101 movies

The other day Chris challenged me to list my 100 favorite movies. Not to be outdone, I did my 101 favorite movies. Please bear in mind that these are just personal favorites, not what I consider to be the best 101 movies ever made. This was tough because I'm almost positive I left out about ten movies that I just didn't remember, and of course the list could change as soon as I go see another movie. But for now, enjoy.



rank. movie / year / director
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1. The Royal Tenenbaums / 2001 / Wes Anderson

2. 12 Angry Men / 1957 / Sidney Lumet

3. The Shawshank Redemption / 1994 / Frank Darabont

4. L.A. Confidential / 1997 / Curtis Hanson

5. House Of Flying Daggers / 2004 / Yimou Zhang

6. Dumb and Dumber / 1994 / Peter Farrelly

7. The Sting / 1973 / George Roy Hill

8. Be Kind, Rewind / 2008 / Michel Gondry

9. Rushmore / 1998 / Wes Anderson

10. No Country for Old Men / 2007 / Ethan Coen Joel Coen

11. Hoop Dreams / 1994 / Steve James

12. Lion King / 1994 / Roger Allers Rob Minkoff

13. Cool Hand Luke / 1967 / Stuart Rosenberg

14. Unforgiven / 1994 / Clint Eastwood

15. Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid / 1969 / George Roy Hill

16. Rocky / 1976 / John G. Avildsen

17. Cool Runnings / 1993 / Jon Turteltaub

18. White Men Can't Jump / 1992 / Ron Shelton

19. Rear Window / 1954 / Alfred Hitchcock

20. The Usual Suspects / 1994 / Bryan Singer

21. The Fellowship of the Ring / 2001 / Peter Jackson

22. Die Hard / 1988 / John McTiernan

23. Field Of Dreams / 1989 / Phil Alden Robinson

24. Big / 1988 / Penny Marshall

25. To Kill a Mockingbird / 1962 / Robert Mulligan

26. A Few Good Men / 1992 / Rob Reiner

27. The Virgin Suicides / 1999 / Sofia Coppola

28. Pulp Fiction / 1994 / Quentin Tarantino

29. When Harry Met Sally... / 1989 / Rob Reiner

30. Casablanca / 1942 / Michael Curtiz

31. The Wrestler / 2008 / Darren Aronofsky

32. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest / 1975 / Milos Forman

33. The Dark Knight / 2008 / Christopher Nolan

34. Slumdog Millionaire / 2008 / Danny Boyle Loveleen Tandan

35. High Fidelity / 2000 / Stephen Frears

36. Street Fighter II The Animated Movie / 1994 / Gisaburo Sugii

37. Fight Club / 1999 / David Fincher

38. Memento / 2000 / Christopher Nolan

39. Sneakers / 1992 / Phil Alden Robinson

40. The Hustler / 1961 / Robert Rossen

41. The Matrix / 1999 / Andy Wachowski Larry Wachowski

42. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button / 2008 / David Fincher

43. Gladiator / 2000 / Ridley Scott

44. American History X / 1998 / Tony Kaye

45. The Lives Of Others / 2006 / Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

46. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind / 2004 / Michel Gondry

47. Se7en / 1995 / David Fincher

48. There Will Be Blood / 2007 / Paul Thomas Anderson

49. Full Metal Jacket / 1987 / Stanley Kubrick

50. Sin City / 2005 / Frank Miller Robert Rodriguez

51. Inherit The Wind / 1960 / Stanley Kramer

52. Braveheart / 1995 / Mel Gibson

53. Annie Hall / 1977 / Woody Allen

54. Into The Wild / 2007 / Sean Penn

55. City Of God / 2002 / Fernando Meirelles Kátia Lund

56. The Bourne Ultimatum / 2007 / Paul Greengrass

57. Sleepy Hollow / 1999 / Tim Burton

58. Back to the Future / 1985 / Robert Zemeckis

59. Snatch. / 2000 / Guy Ritchie

60. Remember The Titans / 2000 / Boaz Yakin

61. Dog Day Afternoon / 1975 / Sidney Lumet

62. V for Vendetta / 2005 / James McTeigue

63. Twelve Monkeys / 1995 / Terry Gilliam

64. Little Miss Sunshine / 2006 / Jonathan Dayton Valerie Faris

65. Good Will Hunting / 1997 / Gus Van Sant

66. The Darjeeling Limited / 2007 / Wes Anderson

67. My Cousin Vinny / 1992 / Jonathan Lynn

68. It's a Wonderful Life / 1946 / Frank Capra

69. The Sandlot / 1993 / David M. Evans

70. Oceans Eleven / 2001 / Steven Soderbergh

71. The Princess Bride / 1987 / Rob Reiner

72. Rambo: First Blood / 1982 / Ted Kotcheff

73. Rocky IV / 1985 / Sylvester Stalone

74. Hoosiers / 1986 / David Anspaugh

75. Mission Impossible / 1996 / Brian De Palma

76. Mighty Ducks / 1992 / Stephen Herek

77. El Mariachi / 1992 / Robert Rodriguez

78. Sleepers / 1996 / Barry Levinson

79. Training Day / 2001 / Antoine Fuqua

80. The Hurricane / 1999 / Norman Jewison

81. Il Postino / 1994 / Michael Radford

82. Casino Royale / 2006 / Martin Campbell

83. 8 Mile / 2002 / Curtis Hanson

84. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? / 1988 / Robert Zemeckis

85. Desperado / 1995 / Robert Rodriguez

86. Finding Neverland / 2004 / Marc Forster

87. Rounders / 1998 / John Dahl

88. The Rainmaker / 1997 / Francis Ford Cappola

89. A Streetcar Named Desire / 1951 / Elia Kazan

90. The Karate Kid / 1984 / John G. Avildsen

91. Dances With Wolves / 1990 / Kevin Costner

92. The Visitor / 2007 / Thomas McCarthy

93. Moulin Rouge! / 2001 / Baz Luhrmann

94. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective / 1994 / Tom Shadyac

95. Better Off Dead / 1985 / Savage Steve Holland

96. A Beautiful Mind / 2001 / Ron Howard

97. Helvetica / 2007 / Gary Hustwit

98. Ray / 2004 / Taylor Hackford

99. Blazing Saddles / 1974 / Mel Brooks

100. Waiting For Guffman / 1996 / Christopher Guest

101. Rocky Balboa / 2006 / Sylvester Stallone

-You a Yankee fan?

-No, Baltimore.
-Baltimore? That's like being hit in the head with a crow bar once a day.

How true, how true. I'm really not a Yankee or Baltimore fan though.One thing you may not know about me yet is that I am a big fan of old classic movies. So for your reading pleasure I thought I would highlight some of my favorites.

7. Broken Arrow (1950)

"Tom Jeffords tries to make peace between settlers and Apaches."
This may not be the greatest piece of filmmaking, acting, or script, but it was still entertaining, had great cinematography, and the social implications were fairly groundbreaking. Jimmy Stewart plays a scout who seeks to heal the divisions between the Apaches and white men and this movie was the first movie to portray the Native American Indian as a person of quality, esteem, and as fully human. The most interesting part of the movie isn't really the interracial (forbidden) relationship between Stewart and a Indian woman, but between him and Cochise, the chief, and the complexity of the characters as they struggle to understand and trust the different cultures.

6.Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)

"Longfellow Deeds, a simple-hearted Vermont tuba player, inherits a fortune and has to contend with opportunist city slickers." Gary Cooper is great, the story is fun, it's better than the Adam Sandler version, but the main reason I'm listing it is because this movie literally invents the word "Doodle." And I love to doodle.

5. Citizen Kane (1941)

"Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance."
Okay this one is kind of obvious I guess because in 1997 and again in 2007 it was ranked the greatest movie of all time. I think that rating hurt the movie because people watched it with such high expectations and all they got was a seemingly basic, somewhat boring movie. I started off in the same boat; it wasn't until I watched a documentary on the movie that I really grew to appreciate the movie and it's innovation. Some of the more notable things are its use of "deep focus," it's one of the first films to use that where both the foreground and background are both in sharp focus. Another thing was the low angle shots (Welles actually dug holes in the ground to get the camera at ground level), special effects make-up, story-telling techniques, et cetera, et cetera... all things that movies use all the time today that had never been done before (like it was the first movie to start with the end and tell the story through flashbacks). So even if you don't love the movie, there's a lot to appreciate about it.

4. Inherit The Wind (1960)

"Based on a real-life case in 1925, two great lawyers argue the case for and against a science teacher accused of the crime of teaching evolution."
I just watched this last night and I have to say I was supremely entertained. This is a fictional movie based on the famous Scopes monkey trial. True, it portrays fundamentalist Christians in a pretty ridiculous light, but I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't too far off. The main story of the movie was the importance or our freedom to think, which I definitely agree with. Spencer Tracy gives a superb performance as the defending attorney which is in itself worthy of putting the movie on the list. It criticizes willful ignorance and bigotry, and puts backwards country anachronisms back in the past where they belong.

3. Rear Window (1954)

"A wheelchair bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder."
Of the Alfred Hitchcock/Jimmy Stewart combos, this one is my fave! Plus Grace Kelly is a babe. It gets my famous three I's rating: Interesting, Intense, and Intriguing. Hitchcock draws the viewer in with this voyeuristic film: you spend the majority of the movie feeling like you're spying on the neighbors, seeing things you aren't supposed to see. Which is somewhat an examination of us as people. Why are we so obsessed with what we're not supposed to see (Myspace anyone?)? But of course it's also a thrilling mystery/crime flick. A great classic!

2. Casablanca (1942)

"Classic film set in unoccupied Africa during the early days of World War II: An American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications."
I hope that most of you have seen this movie already but if you haven't do yourself a favor and watch it. This movie is hard to categorize, which is part of its brilliance. It successfully combines romance, drama, terror, murder, character study, comedy and tragedy. The dialogue is unbeatable and perfectly delivered making it perhaps the most quotable movie ever. The performances by and chemistry between the main characters (Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman) are fantastic and the supporting cast is just as good, if not show-stealing. But more than all of that, the true beauty of this film is the inspiration or redemption that it offers to each viewer. "On some level, every character in the story receives the same kind of catharsis and their lives are irrevocably changed. Rick's is the most obvious in that he learns to live again, instead of hiding from a lost love." It might sound kind of corny but it really is good and the movie is definitely very re-watchable as there tons of subtle nuances to pick up each time you see it.

1. 12 Angry Men (1957)

"A dissenting juror in a murder trial slowly manages to convince the others that the case is not as obviously clear as it seemed in court."
This is one of my all-time favorite movies. It's simple but great. This is a courtroom drama with a twist, instead of following the actual trial you get to watch behind closed doors and follow the jury as they decide on the fate of the accused. In fact 99% of this movie takes place in one room, but a superb cast and excellent acting (led by Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb) make this film both exceedingly entertaining and rewarding. One of my favorite directors, Sidney Lumet, takes this film with just 12 people sitting in a room and turns it into an edge-of-your-seat masterpiece. Also the character development in the movie is ridiculous, considering it develops 12 believable, memorable and distinct characters. This sums up everything I love about film. Everything from a technical point of view to superb acting and a simple yet complex character driven story. It draws you in from the start and doesn't let you go until the end. A++++

some great reads

So I was talking to my friend Claire the other day about books and recommendations and how it is sometimes nice to get and give recommendations on books... which got me thinking. Sometimes it can be hard to know if a book is worth reading and sometimes you don't know what you should read next. And since no one cares about Oprah and her dumb book club, I thought perhaps I would let you know about some books that I would recommend to just about anyone. Move over Oprah.

6. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
This is principally a science-fiction/anti-war satire, but I think it is more than that. It explores the ideas of "fate, free-will, and the illogical nature of humans." This book is both funny and sad, leaving us with the notion not to let our free-will go to waste. War shouldn't be inevitable. The book is centered around the Dresden bombings in Germany and is semi-autobiographical as Vonnegut did actually experience the bombing. (though I doubt he ever knew anyone who got "unstuck in time" and visited other planets) Anyhow the book is a quick read, very entertaining, and gives you a lot to think about.

"Billy and the rest wandered out onto the shady street. The trees were leafing out. There was nothing going on out there, no traffic of any kind. There was only one vehicle, an abandoned wagon drawn by two horses. The wagon was green and coffin shaped. Birds were talking. One bird said to Billy Pilgrim. 'Poo-tee-weet'?"

5. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
This is a classic children's story that I love for the illustrations (by Silverstein) almost as much as the story. I am always surprised when I find that there are people who have never read it, so for that reason I had to put it on the list. It's a (somewhat controversial) story about a loving relationship between a tree and a boy. It's a story of selflessness, sacrifice, unconditional love, and growing up. If you're ever feeling nostalgic and want to read a book that you should have read as a kid... pick it up!

4. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
This book was written right before the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s, and chronicles "the travels of its narrator, a young, nameless black man, as he moves through the hellish levels of American intolerance and cultural blindness." It is about race, identity, life in America, and most importantly the search for truth. I read this in high school and it has stuck with me ever since. It's a powerful story, insightful, and quite captivating. It's one of those books that you will be pondering for a while.

"I am an invisible man. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination--indeed, everything and anything except me."

3. Mere Christianity by CS Lewis
This book has been the most influential book as far as my faith is concerned (not counting the Bible). I love almost all books by CS Lewis but this one is my favorite. He is so smart, thoughtful, eloquent, and often brutally honest. Mere Christianity takes a logical look at Christianity and provides a kind of Christian common ground for anyone from atheists to theologians. It takes a profound and compelling look at what makes Christianity what it is and I guarantee you will have a new respect for Lewis' intellect. He has an amazing ability to depict complex themes and major elements of Christian thought in simple and accessible terms. The book was originally a series of lectures he gave in the 1940's, so it is also a great book on tape since it was originally meant to be heard instead of read.

"All that we call human history--money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery--[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy."

2. The Catcher In The Rye by JD Salinger
This is one of my favorite all time books. This follows a couple days in the life of 16 year old Holden Caulfield as he deals with all his frustrations from everything from phonies to teachers to graffiti. While this book is typically considered an insightful examination of teenage alienation, I think it can be appreciated at many different levels. You certainly don't need to be a teenager to appreciate the themes of alienation and needing someone to "catch" you. It's a fresh and unique look at America, relationships, death, and loneliness. And like any good book there is a good dose of teenage profanity, smoking, drinking and sexuality, and written in a slang that still sounds edgy today. It's the most banned book of all time but also one of the most taught books of all time so clearly it's pretty polarizing, but very good and rewarding, and definitely a great read. (As long as you like the main character)

"I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible."

1. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
My favorite book! It's so funny, I've never laughed out loud more than I have during this book. The main character, Ignatius, is so absurdly ridiculous, egotistical, and cynical he causes a riot every time he's in a scene. The book follows his quest to get a job, end war, and deal with all the people in his life, especially his mother and ex-girlfriend. If your sense of humor is anything like mine this book is a gold mine of laughs. When I start reading this book I can't really put it down until I finish it.

"I could only imagine how many haggard and depraved eyes were regarding me hungrily from behind the closed shutters; I tried not to think about it. Already I was beginning to feel like an especially toothsome steak in a meat market. However, no one called enticingly from the shutters; those devious mentalities throbbing away in their dark apartments were apparently more subtle seducers. I thought that a note, at least, might flutter down. A frozen orange juice can came flying out of one of the windows and barely missed me. I stooped over and picked it up in order to inspect the empty tin cylinder for a communication of some sort, but only a viscous residue on concentrated juice trickled out on my hand. Was this some obscene message? While I was pondering the matter and staring up at the window from which the can had been hurled, an old vagrant approached the wagon and pleaded for a frankfurter. Grudgingly I sold him one, ruefully concluding that, as always, work was interfering at a crucial moment."

. . .

"I dust a bit...in addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip."

It's like the luck of the irish... only I'm not Irish so you figure it out

I'm tired and I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. On Tuesday I think I'm playing basketball so I have that to look forward to. I love basketball, it makes me happy. My top five favorite basketball movies are as follows:

5. 3 Ninjas
This isn't really a basketball movie, it makes the list for the scene in which Rocky and Colt play basketball against the bullies in order to win Emily's bike back. Not only do they spot them 9 points, it features some unbelievable shots, blocks, and Rocky's game winning dunk is in itself a masterpiece.

4. Pistol: Birth of a Legend
How can you go wrong with a movie about Pistol Pete, my hero and possibly namesake. It's about him getting through high school and proving the critics wrong and becoming a star. No amount of corniness or bad acting could ruin such an inspiring story.

3. Hoosiers
I don't know how many times I had to watch this growing up, but it has paid off. I would never get caught watching the paint dry. It's the most classic basketball movie, Gene Hackman is a miracle man, and no list would be complete without it.

2. White Men Can't Jump
We goin' to Sizzla, we goin' to Sizzla. This movie is hilarious and chalked full of one-liners. The basketball gear they wore was gorgeous and I'm glad that this movie is around to forever document the style. Can white men jump? Just ask Duck Johnson.

1. Hoop Dreams
This movie is considered one of the best documentaries of all time. It follows Arthur Agee and William Gates, two basketball stars, through middle school, high school, and college documenting their quest to get to the NBA. Very interesting, moving, and something that will stick with you for a long time.