25 Milestone Movies or Franchises that changed Film and our Culture
by floyd-976-677785 | created - 19 Dec 2012 | updated - 03 Mar 2013 | PublicIf you disagree with the movies on this list please prove me wrong, but do so with respect.
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1. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
PG | 121 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a Wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the mysterious Darth Vader.
Director: George Lucas | Stars: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness
Votes: 1,450,219 | Gross: $322.74M
Made Space and Sciencefiction awesome and is one of the most followed and worshipped movie franchises in the history of cinema.
2. The Matrix (1999)
R | 136 min | Action, Sci-Fi
When a beautiful stranger leads computer hacker Neo to a forbidding underworld, he discovers the shocking truth--the life he knows is the elaborate deception of an evil cyber-intelligence.
Directors: Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski | Stars: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving
Votes: 2,054,295 | Gross: $171.48M
Revoltionised special effects (bullettime, slow motion, etc.) and made digital worlds and alternate realities popular story angles
3. The Godfather (1972)
R | 175 min | Crime, Drama
The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton
Votes: 2,013,564 | Gross: $134.97M
The movie that made Gangsters and no-gooddoers Romantic and Ideolisable. Of course also one of the most praised movies of all time.
4. Jaws (1975)
PG | 124 min | Adventure, Mystery, Thriller
When a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Cape Cod, it's up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary
Votes: 659,745 | Gross: $260.00M
Considered the first Blockbuster, Innovated with how suspense is created, started Steven Spielberg's career. this movie can be considered influential.
5. Pulp Fiction (1994)
R | 154 min | Crime, Drama
The lives of two mob hitmen, a boxer, a gangster and his wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.
Director: Quentin Tarantino | Stars: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis
Votes: 2,221,425 | Gross: $107.93M
Showed how cool movies with smart and funny dialogue could be and changed how time is used in telling a story (see also Reservoir Dogs)
6. Psycho (1960)
R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin
Votes: 718,607 | Gross: $32.00M
a Masterpiece of Suspense and completely changed how we look at film today, as Hitchcock ordered theaters to not allow latecommers in to see the movie and created the thought streaming of seeing a movie begin to end. There are to many reasons to include this film.
7. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Approved | 178 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
A bounty hunting scam joins two men in an uneasy alliance against a third in a race to find a fortune in gold buried in a remote cemetery.
Director: Sergio Leone | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef, Aldo Giuffrè
Votes: 811,569 | Gross: $6.10M
magnum opus of westerns (whole trilogy) that made cowboys from filthy cowherders to badass heroes of the old west. also showed how a great musical score can multiply the whole movie experience.
8. Dracula (1931)
Passed | 75 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Transylvanian vampire Count Dracula bends a naive real estate agent to his will, then takes up residence at a London estate where he sleeps in his coffin by day and searches for potential victims by night.
Directors: Tod Browning, Karl Freund | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight Frye
Votes: 58,654
Without Dracula the term "monster movie" would probably only be used to describe "Adam Sandler" flicks.
9. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
R | 81 min | Horror, Mystery
Three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind.
Directors: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez | Stars: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, Joshua Leonard, Bob Griffin
Votes: 285,717 | Gross: $140.54M
Popularised the "Found Footage" movies and showed that you don't need big bucks to make big bucks.
10. King Kong (1933)
Passed | 100 min | Adventure, Horror
A film crew goes to a tropical island for a location shoot, where they capture a colossal ape who takes a shine to their blonde starlet, and bring him back to New York City.
Directors: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack | Stars: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot, Frank Reicher
Votes: 91,002 | Gross: $10.00M
Amazingly Creative uses of practical effects and made King Kong a household name.
11. Avatar (2009)
PG-13 | 162 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
A paraplegic Marine dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission becomes torn between following his orders and protecting the world he feels is his home.
Director: James Cameron | Stars: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez
Votes: 1,386,886 | Gross: $760.51M
Short on story, High on graphical effects. Showed how good CGI can be and made 3D a popular new way to experience movies.
12. Twilight (I) (2008)
PG-13 | 122 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
When Bella Swan moves to a small town in the Pacific Northwest, she falls in love with Edward Cullen, a mysterious classmate who reveals himself to be a 108-year-old vampire.
Director: Catherine Hardwicke | Stars: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Sarah Clarke
Votes: 487,743 | Gross: $192.77M
Hate to put both Twilight and The Godfather in the same list but it certainly changed how we market to the youth, Popularised Paranormal Romance movies and literature and showed how much money you can make by showing shirtless boys.
13. Transformers (2007)
PG-13 | 144 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
An ancient struggle between two Cybertronian races, the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons, comes to Earth, with a clue to the ultimate power held by a teenager.
Director: Michael Bay | Stars: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson
Votes: 675,057 | Gross: $319.25M
the first movie that comes to mind when you say "big dumb action movie". Like it or not it showed that racist and stupid characters, and big CGI robots can put asses in the movie seats.
14. Casablanca (1942)
PG | 102 min | Drama, Romance, War
A cynical expatriate American cafe owner struggles to decide whether or not to help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape the Nazis in French Morocco.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
Votes: 606,225 | Gross: $1.02M
Defines how we see classic movies and brought some gut and cynism in Hollywood. Probalby one of the most quoted movie of all time.
15. Dr. No (1962)
PG | 110 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
A resourceful British government agent seeks answers in a case involving the disappearance of a colleague and the disruption of the American space program.
Director: Terence Young | Stars: Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Bernard Lee, Joseph Wiseman
Votes: 179,464 | Gross: $16.07M
First instalment of one of the biggest franchises of all time and introduced one of the most iconic figures of all time, made Spy movies a thing.
16. Ben-Hur (1959)
G | 212 min | Adventure, Drama
After a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend in 1st-century Jerusalem, he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Stephen Boyd, Haya Harareet
Votes: 253,741 | Gross: $74.70M
Most expensive movie of the time and truly considered of having the most thrilling scene of all time.
17. Halloween (1978)
R | 91 min | Horror, Thriller
Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tony Moran, Nancy Kyes
Votes: 306,907 | Gross: $47.00M
Brought the Slasher genre to life, as well as being it's high point. without halloween there would be no Jason Voorhees or Freddy Kreuger
18. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Approved | 83 min | Animation, Adventure, Family
Exiled into the dangerous forest by her wicked stepmother, a princess is rescued by seven dwarf miners who make her part of their household.
Directors: William Cottrell, David Hand, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Ben Sharpsteen | Stars: Adriana Caselotti, Harry Stockwell, Lucille La Verne, Roy Atwell
Votes: 215,539 | Gross: $184.93M
No snowwhite would mean no Disney, so enough said.... Also the first animated feature-length motion picture.
19. Toy Story (1995)
G | 81 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy
A cowboy doll is profoundly threatened and jealous when a new spaceman action figure supplants him as top toy in a boy's bedroom.
Director: John Lasseter | Stars: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Jim Varney
Votes: 1,069,028 | Gross: $191.80M
Computer Animated movies are hard to think out of cinema of today and this is the movie that started it all.
20. Rocky (1976)
PG | 120 min | Drama, Sport
A small-time Philadelphia boxer gets a supremely rare chance to fight the world heavyweight champion in a bout in which he strives to go the distance for his self-respect.
Director: John G. Avildsen | Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers
Votes: 628,692 | Gross: $117.24M
"THE" underdog and sports story, so many movies like this are made maybe with slight variations in the sport but this is the original.
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