My 116 Favorite Films of All-Time IN ORDER (roughly)
What can I say? I love "favorites" lists [oh yeah: and I love movies too].....and I've wanted to do this one for awhile.
But it's hard to weight and compare movies of different genres, which each scratch a different itch. It's difficult to compare great movies that require a certain heavy emotional investment----the ones that shake you deeply, challenge your personal truths, and leave a permanent imprint on you.......and consequently you've only watched 1-3 times----to your easy-to-watch "guilty pleasure" movies that you've seen over and over. It's also perhaps sometimes difficult to distinguish between enjoyment/appreciation of a movie....and simple respect for a movie.
Well, I tried to come up with a system that sort of balances those considerations. It's still entirely subjective and arbitrary, but it at least helped me organize my thinking. What I did was I devised a point system with three separate categories; in descending order of value, those categories are:
1) QUALITY OF FILM - this one attempts to be an "objective" assessment of the overall quality of the movie (if there is such a thing as objectivity in art. Perhaps more accurate would be to say for that for this category I attempt to "view the film with as critical and discerning an eye as possible"). This includes everything from the writing, direction, acting, musical score and film editing.....but also the more technical aspects of production quality (cinematography, art direction, sound design, effects, etc). To some degree, the score in this category ties right into the 2nd category, as my enjoyment/appreciation of a movie is often closely tied to the quality of the production. The other reason I rated this category the most heavily weighted relates to how important movies are to me on a personal level: I don't feel I should laud movies that are merely "fun".......I simply need to look a little deeper. It's like who can be a suitable significant other for the long-term: it can't just be someone you have a good time with.....it needs to be someone you deeply respect and connect with on a more significant level.
I should also note that certain genres have a lower ceiling in this category; e.g. action flicks, raunchy comedies, romantic comedies, etc.......these types of stories will always be exceedingly formulaic; and while that's still entertaining, the characters may be a touch half-baked, the acting is rarely "Oscar-worthy", and they're typically not exactly breaking the bank on other production value. These movies generally aren't even TRYING to be great cinema.
2) PERSONAL APPEAL/ENJOYMENT/GENRE and/or "AFFECTED ME AS A PERSON" Score - This category [subjectively] attempts to assign a score to "how much I liked, appreciated, or was effected by" a movie. I realize that's a touch ambiguous, but I can't really define it better than that. To some degree it may simply reflect my affinity for a certain genre, too.
3) "RE-WATCHABILITY" - I think I've just invented a word there, but I suspect everyone gets the gist of this. Some movies are amazing and Earth-shaking.....but it's not the sort of stuff you can watch over and over. Other movies are scarcely above mediocre quality, and yet you're HAPPY to watch them over and over. In fact, I find it's sometimes the "fluff" pieces that I can watch ad nauseum, I think precisely BECAUSE they don't require a full emotional investment to watch and engage with......they're merely scratching a superficial itch. But still, a treasured guilty pleasure's gotta be worth something, right?
So I award a score in these three categories, add them up: total score determines the order......except where there were ties, at which point I would just go with my gut feel. Heck, even the category scores themselves are kinda "gut feel" (the operative word in the title might be "roughly").
Anyway, it's produced a rather random-seeming (I'd like to think eclectic :)) list, which nonetheless feels reasonably accurate to me. Oh, and btw, I made eligible mini series's as well as feature-length TV productions.
Stopping near 100 [at 110, for now] because it was also around this point that there were an ever-increasing number of tie scores, and movies are harder and harder to distinguish between (as far as which I like more). Just to name-drop a dozen or so honorable mentions that didn't quite make the cut (but were SOOOO close that I could easily see swapping one or two in at the end of the list on a given day).....
Magnolia
Once Upon a Time in the West
12 O'Clock High
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Letters from Iwo Jima
Interview With the Vampire
The Secret In Their Eyes (Argentina version)
Poltergeist
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Space Cowboys
Se7en
The Breakfast Club
Gran Torino
Tombstone
True Grit (Coen Bro's version)
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Crocodile Dundee
Citizen Kane
Warrior
Serenity
Dirty Dancing
Rainman
Dumb n' Dumber
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 2
But it's hard to weight and compare movies of different genres, which each scratch a different itch. It's difficult to compare great movies that require a certain heavy emotional investment----the ones that shake you deeply, challenge your personal truths, and leave a permanent imprint on you.......and consequently you've only watched 1-3 times----to your easy-to-watch "guilty pleasure" movies that you've seen over and over. It's also perhaps sometimes difficult to distinguish between enjoyment/appreciation of a movie....and simple respect for a movie.
Well, I tried to come up with a system that sort of balances those considerations. It's still entirely subjective and arbitrary, but it at least helped me organize my thinking. What I did was I devised a point system with three separate categories; in descending order of value, those categories are:
1) QUALITY OF FILM - this one attempts to be an "objective" assessment of the overall quality of the movie (if there is such a thing as objectivity in art. Perhaps more accurate would be to say for that for this category I attempt to "view the film with as critical and discerning an eye as possible"). This includes everything from the writing, direction, acting, musical score and film editing.....but also the more technical aspects of production quality (cinematography, art direction, sound design, effects, etc). To some degree, the score in this category ties right into the 2nd category, as my enjoyment/appreciation of a movie is often closely tied to the quality of the production. The other reason I rated this category the most heavily weighted relates to how important movies are to me on a personal level: I don't feel I should laud movies that are merely "fun".......I simply need to look a little deeper. It's like who can be a suitable significant other for the long-term: it can't just be someone you have a good time with.....it needs to be someone you deeply respect and connect with on a more significant level.
I should also note that certain genres have a lower ceiling in this category; e.g. action flicks, raunchy comedies, romantic comedies, etc.......these types of stories will always be exceedingly formulaic; and while that's still entertaining, the characters may be a touch half-baked, the acting is rarely "Oscar-worthy", and they're typically not exactly breaking the bank on other production value. These movies generally aren't even TRYING to be great cinema.
2) PERSONAL APPEAL/ENJOYMENT/GENRE and/or "AFFECTED ME AS A PERSON" Score - This category [subjectively] attempts to assign a score to "how much I liked, appreciated, or was effected by" a movie. I realize that's a touch ambiguous, but I can't really define it better than that. To some degree it may simply reflect my affinity for a certain genre, too.
3) "RE-WATCHABILITY" - I think I've just invented a word there, but I suspect everyone gets the gist of this. Some movies are amazing and Earth-shaking.....but it's not the sort of stuff you can watch over and over. Other movies are scarcely above mediocre quality, and yet you're HAPPY to watch them over and over. In fact, I find it's sometimes the "fluff" pieces that I can watch ad nauseum, I think precisely BECAUSE they don't require a full emotional investment to watch and engage with......they're merely scratching a superficial itch. But still, a treasured guilty pleasure's gotta be worth something, right?
So I award a score in these three categories, add them up: total score determines the order......except where there were ties, at which point I would just go with my gut feel. Heck, even the category scores themselves are kinda "gut feel" (the operative word in the title might be "roughly").
Anyway, it's produced a rather random-seeming (I'd like to think eclectic :)) list, which nonetheless feels reasonably accurate to me. Oh, and btw, I made eligible mini series's as well as feature-length TV productions.
Stopping near 100 [at 110, for now] because it was also around this point that there were an ever-increasing number of tie scores, and movies are harder and harder to distinguish between (as far as which I like more). Just to name-drop a dozen or so honorable mentions that didn't quite make the cut (but were SOOOO close that I could easily see swapping one or two in at the end of the list on a given day).....
Magnolia
Once Upon a Time in the West
12 O'Clock High
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Letters from Iwo Jima
Interview With the Vampire
The Secret In Their Eyes (Argentina version)
Poltergeist
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Space Cowboys
Se7en
The Breakfast Club
Gran Torino
Tombstone
True Grit (Coen Bro's version)
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Crocodile Dundee
Citizen Kane
Warrior
Serenity
Dirty Dancing
Rainman
Dumb n' Dumber
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 2
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