What's Your all-time number one super duper favorite movie?

[Paul Mawdsley]

Kat,

My son, Lucas, also loved Buzz and Dash. When he was four he tried TimBit Soccer. He didn't really get it. As with his dad, his understanding of complex social dynamics takes conscious effort and is a slow process; it's not intuitive. He spent whole games running around the field, with arms outstretched, pretending he was Buzz Lightyear.

I decided to ask Lucas (6) and Amelia (3) what their favourite movies are. They seem to like the idea of using the computer to share their favourite movies with people.

Lucas:

– Thomas the Tank Engine (although it’s been some time since he’s watched this)

– Power Rangers

– The Chronicles of Narnia– The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

– Zathura

– Jumanji

Amelia:

– Mulan

– Beauty and the Beast

– Cinderella

– Snow White

– Miracle on 34th St.

I don’t see any innate gender differences here. My wife, Shauna, threw in Sense and Sensibilities. (Secretly, I have to agree. Hugh Laurie’s character is brilliant, a character he has updated in my current favourite TV show, “House.”)

Paul

[Jake]

A few of mine:

Twelve O'clock High

Mrs. Miniver

The Terminator

Alien

Coal Miner's Daughter

[Chris Grieb]

Casablanca, Singing in the Rain, The Searchers, To Kill A Mockingbird, and this past year Brokeback Mountain. I also love Now Voyager with Bette Davis. I'm always willing to settle for the stars.

[jordanz]

The Sixth Sense-- Another alternative reality with a twist that caught me by surprise. Although I felt afterward I should have seen it coming. The signs were all there.

That is a moment I will treasure for the rest of my life. The moment when the truth is revealed and then I experienced wave after wave of realizations that it was there all along in front of me. I view The Sixth Sense as the greatest magic trick ever performed. The greatest slight of hand.

[nskinsella]

Wow. Lots of great ... and interesting ... choices. Some of mine (and I only include ones I can watch over and over):

Sound of Music

Godfather I and II

Terminator: T2

Air Force One (a great action movie)

Raiders I

Star Wars IV, V, VI

Groundhog Day

Monty Python: Meaning of Life; and Life of Bryan

and Ordinary People comes close

[Grinder]

SF/Horror - Jacob's Ladder

Comedy - The Princess Bride

Drama - Ironweed

Western - For a Few Dollars More

Shoot 'em Up - Heat

Movie I'm embarassed to admit I like (but still do) - The Omega Man

(Not sure if "shoot 'em up" qualifies as a category, but I had to find a way to get my favorite movie that has "no plot to get in the way of the action," to quote Joe Bob Briggs, onto the list. )

[Chris Cathcart]

My current Top 25:

#1 - 10:

Rated 10/10:

Barry Lyndon (1975)

The Godfather saga (1972-1990)

Nostalghia (1983)

Suna no onna [Woman in the Dunes] (1964)

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Vargtimmen [Hour of the Wolf] (1968)

The Big Lebowski (1998)

Team America: World Police (2004)

Persona (1966)

#11 - 25:

Taxi Driver (1976)

The Trial (1962)

Rated 9/10:

Harold and Maude (1971)

Gangs of New York (2002)

Paper Moon (1973)

Schizopolis (1996)

The Shining (1980)

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Vredens dag [Day of Wrath] (1943)

Intolerable Cruelty (2003)

Offret [The Sacrifice] (1986)

Mulholland Drive (2001)

Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

[Rodney]

I would have to ponder a lot to properly answer this question, but one name mentioned above leapt out at me, one I might have forgotten to mention in such a list, but which belongs above all (and it has nothing to do with "loyalty" to AR):

We the Living

[gary williams]

First of all, I have to get this out of my system -

Adventure/Romance: the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair

The remake? The remake?

Pierce Brosnan vs. Steve McQueen?

#$@$^&$$$^#@#@$@!^$#$#*^%%$#%$@Q!(&(_*&^%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you ^$#^$*^%#* nuts?

I am speechless! (And, That says a lot!)

For shame, Roger Bissel............... FOR SHAME!!!!!!!

Anyway, for those I am still speaking to, my choices are -

STEVE McQUEEN movies - (If he were alive he'd kick Chuck Norris' Ass! & DRIVE A COOL CAR TOO!)

Ahem!

Comedy-

Anything with Peter Sellers or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Drama/War

Saving Private Ryan

Drama/Eat your liver

The Silence of the Lambs

Drama/Box of Chocolates

Forrest Gump

Drama/Wish I was him

Casablanca

Drama/Wish I was him 2

The Thin Man

Drama/Sci Fi

Alien

Drama/Tarentino

Pulp Fiction

Drama/Barbara Streisand

From Hell

Drama/A hideous movie not worth watching, but I watched anyway

Showgirls (not proud)

Drama/featuring Beavers

Basic Instinct

Oh, enough already -

Lee Marvin movies

Robert Mitchum movies

Angie Dickinson movies

Westerns -

Open Range

Tom Horn

Lonesome Dove (TV)

Monte Walsh

Cat Ballou

John Wayne

Sci Fi -

Everyone ever made

Spooky -

Bela Lugosi - "I never drink.................wine." Classic!

The Sixth Sense

(I don't get the spooky-ness of The Exorcist and The Omen....Hmmm? The Devil made em' do it?)

Harrison Ford

Russell Crowe

Nicole Kidman

Sandra Bullock (I just have a thang for her!)

Minnie Driver (I just have a thang for her!)

Sorry to babble on so.........but you did mention movies! And I can't help myself.......

Errol Flynn

Humphrey Bogart

Sean Connery

Clint Eastwood

John Ford

Francis Coppola

John Huston

A couple of Spike Lee joints (Shut up....I don't want to hear it!)

Otto Preminger

Alfred Hitchcock

Goodfella's

The original Manchurian Candidate

The French Connection

Movies directed by Kevin Costner (Shut up....I don't want to hear it!)

Ran

Nospherato

The Checka

V for Vendetta

Star Trek 1...2...3...4.....................

and on and on and on and on.................

What can I say; I love movies!

Except remakes with Pierce Brosnan!

If I picked one -

The Outlaw Josey Wales

gw

[Philip Coates]

my favorite movies

Holiday

Casablanca

Rocky, Rocky III

To Have and Have Not

Ordinary People

The Sound of Music

The Scarlet Pimpernel (Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, Raymond Massie)

Life is Beautiful

An Office and a Gentleman (Lou Gossett Jr., Richard Gere)

Courage Under Fire (Denzel Washington, Meg Ryan)

Funny Girl

Hello Dolly

The Philadelphia Story

Morning Glory (Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Lucille Ball, etc.)

Patton

When Harry Met Sally

You've Got Mail

His Girl Friday

To Sir With Love

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

It's a Wonderful Life

Davy Crockett

Lady and the Tramp & all of the early Disney animated pictures

Queen Christina

Pride and Prejudice (Laurence Olivier, Greer Garson)

The Nelson Affair (Olivier, Vivien Leigh)

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Superman

Saving Private Ryan

Pretty Woman

Diamonds are Forever

North by Northwest

[L W HALL]

Two which come to mind are:

The Last of the Mohicans(I love the soundtrack and have it on tape)

The African Queen

L W

[Chris Grieb]

A lot of really great movies. On the Godfather series I would leave out The Godfather III. I would add the great Bette Davis movies Dark Victory, Now Voyager, and Jezebel. In westerns. The Searchers by John Ford, in comedies Some Like it Hot and Young Frankenstein. I just posted on my tread about 100 years, 100 Cheers the movie The Patriot. I have to mention my favorite Sean Connery The Unthouchables. Let's keep the lists coming.

[Eudaimonist]

A few of mine:

La Strada

The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde inseglet)

2001: A Space Odyssey

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Metropolis

A Clockwork Orange

Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson)

Empire Strikes Back

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Excalibur

Amadeus

Dead Poet's Society

Meet Joe Black

The Matrix

Singing in the Rain

Groundhog Day

Zoolander

And, yes, The Fountainhead, though I never did like the "rape by engraved invitation" scene.

[John Dailey]

In keeping with the spirit of this thread, may I refer to *my* earliest (and, overdone 8-[ ) list at...

http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ArticleDi...0033_2.shtml#53

I drop a comment or two on almost everyone, non-pro reviewer I be. 8)

Was supposed to stick to only 5 films; got a bit carried away.

LLAP

J:D

[Robert Jones]

I'm particularly interested in any reviews or comments on Fritz Lang, I've only seen 'Metropolis' when it was re-released some time ago.

David

"Metropolis" was THE reason I became a photographer! Karl Freund is my God!!!

[Victor Pross]

City Lights (Charlie Chaplin, 1931)

Taxi Driver

Glen-Gerry Glen Ross

Guess who's coming to dinner

Inherit the Wind

12 Angry Men

The Gold Rush

M

Too many of them!!!

[Robert Jones]

My all time top 100 favorites:

1. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

2. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)

3. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)

4. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1967)

5. The Godfather, Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)

6. All About Eve (Joseph Manckiewicz, 1950)

7. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951)

8. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)

9. The Third Man (Carroll Reed, 1949)

10. High Plains Drifter (Clint Eastwood, 1973)

11. Rushmore (Wes Anderson, 1998)

12. Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)

13. North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)

14. Terminator II (James Cameron, 1992)

15. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1925)

16. Death Wish (Michael Winner, 1974)

17. Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959)

18. It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1947)

19. Rocky (John Avildsen, 1976)

20. On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954)

21. The World's Fastest Indian (Roger Donaldson, 2005)

22. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)

23. We the Living (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1942)

24. Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)

25. Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton, 1964)

26. Amadeus (Milos Forman, 1984)

27. Confidentially Yours (Francois Truffaut, 1983)

28. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)

29. The Taking of Pelham, 1,2,3 (Joseph Sargent, 1974)

30. King Kong ((Merian C. Cooper, 1933)

31. A Face in the Crowd (Elia Kazan, 1957)

32. The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen, 1985)

33. The Quiet Man (John Ford, 1952)

34. Advise and Consent (Otto Preminger, 1962)

35. The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)

36. The Caine Mutiny (Edward Dmytryk, 1953)

37. El Dorado (Howard Hawks, 1966)

38. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)

39. Key Largo (John Huston, 1948)

40. Breaking Away (Peter Yates, 1979)

41. I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (Mervyn LeRoy, 1932)

42. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)

43. The Great Santini (Lewis John Carlino, 1979)

44. Paper Moon (Peter Bogdanovich, 1973)

45. Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)

46. The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer, 1962)

47. To Be, Or Not to Be (Ernst Lubitsch, 1942)

48. For a Few Dollars More (Sergio Leone, 1965)

49. To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962)

50. Braveheart (Mel Gibson, 1995)

51. In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1967)

52. Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976)

53. The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)

54. Airplane! (Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker, 1980)

55. Patton (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1970)

56. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock. 1960)

57. Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945)

58. The Fountainhead (King Vidor, 1949)

59. White Heat (Raoul Walsh, 1949)

60. This Is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984)

61. Hud (Martin Ritt, 1963)

62. Demolition Man (Marco Brambilla, 1993)

63. Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick, 1957)

64. Charade (Stanley Donen, 1963)

65. Scent of a Woman (Martin Brest, 1992)

66. Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962)

67. From Here to Eternity (Fred Zinneman, 1953)

68. Young Frankenstein (Mel Brooks, 1974)

69. The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1980)

70. A Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan, 1961)

71. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)

72. High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963)

73. High Noon (Fred Zinneman, 1952)

74. Ray (Taylor Hackford, 2004)

75. His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940)

76. Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder, 1952)

77. Dead Poets Society (Peter Weir, 1989)

78. Only the Lonely (Chris Columbus, 1991)

79. The Untouchables (Brian DePalma, 1987)

80. Elmer Gantry (Richard Brooks, 1960)

81. Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1985)

82. Kingpin (Farrelly Bros., 1996)

83. Sorry, Wrong Number (Anatole Litvak, 1948)

84. The Little Thief (Claude Miller, 1989)

85. Papillon (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1973)

86. The Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich, 1967)

87. I Confess (Alfred Hitchcock, 1953)

88. Hoffa (Danny DeVito, 1992)

89. Citizen Ruth (Alexander Payne, 1996)

90. Ben Hur (William Wyler, 1959)

91. Ace in the Hole (Billy Wilder, 1951)

92. On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, 1952)

93. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Joseph Manckiewicz, 1947)

94. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1957)

95. The Edge (Lee Tamhori, 1997)

96. The Hitch-Hiker (Ida Lupino, 1952)

97. Strangers On a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951)

98. The Boys From Brazil (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1978)

99. Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992)

100.Carlito's Way (Brian DePalma, 1993)

Edited August 8, 2006 by Robert Jones

[Ross Barlow]

[i do not know if I posted this already and it was swallowed into the Black Hole, but I found it in my files so I will (re)post it.]

The original post by DavidMcK that started this thread asked about Fritz Lang.

David asked:

“I'm particularly interested in any reviews or comments on Fritz Lang, I've only seen 'Metropolis' when it was re-released some time ago.”

*Metropolis* (1927) was a fantastic movie. I first saw it in the 1980s during its re-release with the excellent pounding rock soundtrack. Brigitte Helm is mesmerizing.

If you have not already seen Lang’s *Siegfried* (1924), which Rand liked very much, see it. Even though -- by today’s standards of special effects -- the dragon looks very hokey, the heroism portrayed throughout makes this a great movie. I highly recommend this one.

Another Lang film that I have seen is *M* (1931), starring Peter Lorre. Very weird, but very well done. A classic.

I have never seen any of Lang’s American films after he fled the Nazis.

-Ross Barlow.

[Chris Grieb]

I had a post about the Lang movie Fury. Fury starred Spencer Tracy. Tracy is going through a small town and is unjustly accussed of a henious crime. A lynch mob forms and the jail is burned down with everyone believing that the Tracy character has been killed. I think evidence is found that exonerates the Tracy character. The lynchers are prosocuted. Tracy is alive. What I have seen of this movie is very good.

[Victor Pross]

FURY is a great little gem of a movie. It's Fritz's first American film, I believe, and it's 'message' and story still holds up well for a film that was made over 70 years ago. Good call, Chris.

[Bidinotto]

My all-time favorite film is "A Man for All Seasons," the 1967 version directed by Fred ("High Noon") Zinnemann.

This is virtually a perfect piece of film-making. The blue chip cast stars Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw, Orson Welles, Leo McKern, Nigel Davenport, Wendy Hiller, and introduces John Hurt. A stellar cast, performing flawlessly. The cinematography, costumes, art and set direction: all immaculate.

Robert Bolt's extraordinary script is even better-integrated than his own magnificent stage version, on which it is based (with the exception of one remarkable exchange between Thomas More and Cromwell in the play -- arguably the best in the whole story -- which unaccountably went missing in the film).

This is perhaps the most inspiring tribute to individual integrity ever filmed...and that includes comparison with such notable films as "The Fountainhead" and the various versions of "Cyrano de Bergerac."

Until you see it, your life is diminished.

[Chris Grieb]

Robert; I agree Man for All Seasons is a great movie. I guess I not convinced its the greatest movie. I guess the problem is that More in history was not as great as the More in the movie.

[Judith]

"Spartacus", without any close second-runners. Everything about it. The general theme (human liberty, fighting for one's values), the sense of life (people handling themselves and treating each other with respect and dignity instead of walking around like so much animated meat, and acting as if what they're doing is IMPORTANT), the earnestness with which the subject is treated, the cinematography (for example, one scene in which Roman decadence is superimposed with the hero and someone whom he respects greatly involved in a fight to the death that neither of them wants), the wonderful Alex North soundtrack, the intense drama of so many of the scenes, a beautiful romance -- well, I could go on and on.

After that, perhaps "Ben-Hur" -- despite the religious theme, it has many of the same virtues as "Spartacus".

"Contact" -- inspiring, moving, beautiful. I watched it on my birthday over a year and a half ago and was inspired to re-evaluate just about everything in my life and where it was going, and have been having a number of adventures ever since!

"Apollo 13" -- enough said.

"Braveheart" -- enough said.

"Ladyhawke"

"Das Boot" -- incredible cinematography and very intense -- and I have a thing for submarine movies, of which this is the best one I've ever seen.

"The Hunt for Red October"

"Balto" -- a very inspiring animated story about claiming and owning one's own strengths, accompanied by a stirring James Horner soundtrack.

Enough for now.

Judith

[Chris Grieb]

You're liking of Contact brings up the fact that the writer is now working on Atlas Shrugged. I love Apollo 13. I thought Apollo 13 had the spirit of AR's essays about the moon flights.

[Judith]

You're liking of Contact brings up the fact that the writer is now working on Atlas Shrugged.

Yes! I found that quite encouraging.

Judith