10 Favorite Movies • Page 3

Well, the thread is called 10 'Favorite' Movies, so I think something you have watched endlessly and memorized would qualify.

 

I mean Billy Madison and Tommy Boy and Can't Hardly Wait are films that I still enjoy every time I watch them, but they have nowhere near the impact that a film like The Tree of Life or Breathless or 400 Blows had on how I interpret films. It's odd to weigh the two against each other. Comfort food that you always go back to vs. something impactful

 

I guess that's true. 'Favorite' isn't as cut and dry as I maybe saw it.

 

Thanks! I have a small pool of movies to choose from because there are tons of classics I haven't seen yet, which is also why there are a lot of new films on my list. Acting is the biggest thing for me. For instance, The Help is one of my favorite movies of all-time mainly because the ensemble is one of the best I've seen in any movie. It's a crowd-pleaser, and a tad sentimental, but it also has performance after performance that blows me away.

Have you seen The Awful Truth? It's an old 1937 comedy with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne and the amount of comedy they can emit with just a glance (especially from Dunne) is unreal.

 

Watching films over and over again almost always leads to a depreciation of the value of a film. The Tree of Life is a top ten film, but it is something I may never watch again, or at least in the next few years.

 

I had actually never heard of that one. I had to look it up.

 

The Dark Knight (Trilogy might as well be bunched in)
Interstellar
The Prestige
Jurassic Park
Room
Pan's Labyrinth
The Lord of the Rings
No Country for Old Men
Requiem for a Dream
Wall-E

 

1) Raiders of the Lost Ark
2) That Thing You Do!
3) Blade Runner
4) Return of the Jedi
5) Alien
6) Halloween
7) Reservoir Dogs
8) Le Samourai
9) Memento
10) The Beat That My Heart Skipped

 

Shit I forgot Synecdoche.

 

shit I forgot The Room

 

Since 10 is a tough number to narrow down to, I'll follow OhTheWater and list some of my letterboxd 5 and 4.5 stars that I'd count as favorites:

Pather Panchali, A Brighter Summer Day, Margaret, Solaris, Hoop Dreams, Citizen Kane, Starship Troopers, the Godfather, the Godfather Pt. II, Annie Hall, Holy Motors, Clerks, the Sandlot, Dazed and Confused, Jackie Brown, Wet Hot American Summer, Mulholland Drive, the Royal Tenenbaums, 25th Hour, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Shaun of the Dead, Munich, Into the Wild, the Tree of Life, Adventureland, 21 Jump Street, Malcolm X, A Streetcar Named Desire, the Master, Superbad, Magic Mike XXL, Under the Skin, Inside Llewyn Davis, Josie and the Pussycats, Spider-Man 2, Sugar, the Thin Red Line, Zodiac, Spring Breakers, Moneyball, Speed Racer, MacGruber

Lots of obvious names on there. There are also plenty of other classics or works from top tier names like Pulp Fiction, Taxi Driver, that left an impression and were important in the early years of getting to know movies. I tried to think of nostalgia pulls that I liked a lot when I was young, like Adam Sandler movies or kids movies, that I still hold close but there really aren't that many.

 

Honestly, could put all of Nolan's filmography in my top ten and be satisfied.

 

Ooooh! Add me on Letterboxd! I need more recommendations. Bradsonemanband.

 

that is profound. care to tell us why?

 

I just love Nolan films. Only through in a few Nolan movies into my top ten to be more varied.

I could watch any of them on any given day and know I'm going to enjoy the experience no matter what mood I'm in. I see his weaknesses and strengths, sure, but when he's good, he's masterful.

 

Inside Llewyn Davis is a film I'm afraid to watch again (although I do own it twice on BD) because of how much I fell in love with it on first watch

 

American Psycho- I could go on and on about both the book and the film, its dismantling of upper class, coke addicted yuppies and the inner workings of a man who has truly lost his mind
Ghostbusters
The Dark Knight
Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
Beetlejuice
Holes
Return Of The Jedi
Inglorious Bastards
Robocop
The PuppetMaster series

 

my man

 

Hey everyone, long time-first time, etc. Is there a separate thread to introduce yourself? Couldn't find it.

Anyway, here's mine. Heaps of these have been said already which is a given.

1. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
2. The Empire Strikes Back
3. Catch Me If You Can
4. Jurassic Park
5. South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut
6. Spaceballs
7. Inglorious Basterds
8. The Nightmare Before Christmas
9. Baseketball
10. The Social Network

Changes frequently, but these ten always seem to be the ones I reel off.

 

For me, it's the opposite. Finding joy in repeated viewings is what qualifies a Top 10 movie for me. There are movies like Requiem for a Dream, United 93, and Black Swan where I was happy to experience them but have no desire to ever watch them again.

 

I never want to watch Requiem for a Dream, United 93, or Black Swan ever again either.

A lot of the all-time greats are hard watches. An Andrei Tarkovsky film will never be the kind of thing you look for when you are in bed with the flu or stuck on an airplane, but that is because of the difficulty of the material.

 

Rewatching dark, twisted hard to watch films like Requiem or Black Swan I get, but I agree that comedies, action and pretty much any other genre usually get better with rewatches if it's a good movie.

 

I understand the point. But I enjoy watching my favorites again even and especially the challenging ones. However,I don't get the idea that someone wouldn't want to rewatch something so that they can preserve their experience or because they are afraid that the film wont hold up under repeated viewings. There's plenty of films that hold up well.

 

If a film doesn't preserve a good experience, is it really a great film?

 

Every movie is going to become less important or moving if you watch it too many times, especially if it is done in short succession. Art is just like anything else; constant repetition devalues the whole experience. Every time you watch a movie again you are not watching a new film that could change your assessment of the first film or the themes within it. Pauline Kael famously did not rewatch films, and while there are reasons to go back to a film if you missed something or you have seen a different interpretation, she was generally close to correct.