- Metropolis
- Pulp Fiction
Casablanca
The Godfather
Saving Private Ryan, Casablanca
2001: A Space Odyssey
Solyaris
Okay. Any justification for these?
Given that the undefined criteria for “best” are going to vary widely from one poster to the next, I’m going to use my definition of best as those which had the most lasting influence on cinematography and technique of storytelling (and limit the scope of effect to Western cinema). On that basis, I would pick Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (which introduced the concept of the unreliable narrator and/or multiple viewpoints of the same story) and Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, which had an enormous influence on the manic style of satire; kind of a 1984 as retooled by Joseph Heller.
Also rans are Welles’ Citizen Kane, Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, Rosenberg’s Cool Hand Luke, Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix, Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai, John Sturges’ The Great Escape, Scorsese’s Goodfellas, and Carol Reed’s The Third Man. I don’t claim any of these are the most entertaining of all films (some definitely require a substantial context in order to fully appreciate) but they all contributed or popularized some aspect of film technique or story that has found its way into a wide variety of movies.
Stranger
Citizen Kane - It really is amazing.
The Empire Strikes Back - Not just a good sequel. A great film.
Singin’ in the Rain
Citizen Kane
What’s your love for Cool Hand Luke, Stranger? I just saw it for the first time a few weeks ago and have very mixed feelings about it.
Pulp Fiction
After that my rankings get kind of complicated…
Casablanca
Citizen Kane
The Godfather
Dr. Zhivago
I vote for Birth of a Nation and Citizen Kane, because they’re both so influential.
It’s Paul Newman’s finest role as a genuine “rebel without a cause.” (Some would say Hud or The Hustler, but the former is slightly histeronic and the latter, while a great film, has Newman playing a kind of reactionary victim of fate.) Not only have many scenes and quotes from the film become cultural touchstones (who can see a pointless ego contest without saying, “If my bo-ah sah-as he can aeet fiftah eeggs, he can aeet fifff-tah eeggs,” or hear someone talk about “failure to communicate” without hearing Strother Martin whine out in his wheezy Capote-esque voice, “Whah we-ah got hee-ah is failure to communicate,”) but the movie both builds the myth of the indomitable iconoclast and shows how impossible it is for such a figure to survive. The vindictively evil “Boss Paul” with his mirrored sunglasses, has been aped in every Dixieploitation film made since; and the Coen Brothers O’ Brother Where Art Though pays direct homage to that character. Luke himself doesn’t do anything more objectively noteworthy than refuse to be beat, and yet every man in the camp including Dragline (George Kennedy, the “It Man” of the 'Sixties and early 'Seventies) has open admiration for him. Give it a second viewing and look at it for more than pure entertainment value, but instead what it represents about individuality, hero worship, and redemption, as well as how these qualities won’t save you from “The System”.
I missed a few others I should have listed, like Double Indemnity and The Big Sleep, but it is hard to pick and choose. There ought to be something with Alec Guinness in there somewhere (and not the Star Wars films that he sleep-walked through); maybe The Ladykillers or The Lavender Hill Mob.
I hate to question the selections of others since it is a very personal choice not necessarily based on any logical rationale, but several people have selected Casablanca, which I personally find to be entertaining largely for its sometimes crackling dialogue and vibrant secondary characters (especially Captain Renault, played by the incomparable Claude Raines), but is ultimately irrational, vacuous, and distinctly anti-romantic, at least, unless your interpretation is that Rick and Louis are destined to be together in a barely-veiled homosexual union. I realize, like It’s A Wonderful Life that the film is a perennial favorite and the source of some of the famous misquotes in modern culture (Bogart never says, “Play it again, Sam,”) but by any objective standard it is an inconsistent and mediocre story plagued by plot holes you could drive a German artillery division through. The less said about Ingrid Bergman’s tapioca performance the better; she may be the least interesting leading lady Bogart played opposite of in his career. The film has always seemed like an overmarketed, overhyped picture to me, especially in comparison to its post-war counterpart, The Third Man.
Stranger
Tricky question, lots of scope.
- The Wizard of Oz - the transition from B&W to colour is amazing even nowadays, can’t imagine what that was like in a cinema at the time. It’s such an ace film that 70 years later loads of people know the songs and story.
Second one is troublesome, there’s always the canon of Tarkovsky, Bergman, Hitchcock, Wilder, Eastwood, Kubrick, Kieslowski, Welles, Lean, Kurosawa and Pixar to consider.
- Aliens.
Casablanca
Bridge on the River Kwai
*Inherit the Wind
Now, Voyager
*
There aren’t any. No one (or two) films have encapsulated all that is good filmmaking. Best for individual aspect:
1 - Serenity, The Princess Bride - best well rounded film
2 - The Color Purple, Fried Green Tomatoes - multi period
3 - Pleasantville, Contact - not sure what to call this category
4 - Memento, Shortbus, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Drawing Restraint 9 - high concept
I would mention Avatar as groundbreaking but it’s 21st century.
Star Wars influenced modern cinema more than any other movie.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs invented a very successful genre.
Third is probably The Wizard of Oz. It was almost as powerful and groundbreaking in its time as Star Wars would be.
The Wizard of Oz and Citizen Kane. All subsequent great films reference them, consciously or not.
Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines
and
The Ann Jillian Story
Why not?