Fashion on film

In theaters Friday: The Cold Light of Day, The Words

New on Blu-ray/DVD: The Five-Year Engagement, Safe

GQ recently listed its picks for the most stylish movies of all time, including a pretty nifty video super cut video, and with 225‘s Fall Fashion issue upon us, I thought I’d add some of my own stylish favorites that GQ missed.

The scarves. The Vespas. Gregory Peck making high-wasted pants and a tucked-in tie actually look ridiculously awesome. Of course, this is also a movie about a reporter gallivanting with a regal Audrey Hepburn, but 1953’s Roman Holiday is never short on style, from the palace to the streets.

Okay, so this pick’s 1960 forebear Purple Noon made GQ‘s line-up, but I give the nod to the 1999 remake The Talented Mr. Ripley, for the simple fact that everyone in this thing is so ridiculously good-looking, Gwyneth Paltrow chief among them. Between the expertly vintage attire, her golden visage and the Venetian paradiso, you almost forget this was probably the creepiest film of the year.

The death rattle of rock ‘n’ roll never looked as good as it did in Cameron Crowe’s love-letter to the early 1970s music scene with Almost Famous. The Shearling coats, the flight bags, the Aviators, the leather and Doris! It’s all there in rumpled, ragged glory.

Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven remake unleashed an onslaught of classic California style updated for the new Millennium, but only Brad Pitt in killer suits with his long cuffs unbuttoned could make eating that much junk food look cool.

GQ listed two Wes Anderson films but bypassed his most fashionable one to date. From Royal’s courtroom-ready gray and pastel suits to The Baumer’s camel hair jacket and Bjorn Borg headband and Margot’s striped Lacoste tennis dresses, The Royal Tenenbaums captured J.D. Salinger’s New York City in all its mythical, innocence lost severity and hilarity.

Rian Johnson’s little-seen con artist caper The Brothers Bloom is a runaway showroom of style, from Bang Bang’s deadly J-Pop-meets-the-Red Baron vibe to the always fashion-forward repartee of a rakish Adrian Brody and an enthusiastically eccentric hobby collector played by Rachel Weisz.

A pre-ScarJo Scarlett Johansson throwing herself aimlessly around the neon streets of Tokyo? Bill Murray crooning Roxy Music in a sharp blazer and inside-out urban camo? Get outta here. Style may have trumped substance in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, but it was a seductive, forget-everything-that-makes-sense style that audiences wanted to loose themselves in, too.

Watch the Criterion Collection trailer for The Royal Tenenbaums below: