Ten favorite movies
by stianchrister | created - 04 Sep 2011 | updated - 04 Oct 2011 | PublicI've condensed my list to include the ten movies that define my taste.
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1. 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: 811,564 | Gross: $6.10M
I never thought going after the buried treasure would be so cool, but Sergio Leone proved me wrong.
2. The Shining (1980)
R | 146 min | Drama, Horror
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers
Votes: 1,107,270 | Gross: $44.02M
Jack Nicholson's performance as Jack Torrance is just great. Diane Johnson and Stanley Kubrick made a horror masterpiece. I am not going overboard when I'm saying this is the greatest horror movie ever made. It's actually not even close, because this is levels beyond what anyone has ever done. It's what every horror writer should strive to achieve.
3. 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: 2,221,403 | Gross: $107.93M
Quentin Tarantino is my favorite writer/director, and this is my favorite Quentin Tarantino movie. Amazing dialogue, awesome plot, great characters, sick acting, weird structure and purely awesome.
4. Deliverance (1972)
R | 109 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it's dammed and turned into a lake, outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock takes his friends on a canoeing trip they'll never forget into the dangerous American back-country.
Director: John Boorman | Stars: Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox
Votes: 119,308 | Gross: $7.06M
This is one of the most iconic films ever. The soundtrack is amazing, and it's just so beautifully cinematic, even in its darkest moments.
5. Apocalypse Now (1979)
R | 147 min | Drama, Mystery, War
A U.S. Army officer serving in Vietnam is tasked with assassinating a renegade Special Forces Colonel who sees himself as a god.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest
Votes: 710,581 | Gross: $83.47M
I love war films, and Apocalypse Now is a wonderful twist. It's a great journey through the Vietnam war, and it's a wonderful fantastical depiction of the Vietnam experience. Pure genius.
6. City of God (2002)
R | 130 min | Crime, Drama
In the slums of Rio, two kids' paths diverge as one struggles to become a photographer and the other a kingpin.
Directors: Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund | Stars: Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino, Matheus Nachtergaele, Phellipe Haagensen
Votes: 801,422 | Gross: $7.56M
This has to be one of the greatest gangster films ever made, told from an observer's point of view.
7. The Thing (1982)
R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David, Richard Masur
Votes: 466,913 | Gross: $13.78M
In the long line of John Carpenter's horror films, The Thing is the best. The concept of a shapeshifting alien frozen in the ice is epic, and really a great example of how high concept horror films have to be.
8. Fight Club (1999)
R | 139 min | Drama
An insomniac office worker and a devil-may-care soap maker form an underground fight club that evolves into much more.
Director: David Fincher | Stars: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Meat Loaf, Zach Grenier
Votes: 2,325,290 | Gross: $37.03M
His name was Robert Paulson. Chuck Palahniuk's awesome novel turned into one of the greatest films ever, with one of the most memorable opponents in history: Tyler Durden. To me, this is the ultimate "man against himself" movie ever made.
9. Alien (1979)
R | 117 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
The crew of a commercial spacecraft encounters a deadly lifeform after investigating a mysterious transmission of unknown origin.
Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Veronica Cartwright
Votes: 951,404 | Gross: $78.90M
This horror classic is just mindblowing. Jaws in space. Sounds ridiculous, right? The mood of the ship is captured brilliantly and everything pays off at the right time. What really made the movie as good as it could get was the science officer, and this is a horror masterpiece.
10. The Dark Knight (2008)
PG-13 | 152 min | Action, Crime, Drama
When the menace known as the Joker wreaks havoc and chaos on the people of Gotham, Batman must accept one of the greatest psychological and physical tests of his ability to fight injustice.
Director: Christopher Nolan | Stars: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine
Votes: 2,872,075 | Gross: $534.86M
I generally don't enjoy superhero films, but Christopher Nolan's take on Batman was just too good to pass up on. He isn't a superhero, just an obsessed individual, and that's what makes it so good. This is a great movie, and Heath Ledger's performance as Joker will go down as one of the all-time greatest performances in movie history.
11. Jurassic Park (1993)
PG-13 | 127 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
A pragmatic paleontologist touring an almost complete theme park on an island in Central America is tasked with protecting a couple of kids after a power failure causes the park's cloned dinosaurs to run loose.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough
Votes: 1,067,638 | Gross: $402.45M
Honorable mention #1. This one is just legendary. It was way ahead of its time when it was made, and I fell in love with this movie as a kid. Today, I consider it one of the greatest horror films ever.
12. The Exorcist (1973)
R | 122 min | Horror
When a young girl is possessed by a mysterious entity, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life.
Director: William Friedkin | Stars: Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Linda Blair, Lee J. Cobb
Votes: 455,183 | Gross: $232.91M
Honorable mention #2. Love the script, it's one of the few good vs. evil movies I enjoy. Linda Blair's performance is also sick.
13. Black Swan (2010)
R | 108 min | Drama, Thriller
Nina is a talented but unstable ballerina on the verge of stardom. Pushed to the breaking point by her artistic director and a seductive rival, Nina's grip on reality slips, plunging her into a waking nightmare.
Director: Darren Aronofsky | Stars: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder
Votes: 825,162 | Gross: $106.95M
Honorable mention #3. Darren Aronofsky does genius-like things, and Portman acts like no one can. The story's also great, with that memorable ending, leaving us wondering whether she died or not.
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