I've just made yet another listing of my all-time favorite movies. Why another, you ask? Well, because after the first seven or so, which are pretty much carved in stone, everything else is kind of in a state of flux and is subject to change. So, without further ado, I'll list My Favorite Movies Of All Time. And then...you list yours! (Also, feel free to list as many as you want, and as much information as you like...) 1. Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) DIRECTOR: John Boorman STARRING: Linda Blair, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher, Max von Sydow 2. Fight Club (1999) DIRECTOR: David Fincher STARRING: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf 3. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith (2005) DIRECTOR: George Lucas STARRING: Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Ian McDiarmid 4. The Shining (1980) DIRECTOR: Stanley Kubrick STARRING: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers, Danny Lloyd 5. Requiem For A Dream (2000) DIRECTOR: Darren Aronofsky STARRING: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans 6. Hellraiser (1987) DIRECTOR: Clive Barker STARRING: Andrew J. Robinson, Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence, Sean Chapman 7. Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982) DIRECTOR: Alan Parker STARRING: Bob Geldof, Christine Hargreaves, Bob Hoskins, Eleanor David 8. The Ninth Configuration (1979) DIRECTOR: William Peter Blatty STARRING: Stacy Keach, Scott Wilson, Jason Miller, Ed Flanders 9. Inglourious Basterds (2009) DIRECTOR: Quentin Tarantino STARRING: Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Melanie Laurent, Eli Roth 10. Dawn Of The Dead (1978) DIRECTOR: George A. Romero STARRING: David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger, Gaylen Ross 11. Cruising (1980) DIRECTOR: William Friedkin STARRING: Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, Karen Allen, Richard Cox 12. Eyes Wide Shut (1999) DIRECTOR: Stanley Kubrick STARRING: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack, Madison Eginton 13. Altered States (1980) DIRECTOR: Ken Russell STARRING: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban, Charles Haid 14. Zardoz (1973) DIRECTOR: John Boorman STARRING: Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, Sara Kestelman, John Alderton 15. The Beyond (1981) DIRECTOR: Lucio Fulci STARRING: Catriona MacColl, David Warbeck, Cinzia Monreale, Antoine Saint-John
I would rank NONE of them. Not a single one of those films would make any list of mine, even if I could somehow come up with a full 100 titles.
1. Apollo 13 2. Terminator 2: Judgement Day 3. Jurassic Park 4. Iron Man 5. Batman Begins/The Dark Knight 6. The Fugitive 7. Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society 8. Sword of the Stranger 9. Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (Knocking on Heaven's Door) 10. V For Vendetta 11. Transformers: The Movie (1989) 12. Paprika 13. The Jason Bourne movies 14. GoldenEye 15. Watchmen
None of them would make my top 15 for sure, and I doubt any would make it in the top 50. Maybe Fight Club.
Hmmm...well, I'd certainly agree that Requiem For A Dream and Altered States are very fine films. It's obviously a very personal list - I could argue that the two by Boorman are arguably not two of his better films, and Eyes Wide Shut is a lesser Kubrick...but what would be the point? Ya likes what ya likes. That's what makes lists fun. My fave films change all the time - I love scores of movies - but the following would always be on my list, and represent many beloved favorites - a greatest films list would look a little different. Here are a bunch off the top of my head in no special order: Rules Of The Game (Renoir) Passion Of Joan Of Arc (Dreyer) Taxi Driver/Goodfellas (Scorsese) The Gold Rush/Modern Times (Chaplin) The General/Sherlock Junior (Keaton) Rear Window/North By Northwest (Hitchcock) The Conversation (Copolla) 2001/Dr Strangelove (Kubrick) The Draughtman's Contract/Drowning By Numbers (Greenaway) Blue Velvet/Mulholland Drive (Lynch) I know Where I'm Going/The Red Shoes/Life & Death Of Colonel Blimp (Powell-Pressberger..."The Archers") Performance (Roeg-Cammell) Don't Look Now (Roeg) The Philadelphia Story (Cukor) Tokyo Story (Ozu) Do The Right Thing/Inside Man (Lee) Broadcast News (Brooks) Say Anything (Crowe) Children Of Men/Prisoner Of Azkaban (Cuaron) The Devil's Backbone/Pan's Labyrinth (Del Toro) Master & Commander/The Year Of Living Dangerously (Weir) Blood Simple/Fargo (Coen Bros) The Grifters/High Fidelity (Frears) Beauty & The Beast/Orphee (Cocteau) A Wedding/The Player/Gosford Park (Altman) Brazil (Gilliam) Blade Runner (Scott) Onibaba (Shindo) Solyaris/Stalker (Tarkovsky) Rashomon (Kurosawa) The Maltese Falcon/The Man Who Would Be King/Asphalt Jungle/Wise Blood (Houston) Monty Python & The Holy Grail (Jones & Gilliam) Great Expectations (Lean) My Darling Clementine/The Searchers (Ford) Singin' In The Rain (Donen) Raise The Red Lantern (Jimou) The Lady Eve/Sullivan's Travels (Sturges) 24 Hour Party People (Winterbottom) Heavenly Creatures/LOTR:FOTR (Jackson) Riffifi (Dassin) Spirited Away (Miyazaki) The Incredibles (Bird) Rosemary's Baby/Chinatown (Polanski) Freaks (Browning) Some Like It Hot (Wilder) Testament Of Dr. Mabuse (Lang) Casablanca (Curtiz) The Day The Earth Stood Still (Wise) Forbidden Planet (Wilcox) Wings Of Desire (Wenders) Alexander Nevsky (Eisenstein) City Of Lost Children/Delicatessen (Caro & Jeunet) Fanny & Alexander/Vargtimmen (Bergman) Amadeus (Forman) 8 1/2 (Fellini) Videodrome/The Dead Zone (Cronenberg) To Kill A Mockingbird (Mulligan) O Lucky Man (Anderson) Raiders Of The Lost Ark/ (Spielberg) The Boy Friend/Altered States (Russell) All That Jazz (Fosse) Gold Diggers of 1933 (Berkeley) Top Hat/Gay Divorcee/Swing Time (Astaire and Ginger are divine, I don't care who directed) Duck Soup/A Night At The Opera (Does it matter???) This Is Spinal Tap (Reiner) The Insider (Mann) LA Confidential (Hansen) ST - The Wrath Of Khan (Meyer) Back To The Future (Zemeckis) Pride & Prejudice 2005 (Wright) Road To Perdition (Mendes) Lost In America (Brooks) The above are movies I never tire of seeing. This year, 2009 (so far): Let The Right One In, Coraline, The Hurt Locker, Star Trek, Up...many more to see. I can't believe anyone read down this far. Now you know 25% of my DVD collection.
Well, if I can list as many as I want, this will quite a list. I'll try to limit it a bit: Here they are alphabetically: Alien Aliens Army of Darkness Back to the Future The Big Lebowski Children of Men Dark City The Dark Knight Dawn of the Dead (1978) Die Hard Dr. Strangelove Enter the Dragon Fargo The Fifth Element Fight Club From Russia With Love Galaxy Quest Gattaca Ghostbusters The Godfather The Godfather Part II Groundhog Day A Hard Day's Night Help! Hot Fuzz The Incredibles Jurassic Park Memento Monty Python and the Holy Grail O Brother, Where Art Though? Once The Prestige The Princess Bride Pulp Fiction Reservoir Dogs Shaun of the Dead The Shawshank Redemption Spider-Man 2 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Star Trek: First Contact Star Trek (2009) Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back The Terminator Terminator 2: Judgment Day This Is Spinal Tap The Truman Show The Usual Suspects Wall-E
My guess from looking at the OP's movie list... you smoke a lot of weed. :>)) Maybe a fan of Timothy Leary and/or think mushrooms are great. ;>))
I've only seen a few of the films on the OP's list, but of those I consider Fight Club, The Shining and Requiem for a Dream to be excellent. Eyes Wide Shut is a worthy film also; as for ROTS, well, it's Star Wars. It doesn't really matter how good it is or isn't.
Strange choice when the 1st Exorcist is available and a better movie. I wouldn't rate it that high but I like it. It's the best of the 3 "new" Star Wars but again, its not worth a top 3. Those are films I know and like at least a little. Your list seriously lack of classics IMO. Edit to add my favorite films : there are only 2 movies I like above the others : Les Enfants du Paradis and Brazil. The rest depends on my mood.
Yes, I readily admit that The Heretic has its flaws. Even admirers of the film such as critic Pauline Kael and director Martin Scorsese will acknowledge that John Boorman's execution of the material isn't all its cracked up to be. (Hey, the guy came down with a wicked case of San Joaquin Valley Fever at the time, so that might be a factor!) But the fact of the matter is, I'm genuinely sick and tired of seeing this misunderstood - albeit smudged - masterpiece getting routinely pummeled by the likes of Michael Medved, John Simon and Mark Kermode with all the fervor of LAPD's finest! The fact of the matter is, there's no other movie quite like this - horror or otherwise. It's an absolutely unique movie and offhand I can't think of anything else that's remotely comparable to it. And if my listing it as #1 on my own personal All-Time Favorite Movies List seems wildly out of proportion, that's only because I feel that some sort of balance needs to be restored, because speaking frankly its negative reception and reputation is equally disproportionate! Part of the problem with people's attitudes toward The Heretic is that they're judging it by the standards of the original 1973 William Friedkin/William Peter Blatty film. (Which I do indeed strongly admire, but it's a little further down on my list.) To paraphrase Boorman's own words, by putting his own vision on the back of a huge mega-success, he angered those fans of the original when his vision ran counter to that success. As he says, "I created this huge arena, but I didn't throw enough Christians to the lions." For more about The Heretic, and to get a more positive take on it, read Michel Ciment's John Boorman, an analysis of the director's work from 1965's Catch Us If You Can (a.k.a. Having A Wild Weekend) to 1985's The Emerald Forest. No offense taken, but you're 100% wrong. I've never smoked weed, taken psychedelics or ingested hallucinogenic mushrooms in my entire life. I suffer from terminal uniqueness of taste, that's all.
Didn't Michael Medved include Ivan the Terrible in a book of fifty worst films? Right, a non-sequitir I know, but forgive me for not putting a lot of stock in anyone who'd make such a claim, Eisenstein fanboy that I am. Hate it all you want, but it's a densely layered work of art that I've found compelling again and again... and again! It's actually my favourite of his films, which I'm sure is by itself a rather controversial claim. I voted for Inglorious Basterds (that was very, very good), cannot be bothered to list my own favourite films, but Ikiru has pride of place at the top.
changes day to day, but ten films I like off the top of my head Blue Velvet Raiders of The Lost Ark Shane Robocop Back to the Future Blade Runner Casablanca Mr. Smith Goes to Washington The Great Escape The French Connection
Only film in the OP's top 15 worthy of merit IMHO is "Dawn of the Dead" (1978). The others rank somewhere between crap to good but unremarkable films. "Dawn" is the only stand-out he mentions. In all serious, some of you need to get over your phobia about black and white and WATCH some of the best movies ever made.
No phobia about black-and-white on my part! I'm a big fan of Psycho, Dr. Strangelove, Night Of The Living Dead, The Elephant Man and Raging Bull. They're just a little further down the list, that's all!