The cinematic comedy-drama is in a state of peril. It used to be that some of our most famous directors made nothing but little slices of life. Now these films are largely relegated to festival fare and streaming fodder.
One of the last great dramedy creators is satirist Alexander Payne. Payne’s career dates from the ’90s with some biting early films. A sentimental streak blossomed in the ’00s before a long bout of director’s block. His late career has proved up-and-down, but his reputation with awards bodies has only ascended over time, peaking with last year’s multi-Oscar-nominated Holdovers.
I recently did a complete retrospective of his career; you can read all of my reviews here.
Below is my ranking of his eight feature-length films to date, from worst to best, with links to the full-length reviews.
Honorable Mention: The Passion of Martin (1991)
Is It Good? Good (5/8)
It’s not really fair to include Payne’s student film in the mix, but I do like it quite a bit. The erotic thriller cringe comedy about a psychopath whose dark impulses gradually take life is tenser and bleaker than most of his filmography, but it foreshadows some of the themes that Payne would frequently probe, from sexual neurosis to the dark inner lives of dreamers. It’s very raw but very promising. I’d probably place it at #7 on this list, bumping down the current #7 and #8, were I to include it in the rankings.
8. Downsizing (2017)
Is It Good? Nearly Good (4/8)
Payne’s long-gestating sci-fi epic is really not a sci-fi epic at all, and that’s its biggest problem. The high concept builds some steam, and then the film pivots into a parable about aging and global warming that makes little use of the gimmick. It has some strong performances and some sweep to it that you’d expect from its big ideas, but as much as I really want to love it, it’s the closest that Payne has ever come to an outright dud.
7. The Descendants (2011)
Is It Good? Nearly Good (4/8)
I contend that Alexander Payne has never made a bad movie. But The Descendants is a strong candidate for his most disappointing, and certainly his most overrated. The premise of a man on the verge of both the biggest windfall and the biggest loss of his life is good enough to carry the film, especially set in beautiful Hawaii, but George Clooney is remarkably flat in the lead, and those breathtaking tone shifts and blasts of black comedy from Payne’s early career are absent.
6. Nebraska (2013)
Is It Good? Good (5/8)
Payne’s most serious film is his stab at an American Ozu meditation. It starts slow and downright dull but steadily, almost silently, builds heft towards a touching conclusion. A quest for a hopeless million dollar prize starts as an obvious metaphor for a failed American dream, but becomes as multitudinous and unknowable as a symbol as Bruce Dern’s protagonist is as a person.
5. About Schmidt (2002)
Is It Good? Good (5/8)
Following two of the most seething satires in modern cinema history, Payne’s third film is deeply sentimental by comparison. And it is certainly a tier worse than either of the films that precede it, with a bloated runtime, an aimless middle act, and a more run-of-the-mill Sundance comedy-drama tone than his work before or since. But it still functions overall as a film, and has plenty of moments both funny and heartwarming. It’s buoyed, especially, by Jack Nicholson’s outstanding lead role that reserves its funniest and most moving moments of the performance for the final half hour.
4. Citizen Ruth (1996)
Is It Good? Very Good (6/8)
Laura Dern. That’s all you need to know. I suppose I should probably say a little bit more, though. This unlikely (and now underseen) indie critical darling was Payne’s debut, and it remains his most revealing piece of satire. The subject of scorn is the utterly broken discourse surrounding abortion in modern American politics, and Dern tears through the material like a hurricane wrecking a beach town. Payne finds money as the root of all evil, but as a sex farce it’s pretty great too. All I want in life is for someone to swear at me like Laura Dern does her ex-boyfriend through a car window in this film.
3. The Holdovers (2023)
Is It Good? Very Good (6/8)
Too warm for Payne? Perhaps. But that’s just about the biggest complaint I can muster against The Holdovers, which is ripe with great and sad scenes. Payne himself is a bit of a throwback to ’70s and ’80s American filmmaking, so it’s little surprise that his homage to Hal Ashby and Mike Nichols works so nicely. Paul Giamatti is absolutely phenomenal as an increasingly degraded and pathetic (then noble) professor, while Dominic Sessa is a revelation as his wayward student. The Holdovers is one of 2023’s best and one of Payne’s best.
2. Election (1999)
Is It Good? Exceptionally Good (7/8)
Election is a dark suburban ennui dramedy that has only grown for me over time. Payne’s sophomore effort is a mirror image of his debut: Whereas Citizen Ruth was an abortion satire secretly about the corrupting power of money in politics, Election is a political satire secretly about the power and danger of sex. Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon (both terrific) butt heads as a sad-sack history teacher and an overzealous high schooler, respectively, each trying to assert dominance. The film is an uncomfortable sit, but has some terrific punchlines both written and visual, plus some of the greatest use of voiceover narration in movie history. It wraps with a devastating but earned sadly-ever-after.
1. Sideways (2004)
Is It Good? Exceptionally Good (7/8)
Alexander Payne’s greatest film is a bittersweet tale of deferred dreams and crippling addiction, about accepting an unremarkable life in yourself and others. That sounds dark, and this certainly is not a cheery film, but it is also one of the funniest and best dramedies of the 21st century, elevated by one of the greatest lead ensembles in recent memory, most especially Paul Giamatti as a failed author and oenophile. It’s a perfect blend of Payne’s witty cynicism and empathetic humanism, and his best film.
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