I have a colleague who is an Indian national, living in the USA for several years, who would like to eventually become an American. At dinner tonight, I realized that he doesn’t have a true sense of what that means. So I proposed to make him a list of films to add to his Netflix queue.
Now, to be clear, I’m not talking about stuff like Gone With The Wind, Casablanca or Citizen Kane. Most people know about those, and many Americans have gotten by just fine without seeing them. I’m looking for stuff more along the lines of Star Wars (at least the first three), Caddyshack, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, etc. Note that they do not need to be good films, just iconic movies that you and most of your friends have seen, can quote from, etc. Lowbrow is welcome here, but so are good films if they’re essential to the American experience.
So, help a future American out - what are the top films that you think that any red blooded American should have seen. Or at least which films you think someone should know about before they sit for the citizenship test.
Yes, I am interested in corrupting future generations, why do you ask?
Personally, I’d add Fletch, Airplane!, This Is Spinal Tap and Better Off Dead from the 80s, and maybe Pulp Fiction from the 90s. I’m blanking right now, but I’m sure there are more (hell, he could probably watch everything John Hughes did in the 80s, while he’s at it, and there are plenty of drive-in classics from the 70s that would work).
I think Goodfellas and Taxi Driver should be on the list. Not only are they great films, but they are deeply concerned with the American experience and the American dream. Plus, they’re referenced all the time in pop culture–including some of the other movies that will do doubt make your final list.
A rite of passage for a certain subset of American teens when I was a teen: go a week in conversation using only Monty Python (TV or movie) quotes.
Also, American PBS airings of MP’sFC TV show is where many of my friends saw their first live action boobies (as opposed to NatGeo’s “look at the natives!” not moving boobies). Since the TV show was already so popular with these types, MPatHG movie was HUGE among geeks when I first heard of it.
The Princess Bride
Swingers
The Breakfast Club
Dazed and Confused
Risky Business
Heathers
Airplane!
Dirty Harry
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Poltergeist
Jaws
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Halloween
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Memento
The Usual Suspects
Reservoir Dogs
The Thing
Big Trouble in Little China
Escape from New York
Bladerunner
Predator
Conan the Barbarian
The Terminator
American Pie. Teenage sex comedies of that sort are very American. Porky’s might fit for that one, too.
I’m trying to think of a wacky conspiracy the-government-is-out-to-get-us one, but all I can think of is The X-Files.
War films. We do fight a lot of wars, so it’s very ingrained in our culture. Show him The Big Red One or maybe Tora Tora Tora, then MASH* (the film - not the TV show), and then end it with Full Metal Jacket. If he can get that those are all American takes on war, and that they don’t necessarily conflict with each other, he’s halfway there.
While some are dated, I’d add:
American Graffiti, Gentlemen’s Agreement, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, To Kill A Mockingbird, All The President’s Men, The Best Years Of Our Lives and perhaps Birth of a Nation.
Movies he would have missed by not being an American kid/young teen:
Goonies
Disney cartoons
Muppet Movie, Muppets Take Manhattan, Great Muppet Caper
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Grease
the Indiana Jones movies
Neverending Story
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Wizard of Oz
Beetlejuice
To the war movies; *Patton * definitely has to be on that list. I’d also show him a couple of old John Wayne propaganda ones too- like Sands of Iwo Jima and/or The Green Berets.
I think Casablanca needs to be on the list, if only because it’s one of the most quotable movies ever made. By the same metric, I’d throw in The Wizard of Oz and The Godfather.
Also, every Warner Brothers cartoon directed by Chuck Jones and just about every one by Fritz Feleng.
The OP actually says the American canon in films, not the canon of American films. It’s arguably the same thing, but the former phrasing does leave open some possibility that the films might not themselves be American. I wouldn’t say it’s impossible for a foreign film to be “essential to the American experience” or one of “the top films that you think that any red blooded American should have seen”, although admittedly I can’t think of many foreign films that would qualify. Aside from Monty Python the only foreign films springing to mind that “everybody” in America is familiar with are the old Godzilla movies.
ShibbOleth, it would probably save time if you could tell us flat out if you want us to limit our suggestions to American films.
Sure, if you’re looking for a canon of movies made in/by Americans. But the question is “what are the top films that you think that any red blooded American should have seen” - and by that standard, it doesn’t matter if the movie in question is British, if it’s iconic enough!