JIM JARMUSCH: RANKED
- 1 hour ago
- 7 min read
Jim Jarmusch is one of those filmmakers where, the second the movie starts, you know exactly who made it. Before a plot even kicks in, before anyone says a word, you can feel the temperature of it. The rhythm. The deadpan. The space between the lines.
The way he lets a moment sit there until it becomes funny, or sad, or strangely profound, or all three at once. And I love that. I love that kind of confidence. I love that kind of stubborn, beautiful refusal to hurry up and “get to the point.”
With Jarmusch, the point is the drifting. The point is the vibe. The point is the odd little human behavior that most movies would cut out because it’s “not important.” And for him it’s the only important thing.
He bursts onto the scene in the early ’80s with Permanent Vacation and then really detonates with Stranger Than Paradise, and if you lived through that era, you know what a jolt that was.
The early wave of American independent cinema was just starting to crack theaters and gain legitimacy, and Jarmusch was right there at the front of it, making movies that didn’t look like anything else playing at the multiplex. Stranger Than Paradise didn’t just become a cult hit, it became a calling card for a whole sensibility, and it’s not an accident that it later got added to the National Film Registry.
And part of what makes him so unique is that he’s always had that “outsider looking in” perspective, even when he’s filming America. It’s like he’s walking around the United States with the eyes of a friendly alien, noticing the tiny details that the rest of us barrel past.
That’s why his movies are full of drifters, loners, quiet observers, people who don’t quite fit, people who seem slightly out of phase with the world around them. He’s got that immigrant-in-your-own-life vibe, and it doesn’t matter if the character is in New York, Memphis, New Orleans, Helsinki, Paterson, or some mythic black-and-white Western nightmare. The worldview is consistent.
And here’s the key piece: Jarmusch is also a musician. He doesn’t just use music well, he thinks like a musician. He came out of that downtown New York no wave scene, played in The Del-Byzanteens, and later kept making music in different forms, including collaborative albums with Jozef van Wissem, and the band Sqürl, which began as a way to create original music tied to his films.
That matters because his movies often feel like albums. Not “soundtracks,” albums. They have tempo, silence, repetition, variation, riffs. You watch a Jarmusch film and it’s like listening to a record where the pauses are part of the melody.
I vividly remember the first time I saw Stranger Than Paradise in 1984 at the Fine Arts Theatre in downtown Chicago. It hit me like some weird new language. That black-and-white photography. That completely dry sense of humor.
The way it just kind of unfolds without begging you to like it. It wasn’t trying to be cute. It wasn’t trying to be commercial. It was just doing its thing, and if you tuned into it, you were rewarded. And I tuned into it immediately.
And look at the people who show up in his movies, and the way they show up. Jarmusch has always been an actor’s director, but he’s also a director who attracts a certain kind of performer, the kind of person who wants to play against their own image, or do something odd, or quiet, or genuinely unexpected.
He’s the guy who helped make American audiences really pay attention to Roberto Benigni in Down by Law. He’s the guy who convinced people that Tom Waits isn’t just a musician with a voice like gravel and bourbon, he’s also a terrific actor. He’s the guy who got Bill Murray to do some of the best work of his career, especially in Broken Flowers.
He’s the guy who gave Adam Driver a role in Paterson that’s basically all interior rhythm and observation, and Driver nails it. Jarmusch gets actors to relax into weirdness. He doesn’t force them into “movie acting.” He lets them exist.
And then there’s the cool factor, which is real, and I don’t mean that in a shallow way. Jarmusch is cool the way records are cool. The way a great black-and-white photo is cool. The way an old paperback novel you found in a used bookstore is cool. He’s got impeccable taste, but he’s not showy about it.
He’s influenced by giants, you can feel Ozu and Bresson in the restraint, you can feel Fuller in the independent-minded grit, you can feel Wenders in the road-movie DNA, and you can feel that whole global-cinema mindset in the way he lets languages and cultures mix without making a big speech about it.
He’s also one of the most consistent original voices we’ve had for over forty years. That doesn’t mean every movie is perfect. There are a few missteps. There are a couple where I admire them more than I love them. But even when he stumbles, it’s still Jarmusch. It’s still interesting. It’s still personal. It’s still unmistakable.
And the fact that he’s still doing it, still making movies that are quiet, funny, sad, odd, and completely his, is something we should be grateful for.
His latest film, Father Mother Sister Brother, is a perfect example of that, a triptych that’s funny and sad and beautifully observed, and it even picked up the Golden Lion at Venice, which is just wild and wonderful and completely deserved.
So yeah, I love Jim Jarmusch. I love the way he makes movies. I love the way he uses music. I love the way his films feel like they’re happening in their own little pocket universe, just slightly adjacent to reality.
And now I’ve gone ahead and ranked all 14 of his feature films, in order of my preference, because that’s what I do, and because his filmography is absolutely worth digging through, arguing about, and revisiting.
So here they are. All 14 Jim Jarmusch films, ranked by me, in order of preference.
JIM JARMUSCH: RANKED
This is it. My favorite Jim Jarmusch movie and one of my favorite movies, period. A hypnotic, existential Western that feels like a death dream drifting across America.
Johnny Depp is perfectly blank and searching, Gary Farmer is extraordinary, and the Neil Young score is loud, screeching, raw, and completely alive. This is Jarmusch at his most confident, poetic, and fearless, and it’s a movie that gets under your skin and stays there.
Pure Jarmusch cool. Black-and-white beauty, three lost souls, and one of the greatest comedic performances ever courtesy of Roberto Benigni. Tom Waits is terrific, John Lurie is perfect, and the movie just floats along on vibes, humor, and melancholy. It’s funny, weird, humane, and endlessly rewatchable.
A quiet masterpiece about paying attention. Adam Driver gives one of the best performances of his career as a bus driver who writes poetry, and nothing “big” happens, which is exactly the point. This is Jarmusch’s gentlest, most generous film, a love letter to routine, creativity, and small daily miracles. It’s beautiful.
Three stories, one night, one city, and a whole lot of atmosphere. This is Jarmusch riffing on America, Elvis, loneliness, and coincidence, all filtered through Memphis at night. It’s funny, sad, cool, and endlessly charming, with some fantastic performances and a great sense of place.
One of the best Bill Murray performances ever, and that’s saying something. A melancholy road movie about regret, missed connections, and emotional stasis. It’s funny in that dry, devastating Jarmusch way, but also surprisingly tender. Murray completely locks into Jarmusch’s rhythm here.
The movie that changed everything. Minimalist, deadpan, and totally revolutionary at the time. The black-and-white photography, the repetition, the refusal to explain anything, and it all felt brand new. I still remember seeing this in a theater and realizing independent film could be this cool, this strange, and this confident.
Five cab rides, five cities, five tones, all connected by Jarmusch’s human curiosity. Some segments work better than others, but when it hits, it really hits. The Winona Ryder and Roberto Benigni segments are especially great. A warm, funny, quietly observant movie.
One of the coolest vampire movies ever made. Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston are perfectly cast as immortal hipsters drifting through centuries of art, music, and decay. It’s slow, stylish, funny, and soaked in mood. Jarmusch makes immortality look both romantic and deeply exhausting.
His latest gem. Funny, sad, quiet, and beautifully restrained. This feels like Jarmusch reflecting on relationships, aging, and emotional distance with clarity and compassion. Winning the Golden Lion at Venice was well deserved. A small film with a big emotional footprint.
Raw, scrappy, and deeply personal. You can see the filmmaker forming right in front of you. It’s rough around the edges, but the themes, the drifting characters, and the urban alienation are all there. An essential starting point.
A fascinating, sometimes brilliant collision of cultures. Forest Whitaker is excellent, the RZA score is fantastic, and the vibe is undeniable. I admire it more than I love it, but it’s a bold, idiosyncratic film that only Jarmusch could have made.
A mixed bag, but a charming one. Some segments are terrific, others less so, but the concept is pure Jarmusch. Watching interesting people talk about nothing and everything over coffee and cigarettes feels like hanging out in his brain for a while.
A zombie movie that’s more amusing than satisfying. The deadpan approach sometimes works, sometimes just feels a little too sleepy. There are good moments and funny ideas, but it never quite comes together the way I hoped it would, but seeing Iggy Pop as a zombie is pretty special.
The only Jarmusch movie I genuinely struggle with. Beautifully shot, impeccably controlled, and emotionally distant to the point of frustration. It’s a meditation I admire intellectually but don’t connect with on any real level. Minimalism pushed a little too far for me.
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