Anthology films are features made of separate shorter stories. Unlike narratives that jump back and forth in time, like Memento or Pulp Fiction, the shorts in anthologies are stand-alone movies that only share a theme or location in common. This format often consists of short films directed by different filmmakers, but it’s also common for anthology films to be made entirely by one director.
Jim Jarmusch and George A. Romero are two of the filmmakers who are the sole director of a great anthology film. Their respective movies Coffee and Cigarettes and Creepshow are great examples of how different two anthology films can be. And among the greatest collaborations of directors, Twilight Zone: The movie and All The Invisible Children are very contrasting examples as well. From drama to comedy to horror, the best anthology films of all time are timeless and are also some of the best of their genres.
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10 Mystery Train Tells Three Stories in a Cheap Memphis Hotel
Rotten Tomatoes |
89% |
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IMDb |
7.5/10 |
Metacritic |
80% |
The 1989 Jim Jarmusch comedy drama Mystery Train is set in Memphis, Tennessee. It tells three stories that unfold on the same night, all featuring foreign protagonists who stay in the same hotel. Far from Yokohama is about Mitsuko and Jun, a Japanese couple going to Memphis because Mitsuko is obsessed with Elvis. A Ghost is about Luisa, an Italian widow stranded in the city while transporting her late husband’s coffin to Italy. Finally, Lost in Space is about Johnny, Will and Charlie — three British friends who hide in the hotel after committing a crime.
Starring a diverse and talented cast including Youki Kudoh, Masatoshi Nagase, Joe Strummer, Steve Buscemi and the legendary Screamin’ Jay Hawkins as the hotel’s night clerk, Mystery Train is a bold and thoughtful drama. The stories are connected by the theme of feeling lost and small details the characters observe in the hotel, most notably the portrait of Elvis Presley in every room. Each of the three stories is intense yet realistic, and watching them one after the other brings a notion of how people share basic similarities despite leading completely different lives.
9 Bridges of Sarajevo Explores the City’s History and Soul
Rotten Tomatoes |
N/A |
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IMDb |
5.9/10 |
Metacritic |
N/A |
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Bridges of Sarajevo is a poetic homage to the city of Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina. With segments directed by one Bosnian filmmaker and others from different European countries, each short story brings up a different point of view on the city’s history and its people. The work by Aida Begić, Jean-Luc Godard and the others is accompanied by beautiful animation sequences by François Schuiten and LuÃs da Matta Almeida.
Released in Cannes in May 2014, Bridges of Sarajevo received mixed reviews. However, the omnibus movie does a very rare and interesting thing for anthology films when its many parts constantly jump in time, showing Sarajevo throughout the last hundred years. The feature encapsulates how differently people experience the same city, while being inherently interconnected through its past, present and future.
8 Coffee and Cigarettes Creates a Playful Dreamlike Scenario
Rotten Tomatoes |
64% |
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IMDb |
7/10 |
Metacritic |
65% |
Coffee and Cigarettes is a Jim Jarmusch anthology film that’s one of the most unique entries in the format. Coming from a series of short films with the same title, Jarmusch doubles down on his idea and makes an 11-part feature with the common premise of sharing coffee and cigarettes. It’s one of the anthologies where the parts have the most common themes. From relating music to medical practice to a repeated line about how coffee before sleeping makes you dream faster, each quick vignette unites famous artists who play a fictionalized version of themselves.
The black-and-white movie also plays with the checkered pattern in each segment, a reference to the clash of an encounter between two people. As the somewhat nonsensical comedy unfolds, the characters end up bringing some interesting philosophical questions and occasional genius lines. Featuring Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Wu Tang Clan’s GZA and RZA, Bill Murray, White Stripes’ Meg and Jack, Steve Buscemi, Roberto Benigni and many other stars, it’s also impressively well-acted considering many of them are not primarily actors.
7 All the Invisible Children Is a Gripping Drama About Child Exploitation
Rotten Tomatoes |
71% |
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IMDb |
7.4/10 |
Metacritic |
N/A |
All the Invisible Children is a 2005 anthology film that focuses on the theme of childhood and exploitation. Composed of seven short films, each segment of All the Invisible Children focuses on a different child. They are set in and made by crews from different countries all over the world. China, Brazil, the United States and Italy are a few of the locations. The concept behind the movie came from Italian-American producer Chiara Tilesi.
The themes approached are complex and dark, from drug abuse to poverty and trauma. For example, Spike Lee’s segment is called Jesus Children of America and tells the story of a teenager in New York in poor health due to her family’s situation. They are all incredibly heart-breaking, but it’s interesting and feels necessary to see how each filmmaker views the problem of child exploitation where they’re from.
6 Twilight Zone: The Movie Remakes the Series
Rotten Tomatoes |
60% |
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IMDb |
6.4/10 |
Metacritic |
44% |
10 Best Anthology Series, Ranked
Television has experimented with anthologies for decades, but the storytelling structure has experienced a revival in recent years.
The Twilight Zone is one of the most celebrated anthology series of all time. It aired from 1959 to 1964 and shocked audiences with its creative stories set in a dimension where anything can happen. Then in 1983, the concept behind the series was revived in The Twilight Zone: The Movie. Four directors divided the feature into four parts that re-approach stories from the original TV series. John Landis is the original writer of the prologue sequence, while the movie’s first segment Time Out (also written and directed by Landis) is a rework of the Twilight Zone episode Back There. The second part is a remake of the episode Kick the Can directed by Steven Spielberg. The third is Joe Dante’s remake of It’s a Good Life. Last but not least, the fourth part is George Miller’s amazing remake of Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.
Unfortunately, the movie is also famous for a terrible controversy. During the filming of John Landis’ segment, there was a helicopter accident that killed actor Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen. This heart-breaking incident led to years of legal action against the production and pushed for an update to the industry’s safety standards.
Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)
- Director
- John Landis , George Miller , Joe Dante , Steven Spielberg
- Release Date
- June 24, 1983
- Cast
- Dan Aykroyd , Albert Brooks , Scatman Crothers , John Lithgow , Vic Morrow , Kathleen Quinlan
- Runtime
- 101 minutes
5 Creepshow Is Stephen King’s Screenwriting Debut
Rotten Tomatoes |
66% |
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IMDb |
6.8/10 |
Metacritic |
59% |
Creepshow is a 1982 horror comedy directed by one of the all-time greatest horror directors, George A. Romero. Referencing 1950s horror comics like Tales from the Crypt, the movie marks the debut of Stephen King’s screenwriting. It’s made of five stories, two of which are adaptations of King’s previous short stories. Starring Ed Harris, Hal Holbrook, Leslie Nielsen alongside a fantastic ensemble cast, the first entry in the Creepshow franchise is definitely a horror anthology classic.
From alien plants to zombies, murder and a cockroach attack, Creepshow is exactly what its title suggests. It’s filled with disgusting and borderline disturbing scenes, campy make-up effects, over-the-top acting and a fair share of gore. Equally scary and funny, it’s one of the best horror comedies of all time.
Creepshow
Six grisly tales about a murdered father rising from his grave, a bizarre meteor, a vengeful husband, a mysterious crate’s occupant, a plague of cockroaches and a disgruntled boy.
- Director
- George A. Romero
- Release Date
- November 10, 1982
- Cast
- Hal Holbrook , Leslie Nielsen , Adrienne Barbeau
- Runtime
- 120 minutes
4 Tickets Tells Three Stories in the Same Train
Rotten Tomatoes |
71% |
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IMDb |
6.9/10 |
Metacritic |
N/A |
Tickets is a 2005 comedy-drama anthology film directed by Ermanno Olmi, Abbas Kiarostami and Ken Loach in which three stories with different characters unfold on the same train. On the journey from Austria to Italy, the characters connect only through casual encounters. However, their stories are related through the themes of social status, chance, longing and sacrifice.
In the first segment, Olmi tells the story of a professor who daydreams about a conversation with the one who got away. The second is Kiarostami’s story about a widow traveling to a memorial service for her late husband, while the third is Loach’s story about loud Scottish soccer fans going to a match in Rome. Each lasts approximately thirty minutes and perfectly presents different takes on what an emotional train ride is.
3 Rendezvous in Paris Is a Romantic Comedy About Coincidence
Rotten Tomatoes |
78% |
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IMDb |
7.2/10 |
Metacritic |
N/A |
Rendezvous in Paris is a 1995 French romantic comedy written, directed and produced by Éric Rohmer. Although Rohmer’s name isn’t as often remembered as other Nouvelle Vague filmmakers, he’s one of the most prolific of the French auteurs and has an incredibly consistent style in terms of aesthetics and themes. He made a long list of amazing short films, like The Bakery Girl of Monceau and Nadja in Paris, so it’s no wonder his anthology film Rendezvous in Paris consists of three great short stories.
The three tales revolve around different encounters in Paris. Exploring concepts like betrayal, attraction and fate versus coincidence, it shows the city of love as a different experience for each character. They are linked by a girl singing in the streets to an accordion, which references René Clair’s 1930 movie Under the Roofs of Paris.
2 Body Bags Is Three Shocking Stories With Funny Intermissions
Rotten Tomatoes |
73% |
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IMDb |
6.2/10 |
Metacritic |
54% |
10 Must-See Horror Anthology Movies
Horror anthology films can offer spine-chilling stories for the Halloween season. From Ghost Stories to All Hallows’ Eve, these movies merit viewing.
Body Bags is a 1993 American horror comedy anthology television film featuring three stories, with segments in between the shorts featuring John Carpenter, Tom Arnold and Tobe Hooper as creepy morgue clerks. The first story is Gas Station, a Carpenter horror about a woman who goes to her first shift at an all-night gas station while a serial killer is on the loose. Also directed by Carpenter, Hair is a science fiction horror comedy about a hair transplant procedure gone wrong. And the third short film is Tobe Hooper’s Eye, a horror about an eye transplant that also goes wrong.
Although the three short films work as completely unrelated stories, they are tied together by a few themes. They all present characters going through extraordinary events that lead to death and trauma. This anthology film stands out for the directing, the writing by Billy Brown and Dan Angel, and the performances. Eye features a remarkable work by Star Wars‘ Mark Hamill in the lead role.
1 Wild Tales Is About How Wild Humans Can Be
Rotten Tomatoes |
94% |
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IMDb |
8.1/10 |
Metacritic |
77% |
Wild Tales is a 2014 dark comedy absurdist satire produced between Spain and Argentina and directed by Argentine filmmaker Damián Szifron. Divided into six stories, the movie is about the thin line between civilization and barbarism. The protagonists find themselves in uncomfortable situations in which they get pleasure out of losing their temper.
The segments present everyday settings that include a wedding, boarding an airplane and getting the car towed for parking illegally. They feature amazing performances by Ricardo DarÃn, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Érica Rivas and the rest of the ensemble cast from Argentina. It’s genuinely funny from start to finish, and it holds a rare 95% approval rate on Rotten Tomatoes — impressive feats for a director making his third feature.