him company. The scenes on the island exploring the character's struggle to survive are fascinating, although the film loses a lot of its momentum in the third act.
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#8: Beowulf (2007)
The most creatively successful of Zemeckis's three attempts at performance capture, this take on the ancient poem injects it with fire and adrenaline, not to mention plenty of resonance in the second half when an older Beowulf reclaims his glory. Through animation magic the tubby Ray Winstone gets to play a shredded Geat warrior as he does battle with the fearsome Grendel in a truly insane performance by Crispin Glover. The action is straight out of a Frank Frazetta painting, and the adaptation by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary makes an impenetrable saga into a rousing adventure. Also: arguably the greatest dragon in movie history.
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#7: Forrest Gump (1994)
The director found surprising success with this tale of a simpleton (played by Hanks) whose outlook on life and dogged determination lead him through some of the most critical moments of the 20th century, including the Vietnam War. Groundbreaking technology allowed hanks to be inserted into archive footage and interact with historical figures like JFK and Nixon, while the story proved unexpectedly touching.
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#6: Romancing the Stone (1984)
The late Diane Thomas's screenplay helped usher in a very specific subgenre: The romantic action comedy. Kathleen Turner plays an awkward romance novelist who journeys to Colombia to rescue her kidnapped sister, and Michael Douglas is the snarky mercenary who she pays to help take her through the jungle. As Zemeckis's first big hit this was an important film for him career-wise, as well as a crucial step in the development of the female action lead.
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#5: Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Zemeckis and his writing partner Bob Gale abandoned an idea to set a sequel in the 1960's when they came up with the revolutionary idea of going BACK into the FIRST MOVIE and literally watching those events unfold from a different perspective. The first act set in "the future" of 2015 is silly fun, while the second act in "Biff's America" is an apocalyptic riff on It's a Wonderful Life. The woefully unappreciated Thomas F. Wilson gives at least five brilliant performances as different iterations of unstable bully Biff Tannen.
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#4: Used Cars (1980)
An criminally underseen entry is this wild, utterly un-PC comedy about a shifty-but-charming used car salesman played by Kurt Russell who uses the tragic death of his lot's owner as an opportunity to scheme his way to a political career. Jack Warden is hilarious in dual roles as both the kindly owner of Russell's lot and the vicious owner of the rival one that's also planning to take over. This film is often cited among current comedic greats as a personal favorite.
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#3: Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Somehow executive producer Steven Spielberg was able to finagle the rights to all the Warner Bros, Disney and MGM cartoon characters to appear in one movie in an IP coup that may never be equaled. Zemeckis creates a credible (and hilarious) world where cartoon characters seamlessly interact with real people, all with well-integrated hand-drawn animation by Oscar-winner Richard Williams. The late Bob Hoskins also deserves credit for imbuing Roger with believability through his challenging performance acting opposite nothing.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)Directed by Robert ZemeckisShown: Roger Rabbit (voice: Charles Fleischer), Bob Hoskins (as Eddie Valiant)
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#2: Contact (1997)
Carl Sagan's landmark novel provides a bracing-but-hopeful look at what a potential interaction between an alien race and Earth would look like. Jodie Foster plays a strong, highly intelligent and doggedly determined scientist who must overcome the hurdle of her pragmatic outlook against pushback from religious forces, exemplified by Matthew McConaughey's Christian philosopher. Tour-de-force special effects cannot overpower what is, at its core, a thoroughly human story that exemplifies the power of science.
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#1: Back to the Future (1985)
There could be no other movie in the Robert Zemeckis filmography at #1. He and Bob Gale's screenplay about a kid who travels back in time and must force his parents to fall in love for the sake of his own survival is looked upon today as an exemplar of Swiss watch-level storytelling precision. The relationship between Michael J. Fox's Marty and Christopher Lloyd's Doc Brown is just as weird and heartwarming as you remember it, and Crispin Glover is marvelous as the dweeby dad who finds his strength. The jokes, the timing, the subtle visual effects all became hallmarks of Zemeckis's directing style for the decades to come. A rare perfect movie.
