top movies of all time

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been working on a Top 100 Movies of All Time (Prior to 2010) list. But I've been stuck for weeks trying to fill out the last thirty slots or so. Ultimately, I decided I just haven't seen 100 movies I can call bona fide classics. So I’ve decided it makes more sense to drop the arbitrary 100 number and simply stop when I cannot say for sure the rest are classics.

While there are certainly more than 100 movies I love (I own 107 movies on VHS, DVD and/or Blu-ray), I readily admit many are not classics. How then, do I separate the favorites from the true classics - and for that matter the classics that still deserve a place in a Top 100 list from those that have aged excessively?

Simple: I only include movies I've seen more than once.

Quite often my appraisal of a movie drastically changes upon rewatching it. In most cases, this is a result of my emotional state/stuff going on in my life/how many bad movies I’d seen recently at the first screening. For instance, I loved Jules et Jim, La Strada, and Les enfants du paradis the first time I watched them, feeling they transcended the postured nonsense of typical European arthouse cinema. Nevertheless, upon recently seeing them again, I found all three pretentious yet inconsequential. All of them dropped off the list.

Conversely, I recently watched Memento again (I had last seen it almost a decade ago) and it still felt surprisingly fresh. I tentatively take back my earlier prediction that it will not be a classic and have included it in the list. Is it in the innermost circle of my favorites? No. Is it a innovative, fully-realized piece of thought-provoking art? Yes.

Ultimately, whether or not a movie makes the list is a judgment call, and the list itself speaks more clearly about my movie preferences than any description of it. So without further ado:

My Top Movies of All Time (released before 2010)

1. Casablanca
   released 1942
   directed by Michael Curtiz
   starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman


2. The Godfather: Part II
   released 1974
   directed by Francis Ford Coppola
   starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton


3. The Godfather
   released 1972
   directed by Francis Ford Coppola
   starring Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton


4. The Shop Around the Corner
   released 1940
   directed by Ernst Lubitsch
   starring James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan


5. It’s a Wonderful Life
   released 1946
   directed by Frank Capra
   starring James Stewart, Donna Reed


6. Trouble in Paradise
   released 1932
   directed by Ernst Lubitsch
   starring Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall


7. Amélie (Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain)
   released 2001
   directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
   starring Audrey Tautou


8. Strictly Ballroom
   released 1992
   directed by Baz Luhrman


9. The Professional (Léon)
   released 1994
   directed by Luc Besson
   starring Jean Reno, Natalie Portman


10. National Velvet
    released 1944
    directed by Clarence Brown
    starring Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney


11. Amadeus
    released 1984
    directed by Milos Forman
    starring F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce


12. The Matrix
    released 1999
    directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski
    starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss


13. Roman Holiday
    released 1953
    directed by
    starring Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck


14. To Be or Not to Be
    released 1942
    directed by Ernst Lubitsch
    starring Carole Lombard, Jack Benny


15. Apocalypse Now
    released 1979
    directed by Francis Ford Coppola
    starring Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando


16. Pulp Fiction
    released 1994
    directed by Quentin Tarantino
    starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis


17. Gladiator
    released 2000
    directed by Ridley Scott
    starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix


18. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
    released 2004
    directed by Michel Gondry
    starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet


19. Gigi
    released 1958
    directed by Vincente Minnelli
    starring Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan


20. The Shawshank Redemption
    released 1994
    directed by Frank Darabont
    starring Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman


21. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo)
    released 1966
    directed by Sergio Leone
    starring Clint Eastwood


22. The City of Lost Children (La Cité des enfants perdus)
    released 1994
    directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
    starring Ron Perlman


23. Cinema Paradiso (Nuovo Cinema Paradiso)
    released 1988
    directed by Giuseppe Tornatore


24. Raising Arizona
    released 1987
    directed by Joel Coen
    starring Nicholas Cage, Holly Hunter


25. The Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai)
    released 1954
    directed by Akira Kurosawa
    starring Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune


26. Vertigo
    released 1957
    directed by Alfred Hitchcock
    starring James Stewart, Kim Novak


27. Groundhog Day
    released 1993
    directed by Harold Ramis
    starring Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell


28. When Harry Met Sally...
    released 1989
    directed by Rob Reiner
    starring Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan


29. Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no haka)
    released 1988
    directed by Isao Takahata


30. Judgment at Nuremberg
    released 1961
    starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift


31. Jerry Maguire
    released 1996
    directed by Cameron Crowe
    starring Tom Cruise, Renee Zellweger, Cuba Gooding, Jr.


32. Singin' in the Rain
    released 1952
    directed by Stanley Donen
    starring Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds


33. How Green Was My Valley
    released 1941
    directed by John Ford
    starring Roddy McDowall, Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara


34. Saving Private Ryan
    released 1998
    directed by Steven Spielberg
    starring Tom Hanks, Matt Damon


35. The Lady Eve
    released 1941
    directed by Preston Sturges
    starring Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda


36. The Philadelphia Story
    released 1940
    directed by George Cukor
    starring Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart


37. In a Lonely Place
    released 1950
    directed by Nicholas Ray
    starring Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame


38. It Happened One Night
    released 1934
    directed by Frank Capra
    starring Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert


39. The Silence of the Lambs
    released 1991
    directed by Jonathan Demme
    starring Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins


40. To Catch a Thief
    released 1955
    directed by Alfred Hitchcock
    starring Cary Grant, Grace Kelly


41. Whisper of the Heart (Mimi wo sumaseba)
    released 1995
    directed by Yoshifumi Kondo


42. All About Eve
    released 1950
    directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
    starring Bette Davis


43. To Kill a Mockingbird
    released 1962
    directed by Robert Mulligan
    starring Gregory Peck


44. Fight Club
    released 1999
    directed by David Fincher
    starring Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter


45. The Sound of Music
    released 1965
    directed by Robert Wise
    starring Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer


46. West Side Story
    released 1961
    directed by Robert Wise
    starring Natalie Wood


47. The Apartment
    released 1960
    directed by Billy Wilder
    starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine


48. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
    released 1947
    directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
    starring Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison


49. Das Boot
    released 1981
    directed by Wolfgang Petersen
    starring Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer


50. The Shining
    released 1980
    directed by Stanley Kubrick
    starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall


51. The Lion in Winter
    released 1968
    directed by Anthony Harvey
    starring Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn


52. The Night of the Hunter
    released 1955
    directed by Charles Laughton
    starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish


53. Empire of the Sun
    released 1987
    directed by Steven Spielberg
    starring Christian Bale


54. Rio Bravo
    released 1959
    directed by Howard Hawks
    starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson


55. Memento
    released 2000
    directed by Christopher Nolan
    starring Guy Pearce


56. Platoon
    released 1996
    directed by Oliver Stone
    starring Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe


57. Paris, Texas
    released 1984
    directed by Wim Wenders
    starring Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell, Nastassja Kinksi


58. Brazil
    released 1985
    directed by Terry Gilliam
    starring Jonathan Pryce


59. Advise & Consent
    released 1962
    directed by Otto Preminger
    starring Walter Pidgeon, Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Franchot Tone


60. Superbad
    released 2007
    directed by Greg Mottola
    starring Jonah Hill, Michael Cera


61. Swingers
    released 1996
    directed by Doug Liman
    starring Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn


62. Kiki's Delivery Service (Majo no takkyubin)
    released 1989
    directed by Hayao Miyazaki


63. His Girl Friday
    released 1940
    directed by Howard Hawks
    starring Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell


64. Gone with the Wind
    released 1939
    directed by Victor Fleming
    starring Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable


65. A Clockwork Orange
    released 1971
    directed by Stanley Kubrick
    starring Malcom McDowell


66. Fanny och Alexander
    released 1982
    directed by Ingmar Bergman


67. Tokyo Story (Tokyo monogatari)
    released 1953
    directed by Yasujiro Ozu
    starring Chishu Ryu, Setsuko Hara


68. Beauty and the Beast
    released 1991
    directed by Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise


69. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
    released 1985
    directed by George Miller
    starring Mel Gibson, Tina Turner


70. The Wizard of Oz
    relased 1939
    directed by Victor Fleming
    starring Judy Garland


71. Dark Victory
    released 1939
    directed by Edmund Goulding
    starring Bette Davis

Potential additions pending a second screening

• Million Dollar Baby


• Talk to Her (Hable con ella)


• I Heart Huckabees


• Pather Panchali


• Aparajito


• Apur Sansar


• La haine


• All About My Mother (Todo sobre mi madre)


• You Can Count On Me


• Breaking the Waves


• Yi Yi


• Hiroshima mon amour


• They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?


• The Tender Trap


• My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari no totoro)


• Tampopo


• Revolutionary Road