"Favorite" movies you've seen only once

Looking over my self-proclaimed “Favorite Movies” on my Facebook profile, I was struck by how many of my “favorites” I’ve seen only once. Usually when I have a favorite movie I watch it many times, as I suspect most people would. But the following movies, though they made a great impression on me at first viewing, I still haven’t gotten around to seeing a second time:

[ul]
[li]Pandora’s Box (starring Louise Brooks)[/li][li]Nashville (dir. Robert Altman)[/li][li]The Cameraman (starring Buster Keaton)[/li][li]The Sweet Hereafter (dir. Atom Egoyan)[/li][li]And Life Goes On (dir. Abbas Kiarostami)[/li][li]Homework (dir. Abbas Kiarostami)[/li][li]Ten (dir. Abbas Kiarostami)[/li][li]Vive L’Amour (dir. Ming-liang Tsai)[/li][/ul]

I wonder what I’d think of them on the next go-round.

What are some of your “favorites” you’ve seen only once?

I’ve only seen Donnie Darko once and I loved it. I keep meaning to watch it again but I never get around to it.

I believe I’ve only seen Fargo once. It’s utterly brilliant, and I love it, but it’s just too freaking intense. The murders are completely real and believable.

Taking that back a bit - if it’s on and it’s at one of the lighter Marge Gunderson parts, I’ll watch a few minutes before veering off.

Ikiru

That’s about it.

Pan’s Labyrinth It was beautiful and terrible and I don’t know if I ever want to watch it again.

Pan’s Labyrinth was the one I came in to mention. Now I have to think of another one.

Schindler’s List and Cold Mountain

Life Is Beautiful and Schindler’s List.

Too emotionally intense for me to watch again.

Same. I’m not sure I could get through it again.

Sixth Sense. I loved the movie and thought it was very well done but I’m not sure I would want to do a repeat viewing.

Love, Actually

It may take me awhile to see it again because I’m so jealous of some of the relationships that I can hardly bear it!

The Sixth Sense, Dark City, Life Is Beautiful and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence were all, to me, amazingly powerful and impressive movies, but not movies I’ve been eager to see again, either.

House of Sand and Fog.

I found it spellbinding and unforgettable.

I’ll never watch it again.

Mulholland Drive, which I keep meaning to re-watch but have just never gotten around to.

American History X. Loved it, but too intense to ever watch again.

Crash (the good one, not the one that won the Oscar), American History X, AI: Artificial Intelligence, Reservoir Dogs, Deathproof, and Fargo. All for different reasons. Crash, American History X and Reservoir Dogs were just too intense for me. I love them, but I didn’t enjoy sitting through them. I don’t think AI needs another viewing. I want to see Fargo and Deathproof again, but I have to be in the mood to watch them…I don’t want to just have them playing in the background. i want to sit down and really watch them. Except, I never sit down to watch movies. Ever. I’m always doing something else, too.

Pan’s Labyrinth for me too.

Lost in Translation

Saw it in the theater with my wife, and she got me the DVD, but I haven’t watched it yet. I wanted to wait a while so that I could hopefully enjoy it as much as I did the first time. I’ve been feeling strong urges to watch it, and I guess five years is long enough.

I think I can agree with this.

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? It’s as though I got everything out of it that I possibly could on first viewing. I’d love to see it again, though, but I’m not going to seek it out. Which is weird, because I almost never promote a movie into “favorite” category unless I’ve seen it at least twice.

Grave of the fireflies: Excellent movie, but so sad it left me literally traumatized. I still mist up will just thinking of the ending.

Funny Games: I watched the original (finnish?) version a few years back and it left me feeling like taking a shower for days. Haven’t watched the remake and I don’t intend to. And keeping in mind how much I love watching Naomi Watts in anything, that’s really saying something.

SFW: Some crazy movie with Stephen Dorff I watched in my teens late at night. It rocked my world in a nineties teen angst sort of way. But I don’t really want to watch it again because I know it’s not going to be half as good as my memory of it.

Schindler’s List: Even THINKING about that movie moves me to tears; I’m not sure how I would handle a repeat viewing. Especially the very last scene, where the descendants of the actual holocaust survivors place stones on the graves…wow, even now it makes me tear up.