movies 101
by levnemeth | created - 06 May 2012 | updated - 03 Aug 2012 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
R | 229 min | Crime, Drama
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan 35 years later, where he must once again confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
Director: Sergio Leone | Stars: Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Treat Williams
Votes: 376,342 | Gross: $5.32M
2. The Seventh Seal (1957)
Not Rated | 96 min | Drama, Fantasy
A knight returning to Sweden after the Crusades seeks answers about life, death, and the existence of God as he plays chess against the Grim Reaper during the Black Plague.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand, Bengt Ekerot, Nils Poppe
Votes: 197,761
3. Citizen Kane (1941)
PG | 119 min | Drama, Mystery
Following the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance: 'Rosebud.'
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
Votes: 464,741 | Gross: $1.59M
4. North by Northwest (1959)
Approved | 136 min | Action, Adventure, Mystery
A New York City advertising executive goes on the run after being mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and falls for a woman whose loyalties he begins to doubt.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis
Votes: 345,013 | Gross: $13.28M
5. 12 Angry Men (1957)
Approved | 96 min | Crime, Drama
The jury in a New York City murder trial is frustrated by a single member whose skeptical caution forces them to more carefully consider the evidence before jumping to a hasty verdict.
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam, John Fiedler
Votes: 860,440 | Gross: $4.36M
6. Taxi Driver (1976)
R | 114 min | Crime, Drama
A mentally unstable veteran works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City, where the perceived decadence and sleaze fuels his urge for violent action.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks
Votes: 916,436 | Gross: $28.26M
7. 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: 2,003,154 | Gross: $134.97M
8. The Godfather Part II (1974)
R | 202 min | Crime, Drama
The early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York City is portrayed, while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on the family crime syndicate.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton
Votes: 1,358,925 | Gross: $57.30M
9. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
R | 136 min | Crime, Sci-Fi
In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates, Warren Clarke
Votes: 878,646 | Gross: $6.21M
10. Seven Samurai (1954)
Not Rated | 207 min | Action, Drama
Farmers from a village exploited by bandits hire a veteran samurai for protection, who gathers six other samurai to join him.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima, Yukiko Shimazaki
Votes: 365,682 | Gross: $0.27M
11. Scarface (1983)
18+ | 170 min | Crime, Drama
In 1980 Miami, a determined Cuban immigrant takes over a drug cartel and succumbs to greed.
Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
Votes: 912,473 | Gross: $45.60M
12. 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: 1,444,846 | Gross: $322.74M
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13. Ikiru (1952)
Not Rated | 143 min | Drama
A bureaucrat tries to find meaning in his life after he discovers he has terminal cancer.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Takashi Shimura, Nobuo Kaneko, Shin'ichi Himori, Haruo Tanaka
Votes: 87,046 | Gross: $0.06M
14. 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: 2,311,896 | Gross: $37.03M
15. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir
A screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson
Votes: 235,639
16. 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: 707,405 | Gross: $83.47M
17. Chinatown (1974)
R | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A private detective hired to expose an adulterer in 1930s Los Angeles finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption, and murder.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez
Votes: 348,495
18. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Passed | 152 min | Drama, War
A German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.
Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray, Arnold Lucy
Votes: 67,478 | Gross: $3.27M
19. La haine (1995)
Not Rated | 98 min | Crime, Drama
24 hours in the lives of three young men in the French suburbs the day after a violent riot.
Director: Mathieu Kassovitz | Stars: Vincent Cassel, Hubert Koundé, Saïd Taghmaoui, Abdel Ahmed Ghili
Votes: 195,201 | Gross: $0.31M
20. 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: 2,209,597 | Gross: $107.93M
21. Ace in the Hole (1951)
Approved | 111 min | Drama, Film-Noir
A frustrated former big-city journalist now stuck working for an Albuquerque newspaper exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to rekindle his career, but the situation quickly escalates into an out-of-control circus.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Porter Hall
Votes: 38,983 | Gross: $3.97M
22. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
PG-13 | 166 min | Western
A mysterious stranger with a harmonica joins forces with a notorious desperado to protect a beautiful widow from a ruthless assassin working for the railroad.
Director: Sergio Leone | Stars: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards
Votes: 348,150 | Gross: $5.32M
23. The Idiot (1951)
Not Rated | 166 min | Drama, Romance
A Japanese veteran, driven partially mad from the war, travels to the snowy island of Hokkaido where he soon enters a love triangle with his best friend and a disgraced woman.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Setsuko Hara, Masayuki Mori, Toshirô Mifune, Yoshiko Kuga
Votes: 5,624
24. 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: 2,043,711 | Gross: $171.48M
25. The Deer Hunter (1978)
R | 183 min | Drama, War
An in-depth examination of the ways in which the Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of several friends in a small steel mill town in Pennsylvania.
Director: Michael Cimino | Stars: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, John Savage
Votes: 361,029 | Gross: $48.98M
26. 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: 821,667 | Gross: $106.95M
27. 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: 798,206 | Gross: $7.56M
28. Through a Glass Darkly (1961)
Not Rated | 90 min | Drama
Recently released from a mental hospital, Karin rejoins her emotionally disconnected family in their island home, only to slip from reality as she begins to believe she is being visited by God.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Max von Sydow, Lars Passgård
Votes: 27,278
29. The Panic in Needle Park (1971)
PG | 110 min | Drama
Follows the lives of heroin addicts who frequent "Needle Park" in New York City.
Director: Jerry Schatzberg | Stars: Al Pacino, Kitty Winn, Alan Vint, Richard Bright
Votes: 20,120
30. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
R | 116 min | Drama, War
A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio, Adam Baldwin
Votes: 787,879 | Gross: $46.36M
31. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Approved | 129 min | Crime, Drama
Atticus Finch, a widowed lawyer in Depression-era Alabama, defends a Black man against an undeserved rape charge, and tries to educate his young children against prejudice.
Director: Robert Mulligan | Stars: Gregory Peck, John Megna, Frank Overton, Rosemary Murphy
Votes: 331,978
32. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
R | 99 min | Crime, Thriller
When a simple jewelry heist goes horribly wrong, the surviving criminals begin to suspect that one of them is a police informant.
Director: Quentin Tarantino | Stars: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn
Votes: 1,084,218 | Gross: $2.83M
33. Snatch (2000)
R | 102 min | Comedy, Crime
Unscrupulous boxing promoters, violent bookmakers, a Russian gangster, incompetent amateur robbers and supposedly Jewish jewelers fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond.
Director: Guy Ritchie | Stars: Jason Statham, Brad Pitt, Stephen Graham, Vinnie Jones
Votes: 906,958 | Gross: $30.33M
34. Inherit the Wind (1960)
Passed | 128 min | Biography, Drama, History
Based on a real-life case in 1925; two great lawyers argue the case for, and against, a Tennessee science teacher accused of the crime of teaching Darwin's theory of evolution.
Director: Stanley Kramer | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly, Dick York
Votes: 32,663
35. Planet of the Apes (1968)
G | 112 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi
An astronaut crew crash-lands on a planet where highly intelligent non-human ape species are dominant and humans are enslaved.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans
Votes: 192,200 | Gross: $33.40M
36. Trainspotting (1996)
R | 93 min | Drama
Renton, deeply immersed in the Edinburgh drug scene, tries to clean up and get out despite the allure of drugs and the influence of friends.
Director: Danny Boyle | Stars: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd
Votes: 723,503 | Gross: $16.50M
37. They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)
M | 129 min | Drama
The lives of a disparate group of contestants intertwine in an inhumanely grueling dance marathon.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, Susannah York, Gig Young
Votes: 20,774 | Gross: $12.60M
38. Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Approved | 137 min | Drama, Horror
A young couple trying for a baby moves into an aging, ornate apartment building on Central Park West, where they find themselves surrounded by peculiar neighbors.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer
Votes: 234,087
39. The Sting (1973)
PG | 129 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
Two grifters team up to pull off the ultimate con.
Director: George Roy Hill | Stars: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Charles Durning
Votes: 278,915 | Gross: $159.60M
40. American History X (1998)
R | 119 min | Crime, Drama
Living a life marked by violence, neo-Nazi Derek finally goes to prison after killing two black youths. Upon his release, Derek vows to change; he hopes to prevent his brother, Danny, who idolizes Derek, from following in his footsteps.
Director: Tony Kaye | Stars: Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Beverly D'Angelo, Jennifer Lien
Votes: 1,182,569 | Gross: $6.72M
41. Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982)
R | 95 min | Drama, Fantasy, Music
A confined but troubled rock star descends into madness in the midst of his physical and social isolation from everyone.
Director: Alan Parker | Stars: Bob Geldof, Christine Hargreaves, James Laurenson, Eleanor David
Votes: 85,150 | Gross: $22.24M
42. The Devil's Advocate (1997)
R | 144 min | Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
An exceptionally-adept Florida lawyer is offered a job at a high-end New York City law firm with a high-end boss--the biggest opportunity of his career to date.
Director: Taylor Hackford | Stars: Keanu Reeves, Al Pacino, Charlize Theron, Jeffrey Jones
Votes: 400,442 | Gross: $60.98M
43. Ragtime (1981)
PG | 155 min | Drama
A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.
Director: Milos Forman | Stars: James Cagney, Elizabeth McGovern, Howard E. Rollins Jr., Brad Dourif
Votes: 10,522 | Gross: $21.02M
44. Shutter Island (2010)
R | 138 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule, two US marshals, are sent to an asylum on a remote island in order to investigate the disappearance of a patient, where Teddy uncovers a shocking truth about the place.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Emily Mortimer, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley
Votes: 1,448,018 | Gross: $128.01M
45. Fábián Bálint találkozása Istennel (1980)
105 min | Drama
Zoltán Fábri traces in epic style and more conventional form the fate of the peasants in the period between the wars.
Director: Zoltán Fábri | Stars: Gábor Koncz, Vera Venczel, István O. Szabó, Jácint Juhász
Votes: 120
46. Lucky Number Slevin (2006)
R | 110 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A case of mistaken identity lands Slevin into the middle of a war being plotted by two of the city's most rival crime bosses. Under constant surveillance by Detective Brikowski and assassin Goodkat, he must get them before they get him.
Director: Paul McGuigan | Stars: Josh Hartnett, Ben Kingsley, Morgan Freeman, Lucy Liu
Votes: 325,075 | Gross: $22.50M
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