May I present, Sofia Coppola—nepo-baby style queen, master of on-screen isolation, protector of floral wallpaper, and deliverer of intimate non-verbal communication. Not to mention, one of the greatest directors of all time.
When writing about Sofia Coppola it seems ceremonial to first mention her father, so here I go preserving a crucial part of the discussion: screw off Ol’ Francis Ford; your daughter has, with ease, usurped your crummy overly-theatrical, hyper-masculine, self-fellating, nap-generating film legacy. I would like my thirteen hours back for ummm, The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2, The Godfather Part 3, Megalopolis, and… well… Apocalypse Now was cool, but still too long!
While it is undeniable that Sofia Coppola has had the occasional door held for her, what she has accomplished with this access is extraordinary. She is a cinematic innovator whose control of negative space combines all the best qualities of art-house patience and commercial satisfaction. From her debut film, The Virgin Suicides, it was clear she had a vision —blonde girls. Jk jk jk, try an apathetic dreamyness that favours dry humour, a sincere expression of femininity (as Sofia understands it), and a thorough exploration of loneliness.
Sofia Coppola’s greatest strength (beyond her willingness to put Kirsten Dunst in every film she makes) is her capacity for reserve. She has an assertive control over silence that feels unmatched by other filmmakers. Her economic use of dialogue and exposition lends itself to efficient storytelling, and by bathing her audience in stillness, she creates a hypnotic sense of realism. Sofia Coppola works with a refreshing sense of faith in her audience: if she intends to express a character’s enervating boredom, she is willing to make scenes genuinely tedious to do so. This commitment to scene over audience can make her commercial films read almost like studies. She is the type of director whose films cozy up in the viewers’ hippocampus—the more you reflect, the more attached you become.
That’s not to say Sofia Coppola makes boring films either; more than most directors, she understands how to make a picture satisfying. Her runtimes are tight and fulfilling, her soundtracks are punchy (featuring lots of Kim Gordon, so bonus points), and she’s quick to indulge the unexpected. It’s true, she’s not a director who reinvents her style with every new project, but I tend to prefer a sense of identity through a filmmaker’s catalogue. She plays within what she knows, and her films have had a global impact on femininity in cinema, the pacing of the drama genre, and Japan’s karaoke industry.
I’m beginning to sound like Francis the way I’ve been rambling, so let’s cut to it. Here is my ranking of Sofia Coppola’s nine feature films.
9. A Very Murray Christmas (2015)
Wow… I know I talked her up a lot back there, but this is a genuine piece of shit. DO NOT under any circumstances watch this film, even if it is Christmas. It doesn’t even read as funny or self-aware; it’s just a half-baked collection of poorly written celebrity cameos, punctuated by Bill Murray singing. Spoiler alert, Bill Murray can’t sing; he can’t even really act in this thing either. The gist of the film is that Murray is recording a Christmas special and no one can come because it’s snowing—oh, except for Chris Rock, and Miley Cyrus, and George Clooney, and… whatever. One of the most trippy aspects of this film is that some celebrities are playing themselves and some are playing characters. The writing makes weak efforts to introduce anyone, so you’re often disoriented.
One of my favorite scenes is of a presumably coked-out Michael Cera accosting Murray about the ‘biz,’ but you can’t quite tell if he’s playing an agent, himself, or a figment of Murray’s delusional imagination—it’s really quite avant-garde. I know I already mentioned his performance, but Mr. Murray has never seemed older than in this film. The Bill Murray persona is a delicate act—he plays the suave, sexually active uncle role, and without support from the writing, this character quickly starts to raise some red flags. The only redeeming qualities about this Netflix-produced Holiday flop are the 56-minute run-time and Miley Cyrus’ performance.
8. On The Rocks (2020)
Not another miss…I promise her movies are good. Let’s just through this one, and then we’re in the clear. I had such high hopes, too. Rashida Jones and Bill Murray rocking a comedic father-daughter dynamic sounds awesome. The plot of this one is simple: Jones thinks her husband is cheating, she employs her playboy father to help snoop out evidence of her husband’s infidelity; they bond a little bit, they fight a little bit, they take a trip to Mexico, Murray does some more singing, blah blah blah blah blah. Besides a subtle Lost in Translation vibe, the only notable part of On The Rocks is Murray’s disturbingly misogynistic character, Felix Keane. Coppola leans hyperbolically into Murray’s horny side, and his musings on evolution are hard to watch. This bizarre and brutish writing got in the way of any true sentimental moment, and it contrasted poorly with such a cliché and vanilla storyline.
In her 2023 book Sofia Coppola Archive, she explains, “I was thinking about being raised by a dad who had views of women that were becoming out of sync with a shifting culture—how they could be inappropriate and also nostalgic and fun. I remember being at an event with my dad in Tokyo when a woman wanted a photo with him, and he offered his knee for her to perch on, and telling him ‘you can’t do that.'”
Anyyyywayyyyy… do with that as you will. Frankly, this movie feels like it’s not funny enough to be a comedy and too shallow to be a drama. Next!
7. Marie Antoinette (2006)
Ooooo… a controversial take (insert joke about being out-of-touch, which is ironic because it’s out of touch to think this depiction of Marie Antoinette was out of touch when the joke is really directed at the people who usually place this film higher up on their lists, suggesting that I am, indeed, out of touch). I know that a seventh-place slot for this film is going to ruffle some powdered wigs and exotic ruching, but I think the booing audience at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival had it all figured out. I am exaggerating—it’s honestly absurd that this film was booed on release; probably just a bunch of macho Francis fans mad they didn’t get Lost In Translation 2. This film is part period piece, part punk-rock party-girl princess (Queen* but I like alliteration) dancing to The Strokes, making the most of an alienated existence after being dropped at the palace of Versailles.
On paper, this film has a strong core. To be taken from your birthplace, stripped of all your cultural identity and married off to a man you don’t know would be absolutely devastating. The subplot of convincing your potentially-queer husband, The King of France (Jason Schwartzman), to impregnate you is a bizarre and comedic conflict. Marie Antoinette’s undeniable success is its production. The film is shot in the actual palace of Versailles, and Coppola was granted all sorts of access by the French Government. Everything is incredibly ornate, visually considered, and this film is often alluded to as her one big production. So why the low ranking?
I felt like this film was more focused on nailing its aesthetics than providing the audience with a fulfilling narrative. Aside from Marie (Dunst), many of the crucial characters lack any sort of development and are endearing in a comedic sense, but boring by the first hour. Furthermore, the camera work felt disappointing, which is rare for a Coppola film. The opening scenes have an amateur feel to them, which is only exacerbated by an excruciatingly long introduction. If you want a good Marie Antoinette movie, I think you’re better off watching The Favourite by Yorgos Lanthimos.
6. Priscilla (2023)
Priscilla and Marie Antoinette are quite comparable films. Both movies explore a sense of alienation as a symptom of privilege, while also celebrating a fight for feminine individuality. Ultimately, I feel that Marie Antoinette provides more surface-level entertainment, whereas Priscilla stands out as a more memorable and patient creation. Coppola explains, “[Priscilla] is about going through all the stages that most girls go through into womanhood—but in such a unique and eccentric setting at Graceland, with Elvis Presley.” While the film does capture the magic of falling in love, what Sofia Coppola excels at is portraying the subtlety of manipulation and emotional abuse. She accurately depicts the taxing teeter-totter, swinging between the elated highs and crushing lows. Throughout the film, you watch Elvis strip Priscilla of her independence while she is too young to understand the gravity of his demands. He tells her where she can go and what she should wear, never sacrificing any of his own personal life.
When I spoke with friends and survivors of domestic abuse, they explained that the film felt incredibly familiar and accurately depicts the nuance of emotional violence. The film distils the prying frustration of waiting for someone to return home, and the contrast of the glamorous yet sterile rooms only exaggerates Priscilla’s prison. My main critique is that I would have liked to see less of Elvis, having the film further explore Priscilla’s captive thought process and enhancing the sense of purgatory.
This film is ballsy because it’s a biopic that covers a character who has had her individuality stripped from her. It’s about finding independence, whereas most biopics seem to be about exercising personal singularity. This, combined with the film’s spacey waiting-at-the-window pacing, makes it one of the most memorable biopics I’ve ever seen. While I do respect this film tremendously for its subversive and experimental qualities, I wasn’t overly impressed with Spaeny’s performance, and Coppola’s filmography is so strong that I have a hard time placing Priscilla over the other films to follow. I do grant bonus points for releasing Priscilla hot on the heels of Baz Luhrmann’s glitzy portrayal of Elvis; it provided some much-needed perspective.
5. The Bling Ring (2013)
Yap yap yap Priscilla… patience… ambience… analysis… BORING. Cue ‘Bad Girls’ by MIA. The Bling Ring isn’t just fun, it’s the only movie where you get to watch Emma Watson smoke crack. This tight one-and-a-half-hour joyride covers the true story of a group of fashion-obsessed teens who use MySpace to rob the homes of Paris Hilton, Audrina Patridge, Megan Fox, and others. This is the most lighthearted film in Coppola’s catalogue (excluding that Christmas garbage), and her use of digital recording seems to mirror the film’s levity and time frame.
I love The Bling Ring as a moment in Sofia Coppola’s filmography because it proves that she can make something that’s simple, commercial, and fun, with the same sort of edge that her other films deliver. The Bling Ring is a perfect 2010 to 2013 time capsule, and the ridiculous mixture of high-fashion and indie-sleaze makes every scene in this film pop. I also felt the testimonial framing of protagonist, Marc Hall (Israel Broussard), was incredibly touching, and there are some exquisite scenes of him expressing his sexuality—a part of himself that he hides from his parents. This is just an awesome quickie that is best watched with friends.
4. The Beguiled (2017)
Misery meets The Bachelor in a Civil War era showdown between six blonde promiscuous singles and Colin Farrell in uniform. And the Oscar goes to…Farrell’s beautiful middle part, of which he was banned from cleaning with shampoo during the production of this film.
Now, a moment of silence for Henry the Turtle……………………………………………………………………………… Thank you.
I would like to pull a direct academic quote from Letterboxd user @abbie_duncan, “These horny little vengeful blonde bitches served so much cunt it was astonishing.” The Beguiled is about an isolated school for girls located in the Southern state of Virginia. After discovering an injured Union Soldier and nursing him to health, the girls debate turning him over to the Confederate Army. What seems like a simple decision grows more complex as the girls vie for the stranger’s attention.
This narrative is realized in a tight one-and-a-half-hour runtime that is self-contained and thrilling from front to back. I’ve tried to steer away from discussing casting (trust me, I know this is getting long), but wow, what a lineup: Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Elle Fanning, but the real highlight of this film was Kirsten Dunst’s performance. The hurt you see in her eyes when she understands Corporal Burney’s (Colin Farrell) inevitable fate is jarring. Her relationship is so measured, as she fights her starved need for approval with her pragmatic matriarchal role. My biggest complaint with The Beguiled was… girl, get yourself a softbox light or two. I know Coppola was trying to depict the eerie glow of a candle-lit dusk, but it caused more frustration than immersion.
3. Lost In Translation (2003)
Did you know this film was released internationally under the translated title ‘Lost in Tokyo’? The film’s name was literally lost in translation. This is Sofia Coppola’s sophomore film and the one that cemented her as a legendary filmmaker. Lost in Translation won her an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, it put Scarlett Johansson on the map, and Murray crowns it as his favourite film he’s ever been a part of (surprising, given his pivotal and brave performance as Garfield). For those who haven’t seen this masterpiece, Lost In Translation is about two lonely strangers who confide in each other while visiting Tokyo for business. Murray plays the married apathetic movie star, Bob Harris, who has travelled to Japan to film whiskey commercials. Johansson plays Charlotte, a philosophy student and wife to a celebrity photographer, who seems careless of her well-being.
The best word to describe this film is effortless. It exemplifies Coppola’s filmmaking, displaying grace in her patient development of the pair’s relationship and approaching the drama genre with restraint. The two don’t actually speak until thirty-five minutes in, and their affection for each other perfectly rides the razor’s edge between magical and honest. In many romance films, the two subjects often have a sense of imbued self-importance, and their communion feels inevitable. Coppola’s writing is so flawless that their love only feels destined until the end of the film, at which point she makes a breathtaking sharp turn up away from the expected resolution in what can only be deemed the best blue-balls in cinema. But, for real, the ear whisper is one of the most incredible conclusions to a film ever—it’s aspirational.
There are so many precious details to this film: the elliptical scene makes me laugh every time, Murray’s orange camo t-shirt is an iconic last-minute costume, and Johansson stubbing her toe off the bed is just real. Not to mention, one of the most iconic opening credit scenes ever, which if you don’t know, is a reference to a John Kacere painting.
I think I owe some justification as to why this film is in the third-place spot and not higher. When ranking films, I often favour something that feels new, and I’m much more likely to celebrate a film that is cutting edge over something classic. Lost In Translation is an exquisite lovestory, but its a film that still feels grounded in tradition. Sure she made a rom-com with the highest possible finesse, but there is still more to her skillset. The film’s safe nature, mixed with the fact that Johansson was seventeen while filming, mixed with the over-romanticisation of infidelity, leaves Lost in Translation comfortably seated in the number three position.
2. Somewhere (2010)
“I wrote Somewhere as an exercise in minimalism. I wanted to experiment with how simply we could make a film, with the least number of shots and amount of coverage.” In terms of technical filmmaking, this is Sofia Coppola at her best. Somewhere is touching, unbiased, and creates immersion through desolate beauty—like listening to the wind in the desert… or listening to a Corvette tear through the desert. Somewhere’s creation was a response to the stress of producing Marie Antoinette, and it accurately represents everything that Marie Antoinette is not. Somewhere follows the empty action-star, Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), who desperately decorates his stagnant life with liquor, pills, and women. After his ex-wife suddenly drops their daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning), at his hotel room, Johnny slowly learns what fatherhood feels like, while Cleo navigates abandonment in an unsure parental purgatory.
This is the ultimate ‘show, don’t tell’ film, and it also takes the most risks out of any of Coppola’s projects. It explores both a soul-warming and heartbreaking narrative told via distended idiosyncratic scenes that feel equal parts jarring and hypnotizing. Long exacerbated shots of a single subject are quick to put a viewer off, but in this film they create a trance, and despite their frequent use, their effect is undeniable. Somewhere has possibly my favourite scene of all time: Johnny Marco, wearing a Black Flag T-shirt, has his mouth, ears, and eyes callously covered in plaster by a production team. They finish covering his head with the white mold, leaving him two nasal pin-pricks to breathe, and finally, he is left alone in the room as the cast sets. As an imperceptibly slow dolly zoom pulls the viewer in, we listen to Marco’s laboured breath mirroring the absolute claustrophobia he feels in his day-to-day. When the veil is lifted, Marco sees himself aged eighty years old—his greatest fear realized.
Additionally, Cleo is such a perfect presence in the film. She tries to stay out of the way, even though she’s the focus of the film. So much is communicated through her innocent yet suspicious gaze, and scenes such as her making breakfast for her father saliently capture what growing up with divorced parents is like. She also performs an epic three-minute skating routine for the duration of Gwen Stefani‘s, Cool.
I could go on about this film forever, but being a celebration of minimalism, I’ll leave you with these final notes: I want to stay at the Chateau Marmont (my e-transfer is samphiredylan@gmail.com), Aftersun literally stole its swag from this movie (look into it), and I love Chris Pontius.
1. The Virgin Suicides (1999)
Leave it up to Sonic Youth to do something awesome; Thurston Moore is to thank for presenting Coppola with his copy of Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel, The Virgin Suicides… and the rest is history. The Virgin Suicides is the best Sofia Coppola film for two reasons: it not only defines Coppola’s sense of style, but it also fuses two unique genres with a pacing that is unlike any film ever made. While The Virgin Suicides patented many of the iconic Sofia Coppola moves—a nihilistically humorous and spacey tone, a sincere expression of femininity, and a crazy conclusion—the film’s most powerful showcase is in her capacity for reserve (you’re probably sick of hearing that by now).
The Virgin Suicides story is framed as testimony from a group of boys—now grown men—who spent their youth obsessing over the five mysterious Lisbon sisters. The Lisbon sisters are a family of enigmatic teenage girls who are controlled by their ruthlessly religious parents. I won’t spoil the ending, but just know this is one of the hardest working titles in cinema. Nearly the entirety of the film reads as a charming Dazed and Confused high school flick, but this carefree mask constantly cracks, offering glimpses of looming dread. This contrast-heavy premise shows up on screen unlike anything I’ve ever watched, and the aggressive timing of the conclusion is so abrupt that it has the unforgiving honesty of true tragedy.
Beyond the aesthetics, the soundtrack, the shock, and the commentary on suburbia—it’s the girls that make this film. The girls, the girls, the girls… It’s the girls who are Coppola’s true masterpiece. Every line and every action that the Lisbon sisters deliver feels equally nebulous and crucial. There is a true void of exposition that makes the ending to The Virgin Suicides so perplexing; as if there had been a pact, a master plan, brewing off screen, and the film we were just shown was nothing more than a diversion. It’s this hidden character action that is so fascinating to me, and the reason this film is the number one Sofia Coppola movie. Call it what you will, but the absence of ‘tell’ is what makes Sofia Coppola films so poignant. She is a true genius and Virgin Suicides, especially considering it’s her debut film, is the most damming evidence.
PS. Lick The Star is a perfect short film. I highly recommend it. Also, if anyone can link me to Bed, Bath, and Beyond… I need that.