Your Top Ten, Twelve or Twenty Favourite Films.

Started by mongers, July 25, 2014, 03:30:49 PM

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mongers

July 25, 2014, 03:30:49 PM Last Edit: July 25, 2014, 03:36:37 PM by mongers
We've probably done this before, but it came up in a conversation today, so I had to think about it for some seconds. :gasp:

So what are your favourite ten films and if you wish for what reasons, be it because of context or Idesque film review pretensions. (sorry Ide :P )

Note I'm not starting an argument for The Best ten films of all time, that's another debate, so just your own favourites, films you've no doubt actually watched too. 


Off the top of my head:

'Doctor Strangelove' - a genuinely superb film, arguable the best satire, here as my own satire/comedy choice. 

'Apocalypse Now' - largely because I grew up watching Vietnam and it was the first film I saw where the Cinema audience walked out in complete silence.

'Far from the Madding Crowd' - it's a well made film, perhaps not a classic, but it stands in for my love of our local landscape, the regions 'true' history and all things beautiful from the 1960s. Otherwise 'Doctor Zhivago' would have gotten the nod.

'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' - a great film in its own right, and my stand in for spaghetti and all Westerns.

'A Matter of Life and Death' - so many things make this film great, plus it's my stand in for all the great post-war British films be it 'Passport to Pimlico' 'The Lavender Hill Mob' or 'Ice Cold In Alex'

'Planet of the Apes' - obviously the original, my one choice for sci-fi, though I could equally have chosen '2001' or 'Soylent Green'

Emir Kusturica's 'Underworld' - can you get a bleaker tale about the Balkans. Alternatively his 'Black Cat, White Cat' standing in for fun and stupid shit.

'The Devil Rides Out' - not a great film, but here representing all of those great and not so good Hammer Horror films I devoured as a child.

'Casino' - a great film, 'Goodfellas' is probably better, but i like this ones toned down, less musical 'realism'.  Equally 'The Departed' could have been the choice.

'Longitude' - well made and acted, but her because it tells a great story about scientific progress against ignorance and it here as my one choice of costume dramas

edit:
scrap this choice as it's no.11 and such a weak group.

'The Wall' - the best rock opera, music film, though I could have equally chosen 'The Blues Brothers' - though arguable it's really weakest category here.

I should have chosen one for love stories and another for romantic comedies, but couldn't think of any off the top of my head.
And obviously I've missed out who genres like US musicals/dance films, film noir etc.


edit 2:
Ten really is too limiting isn't it, make it a dozen or at most your favourite twenty films. Ad I've missed out the likes of Robert De Niro's 'A Bronx Tale' which whilst not one of the greats, is nearly the most perfectly crafted films I've seen. Also I really should have chosen a Coen brothers film.  :(


"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

Ideologue

#1
July 25, 2014, 03:45:19 PM
I separate them into lists of top ten films made before I was born, top ten made afterward, and, by necessity, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Indiana Jones movies.

After the top 5, it's amorphous, but I'll run with a loose top 10 made before I was born:

10.  Sanjuro
9.  Lawrence of Arabia
8.  Carrie
7.  Things To Come
6.  Harakiri
5.  The General
4.  The Invisible Man
3.  Rope
2.  2001: A Space Odyssey
1.  Flash Gordon

(Design For Living and Apocalypse Now are right at no. 10.)

The "after I was born" I won't be held to after the top 3:

10.  Evil Dead 2
9.  Eyes Wide Shut
8.  The Little Mermaid
7.  Death Proof
6.  Explorers
5.  Speed Racer
4.  Tron: Legacy
3.  Gattaca
2.  The Truman Show
1.  Gravity

(Transformers: The Movie and Pain & Gain are the very close runners-up to no. 10, but neither have gotten me laid three times.)

P.S.: FU Mongers.
Kinemalogue
Current reviews: The 'Burbs (9/10); Gremlins 2: The New Batch (9/10); John Wick: Chapter 2 (9/10); A Cure For Wellness (4/10)

Eddie Teach

#2
July 25, 2014, 03:58:04 PM Last Edit: July 25, 2014, 04:04:02 PM by Peter Wiggin
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Pulp Fiction
Star Wars original trilogy
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Princess Bride
Casablanca
Last Crusade
Temple of Doom

Can't decide among these for slot 10:
American Beauty
Clueless
The Dark Knight
Double Indemnity
The General
The Godfather
The Great Escape
Inception
Mean Girls
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Rashomon

BTW, this is not a top 20 list. That would require a lot more tricky comparisons. For instance, I know I like The Godfather better than Goodfellas and The Great Escape better than The Dirty Dozen. That doesn't mean I like all those other films better necessarily. The top 9 was pretty easy in comparison.
To sleep, perchance to dream. But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?

Savonarola

#3
July 25, 2014, 04:06:29 PM
1.)  La passion et la mort de Jeanne d'Arc; Dreyer's masterpiece, the slow build up to the fast paced conclusion is a wonderful example of pacing.  Flaconetti's acting is incredible.

2.)  The General; Buster Keaton has a lot of strong contenders, but this is his best.  Such a simple structure and yet so many laughs.

3.)  Aresnal; this rather than Earth is Dovzhenko masterpiece; brilliantly set up, well paced, folkloric and it even has a cavalry.

4.)  Der letzte Mann; almost perfect with no title cards (until the tacked on happy ending) and camera that captures the mood of every scene brilliantly.

5.)  The Gold Rush; Chaplin was never funnier, and never more able to milk laughs out of tragedy.

6.)  Die Büchse der Pandora; Louise Brooks performance as somehow both naive and knowing makes this tale of sinister sexuality brilliant.

7.)  Safety Last;  In his silent features Harold Lloyd will sometimes let the gag run on too long; here, though, letting the building climbing gag go on and on works perfectly.

8.)  Man with the Movie Camera; the best "City" movie, this is dynamic and brilliant in every way that the Soviet Union was not.

9.)  Metropolis; what Lang was trying to do in Die Nibelungen he actually did in this film; big, bold and operatic.

10.)  The Last Command; wonderfully ironic premise with a slam-bang ending.  Hollywood's "Timely" films were seldom better.
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

garbon

#4
July 25, 2014, 04:07:36 PM
Quote from: Savonarola on July 25, 2014, 04:06:29 PM
1.)  La passion et la mort de Jeanne d'Arc; Dreyer's masterpiece, the slow build up to the fast paced conclusion is a wonderful example of pacing.  Flaconetti's acting is incredible.

That is pretty awesome. :)
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Maladict

#5
July 25, 2014, 04:12:00 PM Last Edit: July 25, 2014, 04:20:23 PM by Maladict
I'm sure I can't remember many of my favourites on the spot, so I'm going with films that made a big impression on me, first 12 that come to mind.

1 2001 a Space Odyssey
2 Dr Strangelove
3 Dr Zhivago
4 Paths of Glory
5 Lawrence of Arabia
6 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
7 Twelve Monkeys
8 Monty Python and the Holy Grail
9 Der Himmel uber Berlin
10 Stalingrad
11 Pan's Labyrinth
12 La Stanza del Figlio
edit: 13 Cidade de Deus should be in there too, scared the crap out of me.

mongers

#6
July 25, 2014, 04:27:39 PM
Some excellent choices here, nice to be reminded of good accessible films one should watch again, rather than just a critics choice list.
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

Zanza

#7
July 25, 2014, 04:38:00 PM
Schindler's List
The Godfather I & II
Pulp Fiction
Star Wars Trilogy
Once Upon A Time in the West
Fight Club
Forrest Gump
The Matrix
The Departed
Terminator 2
Back to Future
Das Boot
Blade Runner


Yeah, that's thirteen. So what.

Queequeg

#8
July 25, 2014, 04:52:14 PM
Night of the Hunter
Alien
Boogie Nights
The Apartment
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Le Samourai
Vertigo
Fanny and Alexander
Don't Look Now
Chunking Express
Cargo 200
Detour
Quote from: PDH on April 25, 2009, 05:58:55 PM
"Dysthymia?  Did they get some student from the University of Chicago with a hard-on for ancient Bactrian cities to name this?  I feel cheated."

Norgy

#9
July 25, 2014, 05:19:40 PM
I'll just make a list of ten.

1. Lawrence of Arabia
2. The Godfather
3. Dr. Zhivago
4. Come and see
5. Stalingrad (the German one)
6. Der Untergang
7. Cinema Paradiso
9. Kramer vs Kramer
10. Mean Streets

grumbler

#10
July 25, 2014, 05:30:02 PM
Changes too much as I remember one film or another, but this instant it would include
1984
Dr. Strangelove
2001
Alien
Citizen Kane
They Might Be Giants
Clockwork Orange
LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring
Bladerunner
Buckaroo Banzai

I'm in an SF mood, it appears.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

Norgy

#11
July 25, 2014, 06:07:03 PM
It seems as if I took my war movie supplement pills as well. War. Divorce. Some guy who likes movies. The Cosa Nostra. Youth violence. Yeah, I'm fairly certain I'm not all that mentally healthy.

mongers

#12
July 25, 2014, 06:20:43 PM
Quote from: Norgy on July 25, 2014, 06:07:03 PM
It seems as if I took my war movie supplement pills as well. War. Divorce. Some guy who likes movies. The Cosa Nostra. Youth violence. Yeah, I'm fairly certain I'm not all that mentally healthy.

That's a little harsh on yourself, maybe you just gravitate towards films that really stir one's soul, rather than just pure entertainment ?

"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

frunk

#13
July 25, 2014, 06:21:27 PM
In alphabetical order, avoiding duplicate directors/leading actors:

Akira
A Night at the Opera
Blade Runner
Brazil
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Das Boot
Dr. Strangelove
Fight Club
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Grosse Pointe Blank
Kung Fu Hustle
Miller's Crossing
Pan's Labyrinth
Princess Mononoke
Ratatouille
This is Spinal Tap
Trainspotting
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Yojimbo
Young Frankenstein

The next 20 (cause I couldn't stop):

Adaptation
Fifth Element
City of God
Glengarry Glen Ross
Good Night, and Good Luck
Heathers
Kill Bill Vol. 1
Life of Brian
LotR: Two Towers
Office Space
Out of Sight
Pi
Princess Bride
Repo Man
Run Lola Run
Rounders
Shaun of the Dead
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
Thank You for Smoking
Toy Story 2

celedhring

#14
July 25, 2014, 07:08:38 PM Last Edit: July 25, 2014, 08:33:08 PM by celedhring
I'm a complete sucker for sci-fi, so it dominates my list.

8 1/2
Blade Runner
All That Jazz
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Empire Strikes Back
Brazil
Solaris (Tarkovski's, not the yank remake)
Once Upon a Time in the West
Groundhog Day
Raiders of the lost Ark

Even 8 1/2 has a tangential sci-fi motif!

EDIT: I can't leave out these two, so I'll make it a Top 12 list:

Apocalypse Now
Goodfellas
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