100 Movies I Say You Should See

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

Every now and again in the music folder I'll post bands I like to see what other people think and to see if others have even heard of them. I thought I'd do the same with some movies here in this folder. It appears that there is a pocket of people here who are real film buffs that have similar tastes to mine and another pocket who appear wholly unaware or who have not seen a good many films from certain genres or time periods. What follows are not necessarily my favorite films or what I believe are the best films ever made, but movies that I think would be of interest for all to see as being real film buffs, that also accuaint you with certain stars and directors. Feel free to comment on anything listed or ask questions if you have not see a film and would like to know about it.

 

The Godfather

The Godfather II

Apocalypse Now

The Deer Hunter

Blade Runner

LA Confidential

The Shawshank Redemption

Ed Wood

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Blazing Saddles

The Producers

Young Frankenstein

This is Spinal Tap

Caddyshack

Raising Arizona

All of Me

Silver Streak

Some Like it Hot

Operation Petticoat

The Searchers

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

El Dorado

Rio Bravo

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence

Unforgiven

Dirty Harry

Sudden Impact

Tightrope

Pale Rider

The Untouchables

North by Northwest

Rear Window

Vertigo

Wonder Boys

An American in Paris

Singing in the Rain

The Music Man

My Fair Lady

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Wait Until Dark

Dr. No

Goldfinger

Shaft (original)

Superfly

Blacula

Dracula (original)

Frakenstein

Bride of Frankenstein

Rocky

First Blood

Ben-Hur

Spartacus

Serpico

The Americanization of Emily

Murphy's Romance

Support Your Local Sheriff

Sunset

The Longest Yard

Lethal Weapon

Die Hard

Grand Illusion

The Great Dictator

Greed

Ride the High Country

Citizen Kane

The Third Man

Touch of Evil

MacBeth (Orson Welles)

Othello (Orson Welles)

Cool Hand Luke

The Sting

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Nobody's Fool

Color of Money

The Manchurian Candidate

Airplane

The Exorcist

Enter the Dragon

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn

Pulp Fiction

Reservior Dogs

Boogie Nights

Duck Soup

It's a Wonderful Life

It Happened One Night

Bringing up Baby

Stagecoach

Double Indemnity

The Maltese Falcon

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Key Largo

The Philidelphia Story

Adam's Rib

Bridge on the River Kwai

High Noon

Night of the Hunter

The African Queen

Mister Roberts

The Quiet Man

A Face in the Crowd

[PsychoDriver 0]

Good list, I agree with all of them except maybe "Blacula"

[Guest godthedog]

oooh...you put 'greed' on there. good man. but where can somebody FIND it?

[Guest MaxPower27]

Greed

[Guest Youth N Asia]

Cool Hand Luke

Night of the Hunter

Good calls...seems like I'm the only one here dishing out love for Cool Hand Luke. But I'd put The Hustler as his #2 movie. Or Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.

[Guest ShamRock]

Have you seen Taxi Driver?

[Guest El Psycho Diablo]

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence

 

I don't know why, but I get that song stuck in my head every time I hear it.

[Guest godthedog]

and for the sake of fairness, here's about 40 more movies you should see that aren't on deacon's list:

 

chimes at midnight

the war zone

dark days

bob le flambeur

umberto d.

raise the red lantern

qiu ju

aguirre, the wrath of god

nothing but a man

la jetee

breathless

le petit soldat

contempt

my life to live

band of outsiders

pierrot le fou

weekend

tout va bien

in praise of love

i live in fear

high and low

ran

the bicycle thief

the 400 blows

shoot the piano player

jules and jim

the lady from shanghai

the exterminating angel

belle du jour

viridiana

un chien andalou

los olvidados

swept away by an unusual destiny on the still blue seas of august (the one from the seventies, NOT the one madonna just made)

repulsion

scenes from a marriage

cries and whispers

persona

bonnie and clyde

throne of blood

yojimbo

the magnificent ambersons

paris is burning

the passion of joan of arc

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

I've seen Taxi Driver and it's defintely an important film, but from that era I prefer Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now and I just didn't think of Taxi Driver offhand.

 

Lot of foreign films on godthedog's list there that I have to say I am familiar with, but haven't seen. If there's anything in film I need to improve on, it's watching more foreign films. I dislike the Magnificent Ambersons for the horribly butchered end and feel you do Welles better by watching Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil or even Lady from Shanghai, which you mention. I have a soft spot in my heart for the Stranger too, which would have been a more intriguing film if Welles had his way and Agnes Moorehead played the Nazi hunter instead of Edward G. Robinson.

 

I love Cool Hand Luke, just a marvelous performance from Newman and about the only good performance I've ever seen out of George Kennedy. Great script too. Honestly, I can take or leave the Hustler, but I adore Color of Money and am really fascinated by the character line you can trace in Eddie from one film to the next. Newman should have about four Oscars on his mantel and not just the lone gimmee from Color of Money.

[Guest ArkhamGlobe]

Grand Illusion

Excellent choice. godthedog's list is probably closer to my own personal taste, but good list overall, though I can't say that I've seen all of those films.

[Guest El Satanico]

Great list and I like all of the movies I've seen off that list.

 

Nice to see you giving the blaxploitation genre some respect.

 

Ron O'Neal approves

[Guest bps "The Truth" 21]

Searching For Bobby Fischer

 

*goes back to Buffy threads*

[Guest cabbageboy]

Ah, some love for Ride the High Country. Gotta be one of the best westerns ever.

[Guest Youth N Asia]

I would have had Full Metal Jacket on the list too.

[Guest DawnBTVS]

I'd toss in American Beauty and Usual Suspects

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

Usual Suspects and Searching for Bobby Fischer I think gets more dap than they deserve and neither has really aged that well even in the short term. I never see either film on t.v. anywhere anymore. And I could never fathom the Fischer love that appears to be present on this board. Usual Suspects is still awesome in my book though.

 

Full Metal Jacket and Platoon would be two more really good ones, I just didn't think of them at the time. Casualties of War should get more credit too.

 

I'm amazed that someone else here has actually seen Ride the High Country. Kudos to you, cabbageboy. Great performances and a great story. You people should really check out more older westerns.

 

I feel blaxsploitation is a highly important genre at a key point in Hollywood that never gets the respect it deserves. It's a main reason I have Blacula on the list as that movie is ten times better than most would think and is a prime example of African-Americans trying to find a voice in traditionally white genres.

 

Ask me about American Beauty in five more years and we'll see what I think. I think it's going to be like Forrest Gump where the more I watch it the more stupid I think it is and the more gaping holes in logic and story I find. I was totally blown away on first viewing of both movies, but I don't believe you should think too hard about them or they lose something.

[Guest razazteca]

A few forgein films that I enjoyed:

 

The Tin Drum

All Quiet on the Western Front. both of the B&W and the 70s one, was Ernest Borgnein in both?

The Lover

Wide Sargasso Sea

Karma Sultra (1996)

[Guest Ravenbomb]

The Cheat's 50 movies you should see

(in no order)

Taxi Driver

Halloween

Tombstone

Godfather

Godfather 2

Memento

12 Angry Men (original)

The Wild Bunch

Seven Samurai

Ran

Raging Bull

The Prophecy

AKIRA

Pulp Fiction

The Salton Sea

Boondock Saints

Metropolis (original)

Un Chien Andalou

Magnificent Seven

Godspell

Princess Mononoke

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Untouchables

Donnie Darko

Dawn of the Dead

One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest

Identity

And Then There Were None

Say Anything...

Some Like It Hot

Nosferatu (original)

Uzumaki

Cure

Suicide Circle

Ringu/The Ring

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Last House On The Left

Night Of The Hunter

Psycho

Rear Window

Black Hawk Down

Gangs of New York

Dogma

Reservoir Dogs

Almost Famous

GoodFellas

Last Temptation of Christ

Usual Suspects

Pink Floyd: The Wall

Dark City

Edited May 22, 2003 by Ravenbomb

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

Aside form a couple movies who just have cult anime status working for them (like Princess Monoke and Akira), I can jive with most of Ravenbomb's list and we have a few movies in common.

[Guest Ravenbomb]

I chose movies that had IMO excellent animation and were at least for the most part non-computerized

[Guest godthedog]

I would have had Full Metal Jacket on the list too.

I'd toss in American Beauty and Usual Suspects

the thing is, most of us have already seen these movies. deacon with the vast majority of his choices looked to consciously be going to things others haven't seen (and, hence, should see). i know that's what I was going for, only picking like 5 movies in the english language.

 

i remember seeing 'ride the high country' a loooooong time ago on tv. don't remember much about it, but i did like it.

 

on the blaxploitation subject, has anyone seen 'sweet sweetback's baad asssss song'? i saw some clips of it in a class, & it seemed like the most repulsive thing ever, yet really stylish and cool.

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

'sweet sweetback's baad asssss song' is like my holy grail, but you can't find the damn thing anywhere. It's considered to be the first blaxsploitation movie ever and really graphic for the time.

 

I basically discounted newer films that I thought most had seen or could easily see flipping through the channels one day. I went for off the beaten track stuff and big time older films that you really do need to see. What gave me the idea to post this was thread was when MaxPower said he hadn't seen the Godfather in another thread and I just said, "wow, everyone should see that."

[Guest Ravenbomb]

Full Metal Jacket would be on the list exce- er...

 

...

 

sorry, I got distracted by Deacon's sig pic, what was I saying?

[Guest godthedog]

'sweet sweetback's baad asssss song' is like my holy grail, but you can't find the damn thing anywhere. It's considered to be the first blaxsploitation movie ever and really graphic for the time.

not even "for it's time," it's just really graphic, period. we saw the opening of it, & this 30-year-old prostitute is having sex with a 10-year-old boy (melvin van peebles's OWN SON too--he put his own 10-year-old son in a sex scene, which is just...so wrong on so many levels).

 

but what attracted me to it was this once scene of a police car getting blown up, i can't even describe how cool that editing was. so, now i need to see it. one of the professors here uses it in her ethnic cinema class, so i'll probably just sneak into it when it's shown in the fall.

[Guest razazteca]

Dolomite is a popular blaxsploitation movie, who can forget the quote "You rat soup eating Mutha Fuckas!"

[Guest El Satanico]

Dolemite rules...so much use of mutha fuckas had never been seen before.

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

Recently at Best Buy I saw the Rudy Ray Moore box set on DVD. That scared the hell out of me. It included Dolemite, Dolemite II: The Human Tornado, Petey Wheatstraw, aka the Devil's Son-in-Law, Rudy Ray Moore is Rude and like a more recent hip hop bash that Moore hosted.

 

Damn, I knew Sweetback was fucked up, but that's fucked up.

 

Samantha Fox has been my retro-babe for two weeks in a row now, but after finding a pick like that, I couldn't resist.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

on the blaxploitation subject, has anyone seen 'sweet sweetback's baad asssss song'? i saw some clips of it in a class, & it seemed like the most repulsive thing ever, yet really stylish and cool.

I was surprised when I was looking up info on Criterion's laserdiscs the other day, and found that this was one of their original titles. It was a good surprise, and along with their Raging Bull that you told me about, really makes me wish that licensing was easier in America (Xenon, just another company that puts out shitty, cheap releases of kung-fu and blaxploitation titles, owns the rights and has a $10, mucky transfer, feature-less edition of the landmark first blaxploitation film). I've never seen it, but I'm quite interested in it.

[Guest EsotericMaster]

Good List. I have seen a good 90 percent of those movies and I would have to agree. Some of them I have never even heard of.

[Guest godthedog]

well, GUESS WHO found a copy of 'sweet sweetback's baad asssss song' at one of the local video stores today.

 

i'll come back in a couple days with an assessment of it. if it's good enough, i'll devote a whole thread to it.