Ranking All Of Director Lav Diaz’s Movies
“What are Lav Diaz’s Best Movies?” We looked at all of Diaz’s directed filmography and ranked them against one another to answer that very question!
We took all of the movies directed by Lav Diaz and looked at their Rotten Tomato Critic, Rotten Tomato User, Metacritic, Metacritic User, IMDB, and Letterboxd scores, ranking them against one another to see which movies came out on top. The movies are ranked in our list below based on which movies have the highest overall score between all 6 review sites in comparison with all of the other movies by the same director. The process is all very scientific with no flaws at all.
The full ranking chart is also included below the countdown on the bottom of the page.
Happy Viewing!
The Top Film’s Of Lav Diaz
22 ) Burger Boy’s (1999)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 22
- Letterboxd User Score: 21
A terribly cool, hip youth film that throws awareness to the winds of MTV rock and roll, and post Generation- X teenage wasteland fantasies.
22 ) An Investigation on the Night That Won’t Forget (2012)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 23
- Letterboxd User Score: 20
Erwin Romulo, the late Alexis Tioseco’s best friend, recalls the events after the critic and his girlfriend’s untimely death in their home in Quezon City. Diaz makes use of one long take to allow Romulo an uninterrupted narration of the events. The pain of recalling is palpable.
21 ) Serafin Geronimo: The Criminal of Barrio Concepcion (1998)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 18
- Letterboxd User Score: 19
A lowly farmer whose wife is afflicted with a lingering illness gets involved in kidnapping that goes awry and culminates in tragedy. Years later, he turns to a crusading lady journalist to confess the details of the sensational crime that remains unsolved.
19 ) Elegy to the Visitor from the Revolution (2011)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 19
- Letterboxd User Score: 17
Deliberately structured and less beholden to its narrative, the film is told in three parts, with each part pertaining to each of the three visits of the time-travelling visitor from when the country was fighting for independence from Spain.
19 ) Visitors (2009)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 19
- Letterboxd User Score: 17
Hong Sang-Soo’s Lost in the Mountains (South Korea, 32min) the visitor is the supremely self-centred Mi-Sook, who drives to Jeonju on impulse to see her classmate Jin-Young – only to discover that her friend is having an affair with their married professor, who Mi-Sook once dated herself. The level of social embarrassment goes off the scale. In Naomi Kawase’s Koma (Japan, 34min), Kang Jun-Il travels to a village in rural Japan to honour his grandfather’s dying wish by returning a Buddhist scroll to its ancestral home. Amid ancient superstitions, a new relationship forms. And in Lav Diaz’ Butterflies Have No Memories (Philippines, 42min) ‘homecoming queen’ Carol returns to the economically depressed former mining town she came from – and becomes the target of an absurd kidnapping plot hatched by resentful locals. Serving as his own writer, cameraman and editor, Diaz casts the film entirely from members of his crew and delivers a well-seasoned mix of social realism and fantasy. —bfi
17 ) Fragment (2015)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 14
- Letterboxd User Score: 21
Fragment is an omnibus film celebrating the strength and diversity of South-East Asian independent cinema. Made up of a collage of ten stories, each story distinctively embraces the other’s subjectivities through the collective sentiments of vulnerability and fortitude. This film is commissioned by the Asian Film Archive (AFA) for its tenth anniversary celebrations.
17 ) Jesus the Revolutionary (2002)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 21
- Letterboxd User Score: 14
A man named Jesus takes on the ruling military junta.
16 ) Imahe Nasyon (2006)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 11
- Letterboxd User Score: 21
Omnibus film from the Philippines
14 ) Butterflies Have No Memories (2009)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 16
- Letterboxd User Score: 14
Ferding, Santos and Willy only drink in despair. One day, a Canadian woman’s visit changes everything.
14 ) Storm Children, Book One (2014)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 17
- Letterboxd User Score: 13
The Philippines is visited by an average of 20~28 strong typhoons and storms every year. It is the most storm-battered country in the world. Last year, Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), considered the strongest storm in history, struck the Philipines, leaving in its path apocalyptic devastation.
13 ) Naked Under the Moon (1999)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 14
- Letterboxd User Score: 14
A young woman recalls how her father (a fallen priest), her mother (a woman with a secret past) and her teenage sister returned with her to live in their ancestral home after the family business failed. She was plagued with mysterious problems of sleepwalking and began a romance with a young man who tried to cure her.
12 ) Season of the Devil (2018)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 1
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 2
- Metacritc Critic Score: 4
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 13
- Letterboxd User Score: 12
In the late 70s, a gang of militias under the control of the military, terrorizes a remote village in the Philippines. The poet/teacher/activist, Hugo Haniway, decides to find out the truth about the disappearance of his wife. A love story set in the darkest period of Philippine history, the Marcos Dictatorship. Based on real events and real characters.
11 ) Century of Birthing (2011)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 11
- Letterboxd User Score: 6
An artist struggles to finish his work while a storyline about a cult plays in his head.
9 ) Florentina Hubaldo, CTE (2012)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 8
- Letterboxd User Score: 6
In a rural area, a father forces his daughter into prostitution. Somewhere else, two men embark on a quest for a buried treasure.
9 ) Heremias: Book One – The Legend of the Lizard Princess (2006)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 8
- Letterboxd User Score: 6
A wandering peddler separates from his fellow salesman and becomes involved with criminals in the jungle.
8 ) The Woman Who Left (2017)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 3
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 3
- Metacritc Critic Score: 2
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 8
- Letterboxd User Score: 11
After spending the last 30 years in prison, Horacia is immediately released when someone else confessed to the crime. Still overwhelmed by her new freedom, she comes to the painful realization that her aristocratic former lover had set her up. As kidnappings targeting the wealthy begin to proliferate, Horacia sees the opportunity to plot her revenge.
7 ) A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery (2016)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 2
- Letterboxd User Score: 6
Andrés Bonifacio y de Castro is considered to be one of the most influential proponents in the struggle against Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines during the late nineteenth century. Today, he is still celebrated as the father of the Philippine Revolution.
5 ) Death in the Land of Encantos (2007)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 4
- Letterboxd User Score: 3
A Filipino poet returns home after the typhoon.
5 ) West Side Avenue (2001)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 4
- Letterboxd User Score: 3
A Filipino teenager is shot to death on the sidewalk of New Jersey, USA. An investigation starts into his death. His family members and friends are interviewed. Along the way, we find out not only more about him but about the community of Filipinos in America in general, including the destructive effect of the drug “shabu” on its youth. The detective who handles the case also has his own personal demons to settle with his violent past.
4 ) Melancholia (2008)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 1
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 4
- Letterboxd User Score: 6
A story about victims of summary executions. Three people start a strange therapy to escape their agonies.
3 ) Norte, the End of History (2013)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 2
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 2
- Metacritc Critic Score: 3
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 7
- Letterboxd User Score: 3
A man is wrongly jailed for murder while the real killer roams free. The murderer is an intellectual frustrated with his country’s never-ending cycle of betrayal and apathy. The convict is a simple man who finds life in prison more tolerable, when something mysterious and strange starts happening to him.
2 ) Evolution of a Filipino Family (2004)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 5
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 1
- Letterboxd User Score: 1
An intimate epic made with uncompromising and austere seriousness that patiently and methodically observes the collapse and hopeful revival of a poor farming clan.
1 ) From What Is Before (2014)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- Metacritc Critic Score: 1
- Metacritic User Score: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 2
- Letterboxd User Score: 1
The Philippines, 1972. Mysterious things are happening in a remote barrio. Wails are heard from the forest, cows are hacked to death, a man is found bleeding to death at the crossroad and houses are burned. Ferdinand E. Marcos announces Proclamation No. 1081 putting the entire country under Martial Law.
