I heard Gandhi referred to as a great movie you really only need to watch through once. I wondered before finally having seen it how that could be the case, but afterwards I realized they were probably right. It was well done and interesting, I enjoyed watching it, I would recommend it… and I feel NO compulsion whatsoever to watch it again.
I haven’t seen them all, but here are my comments:
Harakiri (1962)
High and Low (1963)
Tokyo Story (1953)
Sherlock Jr. (1924)
Come and See (1985)
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Le Samouraï (1967)
Throne of Blood (1957) – Great, weird Japanese take on Macbeth. I alwaus like Kurasawa
Sunrise (1927)
Nights of Cabiria (1957)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) – Great Ealing comedy. A;lec Guiness plays many parts
Like Stars on Earth (2007)
The Wages of Fear (1953)
The Battle of Algiers (1966)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Fanny and Alexander (1982)
Diabolique (1955)
Ikiru (1952)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
The Kid (1921)
La Strada (1954)
Persona (1966)
Witness for the Prosecution (1957) – All-star cast, and a great Defense attorney in Charlres Laughton
Stalag 17 (1953)* – Loved the film. Based on a play by two ex-POWs, one of whom is in the film.
The General (1926) – One of the best films ever made. Buster Keaton at the peak of his form
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) – Edward Albee play expanded to fill a movie. Definitely worth it, but feels “stretched”
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
The Gold Rush (1925) – Great Chaplin comedy. Some scenes (the boot-eating scene) are iconic
Wild Strawberries (1957)
Stalker (1979)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
It Happened One Night (1934)
The Hustler (1961)
The Killing (1956)
The 400 Blows (1959)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
The Celebration (1998)
Castle in the Sky (1986)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Yojimbo (1961)
Nosferatu (1922)* – Interesting take on the vampire, introducing its own imagery not present in the book, or anything, for that matter – Masx Shrek’s rat-toothed vampire was unique, until they started copying it. Introduced the vampire-dissolved-by-sunlight meme.
The Wild Bunch (1969)*
Notorious (1946)
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
8½ (1963)
Touch of Evil (1958)* – Greatest opening title sequence ever. I felty it dragged in parts, but this is why they shoulda given Welles the camera more often.
Mary and Max (2009)
La Haine (1995)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)*
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) – Definitely a classic. Love it.
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)* – Overrated, IMHO. Some very clever filmmaking at times, but I’m more frequrently annoyed by it.
Ran (1985) – Kurasawa doing Shakespeare again, this time King Lear. Depressing but epic.
High Noon (1952) – Classic. Ecellent Zinneman film.
City Lights (1931)
All About Eve (1950)
Dial M for Murder (1954) – Alfred Hitchcock didn’t want to do a 3D film, but the studio made him. Has the best cinejmatic use of 3D I’ve ever seen.
Roman Holiday (1953)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Rebecca (1940)
Rope (1948) – Engrossing Hitchcock thriller. The illusion of constant shooting and the perceived passage of time makes a neat background to a linearly unfolding story. More than just a “gimmick” flick.
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Infernal Affairs (2002)
Ip Man (2008)
The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Network (1976) – When Paddy Chayefsky was on a roll, hre was great. This one comes across as his rant against modern business and the sins of TV, where he worked in the “Golden Days”. Absurdist but not superficial.
The Apartment (1960)
Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Barry Lyndon (1975) – “A Feast for the Eyes, a Famine for the Mind” one critic said. Pretty ccurate. I love its every-scene-a-composition cinematography and Kubrick’s choice of music. The scenes shot by candlelight (using an obscenelt small f/number lens) alone are worth seeing it for.
Rashomon (1950) – Either this or Seven Samurai is Kurasawa’s signature flick. Kurasawa combined and rewrote two short stories to make a unique and potent story (which has been copied, now, ad nauseum). Highly recommended.
M (1931) – I just got to see this recently. Fritz Lang was a helluva filmmaker, and I found myself drawn into this, although it seemed to lack focus. Beautifully told, though.
A Separation (2011)
On the Waterfront (1954)
The Great Dictator (1940)
The Seventh Seal (1957) – I lovre the imagery and the surreal story.
Modern Times (1936)
Manhattan (1979) – Disappointing.
My Neighbor Totoro (1988) – Just saw this. One of the first Studio Ghibbli films to rreally capture a western audience. Filled with cute touches and wonderfully weird images.
Metropolis (1927) – I’ve been watching this film being restored my entire life. The firsty copies I saw were terribly washed out, and cut to ribbons. You could see that there was a story there, but it seemed vhaotic. Then the restorations starteed, one after another, and with each the images became sharper and the storyline clearer. See the most recent restoration, which features all but one svcene from the original release, with the sharpest images available and the most coherent and reaized storyline. Land and von Harbou’s storyu still seems naive at times, but it’s awesomely told, and a weird mix of medieval imagery and gee whiz-bang futurism.
The Intouchables (2011)
Paths of Glory (1957) – Well-told story involving war, a trial, and resolution. How can you go wrong? Kirk Douglas in a great role and Kubrick before he acquired so many of his idiosyncrasies. This film persuaded Douglas to hire Kucrick for Spartacus.
Cool Hand Luke (1967)*
The Third Man (1949) – Very cynical and adult espionage drama. Great lines from Welles, and some classic images.
The Maltese Falcon (1941) – Definitely the best film version of the story, and the one most faithful to not only Hammett’s words but the spirit as well. Bogart nails Sam Spade perfectly.
Cinema Paradiso (1988)
For a Few Dollars More (1965)*
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
The Artist (2011)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)*
Gandhi (1982)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)*
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)*
Ben-Hur (1959)*
Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)
For me the must see movies that you have not seen are “The Maltese Falcon” and “On the Waterfront”. Not just because they are great movies but because they are so ingrained in pop culture. Bogart’s, Greenstreet’s, and Lorre’s performance are so iconic that they have been referenced over and over in pop culture. Likewise Brando’s performance in “On the Waterfront” is one of the reasons he was the icon of acting for a whole generation of actors. Also the politics of it are really interesting and will help you understand a controversial time in American history.
Comments on a few, FWIW:
**Harakiri **(1962) Like Divemaster, props for including this one. I’ll also Add Samurai Rebellion (1967). Kobayashi really gets overlooked by the mainstream in favor of Kurosawa. You are allowed to watch more than one Japanese director, honest.
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) A perfect movie. Plus, Joan Greenwood could sit on a black of ice reading the phone book and still sound like she’s having an orgasm.
Ikiru (1952) If you like this one, you’ll like Make Way for Tomorrow (1937) Crying really does release a lot of toxins from your system. It’s not unmanly: it actually spikes testosterone production!
**The Grapes of Wrath **(1940) Everybody remarks on right-wing John Ford directing this in an “Only Nixon could go to China” situation. I think Ford was heavily influenced by the Irish Diaspora when he made this.
The Hustler (1961), Cool Hand Luke (1967),** Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid** (1969)
I considered starting a thread *“James Dean survives: does all the movies instead of Paul Newman and Steve McQueen.” *Dean couldn’t have done The Hustler: he needed big wild props like cars going over cliffs or gushing oil wells or the roofs of freight trains as he curled up pathetically. Pool and card tables would have been too small an arena. As Cool Hand Luke they would have been in a dead heat. However, Dean would have done better as Butch Cassidy: while rebellious and individualistic and boyish and all that, Newman always seemed too smart to be an outlaw inhaling horseshit dust. As a Depression conman in midlife crisis he was more believable.
The Great Dictator (1940) When he hit 50, like a lot of guys do, Charlie got preachy. This is the only time it worked.
In terms of heart-wrenching war movies, Grave of the Fireflies is most often mentioned, but in my opinion the harshest I’ve ever seen is Come and See. Surreal in parts and totally horrifying.
Very influential in its techniques on other movies - for example, anyone who has seen the opening hitting-the-beach scene in Saving Private Ryan will recognize the dept to it.
Not, however, for those easily upset. This movie is hardcore unpleasant.
I honestly don’t get people who don’t think High Noon is an amazing movie.
Cool Hand Luke, on the other hand, is wildly overrated - like Bridge on the River Kwai I think people only remember the good parts and forget about the rest of it.
My “must-see” movies from your list:
High and Low (1963)
Tokyo Story (1953)
Le Samouraï (1967)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
The Wages of Fear (1953)
The Battle of Algiers (1966)
Ikiru (1952)
The Big Sleep (1946)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Touch of Evil (1958)
Mary and Max (2009)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)*
Ran (1985)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Network (1976)
Rashomon (1950)
M (1931)
The Seventh Seal (1957)
My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)*
The Third Man (1949)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)**
Lots of the others are excellent movies, but these ones are all top tier, IMO. And I’ll second Make Way For Tomorrow. You will absolutely cry.
Adding my votes, for the ones I’ve seen. Bold is excellent, strike-through made me think the emperor didn’t have clothes. Regular font means I liked it, but maybe it’s not a must-see.
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
The Kid (1921)
Stalag 17 (1953)
The General (1926)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
The Gold Rush (1925)
The Hustler (1961)
**The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Nosferatu (1922)
**Notorious (1946)
[del]Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)[/del]
**The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
City Lights (1931)
Rebecca (1940)
**The Great Dictator (1940)
The Seventh Seal (1957)
[del]Modern Times (1936)[/del]
Metropolis (1927)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
[del]Gandhi (1982)[/del]
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Moonrise Kingdom (2012) – Very fun, not a “great film” in the way that many of these others are. We’ll see in 10 years I guess.
Throne of Blood (1957)
Ikiru (1952)
Yojimbo (1961)
Ran (1985)
Rashomon (1950)
All of these Kurosawa films are good, but Seven Samurai and Hidden Fortress are more enjoyable than any of these. After a while they run together (except Ikiru which is not a period piece) Rashomon was an innovative film in its narrative style but I didn’t find it especially compelling.
Nights of Cabiria (1957) Love it
La Strada (1954) Love it
8½ (1963) Didn’t like it.
The Killing (1956) I liked it quite a bit.
Barry Lyndon (1975) I liked it, but I love photography.
Paths of Glory (1957) I found it a little boring.
The Battle of Algiers (1966) Good but I can’t seem to remember much about it.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
Castle in the Sky (1986)
Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)
These are all decent, “Castle in the Sky” is probably the less recommended. Grave is very melodramatic whereas the others are more adventure stories. Nausicaa is my favorite but it is very dated in its animation and music.
Nosferatu (1922)*
The Wild Bunch (1969)*
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)*
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)*
Notorious (1946)
The Third Man (1949)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
All classics, recommended.
Roman Holiday (1953) – Love it
Metropolis (1927) – I am astounded by the effects, it is a must see if you are interested in movies.
Cinema Paradiso (1988) – Pleasant movie, a bit sentimental for my taste.
For a Few Dollars More (1965)* – I like this quite a lot. I love Lee Van Cleef.
I probably can’t help you, but I first watched it about 5 years ago and thought it held up in fine fashion (and I usually I think the “classics” are overrated.)
My memory is that it was believably rendered. People didn’t talk in received Western movie dialogue. People responded to tough situations in believable fashion. An “adult” western.
I seem to remember that it lost it a little in the final shoot-out, and fell back on standard Western tropes. Again though, I’ve just seen it once and it was half a decade ago.
From your list I like these:
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)*
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Gandhi (1982)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)*
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)*
Ben-Hur (1959)*
If you do watch this, do NOT watch the longer version. Definitely a case of more is not necessarily better!
If you do watch this, MAKE SURE to see the extended version. So much richer! That is, as long as you like an extra spoonful of sentiment. (I certainly did.)
I’ll start by admitting I didn’t even read that list. I am also not getting some people’s definition of “overrated.”
However on many lists of greats which I found overrated, “Taxi Driver” first came to mind. What a pathetic flick.
Thanks everyone for your replies, I found them very informative.
Here is a breakdown of the movies from the original list that were voted for, in order from most votes to least:
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Third Man (1949)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)*
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Paths of Glory (1957)
Network (1976)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)*
The Wild Bunch (1969)*
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)*
The Apartment (1960)
High Noon (1952)
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Stalag 17 (1953)*
The General (1926)
Touch of Evil (1958)*
M (1931)
Rashomon (1950)
Ran (1985)
Ben-Hur (1959)*
The Hustler (1961)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)*
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
City Lights (1931)
Metropolis (1927)
Notorious (1946)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Rebecca (1940)
The Battle of Algiers (1966)
My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
Cinema Paradiso (1988)
Roman Holiday (1953)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Manhattan (1979)
Nosferatu (1922)*
The Wages of Fear (1953)
Gandhi (1982)
On the Waterfront (1954)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
All About Eve (1950)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
The Gold Rush (1925)
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
For a Few Dollars More (1965)*
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)*
It Happened One Night (1934)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
I cut the voting off at 3 votes minimum. Do you see an error here? I’m sure you do. This was collected in a spreadsheet and was very “back of the napkin”. However, even if all calculations were perfect, nothing much would change in this list.
Again, thanks for the input. I now have a much more refined list of things I need to watch without wasting my time.
I’ll second this. An enormously difficult film to watch in parts - lots of parts - but it’s a masterpiece. Just don’t expect to sleep easily after it.
Ip Man was enjoyable, but not “must-see” or great.
I think Gandhi and Network are overrated.
Wow a lot of really good movies on this list. Notice something though, all of these movies are dated, and almost all VERY old. I think a lot of it is people putting “modern” movie standards/expectations to older movies, which IMO is not terribly bright. Oh well.
There are about 30 on your list I haven’t seen, but I don’t think you’d be wasting your time with any of them. At best you’ll be seeing a good-to-great movie, maybe discover a new favorite, or get into a genre you might not have explored before.
At worst you’ll be seeing a movie that others rate very highly and is either considered a classic or might become a future classic, and be able to decide for yourself where it fits in your internal movie rankings, based on what you’ve seen with your own eyes, rather than what some random person on the internet thinks.
At medium you’ll be seeing a work by a particular director, writer and actors and will be able to judge how and where it fits into their filmography.
When movies as great as these:
The Battle of Algiers (1966)
My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
Cinema Paradiso (1988)
Roman Holiday (1953)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Manhattan (1979)
Nosferatu (1922)
The Wages of Fear (1953)
Gandhi (1982)
On the Waterfront (1954)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
All About Eve (1950)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
The Gold Rush (1925)
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
For a Few Dollars More (1965)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
It Happened One Night (1934)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
are in the BOTTOM 20, you really can’t go too wrong. Of those, I haven’t seen The Battle of Algiers, Manhattan, Cinema Paradiso, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Kind Hearts and Coronets or All Quiet on the Western Front (I will be seeing that this week in the theater) but the rest are all pretty great.
Without meaning to rank them against any others, because I enjoyed them all, I’d like to highlight from this Bottom 20 My Neighbor Totoro, which I just saw -subtitled- for the first time a couple of weeks ago and found an absolute delight, and The Wages of Fear, an edge-of-the-seat nail biter about truck drivers transporting nitroglycerin through mountainous South American terrain.
From the rest of the list, there are so many great movies it would hurt my brain and soul too much to try and pick favorites, but I must mention that I had a big grin on my face when I saw High and Low (1963) named. It might be considered a “minor” Kurosawa but I like police procedurals and it’s a great one. My favorite Kurosawa, Dersu Uzala, a gentle, non-violent film about friendship, wasn’t on your list. I also have a special fondness for Yojimbo (and its sequel Sanjuro). I’ve never seen a Kurosawa film I didn’t like, though I haven’t seen all of his movies.
Once again I must defend Gandhi, which IMO is not overrated one iota, and far from being the stuffy ET-killer it’s remembered as, is extremely entertaining. I was as impressed by Gandhi’s sly sense of humor as I was by his humanity and determination.
There’s a very good reason for the age of the movies in this list. I took the movies with the fewest votes from the IMDB top 250 list. This kept classics such as Shawshank, The Godfather, etc off the list. That way of sorting them also gave me a large list with a much higher percentage of movies I’d never seen before. I don’t need any input on ones I’ve already formed an opinion about for the most part.