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About 20 years ago, I decided on my top 15 movie favorites. I have now (January 2015) made a few minor revisions in that list. Then in 2002, I made a list of my picks for the top 100 most entertaining or absorbing movies. Now that we have a Book and Movie review area on HBL, I thought I would put the top 15 and top 100 lists there, for your interest, so that you will perhaps be motivated to see some excellent older films that you otherwise wouldn’t know of.
First, the top 15. These are offered not as necessarily being the 15 esthetically best movies, but as my personal favorites. This list does not include comedies, since comedy is quite a different genre from drama, and humor is a very personal matter. After the name of each film, I give the year in which, according to the Blockbuster Guide, it was originally released. If you rent, please be sure you get the right version, since many have been remade.
Here’s the list, in reverse order, for drama. Of course, the ranking is only approximate, but my number one favorite is for sure.
15 The Magnificent Seven (1960)
14. The Great Escape (1963)
13. All About Eve (1950)
12. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
11. Back to the Future Part I (1985)
10. Inherit the Wind (1960)
9. The Fountainhead (1949)
8. High Noon (1952)
7. Judgment at Nuremburg (1961)
6. The Quiet Man (1952)
5. The Sound of Music (1965)
4. Love Letters (1945)
3. Ninotchka (1939)
2. Casablanca (1942)
1. The Miracle Worker (1962)That’s 6 films from the 1960s, 3 films from the 1950s, 4 from the 1940s, 1 from the 1930s and 1 from 1980s. The 1970s was a lost decade for movies.
On to the top-100 list. These are offered as most entertaining–not necessarily as great, inspiring, or philosophically correct. The only ones I stand behind, come what may, are those that I have put in boldface.
Now for the qualifications. I compiled this list by going through the 1996 edition of the Blockbuster Video Guide to Movies and Videos. I went through at a fairly rapid pace, which means I no doubt missed a few I would have wanted to include. For this list, I did include some comedies.
What’s important is not what I left out, but what I included, so please don’t write to ask: “Why didn’t you include such and such film?” In many cases, the reason why I didn’t include a film is simply that I haven’t seen it. In one case, Blithe Spirit, I included a film I’m not sure I’ve even seen (but I’ve seen the play several times). And in a couple of cases, I may have seen and judged the film when I was too young. I excluded some otherwise recommendable films that had actors whom I didn’t want to sanction (e.g., Jane Fonda and Marlon Brando).
Oh, one other note: I included Gone with the Wind, even though I think it is very overrated, and I found the second half boring. Still, it’s a film everyone should see, and the novel is underrated.
After the name of each film, I give the year in which, according to the Blockbuster Guide, it was originally released. If you rent, please be sure you get the right version, since many have been remade.
Happy viewing!
Absence of Malice 1981
The Accidental Tourist, The 1988
Advise and Consent 1962
African Queen, The 1951
Airplane! 1980
Alive! 1992
All About Eve 1950
Animal Crackers 1930
Apartment,The 1960
Auntie Mame 1958
Back to The Future I, II, and III 1985 1989 1990
Bananas 1971
Bank Dick, The 1940
Beaches 1988
Best Friends 1982
Birdman of Alcatraz 1962
Blithe Spirit 1945
Born Free 1966
Breaking the Sound Barrier 1952
Bridge on the River Kwai 1957
Brigadoon 1954
Bringing Up Baby 1938
Cabaret 1972
Caine Mutiny, The 1954
Camille 1936
Captain’s Paradise, The 1954
Casablanca 1942
Cinderella 1950
City Slickers 1991
Coming to America 1988
Court Martial of Billy Mitchell, The 1955
Crocodile Dundee 1986
Cyrano de Bergerac 1950
Dam Busters, The 1954
Day of the Jackal, The 1973
Defending Your Life 1991
D.I., The 1957
Dirty Harry 1971
Dirty Rotten scoundrels 1988
Doll’s House, A 1973 (claire Bloom version)
Dr. No 1963
Educating Rita 1983
Elmer Gantry 1960
E.T. 1982
Executive Suite 1954
F/X 1986
Father of The Bride 1950
ffolkes (a.k.a. Assault Force) 1980
Firefox 1982
Fish Called Wanda, A 1988
Five Graves to Cairo 1943
42nd Street 1933
Fountainhead, The 1949
Four Weddings and a Funeral 1994
Fugitive, The 1993
Ghostbusters 1984
Gigi 1958
Gilda Live 1980
Gone with the Wind
Good Neighbor Sam 64
Goodbye Girl, The 1977
Graduate, The 1967
Grease 1978
Great Escape, The 1963
Groundhog Day 1993
Gunfight at The O.K. Corral 1957
Guns of Navarone, The 1961
Harvey Girls, The 1946
Heaven Can Wait 1943
Heiress, The 1949
Hello, Dolly! 1969
High Noon 1952
His Girl Friday 1940
Horse Feathers 1932
How to Marry a Millionaire 1953
Hunchback of Notre Dame 1939
Hunt for Red October 1990
Importance of Being Earnest, The 1952
In-Laws, The 1979
In the Heat of the Night 1967
Inherit the Wind 1960
Jaws 1975
Jerk, The 1979
Judgment at Nuremberg 1961
Key Largo
Kind Hearts and Coronets 1949
King and I, The 1956
Kiss Me Kate 1953
Lady and the Tramp 1955
Laura 1944
Lavender Hill Mob, The 1950
Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The 1943
Lion in Winter, The 1968
Love and Death 1975
Love Letters 1945
M 1931
Madame Curie 1943
Magnificent Seven, The 1960
Maltese Falcon, The 1941
Man for All Season, A 1966
Man with Two Brains, The 1983
Meet Me in St. Louis 1944
Memphis Belle 1990
Men in Black I and II 1997 2002
Merry Widow, The 1934
Miracle Worker, The 1962
Mister Roberts 1955
Monty Python and the Holy Grail 1975
Monty Python’s Life of Brian 1979
Moonstruck 1987
Moscow on the Hudson 1984
Mouse that Roared, the 1959
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House 1948
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town 1936
Murder at the Gallop 1963
Murder by Death 1976
Murder on the Orient Express 1974
Murder, She Said 1962
My Cousin Vinny 1992
My Fair Lady 1964
Naked Gun, The 1988
Name of the Rose, The 1986
National Velvet 1944
Night at the Opera, A 1935
Ninotchka 1939
North by Northwest 1959
Odd Couple, The 1968
Officer and a Gentleman, An 1982
Oklahoma! 1955
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch 1982
One Hundred and One Dalmatians 1961
One, Two, Three 1961
Operation Petticoat 1959
Ordinary People 1980
Paper chase, The 1973
Paper Moon 1973
Philadelphia Story, The 1940
Picnic 1956
Pillow Talk 1959
Play It Again, Sam 1972
Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The 1969
Producers, The 1968
Pygmalion 1938
Queen Christina 1933
Quiet Man, The 1952
Romancing the Stone 1984
Run Silent, Run Deep 1958
Sabrina 1954
Scaramouche 1952
Scarlet Pimpernel, The 1935
Scream of Fear 1961
Seven Year Itch, The 1955
Seventh Veil, The 1947
Shane 1953 (nowhere near as good as the book)
Shop Around the Corner, The 1940
Shot in the Dark, A 1964
Singin’ in the Rain 1952
Sleeper 1973
Some Like it Hot 1959
Sound of Music, The 1965
South Pacific 1958
Spirit of St. Louis 1957
Splash 1984
Stalag 17 1953
Star Wars 1977
Take the Money and Run 1969
Ten from Your Show of Shows 1973
Terminator, The 1984
That’s Entertainment 1974
That’s Entertainment, Part 2 1976
36 Hours 1964
Thousand Clowns, A 1965
To Have and Have Not 1945
To Kill a Mockingbird 1962
Top Hat 1935
Total Recall 1990
Tree Grows in Brooklyn, A 1945
Trouble in Paradise 1932
True Grit 1969
True Lies 1994
12 Angry Men 1957
Twentieth Century 1934
Verdict, The 1982
Wait Until Dark 1967
West Side Story 1961
Wheeler Dealers, The 1963
Winslow Boy, The 1950
Witness for the Prosecution 1957
Wrong Box, The 1966
Yankee Doodle Dandy 1942 -
[HB: I was unable to move Mr. Whitton’s post from the Member Forum, where it originally appeared before I re-routed things to here. But I can put in his picture.]
From Jim WhittonThat’s a pretty good top 15 list. I’ve seen them all. I would have put Casablanca at number one, but I can see why you chose The Miracle Worker. I can’t think of another movie that has an epistemological theme.
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It’s not because of its epistemological theme that “The Miracle Worker” is my top favorite. It’s that emotional power of the climactic scene, which always makes me cry. And all the production values are superb. Anne Bancroft’s portrayal of Annie Sullivan’s fierce, heroic dedication is matchless.
In college, an Objectivist friend who was attending Harvard ordered me to see Casablanca, saying (only semi-facetiously) that if I didn’t like it, we weren’t friends anymore. Even with that pressure, I loved it. So many great lines, many of which have entered into the language. “Here’s looking at you, kid.” “Round up the usual suspects.” “We’ll always have Paris.” “I’m shocked, shocked to learn there’s gambling going on.”
And I’ll never forget Peter Lorre saying, “I know you despise me, Rick. That’s why I trust you.”
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I don’t like many comedies, but I noticed that you picked a few of my favorites for your top 100.
John Cleese said that writing comedy movies is so hard to do that he wrote only one great script in his life: A Fish Called Wanda. This is the guy who co-wrote the two Monty Python movies on your list.
I loved Groundhog Day. I heard the writers structured the script on the five stages of grief, so even though the concept of the repeating day is wildly fantastic, the story somehow rings true.
A couple of Steve Martin movies made the list, but not my fave, the remake of Cyrano called Roxanne.
The Odd Couple. . . of course. For me, the best humor comes out naturally out of the situation. A lot of comedies try to hard too be funny. Neil Simon always makes it look easy.
And if your were including comedies in your top 15, one that would have to be there is Ninotchka. I wish Garbo made a few more like this before she retired.
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You missed Ninotchka, Jim. Harry has it at #3.
I tried to make a top 100 list years ago but I had trouble being so selective. I ended up with around 150. I’ve been meaning for years to post it to my web site. A while ago I used it to extract a top 10 list. I did this a few years back, so there are no films from this millenium.
These are in alphabetical order — I saw no need to rank them against one another:
Casablanca 1942
Conspiracy Theory 1997
How Green Was My Valley 1945
Lawrence of Arabia 1962
My Cousin Vinny 1992
Scent of a Woman 1993
Shane 1955
The Big Country 1963
The Hustler 1960
Tin Cup 1996 -
Thanks for pointing out my mistake, Adam. I guess my eyes glazed over from looking at too many titles.
I find it interesting that the only movie that both you and HB have in your top ten is Casablanca. I suspect most people would put Casablanca on their list. There have been quite a few movies over the years with great scripts and strong acting and directing. Why does that movie affect everyone so strongly?
Maybe it’s the unabashed romanticism.
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Of the 100 movies I’d like to especially second two of them.
1. North by Northwest . Terrifically entertaining Hitchcock. Possibly his best movie.
2. Witness for the Prosecution. Topnotch Agatha Christie and Billy Wilder. With delightful performances by Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester. And the perfectly cast Marlene Dietrich.
I do like comedies and would like to recommend four old ones.
1. It Happened One Night (1934) The famous screwball comedy and rightfully so. A highlight: the hitchhiking scene.
2. The Awful Truth (1937) Another marvelous screwball comedy. A highlight: the scene with the dog and the hat.
3. Bachelor Mother (1939) This one may be a personal quirk, but I just love this movie. A highlight: Charles Coburn as the “grandfather.”
4. Sitting Pretty (1948) Highly entertaining. Clifton Webb is perfect as a genius babysitter.
I’d also like to recommend two swashbucklers: The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) and the famous The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).
I’ve seen most of the 100, but a few did not do it for me. Picnic. The Producers. A Thousand Clowns.
By the way, How Green Was My Valley was from 1941, not 1945.
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I just watched Dirty Rotten Scoundrels based on Harry’s recommendation, and I second his opinion! It’s a throwback to the caper movies I remember from the early ’60s.
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The Winslow Boy 1950 is a copy of the 1948 original. Terrance Rattigan adapted his play for the movie.
There is a 1999 version of this. It was adapted by David Mamet and its available in a DVD format.
Dr Binswanger, do you know of a DVD copy that one can purchase?
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For anyone who may be interested, quite a number of HB’s top 100 movies are showing on Turner Classic Movies in February.
Absence of Malice 2/26
The Apartment 2/18
Auntie Mame 2/21
Birdman of Alcatraz 2/20
The Bridge on the River Kwai 2/15
Cabaret 2/21
The Caine Mutiny 2/14
Camille 2/2
Casablanca 2/8
Father of the Bride 2/12
42nd Street 2/2
Gigi 2/16
Gone With the Wind 2/6
The Goodbye Girl 2/23
The Harvey Girls 2/9
How to Marry a Millionaire 2/13
The Hunchback of Notre Dame 2/13
Inherit the Wind 2/19
Judgment at Nuremberg 2/19
Key Largo 2/15
Laura 2/9
The Lavender Hill Mob 2/12
The Lion in Winter 2/27
The Maltese Falcon 2/15
A Man for All Seasons 2/19
The Miracle Worker 2/12
Mister Roberts 2/25
National Velvet 2/8
North by Northwest 2/3
The Philadelphia Story 2/7
Pillow Talk 2/16
The Producers 2/21
The Spirit of St. Louis 2/12
To Kill a Mockingbird 2/18
Top Hat 2/3
The Verdict 2/26
Wait Until Dark 2/28
Witness for the Prosecution 2/19
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As a cinephile, thanks to Harry for the list and to all who commented. I picked up suggestions for films with which I was not familiar.
I’ll add two movies which I enjoy and which you may not have seen, True Believer (R Downey Jr., James Woods, an excellent supporting cast) and The Illusionist (written/directed by Neil Burger, Edward Norton, Jessica Biel).
And no, our potential future friendship does not turn on whether you like them.
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I just re-watched The Spirit of St. Louis, since it was on Turner Classic Movies. Highly recommended. Serious value orientation, plus fascinating depiction of heroic people working hard, creatively (you know, work — that activity that was MIA in the Atlas Shrugged movies). Fascinating as history, and the technology is part of the story — the airplane is almost a character. I could go on, but IMO it’s a must-see …
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I agree Tom. On the theme of flight, I don’t see listed The Flight of the Phoenix, with Jimmy Stewart. I recently saw this film for the first time in years. Oddly, the place town where they are trying to land is Benghazi.
Great story about using the mind and effort to solve life and death problems.
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Thanks, Robert. I tried to add that to my Netflix queue, but they don’t have the DVD of the Jimmy Stewart version. So, it’s on my queue with an “unknown” delivery date. I assume you don’t recommend the 2004 remake with Dennis Quaid.
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Also on the flight theme, and also with Jimmy Stewart, I highly recommend 1951’s “No Highway in the Sky.” It’s based on a Nevil Shute novel.
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Thanks Adam. Tom, although I like Dennis Quaid, I haven’t seen the remake. Sadly, remakes are almost always a disappointment, so I tend to avoid them. (David Mamet’s The Winslow Boy was a nice surprise however.)
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I agree The Flight of the Phoenix is a terrific movie. Along those lines, I recommend 1953’s Island in the Sky starring John Wayne. It’s about a plane going down in frigid Canada, surviving, and rescue attempts.
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Two great movies I got from HBL (or other Objectivist recommendation ) over the years:
Chocolat (2000)
October Sky (1999)
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Five of my Favorites:
“Princess Caraboo” is a beautiful film, which if I didn’t know better, I’d swear was written by an AR admirer or even AR herself.
A beautiful young, exotic woman is found wandering (apparently begging) in 18th century England. The punishment for begging is hanging. The woman has darkish skin, speaks no English, and has exotic tattoos on her legs. Through hand gestures she appears to be a Spice Island princess thrown overboard by a passing merchant ship – but local constables consider her a fake.
The evidence is evenly balanced: beggar or princess. The London reporter who investigates the story falls in love with the woman. The conflict: her very life and his very happiness. If the reporter discovers that she is a beggar, she will be hanged. If the reporter discovers that she is a princess, then she is out of reach – for he is commoner.
The real issue is like the issue in “Night of January 16th”. Who do you, the viewer, want her to be? Do you want her to a beggar, or do you want her to be a princess?
Excellent acting and production values.
“Open Range” is an unacknowledged updating and adaptation of “Shane” but with much better acting and production values. Simply beautiful to watch.
Two of my very favorite films are unfortunately TV films, and thus not readily available. But I was able to transfer VHS to DVD. The first is “Hobson’s Choice”. This an updating and adaptation of the earlier British film. It stars Richard Thomas, Sharon Gless, and
Lillian Gish! This film celebrates the business owner. The scene of Gless attempting to borrow money from Gish in order to set up her business, and Gish driving a hard bargain on the interest rate reads like a scene from _Atlas Shrugged_.The other TV film is “All My Sons” with Michael Learned (mother from the Waltons).
Finally, I have to recommend the earlier British version of “The Winslow Boy” over the modern update. Production values on the modern are lush; but the script or the earlier version if far, far superior.
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_Twelve Angry Men_ has an epistemological theme.
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I am pretty surprised the film Airplane! is on this list. May I ask for a justification? I tried to watch it a few weeks ago and turned it off halfway through. I thought the humour would appeal only to adolescent males.
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Here are, approximately, my 25 favorite movies, not totally in order:
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)
The Man Who Laughs (1928)
The Miracle Worker (1962)
Les Miserables (1934, French, 4 hrs. 40 min.) The 1935 Hollywood version starring Fredric March and Charles Laughton is also excellent.
A Tale of Two Cities (1935)
Ben-Hur (1959)
On The Waterfront (1954)
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
The Sound of Music (1965)
Patton (1971)
Network (1976)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Gone With the Wind (1939)
Camelot (1967)
Vertigo (1958)
Casablanca (1942)
The Godfather (1972)
Citizen Kane (1941)
All About Eve (1950)
Spartacus (1960)
Although I did not include any Greta Garbo movies, she is, by far, my favorite actress. However, aside from Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke’s performances in The Miracle Worker, I would say that the best individual performance by an actress was by Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). Although there is only film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, a top 100 list could easily include 10 of his films, along with 10 by my other favorite director, Akira Kurosawa.
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I had the chance recently to watch “High Noon” and “Inherit the Wind.”
I was born more than thirty years after the creation of these films, but I still found both enjoyable.
I’ll keep these reviews short.
High Noon:
This film portrayed a newly married sheriff who was just about to leave his hometown, which he cleaned up from criminals. When he finds out that a number of hooligans and murderers had been found not guilty and were returning to town to enact revenge, he turns his horse and buggy around and chooses not to abandon the town.
The majority of the movie depicted him trying to round up other townsmen to help him combat the bandits, but none of them show any sort of courage and actively abandon him in his time of need. So, at the end of the film he is alone in a shootout against the hooligans, and with a bit of accidental help from his wife, he manages to shoot them all down. He rides off without a word to the cowards in the town.
I enjoyed the film and thought that the morals portrayed were consistent with Objectivism, and I thought the shootout at the end was exciting. That said, I found the meat of the film to be a bit repetitive. After the 5th+ encounter with a neighbor who abandons the protagonist, it was obvious to see where the film was going, and I wanted things to move along a bit quicker.
Inherit the Wind:
I enjoyed this movie much more. It was about a school teacher who was teaching Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution to his classes, even though it was against the law to teach anything other than creationism. The majority of the film depicted the school teacher’s courtroom trial, and two famous lawyers played by Spencer Tracy and Fredric March go head to head as defense and prosecutor, respectively.
Their performances were simply fantastic, and the film had some of the best dialogue and acting that I’ve ever seen. The movie was exciting and values-driven, and depicted the collectivism and thoughtlessness that can accompany religion.
One particularly interesting part was when the defense argued that if the freedom to think were outlawed as was the case with the school teacher being able to teach Charles Darwin’s Theory, then one day it might become illegal to teach creationism in schools. Well, this is the case today. Does that line of thinking hold? Because creationism is illegal to teach in many public schools, is this a restriction on the freedom of thought in the same way that banning the teaching of evolution once was? It seems that the defense was advocating for a more decentralized approach to education which is driven largely by the beliefs of individual teachers. This approach might even contradict the values of “Common Core” or education standards more generally, which some Objectivists have argued for extensively, at least to me personally. I would be interested to read subscribers’ thoughts on this point.
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Like most movies which ‘stand up well over time’, the scripts for these two films are superb. The same is true for such films as Casablanca, To Catch a Thief, North by Northwest, Judgement at Nuremberg, and a Man for All Seasons, as well a number of the films on the list above.
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Just watched the Miracle Worker for the first time based on your list.
Brilliant movie, just wish it was longer…
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Re: Susan DeYoung’s post 10589 of 04/15/16 at 5:17pm
I see I spelled Ed’s last name wrong and I obviously was able to post my previous post. Please if you can refer to that post.
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Re: Susan DeYoung’s post 112919 of 04/15/16 at 5:19pm
I don’t know who this Ed Wildarsky is, but he’s got great taste!
— Adam Wildavsky
P.S. I promise I’ll post my top 150 list, organized by category, real soon now.
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Re: Adam Wildavsky’s post 112920 of 04/15/16 at 5:31pm
Thank you for post Adam Wildavsky. There I spelled it correctly this time.
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Re: Adam Wildavsky’s post 112920 of 04/15/16 at 5:31pm
I am trying to reply to my 10589 post. Please see that post. Thank you.
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Re: Adam Wildavsky’s post 106093 of 01/28/15 at 10:41pm
Good post Adam, I also posted another post but cannot recall the number plus it was some time ago. Do you recall it Adam Wildavsky? I do hope so because I am in trouble if not. Please reply Reply To The Author. Thank you and anyone reading this message.
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15
There’s a typo for the date on HB’s Top 15 list for Yankee Doodle Dandy. It should be 1942, not 1952. The date on the Top 100 list is the correct one.
*sb [Thanks! I fixed the date in HB’s post and also the breakdown by decade.]
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15
Onto the top-100 list.
I suggest that “onto” doesn’t mean the same thing as “on to,” and the latter is what is meant here.
/sb
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 105952 of 1/7/15
I couldn’t help but notice that you omitted: Hardware Wars and Attack of the Killer Shrews.
*sb
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 120157 of 8/27/17
Thank you for recommending Breaking the Sound Barrier, which I found on Netflix (DVD) as The World War: Disc 1: The Sound Barrier. Wonderful. Inspiring. And a tremendous score. I’m recovering from a (minor) surgery this week, and the film really lifted my spirits.
*sb
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15
Apparently “real soon now” means in about 30 months. In the meantime, my list has grown from roughly 150 titles to around 200, plus honorable mentions. No doubt there are many I’ve forgotten as well. You can find it here:
http://tameware.com/adam/myfavoritefilms.html
/sb
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15
Harry, I count 190 titles in your Top 100 list! I know only too well how that goes – so many to choose from.
*sb
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15
The list impels me to find two films which have been recommended to me but which I’ve neglected:
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch 1982
Scream of Fear 1961Thanks!
/sb
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15
I can think of many good movies, but it’s difficult to rank them. I can’t decide on an all-time favourite movie. However, it’s relatively easy to come up with a comparative ranking: there are a handful of movies that I loved and that are superlative examples of good movie-making. There are another handful of movies that I loved, but which have some flaws. Then there are many movies that are good, but that I don’t class amongst my all-time favourites.
Top tier:
Black Swan — a unique story, executed perfectly. Natalie Portman is perfectly cast as the tightly-wound, emotionally repressed “white swan” who learns to unleash her hidden dark side.
Fight Club — ostensibly a criticism of consumer capitalism, the real message of this movie (as I took it) was the tendency of people to continually seek a new system to conform to. The anarchist revolutionaries of ‘Project Mayhem’ wind up creating a quasi-fascist cult that’s even more conformist than the society they were trying to overthrow.
Ex Machina — brilliant, polished, tightly-plotted sci-fi drama revolving around an elaborate version of the Turing test. A female android must prove that she can pass as human, while her (human) captor gradually reveals that he is rather inhuman himself.
The Princess Bride — an incredibly benevolent, fun movie, packed with tons of clever lines and humorous scenarios. “Plato, Socrates, Aristotle — morons!”
Second tier:
Les Miserables (2012) — a very good screen version of Hugo’s epic. Some people disliked the use of Hollywood actors as singers, but I think it lends more dramatic/emotional weight to their performances. Still, the movie glosses over some parts of the story, which can be hard to follow as a result.
Red Sparrow — this movie had a powerful story, and resonated with me deeply, but the plot becomes overcomplicated in the second half, and doesn’t quite carry the weight of the themes introduced at the start of the film.
Sunshine — a potentially amazing, one-of-a-kind psychological sci-fi thriller — which for some reason turns nonsensical in the third act.
The Martian — very well-researched story of a resourceful individualist surviving against all odds.
Other very good movies:
Groundhog Day — for similar reasons to those given above.
A Clockwork Orange
Dr Strangelove
2001: A Space Oddysey
All of Stanley Kubrick’s movies are excellent — based on deep philosophical ideas, technically brilliant, and with a unique and well-defined sense of life. Still, they are ‘cold,’ a reflection of Kubrick’s ‘auteur’ approach to movie-making.
Team America — one of my favourite comedy movies. Crude humor, but some brilliant satire. Skewers all sides equally, while still having a moral core. The following exchange perfectly satirizes the impotent bluster of the UN:
Hans Blix: I’m sorry, but the UN must be firm with you. Let me see your whole palace, or else…
Kim Jong-il: (in English) Or else what?
Hans Blix: Or else we will be very, very angry with you. And we will write you a letter, telling you how angry we are.
The Shawshank Redemption
True Grit
The above two movies are both very good portrayals of determined protagonists struggling against constant obstacles.
The Dark Knight
Inception
Interstellar
Christopher Nolan’s movies are often epic in scope, and packed full of interesting ideas, but seem to lack something thematically. For example, I found the artificial dream technology of Inception fascinating, but didn’t really care too much about the characters. Still, they’re all rewarding to watch.
Pirates of Silicon Valley — a dramatization of Silicon Valley titans, portraying the personal and commercial clash between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
/sb
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Re: Isaac Lewis’ post 131271 of 6/18/20
The Social Network — a (rather fictionalised) portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg as a 21st century Citizen Kane.
It is not a “portrayal,” “fictionalized” or not; it is a malicious, envy-driven take-down of an existential giant. One depraved thread of the film uses racist sexual fetishization of East Asian women (Mark’s then lover, and now his wife, is East Asian). In the film, a pair of Asian women have sex, with a pair of men they just picked up, on top of adjacent toilets in the lavatory of an MIT fraternity house. Zuckerberg is portrayed as a generally nasty person — but he can’t help it, because he’s autistic…
Please judge.
/sb
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Re: Adam Reed’s post 131277 of 6/18/20
Having thought about it, I think you are right. I deleted that movie from my post.
I still think that movie has positives: it shows some of the intellectual and creative effort behind FB — for example, by showing how the fictional version of Zuck slowly develops the concept for the site while he’s working on it — and it also has the character make some points in his own defence (e.g., when he argues that the Winklevoss twins did not actually invent Facebook).
It also represents certain aspects of ‘noughties tech culture pretty well, such as Zuck’s “hack” that went viral (I studied computer science in the late 2000s and that was the period when you could still hack together a novelty site and have it spread like wildfire around a university campus).
Still, I cannot in good conscience recommend a movie that makes up information about a real person. The real story is interesting enough, and does not need to be embellished. Pirates of Silicon Valley is much better in that regard.
/sb
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15
I won’t dispute the picks made on this thread; most are also on my list and I’ll watch those that weren’t. So thanks to everyone who’s contributed over the years. This was a real find during the 2020/21 lockdowns!
But Harry’s assertion (“The 1970s was a lost decade for movies”) gave me some pause. I can’t disagree with his broad generalization with one exception (and no, not “Star Wars”).
After quickly re-reviewing its plot and various heroic portrayals in case my conclusions derived from 40 years ago (before I’d even begun studying Ayn Rand) required amending, I could still find no significant error.
So I’ve decided to counter with one word. I believe it will suffice.
Rocky
On a personal note, as art, this film has continually raised my spirit (now well into my late 60’s) when I occasionally felt like letting that spark go out in whatever battle I had steered myself.
I won’t comment on the other films in the franchise (which, like this first one, had their good and bad points), other than to go a bit farther out on a limb for one: The opening sequence of “Rocky III” with its “Eye of the Tiger” soundtrack was a concise, dramatic concretization of the plot’s two major and disparate conceptual world views. It brilliantly sets the stage for the remainder of the film. It reminded me of how Tom Clancy would juxtapose seemingly disconnected tributary events until, later in the book, he’d crystallized their confluence into one of sobering, grave, Mississippi Delta proportions.
Or in this instance the heroic James “Clubber” Lang’s challenge, “I want Balboa! I want Balboa!”
Here is the opening sequence of “Rocky III”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZldDvunHQd0
Warning: The quick clips of knockouts can appear brutal. I found they are incidental to the theme and not gratuitous. They exist in context with the film’s two primary heroic antagonists–one who has fallen because with fame and wealth he lost focus on what mattered to him; one who is on the rise because he is absolutely committed to remain focused on what matters to him.
/sb
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Re: Isaac Lewis’ post 131271 of 6/18/20
Ex Machina — brilliant, polished, tightly-plotted sci-fi drama revolving around an elaborate version of the Turing test. A female android must prove that she can pass as human, while her (human) captor gradually reveals that he is rather inhuman himself.
Ex Machina is not at all about the Turing test. It’s obvious from the beginning that the android is conscious and self-conscious (a much bigger achievement than the ability of a sophisticated machine to simply pass for human). Although the protagonist has the task of figuring out whether the android can pass the Turing test, the movie itself, and the viewer, take for granted that at least this is the case; the fact is established quickly in the first scene between the prize winner and the android.
The movie is about whether it is possible for a fully conscious and rational being to be utterly amoral and manipulative. And the answer is yes. As you point out, there is an android example of this amorality (at least one android example, possibly two) and a human example.
/sb
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15
These additional titles are of acceptable-to-good quality and have not been mentioned on most others’ lists. I have mentioned a few of the titles myself elsewhere but not many. I’ve also included some quotes.
1776 (1972) – “This is a revolution, dammit! We’re going to have to offend SOMEbody!”
Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) – “Pearl Harbor? They must mean The Phillipines…”
Sebastian (1968) – “How many words can you make out of ‘thorough’?”
Midway (2019) – “It’s me, isn’t it?”
Phantom (2013) – “More precision from Squadron Command. I’ve heard they’ll shoot people just to keep their paperwork straight. “
Cold Comfort Farm (1995) – “Seth, you drain the well. There’s a neighbor missing.”
Raise The Titanic (1980) – “I’m a dynamite fisher-person. I just can’t put the wormy on the hooky. “
Inside The Third Reich (1982 WTBS miniseries) – “If they ask you to inspect a camp in Upper Silesia, don’t go. Don’t go to Auschwitz under any circumstances.”
The Monolith Monsters (1957) – “The desert’s full of things that don’t belong.”
Fantastic Voyage (1966) – Stephen Boyd: “They can’t shrink ME…?” Edmond O’Brien: “It’s only for an hour.”
Phantom of the Opera (1962) – “Yes, Mrs. Tucker. Today we both got the sack. “
The Architecture Of Doom (1989) – (The old women of the village said) “This National Socialism is a tough one; it is only the teacher that might manage it… or the barber.”
The Protectors (1972 British TV) – “…where the soul of a man is easy to buy…”
Le Mans (1971) – Lisa: “But what is so important about driving faster than anyone else?” Michael: ” A lot of people go through life doing things badly. Racing’s important to men who do it well. When you’re racing, it’s life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting.”
Destination: Moon (1950) – “Unless these (spacesickness) pills work, space travel isn’t going to be… popular.”
Apollo 13 (1995) – Gene Krantz: “I don’t care about what anything was designed to do, I care about what it CAN do. “
Downfall (2004) – Oberleutenant: “Orders, sir?” General Weidling: “I am to be shot.”
The Addams Family (1964) – Morticia: “Mind if I smoke?”
The Endless Summer (1965) – “Many of us ride (surf) winter and summer, but the ultimate thing for us would be to have an endless summer. The only way to do this is to travel around the world. “
The Endless Summer II (1994) – “I thought the locals at Huntington were mean…”
Operation Crossbow (1965) – Barbara Rueting as Hannah Reitsch while inside a Fiesler buzz bomb prototype after four test pilot deaths: “The autopilot can’t correct! Taking over manual controls!”
Zeppelin (1971) – “You have met Professor Autschul and Count Zeppelin socially?”
Have Gun Will Travel (1957) – “This gun was handcrafted to my specifications and I rarely draw it unless I mean to use it. Would you care for a demonstration? “
Perry Mason (1957) – “My fee? Since I haven’t been able to give you any advice, nothing.”
Lincoln (2012) – (Thaddeus Stevens): “Trust? Gentlemen, you seem to have forgotten that our chosen career is politics. “
Zelig (1983) – “I worked with Freud in Vienna. We broke over the concept of penis envy. Freud felt that it should be limited to women. “
Solo (1981 British TV) – “What are you doing out here?” “Waiting for Alec Guiness.”
D.O.A. (1949) – Homicide Captain: “Who was murdered?” Bigelow: “I was.”
/sb
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Steven Katz
Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15
One movie I didn’t see on your list was Other People’s Money. Can you tell me if you liked it? I think that was a beautiful and upliting story.
/sb
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Re: Steven Katz’s post 149677 of 7/3/24
One movie I didn’t see on your list was Other People’s Money. Can you tell me if you liked it? I think that was a beautiful and upliting story.
I haven’t seen it.
*sb
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 149901 of 7/26/24
I would suggest Working Girl and The Secret of My Success. Both are set in NYC with shots of the WTC.
/sb
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Re: Jeffrey Remboldt’s post 150230 of 8/26/24
If you are referring to Michael J. Fox’s 1987 film, then yes! There are many scenes in which you not only see the skyline, but also the busy Manhattan streets. The film is quite entertaining, too.
*sb
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