It’s almost impossible to talk about the modern movie business without referring to Nora Ephron. Her so-called Big Three rom-coms—When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail—revitalized the genre with their nuanced stories of love, sex, and friendship and the authenticity of their female protagonists. But the powerhouse filmmaker’s oeuvre didn’t end there: Over the course of her career, she penned 13 features—three of which landed her Oscar nominations—and directed seven of those films. Among her features were biopics, comedies both dark and slapstick, eccentric dramedies, and mob movies. Even when her efforts didn’t pay off, the sharpness of her wit and her talent for character building were still rewarding to watch.
From the hits to the misses (and everything in between), here Vogue ranks all of Nora Ephron’s movies.
14. Lucky Numbers (2000)
Nora Ephron was nothing short of brilliant, but Lucky Numbers, a Coen brothers–esque dark comedy based on the 1980 Pennsylvania lottery scandal, was a critical and commercial failure. In the film, three greedy people—including Nick Perry, the local weatherman and lotto announcer (John Travolta)—attempt to rig the game. Adam Resnick, who wrote the screenplay, never thought that Ephron was the right fit for the film. “Nora was good at her thing, romantic comedies, but this just wasn’t something for her,” he told New York magazine in 2015. (Lucky Numbers was the only film Ephron directed but did not write.) “I guess she wanted to try something different.” Despite boasting a cast filled with stars like Travolta, Tim Roth, Lisa Kudrow, Michael Moore, and Maria Bamford, the film comes off as rather boring and tonally uneven. The one highlight is Kudrow, who amuses as an opportunistic lotto girl.
