13. A LIFE LESS ORDINARY (1997)
Directed by Danny Boyle. Written by John Hodge. Starring Ewan McGregor, Cameron Diaz, Holly Hunter, Delroy Lindo, Ian Holm, Maury Chaykin, Dan Hedaya, Ian McNeice, Tony Shalhoub, Stanley Tucci.
Boyle stumbled with his first move towards commercial filmmaking, a lighthearted romantic fantasy that ends up as a jumbled mess. Though “A Life Less Ordinary” reunites the main creative team behind “Shallow Grave” and “Trainspotting” (Boyle, writer John Hodge, producer Andrew Macdonald and star Ewan McGregor), it’s got none of the edge or excitement of those previous efforts, opting instead for a manic mix of sentimentality and screwball that never quite gels. The premise: two angels (Holly Hunter and Delroy Lindo) are sent to Earth to help a janitor (McGregor) and a millionaire’s daughter (Cameron Diaz) fall in love. But things take a wild turn when McGregor kidnaps Diaz after her father (Ian Holm) fires him from his job.
12. THE BEACH (2000)
Directed by Danny Boyle. Screenplay by John Hodge, based on the novel by Alex Garland. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton, Virginie Ledoyen, Guillaume Canet, Robert Carlyle.
In his first major studio effort, Boyle fills the screen with spectacular sights without providing a compelling story to string them along with. Adapted from the cult novel by Alex Garland (who would later pen Boyle’s “28 Days Later” and “Sunshine”), “The Beach” centers on an American drifter (Leonardo DiCaprio) who learns of a mysterious island paradise while traveling in Thailand. He makes the trek to the idyllic utopia, where he meets similarly wayward souls. Just about everything is thrown at the wall here — adventure, romance, video games — none of which really sticks. Environmentalists were outraged when production damaged Koh Phi Phi Island’s natural ecosystem for shooting, filing lawsuits that long outlasted the film’s legacy.
11. YESTERDAY (2019)
Directed by Danny Boyle. Screenplay by Richard Curtis, story by Jack Barth and Curtis. Starring Himesh Patel, Lily James, Ed Sheeran, Kate McKinnon.
To paraphrase John Lennon, “Imagine there’s no Beatles” and you’ve got “Yesterday,” a teaming of Boyle and romantic comedy extraordinaire Richard Curtis. Although it fails to fully explore all of the interesting implications of its premise, the film is still charming and touching enough to succeed in its own right. Himesh Patel gives a breakthrough performance as a struggling songwriter who’s injured in a freak bus accident during a global blackout, awakening in a world where the famous music group never existed. He decides to pass off their classic hits as his own, achieving worldwide fame and fortune. But what he really wants is the love of his childhood friend (Lily James), which his newfound celebrity gets in the way of.
10. T2 TRAINSPOTTING (2017)
Directed by Danny Boyle. Screenplay by John Hodge, based on the novels ‘Porno’ and ‘Trainspotting’ by Irvine Welsh. Starring Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Johnny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Kelly Macdonald.
Coming 21 years after the release of its predecessor, “T2 Trainspotting” assembles many of the same players — including Boyle, screenwriter John Hodge, producer Andrew Macdonald and most of the cast — for another round of drug-induced fun. The director tries his best to recapture the reckless abandon and visual bravura of the original, and for the most part he succeeds. Yet what the film does really well is show how the passage of time can change relationships and alter personalities, as Renton (Ewan McGregor) returns to his former Edinburg neighborhood and tries to make good with his old pals Spud (Ewen Bremner), Sick Boy (Johnny Lee Miller) and Begbie (Robert Carlyle) decades after their falling out.
9. TRANCE (2013)
Directed by Danny Boyle. Screenplay by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge, story by Ahearne. Starring James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel, Rosario Dawson.
“Trance” is a return to the kind of gritty, violent thrillers that put Boyle on the map, and though it starts off in the vein of “Shallow Grave,” it switches to the sentimentality of “Slumdog Millionaire” in its remaining minutes. These two tones don’t quite gel, but that doesn’t keep the film from engaging us with its visual flair, rapid pacing and macabre humor. James McAvoy stars as an art auctioneer who teams up with a band of criminals to steal a priceless Goya painting. But when he’s knocked on the head during the heist, he can’t remember what happened to the artwork, so the gang leader (Vincent Cassel) hires a hypnotist (Rosario Dawson) to delve into his psyche, and what she finds keeps us guessing till the very end.
8. MILLIONS (2004)
Directed by Danny Boyle. Screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce, based on his novel. Starring Alex Etel, Lewis Owen McGibbon, James Nesbitt, Daisy Donovan, Christopher Fulford.
When it was announced that Boyle, the maestro behind such gritty indie fare as “Shallow Grave,” “Trainspotting” and “28 Days Later” was directing a children’s movie, it engendered a collective “huh?” from his fans and critics. Yet the filmmaker has always had a soft heart beating beneath that rough exterior, as witnessed in his later efforts “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Yesterday,” and you’d have to be made of stone to not tear up at the end of this one. Adapted by Frank Cottrell Boyce from his own novel, “Millions” is a sweet-natured fantasy about a young British boy (Alex Etel) who spends his days chatting with saints. When he finds a bag filled with cash, he’s given a crash course in human ethics that will put his faith to the test.
7. SHALLOW GRAVE (1994)
Directed by Danny Boyle. Written by John Hodge. Starring Kerry Fox, Christopher Eccleston, Ewan McGregor, Ken Stott, Keith Allen.
Boyle hit it out of the park on his very first try with this pitch-black thriller, which also introduced the world to a young Ewan McGregor. “Shallow Grave” centers on three best friends — doctor Juliet (Kerry Fox), accountant David (Christopher Eccleston) and journalist Alex (McGregor) — sharing a London flat who welcome a new boarder (Keith Allen) into their spare room. When the stranger suddenly drops dead, leaving behind a suitcase full of money, the three make increasingly poor decisions leading to a gruesome fate for all. From the get-go, Boyle established himself as a master of stylish entertainments, deftly mixing the hilarious and the macabre with just enough heart thrown in to keep us emotionally invested.
6. 127 HOURS (2010)
Directed by Danny Boyle. Screenplay by Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy, based on the book ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’ by Aron Ralston. Starring James Franco, Kate Mara, Amber Tamblyn.
Nothing will write you a blank check for you passion project quite like an Oscar win, and Boyle cashed his “Slumdog Millionaire” one in by choosing to next direct a seemingly unfilmable concept. “127 Hours” tells the true story of Aron Ralston (James Franco), an adventurous mountain climber who found himself facing certain death after getting his right arm caught under a boulder. Rather than perish alone, he amputates the trapped appendage in a sequence that rivals any horror film for bloody suspense. Boyle uses expert skill to create a surprisingly cinematic one-man show about the resilience of the human spirit. The movie brought him Oscar bids for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, plus a BAFTA nom in directing.
5. SUNSHINE (2007)
Directed by Danny Boyle. Written by Alex Garland. Starring Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Chris Evans, Troy Garity, Hiroyuki Sanada, Benedict Wong, Michelle Yeoh, Mark Strong.
Conventional wisdom will tell you that “Sunshine” falls apart in the end, missing greatness by devolving into a “Ten Little Indians”-style murder mystery in its final act. And yes, the last third takes a sharp left turn, but that doesn’t keep it from being one of the most visually astounding, narratively daring entries in Boyle’s filmography. Written by Alex Garland, it’s an ambitious sci-fi thriller about an international team of astronauts (Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, Cliff Curtis, Troy Garity, Hiroyuki Sanada and Benedict Wong) sent on a kamikaze mission to reignite the sun by dropping a nuclear weapon in the dying star. But the dangers of space travel — not to mention a sunburned madman — soon get the best of them.
4. STEVE JOBS (2015)
Directed by Danny Boyle. Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, based on the book by Walter Isaacson. Starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels, Katherine Waterston, Michael Stuhlbarg.
Working from a dynamite script by Aaron Sorkin, Boyle crafts a highly entertaining biopic about one of the 20th century’s most influential and enigmatic figures. Michael Fassbender is eerily uncanny as Steve Jobs, the late Apple cofounder whose brilliance for technology was matched only by his ineptitude with people, particularly his partner, Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), his marketing executive, Joanna Huffman (Kate Winslet), his CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels) and his daughter, Lisa (played by Makenzie Moss, Ripley Sobo and Perla Haney-Jardine). Centered on three of Jobs’s most significant technological developments, this is a riveting portrait of how genius and pleasantries don’t always go hand-in-hand, even if they probably should.
3. 28 DAYS LATER (2003)
Directed by Danny Boyle. Written by Alex Garland. Starring Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Christoper Eccleston, Megan Burns, Brendan Gleeson.
Having grown weary of studio filmmaking with “The Beach,” Boyle decided to get down and dirty with his next feature, and inso doing created the definitive zombie film. Shot on consumer-grade digital cameras on the streets of London, “28 Days Later” begins with an incurable rage virus infecting the world’s population, turning people into bloodthirsty monsters. Cillian Murphy stars as a man who awakens in the hospital to find the city largely deserted save for a few lone survivors, including Naomie Harris as a tough survivalist, Brendan Gleeson as a genial cab driver and Megan Burns as his daughter. Directed in Boyle’s typical high-energy style, this is a gritty, terrifying little horror flick that involves us emotionally while scaring our pants off.
2. TRAINSPOTTING (1996)
Directed by Danny Boyle. Screenplay by John Hodge, based on the novel by Irvine Welsh. Starring Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Johnny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle, Kelly Macdonald.
Boyle became an art house darling with his second feature, a darkly funny, gut-wrenching and stylish portrait of drug addiction. Based on the novel by Irvine Welsh, “Trainspotting” follows a group of Edinburg junkies, centered on Renton (Ewan McGregor), who decides to get clean despite the allure of heroin and the camaraderie of his fellow addicts (but not before diving into the world’s filthiest toilet). Working with screenwriter John Hodge, Boyle captures both the blissful abandon and the harsh realities of their lives, and he does so with the kind of heedless energy and visual gusto that would define his filmography. He’s certainly aided by his young cast, who would reprise their roles 21 years later in the 2017 followup “T2 Trainspotting.”
1. SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (2008)
Directed by Danny Boyle. Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy, based on the novel ‘Q & A’ by Vikas Swarup. Starring Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan.
It didn’t take long for critical opinion to turn on “Slumdog Millionaire,” the little-movie-that-could that was almost released straight-to-video before becoming an art house hit and an Oscar behemoth. But watch it again and you’ll remember why you fell in love with it in the first place. Filled with the boundless energy, color and heart that signifies Boyle’s work, it’s the story of a poor Mumbai teenager (Dev Patel) whose hard-knock life helps him win an Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” It’s all in an effort to find his one true love (Freida Pinto), and every answer leads him closer and closer to reconnecting with her. Boyle ran the awards gauntlet for the film, winning the Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA and DGA prizes for Best Director.