*Showgirls *is too intense and complex a film to be an “old friend” that I can watch any time. It’s an extremely angry film, so I’m not always in the mood. Starship Troopers is a lot more fun.
Almost Famous
Beverly Hills Cop
Boogie Nights
Casino
Catch Me If You Can
Clueless
Fletch
Goodfellas
The Maltese Falcon
Manhattan
The Philadelphia Story
The Royal Tenenbaums
Rushmore
Say Anything
The Silence of the Lambs
Sunset Boulevard
Swingers
To Have and To Have Not
Three Kings
Trading Places
Plus many others already mentioned in this thread
I’ve seen thousands of movies, but for some reason these two British films come to mind as being just about perfect: Blowup (1966) and Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971).
Oh yes, why I think they are near perfect movies. Blowup stays fresh today for its detached, cool look at a detached, cool character in the hothouse world of fashion photography, and it ultimately leaves us with the paradox that the closer we look at something, the more ambiguous it becomes. Like this movie itself.
Sunday Bloody Sunday gets my pick because its mature understanding of two people who must accept compromise in their lives has more psychological accuity than a half a dozen busier dramas.
I notice some of these aren’t on the IMBb Top 250. (Meet The Feebles? Brilliant!)
But I’ll add Out Of The Past with Robert Mitchum and here’s why: the story is relentless, told in flashback of flashback, with Jeff Bailey knowing that he’s falling for a femme fatale but not being able to help himself. The droll delivery of the voiceover narration highlights his world-weary attitude; Bogart could only hope to be half as disaffected. Jane Greer beats them all hands down, including Barbara Stanwyck, as a manipulative, malicious, amoral creature. Bailey, in the end, just wants to be done with, to end his undeniable servitude to Kathy. It is often considered the first true noir and is undoubtedly one of the best, and Hitchcock drew heavily on it for Vertigo.
And while we’re talking about noir, the adaptation of The Grifters (scripted by Donald Westlake from Jim Thompson’s novel) is a great updating of the novel, retaining enough anachronistic details to make it feel like a Jim Thompson novel. And John Cusack, Annette Benning, and Angelica Huston were perfect in their roles. I saw this at a special screening at the Arclight where Angelica Huston talked a bit about how she got the part (Stephen Frears thought she was all wrong, but executive producer Martin Scorsese knew she was perfect, so they met for dinner with Huston wearing a slinky, low-cut dress…the rest is history.) Anyway, it’s easy to fuck up an adapatation of a novel, especially one as visceral as The Grifters, but Westlake gets it exactly right.
Stranger
How could I forget:
The Godfather trilogy
Die Hard
The first three Jack Ryan movies
A Christmas Story
Superman I and II
Batman & Batman Returns
Raiders and Last Crusade
Casablanca - first saw it on television when I was about seven years old and just floated into the film and have never left. It is a film I watch on a rainy or cold day, wrap myself in a blanket on the couch and float back into the film.
I think the LOTR trilogy is another that I could watch over and over and just allow myself to meld into the story.
The Wizard of Oz…so many memories from childhood to today. Whenever I am flipping through the channels and find it, I am sucked into the film just like when I was a kid.
Although I like a lot of films, there are actually very few I ever watch more than once. A few more that I do watch every once in awhile - Rebbecca, Citizen Kane, Cabaret, The Bad Seed, The African Queen, Funny Girl, The Producers, Gone With The Wind, It’s A Wonderful Life, All About Eve…I just realized I seem to like a lot of the old B&W films…again, maybe it was being stuck in the Midwest as a kid and watching those late night classics on television. They let me know there was another world out there, and I guess to me they were my lifeline.
Exactly: you can provide more information. Dmark, Stranger and Walloons posts make for far more interesting reading than your random list of names.
The Big Lebowski
Chungking Express
In my DVD Collection:
Before Sunrise
Before Sunset
Braveheart
Dogma
Ferris Beuller’s Day Off
Field of Dreams
Glory
The Princess Bride
Schindler’s List
Oh…and to add to my list:
LOTR Trilogy
Stand By Me
Chinatown
It’s got everything: snappy dialogue, conflict, romance, natural beauty, humor and sadness.
And it was quirky long before quirky became trendy.
I can’t believe I left this one off. You’re 100% correct, a perfect movie.
That could have been on my list, but under “why” I would have put: Robert Mitchum is your daddy. Or my daddy, I guess. But that would sound like he was literally my father which he is not.
For my whys:
Night of the Hunter:
“Leanin on Jesus, Leanin on Jesus.” Because Robert Mitchum’s my daddy. Because it’s beautiful to look at and I can never get tired of the novelty of how it looks. There are so many shots I want to blow up and put on the wall and look at every day. Because I never get tired of the little story of right hand left hand. And in the end, children abide. It has everything. Lillian Gish sitting in her rocker with her shotgun minding her flock. The most beautiful woman because of what she does and not how she looks. So brave and righteous! I am always frustrated on behalf of Shelly Winters on her wedding night. God that’s not right that he won’t do it. I’ll never get over it no matter how many times I watch it. I am always right there with her in that scene! It’s a great, great movie.
Moby-Dick:
I’m in love with Queequeg. Plus I never get tired of when Ahab is telling the men about the whale and he starts pointing and his finger is gigantic and flopping around. And Orson Welles sermon. It’s Moby-Dick. It gives you something to think about every time. It’s like the quick fix for your Moby-Dick needs when you don’t have time to read the book.
Monday Night Mayhem:
I have no idea why I have watched this movie about 50 times and memorized half of it. I don’t even like football. I guess it’s that John Tuturro is so so damn good in it that I feel like I want to be like Howard Cosell every time I finish it! It has enough good lines that you just love to hear over and over, and it’s just a great story of a man who kept on being himself and tellin it like it was. He keeps his dignity. It’s very inspiring.
Godfather !
Godfather II
Being There
Gilda
The Third Man
In The Bedroom
Pulp Fiction
Silence of the Lambs
Blazing Saddles
The Producers
Bananas
Annie Hall
Serpico
The Inlaws (original, obviously)
Lost in America
Bullit
Cool Hand Luke
Taxi Driver
The Wizard of Oz
Monsters, Inc.
Millers Crossing
Oh Brother, Where Art Thou
Cape Fear (with Robert Mitchum)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
The Philadelphia Story
Johnny Belinda (origanal)
Gaslight
Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
The Sting
Lord of The Rings Trilogy
LOTR trilogy
A Knight’s Tale (I know much of the dialog by heart)
All Of Me
The Wizard of Oz
Fantasia (Just watched it again today, in fact)
The Black Stallion
Thelma & Louise
Pirates of the Carribean
ConAir
The Cowboys
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Brewster’s Millions
As for reasons? Why do any of us like a movie? Some are pure escapism (LOTR, The Black Stallion) , some are feel-good-make-me-smile movies (Knights Tale, All Of Me) , some make me think (Brewster’s Millions , Thelma& Louise). They all touch something inside me, whether it can be put into words or not.
Michael Caine movies (except the Swarm and some others),especially Alfie,The Man Who Would Be King,Get Carter,and The Ipcress File
Movies Orual will always happily watch:
**Hero
The Boondock Saints
The Maltese Falcon
The Princess Bride
Conan the Barbarian
Princess Mononoke
The Thin Man
The Big Sleep
Clue**
(Note: these are not all necessarily good movies, they are just perfect for what they are)
I just remembered the perfect Michael Caine movie,A Shock To The System