Ultimate Audrey Hepburn Rewatch Hub - Her 5 Best Films Ranked
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Top 5 Audrey Hepburn Movies

The Ultimate Audrey Hepburn Rewatch Hub – Top 5 Audrey Hepburn Movies Ranked

Audrey Hepburn had a film career that spanned five decades and consisted of 27 films. She was not only extremely talented and beautiful, but far more importantly, she was a humble and dignified class act who was able to bow out of the limelight to be a family woman and humanitarian. Her movies remain timeless, and many rank among the best from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

I’ve been revisiting her work, partly because I wanted to do the same kind of deep-dive I did with the Leelee Sobieski rewatch series, and partly because she is my favorite actress of all time. I have a large portrait of her hanging right behind my TV, which probably tells you everything you need to know about where I’m coming from with this. The physicality, the face, the way she could pull you into a scene with almost nothing, doesn’t age out. It just holds.

For the sake of this series, I should note that I haven’t seen every Audrey Hepburn film, but I’ve seen a good many, and these are the ones I find to be her best. This page is the central hub for the project. I’ll be adding full reviews as I work through the filmography, so check back as the series grows.

With that said, these are my top 5 picks for Audrey’s best films.

The Ultimate Audrey Hepburn Film Review Index:

The Top 5 Audrey Hepburn Films

5. The Children’s Hour (1961)

William Wyler directed, and the cast is Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, and James Garner. Karen (Hepburn) and Martha (MacLaine) run a boarding school for girls until a malicious student gets disciplined and retaliates by spreading a rumor about the two of them — a rumor that destroys everything they built.

The film is dark in a way a lot of people don’t expect going in, and the ending does not pull its punch. MacLaine is arguably the more complex role here but Hepburn holds the center of it with everything she’s got. It’s the kind of film that reminds you these two could do a lot more than what Hollywood usually asked of them.

4. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

Blake Edwards directed, Henry Mancini scored, and the result is probably the most iconic image in Hepburn’s entire career. Holly Golightly is a carefully constructed persona wrapped around a person who is scared, and Hepburn plays both layers without ever letting the seams show.

I’ll be honest though, Holly is kind of unlikable for decent chunks of this movie. It’s not the smoking and drinking (which are things I’m not fond of), it’s the obsession with marrying for money, the craziness she clings to right up until the moment she finally sees what’s been right in front of her the whole time. None of that stops it from being a superb and timeless classic, and “Moon River” is still one of the great songs ever written for a film. But it’s worth saying out loud.

3. Charade (1963)

Audrey Hepburn. Cary Grant. What more needs to be said? Stanley Donen directed, and this one tends to get overlooked in favor of the bigger titles in her filmography. That’s a mistake.

Both Grant and Hepburn were at the top of their game, and the twists throughout are excellently done. Grant’s role keeps you continuously wondering whether he’s a good guy or a bad guy, and Hepburn is great in the “who can I trust?” role opposite him. The Paris location work gives the whole thing a texture no backlot could replicate. A true masterpiece from start to finish.

2. Roman Holiday (1953)

This was the first Audrey Hepburn film I ever watched, and I dare say it is impossible to watch it and not fall in love with her. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress at 24 years old, in her first major film — not a nomination, the win — and somehow it remains her only one.

Princess Ann slips her royal obligations for one unscheduled day in Rome and ends up spending it with an American journalist who slowly figures out exactly who she is. The film doesn’t take the easy road at the end, and that honesty is what keeps it standing.

A film like this wouldn’t work today. Who could pull off such a role with the dignity and beauty of Hepburn? Beyond that, if this were made today the two leads would get a steamy scene their first night together and it would have the fairy tale ending. Luckily it was made in the 1950s, so it has class and an ending that is honest rather than easy. If you have never seen an Audrey Hepburn film, this is the one you start with.

1. Wait Until Dark (1967)

For me, this is hands down Audrey’s best performance in a feature film. She excelled in romantic comedies in part because she was naturally charming. She was not, however, blind — and yet if you didn’t know any better, you could easily assume she actually was in this film. That takes real acting talent, and she delivered in spades.

Terence Young directed, Alan Arkin co-starred as one of the more genuinely frightening screen villains of the era, and the final sequence in near-total darkness remains one of the great setpieces in thriller history. Hepburn’s transition from seemingly naive and trusting blind woman to smart, fearless survivor is completely believable. She received a Best Actress nomination for this and, with all due respect to the other Hepburn, should have won.

Honorable Mentions

The Nun’s Story (1959) is perhaps one of the more underrated Hepburn films, despite being quite successful on release (maybe because it’s a drama and her more popular work was always lighter fare). It may be a tad long at nearly two and a half hours, but Hepburn’s performance as Sister Luke is one of her very best.

My Fair Lady (1964) is the big prestige musical that won Best Picture — Hepburn is wonderful in it even if the dubbing situation was a mess behind the scenes.

Robin and Marian (1976) is the film she came back for after nearly a decade away, opposite Sean Connery, and it is a quietly devastating piece of work.

Two for the Road (1967) pairs her with Albert Finney in a non-linear look at a marriage falling apart, and it’s sharper than it gets credit for.

How to Steal a Million (1966) is a breezy caper comedy she did with Peter O’Toole and it is an enormous amount of fun.

The Unforgiven (1960) is a Western directed by John Huston that gets under-discussed relative to the rest of her filmography.

Sabrina (1954) and Funny Face (1957) are both early Hepburn films with genuine charm (Sabrina especially) and both are worth your time even if they don’t crack the top five.

Misses

War and Peace (1956), Green Mansions (1959), and Monte Carlo Baby (1953) — none of these are films I particularly enjoy, and none of them are where I’d send someone who wanted to understand what made Hepburn worth watching. They’re not necessarily bad films, but I wouldn’t call them good either.

She was the definition of a lady in an era that had plenty of them, and she still managed to stand apart from all of it. The elegance, the talent, the humanitarian work she did in her later years: there’s a reason she remains an iconic figure decades after her passing. This rewatch series is a labor of love, and I’m looking forward to doing her filmography justice.

Agree, disagree, or think I got it completely wrong? Say so in the comments or over at the Vortex Effect forums.

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