New York Times list of the Top 1,000 movies ever made.
Those I’ve Seen plus Sporadic, Pithy Commentary:
About Schmidt (Really?)
Affliction
A.I. (Who’s been huffing what at the Times?)
Airplane! (If they insist.)
Aladdin (I saw this on a first real date with the first boy I ever fell in love with.)
Aliens (Sure, sure.)
Amelie
American Graffiti
Amores Perros (One of the most visceral films I’ve ever seen.)
Annie Hall (The masterwork from a master.)
The Apartment (On my top all-time top ten list every time.)
Apocalypse Now
Apollo 13
The Apostle (Highly recommended.)
Back to the Future
Bambi
Barfly (Thanks, Matthew. Word.)
Barton Fink
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Beetlejuice
Ben-Hur (I would never watch this again.)
The Birds (Watched this at Jeremy’s place. That was the Night of the Fuckchair.)
Blue Velvet (YAYYY!)
Boogie Nights (I can’t watch that scene with Heather Graham and Julianne Moore where they are all GEEKED OUT OF THEIR MINDS and Roller Girl goes “Will you be my Mom?” and shit. Ugh. Gives me the heebie-jeebies.)
Boyz N the Hood
The Breakfast Club (My boyfriend showed me this movie.)
The Butcher Boy
Casablanca (Seriously. Between me and you. What a snore this movie is.)
Chicago (One of the few movies I’ve ever walked out of.)
Chicken Run
Chinatown
Chocolat
The Cider House Rules (Boo.)
Clueless
Cool Hand Luke (My boss at the video store played this all the time.)
Crumb (So fucking good.)
Dead Man Walking
The Deer Hunter
Deliverance
Desperately Seeking Susan (One of my Women in Film class’ screenings.)
Do the Right Thing
Dr. Strangelove
Double Indemnity (Also thanks Matthew. Word again.)
Duck Soup
Dumbo
The Elephant Man (Hooray!!)
The English Patient (I’m with Elaine on this one.)
E.T.
Europa, Europa
The Exorcist
Fantasia
Fargo
Full Metal Jacket
Gone with the Wind
Gosford Park
The Graduate
Groundhog Day (Sweet.)
Hannah and her Sisters
Happiness (Also in my top ten of all-time.)
Heathers (Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw.)
Henry Fool
High Art (This movie fucked with my soul.)
In Cold Blood
In the Bedroom (If you haven’t seen this, please do. And remember not to hold your breath.)
Jaws
Jerry Maguire
Lovely and Amazing (This was in the festival the year I worked there.)
Kramer vs. Kramer
L.A. Confidential
A League of Their Own
Leaving Las Vegas (I saw this alone. When I was already sad.)
Manhattan
Mary Poppins
Metropolitan (Love this guy’s work.)
Miracle of 34th St.
Monsters, Inc.
Moulin Rouge
Mulholland Drive (I just got all wet and woozy.)
Nashville
National Lapoon’s Animal House (Patently unfunny.)
National Velvet
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Nobody’s Fool
North by Northwest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The People vs. Larry Flint
The Piano
Poltergeist
Ponette (I love Ponette.)
Psycho
Pulp Fiction
The Purple Rose of Cairo
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Rain Man
Raising Arizona
Rebecca (One of my favorite Hitchcock films.)
Rebel without a Cause
Resevoir Dogs
Romeo and Juliet (1963)
Rushmore (!)
Saving Private Ryan
Say Anything
Schindler’s List
Shakespeare in Love
Shrek
The Silence of the Lambs (Dave Chapelle: “You guys are like the Silence of the Lambs. Without the Silence.”
Singin’ in the Rain
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
Spirited Away
Star Wars
Storytelling (Yes.)
The Straight Story (Even more yes-er.)
Sunset Boulevard
The Sweet Hereafter
Taxi Driver
This is Spinal Tap
To Kill a Mockingbird
Toy Story
Traffic
Trainspotting (Baby on the ceiling. *shiver*)
12 Angry Men
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Usual Suspects
Vertigo (Natch.)
Waking Life (For real?)
Welcome to the Dollhouse
West Side Story
When Harry Met Sally
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
The Wizard of Oz (Also, #1.)
The Women (Once again, Women in Film class.)
You Can Count on Me
Y Tu Mamá También
8 comments ↓
Me being a foreign film/Sweden in general freak, I gotta wonder why Show Me Love (F**king Amal in the rest of the world) isn’t on there.
Apollo 13 wasn’t bad either, though
I’m with Elaine on that one too.
Lists like these change my feeding habits…I probably won’t go to the video store (not that I’ve been going lately) without a folded up copy of this article. I couldn’t make it all the way through the Time’s version - I began to feel the effects of monitor induced vertigo - but you’re viewings were much easier on the eye and the chainsaw comments made it more palatable - leading me to these observations:
1. Whomever made that list knows their Todd Solondz - the man is on a roll with his pictures.
2. I was disappointed not to see Donnie Darko in the mix - but I s’pose after any such list you can expect a flooding of replies and editor responses to the tune of “well, we only had room for 1000 movies and not all movies could be…” blah blah.
3. But that doesn’t excuse one major discrepancy — they chose to put Star Wars on the list - and not The Empire Strikes Back…
This looks like a project that someone started with optimisim and then lost to the doldrums of boredom…
optimisimisi — (just wanna clarify — Star Wars should be stricken for Empire — no need to give Lucas a bigger head than he’s already acquired)
I’ve seen 289. I think it’s partly because I’m a film student and partly because I’m an enormous enormous geek.
It’s a weird list, definitely some questionable stuff. Why Red and not Blue? (Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED Red, but Blue? At least as good a film.) Why Aladdin? Why The Tender Trap?
Rushmore, but no Royal Tenenbaums??
Raising Arizona, but no Big Lebowski??
Fisher King, but no Fear and Loathing??
And neither Passion of the Christ or Battle Royale??
I concur, A lot of good foreign movies are missing from the list, even easy shit like Whale Rider.
Lists like these are always going to be questioned. And when you make a rediculous list of a THOUSAND it’s all the more fodder for second-guessing. I think it’s way too much effort put something like that in order, so I’m glad at least they went alphabetical. I’ve come up with a similar list which I’ve worked on for a few years, and I haven’t even made it to 200 movies. I really thought mine was too long! Keep in mind, my list is still far from complete, and it isn’t all necesarily stuff I consider “great”, rather just stuff I really enjoy watching.
Instead of telling us which ones on the NY Times list that you saw, maybe you can just come up with a list of your own? We’d love to get a few good suggestions for something new to check out, especially someone with such interesting tastes and intelligent takes (though I’ll never understand the Lynch obsession, apart from Twin Peaks.. okay and Elephant Man.. and Eraserhead, I must admit. ;)
Take your time on the list, no hurry, especially if you comment on each movie.
—
You going to the pile up in atl?
I saw the last 20 minutes of A.I. the other night, and whoa… that ending was too sappy even for me. For ME. And i’m the guy who got all choked up when little Anakin had to leave his mommy, and when Trinity died… so that’s pretty sad.
“i’m the guy who got all choked up when little Anakin had to leave his mommy”
HA-ha!
Leave a Comment