So, let’s hear it from you! What are your five favorites?
Me? Sigh. As he says, for anybody who loves movies, it’s hard, but here goes:
1. The Philadelphia Story–good God I love this movie. Nobody puts a foot wrong. By turns hilarious and very touching and everybody is great.
2. Mary Poppins–Yes, I said it. I’d say it again if I had to. The recent Saving Mr. Banks did a lot to justify it. Put aside your preconceptions and just let the artistry–and, yes, the whimsy–flow over you.
3. The Maltese Falcon–You’ve got to have one post-WWII hardboiled California gumshoe on any movie list and Samuel Spade is mine. Featuring the holy trinity–Bogart, Greenstreet and Lorre, each doing just what you want them to do.
4. Singin’ in the Rain–See it on the big screen and tell me you don’t love it. Hopelessly meta before anybody thought of such a thing, and the apex of what a studio can do. Gorgeous.
5. A Night at the Opera–Filmed just months before the untimely death of the great Irving Thalberg, everything that the Marx Brothers were was poured into this movie. Slightly sad, because they would never be this good again.
Your turn!
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1. Five Easy Pieces
2. The Lady Eve
3. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
4. The Godfather
5. Paper Moon
Well…I have a few dozen favorite films, but I consider these at or near the top of the list:
2001: A Space Odyssey
Citizen Kane
Ben-Hur
Oklahoma
Jason and the Argonauts
1. ‘bridge on the river kwai.’ classic WW2 and Alec Guinness is a genius.
2. ‘scrooged’ bill murray greatness. yeah it’s a cheesy Christmas story with a lame ending but i really dig this one.
3. ‘doctor strangelove’ obviously.
4. ‘the good, the bad, the ugly.’ lee may not be a ninja master in this, but Clint’s greatness in this classic.
5. ‘the day the earth stood still.’ the ORIGINAL one and for my money, the ONLY one.
1: Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams
2: Napoleon (1927)
3: Monty Python and the Holy Grail
4: The Game Comes Home: The History of Baseball in Washington, D.C
5: Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie
No particular order:
1) Airplane!
2) Fantasia
3) Love! Valour! Compassion!
4) Baraka
5) South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
There are so many, but here are five of the ones I’d pick (in no particular order):
The Sound of Music
Star Wars: A New Hope (the original)
Ghostbusters
Steel Magnolias
Awakenings
Wow, this is tough. And this list could probably change 11 times in the time it takes me to type this out. In no particular order:
“UHF”
“Sansho the Bailiff”
“Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia”
“The Killing”
“Drive”
Maltese Falcon. Love those noir movies.
Chinatown. As I said.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Goofy and great acting by Bob Hoskins.
Young Frankenstein.
Airplane.
Only here will we see Five Easy Pieces and the South Park movie on the same list, I love it! For me, five I’m comfortable with are:
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Mulholland Drive
Trust (Hal Hartley’s 1990 movie, not the recent thriller)
The Torrid Zone
Ordet
That hurts though, because there are at least another 30 that I want to include that I love just as much.
There are so many good movies. I will narrow my focus to science fiction –
1. 2001 A Space Odyssey. Kubrick’s masterpiece lost the Oscar for Best Costumes to (shudder) Planet of the Apes. Word on the street was that the judges thought the 2001 ape-men were real.
2. Forbidden Planet. Great special effects for the day. Robbie the Robot alone was worth the price of admission.
3. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1952). Still the standard I hold every sci-fi movie up to today. Multi level story line. Complex characters. Almost every time I watch it I see something new.
4. First Men In the Moon (1964). Cavorite. Antigravity paint. Yes, I know it’s campy and a bit slapstick, but the Selenites were great. “Imperial, just Imperial!”
5. Metropolis. The apex of the Weimar German film period. Class struggle in the extreme. I see parallels in this year’s presidential race. Ha
Dirty Dozen
The Driver
Miller’s Crossing
Unforgiven
Kelly’s Heroes
Apollo 13 – My dad was part of the Houston Mission Planning/Mission Control team, so it’s reliving family history
Fiddler on the Roof – I love musicals (Sound of Music and Les Mis could easily go here), and I quote from this one all the time
Casablanca – Do I have to explain?
The Incredibles – about 20 Disney or Pixar movies could go here, but this one hits home
The Day the Earth Stood Still – best sci-fi film ever
I’ll throw out franchise films that I hold near and dear (Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Star Trek, Star Wars) and base my list on the number of times (in certain cases, over 20) I have watched certain films (if they appear on Cable, even with commercials, or, VHS days etc): (my rules, my way- there are seven)
Blazing Saddles
The Blues Brothers
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Casablanca
Ed Wood
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Murder By Death
Gold Diggers of 1935. It has amazing dance sequences, AND it features Lullaby of Broadway.
My Man Godfrey. A decent story, and I really like William Powell; what else can I say?
The Women. Lots of fun dialog, and I really like Rosalind Russell; what else can I say?
Them! The best of the giant bug movies, much scarier than any of the others, plus much of it’s in New Mexico. It looks like my childhood.
Serenity. I just really, really enjoyed it.
1. The Empire Strikes Back – While it’s hard to care about Star Wars anymore, somehow the fondness for the best sequel of all time only grows and grows.
2. Eraserhead – After watching The SHiNiNG dozens of times over the years, I think I’m starting to get why Stanley Kubrick told people this was his favorite film.
5. Monty Python’s Life of Brian – Impossible to hold in any laugh I still get out of quoting pretty much any part of this movie. Even the UFO pickup scene.
6. Mad Max 2 – Such a plethora of brilliant themes for a movie, subtly encoded into the most engrossing action film ever to be captured to celluloid.
7. Fargo – Just for the best on-screen heroine to ever grace the wild world of cinema alone. I really can’t think of a better reason to play favorites, can you?
Here’s the thing, I grew up in the 1970’s to 1990’s, so most of the movies I love are going to be in those decades:
1) Star Wars (the WHOLE Saga) (And, No I DON’T care What you say)
2) Who Framed Roger Rabbit
3) Ghostbusters
4) Back to the Future Trilogy (yes, The WHOLE Trilogy)
5) Jurassic Park.
Whoa, this is tough. I think most of us are here partly because we love movies so much. I’ll pick five but they could be different tomorrow:
1. The Fall — where reality and dreams collide
2. The Artist — I don’t care that it’s one people love to hate. It shows that silent movies still have it.
3. The Maltese Falcon — yep, will agree with others. THE classic noir.
4. The Prestige — all the clues are there, if we only look
5. Persuasion (1995) — the most satisfying love story ever
1) The Godfather
2) Duck Soup
3) The Wild Bunch
4) The Thing
5) A Christmas Carol (Alistair Sim)
In chronological order:
The Uninvited (best ghost story)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (best dark comedy)
Throne of Blood (best Kurosawa film and best foreign Shakespeare adaptation)
The Resurrected (best H.P. Lovecraft adaptation)
The Incredibles (best Pixar film)
1. Jaws
2. 2001
3. Rocky
4. The good, the bad, and the ugly
5. The sting
Huzzah! Someone else on the internet who enjoyed the prequels!
This is going to be a weird mix (in no particular order):
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein – Still the best blend of horror and comedy I’ve seen in a movie.
Muppet Treasure Island – From the opening notes of Hans Zimmer’s Score, to Ziggy Marley at the end and all the insanity inbetween, I could not get enough of this movie when I was a kid.
1776 – I know it’s not the greatest musical to grace the silver screen, but I can’t help getting caught up in it, even though I already know the ending.
The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn – My ‘love it, but I can’t put my finger on exactly why’ movie.
The Haunted Mansion – You may commence with the produce flinging.
I’ve seen far fewer movies than most of you (and I’m not proud of that), and I can’t help but laugh when I consider that I have seen my favorite MST3K episodes many more times than I have seen my favorite movies, but I have some favorites, and here they are (not in any particular order):
1. The Big Sleep, 1946. I love Bogart and Bacall in this, and I like the complicated plot (although my wife is not a fan of Faulkner’s handling of Chandler’s novel, but I haven’t read Chandler’s novel, so I don’t care :)). Ultimately, it’s just a really cool movie that I return to again and again.
2. A Room with a View. One of my favorite novels by E. M. Forster, and Merchant-Ivory knew how to transform a wonderful, unpretentious novel into a gorgeous film.
3. Hannah and Her Sisters. My love for Woody Allen has waned over the years, but I love this period, and for many years this was my favorite film of all time. It is still in my opinion an incredible film.
4. Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Perhaps the funniest movie ever made.
5. ‘Round Midnight. I saw this when it came out (in 1986, when I was an undergraduate), and I still think Dexter Gordon should have won the Oscar, and not just because I am a jazz fan.
I could add so many more; for example, Duck Soup should be on that list, as well as Double Indemnity, but I decided to go with ones I have seen (again) more recently, because I have a habit of saying, “that’s one of my very favorite movies,” only to realize that I haven’t seen it in twenty-five years.
There are some completely fascinating picks in here – don’t agree with all of them, but I think that’s the point!
I’ve never done a top 5…I have such a hard time saying THIS is my favorite movie. I do have a top 3 through – But here it goes:
1) Casablanca – the best drama ever made. Near perfection.
2) Jaws – if I was told I could only watch one movie for the rest of my life – I would choose this one. Just watched it with my 13 year old daughter and it still holds up for me.
3) Raiders of The Lost Ark – Action Adventure in near perfection (the ending is not great – but boy everything else) another movie I never tire of.
Going to pick two more – reserve the right to change my mind on these as time goes on:
4) Singing In The Rain – I want to put a comedy on here, but favorite comedy swings with mood. Singing In The Rain isn’t the funniest comedy ever, but it IS the greatest musical, and at least 4-5 sequences in this movie are burned into my brain: “Gotta Dance! Gotta Dance!”
5)Goodfellas – Honestly I haven’t seen this one in a few years, but holy crap is this a good movie from the opening scene to the closing scene. Scorcese’s use of camera and music and narration is all just so great here. (I liked Dances with Wolves – but how this not winning best picture was a travesty.)
Movies I considered but didn’t put in Top 5: Star Wars (original), Wizard of Oz, Young Frankenstein, North by Northwest, and about 6 Pixar movies.
1) The Vikings! (with janet Leigh, Kirk Douglas, and Ernest Borgnine as the definitive Hollywood Viking).
Hail Ragnar! Hail Ainar!
2) The President’s Analyst ’70s paranoid comedic spy film (that’s the 1970’s, Tom Servo).
3) The Flight of the Phoenis. The original, not the dumb remake. Btw, need a toy plane builder
to get out of the desert, try Germans not involved in the war).
4) The Godfather (well, 2 out of 3).
5) Chinatown. Although it’s unclear who likes the movie more: your sister or your daughter
sister-daughter, sisier-daughter.
Your list is pretty close to mine. I would add (but not sure which to replace) Casablanca and Gunga Din.
blade runner
boogie nights
pee-wee’s big adventure
manhunter
freddy got f*ngered
fight me
Solaris (Soderbergh)
Dark City (Proyas)
The Last of the Mohicans (Mann)
Castle in the Sky (Miyazaki)
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (Mallon)
Btw, looking at some selections above, say what you will of the ’70s,
it produced a lot of good movies. Another one, Bonnie and Clyde.
Excellent topic! It’s “absolutely fascinating” to see all the different favorite films (and some really good films, too) of the fans who are drawn to the quintessential bad movie show.
This list could change depending on the day. Tough call, picking out five films off the top of my head as my favorites. This is in no particular order:
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – An epic vision from Sergio Leone, with vivid characters, unforgettable music, an absorbing story, brilliant cinematography, great humor, and just about everything.
Sunset Blvd. – Mesmerizing black comedy with a classy film noir twist. Flawless performances from a cast that justifiably received Oscar nominations in all four acting categories.
To Kill a Mockingbird – The first thing you’d likely think about with this film is “Gregory Peck is perfection.” No one will (or should) argue with that, but there’s so much else going on here with the other performances, the production design, the music, and so on that the entire film is masterful.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb – “Hello, Mr. Kubrick?” “Yes?” “Would you like to make an unmatched satirical film with outstanding writing and direction and a murderers’ row of acting talent?” “I’ll be right there.”
Vertigo – Hitchcock’s masterpiece, short and sweet.
Many other films could have ended up here, like Aguirre: The Wrath of God, The Shawshank Redemption, The Wizard of Oz, Blade Runner, and I could go on all day.
I’m going to just put in some that maybe haven’t been mentioned, then I’ll go back & read other people’s. Maybe not my Five Best Ever, but five from among my favorites anyhow –
The Blue Dahlia
Buchanan Rides Alone
Point Blank (1967)
The Three Amigos
Stranger Than Paradise
Films I’ve watched literally dozen if not hundreds of times:
1. “In Cold Blood” with Robert Blake as Perry Smith and Scott Wilson as Dick Hickock, adapted from the brilliant book by Truman Capote.
2. The original “The Mummy” with Boris Karloff and Zita Johann.
3. Double Indemnity.
4. Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon”.
5. Cool Hand Luke.
Wow this is tough but here goes in no particular order
1.War of the worlds. The ORIGINAL not the Little Tommy Cruise crap
2. Blade Runner.
3. Young Frankenstein
4. A Clockwork Orange
5. 3:10 To Yuma Its strange but I like the Christian Bale Russell Crowd better than the original.
Ed Wood
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Casablanca
King Kong (1933)
The Big Lebowski
I could add a hundred more for a myriad of creative and technical reasons — story, cinematography, score, dialogue. So what is my definition of a favorite film? If I’m channel surfing and am compelled to watch a movie from any point till the end every single time I discover it’s on, then it’s a favorite.
I have to say, after Kevin Murphy’s interview, I’d love to see the other MST3K performers/writers offer up their favorite film lists.
In no particular order…and subject to change.
“Rushmore”
MST3K version of “Mitchell” (See my post from last week…_)
“The Maltese Falcon” (Sampo provides a good case…)
“Star Wars” (I shall never refer to this by its episode number…)
“Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” (“Oh, really, where are they hosing him down?”)
Honorable mentions…
“Blazing Saddles”
“The Sting”
“Casablanca”
“The Thin Man”
“Robocop”
“All Quiet on the Western Front”
“Die Hard”
“Double Indemnity”
“Best in Show”
“The Empire Strikes Back”
“North by Northwest”
In no particular order:
Police Squad!: Nielsen at his zaniest.
Arsenic and Old Lace: Grant at his funniest and a good stage adaptation.
Rio Bravo: John Wayne and Dean Martin, great duo, despite Wayne’s obsession with “fixing” High Noon.
Joe Vs the Volcano: delightfully weird.
Return of the Jedi: went to sleep to this movie every night in grad school.
Bedazzled (the original version with Peter Cook, not the god-awful remake)
Young Frankenstein
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid
Cast a Deadly Spell (A Raymond Chandler/H.P. Lovecraft mashup made for HBO back in the 90’s)
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai
So many other movies desperately want to be on that list, but I guess I’ll go by the criteria of movies I’ve seen dozens of times and will happily rewatch again at the drop of a hat.
Great idea for a thread – really fun!
I’m a lover of old movies and classic horror films. My favorites, in no particular order, are…
Duck Soup
All About Eve
Bringing Up Baby
Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein
His Girl Friday
and honorable mention – Roger Corman’s “It Conquered the World”
Perhaps they could be coaxed to do it here :^)
Alternate list, inspired by all of the wonderful choices above:
1. Down By Law. I also love Stranger Than Paradise (like #30), but I’m a sucker for Tom Waits in this.
2. The Dead. One of my very favorite works by James Joyce, beautifully realized by John Huston (and it was his final film).
3. Shadow of the Thin Man (#14: I also really like William Powell — and Myrna Loy!). We regularly watch all of the Thin Man movies (and thank God they were made before the word “franchise” was bantered around [at least as far as I know]), but this might be my favorite.
4. Ed Wood. — Good call, many of you!
5. MST3K, The Movie (like #27). It introduced me to what became my favorite show, and thus it is ultimately the reason I hang around this great site so often.
EXCELLENT WDT!!! :)
1. Blade Runner
2. JFK
3. Velvet Goldmine
4. Fight Club
5. West Side Story
(When this thread is done I’m going to tally the results!)
Possibly!
Frank Conniff has an encyclopedic knowledge of TV and played a big part of the MSTed film selection process. I’d imagine he’d have some real interesting choices.
My top five changes by the microsecond, so I’m not going to try to make a definitive list. Instead here are five good movies in no particular order and why I think they’re good.
1. Hot Fuzz — Shaun of the Dead introduced me to the amazing team of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost, and World’s End was a good wrap-up to their “Cornetto” trilogy, but Hot Fuzz really showcases their ability to create a world. The script (Wright, Pegg) concisely weaves together multiple threads into a single climax reminiscent of a good Fawlty Towers episode. Wright’s direction creates an impeccable visual experience, and Pegg and Frost’s chemistry rivals the best silver screen pairings.
2. The Shining — I never was a big horror or suspense fan growing up: Kubrick’s interpretation of King’s story was the only such movie I could stand. It’s visually impressive and the plot is compelling. I know it diverges from the original book quite a bit — perhaps that’s why it’s the only “Steven King” movie I like.
3. Star Wars: The Force Awakens — I’m sure I’ll get some guff on this one, but this movie is exactly what the Star Wars universe needed. It gives the franchise the chance to recover from the horrible prequels and move to a new storyline with a new main cast. Yes, there are physics gaffes galore in this movie, but so were there in the original trilogy (parsecs, anyone?) — Star Wars has always been fantasy, not science fiction. Technically, this movie is as good as Empire Strikes Back (the best of the original trilogy) and it successfully dug the franchise out of a deep, dark hole, which Empire did not need to do.
4. Baraka — I’m a sucker for well-shot nature documentaries like Life and Blue Planet, and this combines that style with a focus on people and cultures. The only thing missing is narration by David Attenborough. This is what NASA should select to represent humanity should they send another probe into deep space.
5. The Dark Crystal — Epic fantasy set in a world entirely created by the amazing people at Jim Henson’s workshop. What more needs to be said?
Yeah, these kinds of lists I always just pick whatever comes to mind at the moment, since I can’t say I have a favorite film, or a top X list. It really depends on the mood I’m in.
So, here is my list as of ~2:02 PM EST on June 25 2016, just five movies I love, in no particular order. Ask in an hour and the list might be completely different. ;)
The Princess Bride – Just fun, fun, fun. And more fun.
The Happiest Millionaire – Thanks, Sampo, for showing some love for Mary Poppins – very close to being on this list for me. This movie is really similar, to me, and has some great fun songs and funny moments. If you have not seen it you should.
The Fiddler on the Roof – in my mind one of the great musicals; a fabulous sentimental story tempered with wonderful humor. The Cossack dance scene is just great.
The Three Amigos – Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Martin Short. Together. So many great memorable funny moments from this film. Never, ever, can I hear the word “plethora” again without harking back to that great scene.
True Grit – the original with the Duke, of course; I could’ve picked any number of other John Wayne films, but to me this just IS John Wayne.
Enjoying reading everyone’s picks. In fact, before the weekend is out I’m sure I’ll post a new list! ;-)
And I agree that it would be great to see lists from all of the MST3K crew… yes, even MIKE.
I have to wonder, what would you pick if you strayed from a science fiction focus?
Comedy – ‘Something Funny Happened On The Way To The Forum’
Drama – ‘The Longest Day’
Sci Fi – ‘Alien’
Horror – ‘John Carpenter’s The Thing’
Animated – ‘Disney’s Robin Hood’
These are prone to change at my discretion.
1) Harold And Maude
2) MST3K: The Movie
3) A Clockwork Orange
4) Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
5) Serial Mom
It Happened One Night (1934) Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert (who is underrated to this day). One of the first and best screwball comedies.
The Gay Divorcee (1934) Astaire, Rogers, and the greatest song ever written – Night and Day by Cole Porter.
Desk Set (1957) Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn. Just charming, witty, and fun. And how in love those two are!
Superman (1978) This is how superhero movies should be done.
Stealing Home (1988) Jodie Foster, Mark Harmon. Not in the same league as the other movies here, not even close. But it speaks to me, personally, deeply, and life-changingly, and really, what more could a movie give you?
For the most part, I tend to enjoy the older movies the most, and I haven’t been to a theater since the late 80s (Last movie seen in a theater: Who Framed Roger Rabbit). The most recent movie I’ve seen is The Martian, and while I love it, it hasn’t quite made my lists of five favorites.
In no particular order:
Rear Window
North By Northwest
Some Like It Hot
Seven Brides For Seven Brothers
Singin’ in the Rain
The next five:
Gone With the Wind
Vertigo
Young Frankenstein
The Princess Bride
Rebecca
I’m kind of sensing a theme here…
If I said that my #5 favorite movie of all time was Giorgio Moroder’s 80’s-soundtrack dub of Metropolis ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEPCCoevz1E ) , most would either A) laugh, B) go into cheesy Cole & Janet-esque 80’s har-har gags about Adam Ant and Billy Squier, or C) cluelessly claim they “colorized it!” as some accusation of further mangling (although mood-tinting was common during the silent era, to be easier on the eyes).
But it’s still an amazing example of how music can change a movie and pump the emotions up to 11–The original’s a painful German-Expressionist Weimar-era pro-union pamphlet, Moroder turned it into an MTV-pop Romeo & Juliet with a cool robot, and still kept the emotions of the original story. (During the Revolt scene, Moroder brings the full orchestra and angry-crowd sound-FX into his 80’s-Moroder theme for the workers, and the revolt ends up looking like absolute Armageddon.)
Like Singin’ in the Rain or Monty Python & the Holy Grail, it’s one of those movies where I might look up one scene, and immediately have to sit down and watch the whole thing again.
If I said Xanadu was somewhere on my top 10, you WOULD laugh. Usually, I just say it to piss people off. :-P And then, if not stopped, I might go into long historical avenging about how most of the “Worst movie of all time, har-har!” was partly a 1980 zeitgeist Disco is Dead tantrum at the time (there’s a disco in the plot, but no actual disco music, just Olivia Newton John when she had her good songs, and the fact that there are no bad movies with Jeff Lynne/ELO soundtracks), partly the Best Worst Movie culture for parroting anything the Razzie Awards say, and partly a lot of confusion caused by coming out within a month of “Can’t Stop the Music”, which was an unholy pink train wreck that destroyed disco. But as for the movie itself…you just gotta watch it clean. By the time they got Gene Kelly on the cast, they fell under the delusion they were a modern 40’s MGM Musical without ever actually having seen one, and the naive desire to please shows.
I generally go for music-based movies, as noted by Koyaanisqatsi and the first Fantasia also on my top 5, and A Hard Day’s Night and Yellow Submarine somewhere in the top ten.
Also in no particular order:
– Unforgiven
– The Court Jester (how long do you think they can keep the pellet-with-the-poison gag going?)
– Amadeus (the original theatrical cut, without the newly restored horndog-Salieri scene that throws the entire movie out of context–It’s not a “Director’s Cut” if the director hates it)
– A Night at the Opera
– Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, or, interchangeably, Jason & the Argonauts
– The Magic Flute (the CUTEST, cheeriest Ingmar Bergman you will ever see. No, really.)
– Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (this is the Holy Grail of movie restorations fans are begging Warner to bring back, preferably in its original Cinerama. Even just squashed on VHS, we watched this every holidays growing up.)
I wouldn’t put it on all-time favorites, but boy, is this one we need to look at again. When it came out in ’82, nobody owned a VCR, and nobody watched old “late-night” movies, so NOBODY got the jokes, and all we talked about was “the Jerk” pouring coffee and shaving his tongue. The in-jokes are funnier once our post-TCM culture can actually recognize the movie clips.