Friday, December 19, 2008

The Top 100 Movies of All Time

By popular demand, my Top 100 Movies of all time.

1. Citizen Kane

2. Casablanca

3. The Godfather II

4. The Godfather

5. The Searchers

6. 2001: A Space Odyssey

7. Planet of the Apes

8. Chinatown

9. Raging Bull

10. Goodfellas

11. Bonnie and Clyde

12. The Wild Bunch

13. Rocky

14. America Graffiti

15. The Gold Rush

16. The French Connection

17. The African Queen

18. The Birth of a Nation

19. Lawrence of Arabia

20. It’s A Wonderful Life

21. Sunset Boulevard

22. To Kill a Mockingbird

23. Psycho

24. Schindler’s List

25. The Maltese Falcon

26. They Made Me a Criminal

27. High Noon

28. Annie Hall

29. The Best Years of our Lives

30. Taxi Driver

31. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

32. Unforgiven

33. The Graduate

34. Gone With The Wind

35. The Empire Strikes Back

36. The General

37. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

38. It Happened One Night

39. A Clockwork Orange

40. Network

41. Fargo

42. Singin In the Rain

43. On The Waterfront

44. City Lights

45. The Bridge on the River Kwai

46. The Grapes of Wrath

47. E.T.

48. Apocalype Now

49. Midnight Cowboy

50. Dr. Strangelove

51. Pulp Fiction

52. Rebel Without a Cause

53. The Third Man

54. The Manchurian Candidate

55. Ben Hur

56. Forrest Gump

57. Silence of the Lambs

58. The Deer Hunter

59. Duck Soup

60. Twelve Angry Men

61. True Grit

62. Blade Runner

63. Frankenstein

64. Dances With Wolves

65. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

66. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

67. Raiders of the Lost Ark

68. North by Northwest

69. Jaws

70. Double Indemnity

71. The Wizard of Oz

72. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

73. The Pink Panther

74. West Side Story

75. Dirty Harry

76. The Sound of Music

77. Treasure of the Sierra Madre

78. Shane

79. A Streetcar Named Desire

80. Caberet

81. MASH

82. An American In Paris

83. Mutiny on the Bounty

84. Sophie’s Choice

85. The Out of Towners

86. The Odd Couple

87. Yankee Doodle Dandy

88. The Jazz Singer

89. The Last Picture Show

90. A Night at the Opera

91. Platoon

92. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

93. Spartacus

94. Stagecoach

95. Nashville

96. In The Heat of the Night

97. Breakfast at Tiffany’s

98. Casino

99. Modern Times

100. The Sixth Sense




14 comments:

Anonymous said...

WOW! You've got a lot of free time on your hand!!! "The Out of Towners"??? Please say you mean the one w/ Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis? It got a little tiresome w/ all of the adversity, but it had some great "one-liners." You need to watch "Rear Window"; some of the best dialogue ever written.

Bill's Waste of Air said...

Yes, I should have put a disclaimer on the list, ALL MOVIES ARE THE ORIGINALS! No remakes.

Now as to mick, Rear Window is one that I just completely forgot about.
I should have put that in the top 25.
This was a hard list to do.
So many more I could have added or subtracted but this was just off the cuff, straight from the old memory banks.
So, the list isn't always in order either.
Some of the late ones, probably belong earlier in the list and vice versa.
So, everyone feel free to add or subtract with my list!

Anonymous said...

You are missing two of my favorites...Dances With Wolves and Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson...That's the Best!!

Anonymous said...

Scratching the crust from the top of my head, here are some of my favorites (in no apparent order):

Rear Window
The Usual Suspects
First Blood
Midnight Express
Escape from Alcatraz
Fried Green Tomatoes
Apollo 13
Tombstone (Val Kilmer: 2 thumbs up)
Pulp Fiction

Historical action films: Raiders of the Lost Ark and National Treasure

Boxing films: Cinderella Man and Million Dollar Baby

What was the most amazing thing to me is that w/ Apollo 13, NASA wouldn't release any video footage to Ron Howard. He had to simulate all of it. A great documentary was made recently called "In the Shadow of the Moon". As you can tell by my selections, I'm not necessarily an afficiando of older films. That's not because I don't appreciate them. I just wasn't as exposed to them as a kid. I grew up on Fat Albert, The Brady Bunch and M*A*S*H (the series)

Bill's Waste of Air said...

Dances With Wolves is on the list at #64.

Mick: The Usual Suspects was great, Midnight Express, First Blood too, but have to end there.
Yes, you need to watch more of Turner Classic Movies and catch up a bit.
Notice about 90% of my films are Pre-1980.
I think the height of great movie making was the 1940's. Film Noir, Hitchcock, Welles, Ford all incredible directors, but the stars are what really drove them.
The late 1960's to mid 1970's was a renaissance I think too.

Anonymous said...

I have only seen 10 of your favorite movies. -Kristi

Anonymous said...

You'll have to forgive him, Kristi. He's "old school"!

The Blunt Matt said...

Good list Bill. I'm curious about what you think makes these films great. I've always been a big fan of movies, but never understood why one is considered better than another. I'm a big documentary guy myself since most of what Hollywood does these days disappoints me.

I highly recommend everyone rent a film called "Riding Giants" about the history of big wave surfing. Even if you don't surf, it's a great film...

Tammy Bowers said...

I like Mick's list better than Bills.

There are ton's of movies on Bill's list that I love, like African Queen! Wonderful! There are tons that I don't like at all, like Casino, Silence of the Lambs, and Pulp Fiction. But I understand boy and girl taste differences.

I would sub Dirty Dancing, Lady and the Tramp and Rear Window for the above, as well as about a dozen others.

Did I miss Wizard of Oz on your list?

Anonymous said...

Yes, you did Tammy! It's #71.

Anonymous said...

I don't believe I saw the Sound of Music on your list. An oversight I presume.....

Bill's Waste of Air said...

No Sound of Music.
The hills are NOT alive.
Notice my list is a bit short on musicals.
I don't find them to be GREAT films. They are usually adaptations of Broadway productions, rather than from the mind of a screenwriter.
I like musicals, don't get me wrong, but not like I do, regular films.
If I were to have musicals, I think I did put West Side Story, they would include, Singing in the Rain, Stage Door and Yankee Doodle Dandy. I think I might even have those on the list.
So, again, this is just my opinion.
Feel free to continue to add or subtract from the list.

Anonymous said...

Actually, "Singin in the Rain" and "The Sound of Music" ARE on your list! I must say that "Fiddler on the Roof" should be on there as well. Actors that participate in musicals must be able to: sing, act and dance!!! Gene Kelly was one of the most brilliant men of our time. He choreographed most of "Singin in the Rain", as well as his other hits. He brought masculinity to dancing that Fred Astaire was unable to.

Anonymous said...

my oversight....#76