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Your Top 3-5 Favorite Films (1 Viewer)

Eephus said:
The Third Man

Some Like It Hot

The Battle of Algiers

The Godfather Part II

The Lives of Others
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What are, the 2:08 & 3:18 marks for $800, Darnell?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7VaXlMvAvk

Welles with arguably the greatest entrance in film history for The Third Man, I think he wrote the cuckoo clock speech? Carroll Reed an underrated director, The Fallen Idol also a great, off beat noir. I haven't seen the one where James Mason is a wounded IRA agent on the run (Odd Man Out), but want to. All of these are in the Criterion Collection (though Third Man OOP and extortionately priced).

Battle of Algiers a seminal quasi-documentary style with many non-actors, one of the grittiest and most "real" films of its kind ever. One of The Maestro's (Morricone) most suspenseful and best scores. The coordinated bomb scenes in the clubs were worthy of Hitchcock.

Haven't seen the last film, will have to. That was the hope is through this exercise, others can be exposed to new films, be exposed to suggestions from those with similar taste, etc.

To the thread, don't limit yourself to five if it is hard to narrow down, call it honorable mention or whatever, a film or films from THAT list may end up being something new that others like best? 

 
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saintfool said:
Good list. Only one I haven't seen is "Elevator..." but the others are sort of examples of best in breed. 
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Got to see Elevator to the Gallows. It's a French noir just before the new wave. Deneuve is amazing and it's got an awesome  original soundtrack written and performed by Miles Davis (now known as the music in the weird Matt Mc Lincoln ads). 

 
Captain Cranks said:
Anchorman

Mulholland Drive

Memento

Gladiator

Black and Nasty # 22
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As far as the first 3/5 titles, they work 60% of the time, every time! Anchorman one of my favorite comedies of the last several decades (with Lebowski, Pineapple Express, Austin Powers trilogy). Mulholland Drive is not for everybody, but I like Lynch movies (Eraserhead and Lost Highway*, too) that are puzzles you have to think about and that don't necessarily have pat answers. Sort of the cinematic equivalent of a zen koan. Memento was kind of simple in terms of its reverse chronology, but revolutionary in that it hadn't been done before. It later directly influenced Irreversible by Gaspar Noe (NOT a good feelin family film). His first real feature, I think (after Following), and a sign of future greatness - Batman films, Inception, Interstellar, etc.  

* Super creepy Robert Blake scene with co-lead/character Bill Pullman from the underrated Lost Highway  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZowK0NAvig  

Enigmatic, atmospheric Cowboy scene from Mulholland Drive  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNjX3tQMygk

Behind Winkie's Diner, also from MD (do NOT watch this if you have a heart condition), this guy has a bat phone directly connected to the Jungian Unconscious like no director I've ever seen in my life. :)  May be more obvious with Kubrick, but they are among greatest ever in terms of sound (and judicious, timely, appropriate use of silence) DESIGN. Nothing is random or accidental, he is using some unsettling, disturbingly atonal, non-musical frequencies here. Probably not a good idea to watch this if anybody happens to find themselves undergoing Jacob's Ladder-type military hallucinogen experiments.    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UozhOo0Dt4o

 
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How about some John Wayne?

The Quiet Man  - watch this at least once a year

McClintock

True Grit

Sands of Iwo Jima

Donovan's Reef

 
Koya said:
Mesmorizingly Dull
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My 1st full year in school out in the burbs after growing up in Metro Boston, they sent our whole school to 2001 in the theater as a mandatory field trip. I was like 'mandatory movies hella better than knife fights and exploding toilets back in Jamaica Plain!'. My old man was piiii-issed to have to fork over $2.75 for ticket & trans. Pretty sure he wrore a letter. Anyway, i think that helped me not see it as dull because we hadn't been on the moon yet so it was really fresh & weird & important and we had classes on what the monkeys & embryos meant & ####, but it shore aint done much for me since.

 
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Ilov80s said:
Got to see Elevator to the Gallows. It's a French noir just before the new wave. Deneuve is amazing and it's got an awesome  original soundtrack written and performed by Miles Davis (now known as the music in the weird Matt Mc Lincoln ads). 
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Louis Malle had a good career in France and the US.  I remember Murmur of the Heart as being really good although I liked Atlantic City when it first came out and thought it was crap when I rewatched it later.

I'm kind of curious about his epic India documentary but 6 1/2 hours is pretty daunting.

 
Eephus said:
Louis Malle had a good career in France and the US.  I remember Murmur of the Heart as being really good although I liked Atlantic City when it first came out and thought it was crap when I rewatched it later.

I'm kind of curious about his epic India documentary but 6 1/2 hours is pretty daunting.
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Au Revoir Les Enfants is probably his second best film after Elevator.

 
Ilov80s said:
Au Revoir Les Enfants is probably his second best film after Elevator.
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oh, right... les enfants- my HS french teacher lived that exact life. don't know or think that it was his life Malle covered- but the same story: jewish student hiding out at non-jewish boarding school.

and I liked Atlantic City a lot last time I saw it (late 80s). but don't remember much outside of a couple of great performances (lancaster in particular).

 
I am not an art house movie guy at all, but I also don't like the kind of comic book dreck that a certain poster is featuring on his top 100 list.

This violates the intent of this thread, but I don't care, here are all of my favorites that I can think of off the top of my head.

40 Year Old Virgin
Big Lebowski
Big Trouble in Little China
Bourne Identity, The
Bull Durham
Caddyshack
Casino Royale
Collateral
Cool Hand Luke
Dazed & Confused
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Full Metal Jacket
Gladiator
Goodfellas
Grand Budapest Hotel
Groundhog Day
Heat
LA Confidential
Layer Cake
Longest Yard, The (1974)
Manhunter
MASH
Office Space
Player, The
Princess Bride, The
Pulp Fiction
Raising Arizona
Revenant, The
Ronin
Shaun of the Dead
Silence of the Lambs, The
Snatch
Terminator 2
To Live & Die in LA
Tropic Thunder
Unforgiven
Untouchables, The
Usual Suspects, The
Zero Dark Thirty
 

 
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El Floppo said:
oh, right... les enfants- my HS french teacher lived that exact life. don't know or think that it was his life Malle covered- but the same story: jewish student hiding out at non-jewish boarding school.

and I liked Atlantic City a lot last time I saw it (late 80s). but don't remember much outside of a couple of great performances (lancaster in particular).
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Lots of great French films that I feel like many people haven't seen because they won't do subtitles. Speaking of French films about school kids, The 400 Blows is a movie everyone has to see. It's so perfectly done that it has to appeal to everyone. Who wouldn't love that movie?

 
Ilov80s said:
Got to see Elevator to the Gallows. It's a French noir just before the new wave. Deneuve is amazing and it's got an awesome  original soundtrack written and performed by Miles Davis (now known as the music in the weird Matt Mc Lincoln ads). 
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Outstanding noir, great concept and interwoven sub-plot. It is the hauntingly beautiful Jeanne Moreau (which reminds me I meant to mention on the first page she was Billy Friedkin's first wife). Miles did that score I think in just a few hours, if not during one run through of the film, laying down the tracks while he watched in real time, masterfully capturing the mood of the images in parallel sound. Truly great music, even as standalone listening, unaccompanied by the visuals (though both together obviously best).   

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mgf8JVAPe8 

* DENEUVE married Fellini favorite lead (like Mifune for Kurosawa and Von Sydow for Bergman) Marcello Mastroianni and was in at least a few other Criterion Collection films, Polanski's Repulsion '65 and Bunuel's Belle de Jour '67 (haven't seen the latter). 

 
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Bob Magaw said:
Outstanding noir, great concept and interwoven sub-plot. It is the hauntingly beautiful Jeanne Moreau (which reminds me I meant to mention on the first page she was Billy Friedkin's first wife). Miles did that score I think in just a few hours, if not during one run through of the film, laying down the tracks while he watched in real time, masterfully capturing the mood of the images in parallel sound. Truly great music, even as standalone listening, unaccompanied by the visuals (though both together obviously best).   

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mgf8JVAPe8 

* DENEUVE married Fellini favorite lead (like Mifune for Kurosawa and Von Sydow for Bergman) Marcello Mastroianni and was in at least a few other Criterion Collection films, Polanski's Repulsion '65 and Bunuel's Belle de Jour '67 (haven't seen the latter). 
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Good catch, my memory betrayed me there.

 
Ilov80s said:
Good catch, my memory betrayed me there.
Click to expand...
While on the subject of neglected, "criminally" underrated Criterion foreign noirs:

The great Melville's Le Doulos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NnxYnOWLWc

Criterion

https://www.criterion.com/films/759-le-doulos

wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Doulos

American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino cited the screenplay for Le Doulos as being his personal favorite and being a large influence on his debut picture Reservoir Dogs 

Seijun Suzuki's Youth of the Beast, starring proto-body mod/hacked, chipmunk cheeked Joe Shishido (I also enjoy his more surreal takes on the Yakuza genre, Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill, the latter which was so weird it got him fired from Nikkatsu Studios). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk6H4r7FfVI

Criterion

https://www.criterion.com/films/946-youth-of-the-beast

My favorite noir period is probably Out of the Past with Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas and the great femme fatale Jane Greer (lot of great lines, if not quite Casablanca). Happy ending? I don't think so.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saurMhQHblc

* I can't believe I left the Revenant out of at least the honorable mention section (and best of the last 25 years) of my OP. I have to do a reset at some point, incorporating some of the reminders from the thread, new discoveries, etc (and encourage everybody else to do the same who wants to).   

 
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RedmondLonghorn said:
I am not an art house movie guy at all, but I also don't like the kind of comic book dreck that a certain poster is featuring on his top 100 list.

This violates the intent of this thread, but I don't care, here are all of my favorites that I can think of off the top of my head.

40 Year Old Virgin
Big Lebowski
Big Trouble in Little China
Bourne Identity, The
Bull Durham
Caddyshack
Casino Royale
Collateral
Cool Hand Luke
Dazed & Confused
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Full Metal Jacket
Gladiator
Goodfellas
Grand Budapest Hotel
Groundhog Day
Heat
LA Confidential
Layer Cake
Manhunter
Office Space
Princess Bride, The
Pulp Fiction
Raising Arizona
Revenant, The
Ronin
Shaun of the Dead
Silence of the Lambs, The
Snatch
Terminator 2
To Live & Die in LA
Tropic Thunder
Unforgiven
Untouchables, The
Usual Suspects, The
Zero Dark Thirty
 
Click to expand...
It's amazing that they occurred to you in alphabetical order.

 
Bob Magaw said:
As far as the first 3/5 titles, they work 60% of the time, every time! Anchorman one of my favorite comedies of the last several decades (with Lebowski, Pineapple Express, Austin Powers trilogy). Mulholland Drive is not for everybody, but I like Lynch movies (Eraserhead and Lost Highway*, too) that are puzzles, you have to think about and don't necessarily have pat answers. Sort of the cinematic equivalent of a zen koan. Memento was kind of simple in terms of its reverse chronology, but revolutionary in that it hadn't been done before. It later directly influenced Irreversible by Gaspar Noe (NOT a good feelin family film). His first real feature, I think (after Following), and a sign of future greatness - Batman films, Inception, Interstellar, etc.  

* Super creepy Robert Blake scene with co-lead/character Bill Pullman from the underrated Lost Highway  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZowK0NAvig  

Enigmatic, atmospheric Cowboy scene from Mulholland Drive  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNjX3tQMygk

Behind Winkie's Diner, also from MD (do NOT watch this if you have a heart condition), this guy has a bat phone directly connected to the Jungian Unconscious like no director I've ever seen in my life. :)  May be more obvious with Kubrick, but they are among greatest ever in terms of sound (and judicious, timely, appropriate use of silence) DESIGN. Nothing is random or accidental, he is using some unsettling, disturbingly atonal, non-musical frequencies here. Probably not a good idea to watch this if anybody happens to find themselves undergoing Jacob's Ladder-type military hallucinogen experiments.    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UozhOo0Dt4o
Click to expand...
Phone call scene from Lost Highway is one of my favorites ever.

 
shuke said:
Phone call scene from Lost Highway is one of my favorites ever.
Click to expand...
Stunned Eraserhead wasn't in your top 5! :)  

* After watching that scene, totally incongruous that Blake was involved in trial over his wife's murder?

Lost Highway trailer for the thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBmt65TboY0

Another great scene from the film, a lesson in driving safety and road courtesy by the late Robert Loggia (mature language and violence)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkQ5Ks0nZEw

 
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Ilov80s said:
Au Revoir Les Enfants is probably his second best film after Elevator.
Click to expand...
Liked it but didn't love it. It's clearly personal for him but I didn't think it special. For me, I still get a kick out of "Atlantic City" when I watch it. Lancaster is a blast in the flick, I think. 

 
Bob Magaw said:
My favorite noir period is probably Out of the Past with Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas and the great femme fatale Jane Greer (lot of great lines, if not quite Casablanca). Happy ending? I don't think so.  
Click to expand...
Great film and certainly one of the definitive noirs. Greer is probably the best femme fatale and you can't beat Mitchum. My quick noir top 5:

Double Indemnity, Sweet Smell of Success, Laura, The Killing and  Scarlett Street. 

 
Eephus said:
I'm surprised to see Good Will Hunting appear on so many lists.  I've never seen it.  It came out when Mrs. Eephus and I were in the baby zone and pop culture consisted of Disney and Barney.   I've avoided it since because the premise doesn't really appeal to me and it's hard enough to avoid Damon Affleck without going out of my way to watch them.

Can somebody explain why it's essential? 
Click to expand...
Robin Williams was very good in it.

 
Eephus said:
I'm surprised to see Good Will Hunting appear on so many lists.  I've never seen it.  It came out when Mrs. Eephus and I were in the baby zone and pop culture consisted of Disney and Barney.   I've avoided it since because the premise doesn't really appeal to me and it's hard enough to avoid Damon Affleck without going out of my way to watch them.

Can somebody explain why it's essential? 
Click to expand...
It's just a real solid uplifting movie.  There's nothing groundbreaking, but it's an underdog love story that hits all the right notes. It's funny and has good performances. I don't see it as being a top 100 type movie, but definitely a movie worth watching.

 
Ilov80s said:
Great film and certainly one of the definitive noirs. Greer is probably the best femme fatale and you can't beat Mitchum. My quick noir top 5:

Double Indemnity, Sweet Smell of Success, Laura, The Killing and  Scarlett Street. 
Click to expand...
Noir is EASILY one of my favorite genres. Gene Tierney was great in Laura, Barbara Satanwyk in Double Indemnity. I suspect Sean Young in Blade Runner was dolled up (hair, makeup, wardrobe) to look like one or both of Greer/Tierney.

Girl and a Gun is a great book by one of my favorite critics, David N. Meyer, you can probably find a used copy for a penny.

https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Gun-Complete-Guide-Video/dp/038079067X/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Same with The 100 Best Films to Rent You've Never Heard Of: Hidden Treasures, Neglected Classics, and Hits From By-Gone Eras, also highly recommended.                               

https://www.amazon.com/Films-Youve-Never-Heard--Gone/dp/0312150423/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8  

The classic noir cycle usually cited as Maltese Falcon ('41) to Touch of Evil ('58). Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and James Cain (later Jim Thompson who I think did the script on The Killing, which Kubrick contentiously took partial credit for) important authors. Distinctive in that they were generally B movie budgets (Double Indemnity a conspicuous big budget exception that proves the rule) elevated by the talent and artistic sensibilities of a lot of Euro directors. Because they weren't high profile and expectations were low, they had some story telling advantages such as being allowed to explore bleak themes, not having to have happy endings, etc. 

My top 10, it would be almost impossible for me to narrow the field further even within this sub-genre (and everybody should feel free to note favorite sub-genre top 5 lists to make the thread more useful and avoid creating redundant threads):

Out of the Past, Double Indemnity, Asphalt Jungle, The Big Sleep, Murder My Sweet/Farewell My Lovely remake, Kiss Me Deadly, The Killing, The Killers (the '46 version directed by Robert Siodmak with Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner and a pre-Cannon William Conrad as a gunny, though the '64 version directed by Don Siegel starring Lee Marvin, John Cassavetes, Angie Dickinson and Ronald Reagan [[!!]] as the gangster also worth checking out).

Honorable mention - Night of the Hunter, Laura, Gilda, Night in the City, Detour, D.O.A. (the original, not the Dennis Quaid abomination, one of greatest intros ever, walks into a police station and announces he wants to report a murder - "Who?" "Me."), Rififi and Point Blank.

As far as neo-noirs, my favorites by far in the past half century or so would have to be Chinatown and LA Confidential (director recently passed).  

 
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Top 10 Kurosawa films

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Kurosawa

Seven Samurai

Rashomon

Ikiru

Yojimbo/Sanjuro sequel

Throne Of Blood (based on Macbeth)

High and Low

The Hidden Fortress

Ran (last masterpiece, based on King Lear)

Stray Dog

Honorable Mention - Red Beard, Kagemusha, The Bad Sleep Well, Dersu Uzala and Dreams.

 
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Eephus said:
I'm surprised to see Good Will Hunting appear on so many lists.  I've never seen it.  It came out when Mrs. Eephus and I were in the baby zone and pop culture consisted of Disney and Barney.   I've avoided it since because the premise doesn't really appeal to me and it's hard enough to avoid Damon Affleck without going out of my way to watch them.

Can somebody explain why it's essential? 
Click to expand...
It is well written, original, great acting, will make you laugh and might make you cry.  Can't ask for much more.

 
Binky The Doormat said:
For those that have never seen "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" and like dialog-driven, psychological dramas (similar to Glengarry Glen Ross format/originally stage plays) you ought to watch this.  Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor at some of their best.
Click to expand...
Watching people belittle and scream at each other for 2 hours is not how I want to spend my time.

Yes, the acting is good, but just too downbeat and depressing for me.

 
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Bob Magaw said:
As far as neo-noirs, my favorites by far in the past half century or so would have to be Chinatown and LA Confidential (director recently passed).  
Click to expand...
Don't forget Altman's The Long Goodbye. Noir was never wrote better than Chandler and, oddly enough, Chandler was never done better than this. My favorite star turn of all time turned in by the grumbling edifice that was the immense Sterling Hayden just one of the many great features of this masterpiece. Easily the best movie the least have seen.

 
Bob Magaw said:
As far as neo-noirs, my favorites by far in the past half century or so would have to be Chinatown and LA Confidential (director recently passed).  
Click to expand...
My off-the-board favorite is Cutter's Way starring Jeff Bridges, Lisa Eichorn and John Heard in the role of a lifetime as an alcoholic disabled Vietnam war vet.   It takes place in a sunlit Southern California but is as bleak as the darkest noir.  It was a flop in its initial release in 1980 but has gained a cult following over the years.  It's one of those films that doesn't leave you after you've seen it.

 
FatUncleJerryBuss said:
Have to check out Network, keep seeing it on Prime, I guess it is time to hit play.
Click to expand...
Network is so awesome.   It predicts the rise of reality TV and the FOX news network.   It's got some of the best monologues of all time.  Almost every scene is ridiculously charged, and yet it manages to careen from one blowup to the next and somehow it makes total sense.   There's only one scene in the whole movie that I think is misplayed.

 
That is a superbly difficult question to answer. But I will give it a true go.

1) The Shawshank Redemption

2) Gladiator

3) Jaws

4) Raiders Of The Lost Ark

5) Halloween

 
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Ilov80s said:
It's just a real solid uplifting movie.  There's nothing groundbreaking, but it's an underdog love story that hits all the right notes. It's funny and has good performances. I don't see it as being a top 100 type movie, but definitely a movie worth watching.
Click to expand...
there's a small genre of movies that are as you described- underdog love story/whatever story... where the underdog is really a superhuman: GWH, gump, etc. takes some of the small, heart-warming aspects out of it for me.

 
El Floppo said:
there's a small genre of movies that are as you described- underdog love story/whatever story... where the underdog is really a superhuman: GWH, gump, etc. takes some of the small, heart-warming aspects out of it for me.




 
Click to expand...
how do you feel about the original "karate kid" or the "Rocky" franchise? does this "super-underdog" thing apply to those as well?

 
No particular order:

Boondocks Saints

Crank 1

A long kiss goodnight 

Predator 1

Army of Darkness 

Honorable mention Resivor Dogs. So many other good movies though. It's hard to narrow it down.

 
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El Floppo said:
No superpowers In those.




 
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Rocky defeats a murderer's row in successive movies. It's borderline religious or mystical experience in each one with a love story to boot. This is less the case with Daniel-san in "KK" but he does need the eastern mysticism of Miyagi to prevail (especially in "KK2"). This kind of ties-in to Spike Lee's "magic negro" premise but whatever.

Stallone for a time seemed to thrive on this kind of subgenre. Anyone remember this?

 
RandyDB said:
How about some John Wayne?

The Quiet Man  - watch this at least once a year

McClintock

True Grit

Sands of Iwo Jima

Donovan's Reef
Click to expand...
Don't forget El Dorado, Rio Bravo and Stagecoach; though The Quiet Man is probably my favorite.

 
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