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The Most Stylish Films of All Time
18
items My personal favorite films with beautiful, over-the-top, and/or just plain stylish costume design.
A jaw-dropping carousel of over-the-top Edith Head designs.
What a Way to Go! (1964)
An absolutely stunning Maggie Cheung wears 20 qipaos (cheongsams) — a stylish form of Chinese dress popular to the 1960s — throughout the course of this achingly beautiful period piece out of Hong Kong, beloved for its blend of harrowing melodrama an...
In the Mood for Love (2000)
Parker Posey embodies 90s downtown Manhattan club scene cool in this perennially underrated black comedy.
Party Girl (1995)
Catherine Deneuve epitomizes modern French chic in designs by Yves Saint Laurent, just six years after he launched his eponymous fashion label.
Belle de Jour (1967)
Fashion student-turned-filmmaker, Susan Seidelman, brings her eye for style to this effortlessly cool snapshot of pre-gentrified downtown Manhattan, with Madonna as the Pied Piper of Grungy High Femme Fashion.
Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)
A timeless classic for a reason: era-defining 60s fashions—alternatively girlish and simple—from Hubert de Givenchy and Edith Head.
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Legendary costume designer Sandy Powell's iconic designs capture the Camp and performative nature of the Glam rock era — capturing the scene's love of homage, glitter, and excess — so vital to the visual history of rock music.
Velvet Goldmine (1998)
Mary Zophres' Thrift Store Girl looks in this coming-of-age classic are stylish in a way you don't often see onscreen: they look like clothes a real teenage girl with a unique sartorial style might actually put on her body.
Ghost World (2001)
There are Fashion Films, but few take time to stage a full fashion show—in Technicolor(!)—like this Classic Hollywood gem, an incredibly fun (and catty) showcase for the work of legendary eponymous costumier Adrian.
The Women (1939)
Jean-Paul Gaultier provides the maximalist, lingerie-heavy looks in this avant-garde cult classic, best remembered for showcasing Helen Mirren as a living work of art (which she is).
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)
Travilla—who once put Marilyn Monroe in a potato sack to prove she would look good in anything—created some of the star's most iconic works, designing for eight of her movies. But she's never looked more glamorous than she does here—cinched and shape...
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Pedro Almodóvar's second feature film is a snapshot of the outrageous, over-the-top fashion of the eclectic artist community he belonged to in post-Franco Spain.
Labyrinth of Passion (1982)
This absolutely gorgeous 90s coming-of-age indie from Ayoka Chenzira examines the love passed between different generations of Brooklyn black women, including a shared love of personal style.
Alma's Rainbow (1994)
This tender, beautiful ghost story switches between 1930s and 1980s Hong Kong, granting us the opportunity to gawk at some seriously gorgeous period costuming.
Rouge (1987)
This film was infamous in its time for nearly bankrupting 20th Century Fox, so it's fitting that Elizabeth Burton's costumes drip with visual excess, stylistically influenced by the early 1960s. Each garment is as excessive and opulent as you might e...
Cleopatra (1963)
The candy-colored costumes of this painfully underrated dark teen comedy are part Grease-homage, part time capsule of the best (and worst) trends of the Millenium cusp era: tube and halter tops, kitten heels, pencil skirts, ironic floral, midriff-tee...
Jawbreaker (1999)
Iconic costume designer Milena Canonero reconfigures Marie Antoinette for the MTV era in this anachronistic visual treat from director Sofia Coppola, who depicts the doomed queen as a naive teenage girl swept up in the artifice and excess of Versaill...
Marie Antoinette (2006)
Director Ken Russell was a master of capturing opulence, scale, and artifice for the screen, and he cycles through a staggering number of musical set pieces in this 20s musical parody / homage—memorably costumed by his then-wife (and go-to costumer) ...
The Boy Friend (1971)