100 Films That You Must See |
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My Two Favorites |
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| The Third Man | 1949 | Who killed Harry Lime? Find out in this flawless mystery set in bombed out Vienna. You can watch this film repeatedly and discover something new everytime. |
| Blade Runner; The Final Cut | 1982 | Humanlike replicants must be tracked down and retired on a dystopic future earth. This film raises the question; What does it mean to be human? Gorgeous precomputerized special effects. |
All Time Great Films |
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| Citizen Kane | 1942 | The life of tycoon Charles Foster Kane unfolds in a film that is considered the greatest of all time. Filled with innovations that are copied and studied more than any other movie. |
| North by Northwest | 1959 | This Hitchcock film is about a wrongly accused man trying to prove his innocence. Here is the Crop Duster Scene. |
| The Caine Mutiny | 1954 | A complex story about a mutiny on a naval vessel and the court trial that follows. Brilliant acting by Humphrey Bogart and Fred Mac Murray. |
| 2001 A Space Odyssey | 1968 | Yesterday we were bone throwing monkeys; today we fly to space; –tomorrow?? |
| Shadow of a Doubt | 1943 | This was Hitchcock’s favorite film. What do you do when your loving uncle is a murderer? |
| M | 1931 | This German Language Film stars Peter Lorre in his first major film. It’s about a child murderer and the police who search for him. |
| The Shining | 1980 | A wonderfully filmed plunge into madness in an isolated resort in the high Rockies. –Come play with us, Danny. |
| Arsenic and Old Lace | 1941 | What do you do when you discover that even the sane members of your family are mass murderers? |
| On the Waterfront | 1954 | Marlin Brando’s greatest performance as an ex-boxer turned longshoreman who struggles to stand up to the corrupt Union Bosses. |
Classic Films That You Have Already Seen* |
*There Is No Category like this for Modern Films –No reason for it. | |
| Casablanca
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1942 | Did you know that Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman actually disliked each other? They could sure act. |
| Gone With the Wind | 1939 | This is about a turbulant love affair in the South during the Civil War and Reconstruction, but you knew that. |
| The Wizard of Oz | 1939 | Flying monkeys are an endangered species. I blame Global Warming. |
| Godfather II | 1974 | Even Better than Godfather I |
| Godfather | 1972 | This is a sweeping story about the Mob, but you knew that too. |
| Silence of the Lambs | 1991 | This film is best served with fava beans and a nice chianti. |
| Das Boot | 1981 | Those crazy Germans and those terrible Subs. Watch the film with Subtitles not with English dubbed in. |
| The Sixth Sense | 1999 | Fill in the blank. “I see ______ people!” |
Great Films That You Haven’t Seen |
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| The Magnificent Ambersons | 1942 | A middle aged woman finds romance as her decaying wealthy family comes to grips with it. This was a box office bomb and the film was partially destroyed during the war, it’s now incomplete. Later rediscovered for it’s greatness. |
| Our Man in Havana | 1959 | A British comedy/spy film . If the British need a spy in Havana why not employ a vacuum cleaner salesman. |
| Gilda | 1946 | Yes, hate is an exciting emotion. |
| The Heart of the Matter | 1953 | This is a hard to find film. Every time that I think of Pride in the biblical sense, I think of the main character – Scobie and his introverted and stunted character. |
| Der Untergang | 2004 | “The Downfall” is a German language film about Hitler’s last days. Bruno Ganz’s magnificent performance as Adolph Hitler will make you feel that you actually watching Hitler himself. |
| Journey into Fear | 1943 | How many of the greatest films involve Orson Wells and Joseph Cotten? |
| Phantom of the Opera | 1925 | You know the story; here is the silent version. Lon Chaney Sr. is the man of a thousand faces. He is in my opinion, the first great dramatic film actor. |
| Hush Hush Sweet Charolette | 1964 | An aging southern belle keeps a terrible secret, but there is other mischief afoot! Starring; Bette Davis, Olivia De Havilland and Joseph Cotten. |
| Action in the North Atlantic | 1943 | Merchant mariners on the deadly Murmansk Run during World War II. This propaganda film was made at a time when Russia was our ally and stars Humphrey Bogart. |
| Love Affair | 1939 | This is a ’30′s tearjerker date movie. Same story as “An Affair to Remember” (1957), but this one’s better. |
| Cat People | 1942 | If your wife thinks that she will turn into a panther and kill; don’t immediately dismiss the idea. |
You Really Need To See These Films Too |
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| Bad Day at Black Rock | 1955 | Spencer Tracy plays a one-armed veteran who steps off a train into a tiny town in the West. He has a terrible secret but the town is full of secrets too. |
| Psycho | 1960 | What Mama wants; Mama gets! Don’t mess with Mama! |
| Bridge on the River Kwai | 1957 | Alec Guiness plays a gentelmanly British Colonel who will always follow decorum regardless of torture or strategy. |
| The Grapes of Wrath | 1940 | The Joad family is forced off their land during the Great Depression and struggles to keep it together by doing farm labor at slave wages in California. |
| High Noon | 1952 | The town marshall (Gary Cooper) is forced to face down four criminals while everyone refuses him help, even his new bride (Grace Kelly). |
| Inherit the Wind | 1960 | This is a fictionalized account of the Scopes Monkey Trial. |
| The Maltese Falcon | 1941 | People are killing each in order to find a porcelain bird. There must be a reason. |
| Touch of Evil | 1958 | A series of crimes break out on the Mexican border and Sheriff Hank Quinlan (Orson Wells) always gets his man; even if it means planting the evidence. |
| Gaslight | 1944 | A young married woman falls slowly into insanity -or does she? Ingrid Bergman won an Oscar for this and Charles Boyer should have won one too. Angela Lansbury’s first film. |
| Witness for the Prosecution | 1957 | This solid film is about a man who goes to trial for murder. You keep guessing until the end. It stars; Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton. |
| One Flew Over the Cockoo’s Nest | 1975 | If you are too crazy for the prison and too crazy for the mental institution, what else is there? This film won five Oscars. |
| Lawrence of Arabia | 1962 | A British Soldier rallies the Arabs against the Turks in WWI. This epic won seven Oscars. |
| Vertigo | 1958 | This Hitchcock thriller stars James Stewart as a man suffering with acrophobia. But his main problem might just be obsession with a woman. |
| Roman Holiday | 1953 | Watch the acting skills of Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck and you will have a hard time watching any modern romantic comedy. |
| Rebecca | 1940 | A young naive American girl marries into a fairytale life and moves into an English mansion, but fairytales aren’t real are they? |
| Metropolis | 1927 | This silent film is a Si-fi about a future society that is divided into slave-like workers and elite thinkers. That can’t really happen can it? |
| The Birds | 1963 | The Birds are as mad as hell and aren’t gonna take it anymore! |
| Of Mice and Men | 1939 | A mentally retarded giant and his guardian find work at a sadistic cowboy’s ranch during the Great Depression –Starring Lon Chaney Jr and Burgess Meredith. |
| The African Queen | 1951 | Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart star in this story about a crude riverboat captain and a missionary who plot to attack a warship in Africa during WWI. |
| Strangers on a Train | 1951 | If you will kill my relative then I will kill yours. This Hitchcock film inspired “Throw Mama From the Train”. |
| Rope | 1948 | Let’s kill someone and keep the body in the living room, just to see if we can get away with it. It’s hard to commit the perfect crime with Jimmy Stewart on the case. |
| Treasure of the Sierra Madre | 1948 | It’s tough to dig gold out of the Mexican Mountains and even tougher to keep it. |
| The Public Enemy | 1931 | James Cagney plays a young hoodlum rising through the ranks of the underworld, and he gets to smash a grapfruit into Jean Harlow’s face. |
Other Great Movies |
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| The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance | 1962 | One guy does the dirty work and the other one gets the glory and the girl. |
| The Good the Bad and the Ugly | 1966 | No one knows the Old West like the Italians. |
| Patton | 1970 | In this film General Patton thought that he could whip the Germans all by himself. Yes he was that arrogant in real life too. |
| To Kill a Mocking Bird | 1962 | A lawyer defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge in the depression-era South. |
| The Manchurian Candidate | 2004 | These soldiers really had their minds messed with. I would rather watch Denzel Washington than Frank Sinatra. |
| The Manchurian Candidate | 1962 | Boths versions are worth watching and I would rather watch Angela Lansbury than Meryl Streep. |
| The Elephant Man | 1962 | An extremely disfigured man is rescued from a Freak Show in Victorian England and reveals his sensitive intelligence. |
| The Trouble With Harry | 1955 | Some people are more bother dead than alive. This is Shirley MacLaine’s first film. |
| The Man Who Knew Too Much | 1956 | An American Man stumbles on an assassination plot while vacationing in Morocco in this Hitchcock thriller — Staring James Stewart and Doris Day. |
| Double Indemnity | 1944 | If your husband dies in an accident, your life insurance indemnity doubles. Hmmm. |
| The Hustler | 1961 | Paul Newman plays a pool hustler who always wins the game but is still a looser. |
| Whatever Happened to Baby Jane | 1962 | Bette Davis and Joan Crawford are two elderly sisters in a decaying Hollywood mansion. One is crippled and the other is a little sadistic and crazy. |
| Twelve Angry Men | 1957 | Twelve Jurors are arguing a murder case. The case seems opened and closed; or is it? |
| The Searchers | 1956 | John Wayne stars in this Western epic about a Civil War veteran who is searching for his niece who has been kidnapped by indians. But what is his true motivation? |
| The Lost Weekend | 1945 | Ray Milland plays a desperate alcoholic on a drinking binge. The liquor is in control as he lies and cheats his way through life. |
| The Exorcism of Emily Rose | 2005 | This exorcism/court trial film contains very intelligent dialogue. The demonic possession almost seems real and the annoying prosecuting attorney is nearly as believable. |
| Lolita | 1962 | An adult man falls for a 12 year old girl. I know it sounds creepy but this is a very well acted film about some interesting but defective human beings. |
| This is Spinal Tap | 1984 | On a scale of 1 to 10, this goes to 11. |
| Breakfast at Tiffany’s | 1961 | This classic romantic comedy is about a couple falling for each other. However, each one is also trying to maintain their tenuous status in the New York social scene. |
| Slingblade | 1996 | A retarded man is released from the State Hospital where he has been a patient since childhood. He starts his life over in his hometown and befriends a violent, disfunctional family. What to do…? |
| Being There | 1979 | A simple gardner makes simple utterances that are mistaken for profundity by America’s intelligencia. The question is; Is it fact or fiction? |
| Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid | 1969 | A Western/Comedy film staring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. However, the actual historical characters weren’t quite as nice. |
| Cool Hand Luke | 1967 | A man refuses to comform to life inside or outside of prison. Compare this story to “One Flew Over to Cuckoo’s Nest. |
| Rosemary’s Baby | 1968 | Rosemary is pregnant with a little monster. |
| Ed Wood | 1994 | How far can you go with no talent and endless ambition? Ed Wood Knows! |
Really Bad Movies That You Really Must See |
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| Plan 9 From Outer Space | 1959 | This is Ed Wood’s Magnum Opus, it was voted the worst movie of all time. You can watch this one again and again and still see more mistakes. |
| The Beast Of Yucca Flats | 1961 | Tor Johnson is the world’s most lovable evil monster! |
| Mitchell; Mystery Science Theater Version | 1975 | The is the best of breed and a good indicator of what the gang at Mystery Science Theater 3000 does to a movie. |
The Greatest Comedies |
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| Sherlock Jr. | 1924 | This 44 minute silent film is one of the greatest films of all time. Buster Keaton becomes a dective in order to discover who stold his girlfriend’s father’s pocketwatch. |
| The General | 1927 | Another silent film by Buster Keaton. Keaton is the most is the most athletic actor ever; no one is in second place. He made his films without a stunt man or any special effects. |
| The Man who Knew too Little | 1997 | Bill Murray is always falling into the right solution in this spy comedy. It’s better to be lucky than to be good. |
| The Thin Man | 1934 | Who knew that murder and drunkenness could be so witty? This is the first of several very funny films. |
| Throw Mama From the Train | 1987 | There are two kinds of people in the world: the Owens and the Owens Mamas. |
| Destry Rides Again | 1939 | Watch these two women fight it out! |
| Slapshot | 1977 | This film takes lowbrow humor to new heights! |
Sci Fi And Horror Classics |
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| Dracula | 1931 | This is proof that in order to turn a horror film into a classic, the monster has to have a point. This film still holds up well today despite the weak ending. |
| The Haunting | 1963 | Cheaply made but a brilliant use of images and sound. Find out if there are actually ghosts in the Hill house, but don’t watch it alone! |
| Frankenstein | 1931 | This monster also has a point. Not just slash and dash like most modern horror monsters. |
| Planet of the Apes | 1968 | Life in the distant future is good, there are no flying monkeys. —Wait; what’s that? |
| Night of the Living Dead | 1968 | The dead are coming and they’re hungry. |
| The Omega Man | 1971 | He is the last man on earth, so what are all these people doing here? |
| Forbidden Planet | 1956 | Think; Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” filmed in as a ’50’s Si-fi movie. |
| Freaks | 1932 | This is director Tod Browning’s disturbing follow up to Dracula. Don’t mess with the folks in the circus sideshow. |
| Frankenstein meets the Wolfman | 1943 | I know that this is supposed to be cheap horror flick, but Lon Chaney Jr. gives a serious performance. |
Cartoons, Well Done |
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| Cars | 2006 | There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when the Corvette C1 fell in love with the Porshe 911? |
| Dumbo | 1941 | This is a come from behind victory for the elephant with the ears. |
| Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs | 1937 | This is the first full length Disney Animation and it’s quality is still rarely topped. It’s based on actual events. |
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