I think this is the best top-10 movie list ever compiled.

Josh Hamilton's Addiction wrote:

The Warriors

Starship Troopers

The Matrix

Point Break

Dazed and Confused

Gone Baby Gone

Face/Off

Heathers

Mississippi Grind

Elite Squad

What you got?

You're missing several movies including Die Hard, Pulp Fiction, The Empire Strikes Back, and Tommy Boy

old guy 70 wrote:

I agree. I thought the 1935 version was the best of three.

Charles Laughton as Bligh may be one of the most memorable roles I've ever seen. I can still see the venom glistening on his feminine lips.

Brando was the best Fletcher Christian.

I wanted to mention Terrance Stamp, but that was Billy Budd.

Laughton (sort of) at his best:

I didn't realize the great Charles Laughton was so versatile.

What about Laughton's great performance as Quasimodo, in The Hunchback of Notre Dame...It was shot in 1936 and features Maureen O'Hara (a total goddess) in one of her earliest roles.

Avocado's Number mentioned Laughton's only film as a director...Night of the Hunter. It is a radical masterpiece, a spot-on piece of social criticism hidden within an anti-fable, as a pair of children flee a sociopathic killer (Robert Mitchum's unforgettable refrain of: "chil-drun....oh CHILLL-DRUNNN...")

Night of the Hunter so creeped out audiences that Laughton never got to make another picture, but the film's reputation and influence have only grown with time (David Lynch being a good example.)

You forgot Drum Line, Step Up and Pitch Perfect 1 and 2.

You're welcome

RIP Gene Wilder star of 3 of the greatest comedies ever made.

Never heard of him - what are the movies?

Gene Wilder was in some outstanding movies, including the Producers (or was this just a play then?), Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and Stir Crazy.

So, in honor of him:

Best Comedy Movies that I can think of:

1. Young Frankenstein

2. Blazing Saddles

3. Airplane

4. Top Secret

5. Groundhog Day

6. The Big Lebowski

7. Spinal Tap

8. Borat

9. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

10. Animal House

I excluded black comedies, except for Big Lebowski.

Best Movies I can think of:

1. The Shining

2. A Clockwork Orange

3. Apocalypse Now!

4. The Godfather

5. Raging Bull

6. Citizen Kane

7. North by Northwest

8. Vertigo

9. Dr. Strangelove

10. 2001

top to narrow this down. there are a lot of other contenders.

Crusher67.5kg wrote:

You forgot Drum Line, Step Up and Pitch Perfect 1 and 2.

You're welcome

Dodgeball.

1962 Manchurian Candidate still gives me the creeps.

pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

Crusher67.5kg wrote:

You forgot Drum Line, Step Up and Pitch Perfect 1 and 2.

You're welcome

Dodgeball.

1962 Manchurian Candidate still gives me the creeps.

Far better than the remake.

Is there any remake better than the original?

Walking Tall was on our TV last night, but unfortunately it wasn’t the original 73 version with Joe Don Baker.

Reminds me mentioning him, I always thought Charlie Varrick was always worth a second look.

Comedies:

The Fortune

Withnail & I

Summer of '42

The Pink Panther

Annie Hall

Play it Again, Sam

Young Frankenstein

The Jerk

Take the Money and Run

Some Like it Hot

Tootsie

Blazing Saddles

The Odd Couple

The Producers

There's Something about Mary

And as stated earlier, or in another thread, the Grant/Hepburn some Marx Bros films, Lewis/Martin, and Chaplin folms

I did see 'Streetcar' and 'Splendor in the Grass' previously mentioned but a few more Elia Kazan favorites from my list include 'On the Waterfront', 'Gentlemen's Agreement' and 'A Face in the Crowd'.

Old Guy 70:

Tender Mercies is a quiet, somber, great film. Robert Duvall's performance here may be his best.

Five Easy Pieces...Jack Nicholson at the start of the 1970's--Hollywood's golden decade. I believe he had already shot The King of Marvin Gardens before this one, with Cuckoo's Nest and Chinatown still to come. I like all of the film's early vignettes (set in the oil fields & town) but it loses steam when it goes romantic & existential at the end.

My favorite part of The Last Picture Show is Ben Johnson's performance as "Sam the Lion." Johnson was a great character actor in Westerns such as Shane and Wagon Train, but he totally owns this film (even though it is mostly about teenagers growing up in a rapidly declining Texas town) with his portrayal of the wise & wounded Sam.

After all the classicism, you throw us a curve ball...Wild at Heart! It seems like David Lynch's whole career post-Blue Velvet has been a descent into stylish confusion. But some of his better films have been adaptations of other people's material (The Elephant Man, The Straight Story, and Barry Guiford's Wild at Heart.) This is definitely one of Nicolas Cage's better roles, as he channels Elvis to deliver lines like: "This here snakeskin jacket...is, uh...an expression of...uh...my belief in personal freedom."

Coach:

High Noon is an interesting film. It was written in response to the Red Scare & Hollywood blacklist of the 1950's. A sheriff (Gary Cooper) can find no one in town to help him fight against outlaws who are coming to kill him. That absolutely no one in town is willing to defend a good man seems to fly in the face of Western conventions, but it was an accurate portrayal of Hollywood's reaction to the threat of McCarthyism, which smeared artists and ruined careers and lives. Cooper spends much of the movie trying to reason with frightened townsfolk about the need for unity against a common foe, but no one is willing to step up and fight.

At a Screen Actors Guild meeting in October of 1950, the director of High Noon, Fred Zinnemann, was one of 25 names that were read off a list of suspected Communist sympathizers. The person who accused Zinnemann of Communist ties was none other than the legendary studio bigwig and purveyor of overblown cinematic excess, Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille's intent was to force a rule onto the Guild requiring its members to sign a "loyalty pledge," which could then be used to ostracize non-signers. At a key point in the meeting, a filmmaker did stand up and fight back. That was the Oscar-winning, World War II veteran John Ford, who said:

"My name is John Ford. I am a director of Westerns…. I have been sick and tired and ashamed of this whole goddamn thing—I don't care which side it is," ... I don't think we should [be] putting out derogatory information about a director, whether he is a Communist, beats his mother-in-law, or beats dogs. That is not our purpose...I don't agree with C.B. DeMille," Ford added, "I admire him...I don't like him...but I admire him."

Ford was a total badass, at times unbearably so, but totally righteous in this instance, and DeMille's rule was defeated. Later, Ford would direct Henry Fonda in the film Mr. Roberts, and there is a pretty insane account of a disagreement that the two of them had on the set. Fonda had already spent a year on Broadway performing the role, and as filming progressed Fonda felt that Ford's grasp of the material was off. Eventually Fonda requested a meeting with Ford to discuss his concerns. In the meeting Fonda was super-diplomatic and went to great lengths to express his respect & loyalty to Ford, who had cast Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath, My Darling Clementine, Young Mr. Lincoln, and in Drums Along the Mohawk, essentially making Fonda a star. "Pappy," Fonda began, "you know I love you...but [the play] has special purity that we don't like to see lost...and I'm confessing I'm not happy with the first scene." At that point, in response to Fonda's words, Ford stood up, reared back, and punched Fonda in the face. End of complaint. End of meeting.

Avocado's Number:

In my view, post-War Japanese cinema reached a height that no one has since attained. Ikiru--with the great Takashi Shimura as a lonely government clerk who learns he has stomach cancer and 6 months to live--is an elaborately structured story. In the film, Shimura must fight against fear and find a way to give meaning to his final days. His solution is only revealed in flashbacks at his funeral, as awed mourners share stories about him. The film is an inspiration, because it dramatizes the possibility of death as a driver for great acts of courage and generosity. So all Kurosawa films are fantastic--ALL OF THEM--but it wasn't just Kurosawa who was great. Their were other Japanese filmmakers like Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi, who were less action-oriented, but more poetic, more sublime.

Ozu made an incredible film--LATE SPRING--about a widowed college professor who is cared for by a loving, doting, but aging daughter--the gorgeous and singular SETSUKO HARA. The father is concerned the daughter will become an unmarried spinster, so he tells his daughter he is engaged to another woman. The daughter is stunned by her father's "disloyalty" to her mother. It compels her to marry and find a life of her own. Afterward, the father celebrates the success of his lie, but he is soon struck dumb while peeling an apple, when he finally sees that loneliness and isolation are now a permanent part of his life.

La Dolce Vita is absolutely a great Fellini film, so now you MUST SEE Paolo Sorrentino's recent film, The Great Beauty, which is a total homage and ingenious update to Fellini's original.

I'm kicking myself for forgetting about MC CABE AND MS.MILLER. Warren Beatty was soo good in that film. Definitely my favorite Altman film, with Nashville a close second.

PT Anderson's recent Inherent Vice was a disappointment, but I'm a big fan of There Will Be Blood, which feels like an apologia to people of the future. Also, Punch-Drunk Love, with its ingenious deployment of Adam Sandler as a confused, enraged, heroic everyman (funny also.)

Funny Movies:

Raising Arizona

Buffalo 66

Comedies:

Wet Hot American Summer

My Cousin Vinny

Young Frankenstein

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Some Like it Hot

Those are the great ones off the top of my head. There are some movies that I don't think of as comedies, like White Men Can't Jump, that should get consideration for lists. My taste in comedies may be more conventional, but I don't watch a ton of them. Wet Hot American Summer is the funniest movie ever made, though.

chilhowee,

Nice critiques. You're obviously a long time movie fan.

What's your take on 'Lolita' (the Sue Lyon version) and 'Summer of '42?'

The High Noon info was interesting. I had never heard that story.

chihowee:

First, thanks for the additional plug for Laughton's "Night of the Hunter." The striking images -- for example, the creatures on the side of the river as the children are trying to escape the killer by boat (accompanied by haunting singing by the young girl), the famous basement scene, the corpse of the children's murdered mother drifting under the lake, Lillian Gish sitting in her rocking chair with a shotgun to protect the young children from the killer during the night -- remain very powerful. It's a very unusual movie.

Second, one more plug for "Tender Mercies," a truly great little movie.

Regarding "The Last Picture Show" and Ben Johnson's performance as Sam, I wanted to share with you this little story. Several months ago, I attended a screening "The Last Picture Show," following by an evening with Peter Bogdanovich, who talked mainly about the directors who inspired him -- Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, John Ford, Howard Hawks. But he also talked about a few actors, including the laconic Ben Johnson, who repeatedly turned down the role of Sam in "The Last Picture Show" because it required him to say too many words. He was eventually persuaded to take the role. Many of his words in the movie came in this single scene of wistfulness and lost love -- a scene that I've watched dozens of times -- and they won him an Academy Award for his performance:

Ozu's movies are high on my "must see" list. (I have seen "Tokyo Story.") Ozu seems like an acquired taste, especially for American audiences, because the film techniques are so rigid and minimalist and the performances so subdued.

I'll check out "The Great Beauty." When you first described it, I thought of "La Dolce Vita."

Good to hear another voice for "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," which Roger Ebert called Altman's one "perfect" film. Not easy to watch at times, but certain scenes (especially, the death of "Cowboy") have stuck with me for decades.

My favorites from P.T. Anderson are still "Magnolia" and "Boogie Nights," but a special shout-out to "Punch-Drunk Love," with -- as you say -- an ingenious use of Adam Sandler (of all people).

"Buffalo 66" is a favorite of mine. Not just funny, but incredibly sad at times, and really very sweet.

Regarding Ben Johnson's Oscar winning performance monologue, the sun came out from behind a cloud at the right time, a divine bit of luck. I too could watch that scene over and over. If anyone here hasn't seen the movie, see it asap