Pick your favorite movies ever!
2 October 2008
So after posting about my new favorite TV show “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” and also compiling a list of some of my favorite shows of the past few years, I realized it’s time for a movies thread.
It’s hardly original for a blogger to blast people with a list of his/her favorite flicks. But I am interested to hear others’ lists. So I invite all of you to post your faves in the Comments section of this post. Top 20 movies of all-time, in order.
And no category restrictions. This can include foreign films (The Seven Samurai!), silent films (City Lights!)…anything you like.
Then within a few days’ time, I’ll unveil my own Top 20 of all-time.
Let’s see ‘em!
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You know what? I can’t give you my top 20. My “top” whatever changes daily depending on my mood. Also, here’s a tough issue. There are VERY good movies that are well made and whatnot that I just don’t want to watch very often. The Godfather series and The Shawshank Redemption are a couple great examples. But there are also terrible, low budget action movies that I love to watch repeatedly (anything with Steven Seagal in it, for example). How do I distinguish between the two for list purposes?
So, instead, I’ll just give you a random list of not necessarily my favorite movies or the best movies ever made according to me, but rather the movies that I enjoy watching the most and reference the most when talking to friends.
Robocop probably gets my nod for “most awesomest movie of all time.” Goofy concept, but very well made, with great satire on American culture, great dialogue, and over-the-top violence. Kurtwood Smith is one of the best bad guys in movie history in his role here as Clarence Boddicker. (“Bitches, leave.”)
Staying with the action movie genre, I also love the early Steven Seagal movies (Above the Law/Hard to Kill/Marked for Death/Out for Justice), Arnold Schwarzenegger classics (Commando/Predator/Total Recall/Terminator series), and Charles Bronson’s Death Wish series.
Aside from the above, here’s a crapload of comedy and action movies I like:
Arthur, Animal House, Back To The Future series, Blazing Saddles, The Big Lebowski, The Blues Brothers, Caddyshack, Die Hard, Don’t Be A Menace To South central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood, History of the World Part 1, Pulp Fiction, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Young Frankenstein
(Special consideration should be given to the so-bad-they’re-good B movies. Dracula 3000 and Skeleton Man are two of the absolute worst movies ever made, and therefore are incredibly entertaining when watched with friends, particularly if said friends have been drinking some alcohol)
Sorry if this doesn’t meet your original criteria, but I thought another way of looking at it wouldn’t be bad.
Addendum: I forgot to mention Office Space. (Required viewing for anyone in business or engineering school in college in my opinion)
Top 20 is impossible because I don’t keep movies in my head like that. But just off the *top* of my head?
Seven Samurai, Citizen Kane, Real Life, Best in Show, Spinal Tap, Annie Hall, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Zelig, Magnolia, The Godfather, Three Kings, The Thin Red Line, I [heart] Huckabees, Ratatouille, Toy Story 2.
Let’s see, that’s 15 … Raging Bull, Apocalypse Now (the original, non-bloated version), Crumb (the documentary) … and, in the guilty pleasure category, Anchorman and Talladega Nights. There! 20!
in no particular order, at this moment in time!
The End of Summer, dir. Ozu Yasujiro
Tokyo Story, Ozu Yasujiro
The King of Comedy, Martin Scorsese
Viridiana, dir. Luis Bunuel
Man with a Movie Camera, dir. Dziga Vertov
The Blues Brothers, dir. John Landis
The Ballad of Narayama, dir. Imamura Shohei
The Insect Woman, Imamura Shohei
Ran, dir. Kurosawa Akira
Do The Right Thing, dir. Spike Lee
Touch of Evil, dir. Orson Welles
Fargo, Coen Brothers
Sugar Street, strring Edward G. Robinson (can’t remember directors name)
To Live, dir. Zhang Yimou
Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, dir. Oshima Nagisa
Some good ones. Interesting Kurosawa choice, James, going with Ran (a classic) over The Seven Samurai, Rashomom et al. I haven’t seen many of those other films, will have to check ‘em out.
Also never seen Real Life. Crumb is on my Netflix list, I hear good things. Zelig is an inspired choice…my absolute fave Woody Allen flick, even more than Annie Hall.
And you can’t go wrong with Young Frankenstein.
Keep ‘em coming, folks!
“Ran” unjustly criticized for over-emphasizing the visuals and being “shallow”, but I always felt it reached an epic level of tragedy by the end. Also lacks Kurosawa’s sometimes cloying “humanism”…
forgot from 1st list: Aguirre,Wrath of God by Werner Herzog,
“Weekend” by Jen-Luc Godard
“Unforgiven” by Clint Eastwood
anything by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
sorry but mostly arty-farty picks, spent all my college years raiding the film library…
Chinatown;
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid;
The Man Who Would be King;
Five Easy Pieces;
Little Big Man;
Badlands;
Splendor in the Grass (ah, Natalie Wood);
Annie Hall;
Play It Again, Sam;
The Heartbreak Kid (the Elaine May version, with Charles Grodin, not the recent remake);
Lost in America and Modern Romance (both by Albert Brooks);
Aguirre, the Wrath of God;
Blue Velvet;
Au Revoir, Les Enfants;
Apocalypse Now;
Body Heat;
Marathon Man;
Three Days of the Condor;
Blow-Up;
The Unbearable Lightness of Being;
Local Hero
Good list, Luke (picking my favorite Newman movie is impossible, but Butch and Sundance is a real contender). I do have one comment, though:
“Body Heat”, but not the original, “Double Indemnity”?! If you haven’t seen it, Netflix “Double Indemnity”, like immediately. Billy Wilder is the man.
I will never be confused for one with sophisticated taste… So here goes (and obviously in no specific order… except for the first two)
The Big Lebowski
The Shawshank Redemption
Super Troopers
The Dark Knight
Major League
Rudy
Almost Famous
Fight Club
No Country for Old Men
Clerks
Anchorman
Full Metal Jacket
Office Space
Pulp Fiction
Transformers (brings me back to my childhood… dont judge)
V for Vendetta
Goonies
Spinal Tap
Dazed and Confused
Vanilla Sky
Wow I just realized how immature and juvenile my favorite movies are.
OH! How could I have forgotten the Departed, so remove V for Vendetta and replace with the Departed.
Don’t feel bad averagegatsby, my favorite movies are “immature and juvenile” as well. And it makes sense if you think about it — watching movies is often an escape from reality and a time to just enjoy yourself, right? Immature and juvenile entertainment is a great way to escape! Filmmaking as an art requires a different viewing perspective. Not that either is necessarily better than the other, they are merely different ways of looking at the same issue.
Oh, and good call on Super Troopers, I forgot about that one. Dumb as hell, but thoroughly entertaining.
The Warriors
High Fidelity
Top Gun
All 3 Clint “man with no name movies”
Rocky 1, 2, and 4
The Fly (with Vincent Price)
Memento
Fight Club
The Prestige
Rushmore
Bottle Rocket
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Kingpin
Groundhog Day
Caddyshack
Black Spring Break 2 : The Sequel
Those are in no order of course. I didn’t want to agonize for hours over this. Movies like Rudy and Super Troopers are up there as are others, but I had to make the cut somewhere. The only thing all these movies have in common is if I’m scrolling through my cable guide and see any of them, I’ll change the channel or at least dvr it, regardless of what point in the movie it is or how many times I’ve seen it.
Sorry for the all redundancy with the above lists, but here you go:
Goodfellas
The Godfather
Unforgiven
The In-Laws (’77)
Star Wars
The Empire Strikes Back
Lord of the Rings (Fellowship & Two Towers)
Dazed and Confused
A Clockwork Orange
Full Metal Jacket
Hoop Dreams
You Can Count on Me
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Verdict
Butch Cassidy…
Pulp Fiction
The Big Lebowski
Fargo
Raising Arizona
Murder by Death
The Jerk
The Man with Two Brains
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid
Blues Brothers
The Producers
Young Frankenstein
Life of Brian
Annie Hall
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Man, everyone LOVES Blues Brothers. Have to say that one’s not on ym radar in terms of all-time faves.
And Dave, you bring up some tricky issues here. I love the LotR films. So what do I do? I have to include all three separately, I feel like it’s cheating not to. But how to rank them? First two Godfather movies present similar issue. And although I don’t have the Star Wars films as high, for those who love ‘em, another tricky dilemma.
I’m working on my top 20, with extensive comments for each one, as we speak. Stay tuned!
Yeah, I kinda cheated by combining two of the LOTRs… however – and maybe I’m rationalizing – those three pictures were shot together. They were more or less one big ten-hour movie.
Tougher to justify combining the Star Wars pictures. Good thing they’re not on your list.
No to ‘Blues Brothers’? Shame on you, Keri. Shame!
I’m with you Dave on the Blues Brothers. If nothing else — ignoring even how funny the movie is — the Blues Brothers should be granted automatic top 20 status simply for two of the musical scenes: Ray Charles on the Fender Rhodes piano, and Cab Calloway doing the definitive version of Minnie the Moocher. Does it get any better than that?
However, you know what? I’m not going to lie. I HATED Lord of the Rings. I read the first book when I was in high school, and it was the most boring piece of garbage I’ve ever encountered in my life. I watched the second movie in college, and it was likewise mind-numbing except for the odd battle scene. (Great cinematography, except it made me almost dizzy at times with those ridiculous overblown shots of mountains and so forth during all of the walking scenes) And I just completely skipped the third one since I decided it wasn’t worth my while.
- A Bronx Tale
- Drowning Mona
- Private Parts
- Good Will Hunting
- Devil’s Advocate
- Pulp Fiction
- True Romance
- The Goonies
- Tin Cup
- Get Shorty
- Seven
- American Beauty
- Silence of the Lambs
- Stand By Me
- The Sandlot
- Dumb and Dumber
- American Psycho
- The Royal Tenenbaums
- Zoolander
Voice over narration is a theme