Terrence Malick ranks as the most enigmatic, unorthodox director working today. Known for his ethereal, deeply introspective movies, he has employed a wide range of filmmaking techniques—including a heavy reliance on landscape shots, stream of conscious voiceovers, and extensive editing (sometimes rearranging an entire film’s narrative)—to explore issues like war, violence, and love, and the complicated effects they have on his characters.
These techniques have earned Malick a reputation for creating movies with dreamlike atmospheres that critics have both lauded and ridiculed. Some of his films (namely his first five) earned high critical praise, while his more recent movies’ received a mixed reception.
From his earliest directorial efforts to his latest historical epics, here are all Terence Malick movies ranked from best to worst.
1. The Tree of Life
Malick's fifth film, The Tree of Life, presents the director's most ambitious artistic vision to date. It combines every trick in Malick's playbook, offering an intense, meaningful meditation on the creation of life (including a sequence showing literal dinosaurs roaming the Earth), and the turbulent nature of existence itself.
At the center of Malick's film is Jack (Sean Penn), a middle-aged man reflecting on his childhood in 1950s Texas, including his relationship with his abusive father (Brad Pitt) and his loving mother (Jessica Chastain).
Malick packs the film with deeper meaning, namely man's ability to find love and understanding amidst great suffering. Unlike Malick's later films, though, The Tree of Life possesses just enough of a plot and storyline to keep the film moving rather than collapsing in on itself.
Malick's boldest film—covering the most profound questions he's ever asked (Why do good people die too soon? Why does God allow bad things to happen?)—The Tree of Life feels like the culmination of every creative interest, inquiry, and subject Malick has ever wanted to examine.
2. The Thin Red Line
After Days of Heaven, Malick disappeared from filmmaking for 19 years. When he finally returned, he seemingly poured two decades worth of creative juice into his war film, The Thin Red Line.
Adapted from the James Jones novel of the same name, The Thin Red Line follows a company of U.S. soldiers who land on the Japanese-occupied island of Guadalcanal early in the Pacific War.
Using a large ensemble cast — many of whom provide their own thoughts and opinions on war in stream-of-conscious monologue — Malick blends the original novel with his signature philosophical themes. Though the movie follows a large group of troops, The Thin Red Line thrives on individual observations, focusing on the alienating effect violence has on a person.
Beautifully shot, and costarring numerous standout actors (Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, George Clooney, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Nick Nolte, John C. Reilly, John Travolta, and many more), The Thin Red Line courted massive success for Malick, with audiences and critics hailing it as one of the greatest war films of all time.
3. Badlands
Malick's inaugarul film, Badlands, remains one of the finest debuts in all of cinema. Its minimal plot, tight budget, reliance on a small, unknown cast, and implementation of Malick's core artistic sensibilities (exploring philosophical beliefs) make it an fascinating movie that laid the groundwork for the dreamlike tone that every subsequent film of Malick’s would have.
Inspired by teenage spree killer Charles Starkweather, Badlands follows a fame-obsessed young man named Kit (Martin Sheen) who falls in love with a lonely, troubled girl (Sissy Spacek) in their impoverished North Dakota home town in the 1950s. When Kit kills her abusive father (Warren Oates), the two flee from authorities, embarking on a lengthy road trip across Montana's desert.
A strange love story, Badlands explores two key themes that Malick would return to in his future films: love and violence. Badlands offers a very unique depiction of both, portraying the gratifying relationship two troubled outcasts find in one another, and their romanticized, Bonnie and Clyde-style escape.
As seen in the movie, Kit's failure to find meaning in his life results in him harming others. Unable to achieve success on his own elsewhere, all he's left with is killing: not the act itself, but the effect it has on getting him attention (the only thing he's ever wanted in life). It's an interesting portrayal of violence few directors have really touched upon, and a depiction that made Badlands one of the most unique movies of the 1970s.
4. Days of Heaven
In his final film before a 20-year-long hiatus, Malick made his second feature, the period romance drama, Days of Heaven.
In the mid-1910s', a young trio—Bill (Richard Gere), his girlfriend Abby (Brooke Adams), and Bill's younger sister (Linda Manz)—flee to Texas after Bill kills his boss in Chicago. Finding work on the farm of a lonely, dying farmer (Sam Shepard), Bill persuades Abby to feign romantic interest in him so that they can inherit his fortune after he dies.
Days of Heaven examines the dangers of misplaced romance and how feelings turn into murderous jealousy. Previously, Malick portrayed romance as a way for dissociated individuals to find meaning and companionship. In Days of Heaven, Malick takes on a much more nuanced exploration of romance, portraying it as something both endearing and dangerous. This nuance makes Days of Heaven an endearing film, minimal in plotting yet profoundly complex in its characters and themes.
5. A Hidden Life
The most political of Malick's films, A Hidden Life sees Malick return to form. The dialogue, camera style, and voiceovers all feel like vintage Malick—and its distinct historical setting and subject matter resemble early Malick movies rather than the abstract, experimental films he'd made in the 2010s.
In the early days of World War II, fervent Catholic Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl) gets drafted into the German Army. Refusing to take an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler, Jägerstätter becomes an outcast and is arrested and executed by the Nazis for his perceived treason.
Jägerstätter himself made for an ideal Malick protagonist—someone who values his own religious and moral beliefs over worldly concerns, and who will not sell out his integrity. Like all of Malick's films, A Hidden Life has a loose plot, but the gradual build-up toward Jägerstätter's conviction is thoughtfully paced. That might account for its success and high praise among critics, who praise it as a worthy successor to Malick’s early filmography.
6. The New World
Malick has long been drawn to nature as a subject—hence the numerous shots in his films. This fascination with the natural world ultimately culminated in his 2005 epic, The New World, one of his most beautifully-shot movies so far.
Landing on the shores of America in the early 1600s, Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell) and his expeditionary crew struggle to establish a colony in the dense Virginia wilderness, having to survive against starvation, sickness, and continuing conflict with the nearby Powhatan tribe.
Malick's treatment of this natural world of beauty also serves as a fantastic jumping-off point in his portrayal of the Natives' and Europeans' contrasting worldviews. The Natives live off the land in a sustainable way; the Europeans chop down trees and grow crops the climate won't support—and ultimately suffer because of it.
Here, not only do audiences see both groups' philosophies but also their worries in regard to this New World: the explorers see it as a land of opportunity, and the Natives fear that the explorers' arrival could mean the end of life as they know it.
7. To the Wonder
Falling in love in Paris, American tourist Neil (Ben Affleck) invites Ukrainian divorcée Marina (Olga Kurylenko) and her young daughter to his home in Oklahoma. Though the pair makes the transition to the American countryside smoothly, their love for one another slowly begins to cool, as each of them tries—and fails—to keep their relationship afloat.
Like his later Song to Song, To the Wonder thrives on an interesting storyline—two individuals rush into a relationship a little too quickly, make a decision to move in together, and try to fend off their own internal doubts about whether they've made a huge mistake.
The premise might have had promise, but unfortunately, Malick couldn't make it as nuanced and emotionally satisfying as his earlier work, mostly due to shallow characters.
8. Knight of Cups
Rick (Christian Bale) is a screenwriter whose career success fails to grant him the personal happiness he desperately craves. Looking to achieve some genuine fulfillment in his life, Rick journeys through Los Angeles and Las Vegas, learning important life lessons and philosophies from people close to him.
Malick has long weaved in his personal interests in existentialism in all of his movies. Here, his decision to illustrate the many different meanings of life told through a tarot deck-like presentation made for a creative challenge, yet it never feels fleshed out enough.
In a way, Knight of Cups feels like it could've been a terrific film—Malick's version of Waking Life—but in the end, it suffers from a lack of clear plotting, coming across as the most chaotic of Malick's movies so far.
9. Song to Song
Malick's recent films have earned criticism from moviegoers and critics alike, all of whom rail against the lack of character development and disjunctive narratives as compared to Malick’s earlier body of work. Admittedly, Malick may be his best when given a straight subject matter to explore (the celebrity of crime in Badlands, war in The Thin Red Line, the dangers of misplaced affection in Days of Heaven), which may explain why his later filmography lacks the same nuance as his earliest films.
Such a case could be made for Song to Song, Malick's 2017 experimental romance. Set in the modern Texas music industry, Faye (Rooney Mara) struggles to establish herself as a guitarist and ends up beginning a romantic affair with a record producer (Michael Fassbender). From there, the film’s plot weaves between two love triangles involving Faye, the producer, and Faye's boyfriend (Ryan Gosling).
Song to Song may have had an interesting premise. The movie explores several love affairs, most of which end in heartbreak, leading characters to look for further romances and continuing the never-ending cycle of heartbreak and love.
Malick falters in his execution, not developing characters, and their subsequent attraction to one another and eventual breakups are poorly explained.
Though it had a promising premise, Song to Song remains Malick's most disappointing movie; the director not fulfilling a promising concept
Feature Image Credit: Fox Searchlight Pictures.
