Sofia Coppola Films Ranked
Being born the daughter of the greatest filmmaker of the 70s has gotta come with as much baggage as it does privilege, especially when said daughter wants to follow in her father’s footsteps. Sofia Coppola’s first introduction to much of the world was in The Godfather Part III, a best-forgotten snoozefest that tanked the series’ perfect record and let us all get to know Sofia as a piss-poor actress before she knocked the world on its ass with The Virgin Suicides in 1999. In the 20 years since, she’s directed at least as many classics as Francis did in his 70s run, but rarely do you hear her name brought up outside the context of Best Female Directors.
Which, f*** that shit. When she was nominated for Best Director in 2004, she was only the third woman to be nominated in that category ever. In the ensuing 16 years, only two more women have earned nods.* In the context of such obvious sexism, what’s striking about Coppola’s style is how explicitly feminine it is.** From the dreamy hues of The Virgin Suicides through the femme-centric retelling of The Beguiled, there’s a sensitivity and softness to the way she approaches her characters (not to mention her soundtracks) that’s totally unique in cinema. Something tells me she’s just fine with being overlooked—the better for her to observe life quietly and spin it into cinematic gold.
7. The Bling Ring (2013)
The Bling Ring doesn’t feel like a Sofia Coppola movie. The markers are all there—strong female leads, ennui, a bitchin’ soundtrack***—but something’s off. Maybe it’s that a story about vapid characters doing vapid things in a vapid city told vapidly is just too meta, or maybe it’s just that I hate L.A.**** and this whole movie is about the all things I hate about L.A. Regardless, it’s one of only a couple of Coppola films that are less than essential viewing, a disappointing turn considering the strength of the cast.
6. Somewhere (2010)
Up until Somewhere, Coppola’s track record was unimpeachable. Marry that with a premise that sounds vaguely reminiscent of her best work while also more personal, and expectations were sky high. While beautiful, Somewhere just flounders in place, going from one meh kinda plot point to another without giving either of its two leads (a pretty good Steven Dorff and a really good Elle Fanning) much to do.***** It’s not a bad film by any means, just a boring one that doesn’t achieve the potential of its disparate parts.
5. A Very Murray Christmas (2015)
Does A Very Murray Christmas count? I’m gonna say it counts. Like the films ranked lower on this list, not a whole lot happens in A Very Murray Christmas. But unlike those films, its got enough charm and effervescence to maintain a bubbly mood throughout its brief one hour runtime. “Bill Murray aimlessly wanders around and sings songs with celebrities” would be an apt description, and your enjoyment of the film largely rests on how much that premise speaks to you. Though slight in scope and ambition, A Very Murray Christmas casts a warm spell of holiday cheer, with just enough melancholy to remind you that Christmas really isn’t the most wonderful time of the year.******
4. The Virgin Suicides (1999)
The top four here are tight, and don’t let this placing dissuade you of The Virgin Suicides’ power. An adaptation of the lovely novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, Suicide was Coppola’s feature-length debut, and it’s an astonishing display of all the characteristics she would hone and craft throughout her career.****** The adaptation doesn’t stray far from the source material, but the direction and casting are particularly inspired, with James Woods and Kathleen Turner turning in career-best supporting roles as the uptight parents of the doomed Lisbon girls. Kirsten Dunst is the real star of the show, bringing Lux to life with a curious, playful sexuality that snaps the family in half and becomes all the more heartbreaking after the tragic ending.*******
3. The Beguiled (2017)
I’d describe Sofia Coppola’s best movies as dreamy, and The Beguiled is the dreamiest of them all. Filmed in Louisiana, the humidity becomes a character in and of itself, saturating each shot with a stifling stickiness that accentuates the heaving sexual tension as a wounded soldier stumbles into a school for girls during the Civil War. More than any of her films since The Virgin Suicides, The Beguiled is an ensemble piece, with each of the actors shining in their roles and building a mood between themselves.******** The film is all pent-up sex and quiet danger, a smoldering slow burn that builds to a cruel and cathartic climax. Mind your manners.*********
2. Marie Antoinette (2006)
History has never been this cool and sexy, nor has it ever cared so little about how cool and sexy it is. Sure, the soundtrack is sacrilege and the fashion anachronistic. But damn, who wouldn’t rather live in this version of France than the real thing? Kirsten Dunst plays the terminally apathetic monarch who knows her role as a woman is simply to be a pawn in a man’s world, resigns herself to that fact, and then decides to do whatever the hell she wants as long as she can get away with it. This film is easily the most divisive in Coppola’s filmography, but critics who dismiss it as frivolous or too fashion-focused are missing out on all the sensual joys this movie offers.********** Let them eat cake.
1. Lost in Translation (2003)
Lost in Translation is a small miracle. It’s a story about the fleetingness of human connection, about finding love in unlikely places and knowing that it can’t last. It’s about the loneliness of traveling and the isolation of cross-cultural experiences. It’s also my favorite film. Bill Murray (Bob) and Scarlett Johansson (Charlotte) haunt the crowded streets of Tokyo and empty halls of the Hyatt, slowly circling each other until they realize their passion is fated to be short-lived. It’s a movie that changes every time I watch it, meeting me with my own experience and reflecting it back at me until I can see new shades of myself in Bob and Charlotte. It also has the best soundtrack of any movie ever, hands down.*********** It’s not a perfect film,************ but it’s one that connects to me in a deep way each time I watch it.
Footnotes:
*Kathryn Bigelow is still the only woman to have ever won the award for the was-it-really-that-good-though? The Hurt Locker.
**Bigelow doesn’t have the explicit femininity that other female nominees (Coppola, Gerwig, Campion) have brought to their films. This isn’t a critique of Bigelow’s work (which is outstanding and impressive), nor is it a perceived limitation on what “femininity” means or how that can be expressed through film. It’s just me saying that The Hurt Locker is kind of a dude movie, and the other female-directed films to be nominated have been told through a more explicitly feminist lens.
***Outside discussion of female directors, the other place I see Coppola get attention is for her soundtrack work. I cannot rave enough about how good she is at curating sounds for her films, but will take plenty of time to do so throughout this post.
****In fairness, I’m sure there are a lot of great things about Los Angeles. I’ve just had too many bad experiences visiting that place, from shutting down the 405 when my car randomly caught on fire to getting my heart broken by an asshole Angelino. Great tacos, though.
*****My favorite thing about Somewhere is its shout-out in an episode of 30 Rock, where persecuted intellectual Dot Com reviews the film by saying “you wouldn’t expect a movie called Somewhere to go absolutely nowhere.”
******Two times of the year that are better than Christmas: summer (because everyone at work is on vacation, which means you can get away with doing the bare minimum and no one will notice) and autumn (because sunny days with crisp, cool nights is the best weather). That’s not to say I don’t enjoy the holiday season, there are just other times of the year where you get to enjoy yourself and be merry without the added stress of travel and extended family.
******One of those characteristics is the soundtrack, which is double-stacked in The Virgin Suicides. On one hand, you’ve got 70s smashes that fit the period and bring authentic color to the proceedings, especially when Tripp Fontaine (swoon) walks into school to Heart. On the other hand, you’ve got an original score from French bachelor pad space cadets Air, who add anxious electronics and schoolyard yearning (“Playground Love”) to the mix. Both the soundtrack and Air’s score are very much worth checking out.
*******The scene where the boys discover the bodies is incredible. Major props to cinematographer Edward Lachman for showing the bare minimum while the boys creep silently through the house, then flee for their lives as they discover cadavers at every turn.
********Even amongst giants like Nicole Kidman (goddess) and Kirsten Dunst, the performance that stands out most in the movie is (then 13 year-old) Addison Riecke, whose cusp-of-pubescence bitchiness and flirtation with Colin Ferrel steal the show.
*********In the original The Beguiled (1971), the girls school is also home to a slave woman, which would have been historically accurate to the time period. Coppola excluded the character from her own version, which caused some minor backlash in the media. She wrote a (rather thoughtful) response that you can check out here.
**********The two biggest of which are its visuals and its soundtrack. Marie Antoinette is the prettiest of all Coppola’s movies, with lingering shots of Versailles, the costumes, and f****in’ MOUNTAINS of patisserie offering plenty to indulge in. The soundtrack is also thiiiiis close to beating out Lost in Translation for the best Sofia Coppola soundtrack, and likely the best soundtrack ever. Shoegaze, new wave and dream pop sit alongside baroque classics on the two-disc set that includes innumerable highlights and holds together remarkably well as two separate albums. It also helped convince me that The Strokes’ Room on Fire is better than Is This It? based upon the strength of its opener (“What Ever Happened?”), which is used to great effect both on the soundtrack and in the film itself. The best song here is “Pulling Our Weight” by The Radio Dept., which is also one of my all-time favorites.
***********Seriously, this thing is stacked top-to-bottom and flows like the best mixtape anyone has ever made. Most impressively, Sofia convinced Kevin Shields (notorious recluse of My Bloody Valentine fame) to release his only solo material ever as part of the soundtrack. It sits comfortably beside other moody tracks from Air, Sebastian Tellier, Girls in Vegas, and Jesus & Mary Chain. Other soundtracks I’d rank near the top of all-time would be Tarantino’s Death Proof (grossly underrated, especially in comparison to his other soundtracks) and Wes Anderson’s Rushmore. Oh, and Purple Rain if we’re counting that as a soundtrack instead of counting the movie as a music video.
************Much has been written about Coppola’s handling of race and Japanese culture in Lost in Translation, which warrants some discussion. Without a doubt, the Japanese characters in the film are treated as “other”, and Coppola selectively shows and exaggerates some of the most extreme parts of Japanese culture in a way that can fairly be read as stereotyping/Orientalist/racist. Bob also makes a few comments in film that are racially problematic. It’s a film told from the perspective of two white, American tourists visiting Japan for the first time, and so it makes sense to me that the things they would notice most about the culture are those that are the most different from their own.
