Celebrating Focus Features 20th Anniversary with Our Top 20 Favorite Movies

For twenty years, Focus Features has united cinema’s most fearless filmmakers and gifted actors to create unforgettable experiences in theaters around the world. 

To kick off their two decades of powerful storytelling and remarkable filmmaking, the studio is commemorating the incredible milestone with a new reel, looking back at some of their most iconic on-screen moments. To celebrate their milestone, Focus Features have also released a new logo.

As part of the studio’s plans to celebrate the occasion, AMC Theatres will highlight the Focus Features’ anniversary beginning April 29 with “Focus 20” week at select theatres nationwide. AMC will showcase seven titles from the Focus Features library, each of them receiving an afternoon and primetime screening over the seven-day period. The titles to be featured are DOWNTON ABBEY (directed by Michael Engler; September 20, 2019), BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (directed by Ang Lee; December 9, 2005), BURN AFTER READING(directed by Ethan Cohen, Joel Coen; September 12, 2008), DARKEST HOUR (directed by Joe Wright; November 22, 2017), ATONEMENT (directed by Joe Wright; December 7, 2007), ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND(directed by Michel Gondry; March 19, 2004), and HARRIET(directed by Kasi Lemmons; November 1, 2019).

To celebrate Focus Features’ twentieth anniversary we’re sharing our twenty favorite movies from Focus Features, these movies have become a staple in movie history and have influenced our love for pop culture. In no particular order, the movies are…

• Dazed and Confused

It’s the last day of school at a high school in a small town in Texas in 1976. The upperclassmen are hazing the incoming freshmen, and everyone is trying to get stoned, drunk, or laid, even the football players that signed a pledge not to.

• ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

Directed by Michel Gondry and starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Gerry Robert Byrne, Elijah Wood, and Thomas Jay Ryan. What would happen if we could erase the worst experiences and relationships from our memory? Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry combined forces to answer this very question.

• LOST IN TRANSLATION

Directed by Sofia Coppola and starring Scarlett Johansson, Bill Murray, Akiko Takeshita, Kazuyoshi Minamimagoe, and Kazuko Shibata. The widely successful sophomore film by Sofia Coppola. Set in Tokyo under the bustling city life and lights, the two main characters from different generations build a surprising friendship on the common bond that they don’t have anything to do while they are in Tokyo. The film is a slow, dreamy and at times hilarious look at a relationship and the big city they move unknowingly.

• Shaun of theDead

Directed by Edgar Wright and starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Dylan Moran, Keir Mills, Matt Jaynes. A man decides to turn his moribund life around by winning back his ex-girlfriend, reconciling his relationship with his mother, and dealing with an entire community that has returned from the dead to eat the living.

• The Constant Gardener

A widower is determined to get to the bottom of a potentially explosive secret involving his wife’s murder, big business, and corporate corruption.

• Brokeback Mountain

Directed by Ang Lee and starring Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Randy Quaid, Valerie Planche, and David Trimble. Brokeback Mountain is an Ang Lee film about two modern-day cowboys who meet on a shepherding job in the summer of ’63. The two share a raw and powerful summer together that turns into a lifelong relationship conflicting with the lives they are supposed to live.

• Brick

A teenage loner (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) pushes his way into the underworld of a high school crime ring to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend.

• Hot Fuzz

Jealous colleagues conspire to get a top London cop (Simon Pegg) transferred to a small town and paired with a witless new partner (Nick Frost). On the beat, the pair stumble upon a series of suspicious accidents and events.

• 9

From visionary filmmakers Tim Burton (The Nightmare Before Christmas) and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) and Academy Award-nominated director Shane Acker comes this visually stunning and original epic adventure. In the final days of humanity, a dedicated scientist gives the spark of life to nine of his creations. The world has turned into an unrecognizable landscape of machines and spare parts, but this group of nine finds that if they band together, their small community might just be able to change the course of history. Featuring the voice talents of Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, and Crispin Glover.

• Dallas Buyers Club

Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner and Jared Leto star in director Jean-Marc Vallée‘s (The Young Victoria, C.R.A.Z.Y.) take on the true story of accidental AIDS activist Ron Woodruff, whose cross-border smuggling network brought much-needed treatments into the hands of HIV and AIDS patients neglected by the medical establishment.

• Under The Electric Sky

UNDER THE ELECTRIC SKY is an immersive documentary exploring the allure of the EDM phenomenon told through the experiences of six different groups among the nearly 350,000 festivalgoers attending the Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) 2013 in Las Vegas. Combining those personal stories along with performances by Fatboy Slim, Kaskade, Dillon Francis, Afrojack, Above & Beyond, Armin Van Buren, Avicii, and Tiësto, directors Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz bring the event to life by going behind the scenes to show what it takes to stage one of the biggest parties in the known universe. They chronicle the unique journeys of individual attendees from different walks of life, all of whom share one common desire — to shed their inhibitions and immerse themselves in this judgment-free celebration of life and music.

• Atomic Blonde

• Blackkklansman

From visionary filmmaker Spike Lee comes the incredible true story of an American hero. It’s the early 1970s, and Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) is the first African-American detective to serve in the Colorado Springs Police Department. Determined to make a name for himself, Stallworth bravely sets out on a dangerous mission: infiltrate and expose the Ku Klux Klan. The young detective soon recruits a more seasoned colleague, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), into the undercover investigation of a lifetime. Together, they team up to take down the extremist hate group as the organization aims to sanitize its violent rhetoric to appeal to the mainstream. Produced by the team behind the Academy-Award® winning Get Out.

• ParaNorman

ParaNorman, the follow-up to the Oscar-nominated Coraline, is the story of a boy who must use his ability to speak with the dead to save his town from an ancient curse, a hoard of invading zombies, and their own small-mindedness.

• Coraline

From the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas comes a visually stunning stop-motion animated feature about Coraline Jones who finds a secret world that’s just like her own but better!

• Kajillionaire

From acclaimed writer/director Miranda July comes a profoundly moving and wildly original comedy. Con-artists Theresa (Debra Winger) and Robert (Richard Jenkins) have spent 26 years training their only daughter, Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood), to swindle, scam, and steal at every opportunity. During a desperate, hastily conceived heist, they charm a stranger (Gina Rodriguez) into joining their next scam, only to have their entire world turned upside down.

• Half Brothers

Renato, a successful Mexican aviation executive, is shocked to discover he has an American half-brother he never knew about, the free-spirited Asher. The two very different half-brothers are forced on a road journey together masterminded by their ailing father, tracing the path their father took as an immigrant from Mexico to the US.

• Boogie

From acclaimed writer, producer, and restaurateur Eddie Huang comes his directorial debut BOOGIE, the coming-of-age story of Alfred “Boogie” Chin, a basketball phenom living in Queens, New York, who dreams of one day playing in the NBA. While his parents pressure him to focus on earning a scholarship to an elite college, Boogie must find a way to navigate a new girlfriend, high school, on-court rivals, and the burden of expectation.

• On The Basis of Sex

The film tells an inspiring and spirited true story that follows young lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she teams with her husband Marty to bring a groundbreaking case before the U.S. Court of Appeals and overturn a century of gender discrimination.

• The Card Counter

Redemption is the long game in Paul Schrader’s THE CARD COUNTER. Told with Schrader’s trademark cinematic intensity, the revenge thriller tells the story of an ex-military interrogator turned gambler haunted by the ghosts of his past decisions and features riveting performances from stars Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan, and Willem Dafoe.