Gosh, some of you like weird stuff! 
Time travel and alternate history. Several of my favorites of late have involved a small community (ranging in size from a few boats up to a few towns) of 20th century Americans being accidentally and mysteriously translated back in time, or into an alternate time stream, and dealing with what they find there.
While we’re on the topic, a premise I’d really like to see is “we discover a way to send people back in time, we have 10 years and $10 billion to prepare to transit a 150x150x150 foot container back to the roman empire, then we want to conquer it and make the world a better place”, focusing a lot on the planning ahead of time.
Have you seen the pirate movie where Walter Mathou? plays an old pirate that you cant ever quite decide whether he is incompetent or scheming? I bet you’d like that one then.
Predators and Aliens, together or apart.
1.) Where the plot leads up to an airplane (or space ship) that has been expected not to work, or which has had great difficulties , finally taking off. For some reason that soaring into the sky has a great feeling of liberation. So I loved Flight of the Phoenix, and Firefox. Or Gil Kane’s graphic novel Blackmark. I probably would’ve liked Pitch Black, but I thought too much of it was simply dumb.
2.) A really well done and unexpected plot twist. Not anything holey or tacken-on, but a twist truly integral to the plot. Things that make you go back and examine your assumptions and expectations So I loved
**The Last of Sheila
Sleuth
Body Heat
Charade
Mirage
The Day of the Jackal
The Odessa File
The Sixth Sense **
On the other hand, I hated Shyamalan’s other films, and Black Widow (which obviously didn’t know how to engineer a plot twist)
Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days has a superb plot twist, but it’s pretty well-known now. On the other hand, his Michael Strogoff, although immensely popular in its day (and the source for a long-running stage play, and at least two movie versions), is less well-known today, so perhaps its twist is still fresh. Many of Frederick Forsyth’s short stories also have twists, but as far as I know, only one of those has been adapted to film – The Careful Man.
I like shows where the theme is one sane guy among a group of loony people. NewsRadio, Newhart, and to some degree Corner Gas fit this bill.
I also like plots that involve people in therapy/asylums–preferably people with mild or at least non-dangerous problems. Things that come to mind here are a story arc of Newhart when Michael was temporarily institutionalized, an episode or two of NewsRadio, episodes of Night Court with Buddy,and the movie “David and Lisa.”
Who’s the sane one? Karen?
I was thinking Brent since he’s the main character. While he’s saner than, say, Hank or Oscar he’s not completely sane, which is why I was downplaying this show a bit by saying “to some degree.”
“Saner than Oscar” is not a ringing endorsement!
Time travel done with a single consistent timeline. Unfortunately, it’s not always clear at the outset of a time travel story whether it will be handled this way.
Also my answer. Especially good are pure heist films that don’t bother with a romantic subplot or any crap like that. The original Italian Job is a great example.
I love funny takes on fantasy monsters, creatures, and mythologies – Terry Pratchett, Tom Holt, Christopher Moore, and my current fave, A. Lee Martinez.
Try Girl Genius.
I used to love time travel, but it morphed into a cheap way to re-use old-timey costumes.
I’m seconding prison breaks, heists, and post-apocalypses and throwing in con games.
The perfect movie for me would be someone geting thrown in prison for conning someone and then breaking out of prison so they could perform a heist.
While in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Now who should I pitch this to?
Oh, I forgot. Beauty pageants! Drop Dead Gorgeous, Little Miss Sunshine, Miss Congeniality…
Beauty pageants in a post-apocalyptic wasteland?
Creature Features. Specifically, good creature features:
Jaws
Aliens
Jurassic Park (though it’s a bit cartoony)
Cloverfield
…as opposed to the LAME creature features (all Jaws sequels, all the sci-fi lame creature features, Anaconda, Godzilla costarring Matthew Broderick, Alligator, etc.)
I think I love the fantastic suspense the unpredictability of the creatures creates, coupled with the fact there’s no evil or menace in their motive: they’re hungry/protecting territory/want to reproduce/lost and confused/etc.
Of the trope that I’m a sucker for, the examples that are lame or embarassingly awful are numerous and exceedingly painful. Nevertheless, I’ll check out just about anything that rests on the idea of the lone (or nearly so) kook who turns out to have been right all along.
I love unreliable narrators who are revealed to be liars, murderers, scoundrels, or complete loons. I also like plot lines where an enigmatic character, not necessarily the narrator, turns out to be someone entirely different than we’re lead to believe, or better still, …dead. I love a good ghost story.
Add me to the list of people who like heists, con jobs, or other storylines involving intricate planning - particularly ones where there’s a twist or two. The Sting is one of my favorite movies.
Alternate history or time travel, if they’re done well and believably.
I also have a fondness for characters who fight the system, or are smart-asses.