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Best American dream Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of american dream cinema — measured across 886 indexed frames from 13 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

American dream films over-index on fedora, cigarette and table — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    Citizen Kane (1941)

    Orson WellesDP Gregg TolandIMDb 8.2TMDB 8.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    A group of reporters are trying to decipher the last word ever spoken by Charles Foster Kane, the millionaire newspaper tycoon: "Rosebud". The film begins with a news reel detailing Kane's life for the masses, and then from there, we are shown flashbacks from Kane's life. As the reporters investigate further, the viewers see a display of a fascinating man's rise to fame, and how he eventually fell off the top of the world.

  2. 2

    There Will Be Blood (2007)

    Paul Thomas AndersonDP Robert ElswitIMDb 8.2TMDB 8.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    The intersecting life stories of Daniel Plainview and Eli Sunday in early twentieth century California is presented. Miner turn oilman Daniel Plainview is a driven man who will do whatever it takes to achieve his goals. He works hard but he also takes advantage of those around him at their expense if need be. His business partner is his son H.W., who in reality he "acquired" when H.W.'s biological single father, who worked on one of Daniel's rigs, got killed in a workplace accident. Daniel is deeply protective of H.W. if only for what H.W. brings to the partnership. Eli Sunday is one in a pair of twins, whose family farm Daniel purchases for the major oil deposit located on it. Eli, the local preacher and a self-proclaimed faith healer, wants the money from the sale of the property to finance his own church. The lives of the two competitive men often clash as Daniel pumps oil off the property and tries to acquire all the surrounding land at bargain prices to be able to build a pipeline to the coast, and as Eli tries to build his own religious empire.

  3. 3

    The Brutalist (2024)

    Brady CorbetDP Lol CrawleyIMDb 7.2TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    When visionary architect László Toth and his wife Erzsébet flee Europe to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of modern America, their lives are changed forever by a mysterious and wealthy client. The seemingly charming industrialist Harrison Van Buren offers László and his family the American Dream on a silver platter by commissioning him to design a grand modernist monument and help shape the landscape of the country he now calls home. It will be the most ambitious project of his career, one that will take László and Erzsébet to both monumental heights and devastating lows.

  4. 4

    Stranger Than Paradise (1984)

    Jim JarmuschDP Tom DiCilloIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    A self-styled New York hipster is paid a surprise visit by his younger cousin from Budapest. From initial hostility and indifference a small degree of affection grows between the two. Along with a friend, they eventually end up visiting their aunt in the wastelands of Cleveland and then proceed to Florida where they lose all their money gambling before unwittingly gaining a fortune.

  5. 5

    Revolutionary Road (2008)

    Sam MendesDP Roger DeakinsIMDb 7.3TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    It's 1955. Frank and April Wheeler, are in the 'seven year itch' of their marriage; they're not happy. April has forgone her dream of being an actress, and Frank hates his job. One day, April suggests they move to Paris as a means to rejuvenate their life.

  6. 6

    Seabiscuit (2003)

    Gary RossDP John SchwartzmanIMDb 7.3TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    It's the Depression, and everyone needs to hold onto a dream to get them through the bad times. Car maker Charles Howard is no different, he who is trying to rebuild his life after the tragic death of his only child and the resulting end of his first marriage. With second wife Marcela at his side, Charles wants to get into horse racing and ends up with a team of underdogs who are also chasing their own dream. The first is trainer Tom Smith, who has a natural instinct to spot the capabilities of horses. The second is the horse Tom chooses for Charles, Seabiscuit, an unconventional choice as despite his pedigreed lineage, Seabiscuit is small at fifteen and a half hands tall with a slight limp. But Tom can see something in Seabiscuit's nature to make him a winner, if only Seabiscuit can be retrained from his inbred losing ways. And third is the jockey they decide to hire, Johnny "Red" Pollard, so nicknamed because of his hair color. Like Tom, Red has always shown a natural way with horses, but a difficult upbringing due solely to the Depression has made Red an angry young man, which has gotten him into trouble both on and off the track. And he is large for a jockey, and thus he always feels the need to battle the weight issue. Another common trait between Tom, Seabiscuit and Red is that they have been called crazy by those in traditional horse racing circles. Against the odds, Seabiscuit, with his human team behind him, does show his winning abilities and captures the imagination of all those others wanting to believe in a dream. But Seabiscuit's victories are at smaller races. As such, Charles aims high and wants Seabiscuit to race Triple Crown winner War Admiral, who by all accounts is a winner and should be a winner. If given the chance to race against War Admiral (whose owner doesn't want to race as he feels he has nothing to prove), will Seabiscuit and his team continue to keep the dreams of the common Americans alive? Through the good and the bad, especially as Red and Seabiscuit face mirroring problems, they all have to decide what is in their collective best interest.

  7. 7

    A Most Violent Year (2014)

    J.C. ChandorDP Bradford YoungIMDb 6.9TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    A crime drama set in New York City during the winter of 1981, statistically one of the most violent years in the city's history, and centered on the lives of an immigrant and his family trying to expand their business and capitalize on opportunities as the rampant violence, decay, and corruption of the day drag them in and threaten to destroy all they have built.

  8. 8

    Minari (2020)

    Lee Isaac ChungDP Lachlan MilneIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    Yearning to own a small patch of land and be more than a chicken sexer, the ambitious paterfamilias, Jacob Yi, relocates his Korean-American family: sceptical wife, Monica, and their children, David and Anne, from California to 1980s rural Arkansas, to start afresh and capture the elusive American Dream. However, new beginnings are always challenging, and to find out what is best for the family, let alone start a 50-acre farm to grow and sell Korean fruits and vegetables, is easier said than done. But, amid sincere promises, cultural unease, fleeting hopes, and the ever-present threat of financial disaster, Jacob is convinced that he has found their own slice of Eden in the rich, dark soil of Arkansas. Can grandma Soonja's humble but resilient minari help the Yi family figure out their place in the world?

  9. 9

    Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

    Rose GlassDP Ben FordesmanIMDb 6.6TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    Reclusive gym manager Lou falls hard for Jackie, an ambitious bodybuilder headed through town to Las Vegas in pursuit of her dream. But their love ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou’s criminal family.

  10. 10

    25th Hour (2002)

    Spike LeeDP Rodrigo PrietoIMDb 7.6TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    The 25th Hour depicts the last day of freedom for a young man before he begins serving a seven-year jail term for drug dealing. Prowling through the city until dawn with his two close male friends and his girlfriend, he is forced to re-examine his life and how he got himself into his predicament, which leads to a shocking, disturbing finale.

What american dream films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a american dream frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — fedora is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • fedora6.4×
  • cigarette3.2×
  • table2.3×
  • mustache1.8×
  • table lamp1.7×
  • tie1.7×

How american dream films are shot

Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate american dream from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 14%closeupvs 21% baseline
  • 28%widevs 20% baseline

What breaks the pattern

Team America: World Police is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.

Method

Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 886 frames from 13 films carrying the american dream label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.

Machine-readable: /api/list/american-dream

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These are real movie frames, shown at reduced resolution. All rights remain with their respective owners; they appear here for study, commentary and education under fair-use principles. How these are meant to be used