While I’m on the subject of all-time favorite movies here are mine. Many I would argue are among the best movies ever made but some I just like and I’m not even sure why. More or less in order:
- The 39 Steps (1935)
- 49th Parallel (1941)
- The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
- The Wizard of Oz (1939)
- The Quiet Man (1952)
- A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
- Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)
- The Searchers (1956)
- Rear Window (1954)
- Strictly Ballroom (1992)
There are others that come a little lower down in the list e.g. Seven Samurai, Casablanca, Random Harvest, The Maltese Falcon (I like the earlier version, too), The Prisoner of Zenda, Key Largo, The Band Wagon. And some I really like but they are too heartrending for me to watch over and over again back to back as I could those in my top ten, e.g. Broken Blossoms, He Who Gets Slapped.
No no no, we should have to click 10 times 😉
I can go older and newer, in no particular order:
1- Duck Soup (78 years old and still funny and relevant.)
2- Airplane!
3- LOTR trilogy
4- A Clockwork Orange
5-2001: A Space Odyssey
6- Casablanca (Ingrid Bergman with tears in her eyes.)
7- Godfather II
8- Kick Ass
9-Fort Apache
10- Unforgiven
Dave- No comedy? At least one Marx Brothers, Chaplin or Fields should be on there. I can see leaving off Ma and Pa Kettle or Francis the Talking Mule, but there are some classic comedy pieces.
Steve
All time favorite comedy? Probably Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera, or It’s a Gift. I don’t like Chaplin or “that damned ballet dancer” as Fields called him.
I love Harold Lloyd and I suspect he’d be much better known if he hadn’t canned up his pictures for so long.
One thing I should mention is that those really are my favorite movies. They’re not the movies I’d like to think people believed were my favorites. IMO most people tend to beef up their resumes, as it were.
I’m not sure how my list of favorites defines me as a character. Maybe that I’m a romantic with a keen sense of honor and an appreciation for the absurd. Maybe not absurd. Surreal may be the right word.
I note that in my list there are three directors represented by two pictures each: Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, and Michael Powell while in Michael’s list Stanley Kubrick is represented by two. I appreciate Kubrick’s films but I can’t say I really like them (as in I could watch them over and over again).
There are some other things I see that are conspicuously absent from my list. I love Spencer Tracy, for example, but none of his pictures make my list of faves. Bad Day at Black Rock and Fury are probably his best pictures but IMO they’re just too hard to watch to be in a favorites list. I love Tracy and Hepburn pictures. Without Love and Keeper of the Flame are probably my favorites among them. I dislike the closing scene of Woman of the Year so intensely for its gratuitous (and inserted by the studio) degradation of Hepburn’s character that it doesn’t qualify for the list. I don’t like the marital violence theme in Adam’s Rib even though I think it’s a wonderful picture.
We did favorite movie lists here last year too:
http://theglitteringeye.com/?p=10429
I’m too lazy to re-visit it, and haven’t seen Kangaroo Jack to make a truly informed selection of all of the great movies. But having re-watched a number of Miyazaki movies with the kids recently, I’m tempted to add more of them. Looking with some trepidation on the upcoming release of the Earthsea film.
I just noticed “Kick Ass” in the middle of michael’s list. lol
I don’t really have a list, because my preferences change over time, and it’s really easy to get over-exposed as you channel flip and see a really good movie too often (and edited for television).
(Maybe I just don’t want to admit that “The Replacement Killers” would rank pretty high.)
I’d forgotten about that. I’m glad I maintained some consistency between my lists.
Re: The Replacement Killers. Yun-Fat Chow has real screen charisma. You can hardly take your eyes off of him. Not to mention Mira Sorvino.
I much prefer your list to the WSJ list. (The Journal list makes me afraid for our civilization.)
The distinction between “favorite” and “best” is an interesting one. The idea of something being a “favorite” invites various idiosyncrasies – though I’m not sure I want to know the idiosyncrasy that results in “Kangaroo Jack.” “Best” presumes some attempt at an objective standard. The WSJ uses both terms which, presumably, indicates they feel anything like an objective standard is impossible.
My two favorite movies are “Father Goose” (1964) and “Local Hero” (1983). I will cherrfully admit “Father Goose” is in many way not one of the better films around – in fact the version of it available for purchase on DVD has an amateurishly bad edit right in the middle of it where either Leslie Caron or Cary Grant miss their cue and there is 3 seconds of embrassed silence, which is only amplified by Grant’s next line being “Shhhhh” said when no one had been speaking! Still my fondness of the film, its (Oscar winning)script filled with wonderful, quotable one-liners; Grant obviously having a ball playing against type as a drunken slob; the conceit of much of the dialogue happening over a radio system (a conceit the writer Peter Stone was to use again in “The Taking of Pelham 123”); all of it adds up to a movie that is, for me at least, greater than the sum of its parts.
“Local Hero”, on the other hand, I would argue is at least one of the greatest 10 comedies ever made. Everything about it is spot on, and it is that rare movie that improves with every additional viewing. (Just like, I’d argue, does “The Big Sleep” (1946).) Add to that the difficulty in making a low-key quirky film which isn’t too precious for its own good, and you have something of a miracle on your hands.
JP:
Dude, Hit Girl kills a guy by sticking her silencer into another guy’s mouth and shooting through his cheek. How is that not just a great thing for cinema and for art in general? It’s even better than the intestine bungee in Machete.
Father Goose is a fun picture, much quoted in this household. Particularly “Married? Goody Two-Shoes and the Filthy Beast?”, “How can you tell it’s a she? Her mouth is open.”, and “I am not a brother figure or an uncle figure or a cousin figure. In fact, the only figure I intend being is a total stranger figure.”
michael’s list has changed too; he’s dropped Night at the Opera in favor of Kick Ass, exhibitting the personal growth of a man a third his age.
Good distinction between favorite and best Rich. My list of favs, on Dave’s earlier post, would be different than a best list. For example, I think Citizen Kane really is a great movie, but not one I cold watch over and over.
Steve
michael’s list has changed too; he’s dropped Night at the Opera in favor of Kick Ass, exhibitting the personal growth of a man a third his age.
Did you not read Michael’s description of the silencer scene? Comedy gold! That’s right up there with Marvin’s exploding head in Pulp Fiction. Let’s see the Marx Brothers top that.
Besides, check bacnk in a year and see if MR’s list is still the same. It’s still got that fresh out of the cheek feeling to it now.
NOTE: I’m actually agreeing with Reynold’s
Ice:
True art has the power to bridge many divides.
re: Father Goose. I also love the line: “If you’re waiting for the big finale I’m sorry… this is all I do.”
And this exchange:
Caron: It’s obvious you know nothing whatsoever about children. Elizabeth is at the difficult age and you frightened her.
Grant: Yeah, well I’m a difficult age myself. She nearly scared me to death.
Dave,
I think it’s kind of funny how in your last post you highlight the fact that the WSJ list doesn’t have any movies prior to 1950, yet your list only has one from the past 50 years.
“Favorites” are hard for me. Movies that I can watch over and over again are generally “fluff” movies that don’t require a lot of thought. Not sure that’s a good definition for “favorite” in my case.
Here are just a few movies I really like off the top of my head:
The Third Man
Aliens
Star Wars, the Empire Strikes Back
2001, a Space Odyssey.
The Fifth Element
Red Dawn
The Longest Day
Michael,
I still want to see “Kick Ass” – it looked great on the previews.
Kick Ass definitely had its moments. Hit Girl was very convincing.
Hey, Chloe Moretz was just on 30 Rock a few days ago. Was a very good Kaylie Hooper.
Fair enough. Movies have been made for roughly the last 120 years. For the first 70 or so of that they were made by people who were, essentially, self-taught. For the last 30 years in particular they’ve mostly been made by film school graduates. I find them less entertaining. Too self-absorbed. Too cynical and brittle. I prefer whimsy and farce to biting satire; I prefer action over bloodfests; I prefer romance to sex scenes.
I also like movies with moral centers. Too many of today’s pictures are just too amoral for me.
I think the LOTR trilogy is a great cinematic achievement—a fine film adaptation of the books and a stunning realization of a fantasy world. I enjoyed watching them; I’ll watch them again; they’re not my favorite pictures.
There’s only one of James Cameron’s that I can watch again and again: The Abyss. I’m not sure I could tell you why. Better acting may be part of it but I think another factor is emotional content.
Oddly, I can watch Tremors (made by his ex-wife) again and again. It fits somewhere in my list of favorite pictures but not in the top 10. One of my all-time favorite movie lines: “Broke into the wrong God damn rec room, didn’t ya you bastard!”. And, of course, the authority with which Reba McEntire handles a shotgun is a thing of beauty.
Another picture made in the last 30 years I can watch again and again: Adventures in Babysitting (referred to in our household only a little tongue-in-cheek as “the greatest movie ever made”). Could anybody but Albert Collins have delivered the line “Nobody gets outs out of here unless they sing the blues”? Another trifle of a picture blessed with a remarkably good cast (look at the list some time).
Then there’s Murphy’s Romance (mentioned in the post from a year ago). Or Victor and Victoria, a wonderful picture all of which is essentially a set-up for Robert Preston’s hilarious final numnber.
“Can you fly mother–cker?”
Must download Tremors and re-watch.
“Oddly, I can watch Tremors (made by his ex-wife) again and again”
Me too. It is a favorite at our house. During Desert Storm, I managed to get a TV and VHS. The wife sent over a bunch of movies. Tremors was a weekly favorite.
I also notice no musicals, by anyone. Maybe that deserves its own list. I nominate The Producers.
Steve
I also notice no musicals, by anyone. Maybe that deserves its own list. I nominate The Producers.
You don’t classify “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” as a musical? Strictly Ballroom is a quasi-musical, where instead of breaking into song they break into music and dance as though it were a normal occurrence in everyday life.
The Wizard of Oz is a musical as is Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Two out of the top ten is actually quite a few. And, as mentioned, Strictly Ballroom is a dance picture. I also mentioned The Band Wagon as a favorite just out of the top.
IMO Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is the greatest movie musical of all time with The Band Wagon not far behind. The Fred and Ginger musicals are fun—great dance, incredible music, and, generally, awful books. I detest Busby Berkeley musicals—I don’t care for the objectification of women that’s his trademark.
You mean it isn’t? It sure was in the home I was raised in. I once heard a story told by one of Ruby Keeler’s daughters. She had no idea of how a big star her mother had been. She just thought everybody’s mother tap danced in the kitchen. I understood that completely. I learned to time step not long after I learned to walk.
Schuler, your biography just gets stranger and stranger . . .
I still have my mom’s first vaudeville contract, her clippings, and the first dollar she ever earned in vaudeville.
I can also do one or two of my grandfather’s vaudeville routines. The last time I saw my mom before her final decline she drilled me on the music, lyrics, and business. She was trying to teach it to one of her grandchildren but he just didn’t get it.
You mean it isn’t? It sure was in the home I was raised in.
What you recount is pretty weak tea compared to the suspension of disbelief that is required when watching a musical. The main character is ordering a sandwich from the waitress and then breaks out in song and dance and no one else in the restaurant thinks it odd. Entertaining, sure, but certainly not reflective of real life.
I’m pleasantly surprised that you included Strictly Ballroom in your list. I concur. I think that movie is a work of comic genius. Even with my jaded eye, having spent decades in competitive ballroom dancing, the movie works quite well. It’s campy, it’s funny, it has good character development arcs, it’s entertaining, it’s memorable, it speaks to the issues in that little world, and even though it’s kitschy it, to me at least, rises above the surface kitsch and delivers good entertainment.
Oops. My bad. Seven Brides and Oz should rate as musicals.
Steve
I had Singin’ In the Rain on my earlier list.
Dave, I’m curious about your thoughts on that one since I believe a lot of the songs are recycled, some I believe from Vaudeville.
For me Strictly Ballroom succeeds on many levels. It’s a romance; it’s funny; a re-telling of “The Ugly Duckling” or, at least, an evocation of that theme;it’s a good dance picture. It has the absurdist character I find common to many Aussie pictures.
I think it’s also a post-modern fable (if that’s your belief system). Note the importance of authenticity.
PD:
I like Singin’ in the Rain. It’s clearly one of the very best Hollywood musicals and, again, it’s a picture much quoted in this household (“Talk? Anyone can talk!” or “Dignity, always dignity” just to name two). It features the great Jean Hagen, another of those performers who raises the quality of a movie just by her presence in it.
There’s a remarkable bit of irony in that picture. In it the Debbie Reynolds character is supposed to be dubbing the singing of Jean Hagen’s character but Jean’s voice was better so the singing in the film sequences of “The Dancing Cavalier” is actually Jean’s. So, rather than Debbie dubbing Jean, you’ve got Debbie lip-synching to Jean.
I like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers better than Singin’ in the Rain for a number of reasons. It has an original score while, with a few exceptions, Singin’ in the Rain recycles songs from Broadway and Hollywood hits of the 20s and 30s. I think the book of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is better. The lyrics of Johnny Mercer, possibly the greatest mimic of real American speech among lyricists. Michael Kidd’s naturalistic choreography. The ensemble dancing of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is the best of any movie, without competitors. Four of the seven Potiphee brothers were lead dancers in their own right, most notably Tommy Rall, possibly the greatest male dancer who’s ever lived (the consensus among the male dancers in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was that Tommy Rall was the best of them).
Songs, music, and dancing flow organically from the plot and advance it in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers; Singing’ in the Rain is more a throwback to the pre-Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals in that respect, a collection of variety numbers. Of that genre I think that The Band Wagon is superior, possibly because of the talent involved.
True art has the power to bridge many divides.
And the Sun will rise in the east tomorrow.
Entertaining, sure, but certainly not reflective of real life.
Score one for musicals, then.
The book for Singin’ in the Rain is entirely an excuse for the performers to do what they do best.Which means that Gene Kelly gets to do a varietyof different dance numbers, Donald O’Connor gets to do his comedic thing, Debbie REynolds gets to do the girl-next-door-who’s-fantastic-at-everything-and-still-gets-overlooked, Jean Hagen does the best dumb blonde + arrogant star act ever put on film (“People?! I ain’t people. I … am a shimmering star in the Hollyword firmament.“), Cyd Charisse … well, she gets to be Cyd Charisse (both still and in motion), and if that ain’t enough for ya then yer dead.
The LotR movies have lost someluster for me. After seeing them I went back and read the books again. I have no idea howmany times I’ve read them now, at least half a dozen times, maybe twice that. Reading them after the seeing the movies just mademe aware of the bad plot changes in the second and third movies. Fellowshipis keenly done and doesn’t deviate too much from the books. (I’m not counting the cuts, which I thought were rather well chosen for the most part.) But they weakened Aragorn and especially Faramir’s characters, changed one of the battles, misused the dead, etc, etc. The worst of it is that I still think they’re very good movies, but there’s room for a better adaptation. Which obviously won’t get done for a few decades on, if ever.
Pace Dave, I like Busby Berkeley. And as much as I like Seven Brides and Singin’ in the Rain, I don’t think any dance sequence in the history of the movies can equal the tap sequence in the Lullaby of Broadway number in Gold Diggers of 1935 (ending notwithstanding). But then, I love tap. I wonder if you can find as many good tap dancers in the whole of the United States today as are in that sequence. Here’s Part one, and Part two (with the tap sequence).
Oh yeah, and you can see Dick Powell in male ingenue guise — before he became a pretty good hardboiled detective on the screen