The Princess Bride: I’m sure this one needs no description. The book, of course, is even better.
Tales of Manhattan: A wonderful b&w movie, sadly not on DVD. It’s a bunch of little life-affirming mini-stories following a tailcoat as it changes of the life of everyone it touches. You will laugh, you will cry, you will feel joyous. My favorite is the Charles Laughton one. Unfortunately the last one kind of sucks in its stereotypical 1940s Hollywood way; Paul Robeson is sorely used.
Captain Blood: A wonderful Errol Flynn piece, romance, sword fights, pirates, cunning, and a hilarious ending. Ah, the book is better, but the movie is also wonderful.
When Harry Met Sally: Like flan. (In a good way)
The Silence of the Lambs. For someone who’s not into horror/suspense, I’ve watched this a surprising number of times. Great movie.
Secretary: Amazing acting and psychological maneuvering from Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader. I appreciate it even more now that I’ve watched the director’s commentary.
Say Anything’s pretty good, too. Buckaroo Banzai. Charade. The Wedding Singer. This is not a comprehensive list.
(Note: #1 only likes the happy movies from the above, but does not include Say Anything which she found painfully boring, though she likes John Cusack more generally, especially when teamed up with John Hughes.)
What are your favorite movies?
May 27, 2011 at 6:51 am
I was not enthralled with Say Anything, but loved Better Off Dead.
Here is a list of some of my faves:
Shawshank Redemption
Field of Dreams
Forrest Gump
Memento
Rear Window
Slingblade
Naked Gun
Airplane
Election
May 27, 2011 at 6:54 am
Better Off Dead is hilarious!
May 29, 2011 at 2:00 pm
… hilariously WEIRD. (says #2)
May 27, 2011 at 7:25 am
Princess Bride – amen.
Last of the Mohicans
Shawshank Redemption
Green Mile
Philadelphia Story
Gladiator
Serenity
While You Were Sleeping
….
I’m drawing a blank now. There are a ton that are my “go to” movies when I need a relaxing no-stress movie night.
May 27, 2011 at 7:25 am
Some like it hot
His Girl Friday
To have or have not
The Night Hunter
The 400 Blows, by Truffaut (I was once accused by an ignorant, religious roommate of keeping pornography in the apartment we shared because I had a copy of it in the living room. It was a bizarrre situation)
Stolen Kisses, by Truffaut also
Day of the Beast, by Alex de la Iglesia
Wedding Crashers
and 50 more….
May 27, 2011 at 7:34 am
The 1930s were truly a golden age of movie-making. Especially 1938/1939.
May 27, 2011 at 8:48 am
There are many good movies listed here already!
I guess I love productions that come across as sweeping spectacles or mythic stories, because when I look at my small collection of DVDs I see things like Gone with the Wind and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. (In the latter, I love that scene where the girl defeats all those swordsmen in the teahouse and is shouting that she is a goddess! You go, girl!)
I’ll also add a movie that was very prescient to my list: Network.
May 29, 2011 at 2:01 pm
Ooh, I liked CTHD too.
May 27, 2011 at 8:56 am
Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “La double vie de Véronique” and “Trois coleurs”
May 27, 2011 at 8:57 am
and “Raise the Red Lantern” (but the DVD screwed up the subtitles)
May 27, 2011 at 9:50 am
I have just a couple I’d like to mention:
Beetlejuice, Delicatessen, Out of Africa, Dawn of the Dead (2004), Four Weddings and a Funeral, District 9, The Graduate, A Streetcar Named Desire, Hope and Glory, Apocalypse Now, The Fugitive, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Citizen Kane, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Dr. Strangelove, Major League, Dead Poets Society, The Red White & Blue Trilogy, Munich, In The Bedroom, The Firm, The Goonies, Zombieland, Inglourious Basterds, 12 Angry Men, My Blue Heaven, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Trek (2009), The Silence of the Lambs, Suddenly Last Summer, The Shining, The Conversation, The Skeleton Key, Elizabeth, Monsoon Wedding, Gone With the Wind, Cache, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Fire Walk With Me, Rosemary’s Baby, Shag: The Movie, The Godfather Part II, Wimbledon, The City of Lost Children, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Before Sunrise, Clerks, Clerks 2, The Exorcist, Imitation of Life, Pulp Fiction, The Year Without a Santa Claus, Do The Right Thing, Dracula (1979), The Quick and the Dead, Raising Arizona, Scary Movie, To Kill A Mockingbird, Clue, Dangerous Liaisons, The Ring, American Psycho, Independence Day, Murder by Death, Lost in Translation, The Sixth Sense, Up, Amelie, The Big Chill, and The Talented Mr. Ripley.
May 29, 2011 at 2:01 pm
I agree with some of them (a “couple” even). We could have a movie-fest together!
May 27, 2011 at 12:31 pm
I can’t believe no one has mentioned Joe vs. the Volcano or Stranger than Fiction.
My other favorites are The Fisher King, The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz, When Harry Met Sally, Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle.
May 29, 2011 at 2:02 pm
I should re-watch Spirited Away. I’m sure I’d get more out of it a second time.
May 29, 2011 at 2:15 pm
I have and did. Also interesting to see in both Japanese w/ subtitles and in English dub.
May 27, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally are classics. Also:
Swingers
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
The American President
The Big Chill
Sideways
Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood (yeah, I know, but I am from the South)
Marley and Me (really, I’m a sucker for any good dog movie, and Owen Wilson)
I’m sure there’s more…
May 29, 2011 at 2:02 pm
I wasn’t that in to Sideways. Oooh, The American President — good pull!
May 30, 2011 at 7:22 pm
I’ll never get the vision out of my head of the naked guy running down the street toward the end of the movie. Other than that, Hubby and I thoroughly enjoyed it. :)
May 27, 2011 at 2:09 pm
Big Fish, Moulin Rouge, Across the Universe, 500 Days of Summer, Scott Pilgrim v the World, Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, Stranger than fiction, Half-baked, Monty Python & the Holy Grail, Nightmare before Christmas, Coraline, Edward Scissorhands, Hackers, Iron Man, X-Men, V for Vendetta, Monsters Inc., Princess Mononoke, Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Spirited Away, Devil wears Prada, Fast & the Furious, Gone in 60 seconds, Quills, Fantasia, Alice in Wonderland, The Hangover, Elf, Anchorman, Step Brothers, Wedding Crashers, Role Models, Superbad, Old School, Zoolander…
ok i’m tired now. :P I don’t watch a lot of movies but I can watch the ones I love a million times.
May 27, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Zoolander! How did I forget that one? One of the best movies of our time. :)
May 27, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Every time someone else posts I think “Oh yeah, THAT one … and that one! And that one, too!”
The Coen Bros. entire oeuvre, Eternal Sunshine, Moulin Rouge, The Empire Strikes Back. Any of the 1930s screwball comedies. A Christmas Story.
May 27, 2011 at 6:22 pm
Oh yeah, Eternal Sunshine and The Empire Strikes Back. Also, Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
May 27, 2011 at 6:40 pm
neeeeeeeeeeeeee!
May 27, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Oh I forgot – Elf!!! I know it’s a Christmas movie, but I can watch it ANY time of year!!
May 27, 2011 at 4:17 pm
STRIPES
Caddyshack
Animal House
Spinal Tap
Best In Show
May 27, 2011 at 8:29 pm
Somehow not surprised!
May 27, 2011 at 7:35 pm
Charade is my favorite move of all time. The original, with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. I think there was a remake recently, but I never saw that.
May 27, 2011 at 8:19 pm
That is a fun movie!
May 27, 2011 at 8:32 pm
With rare exceptions, I don’t rewatch movies. So over time I have mostly forgotten what I liked about these, but Grosse Pointe Blank, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Noises Off! all come to mind.
May 27, 2011 at 8:33 pm
All excellent movies.
May 28, 2011 at 10:08 am
Picnic, made in the mid 1950s, with William Holden and Kim Novak, always draws me in when it is on TCM. It is such a great depiction of life in that era, and also so delightfully cheesy!
Enchanted April, Babette’s Feast, and The Insider are a few I love to watch.