Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Republicans in disarray!

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Second rate reporter says what?

In my day, never was longer.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

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Open Thread: Watch Agains

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Dr Strangelove
Last night Dr. Strangelove was on TCM and I watched it for at least the 10th time. Ripper’s precious bodily fluids monologue was the highlight of this watching–the cinematography, Sterling Hayden’s performance, and the writing are all spot-on. If only someone would script and film one of Ted Cruz’ speeches as well as Kubrick did this one, some shit might be turned into art. So what are some movies that you can watch again and again? I’ll have a drink of grain alcohol and spring water, and you mix yourself whatever you want for this open thread.

Reader Interactions

287Comments

  2. 2.

    Corner Stone

    Not exactly on topic, but since it’s movies, I recently watched Looper.
    And that’s one movie I will not watch again.

  5. 5.

    WereBear

    All About Eve

    North by Northwest

    Get Carter (the Michael Caine version, natch)

    White Heat

    Marathon Man

    Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan (and those were Ricardo Montalban’s REAL pecs, people!)

  6. 6.

    piratedan

    man, that’s a long list…..

    12 Angry Men
    The Magnificent Seven/Seven Samurai
    The Quiet Man
    Blazing Saddles
    Young Frankenstein
    Kelly’s Heroes
    The Dirty Dozen
    Fail Safe
    Lillies of the Field
    To Sir with Love
    The Outlaw Josey Wales
    Donovan’s Reef
    Cat Ballou

  7. 7.

    PurpleGirl

    The Hunt for Red October. Overall the movie is very good and there are some specific scenes I like to pay more attention to. Between the book and movie, a lot was cut, but the movie holds together very cohesively. I think it’s one of the best movie adaptation of a book.

    Casablanca.
    The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
    The Manchurian Candidate     (w/Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury and Laurence Harvey
    Auntie Mame

  8. 8.

    RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual

    The Godfather, Part I.
    Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith
    Red Dawn (the original)
    Raw Deal
    The Black Hole (Disney 70’s version)
    Terminator 2/Terminator Salvation
    Full Metal Jacket
    New Jack City
    Hero with Jet Li

  10. 10.

    WereBear

    Gosh, ya got me started:

    Ball of Fire

    The Hard Way

    Whatever Happened to Baby Jane in the Timeless Dames series

    Forbidden Planet

    Blade Runner (such a freak I’ll watch any version)

    Any Kubrick that isn’t Eyes Wide Shut

  11. 11.

    Smiling Mortician

    Chinatown.
    Lola rennt.
    Cool Hand Luke.
    Paris Texas.
    All About Eve.

    OK. I’ll stop typing now and just do the rest in my head.

  14. 14.

    WereBear

    Lotsa Huston:

    Treasure of the Sierra Madre

    The Maltese Falcon

    Asphalt Jungle

    Lotsa Bogart:

    High Sierra

    Casablanca

    The African Queen

    The Caine Mutiny

  21. 21.

    Betty Cracker

    There are some movies I love so much I’ll watch them again if I happen to land on them while channel searching — even though I’ve seen them a hundred times, and even if the broadcast is in Spanish. Por exemplo:

    — O Brother Where Art Thou?

    — Moonstruck

    — The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

    — The Godfather 1-2; sometimes 3

    — Lawrence of Arabia

    — The Abyss (I know, I know. I just like it, okay?)

    — The Right Stuff

    — Kill Bill (either one)

    — Fargo

    — The Yearling

    — A Fish Called Wanda

    — The Color Purple

    — Kung Fu Hustle

    — Monty Python & the Holy Grail

    — Gone with the Wind

    — Key Largo

    — Giant

    I’m sure there are others, but these are the ones that come to mind immediately.

  23. 23.

    Kristine

    The Bourne Trilogy
    LoTR, esp RotK
    The HP Octet
    Iron Man 1
    All About Eve
    Laura
    A Christmas Carol (w/ Alastair Sim as Scrooge)
    The Avengers
    Kill Bill, Vols 1 and 2
    Constantine

    Stopping now.

  24. 24.

    nancy darling

    I read some interesting history on the making of the film. Originally Sellers was to play four roles. In addition to Mandrake, Strangelove, and President Muffley, he was supposed to play Major T.J. “King” Kong. Slim Pickens was the 3rd choice after John Wayne and Dan Blocker passed on it. Pickens had never been out of the country and didn’t own a passport.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove

    The movie was originally set to open the day JFK was shot. They postponed it to January, 1964. This line by Pickens was redubbed to say Vegas instead of Dallas. “”a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Dallas with all that stuff”

    I don’t know if I have seen it 10 times, but definitely multiple times. The last time I watched it was during Gulf War I when they brought out the old war horse B-52’s to carpet bomb Iraq.

  28. 28.

    Richard Fox

    Dodsworth
    Streetcar Named Desire
    Masque of the Red Death
    Dead of Night
    Moon
    Galaxy Quest
    Twentieth Century
    That Hamilton Woman
    Jason and the Argonauts
    Dark City
    Carnival of Souls
    Dinner at Eight
    Planet of the Apes
    Journey to the Far Side of the Sun
    Maltese Falcon
    Metropolis
    San Francisco

    ..I am a somewhat eclectic but lean towards the sci fi.. love a great screwball comedy as well. Cheers.

  29. 29.

    PurpleGirl

    @WereBear: Yes. I saw the remake. I liked Denzel Washington’s performance and that was it. I absolutely hated how they changed the hostage taker and hated John Revolta. And the remake just didn’t have a certain NYC feel to it.

  32. 32.

    R-Jud

    Galaxy Quest
    LOTR (annually, on or around Sept. 22nd)
    The Producers
    Close Encounters of the Third Kind
    Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

  33. 33.

    carbon dated

    I watched Strangelove on TCM last night as well. Also for the tenth time. That’s how I know, Dread-P mistermix, that the preferred soft drink on the side is rain water, not spring . :)

  34. 34.

    Comrade Jake

    @WereBear: Agreed. I wish more of their films were in regular rotation on cable. I’d get hooked into Lebowski or No Country every time.

  35. 35.

    PurpleGirl

    Others I watch time and again:

    Sabrina (Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn)
    Breakfast at Tiffany’s

  36. 36.

    Ben Franklin

    Gravity was a unique experience. I rarely suspend my disbelief, but my palms were clammy several times. Amazing.

  38. 38.

    redbeardjim

    Shawshank Redemption

    Silverado

    Most Pixar films

    LOTR, especially Fellowship

    Bull Durham

    That Thing You Do

  39. 39.

    Sly

    So what are some movies that you can watch again and again?

    The only movie I can always watch irrespective of my mood or whether I’m alone or with company is The Princess Bride, because it is literally the perfect movie for any occasion or state of mind and it never gets old.

  41. 41.

    WereBear

    Anything by Mel Brooks (well, maybe not The 12 Chairs)

    Monty Python group efforts

    Essential Bill Murray’s movies like Ghostbusters, Caddyshack, What About Bob? and Groundhog Day, but also overlooked gems like The Man Who Knew Too Little and Quick Change.

    Most recently (and very dark) it’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.

    Ronin, French Connection, and Bullitt are the car chase trilogy.

  43. 43.

    Hill Dweller

    I’ve become obsessed with TCM in the last few years, which has certainly broadened my taste in movies, and given me a new appreciation for older movies(and in a lot of ways diminished modern movies). Ugh. I sound like my grandfather.

    There are too many movies I can watch repeatedly to list, but Dr. Strangelove would certainly be among them.

  44. 44.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Many of my rewatchable films have already been mentioned.

    But I didn’t see Seven Days in May or The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

    Or Captain Horatio Hornblower, or The Vikings.

    Or Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

  45. 45.

    skippy

    i asked a similair question on my facebook page recently, which was “when you’re channel surfing, what movie do you always stop and watch completely when you stumble upon it?”

    for me the answer is

    the natural

    dr. zhivago

    any pre-day @ the circus marx bros. film

    bringing up baby

    jurassic park

  46. 46.

    Schlemizel

    There are so many great ones here I won’t repeat any. I would like to recommend a little noted gem.

    “The Man Who Would Be King”

    It stars Sean Connery and Michael Caine and it appears they were enjoying chewing up the scenery while still giving nuanced performances. Its a good time

  49. 49.

    Botsplainer

    Shawshank
    Dodgeball
    Godfather 1 and 2
    Goodfellas
    TWOK
    Trek Remake 1
    Con Air
    Ghost Rider
    Dukes of Hazzard 2005 (don’t judge me)
    Longest Yard remake

  50. 50.

    WereBear

    What, nobody mentioned Die Hard? Honestly, what with cable and all, I must have seen it forty or fifty times, and I will still sit for it.

  53. 53.

    Johnnybuck

    Goodfellas
    Tombstone
    The right Stuff
    The Blues Brothers
    Forrest Gump
    The Godfather
    Moonstruck
    Bringing up baby
    Sullivan’s Travels
    In Harm’s Way
    HUD
    Network

  54. 54.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @WereBear: I think Quick Change is under-rated and under-seen, I’m always surprised how rarely you see people mention it.

  56. 56.

    aimai

    @Lee Rudolph: Yes. Ninotchka. And Z. My connection is bad so I can’t link it but Z is basically one of the great political thrillers about the murder of a politician in Greece and how the murder is eventually traced back to his political opponents. It is just so painful and so hypnotic that you can hardly bring yourself to watch it, and then you can’t stop watching it. Brilliant cinematography, writing, directing, and acting.

    Also: Zoolander, Galaxy Quest, The Quiet Man (oh hush! I’m an anthropologist and its set in a small village) and lots of others.

  58. 58.

    piratedan

    and a couple of anime titles that I neglected to mention

    Paprika
    Summer Wars
    Howl’s Moving Castle
    Akira
    Princess Mononoke

  59. 59.

    aimai

    @PurpleGirl: We saw the remake and the original back to back. Its fascinating to watch them like that–like a mini master class in script and culture. Its not so much that one film is better or worse than another, its that the cultural idea of the cop, of new york, of the subway had shifted and different ideals and experiences were being explored.

  61. 61.

    nastybrutishntall

    Repo Man
    Spinal Tap
    2001
    The Shining
    Idiocracy
    Sleeper
    DOCTOR STRANGELOVE
    Solaris (Tarkovsky)
    Carpenter: They Live!, The Thing, Escape From New York
    Terminator
    Alien
    Conan the Barbarian

  64. 64.

    R-Jud

    @Johnnybuck:

    Moonstruck

    Agh! Moonstruck! My Dad uses “I’m so confused. Somebody tell a joke!” an awful lot.
    @piratedan: Of all the films my 4-year-old likes to watch eleventymillion times, my favorite by far is My Neighbor Totoro. In second: WALL-E.

  66. 66.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @nastybrutishntall:

    The first two Aliens were boffo (“Nuke it from space. The only way to be sure.”). The third one just blew chunks all over the soundstage and out on to the street.

  67. 67.

    handsmile

    Where to even begin….I see movies the way many commenters on this blog watch sports games (i.e., at least one pretty much every day).

    “Watch again and again?” (and have happily done so)

    – Anything by Andrei Tarkovsky
    – Anything by Robert Bresson
    – Anything by Kubrick
    – Anything by Yashiro Ozu
    – Anything by the Coen Brothers
    – (Most) anything by Godard
    – (Most) anything by Hitchcock
    – (Most) anything by Wim Wenders

    Wonderful thread (thanks, dpm), with so many great films already mentioned!

  69. 69.

    piratedan

    @WereBear: same screenwriter, WD Richter…. an orderly chaos is the best way I can describe it…

    now awaiting the guilty pleasure movie list… :-)

  71. 71.

    WereBear

    And it’s worth noting that most of Mystery Science Theater 3000 is well worth watching over and over. There’s so many jokes you can’t possibly remember them all.

    Amazon Prime has a nice rotating collection.

  73. 73.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Thought of a few more:

    The Player

    The American President

    Dave

    The Blue Max

    Cross of Iron

  74. 74.

    joel hanes

    Skipping those already listed by others:

    The Rocky Horror Picture Show

    Branagh’s Henry V

    Serenity

    Coconuts, Duck Soup

    Lincoln

    Reds

    The Sting

    Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (“Who are those guys?”)

    Three Days of the Condor

    The Unforgiven

    That Thing You Do

    The Wizard of Oz

    Disney’s “Alladin” (because of Robin Williams as the genie)

    Zeffireli’s Romeo and Julie (because Mercutio and the Nurse)

    Up!

    The Music Man

  76. 76.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Oh, yeah, and Love and Death

    “That is incredibly…jejune!”

    “Jejune? You’re calling me jejune? I’m one of the most june people in all the Russias!”

  77. 77.

    Montysano

    Yep, Strangelove.
    Most any Coen Bros.
    Most any Alexander Payne film, although Sideways is a favorite
    Three Kings
    Michael Clayton
    Moonstruck
    Coal Miner’s Daughter
    The Abyss
    Forrest Gump
    Goodfellas
    Godfather 1 & 2
    Titanic

    What is it with the widespread hatred of Titanic? To my pedestrian Midwestern taste, it’s a great film.

    ETA: Shawshank, Network

  78. 78.

    nastybrutishntall

    @R-Jud: I swear my kids, when they were around that age, just wanted to live inside My Neighbor Totoro. They could watch it on an endless loop. It’s a very special film.

    Additions:

    Fantastic Planet
    Yellow Submarine
    Harold and Maude
    Rushmore
    Dazed and Confused

  79. 79.

    handsmile

    @dr. luba:

    Nothing but love for Buckaroo!

    The final credits sequence (and its music track) alone is one of the most joyous scenes of any film I’ve ever seen.

  80. 80.

    Randy P

    @Betty Cracker: You hit a lot of chords with your list.

    The Abyss (I know, I know. I just like it, okay?)
    I was totally turned off by the original ads, and totally blown away by the movie when I caught it on TV. Not the aliens, they’re kind of ho-hum. But the human players, every last one of them. Great stuff. Sci-fi that made me believe. That oil rig and the people on it are so real you might not realize what you’re watching is damned good sci-fi.

    I knew my wife would love the Ed Harris-Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio stuff as much as I did, and I was right.

    Moonstruck – Another that never gets tired in our house.
    The Good, the Bad & the Ugly Only saw that once. Made my kids sit through it so they knew what this classic was all about.
    A Fish Called Wanda I remember barely being able to breathe for laughing in most of this, but haven’t gotten around to rewatching.
    The Color Purple This is on my “someday” list. I know it’s a great movie, but for some reason I have a hard time working myself up to movies that I know are going to make huge emotional demands on me.
    Monty Python & the Holy Grail Pretty good, but they were still a little rough at the movie-writing business on that one. Life of Brian is their true masterpiece. Seen it many times. There’s one local radio jock that uses “Always Look at the Bright Side” as a sign off every day. Or at least he did last time I heard him. As a wannabe comedy writer I often ponder the difference between appallingly bad taste that’s hilarious (like that number) and just appallingly bad taste (“Dumb and Dumber”).

  81. 81.

    WereBear

    @Montysano: What is it with the widespread hatred of Titanic? To my pedestrian Midwestern taste, it’s a great film.

    I didn’t know it had widespread hatred; most everyone I know adores it, and I am alone in my loathing.

  82. 82.

    NotMax

    A few which am incapable of passing by when they come around:

    The Stunt Man
    Bringing Up Baby
    The Magnificent Ambersons
    Ace in the Hole
    Network
    Destry Rides Again
    The African Queen
    The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
    Sullivan’s Travels
    The General
    The Man Who Came to Dinner
    The One That Got Away
    Witness for the Prosecution
    Hobson’s Choice
    The Big Clock
    Kind Hearts and Coronets
    Five Million Years To Earth
    Crack in the World
    Penguin Pool Murder

    And a reminder for those who may enjoy horror that Haxan is showing on TCM tonight (Sunday) at midnight (ET). Lurid and disturbing.

  83. 83.

    mai naem

    Bowfinger
    Election
    Sixteen Candles
    Little Miss Sunshine
    Hopscotch
    Narrow Margin
    Stalag 17
    The Best Years of Our Life
    The Longest Day
    Dave
    Inside Out
    Gentleman’s Agreement
    To Kill A Mockingbird
    Driving Miss Daisy
    The Mission
    Bend It Like Beckham
    The Gods Must Be Crazy

  84. 84.

    Villago Delenda Est

    “That is the Countess Alexandrovna, the most enticing woman in St. Petersburg. Ample bosoms, no?”

    “I’d say ample for a regiment.”

  86. 86.

    gogol's wife

    @pamelabrown53:

    Oh yes, we have watched some Morse episodes about 15 times. Deceived by Flight, anyone?

    Notorious.

    The Lady Eve.

    Ball of Fire.

    Little Miss Marker (Shirley Temple, Dorothy Dell, and Adolphe Menjou version).

    A Foreign Affair.

  87. 87.

    Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)

    The Big Sleep
    A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
    Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
    Richard III (Ian McKellan)
    Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh)

  90. 90.

    Smiling Mortician

    Did anyone mention Love Actually?

    It’s on my list of comfort movies, along with the BBC production of Pride & Prejudice (maybe it’s just a Colin Firth thing . . . )

    But that list also includes The Lion in Winter because Peter O’Toole & Katharine Hepburn.

    Also too Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf because Elizabeth Taylor can act! And Sandy Dennis . . .

  91. 91.

    WereBear

    And the essential Orson Welles:

    Citizen Kane

    Touch of Evil

    The Lady from Shanghai

    The Stranger

    The Third Man

    All else are great, of course, but have things that bug me too much, like the botched ending of The Magnificent Ambersons (studio inflicted.)

    And Polanski’s MacBeth has eclipsed all other versions for me.

  94. 94.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    Lots of great flicks. One I really enjoy that hasn’t been mentioned (at least not yet) is Amélie from 2001.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  97. 97.

    AliceBlue

    No love for Marilyn Monroe? I can’t watch enough of How to Marry a Millionaire, Niagara, and Don’t Bother to Knock (this was Anne Bancroft’s first movie and the turning point in the careers of MM and Richard Widmark).

    Also, too:

    The Horse Soldiers
    The Uninvited
    Kiss of Death (NOT the Nicholas Cage remake)
    Raising Arizona
    Shadow of a Doubt
    Funny Face
    The Haunting

  99. 99.

    Kevin McGee

    Jaws…We’re going to need a bigger boat :)

    Groundhog Day
    Singing in the Rain
    Casablanca
    Malcolm
    Experience Preferred but not Essential
    The Great Escape
    The Three Musketeers (Michael York as D’artagan version)

    Too many of the previously mentioned to list…Juicers have damn good taste!

  100. 100.

    Smiling Mortician

    @Comrade Jake: Every time I watch it (at least once a year) I experience an entire lifetime’s relationship — love, commitment, fear, understanding, heartbreak, grief, acceptance — with Paul Newman.

  101. 101.

    Randy P

    @Randy P: I also will always re-watch any Clint Eastwood shoot-em-up, especially the spaghetti westerns. No idea why I love those so much.

    And pretty much any John Wayne, right back to his earliest stuff. Again, no idea why.

    Saw Three Days of the Condor on someone’s list. Probably my all-time favorite spy movie. I’ve known people who had the job Robert Redford had in that movie.

    Steven Seagal gets a lot of grief, but I’ve always found his movies fun. I love that he really is a linguist, I love his version of Aikido, about 2000 times faster than anything I ever saw in class when I was studying it. Under Siege is in my top-5 of all-time favorite martial arts flicks. His character and Gary Busey’s characters are just so much fun. Busey doing half the movie (as the bad guy) in drag is akin to Bruce Willis’ bare feet in Die Hard.

    Ooh, Die Hard. Another one I’d watch any time, especially now that I know that’s Alan Rickman. But alas, I only ever saw it once.

  103. 103.

    YellowJournalism

    Reading these lists reminds how much I love you all.

    A fewi haven’t seen on the lists:

    Halloween
    The Wizard of Oz
    Gypsy
    The Major and the Minor
    Waitress
    Jane Eyre (Welles)
    Bachelor Mother (Ginger Rogers fan)
    The Iron Giant
    Beauty and the Beast
    The Incredibles

  106. 106.

    Comrade Jake

    @Smiling Mortician: I first watched Cool Hand Luke with my father many years ago as a young boy. Dad told me it was a great film. So many special scenes.

    I can get sucked into just about any movie with Paul Newman, but CHL has to be one of his best.

  107. 107.

    Randy P

    @AliceBlue: No love for Marilyn Monroe?

    Not from me. I’ve watched several of her films. I don’t get the big mystique. That voice grates on me, and I find plenty of her contemporaries much sexier. Perhaps it’s because I lack the attraction-to-blondes gene.

    I watched Some Like it Hot because it’s on so many people’s top-10 list. Meh. I know somebody will flame me for that opinion, but seriously. Meh. Not funny.

  108. 108.

    YellowJournalism

    Can’t forget The Hudsucker Proxy!

    And because Christmas is coming, I must include Elf, Scrooged, and A Christmas Carol.

    Okay, now I’ll stop…for now. Maybe.

  110. 110.

    WereBear

    It’s worth noting Michael Caine was in some marvy stuff in the 60-70’s:

    The Harry Palmer series was always intriguing, The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin, Billion Dollar Brain, and even Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in Saint Petersburg in the 90’s.

    And, of course, his first movie, Zulu. I watched it as a teen and the suspense and fear was incredible then… and gets repeated every time, most recently last year.

  112. 112.

    YellowJournalism

    Nope, can’t stop until I show some Broken Lizard love with Super Troopers and Beerfest,

  113. 113.

    JordanRules

    Wizard of Oz
    Gone with the Wind
    The Fugitive
    Sixteen Candles
    Love Jones
    Heat
    Against All Odds
    A Chorus Line
    The Bournes, The Jack Ryans
    A Few Good Men
    Lady Sings the Blues
    Moscow on the Hudson

  114. 114.

    R-Jud

    @WereBear:

    I am alone in my loathing.

    I am quite proud of the fact that I have managed to avoid seeing it all these years. I’d seen part of an extended “making-of” feature on TV and thought it would be awful.

  115. 115.

    handsmile

    @WereBear:

    Welles. Of course. Thanks. (ashamed to have neglected/forgotten him above). Myself, I’d add both Mr. Arkadin and Chimes at Midnight to that “essential” list.

    Are you familiar with Kurosawa’s “Macbeth” film, Throne of Blood ? My favorite adaptation of the play and among the most successful Shakespeare-derived films.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throne_of_Blood

  116. 116.

    raven

    @WereBear: Fucking terrible movie. Try swimming around underwater in the North Atlantic with a .45 for, what, 20 minutes. On the other hand, in the original the Tired Old Queens describes what happened when the studio decided to invite Titanic survivors to the premier! Can you spell PTSD!

  117. 117.

    WereBear

    @AliceBlue: The thing that monumentally PO’s me is how the ending (SPOILERS ahead and oh yeah, the boat sinks) it is supposed to be this great bittersweet love story and if she had just gotten on the freakin’ lifeboat, he’d have the door, and they could have both lived.

    Sorry, if the people are stupid, it’s not tragic.

  118. 118.

    dogwood

    The movie that would always hook me when I came upon it while channel surfing was Raising Arizona.

  120. 120.

    Chris

    The Rock (watched it last night).

    The A-Team movie. (I am still furious that Expendables got a sequel, G. I. Joe got a sequel, Fast/Furious is still churning out a litter of them, but the A-Team got nothing. There is no justice).

    All the Star Wars.

    All the TOS Star Treks.

    All the Lethal Weapons.

    Most of the James Bonds, especially the two with Timothy Dalton.

    Casablanca.

    Anything by Mel Brooks.

    And saving the best for last, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which I’ve seen about fifty times and is probably my favorite movie of all time. Why? Because the Sean Connery/Harrison Ford dynamic is fantastic. Other reasons too, but that’s the reason that keeps me coming back for more.

  121. 121.

    Randy P

    I keep thinking of stuff.

    I will always brake for Gene Kelly. The movie plots tend to be kind of inane. I saw a high-school production of Singing in the Rain (daughter of a friend was in it), wondered if the original was just as childish, found out it was. In some ways I preferred the high-school version.

    But I will never, ever get tired of watching Gene Kelly move. My god, what an athlete that guy was.

    Saw him in an equally mindless French musical called Les Demoiselles de Rochefort where he’s doing things like effortlessly leaping from the street to the top of a car door, while singing. Probably in his what, late 50s when he did that film. It also features George Chakiris (Bernardo from West Side Story) as the romantic lead, dancing up a storm and singing in French. That guy should have had a much bigger musical career.

  122. 122.

    WereBear

    @handsmile: Are you familiar with Kurosawa’s “Macbeth” film, Throne of Blood ? My favorite adaptation of the play and among the most successful Shakespeare-derived films.

    So right… “derived” so it didn’t come to mind but certainly a stellar version for all that!

  124. 124.

    Chris

    @Comrade Mary:

    Lilo and Stitch. Seriously. (And I’m no fan of most Disney films, either.)

    Well, I am, and I still think Lilo and Stitch was one of their best works of all time. The Lion King (hey, it marked my generation) and Hunchback of Notre Dame are the only other two I like as much.

  125. 125.

    NotMax

    @AliceBlue

    Another vote against it here. Insipid soap opera mostly populated by cardboard characters, and as suspenseful as watching clothing in the dryer spin at the laundromat.

  126. 126.

    Botsplainer

    @Comrade Jake:

    Please tell me this was some kind of a joke.

    Sandler sucks (his physicality just doesn’t cut it for me), but the supporting cast makes it fun. Vince Vaughan probably would have been a better choice.

  128. 128.

    ? Martin

    Pretty much everything listed above, plus Fifth Element. It’s not a particularly good movie by any measure (and I know some of the people that worked on it and they agree) but it is surprisingly entertaining. Even daughter Martin, who generally can’t stand anything sci-fish loves that movie.

    Actually, the soundtrack holds the movie together more than anything else.

  131. 131.

    WereBear

    @raven: The sheer weight of some of his lousiest choices can obscure the fact that when he’s in a good role, he absolutely kicks every behind in the place.

  132. 132.

    wiscomom

    Some Like It Hot
    Tootsie
    How to Steal a Million
    Bringing Up Baby
    Shop Around the Corner
    Notorious
    The Lion in Winter
    Pat and Mike
    The Apartment

  135. 135.

    Chris

    @aimai:

    And Z. My connection is bad so I can’t link it but Z is basically one of the great political thrillers about the murder of a politician in Greece and how the murder is eventually traced back to his political opponents. It is just so painful and so hypnotic that you can hardly bring yourself to watch it, and then you can’t stop watching it. Brilliant cinematography, writing, directing, and acting.

    It contains one of the best closing lines of all time.

    Journalist: “Do you consider yourself a martyr, like Dreyfuss?”
    Right Wing Nut Job: “DREYFUSS WAS GUILTY!”

  136. 136.

    MaryRC

    @gogol’s wife: I would watch anything with Roger Livesey in it, even that horrible remake of Of Human Bondage with Laurence Harvey and Kim Novak. But I do share your love for I Know Where I’m Going.

    The telephone box beside the waterfall is still there on the Isle of Mull where the movie was shot, by the way. I’d love to see it someday.

  137. 137.

    RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual

    All the Lethal Weapons.

    I can’t. Not after Mel Gibson lost his marbles.

    I used to adore Gladiator but soured heavily on Russell Crowe. I can’t watch it anymore because of him. I’ll take the music, though. All day every day.

  138. 138.

    Botsplainer

    @YellowJournalism:

    Super Troopers

    “Do I look like a cat to you boy? Am I jumpin’ around all nimbly bimbly from tree to tree? Am I drinking milk from a saucer? DO YOU SEE ME EATING MICE?”

  140. 140.

    Rekster

    I didn’t see anyone mention:

    Cinema Paradiso

    This is my all time favorite film. If you love movies this is a must. Do Not view the “New Version”. You must watch the original.

    If you make it through the ending without bawling like a baby then a DNA test is required, you’re not human.

    Shawshank!

    I crazy for Kevin Costner also:

    Tin Cup
    Bull Durham
    Field of Dreams

    Jason Bourne with Matt Damon

  141. 141.

    Chris

    @Montysano:

    What is it with the widespread hatred of Titanic? To my pedestrian Midwestern taste, it’s a great film.

    It mostly comes from hearing all the girls my fifth grade talk about literally nothing else for an entire year at an age when I couldn’t care less about the whole romance thing.

    I caught most of it on TV last year and it’s definitely not that bad. I just remember hating its fan club. (It’s kind of like “24” that way).

  143. 143.

    A Humble Lurker

    Am I the only one who finds Alien meh? The first half of the movie is almost excruciatingly boring, and when things start to heat up I can’t be bothered to care that much about what happens to the crew. All I can think is ‘Oh let it eat you, you’re too uninteresting to even give it heartburn’.

    I get intellectually that it’s a good movie, but I just don’t enjoy it that much.

    I do, however, have a soft spot for 2D animation, or even 3D animation that LOOKS 2D. While I’m not big on re-watching movies I could watch cartoons forever. Old Rugrats, Rocko’s Modern Life, the first two seasons of Dexter’s Lab and all of Samurai Jack (God love Genndy Tartakovsky) old SpongeBob, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Home Movies, Cow and Chicken, and any Miyazaki movie and/or Studio Ghibli movie. I probably have some animes I need to catch up on too…

  144. 144.

    WereBear

    @raven: Double Indemnity

    Omigosh, yes, an absolute marvel, every frame of it.

    I will watch anything Billy Wilder did, all day, but that’s my favorite, closely followed by Sunset Boulevard.

    Just an absolute painter with celluloid, that man (who also co-wrote so many of his movies.) Look at the scene in the car by the railroad tracks… it’s just Barbara Stanwyck’s face, reacting to what Fred MacMurray is doing, the whole time. Stunning.

  145. 145.

    ThresherK

    @Randy P: (It’s Gene Kelly, one E.)

    Singin’ in the Rain I wouldn’t call inane. On the whole I’m with whichever writer said that Kelly got better movies to be in, whereas Fred Astaire’s song and dance numbers were like “diamonds set in paste” for too much of his career.

    For just one non-silly example, now that we’ve all seen it numerous times, we all know Lina Lamont’s voice sounds like chainmail on a blackboard. But this one tidbit, the lynchpin of the entire movie’s plot, is withheld from the audience for almost fifteen minutes while numerous mics are removed from her or hands put up to shush her.

    Then fifteen minutes in, Jean Hagen finally gets to speak. “Uv cawss we tawwk. Doan’ ivveryboddy?”

    The rock-solid storytelling confidence that Comden and Green (and all hands involved) displayed in this moment is a shining piece of cinema. It’s the exact opposite of a “star entrance”.

    (The Girls of Rochefort I somehow haven’t seen. It’s now on my list. Thanx. Have you seen “Invitation to the Dance”?)

  147. 147.

    Tokyokie

    @nancy darling: Actually, Dan Blocker’s agent passed on it without even sending him the screenplay, deriding it as “communist.” Blocker, who was a devout liberal, probably would have done it had he seen the script. And Sellers injured a foot or ankle hopping around on the bombs as Maj. Kong, and as a result he had to be replaced in that role. (The injury was also the genesis of why Strangelove is in a wheelchair and why Group Capt. Mandrake has a limp.)

    And my list prominently features:

    Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo
    The Hustler
    Chungking Express

  148. 148.

    NotMax

    @aimai

    Z is a masterpiece, but so intense that (for me) there must be an interval of several years between viewings.

    As for Ninotchka, have always harbored the theory that Nimoy initially modeled Spock after elements of Garbo’s character.

    Oh, and another one cannot pass by when it’s on, left off the list above: Topkapi.

  149. 149.

    RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual

    @raven:
    I’ll give you LA Confidential. Everyone was great in it. I haven’t, and won’t, see Cinderella Man because that was the film Crowe was working on when I soured on him. He got arrested for deliberately throwing a telephone at a concierge. It was grotesque. Even the radiant Renee Zellweger (with dark brown hair that killed me in the promo pix) won’t be enough to get me to watch it. I love her, but I won’t watch it.

  152. 152.

    Robert Sneddon

    @? Martin: I did some SFX work for Fifth Element; it was vastly entertaining as a spectacle but hopelessly screwed up as a movie. It was not a happy film to work on — a common phrase among the craft teams working on sets and props at Pinewood was “The line to kick the art director in the nuts forms on the left”.

  154. 154.

    Chris

    @Randy P:

    Probably my all-time favorite spy movie.

    I think mine is “Traitor,” with Don Cheadle, from 2008 (only seen it once but I need to watch it again). Mostly because it’s a spy thriller that’s actually about spying – as in, infiltrating a mole into an enemy organization in order to develop intelligence.

    It’s amazing how many spy thrillers have nothing to do with that. James Bond isn’t a spy, he’s an assassin – just happens to work for MI6 rather than the SAS or SBS. Same with all of his imitators. MacGyver, the Impossible Missions Force, and guys like that aren’t spies either – escape artists, break-in artists, saboteurs, con men, all kinds of things but not usually spies. I love all these movies/shows, but Traitor has a special place in my heart for actually being about intelligence gathering.

  155. 155.

    ThresherK

    @WereBear: When it comes to “overused movie quotes”, I don’t ever need to hear someone make someone an offer they can’t refuse, or love the smell of something in the morning.

    The best known lines from Sunset Boulevard never seem to wear out their welcome.

    And I am a sucker for anyone who’ll drop “The poor dope. He always wanted a pool” or “I wouldn’t look too closely at the postmarks”.

  157. 157.

    dogwood

    @Rekster:
    The original Cinema Paradiso is just about perfect. Sentimental in such a good way. I cry when I hear the soundtrack.

  159. 159.

    Christine

    Fanny and Alexander – the full television version (beautiful and ultimately uplifting Bergman – yay!)

    Vertigo (and I listen to the soundtrack – one of the best ever)

    Rosemary’s Baby (every damn thing in this movie is perfect, and so entertaining)

    Hannah and her Sisters (always makes me cry to see Woody happy at the end)

    Howard’s End (also one of my favorite books)

  160. 160.

    geg6

    Young Frankenstein
    Blazing Saddles
    (This Is) Spinal Tap
    Monty Python and the Holy Grail
    Life of Brian
    Love Actually
    The LOTR films
    The entire Harry Potter series
    To Kill a Mockingbird
    Funny Face
    Roman Holiday
    The Philadelphia Story
    Star Wars Episodes IV – VI
    Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
    The Descendants
    Best in Show
    A Mighty Wind
    The Princess Bride

    Guess it’s pretty obvious that I’m a comedy fan. Especially the comedy of Christopher Guest. I’m sooooooo jealous of Jamie Lee Curtis.

  164. 164.

    handsmile

    @raven:

    Sheer effin’ genius! Thanks so much for dredging that up. (This whole thread is wreaking havoc on my next NetFlix order).

    Another film with a brilliant jazz score is Odds Against Tomorrow; music composed/performed by John Lewis and the Modern Jazz Quartet. (I wouldn’t be surprised at all if you knew it.)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odds_Against_Tomorrow

    @WereBear:

    Reading through your comments on this thread, I gotta say how much I would love to spend a few hours just talking about movies with you!

  166. 166.

    Randy P

    @ThresherK: (It’s Gene Kelly, one E.) Fixt. Thanks.

    “The Girls of Rochefort” I somehow haven’t seen. It’s now on my list.
    Catherine Deneuve was another reason I rented it. She’s one of the “Girls” of the title. I was curious to see her act in French. Suffice it to say this early role is a little bit different from the stuff we may know her from. Total fluff.

    Have you seen “Invitation to the Dance”?
    Nope. On my list now, thanks.

  170. 170.

    Robert Sneddon

    @A Humble Lurker: An anime I watch repeatedly has never been released in the West and never with official English dub or subtitles and it’s probable one no-one here has ever seen it or heard of it — Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (Record of a shopping trip to Yokohama). It’s a four-episode Original Anime Video (OAV) series where the second pair of episodes were also called “Quiet Country Cafe”. It’s based on a manga by one of my favourite storytellers, Ashinano Hitoshi and it is, in my opinion, what Miyazaki wanted to make but couldn’t.

  171. 171.

    ThresherK

    @raven: Oh, let’s Groucho this place up.

    Eight hundred beautiful acres. You can have any kind of a home you want. You can even get stucco.

    (I’m counting on you for the next line.)

  172. 172.

    Chris

    @RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual:

    In my case the actors are most of the appeal, for the same reason I said about Last Crusade. Danny Glover and Mel Gibson play off each other fantastically.

    It always gives me a big sad to know that an actor whose work I like is an asshole (recently found out Kevin Sorbo was one of them), but usually I can still enjoy their work. In Lethal Weapon’s case, the fact that Mel Gibson’s a right wing nutjob is more than counteracted by the fact that the movies are pretty in-your-face about their liberalism (another thing I like about them).

  173. 173.

    A Humble Lurker

    Oh, because it’s too late to edit, and because it’s the spooky season, I’ll throw in movies by Dario Argento. I’m not quite sure how I feel about his movies, but there’s a sort of dreamy, ephemeral feel to them that I really like.

  177. 177.

    Hungry Joe

    Duck Soup
    Seven Samurai
    Ikiru
    His Girl Friday
    The Big Lebowski
    Fargo
    Slaughterhouse Five
    The Palm Beach Story
    The Ladykillers (original)
    From Russia with Love
    Hombre (The last long, long set piece, anyway: Paul Newman vs. Richard Boone)

  180. 180.

    Chris

    Has anyone mentioned Sneakers yet? That one’s a gem.

    “I’m Carl.”
    “I’m Mary.”
    “I’m going to be sick!”

  181. 181.

    Wally

    LOTR

    Patton

    North By Northwest

    Big Lebowski

    Wages of Fear (Either)

    Bourne Trilogy

    Caine Mutiny

    The Fugitive/Marshalls

    Blade Runner

    Apocolypse Now

    Bridge on the River Kwai

    + the Most Anythings in Post #67 although Ozu is new for me. Thanks!

  183. 183.

    Cassidy

    @WereBear:

    For a while Caine was known as much for the sheer volume of his work as its merit, not to mention his willingness to take on a role simply for the paycheck. He wrote about one infamous payday, I’ve not seen JAWS 4, I’ve heard it’s terrible. What I have seen, and I can assure you is not terrible, is the house it paid for.”

  184. 184.

    CaseyL

    The Lion in Winter – the original, thank you; never speak of the remake in my presence.

    The Three Musketeers – 1973 Richard Lester version only!! The 1993 thing with Charlie Sheen is someone’s idea of a bad joke, and I don’t even want to know what the hell is up with the 2011 version.

    Murder on the Orient Express

    The Seven Percent Solution

    Star Trek II – Wrath of Khan; Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
    (Fun fact: Nicholas Meyer was the director and screenwriter for these two Treks. He was also the screenwriter for The Seven Percent Solution, which was based on a novel he wrote. Meyer is amazing.)

    …. maybe the 2009 Star Trek reboot. Most emphatically not the recent entry, Into Darkness, unless I can cut out everything but Cumberbatch’s scenes and make believe they’re from a different movie.

    The Stunt Man

    … and looking over everyone else’s choices, I see a few I should have had on my list.

  185. 185.

    Randy P

    @Cassidy: In a funny way, I admire Caine for this. He says he’s an actor, so he wants to act. He likes to work. I find that much more refreshing than somebody who says they’re an actor but likes to wait years for the “right” script.

    Gene Hackman has said much the same thing and has been in a similarly large volume of crap.

  186. 186.

    geg6

    @raven:

    And another I adore! Double Indemnity might be one of the greatest films of all time, IMHO. MacMurray and Stanwick are just exceptional.

  188. 188.

    WereBear

    @Chris: It always gives me a big sad to know that an actor whose work I like is an asshole (recently found out Kevin Sorbo was one of them), but usually I can still enjoy their work. In Lethal Weapon’s case, the fact that Mel Gibson’s a right wing nutjob is more than counteracted by the fact that the movies are pretty in-your-face about their liberalism (another thing I like about them).

    Yes, I used to give Gibson more credit for his acting before I found out he was, in fact, crazy.

    And as much as I enjoyed things like the Lethal Weapons, and Mad Max, I never much was thrilled by him on that visceral level that makes a person sexy or interesting or attractive. And I have broad ranges on that, both physically and personally.

    It’s a funny thing about this intersection between the characters they play and the actual actor seeping through. I was never that fond of Wallace Beery but enjoyed his movies, then when I discovered he was a cruel person who probably murdered the originator of the Three Stooges… I could never watch one of his movies again.

  189. 189.

    Tokyokie

    @AliceBlue: The world premiere of Titanic was at the Tokyo Intenational Film Festival (a festival that goes out of its way to suck up to Hollywood, so it’s the preferred launch site for troubled, big-budget productions) back when every Japanese schoolgirl had a crush on Leo DiCaprio, and I not only declined a free pass to it, Russell the Aussie film critic and I had great fun making jokes about the 14-year-old girls skipping class to wait in line for two days to see the thing.

    And I guess those girls have been laughing and Russell and me ever since.

  193. 193.

    PurpleGirl

    Re: Titanic. I can accept that most of the picture is soap opera and for the most part I turn it off. However, I like the opening and the ending with Gloria Stewart’s elderly Rose. Cameron based Rose on a ceramist — Beatrice Wood — who I adore and whose work I covet. Can I like Cameron for his honoring of Beatrice Wood by using her for the basis of a character?

  194. 194.

    shelly

    Ah yes, ‘The Lady Killers.’

    And since it is the spooky season:

    “Curse Of The Demon”

    “The Haunting” (And never mention THAT remake in my presence.)

  195. 195.

    greylocks

    In no particular order:

    The Hunt for Red October
    The Lion in Winter
    Lawrence of Arabia (blessed be HD TV!)
    The Stunt Man
    Star Wars IV (the original, can’t stand the rest)
    The African Queen
    Kelly’s Heroes
    A Bridge Too Far
    The Color of Money
    The Road Warrior
    The Thin Man and most of the sequels
    Casablanca
    Aliens (the sequel)
    The Three Musketeers (1973)
    The Eiger Sanction
    Where Eagles Dare
    Patton
    Raiders of the Lost Ark
    My Favorite Year
    Smokey and the Bandit
    Every Which Way But Loose
    Firefox
    Ice Station Zebra

  197. 197.

    pamelabrown53

    @gogol’s wife: What I love about “inspector Morse” is the plot complexity. You can wait awhile, watch them again and marvel at the red herrings and how 2separate murders are easily conflated. Plus, it has all the Oxford fol-der-rol and ambience.

  198. 198.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Movies I would watch any old time, in absolutely no order:

    Casablanca
    North by Northwest
    The Birds
    Gone With the Wind
    That Hamilton Woman
    Waterloo Bridge
    The Americanization of Emily
    Dr. Strangelove
    High Society
    To Catch a Thief
    The Swan
    Kind Hearts and Coronets
    The Importance of Being Earnest
    The Lavender Hill Mob
    Wuthering Heights
    The Scarlet Pimpernel
    Rear Window
    The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain
    Brassed Off
    Calendar Girls
    Waking Ned Devine
    The Full Monty
    Henry V (Olivier)
    Henry V (Branagh)
    Much Ado About Nothing
    Dead Again
    The Winter Guest
    Peter’s Friends
    The Big Chill
    Murder by Death
    The Party
    The Trouble with Harry
    Sabrina (Hepburn/Bogart)
    Funny Face
    Love in the Afternoon
    Best in Show
    Waiting for Guffman
    Roman Holiday
    Becket
    The Lion in Winter
    A Man for All Seasons
    The Red Shoes
    Singing in the Rain
    Friendly Persuasion

    This is just on a few minutes of thought. There are many others, I’m sure, and I’ll feel silly when it suddenly dawns on me what I’ve left out.

  199. 199.

    MaryRC

    @gogol’s wife: By the way, the review of I Know Where I’m Going in Bright Lights Film Journal has this description of Roger Livesey’s voice:

    [I]f ever there was a voice you would want to hear in a cold, strange place it would be this one: a voice that warms you to the marrow of your bones, like excellent brandy.

  201. 201.

    gogol's wife

    @MaryRC:

    Absolutely!

    He’s fantastic in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (and dreamy in the early scenes). He’s also brilliant in The Entertainer, which is another rich, fabulous movie with great acting all around. Brenda de Banzie is heartbreaking in it.

  202. 202.

    Cassidy

    @WereBear: I’ve always liked him, but he was just so damn good in Warrior that it almost overshadowed the other three performances.

  203. 203.

    gogol's wife

    @Randy P:

    Okay, please go rewatch the scene in the hotel room between Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon the morning after Jack’s night with Joe E. Brown, when he tells Tony Curtis he’s engaged. Watch it again and tell me it’s not funny.

    If you do, I guess we belong to two different species.

  204. 204.

    WereBear

    The original The Day of the Jackal was fantastic; don’t be swayed by one of the worst remakes on record.

    Night of the Generals with Peter O’Toole is thrilling and intriguing; I don’t believe it’s out on DVD so I have to watch for the rare TCM showings.

    And I haven’t seen any love for David Cronenberg; he’s been erratic the last decade or so, but The Brood, The Fly, and Dead Ringers are landmark horror films, while Videodrome, Naked Lunch, A History of Violence, and Eastern Promises are all fine films with his trademark mind-blowing moments.

  205. 205.

    handsmile

    @Christine:

    At last (?), a Bergman film, and Fanny and Alexander one of the very best of his magnificent oeuvre. Not quite his final movie, but a kind of summation of the themes (faith-religion/family-marriage/magic-superstition) he grappled with throughout his career.

    Bergman has a formidable, even forbidding, reputation (not wholly undeserved), but he is among the greatest masters of world cinema. His filmography takes my breath away.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingmar_Bergman_filmography

  206. 206.

    RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual

    Eastern Promises

    Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts have such chemistry. They both rock.

  207. 207.

    Pogonip

    @A Humble Lurker: Another Jack fan! You have good taste. In the first, movie-length episode, that long sequence where, armored in saucepans, he goes out to battle the big bugs, is some of the best screen drama I’ve ever seen–and with no dialogue. Samurai Jack wasn’t really a good fit for Cartoon Network, and I’ve always thought that had it found a home on one of those arty channels like A & E, where it could have had more realistic fights and even sex, it could have run as long as Gunsmoke.

  210. 210.

    CaseyL

    @SiubhanDuinne: I used to love A Man for All Seasons, but then learned a few things about Sir Thomas More I would have been happier not knowing. Can’t quite get into that movie anymore, which is a genuine pity because it is excellent in all ways.

  212. 212.

    WereBear

    @Joel: Oh, I’m glad someone brought up Terry Gilliam, because I love his stuff. He has a grip on the fantastical that I greatly admire.

    I would have sworn Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was unfilmable, but he & Johnny Depp made it work for this longtime Hunter S. Thompson fan.

  213. 213.

    cwolf

    …for starters. :)

    The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. Peter Greenaway

    Clockwork Orange. Stanley Kubrick

    The Devils. Ken Russell

    Brazil. Terry Gilliam

    The Terminator. James Cameron

  214. 214.

    RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual

    @WereBear:
    I agree.

    Here in LA, I see various swap meets with artwork of movie gangsters. Due to his work in Eastern Promises, I believe Armin Mueller-Stahl should be included in those art pieces. I loved his work as the head of the criminal family.

    All in all, it was a great film with strong performances, even by Vincent Cassel, who I want to punch in the face most times I see him, lol.

  215. 215.

    moh

    Won’t repeat the great movies already mentioned, except I Know Where I’m Going, Serenity, The Princess Bride, anything by Billy Wilder, especially Some Like It Hot, but Double Indemnity, Witness for the Prosecution etc.
    No one’s mentioned one I adore and will watch anytime: the classic western Red River. Montgomery Clift (yum), John Ireland, Noah Beery Jr. Walter Brennen, and John Wayne (who actually acts!).
    Have put some love out there for Russell Crowe. I developed a massive crush on him when I saw Gladiator and will watch that, Master and Commander, LA Confidential, Mystery, Alaska, and a particular favorite Proof of Life (the one where Meg Ryan joyfully blew up her America’s Sweetheart image while making it). PoL is also the only movie I really like David Caruso in.

  216. 216.

    Joel

    As for movies that I can watch over and over again?

    Princess Bride
    Indiana Jones I and III
    Bladerunner
    Ferris Bueller
    Dr. Strangelove
    Trainspotting

  217. 217.

    handsmile

    @WereBear:

    And now Cronenberg! You’re killing me here! So just when are you next coming to New York City? :) (don’t know your own stomping ground)

    Each time I return to this thread, I find another treasure. A moment ago, the estimable gogol’s wife mentions Colonel Blimp, bringing to mind the many marvelous films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger!

    Once again, what a wonderful thread! Many thanks to many above.

    ETA: Mnemosyne has been missed here and, I expect, will be so pissed to have missed out on the fun.

  218. 218.

    Joel

    I think a better question would be, movies that you love but can’t watch again? I would go with Memento. And possibly the Star Wars trilogy (the original one).

  219. 219.

    MaryRC

    @gogol’s wife: Yes, I found a link from the IMDB page to a site called http://www.scotlandthemovie.com which has directions to the bay and all of the castles in IKWIG, including Moy Castle. According to the site, Moy Castle is closed for safety reasons due to its bad state of repair (not because it’s cursed, I assume!).

  221. 221.

    A Humble Lurker

    @Pogonip:
    I kept hearing it was good, and when I started getting back into old cartoons (thank you, internet!) I decided to check it out. I was shocked at how good it was. I’ll always be something of an action junkie, but even beyond that there was so much life and charm to the thing. You really felt you were peaking into another universe that lived and breathed on it’s own terms. So many ‘serious’ sci-fi and/or fantasy shows try for that and fail.

    Last I heard they were trying for a movie, but it hasn’t happened yet.

  222. 222.

    Emma

    Late to the party, but….

    Casablanca
    Key Largo
    Laura
    A Christmas Carol (almost any version)
    Marriage Italian-Style
    Arabesque
    LoTR
    Dona Barbara (Maria Felix)
    Las Aguas Bajan Turbias (Hugo del Carril)
    Rashomon
    Throne of Blood
    Spirited Away (anything by Miyazaki)
    The Thin Man series
    Anything where Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance!
    Abre los Ojos (screw Vanilla Sky)
    Eloisa Esta Debajo del Almendro

  223. 223.

    PurpleGirl

    @Joel: The Dresser (w/Tom Courtney) Excellent movie and performances but it depressed the hell out of me. It created one rule of movie-going for me: No strong and tragic movies on my birthday.

    ETA: I saw Master and Commander on my birthday and then went back for a second viewing a week later.

  224. 224.

    Tehanu

    Movies we always watch whenever they’re on, sometimes even if we’ve just seen them:

    Casablanca
    L.A. Confidential
    The Sting
    The Whole Nine Yards
    Destry Rides Again
    Four Weddings & a Funeral
    Chariots of Fire
    Ed Wood
    The Third Man
    My Favorite Year
    Snatch
    Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
    Blazing Saddles
    High Anxiety
    Wild Strawberries
    Smiles of a Summer Night
    Double Indemnity
    Eat Drink Man Woman
    High Sierra

    I might add, my favorite movies aren’t usually shown on TV — I have DVDs of some but not others, and in any case, my absolute favorite movie of all time, The Conformist, is so moving and so painful that I have to kind of ration it out to myself. On the other hand, if I had a DVD of The Court Jester, I’d probably never stop watching it.

  225. 225.

    MaryRC

    @gogol’s wife: And The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp also starred Anton Walbrook, who was so wonderful in Gaslight (I liked his version better than the remake with Charles Boyer) and The Red Shoes.

    Speaking of handsome British actors of that era makes me think of Robert Donat. He was in a movie with Deborah Kerr called Perfect Strangers that oddly reminds me of I Know Where I’m Going. I’d love to see it again but I always miss it when it’s on TCM.

  226. 226.

    smintheus

    @WereBear: I can watch The Third Man over and over again. The others on my short list of infinitely watchable talkies are Dr. Strangelove, Brazil, Casque d’or, Paths of Glory, M, and Night of the Hunter.

  227. 227.

    Emerald

    The original Sleuth with Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. 1972. It isn’t on DVD, but I have an old VHS version.

    Caine did the remake taking on the Olivier role with Jude Law a few years ago, but they messed with the screenplay. Harold Pinter did it. Pinter truly may truly be truly great truly, but I’ve never been able to enjoy much of what he’s written. The acting in it was, natch, just excellent.

    The 1972 version was absolutely fantastic. Both Olivier and Caine were nominated for Best Actor (that was the year Marlon Brando won and turned it down). Personally I think it’s one of Caine’s very best performances, still. Maybe the best.

    Even when you know the secret it’s still fun to watch for the acting and the scenery in that marvelous old house!

    I cannot understand why the original is not on DVD. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, fer crissake! A classic!

  228. 228.

    YellowJournalism

    @gogol’s wife: We are so of the same species! Although, I prefer the train bathroom scene where Jack gets his “chests” torn. Also love the makeshift pajama party crammed into one bed on the train.

  229. 229.

    LauraPDX

    Room With a View
    Howard’s End
    When Harry Met Sally
    A Fish Called Wanda
    Who Killed Roger Rabbit?
    Kung Fu Hustle
    King of Masks
    Not One Less
    Stand and Deliver
    Lost In Translation
    The Milagro Beanfield Wars
    Spirited Away
    Damages
    The Trouble With Angels
    Murder By Death
    The Queen
    Every episode of Inspector Morse
    Not really a movie, but The Jewel in the Crown series

    Thanks for the thread and lists – I’m heading over now to our library’s website now to put a whole lot of movies on reserve.

  230. 230.

    Beatrice

    I don’t watch many movies over and over again, because there are so many movies and so little time. Perhaps the movie I’ve seen the most is Wizard of Oz, because watching that on tv once a year was kind of a thing when I was growing up. Now that you can pretty much see whatever movie you want whenever you want, I guess kids will never know that special feeling when Wizard of Oz rolls around again – it was kind of like Halloween or Christmas.

  232. 232.

    Chris

    @WereBear:

    Well, speaking of intersection between the actor and the real person – anyone else here know how much substance there is to the rumors that Kirk Douglas raped an actress early in his career? Only found out about it recently, which is why I’m asking. But if true, that’s the kind of thing (much more than political opinions however heinous) that would make it pretty much impossible for me to watch an actor’s movies again in the same light.

  234. 234.

    rikyrah

    I hate most Stanley Kubrick movies.

    The only one I like is Spartacus.

    I don’t get it. I just don’t get Kubrick and I’ve tried…because so many people called him a ‘ genius’, I saw movie after movie of his.

  236. 236.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @CaseyL: Paul Scofield was brilliant in the role, whatever we have since learned about the man More. In fact, everyone in the cast was wonderful. Wendy Hiller, Leo McKern, Robert Shaw, Susanna York, John Hurt.

  237. 237.

    gogol's wife

    I’ll have to revisit this thread when I get back from a trip tomorrow. Hate to leave — bye!

  239. 239.

    Spike

    I’ve seen all of my Rewatchable Hall Of Fame entries save one: “Almost Famous”. And somebody please scoot over and make room for me on the “My Favorite Year” bandwagon.

  243. 243.

    Wapiti

    @Joel: Trainspotting?

    My wife and I watched it, and as the credits rolled looked at each other. We decided that it was a great movie, but one we could avoid watching ever again.

    When Bob Dole was running for President he went on at some point about movies like Trainspotting that glorified drug use. That cemented my belief that he was a liar, he hadn’t seen the film, and I should definitely make it to the polls to vote against him.

  246. 246.

    rdldot

    The Commitments
    Falcon and the Snowman
    A Hard Day’s Night
    Pulp Fiction

    This could go on forever.

  247. 247.

    Christine

    The Red Shoes

    Meet Me in St. Louis (I usually watch it around this time of year, love that Halloween scene)

    Bell, Book, and Candle (Kim Novak and James Steward are great together here)

    And yes, Night of the Hunter is one of my favorites. Love the songs in there, that surreal night river runaway scene, and especially Lillian Gish.

  249. 249.

    WereBear

    @handsmile: I am in the Adirondack Mountains… not too far from The City :)

    My gosh, how did the thread get this long without Tarantino! Another great source of quotable stuff, and one of the few directors who can do a non-linear timeline properly.

  250. 250.

    gelfling545

    The Lion in Winter
    I only know one person who has seen it but I think it is grand.

    Also, for those old enough to remember the Nixon years, Walter Matthau in Hopscotch for a blast from the past & a great deal of silliness.

  252. 252.

    dmbeaster

    @WereBear:

    Oh, there is plenty to hate about Titanic, but the real story itself is so compelling, and the Cameron attention to detail pays off in telling that story. Those pluses overwhelm the sickening syrupy cliched aspects of the romance, and the absurdity of dropping a giant gem into the ocean as the romantic climax.

  253. 253.

    sherparick

    @nancy darling: I was watching Dr. Strangelove last night also before the World Series. And I was thinking that after 50 years, General Jack Ripper’s (pun definitely intended) speech on “precious bodily fluids” seems to capture the essence of the spirit of Tea Partyism.

    Regularly watch TCM movies. Not an exclusive list, but I decided to pick them by decade:

    1920s “City Lights” and “Wings”
    1930s “Bringing Up Baby” and “Jezebel” (& a bunch of movies of 1939)
    1940s Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Maltese Falcon, Story of GI Joe, & Arsenic and Old Lace
    1950s the Searchers, How to Marry a Millionaire, Seven Year Itch, Paths of Glory, A Street Car Named Desire, On the Waterfront, High Noon, the Vikings, and La Dolce Vita, The
    1960s The Haunting, Dr. Strangelove, Lolita, 2001, the Wild Bunch, Ride the High Country, “The Fistful of Dollars,” “A Few Dollars More,” “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” Beckett,, The Lion in Winter, Lawrence of Arabia, the Graduate, the Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, the Great Escape, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Cat Ballou, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Great Race (a farce, but wonderful farce) (Obviously, I like the sixties)
    1970s The Godfather I and II, the French Connection, The Iceman Cometh, Patton, Days of Heaven
    1980s Alien, Aliens, Blade Runner, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Amadeus, Glory, Ferris Buehler’s Day Off, Back to the Future
    1990s Goodfellas, The Usual Suspects, Unforgiven, Office Space, Pulp Fiction, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List
    2000s The Departed, the Harry Potters, LoTR, Bourne Trilogy, Old School, Enchanted, Mystic River

  254. 254.

    smintheus

    @handsmile: Thanks for reminding me, Antoine and Antoinette is maybe the only one of Becker’s films I’ve never gotten around to seeing. Have you seen his last, Le Trou? It’s a tour de force.

  255. 255.

    jc

    All Kurosawa
    All Michael Powell
    You Can’t Take It with You
    The Russians are Coming
    Catch 22
    Damn Yankees
    Swingtime
    Invasion of the Body Snatchers
    Network

  256. 256.

    kuvasz

    Godfather I & II.

    Both are akin to home movies. My Sicilian paternal grandfather worked for an associate of Al Capone in the 1920’s, Luigi Longo, the beer baron of Cleveland. Grandpa was his nephew. The stories I heard!

  257. 257.

    greenergood

    @Chyron HR: There are so many comments in this thread that I doubt this will get read, but your comment about LOTR made me laugh – because I started reading LOTR when I was 10 (in 1966), and I did the same thing. When I finished the trilogy, I’d just start again – I think I read it in my early teen years about 15 times. Then went to college, immersed myself in reality and didn’t read it again until the first LOTR film came out. I was reluctant to go see it, but pressured by friends, and was amazed. Not impressed with the middle one, but the third was good. But as far as films are concerned, so many of these in previous posts are just wonderful choices, but will have to go with Blazing Saddles, because it was on late-night BBC the other night, and I just gasped – it could never be made nowadays as a mainstream, or even semi-mainstream film. We can make violent, rapey, car-crash films, but that film was just so incredibly honest about the state of the US in terms of race, politics, women, the reputation of the Wild West, etc. all the while being a ‘jokey’ film. Brooks just nailed it. No doubt people would pile in on its politically incorrect moments, but it nailed things way before the term ‘politically incorrect’ was even invented.

  258. 258.

    PopeRatzo

    Mean Streets, Raging Bull, Road to Morocco, 42nd Street, Solar, 8&1/2, Les Carabiniers, Michael Snow’s Wavelength and Joseph Cornell’s Rose Hobard.

  259. 259.

    greenergood

    @sherparick: Would add to your 2000s list ‘Winter’s Bone’ for depicting American people that American movie-goers rarely see on screen, in a
    pretty realistic way, and for having a plot driven by a female cast, without being a girly movie in any way whatsoever.

  261. 261.

    BruceJ

    Oh god what a list:

    Any Bond flick
    Any Kubrick flick
    Casablanca
    Key Largo
    Breakfast at Tiffany’s (despite the excruciatingly awful Andy Rooney character, I would watch, lovingly and for hours, Audrey Hepburn read the phone book)
    Robin and Marion
    The Wind and The Lion, ok, lets’ just amend that to ‘any Sean Connery flick’
    The Duellists (Which NEVER comes up in the rotation on cable, but is quite possibly Ridley Scott’s best film, yes better than Alien)
    The Seven Samurai
    The Magnificent Seven
    The Samurai trilogy
    Roshomon
    Apocalypse Now
    Godfather I&II

  262. 262.

    nancy darling

    @Chris: Don’t know anything about the Kirk Douglas rumors, but has anyone listed “Lonely Are the Brave” for their favorites list? It was based on Edward Abbey’s novel, “The Brave Cowboy”.

    I also love just about anything with Cary Grant. “My Life as a Dog” was memorable. So was “My Left Foot”.

  267. 267.

    Chris

    @greenergood:

    I just want to back this up: Blazing Saddles is a masterpiece. (Though it’s one of these movies I never watch alone. Too much funny to not be shared).

  269. 269.

    James Gary

    Movies about alienated Gen-X white boys (no commenters like that on *this* blog, of course) who turn out to be geniuses and/or get the girl in the end:

    Adventureland
    Sideways
    8 Mile
    Good Will Hunting

    All good with a bottle of Brand-X whiskey (e.g., Canadian Club) and a jug of orange juice to mix with it.

  270. 270.

    Mike E

    Get Shorty, people. People! A movie about movies…what, no love?!
    To Be Or Not To Be, Carole Lombard’s last. Luminous and precious.
    Shrek. Yes. In my top 10, deal with it. Almost yelled at my 6 yr old kid for not turning me onto it.
    Elephant Man, arguably the most beautiful black and white movie ever made.
    The Green Mile, my new Shawshank.
    The In-Laws. Again, people! Whaddup?!
    Going In Style. Teh Olds can carry a movie!
    Stranger Than Paradise. “I am deh vinner!”

    Bonus! The 3 films that made me laugh until I cried:
    Young Frankenstein, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, and Team America: World Police. Fuck yeah!

    ETA Badlands

  272. 272.

    Tehanu

    @nancy darling:

    Ah, Cary Grant: Walk, Don’t Run (his last film, and with the late great Jim Hutton to boot) and I Was a Male War Bride — great stuff.

    I keep remembering more things to add:

    Pepe Le Moko, with the one and only Jean Gabin
    And another vote for The Conversation. What an amazing movie
    Heartbreakers — the funniest performance Gene Hackman ever laid down

  273. 273.

    NotMax

    @Tehanu

    Strictly FYI, Walk, Don’t Run was a remake of The More the Merrier</i with Jean Arthur, Charles Coburn and Joel McCrea. A fun romp.

  274. 274.

    Marina

    No Chaplin? The Kid? The Great Dictator (with the globe scene, maybe the best scene in any movie ever)? The Lady and the Tramp (with the spaghetti scene, maybe the best romantic scene in any movie ever)? No Buster Keaton? That scene where the house falls on him, where the crew were scared he’d die, and Keaton was depressed so he didn’t care? Animal House? 400 Blows? The Artist? Homeward Bound: the Incredible Journey, makes me cry every time? Midnight Run (“I’ve got two words for you: Shut the fuck up!”)?

    The T.A.M.I. Show (James Brown at his peak, the Stones, the Beach Boys…just tune out Leslie Gore, the nominal star of the show), Married to the Mob, The Fabulous Baker Boys…Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth should be prescribed as an official antidepressant…Ditto Out of Sight with Clooney.

    Big Deal on Madonna Street, West Side Story, Murphy’s Romance with Garner’s great speech at the end (“I’ve got some wear on me…but I’m durable”), To have and Have Not, Wilder’s The Apartment, with Jack Lemmon the coolest dancer on the planet, the documentary on the Funk Brothers, Preston Sturges…jeez, there’s some great stuff out there…

  275. 275.

    Mike E

    @Marina: Heh, West Side Story…prolly the greatest movie ever made with two weak-ass leads. How good is it, to be that awesome of a film regardless?

    ETA High Fidelity

  276. 276.

    Marina

    Yeah, Rita Moreno, Russ Tamblyn, and George Chakiris were the real leads…

    I forgot The Grifters, Gross Point Blank, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Notting Hill, Local Hero (with the great Dire Straits sound track).

    Once I randomly turned on the t.v. and the chase scene from Bullitt was just starting…

    Serpico.

    The opening credits to Schrader’s Blue Collar…

  277. 277.

    Mike E

    Starstruck
    The Long Good Friday
    Matewan
    Stop Making Sense
    Swimming to Cambodia
    Man Facing Southeast
    Burden of Dreams
    Man On Wire

    ETA Labyrinth, Pan’s Labyrinth, Mirror Mask

  278. 278.

    Patricia Kayden

    Frozen River
    Mystic River
    Mystic Pizza
    The Best Man (the last scene with the Electric Slide dance done to “Candy” is the bomb — seen at every Black wedding since)
    Our Mutual Friend (1998 British miniseries)
    Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth version)
    To Sleep With Anger
    Corrina Corrina
    My Big Fat Greek Wedding
    Bend It Like Beckham
    Day of the Jackal
    Colour Blind (1998 British miniseries)
    Bourne Trilogy
    First three Alien movies
    The Thing (1982)
    Predator
    Matrix Trilogy

  279. 279.

    moderateindy

    The President’s Analyst
    Omega Man

    Rio Bravo and El Dorado (pretty much the exact same movie with John Wayne as the lead in both, but Robert Mitchum and James Caan (as Mississippi) in one, and Dean Martin, and Ricky Nelson (as Colorado) in the other. Like the Dean Martin one better because of both the cheesy musical interlude, and the presence of Angie Dickinson

    Rustlers Rhapsody………..Rarely ever on, but a good cast: Tom Berenger (as Rex O’Herlihan the singing Cowboy) Sela Ward, Marilu Henner, and who could resist Andy Griffith as the over the top flaming and barley closeted villian, the evil railroad robber baron, Colonel Ticonderoga

  280. 280.

    moderateindy

    Almost forgot my favorite Cary Grant Flick, and there’s alot of great ones………
    Father Goose…………..with the stunning Leslie Caron

  284. 284.

    jake the snake

    The Seventh Seal
    Roshomon
    Blade Runner
    Galaxy Quest
    Blazing Saddles
    The Creature from the Black Lagoon
    Highlander

    Eclectic, I know.

  286. 286.

    Graham

    MASH
    The Freshman
    Blues Brothers
    Godfather 1 and 2
    Fear and Loathing
    Prizzis Honor
    Pink Flamingos
    Django/Pulp Fiction/Kill Bill/Reservoir Dogs etc
    Lebowski/No Country/Fargo/Oh Brother
    Chinatown
    Life of Brian (its a joke name, sir, like Sillius Soddus or Biggus Dickus)
    The Usual Suspects
    Boogie Nights
    Stripes/Ghostbusters/Trading Places
    Down By Law/Stranger Than Paradise
    LA Confidential
    Streetcar Named Desire
    Indiana Jones first movie and the one with Sean C
    Blazing Saddles
    Casablanca

    Anyway those are the ones I rewatch the most….I also re-read books, over and over….just give me a year or so between readings….Gore Vidal, Hunter S Thompson, Studs Terkel, Vonnegut…

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