Jeff Wilder's 100 Favorite Films
by Deniro68 | created - 18 Jul 2013 | updated - 24 Oct 2014 | PublicPretty self-explanatory
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1. Goodfellas (1990)
R | 145 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
The story of Henry Hill and his life in the mafia, covering his relationship with his wife Karen and his mob partners Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco
Votes: 1,257,056 | Gross: $46.84M
Most likely my all-time favorite film.
2. 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: 710,034 | Gross: $83.47M
The best cinematic fever dream/nightmare ever.
3. 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: 349,770
Roman Polanski's finest moment. The greatest film noir not made in 1940s/50s. Jack Nicholson at his best.
4. Do the Right Thing (1989)
R | 120 min | Comedy, Drama
On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.
Director: Spike Lee | Stars: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson
Votes: 112,396 | Gross: $27.55M
Subtle humor throughout followed with one of the most effective endings ever.
5. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
PG | 91 min | Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table embark on a surreal, low-budget search for the Holy Grail, encountering many, very silly obstacles.
Directors: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones | Stars: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam
Votes: 570,174 | Gross: $1.23M
My favorite comedy of all-time. Also a prime example of a work of cinema where there are no rules.
6. Boogie Nights (1997)
R | 155 min | Drama
Back when sex was safe, pleasure was a business and business was booming, an idealistic porn producer aspires to elevate his craft to an art when he discovers a hot young talent.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson | Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Luis Guzmán
Votes: 281,998 | Gross: $26.40M
Has everything a film should have. Great direction, great script, fantastic acting, humor, drama, well-chosen soundtrack, suspense (the drug deal scene towards the end is one of thw most tense scenes ever put in a film). As close to cinematic perfection as it can get.
7. Blue Velvet (1986)
R | 120 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of psychopathic criminals who have kidnapped her child.
Director: David Lynch | Stars: Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern
Votes: 215,661 | Gross: $8.55M
Disturbing as hell. Brilliant mix of satire and dark thriller. Blue velvet is one of the films that made me want to get into film in the first place.
8. Aliens (1986)
R | 137 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Decades after surviving the Nostromo incident, Ellen Ripley is sent out to re-establish contact with a terraforming colony but finds herself battling the Alien Queen and her offspring.
Director: James Cameron | Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser
Votes: 762,876 | Gross: $85.16M
Greatest sci-fi film of all-time and one of the greatest action films.
9. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
PG | 95 min | Comedy, War
An unhinged American general orders a bombing attack on the Soviet Union, triggering a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically tries to stop.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn
Votes: 518,177 | Gross: $0.28M
One movie that showed me you could bring the punk spirit into film. Kubrick's best work.
10. Dazed and Confused (1993)
R | 103 min | Comedy
The adventures of high school and junior high students on the last day of school in May 1976.
Director: Richard Linklater | Stars: Jason London, Wiley Wiggins, Matthew McConaughey, Rory Cochrane
Votes: 199,430 | Gross: $7.99M
The greatest teen movie ever. Fun as hell but with a melancholy undertone.
11. Jaws (1975)
PG | 124 min | Adventure, Mystery, Thriller
When a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Cape Cod, it's up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary
Votes: 659,305 | Gross: $260.00M
This is the film that opened the door for the blockbusters yet is far better crafted than most of the ones that followed. A great one. No question.
12. Precious (II) (2009)
R | 110 min | Drama
In New York City's Harlem circa 1987, an overweight, abused, illiterate teen who is pregnant with her second child is invited to enroll in an alternative school in hopes that she can re-route her life in a better direction.
Director: Lee Daniels | Stars: Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey
Votes: 116,232 | Gross: $47.57M
So harrowing yet sio inspirational. None of the syrupy manipulation you see in awful films like The Blind Side.
13. Beetlejuice (1988)
PG | 92 min | Comedy, Fantasy
The spirits of a deceased couple are harassed by an unbearable family that has moved into their home, and hire a malicious spirit to drive them out.
Director: Tim Burton | Stars: Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Michael Keaton, Annie McEnroe
Votes: 340,001 | Gross: $73.71M
This was the first movie I really fell in love with, the first time I felt truly absorbed in a world that a film created. The dark comedy in this is brilliant. Still Tim Burton's finest achievement.
14. Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Unrated | 127 min | Horror, Thriller
During an escalating zombie epidemic, two Philadelphia SWAT team members, a traffic reporter and his TV executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.
Director: George A. Romero | Stars: David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger, Gaylen Ross
Votes: 128,559 | Gross: $5.10M
Greatest horror film of all-time.
15. JFK (1991)
R | 189 min | Drama, History, Thriller
New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison discovers there's more to the Kennedy assassination than the official story.
Director: Oliver Stone | Stars: Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau
Votes: 169,884 | Gross: $70.41M
Fantastically shot and edited. Speculative fiction done great.
16. 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: 2,219,625 | Gross: $107.93M
This is one film that opened my mind to cinema that didn't folow the Syd Field three-act structure.
17. 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: 2,323,286 | Gross: $37.03M
Something was simmering in me when I saw this. But Fight Club brought it to a boil.
18. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
G | 100 min | Family, Fantasy, Musical
A poor but hopeful boy seeks one of the five coveted golden tickets that will send him on a tour of Willy Wonka's mysterious chocolate factory.
Director: Mel Stuart | Stars: Gene Wilder, Jack Albertson, Peter Ostrum, Roy Kinnear
Votes: 227,271 | Gross: $4.00M
What's there to say really?
19. Ghostbusters (1984)
PG | 105 min | Action, Comedy, Fantasy
Three parapsychologists forced out of their university funding set up shop as a unique ghost removal service in New York City, attracting frightened yet skeptical customers.
Director: Ivan Reitman | Stars: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis
Votes: 450,008 | Gross: $238.63M
In a way, this is the movie that brought out the smartass in me. "Yes it's true. This man has no dick" is likely my favorite line of all-time.
20. The Wild Bunch (1969)
R | 135 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
An aging group of outlaws look for one last big score as the "traditional" American West is disappearing around them.
Director: Sam Peckinpah | Stars: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien
Votes: 90,343 | Gross: $12.06M
Toss-up between this and The Good The Bad And The Ugly as my favorite western of all-time.
21. Last Tango in Paris (1972)
NC-17 | 129 min | Drama, Romance
A young Parisian woman meets a middle-aged American businessman who demands their clandestine relationship be based only on sex.
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci | Stars: Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, Maria Michi, Giovanna Galletti
Votes: 58,332 | Gross: $36.14M
A poetic heartbreaker.
22. 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: 920,477 | Gross: $28.26M
Effective character study, brilliant depiction of madness and De Niro in his defining performance.
23. Before Sunrise (1995)
R | 101 min | Drama, Romance
A young man and woman meet on a train in Europe, and wind up spending one evening together in Vienna. Unfortunately, both know that this will probably be their only night together.
Director: Richard Linklater | Stars: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Andrea Eckert, Hanno Pöschl
Votes: 339,208 | Gross: $5.54M
The whole Before trilogy is my favorite cinematic love story of all-time.
24. Before Sunset (2004)
R | 80 min | Drama, Romance
Nine years after Jesse and Celine first met, they encounter each other again on the French leg of Jesse's book tour.
Director: Richard Linklater | Stars: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Vernon Dobtcheff, Louise Lemoine Torrès
Votes: 287,758 | Gross: $5.82M
25. Before Midnight (2013)
R | 109 min | Drama, Romance
We meet Jesse and Celine nine years on in Greece. Almost two decades have passed since their first meeting on that train bound for Vienna.
Director: Richard Linklater | Stars: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, Ariane Labed
Votes: 172,111 | Gross: $8.11M
26. Die Hard (1988)
R | 132 min | Action, Thriller
A New York City police officer tries to save his estranged wife and several others taken hostage by terrorists during a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles.
Director: John McTiernan | Stars: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson
Votes: 945,435 | Gross: $83.01M
Likely my all-time favorite action movie.
27. The 400 Blows (1959)
Not Rated | 99 min | Crime, Drama
A young boy, left without attention, delves into a life of petty crime.
Director: François Truffaut | Stars: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy, Claire Maurier, Guy Decomble
Votes: 128,053
Brilliant depiction of childhood.
28. Fitzcarraldo (1982)
PG | 158 min | Adventure, Drama
The story of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an extremely determined man who intends to build an opera house in the middle of a jungle.
Director: Werner Herzog | Stars: Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale, José Lewgoy, Miguel Ángel Fuentes
Votes: 38,574
Herzog at his best.
29. Heat (1995)
R | 170 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A group of high-end professional thieves start to feel the heat from the LAPD when they unknowingly leave a verbal clue at their latest heist.
Director: Michael Mann | Stars: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight
Votes: 719,202 | Gross: $67.44M
Character-driven thriller.
30. Touch of Evil (1958)
PG-13 | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping and police corruption in a Mexican border town.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, Janet Leigh, Joseph Calleia
Votes: 109,790 | Gross: $2.24M
No disrespect to Citizen Kane. But my personal favorite Welles film.
31. Vertigo (1958)
PG | 128 min | Mystery, Romance, Thriller
A former San Francisco police detective juggles wrestling with his personal demons and becoming obsessed with the hauntingly beautiful woman he has been hired to trail, who may be deeply disturbed.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore
Votes: 426,827 | Gross: $3.20M
My favorite Hitchcock film.
32. Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
R | 101 min | Crime, Drama
A pharmacy-robbing dope fiend and his crew pop pills and evade the law.
Director: Gus Van Sant | Stars: Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, James Le Gros, Heather Graham
Votes: 40,616 | Gross: $4.73M
Fantastic drama.
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