Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in. We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.
Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered. We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.
Tonight let’s talk about movies that we are happy to watch over and over and over again. Whenever they come our way. They don’t have to be great movies, or box office favorites, or stories about some lofty subject.
Two of mine are To Kill A Mockingbird and Overboard, and they obviously couldn’t be more different!
What are yours? What is it about them that keeps you coming back? Do you even know why?
Does the “why” even matter?
Princess Leia
Mine are Shakespeare in Love, Hunt for Red October (!) and Bull Durham. Not sure what that says about me, lol.
Scout211
The Princess Bride, of course! Who doesn’t watch that movie multiple times?
I have so many fond memories of watching it over and over with my daughters. The last time I watched it was with my youngest grandkids, very recently.
bbleh
Is it too hoity-toity to say The King’s Speech? There is so much that is so good in it.
And Buckaroo Banzai: Across The 5th Dimension. Yes a lot of the self-mockery is all too conscious and programmed, but it’s still hilarious, and John Lithgow is amazing.
ETA and yeah, I agree with two from the above two comments already.
EATA oh, and the movie version of Cabaret, which “isn’t available in my area” right now. 😡
Baud
My Cousin Vinny!
DarbysMom
Oh Wow – “Overboard” is one of mine too. But I never would have been brave enough to admit it if you hadn’t gone first. I’ve watched it dozens of times. No, I don’t exactly know why. Probably the chemistry between Goldie and Kurt? And Katherine Helmond and Edward Herrmann are freakin’ hysterical.
Dagaetch
The Martian. Smart people solving problems. Apollo 13 for similar reasons.
@Scout211: yes, always!
oh, and Master and Commander, because sailing
Gin & Tonic
Terrence Malick’s Badlands is one of mine. Really not sure what that says. But I adore the landscapes and especially the music.
oldster
When my kids were little I watched “The Sound of Music” dozens of times, and always enjoyed it. I haven’t seen it in a few decades; probably should find the old wax cylinder and and see if it still plays.
NotMax
The Stunt Man, Citizen Kane, Network, The Third Man, Make Way for Tomorrow, Forbidden Planet, The General and Z come to mind first.
Sidebar for film buffs:
Who was that dude, anyway?
Jacqueline Squid Onassis
The Usual Suspects – if I come across it randomly, I can’t stop watching it.
The Fifth Element – I can’t watch this one enough
Galaxy Quest – one of the most watchable movies ever and makes a fantastic double feature with Trekkies
Speaking of great double features that I can watch over and over again:
The King of Kong and Dodgeball: An Underdog Story is great. You can see what Stiller based his character on, I think.
The Maltese Falcon – I can watch Sydney Greenstreet enter and leave rooms for all eternity. What a great physical actor and who doesn’t love all things Peter Lorre?
dlwchico
Though I haven’t watched it in some time, Cool Hand Luke was the movie that I would stay up till 2am to watch back in the old days before we could record things on tv.
Also The Naked Prey.
Almost Retired
Casablanca. And one of the most fascinating things about it is that only two of the credited actors (Bogart, or course, and the woman who Louis helps cheat at roulette) are American. Most of the rest fled Nazi-occupied Europe and have incredible backstories. And when the movie was filmed, the outcome of the war was still not at all certain. Holds up well, with very few cringey lines (“you do the thinking for both of us” is one).
WaterGirl
@DarbysMom: It’s Balloon Juice! You’ve got to be brave.
DarbysMom
Fried Green Tomatoes; Doc Hollywood; Stand By Me; Shawshank; Rear Window – All my favorite summer repeat movies
I’m putting myself out there WaterGirl!
RSA
I’m happy to rewatch The Fifth Element and Amelie, which seem to have many accidental similarities that I’ve only just now noticed.
Also any Star Trek movie if I see one while flipping channels
ETA: @Jacqueline Squid Onassis: You got there first!
bbleh
Yes! and oh yes, that too! And yeah, duh! and …
Great thread!
Baud
@WaterGirl:
It also helps to be a little bit crazy.
BellaPea
I love To Kill A Mockingbird. When I watched that movie as a kid, I wished Gregory Peck’s Atticus was my father (my real-life dad was sadly lacking). The Bridget Jones movies are my film version of comfort food. Also love Four Weddings and a Funeral. Hugh Grant was simply adorable in his younger days.
Phaedrusonbass
I have lots. I’d like to feature Pleasantville. Always a message that is relevant, unfortunately.
Scout211
When my kids were younger, we watched Airplane! over and over. The kids memorized all the funny lines and one of them even wrote down some of the lines to quote them back in conversations.
ETA: also The Naked Gun
SiubhanDuinne
@bbleh:
I adore The King’s Speech. Right there with you, and not hourly-footy at all. (“Hourly-footy” is evidently Autocorrectese for “hoots-tooth.” Which is apparently Autocorrectese for “hoity-toity.” JFC.)
Casablanca.
Roman Holiday.
Murder by Death.
All That Jazz.
Grand Prix.
Rear Window.
Kind Hearts and Coronets.
Bell, Book and Candle.
Friendly Persuasion.
The Lion in Winter.
…to name but a very few.
brendancalling
Clint Eastwood films. I love ‘em. The “Fistful of Dollars” trilogy is like catnip to me. The soundtrack, the cinematography, the low budget minimalism just speaks to me for reasons I’m hard-pressed to explain. Most of the “Dirty Harry” series. “Unforgiven” is just amazing. Even “Outlaw Josie Wales.”
Yes, I know Clint is a moron politically. Yes, he’s an asshole by many reports. He was truly awful to Sondra Locke. All of that applies, but those movies are amazing.
Gin & Tonic
@Jacqueline Squid Onassis: “I tell you right out, I’m a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk.”
Kristine
The Fifth Element. Constantine. What’s Up, Doc?, whichever of the Underworld and Resident Evil movies is showing, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Batman Begins, I know there are more
Oh my gosh, Kind Hearts and Coronets. I need to get that DVD. Also The Man in the White Suit.
SiubhanDuinne
@Phaedrusonbass:
Yes, yes. I should have included Pleasantville in my list.
Orange is the New Red
I like to watch Harold and Maude at least once a year, after having watched it many times the first few years. We bought our first VCR so I could own this movie.
WV Blondie
Shawshank, O Brother Where Art Thou, all three of LOTR, Bull Durham come to mind – but I know there are more!
WaterGirl
@Baud: I might resemble that remark.
CaseyL
Besides many that have already been mentioned:
Murder on the Orient Express (the 1970s version; I hate the remake)
The Three Musketeers (ditto;; that is, the 1973 Lester version is the One True Version)
Spirited Away
Atomic Blonde
Star Trek, the 2009 reboot, before JJ Abrams turned out Trek Trash
…and a real oldie: Kind Hearts and Coronets
Now, that is an eclectic list! I don’t know that anything in particular unites them, other than sly humor and general intelligence.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Love Roman Holiday so much. That used to be my New Year’s Eve movie.
SiubhanDuinne
Also too, Field of Dreams. And the original The Producers.
dexwood
I’m not one who watches movies over and over again, that would be my wife. I will admit to watching The Day the Earth Stood Still, My Favorite Year, and The Big Lebowski more than once however.
NotMax
Runners-up to #9.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, The Wizard of Oz, Battleship Potemkin and, somewhat surprisingly, Dames.
WaterGirl
@Orange is the New Red: I watched Harold and Maude so many times when I was younger. I had a complicated relationship with my mom and I really related to to that movie.
“I would not say… benefit.”
bbleh
@Orange is the New Red: speaking of first VCR, first VCR I ever rented was The Mask. And yes yes Jim Carrey, but some of it is so over-the-top funny that I’ve watched it several times.
Alison Rose
I rarely watch movies these days, but over the course of my life, I’ve probably watched The Wizard of Oz at least 25 times. I started a tradition of watching it on Thanksgiving a few years back, but it was my favorite movie from the first time I saw it as a very young girl and I never get tired of it.
When I was a kid, we had a shopping center two blocks from our house and there was a video store there. Throughout the summer for a few years, my brothers and I would rent The Blues Brothers probably three or four times, until Mom finally bought it for us. I watched it a number of times as a teen and adult too, and it never gets old.
A few others: The Devil Wears Prada, Shakespeare In Love, Some Like It Hot, The Philadelphia Story, the LOTR trilogy, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and my favorite Disney movie, The Aristocats :D
Mai Naem mobile
Best Years of Our Lives, To Kill A Mockingbird, Midnight Run, Sixteen Candles, The Green Mile, The Great Escape, Stalag 17, The Gods Must Be Crazy, Bend it Like Beckham, The Help, Operation Dumbo Drop, Bowfinger, American President, Dave, Becoming John Malkovich, Inside Out, Sound of Music, The Fugitive, Working Girl
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne:
Insert clip of Meg Ryan in the restaurant in When Harry Met Sally here.
Ruckus
@brendancalling:
They all have a beginning, a middle and an end, a baddie good guy (Clint), a strong bad guy, good music for the story, and excellent filmography. IOW they are simple and easy to follow and a good time to watch. You know how it’s going to end – the lead always wins. It’s an old western but done in color and using cameras not built before talkies. (The old farts will understand that.)
Alison Rose
@Scout211: We also have many many favorite lines from Airplane and Airplane 2 in our family. Especially, since we’re Californians, “Fresno? Nobody goes to Fresno anymore!”
SiubhanDuinne
@CaseyL:
So glad to see another KH&C fan! Guinness was amazing!
Which (for obvious reasons) reminds me I should add The Mouse That Roared to my already overlong list.
JPL
@Scout211:INCONCEIVABLE.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
LOL!
kalakal
So many
here’s a few
Local Hero
Arsenic and Old Lace
Some Like it Hot
Charade
Once Upon a Time in the West
2001
Diva
Aguirre: Wrath of God
Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy
Casablanca
Bringing Up Baby
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Ice Cold in Alex
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
My Favourite Year
Trading Places
delphinium
@RSA: I can rewatch The Fifth Element and Amelie many times too.
Would also add Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (the over the top comedy always makes me laugh).
And one of my favorite coming of age movies (for both the adult lead and teen) , About a Boy. Think it is one of Hugh Grant’s best performances.
Old Dan and Little Ann
October brings horror movies to AMC. I watched The Shining, The Exorcist, and Poltergeist in the last week. Each one amazing in its own right. I have seen those 3 at least a dozen times a piece.
Leto
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Ocean’s 11 (Clooney, Pitt, and co), O Brother Where Art Thou?, Young Frankenstein, and even though it’s not technically a movie it’s basically multiple movies in length: Band of Brothers. I’ll also say that a lot of what you guys have suggested are also on my “Whelp, guess I know what I’m doing for the next two`ish hours!”
JPL
I’ll watch holiday movies over and over again, especially It’s a Wonderful Life. Love Actually is now on my list. Not that many years ago, I watched Old Yeller. I loved that movie as a child. Annie Hall still makes me laugh though.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Also too, The Ladykillers.
Scout211
@Alison Rose: LOL.
Yeah, we loved Airlplane2! also. We used to fall into fits of giggles trying to accurately recite the Macho Grande scene.
brendancalling
@Ruckus: a few years ago, my dad got his hands on “Yojimbo,” which the first “Fistful” is based on. I watched it with the kiddo, and we really enjoyed how shamelessly Sergio Leone swiped from the original.
Steeplejack
Speaking of movies . . . on TCM tonight: a pair with Michael Caine as secret agent Harry Palmer: The Ipcress File (1965) at 8:00 EDT and Billion Dollar Brain (1968) at 10:00 EDT. Based on novels by Len Deighton.
brendancalling
@Alison Rose:
(pasted from IMDB):
”You’d better tell the Captain we’ve got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital.”
”A hospital? What is it?”
“It’s a big building with patients, but that’s not important right now.”
Josie
Once Upon a Time in the West, Shawshank Redemption, O Brother Where Art Thou, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles
ETA: Moana (Disney)
frosty
@BellaPea: At one point I watched our DVD of Notting Hill every night for two weeks. I could recite the entire movie’s dialog on my drive to work.
Haven’t seen it in 10 years now, but I might try it again soon.
Mr. Bemused Senior
So many greats. Casablanca of course, the Princess Bride, Murder by Death, my tastes align with many others here.
Now a confession: You’ve Got Mail. [I know some people don’t care for it, but it was Bemused Senior’s and my favorite together].
More serious: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (the BBC series with Alec Guinness). All you need to know about intelligence is in that story.
billcinsd
movies: National Treasure, The Tao of Steve, Raiders of the Lost Ark
books: The Asey Mayo series, The Leonidas Witherall series, Discworld
TV: Leverage, The Librarians, The Tick live action, Andy Richter Controls the Universe
Leto
@Alison Rose: “I hate Illinois Nazis…”
Phylllis
The Apartment and Stalag 17. Both are go-to Christmas movies for us. Another vote for Casablanca as well.
Also, for To Kill A Mockingbird lovers, if you have an opportunity to see the stage version, currently touring with Richard Thomas, I highly recommend it. It gets a liittle Sorkin-ish preachy in places, but overall a terrific adaptation.
Doc Sardonic
@Alison Rose: I like the Wizard of Oz with the volume down, a little herbal enhancement, and Dark Side of the Moon
kalakal
@Steeplejack: The Ipcress File and Funeral in Berlin. Billion Dollar Brain is fun but silly I thought, rather like the book
Matt McIrvin
Any Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. Particularly Space Mutiny and Prince of Space. Though, come to think of it, I think both of those “movies” were themselves mashed up from multiple episodes of a cheeseball TV series rather than actually being movies.
I’ve always been fascinated by the often cheesy or weirdly misconceived space-opera projects that came out in the wake of Star Wars. Movies like The Black Hole and Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Battle Beyond the Stars. At the end of the 70s people knew science fiction was suddenly hot again, they didn’t quite know what they were doing and the results were bizarre and fascinating. Sometimes good, in a way. Sometimes a mixture of great and awful. And you had the occasional home run like Alien. But even the ones that are not great, I get mesmerized by when they’re on. Maybe it’s because I was a kid when these were in theaters and I saw all the promotion for them, but I mostly didn’t see the actual movies until years later, so they had this aura of mystery.
Mai Naem mobile
Little Miss Sunshine and As Good As it Gets. I have watched Little Miss Sunshine a gazillion times. I always crack up at the end scenes when Olive’s on stage dancing and when the cop tells them they can go and never come back to avoid charges. I think Greg Kinnear is an underrated actor and Abigail Breslin just does such a good job playing Olive.
Mike in NC
We just set up a new 55″ TV to replace the not-so-old 36″ box. Looks like we’ll need to watch a lot of our favorite movies on it, starting with ‘Gladiator’.
RogeBrian
We just introduced the kiddo to Sally Field and James Garner in _Murphys Romance_ which I saw in the theater and likely 50 times since. It’s a great example of the difference between being an adult and toxic masculinity, and Sally Field is a delight.
kalakal
I confess to a weakness for Kelley’s Heroes.
Mostly because of Oddball, the Donald Sutherland character, who cracks me up
Romancing the Stone is good fun in an Indiana Jones vein
JPL
@Mai Naem mobile: Little Miss Sunshine was hilarious and I’d watch it again. Ruthless People was another laugh out movie.
Leto
@Josie: Shawshank was one of those that was on such heavy rotation that I did have to stop for a while. Just all around great movie, with such a phenomenal cast.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
A movie-length homage to the original show. Featuring the Monterey Bay Aquarium. And whales.
For fellow tech types: Desk Set.
Brachiator
I love revisiting Holiday, with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Also, Groundhog Day. I will rewatch Hitchcock, especially British Hitchcock, like The 39 Steps.
Recently watched Paths of Glory and Barry Lyndon, two very different but wonderful Kubrick movies.
If I run across My Cousin Vinny or Princess Bride, I will settle in for a rewatch.
I will happily rewatch the first two Thin Man movies.
His Girl Friday, Some Like it Hot.
Laura and Out of the Past.
Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven.
The 2002 version of The Count of Monte Cristo.
Master and Commander, and Dead Poets Society.
Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles.
Citizen Kane and The Third Man
Tombstone
tokyokie
About three weeks ago, I saw C’era una volta il West* on a big screen for the first time since the early 1970s and I was awestruck by how brilliant the compositions are. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen the movie, but whether it’s the opening title sequence or the introduction of the Henry Fonda character and especially the final shootout, there are so many great scenes that I’ll always watch for a few minutes. But on a big screen, one gets a better feel for the grandeur of Leone’s vision.
*(OK, Once Upon a Time in the West, but it’s an Italian movie and should be referred to by its Italian title.)
Alison Rose
@Scout211: I don’t think I’ll ever get over Macho Grande!
Alison Rose
@brendancalling: LOL yeah we would use that formulation constantly :)
DarbysMom
@RogeBrian: Agree! One of my absolute favorites!
Phylllis
@Alison Rose: I think The Devil Wears Prada holds up pretty well, due mostly to Meryl, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci.
delphinium
Also: Blade Runner, Big, and The Insider.
Steeplejack
As an adult I became uncomfortable with To Kill a Mockingbird because of the subtext about the black defendant Tom Robinson: Atticus Finch’s defense is unsuccessful, Robinson is convicted, and later he is killed (off-screen) while trying to escape from the jail where he’s being held. Bummer for him, but, hey, Atticus Finch, apparently the only liberal in the tri-county area, is a great guy and his kids learned some valuable lessons. End of story.
It is a good movie, and it has a lot to recommend it, but there are some angles that don’t bear close scrutiny.
kalakal
@Alison Rose: Surely you can’t be serious!
The one we used a lot, still do, is
“Looks like I picked a bad day to give up…”
Mr. Bemused Senior
@kalakal: what do you make of this?
Tony Jay
The ‘why’ always matters. It’s the most important question.
‘Why?’ is the necessary membrane between discovering whether “I like brick!” means you’re talking to a fascinating self-taught expert in the structural sciences or a very odd German woman with objectophilia.
It’s what makes us not dumb animals… all the time.
zhena gogolia
@bbleh: The King’s Speech is on my list too.
Love Actually
Bridget Jones’s Diary
Shakespeare in Love
1995 Pride and Prejudice
Anyone see a pattern here?
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: My feelings exactly. When I saw it I couldn’t get what everyone was raving about.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: You are an anglophile!
I like Room with a View
zhena gogolia
Among films not starring Colin Firth:
Christmas in Connecticut
Casablanca
Remember the Night
Poor Little Rich Girl
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: A Colin-Firth-ophile
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: That’s another one.
zhena gogolia
@kalakal: Oh, of course, Airplane!
mrmoshpotato
Jurassic Park – because they have a T-Rex!
The Mask and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective – fond memories of busting our guts laughing. And still today.
Nosferatu (1922)!
ETA – pretty much any Hitchcock movie.
narya
Bull Durham
My Cousin Vinny
Buckaroo Banzai
Spinal Tap
Holy Grail
Casablanca
Groundhog Day
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Tinker Tailor?
prostratedragon
It’s a long list, which is why I sometimes have to avoid the tv, or at least movie channels, altogether. Some are All About Eve, The Great Escape, Z, Chinatown, and Vertigo.
zhena gogolia
@Brachiator: Oh, yeah, The Third Man. Seen it a million times.
NotMax
@Tony Jay
Or talking about the son in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
;)
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: I’ve actually never seen that one.
zhena gogolia
@frosty: Oh, Notting Hill is on my list too. Could watch it every day. Four Weddings and a Funeral, I’d have to let some time go by in between.
Tony Jay
Fight Club, because it mercilessly eviscerates toxic masculinity and the cult of the leader while simultaneously saying, sometimes, shit needs to be blown the hell up. Also great actors, and pre-bonkers Meatloaf with knockers.
Most Hammer Horror films, because they’re like a warm bath with a scented candle and everything is right with the world if Peter Cushing is on your side.
Fifth Element, because it looks great, laughs at itself and has a strong message about respecting everyone, even shapeshifting warrior mercenaries.
Porky’s, because it’s so fucking funny.
TinRoofRusted
Cinema Paradiso. I will watch the whole movie just to have the last scene hit me like a truck. Best cathartic ending ever.
kalakal
I can’t watch it too often as my nerves couldn’t take it Don’t Look Now
To laugh myself silly The Pink Panther series
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
Love that there are so many Bull Durham fans. That movie is evergreen. Raidets of the Lost Ark is another one of mine. Love Rear Window, Roman Holiday, Casablanca, My Cousin Vinny…lots of those that have been mentioned.
Someone mentioned Local Hero, which brought to mind Waking Ned Devine which is hilarious and great.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: The General? Buster Keaton?
prostratedragon
Phaedrusonbass@19: That movie for some reason flashed through my mind recently. Maybe I should watch it again. Did like it the first time.
mrmoshpotato
@Jacqueline Squid Onassis: Speaking of Peter Lorre – Casablanca.
Tony Jay
@NotMax:
See? Important.
This is the bit where I style my way out of admitting I’ve never seen it. Soooo many great movies I haven’t actually seen yet.
God, I miss Lockdown.
zhena gogolia
Hitchcock: Notorious, Suspicion, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief, Rebecca.
A. Hepburn: Sabrina, Charade, How To Steal a Million, Two for the Road
Craig
@Dagaetch: Master and Commander is a repeat for me. They really make that world work.
zhena gogolia
@Tony Jay: I’ll watch Horror of Dracula any time it’s on.
JPL
@zhena gogolia: One time during the trump presidency, I watched Love Actually in July. Can’t tell you what year though, because I’m trying to block that time period out
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Groundhog Day
Rachel Bakes
White Christmas
Desk Set
While you were Sleeping
Oceans 11 (Clooney)
high Society
Red October
Noises Off
mrmoshpotato
@brendancalling:
Yes! I’d love to see The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly on the big screen .
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
I really like the film adaptation.
During the pandemic, I ran across the TV mini series. Just delightful. Intense and wonderful acting.
JPL
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: Are you sure you watched it over and over and over again? lol
zhena gogolia
@JPL: We may have watched that one a few times in the 2017-19 period as well, no matter what time of year.
WaterGirl
@Leto: Blues Brothers!
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: I also liked Smiley’s people.
tokyokie
@Steeplejack:
The original is terrific. “Listen to me. Listen to me.” But Funeral in Berlin is not nearly as well done, and Ken Russell directed The Billion Dollar Brain and blew up the series, although watching him trash the genre is kind of amusing.
WaterGirl
@RogeBrian: I have watched Murphy’s Romance so many times. Great movie!
JPL
@mrmoshpotato: Definitely dating myself because I saw it at the drive-in. They are all bad.. just sayin
billcinsd
@mrmoshpotato: and M
gene108
Japanese Godzilla movies dubbed in to English, except the original 1954 Godzilla movie. The 1956 American edit left out so much of what the characters were doing.
I like the 2014 “Godzilla” movie. “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” was such a hot mess to me. Too much attention on Millie Bobbie Brown and her two awful parents, instead monsters fighting.
Haven’t seen Godzilla v. Kong.
”Constantine”
”Pacific Rim”
“Conan: The Barbarian” (1982)
The Raid (The Raid: Redemption in the USA).
Star Wars episodes 4-6.
“His Girl Friday”
Nora
Casablanca.
The Conversation (you have to be in the right mood for that)
All About Eve (“fasten your seat belt . . . ” “That cynicism you refer to I developed when I discovered I was different from little boys”, and other wonderful lines)
Secondhand Lions
Stardust
The Princess Bride, of course
Some Like It Hot
The Stunt Man
My Favorite Year
My Brilliant Careet
Just off the top of my head. . .
Mr. Bemused Senior
Yes! A very satisfying conclusion to Tinker, Tailor.
Tony Jay
@zhena gogolia:
I will go to my grave (and possibly stay there, unless there are options) absolutely stunned that in a movie about an Undead monster who snarks and sneers and basically has all the best lines in the book, they told magnetic baritone Christopher ‘The Voice’ Lee “We’re going to want you to play the part silent except for snarling.”
Now the Karnstein films, those gave their bloodsucking ladies some room to emote.
billcinsd
@JPL: You dated yourself at the drive-in? That seems suboptimal.
MomSense
Finding Forrester
Buena Vista Social Club
Little Miss Sunshine
Pride and Prejudice (Keira Knightly version)
Mystery Men (My kids and I quote it and love it)
Mask of Zorro
Billy Elliott
Death at a Funeral (UK version)
Knight and Day
There are others I used to watch when kids were little.
There have been some studies about why people watch the same movies/tv shows over and over. It’s an interesting subject.
prostratedragon
Have you ever seen The Shining at a movie theater? The tension build-up is much greater than on the tube — that scene with Grady [shudder!]. The Silence of the Lambs is another that I pass up on the small screen despite thinking very highly of it.
Steeplejack
@kalakal:
Ah, Funeral in Berlin! I was blanking on the title earlier.
Billion Dollar Brain is a bit shaky, but it shows up so infrequently that it might be worth a go. I’m in for Ipcress, at least.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Men in Black
zhena gogolia
@Tony Jay: Love those!
Tony Jay
@brendancalling:
All true and yes, great films.
MomSense
@Nora:
I forgot about Second Hand Lions. I actually bought it and loaded it on my IPod many years ago. That was a fun flick.
WaterGirl
@TinRoofRusted: I watched that, I remember I loved it, but I don’t recall what the movie was about at all!
kalakal
Some British gangster movies I can watch again and again
The Long Good Friday, Get Carter ( the original), and The Italian Job.
tokyokie
@RogeBrian: My mother, who had Alzheimer’s, would watch Murphy’s Romance every day, and, given her condition, it always seemed fresh to her. I think she must have watched it more than 100 times before she could no longer operate the VCR.
MomSense
@tokyokie:
Love The Ipcress Files.
Mr. Bemused Senior
The very first VHS tape we bought (for $80 at the time!): Follow That Bird. We wore out that tape.
MomSense
@TinRoofRusted:
My favorite movie. The last scene simultaneously destroys me and gives me life.
kalakal
@Tony Jay: The first one I saw was Taste the Blood of Dracula. I’ve been a fan ever since
In a completely different vein I can watch Kenneth Williams as the weasliest Caesar ever a zillion times in Carry on Cleo
p.a.
Lion in Winter
Odd Couple, original
Some Like it Hot
Philadelphia Story
Animal House
Guardians of the Galaxy 1
Eat Drink Man Woman
Amélie
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I don’t know about Mask of Zorro, but I could watch Zorro, the Gay Blade anytime. I love that movie.
Craig
@brendancalling: I met him at a weird place and didn’t recognize him, and asked him, ‘Hey, are you the stage manager?’, he looked at me like I was insane, with that squint, and I realized it was him. He just chuckled, and I said, ‘yeah, you’re not the stage manager’, he agreed, ‘ I’m not the stage manager’. After that I’d see him and he’d say hi. I’d run into him when I worked at the Monterey Jazz Fest and and he’d walk up and say, ‘ how ya been?’. Nice enough. We had a piano trio once with Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea, and Oscar Peterson. Brubeck was really delayed. Clint was a board member and was backstage, so we asked him to fill some time till Brubeck could get there. He sat down with those two and played some chords while Chic and Oscar soloed. When it was his turn he just laughed and played chopsticks. I think he can probably be a hella dick, but I’ve seen the lighter side.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: In some ways, How to Steal a Million is the perfect popcorn movie for me. O’Toole, Hepburn, a caper, Paris, and a E-type Jag. It really doesn’t matter that the plot makes no sense. At all. You just sit back and enjoy.
ETA: Complete victory of style over substance.
bbleh
@zhena gogolia: “I have moderate to severe Firthophily, which is not only debilitating but also very hard to pronounce. But my doctor recommended …”
WaterGirl
@tokyokie: That’s a nice story. That movie brought me comfort so many times when I was younger, I’m glad your mom had that.
mrmoshpotato
@Kristine:
CriterionNevermind. Didn’t check if it was out of print. It is.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@WaterGirl: The Mark of Zorro (1940 w/Tyrone Power and Basil Rathbone). It has been a long time, I should go watch it.
prostratedragon
tokyokie@71: I had a similar experience with that movie when it was rereleased years ago, and it made me really respect Leone. Great movie and moviemaker. And to my earlier point that some movies really need that big screen even if they don’t feature lots of action.
Craig
@WaterGirl: watched it on a plane today. So good. I forgot Pee Wee is a waiter in the scene where they wreck the fancy restaurant. Also found out that Steven Spielberg plays the County Clerk in the Assessor’s Office at the end.
NotMax
May not hold up to oft-repeated viewing, rather to a once in a while treat, La Chèvre. Avoid the horrid American remake.
@mrmoshpotato
You betcha.
thruppence
Agree with many of the choices above, but I’ll add Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Both so audacious in concept and execution that you can hardly believe what you see on the screen, even when you’ve seen it before.
kalakal
Oh how could I forget Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone swashing their buckles
The Adventures of Robin Hood and
Captain Blood
TinRoofRusted
@MomSense: Exactly! I have never seen a movie ending like it before or since. The end combined with the story telling and the score makes it a movie I can watch over and over again.
mrmoshpotato
@bbleh: Broken down car on the bridge!
Alison Rose
Man, y’all have reminded me of a lot of other movies I’ve loved and rewatched often.
Some more of mine: Hamlet (the Branagh version only though); The Hours; Labyrinth; Secretary; Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead; Party Girl; Quills; Dazed and Confused; and I gotta put in another plug for my fave weird ass documentary, Koyaanisqatsi.
prostratedragon
@Nora: My favorite All About Eve line: “Why did you call me a killer!?” I like lines that lead the viewer offstage.
funlady75
@zhena gogolia:
NotMax
Would like to once again see Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? but there must be some issue involving the rights as it never shows up anywhere.
@Omnes Omnibus
Along the same lines, Topkapi and its progenitor Rififi.
arielibra
Hunt for Red October, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. There a lot of movies I can happily rewatch, but those are the only two where I can come in anywhere and always get sucked in.
Craig
Apocalypse Now
Days of Heaven
Sword of Doom
The Godfather
Mad Max
His Girl Friday
In the Mood for Love
The Grandmaster
Duck Soup
Happy Together
The Philadelphia Story
Babe, Pig in the City
Toy Story 2
Fantasia
Dumbo
Repo Man
Mystery Train
In a twist there’s one movie I’ll never watch again. Dancer in the Dark. It’s absolutely essential, gorgeous, and so well crafted. BUT. I cannot possibly take the emotional toll it took out of me again. One of the best movies I’ve ever seen, but it’s gonna have to remain a memory.
funlady75
love Two for the Road….& The Razors Edge….my favorites…plus any Gregory Peck movies””’Robert Taylor movies are also my favorites…
I have TCM & loveit!!!!!!!!!!!
prostratedragon
thruppence@150: Brazil, heck yeah. Make sure it’s one of the director’s cuts.
WaterGirl
@Craig: Really! I did not know that about Speilberg!
mrmoshpotato
@brendancalling:
Steal from one of the best.
Craig
@CaseyL: oh yeah. The Lester musketeers movies are the only ones. I’ve always had a crush on The Countess De Winter. Gladly be her victim.
Craig
@WaterGirl: just happened to be watching the credits, and WTF, so I backed it up and there he was.
prostratedragon
Alison Rose@154: Quills and Secretary! We have similar tastes for the outre it seems. “We produce books for the discriminating collector. The compulsive inmates set the type, the listless ones do the binding and prepare the ink.”
NotMax
@prostratedragon
Brazil needs whatever the equivalent of subtitles for audio might be for visuals.
;)
Craig
@thruppence: agreed on both.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Scout211: Of course!
Rachel Bakes
@Omnes Omnibus: to Steal a Million is such a delightfully peculiar film.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Dagaetch: Yes, yes, and yes!
WaterGirl
@Craig: I will have twitch it again.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Jacqueline Squid Onassis:
YES to both!
prostratedragon
NotMax@157: Compare and contrast Rififi, The Killing, and The Asphalt Jungle. Can watch any of them anytime.
Pittsburgh Mike
@NotMax: The Stunt Man is great fun!
NotMax
Gosharoonie, how could I have forgotten to mention Tom Jones? And the lesser known Joseph Andrews?
CaseyL
So many glorious movies getting the love here! I’m enjoying seeing everyone’s list, muttering under my breath, “Oh yeah, that one! That one, too!”
prostratedragon
NotMax@167: You find it opaque? Interesting.
Alison Rose
@prostratedragon: I’d read a couple de Sade books before that movie came out, and I had a real morbid fascination where I could barely keep reading but felt almost compelled to. I thought the movie did a pretty good job capturing what a fucking freak he was, LOL.
mrmoshpotato
@TinRoofRusted:
Great movie! I have the 3-disc (theatrical cut, director’s cut, CD soundtrack) and some recipe cards.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
Coming late to the party, but two of my favorite (old) movies are Red River and Some Like It Hot. Actually, pretty much any of Billy Wilder’s movies.
And (very) guilty pleasures: The Holiday and Rio Bravo
NotMax
@prostratedragon
May have been distracted by the seemingly endless miles of dryer vent hose.
;)
Spanish Moss
Crouching TIger, Hidden Dragon
The Last Sumurai
Pride and Prejudice (Kiera Knightly version)
Fellowship of the Ring
Good Will Hunting
My Cousin Vinny
The Princess Bride
Home Alone
12 Angry Men
On Golden Pond
Four Weddings and a Funeral
When Harry Met Sally
The Gods Must Be Crazy
Villago Delenda Est
I’m very late to the show, but a few examples from my perspective. Avengers: Endgame, It’s A Wonderful Life, The Godfather, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, This Is Spinal Tap, Star Wars (A New Hope), Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Death of Stalin, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, the Producers. OK enough for now.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia
After Hours
Milk Money
The Killers
Showgirls
Barbarella
Easy Money
Craig
@Leto: I’m a sucker for that Ocean’s stuff. So many talented people that are clearly having a ball telling a crazy story.
Omnes Omnibus
I just rewatched Diva last night. It had been a long, long time. Cool movie. Makes me want to find Subway and watch it again.
Pittsburgh Mike
I could watch “Ferris Buehler” any time. “Happy Accidents” and “11 Minutes Ago” are fun time travel movies I’ve watched repeatedly. “In The Loop” is a fun politics movie. And “Michael Clayton.”
Steeplejack
@Matt McIrvin:
Prince of Space. LOL. I saw that on TV one Sunday morning in the ’80s in a boutique hotel in the French Quarter. A weirdly specific memory. It fit right in with the exotic weirdness of a long weekend with my girlfriend in a city we both loved. I’d like to see it again.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
Yes!
FelonyGovt
Local Hero, Comfort and Joy, Lost in Translation, The Station Agent, My Cousin Vinny, Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, Love Actually (don’t judge).
Omnes Omnibus
The Gods Must Be Crazy.
Craig
@NotMax: when my buddy was an animator on Toy Story everybody at Pixar had the laser disc set of Brazil and they’d discuss it and break it down. He called it Film School in a box.
mrmoshpotato
@billcinsd: Definitely, and M.
Lorre is very good in Hitchcock’s British version of The Man Who Knew Too Much too.
Alison Rose
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): HAND FLEX
Matt McIrvin
@gene108: I have been underwhelmed by all of the current American Monsterverse movies. There’s something about the Showa-era Godzilla flicks that appeals even when they were bad. And the 1954 original (Japanese cut), of course, was unironically a great movie.
Craig
@Omnes Omnibus: that’s such a great little movie. Going to add that to my search list from this thread.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
Great film! I had a student choose Promenade Sentimentale for an audition piece. It was fun working with that music.
Matt McIrvin
Oh, yeah, and a whole bunch of Hong Kong martial arts flicks of varying quality. Fist of Legend. Iron Monkey. The Heroic Trio. The Yuens’ whackadoo fantasy kung fu comedies like The Miracle Fighters and Taoism Drunkard.
WeimarGerman
So many good movie memories here. I liked the comment of movies I’ll stop scrolling to watch over and over again: Princess Bride, Men In Black, Guardians of the Galaxy I or II, any LOTR (even the cartoon Hobbit), Life of Brian, Enemy at the Gates, almost anything with Sean Connery or Alec Guiness.
More recently the first two Kingsman (not the last) and I feel Knives Out will also make the list.
mrmoshpotato
@prostratedragon:
Yes. Years ago, the Music Box Theatre in Chicago ended their annual 24-hour horror film festival with The Shining.
Geminid
I think I could watch My Darling Clementine a few more times. It’s got a good story and some good acting, and some excellent black and white cinematography. It’s one of John Ford’s best movies, and he had some good ones.
Steeplejack
A bonehead comedy that holds up surprisingly well is Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. I always get sucked into it.
mrmoshpotato
@kalakal: “You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”
frosty
@zhena gogolia: Four Weddings – watched it once, maybe twice. Not as good as the hype.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax:
That dialogueless 26-minute heist scene!
kalakal
I can rewatch quite a few Luc Besson movies – The Fifth Element, La Femme Nikita, Leon, Taxi, Subway
Spanish Moss
@Omnes Omnibus: Diva is a great movie, that I have watched multiple times. It has been a long time, I forgot about it.
The 1994 movie Fresh reminds me of it (and I have also watched Fresh several times). I am not sure why, something about the interesting characters and the intricate plot. I just looked it up, and Samuel L Jackson is in it, which I didn’t realize, I don’t think he was as famous at the time.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
One might place both of the very different Eating Raoul and Waiting for Guffman under that descriptive umbrella.
Ivan X
A movie I watch again, and again, and again, and I can’t even tell you fully why, given that I’m not particularly interested in finance, is Margin Call, which is more or less to The Big Short what Fail-Safe is to Dr. Strangelove. That is, it’s the serious take on the 2008 financial crisis, rather than the amusing one.
I just find the writing and ensemble performances mesmerizing.
Omnes Omnibus
@kalakal: God, yes.
@mrmoshpotato: You can actually see the place I lived when I was going to school in London in the establishing shots of the hotel scene with all the hookers. It was on Westbourne St, just north of the Royal Lancaster Hotel.
Leto
@Craig: Right? They’re just visual morphine. Put it on and just… relax and enjoy the trip!
A few more:
Ben-Hur
The Ten Commandments (this basically only comes on during Easter so it’s a once a year thing)
The King and I (Yul Brennen and Debrah Kerr; both of their performances just make this an absolute watch)
The Dirty Dozen
Craig
I don’t know how I left Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, The Sting, and Slap Shot off my list. The George Roy Hill, Paul Newman tryptic. Butch is my favorite movie.
Craig
@Spanish Moss: FRESH rules. I watched it a few months ago for the first time in years. Giancarlo Esposito is scary. Sam Jackson was on the cusp of fame.
NotMax
@kalakal
IMHO the medal for most lethargic heist movie would go to The Day They Robbed the Bank of England.
RSA
Oh, my goodness. MST3k was my first thought! But then I said, “This thread is about movies, not TV shows.” Inconceivable that I didn’t think of the connection.
Space Mutiny and Prince of Space are two of my favorites, as well as Time Chasers and the will-o’-the-wisp The Final Sacrifice.
@Steeplejack: Prince of Space, MST3k cut. (Movie credits starts at 4:30.)
Geminid
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): I could watch Billy Wilder’s The Apartment a few more times. Wilder was both Jewish and a refugee, and he had an outsider’s point of view that gave his depiction of late 1950s New York business culture a special edge.
Steeplejack
A Hard Day’s Night. Can’t resist it whenever I run across it.
And two more Richard Lester films, The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers. Much swashbuckling and very funny.
mrmoshpotato
@Matt McIrvin: Manos: The Hands of Fate for the win!
zhena gogolia
@frosty: I didn’t like it at all the first time I saw it, but it has grown on me. I love Duckface.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: I think I saw Eating Raoul three times in a week when it first came out. But never again! Not sure I could take it now.
But Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, etc. — those are infinitely rewatchable.
Steeplejack
@MomSense:
Mystery Men. “We’ve got a blind date with destiny, and it looks like she’s ordered the lobster!”
raven
Jeremiah Johnson
RSA
@Steeplejack: “He who questions training only trains himself in asking questions.”
Sure Lurkalot
So many of my again and agains already mentioned. But no Altman’s MASH?
Two of mine that I haven’t seen (again) in a while, Down and Out in Beverly Hills (truly funny satire) and Mirage (Gregory Peck with amnesia).
And as a companion to Overboard, Desperately Seeking Susan.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
“Avoid the horrid American remake.”
True for so many movies—even some American ones.
eclare
Moonstruck. I can recite most of the dialogue at this point. Just an incredible script and cast, including Nic Cage looking his hottest since Valley Girl.
kalakal
@NotMax:
Never seen that one, wonder how I missed it?
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Sure Lurkalot: Mirage. Thank you! I have been racking my brain trying to remember that movie.
Ben Cisco
So many already mentioned…
Any Mel Brooks.
Also Python.
ALSO also anything with Denzel Washington in it.
Star Treks II, III, IV, VI, Generations, 2009.
The Long Kiss Goodnight.
kalakal
My favourite terrible SF movie to rewatch is Krull though Ice Pirates runs it close, I have no idea why I rewatch them now and again but I do.
One fantasy movie I do rewatch is Ladyhawke
Ajabu
I’ve got a fairly eclectic list:
Black Orpheus – my introduction to Brazilian music. Changed my music Cotton Comes To Harlem – Established the Black movie style of the 70s. And Redd Fox figured out Fred Sanford…
Also: Little Big Man, The Great Escape, That Man From Rio, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Skin Game, An Officer and A Gentleman, Where’s Poppa?, Bullitt, Back To The Future, Watermelon Man, The Exorcist, The Deep, and many more…
raven
@funlady75: First or second Razor’s Edge?
Tehanu
@billcinsd:
Andy Richter Controls the Universe, what a wonderful show that was! My own list of movies I’ll always watch over again: Casablanca, My Favorite Year, The Sting, Blazing Saddles, L.A. Confidential, Eat Drink Man Woman, The Court Jester, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Chariots of Fire, Double Indemnity … well, this could go on for hours!
raven
@Ben Cisco: Ever see this Denzel flick?
For Queen & Country
NewLarry
Out On A Limb. Absolutely hilarious!
The Blues Brothers. But none of the sequels, they all sucked.
A Boy and His Dog. Obscure post-apocalyptic film, but extremely well-done.
BellyCat
@Orange is the New Red: Yes! Just showed Harold and Maude to my GF (a geriatrician, of all things) a few weeks ago. The Cat Stevens soundtrack is a PERFECT pairing. So uplifting (ultimately).
My GF was blown away. When asked what she thought: long pause…. “There’s a lot to chew on, there.”
RIGHT?!?!
toine
Apocalypse Now and Repo Man.
Repo Man… those that know, know! :-)
ryk
I don’t know why, but I find myself rewatching Larry Crowne whenever I run across it.
Spanish Moss
@Ben Cisco: Crimson Tide with Denzel and Gene Hackman is one of my favorites. Mutiny on a nuclear submarine with such fine actors, sometimes the suspense was unbearable.
NotMax
Couple of comedies with a soupçon of dark tinge I just remembered, Un mundo maravilloso (“A Wonderful World”) and A Raven Called Poe.
Duet of little oddball entries worth checking out — Lapland Odyssey and Danny’s Doomsday
Mr. Bemused Senior
Two oldies: A Thousand Clowns (1965 w/Jason Robards), Morgan! (1966 w/David Warner and Vanessa Redgrave). It has been a long time but I watched them both multiple times in the days before VCRs.
Planetjanet
@bbleh: A hearty second for Buckaroo Banzai. May I add Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Treasures to be passed down the generations.
Steeplejack
Random movies bubbling up from memory. Kung Fu Hustle. Trailer here.
Black Dynamite. Great riff on the ’70s blaxploitation movies.
Steeplejack
@Matt McIrvin:
Tsui Hark’s Time and Tide (2000) is a personal favorite.
Sandia Blanca
Mentioned previously:
Galaxy Quest
Groundhog Day
Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
Airplane
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Black Orpheus
Not yet mentioned:
Bedazzled (the original, with Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore)
Mamma Mia
Grease
Cloak and Dagger
eclare
@Steeplejack:
Gotta add Hollywood Shuffle.
https://youtu.be/iUM9Hkvf0Co?si=jTwfntXP4KkcO9Lz
Steeplejack
Mouse Hunt, Nathan Lane and Lee Evans. Memorable cameo by Christopher Walken.
Evans has a tiny part in The Fifth Element in the “negotiating with the pirates” scene. He seems to have disappeared.
NotMax
Have seen the Alastair Sim “A Christmas Carol” more times than care to count, but that’s more a seasonal tradition than a rewatch anytime thing.
zeecube
One of my favorite re-watchable movies? hint: “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
eclare
@Sandia Blanca:
Grease! How could I forget! Danny and Sandy.
BellyCat
@TinRoofRusted: Cinema Paradiso, indeed!
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy (Swedish version) is worth mentioning as it is masterful and a damn fine job of book adaptation. Stellar acting by all.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Yes and of course Miracle on 34th Street. Holiday traditions.
thruppence
@Steeplejack: Yes! Kung Fu Hustle! A fusion of ridiculous martial arts and pure Looney Tunes physical comedy. If you guys haven’t seen it, seek it out.
kalakal
Surprised The Rocky Horror Picture Show hasn’t been mentioned ( unless it has and I missed it )
kalakal
@thruppence: Agreed!
Steeplejack
@RSA:
😹 Thank you! I never thought to look it up. I’m going to send the link to my now ex-girlfriend but good friend. She’ll get a kick out of it.
frosty
Not mentioned by anyone: all three Bourne movies.
Since we cut the cord, I no longer see movies by accident when I’m surfing around the channels. Dropping cable changes TV into something you turn on only when you want to watch something in particular. I have lots of stuff on my list but most nights, well, every night, I just don’t want to bother. It’s very weird.
As for other things I would watch if they scrolled past, probably half of the ones mentioned, but also one I didn’t see: League of Their Own.
NotMax
How about shorts? Gotta include De Düva (The Dove). Loving send-up of Ingmar Bergman’s oeuvre.
BellyCat
Amen. Herbal additives and headphones turned way up are recommended. Saw a SIX HOUR Philip Glass orchestral piece (pieces?) performed in the late eighties. Amazing (but the poor musicians repeating the same allegro passages for, literally, hours)!
thruppence
Just went and ordered the Brazil 2022 Criterion Collection 3 disk set. Tomorrow’s my birthday, dagnabbit!
eclare
@frosty:
I am not an action movie fan, but the Bourne movies are very good.
eclare
@thruppence:
Happy birthday eve, fellow Libra!
stinger
Not counting Christmas movies, my most re-watched films include:
Much Ado About Nothing
Enchanted April
Tootsie
Witness
The Fabulous Baker Boys
Working Girl
Dead Again
Big Night
Peter’s Friends
White Nights
The Importance of Being Earnest
Bringing Up Baby
The Good Solider
Smilla’s Sense of Snow
Chocolat
Double Indemnity
Beau Geste
Rebecca
Ordinary People
War of the Buttons
The Commitments
Six Degrees of Separation
The Nun’s Story
Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet
guilty pleasure: The Bodyguard
Plus many that others have listed above.
ETA: Picnic at Hanging Rock and Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and The Red Balloon
Other MJS
@Dagaetch: Someone called The Martian “competence porn”.
Steeplejack
@Ajabu:
Glad to see someone else who likes—or even remembers—That Man from Rio. Belmondo and Françoise Dorléac (Catherine Deneuve’s sister) are great in a light French version of a screwball comedy. I rewatched it on some streaming service after Belmondo died a couple of years ago, and it held up pretty well.
I first saw it in a theater on an Air Force base on Okinawa in about 1968. It was a tantalizing glimpse into a world of cinema that existed beyond Hollywood—which I dived into when I got to college a year or two later.
piratedan
I won’t repeat the many favorites that many of you have named (sometimes numerously), so I’ll go to ones that no one has mentioned yet
Akira
Big Trouble in Little China
Dan in Real Life
The Natural
The Andromeda Strain
Colossus: The Forbin Project
Three Days of the Condor
All The President’s Men
thruppence
@eclare: A very balanced thank you. I’m gonna have to fire up my text editor and go through this post making a list. Tired of flipping through the poorly curated streaming services muttering, no, no, no, no, no, no, no until it’s time to go to bed. Now I’ve got to get back to finish Donnie Darko.
Steeplejack
@thruppence:
The trailer doesn’t quite do it justice, but I looked it up and couldn’t resist throwing it in.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
I saw that in college. Reminds me of Hallelujah the Hills, also seen around the same time. Not a short but same sort of tribute/spoof.
Steeplejack
@thruppence:
Happy pre-birthday! 🎂🥂
Steeplejack
@frosty:
The Bourne movies are incredibly tight. Almost always get sucked into them when I run across one.
They’re relatively new, but I also find myself getting sucked into the two Denzel Washington/Antoine Fuqua Equalizer movies. Highly recommended. (Haven’t seen the new one.)
eclare
@Steeplejack:
Speaking of movies we saw in college, Raising Arizona, which I don’t think people have mentioned.
Frances McDormand….”oh he’s an angel straight from heaven!”
BellyCat
Raising Arizona when in need of larfs.
Monty Python is also a treasure. And all the more hilarious when one realizes (IIRC) they all went to law school together (or practiced law contemporaneously?). Holy Grail utterly slays me, while Life of Brian needed a better (or any) editor. Watched the two back to back two nights ago and LoB was somewhere between trying too hard/was too repetitive and being too timid given the controversial subject matter. YMMV
eclare
@BellyCat:
GMTA!
BellyCat
@eclare: That’s hilarious. Wrote the same before I saw your post.
ETA: Jinx! 😂
Steeplejack
@eclare:
Yes! “Her womb was a barren desert in which my seed could find no purchase.”
thruppence
ALSO! (am I being tiresome?) If you like rock music at all, go out to a real theater and see the remastered and rereleased Stop Making Sense. I was at one of the premieres 40 years ago, and this release almost made me feel like I was in my twenties again.
Ruckus
@Alison Rose:
Hadn’t see Blues Brothers in a while and watched it 3 or 4 yrs ago and it was absolutely as good the 10th time as the first.
I’ve been in a bit of a weird mood for a couple of days so to sort myself out I’m rewatching Mash, the TV series on DVD. Really enjoyed the show when it came out, likely because of my military time. I wasn’t in the Army (the Navy) but really the US military seems to give pretty much the same experience, at least in the parts one doesn’t mind remembering. Of course the parts one doesn’t want to remember, one can not forget. Of course the best part was stepping off the gangplank for the very last time. Now don’t get me wrong, it was an experience and not near as bad as it could have been but that last step on to the dock for the very last time was a great experience and I remember the exact time, the day and date, and not to scream with joy. I did smile though…..
eclare
@Steeplejack:
“These doors gonna swing wide!”
“No one sleeps in this house naked!”
Watching now, on Hulu.
Steeplejack
@eclare:
Might have to watch it again myself.
eclare
@thruppence:
I’ll have to look for that! Saw the original in a movie theater. I convinced a friend of mine, not a Talking Heads fan, to go with me. I’ll just say she was a good sport.
Craig
@BellyCat: 👍
Craig
@piratedan: yeah. Big Trouble, Three Days, and President’s Men, damn I’ve seen those so many times. So good.
Ruckus
A lot of great movies mentioned here. My list is way too long to write down but I’ve seen almost all of the ones mentioned.
In the Navy the guys with my job title also showed movies on the ship. We had to take the movies back a get new ones regularly and we traded with other ships when we were not near a US navy base. Once had to take a boat ride to the carrier America and trade movies. We’d had 6 movies, they had a movie locker with dozens. Two of us took the small open launch and our 6 movies to the ship and had to land at the stern enlisted ladder. Then go up 5 decks (stairs) to the hanger deck, walk all the way forward – 1000 ft, and then back down 5 decks to the movie locker. Then the reverse return trip. At least didn’t have to salute anyone with hands full. Other times we would trade movies with the tanker while refueling, but we never got to choose what movies we’d get back. Talk about mystery movie theater.
Pennsylvanian
@Mai Naem mobile: add in Heart and Souls, Door to Door, Fargo and at least one disaster movie, and we are damn near twins!
kmax
agree with most listed above
these are on my list too
Get Shorty
Last of the Mohicans
Fargo
and I heartily agree with so many others about The Fifth Element
ETA – how did I miss this.. The Year of Living Dangerously
Origuy
Most of mine have been mentioned: Princess Bride, Rocky Horror, Big Trouble in Little China
How about Beetlejuice and Little Big Man.
David Crisp
Anything by Kubrick and the brothers, both Marx and Coen. But most of all, Cool Hand Luke. “What we have here is failure to communicate,” of course, but also, “I’m standing in the rain talking to myself,” “Calling it a job don’t make it right” and “I can eat 50 eggs.”
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Alison Rose: yes. He’s so sweet and clearly on the spectrum.
thruppence
Remembering the late great Alan Arkin – has anybody mentioned Catch-22? And at the other pole of his career, Little Miss Sunshine is a great watch. And since it’s Spooky Season, don’t miss John Carpenter’s The Thing.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@kalakal: Ladyhawke! Hello fellow romantic
BruceFromOhio
Edge of Tomorrow.
Starship Troopers.
The Fifth Element.
DarbysMomDarbysMom
Shawshank Redemption always!
BruceFromOhio
@Matt McIrvin: Galaxy of Terror!
buggrit
Baghdad Cafe, Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast (both the original and the Phillip Glass opera soundtrack), anything with Danny Kaye in it, in addition to the many fine movies listed above. Night, all.
BruceFromOhio
@kalakal: Lucy.
BruceFromOhio
@Ben Cisco: Will always stop for
Training Day
Man on Fire
John Q
Inside Man
Remember the Titans
Alison Rose
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Okay LOL, I forgot I’d commented about P&P and I thought this was in response to my comment about de Sade. I was like…on the spectrum, maybe, but sweet???
columbusqueen
Most of mine have been mentioned, but I’d include anything by Chaplin, Smiles of a Summer Night, Shanghai Express, & It Happened One Night.
OTOH, I can’t stand the 2005 Price & Prejudice. It’s miscast, alters a lot unnecessarily, & doesn’t seem to understand Austen at all. The critic Anthony Lane called it the Brontified Austen, which sums up its flaws nicely.
I’ll go away & shut up now. 😉
Bcameraian
Okay, I agree with just about every film mentioned above. The one that I absolutely will watch again and again though is Alec Guinness’ “The Horses Mouth”. Saw it as a child on my grandmother’s old Zenith. Did not catch the title. Wondered what it was for decades. Caught it late one night on a PBS station and finally learned the title. Found the books at my local library. It’s the final book of a trilogy by Joyce Cary. Guinness himself wrote the screenplay. After that it was a long search for a DVD copy. As perfect a gem of a movie as any mentioned above.
Matt McIrvin
@kalakal: The Rifftrax guys did a live event of Krull. I hadn’t seen it in a long time, and what stuck me about Krull that while it has terrible pacing problems and the story is generic extruded fantasy product, it’s a great-looking movie. They must have blown a huge amount of money on the sets and costumes alone. Some of the effects are genuinely ambitious for the time.
lowtechcyclist
The only rewatchables of mine that I haven’t seen mentioned so far are Sleuth with Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine, and King of Hearts with Alan Bates. Used to watch the latter on a twin bill with Harold and Maude at the Circle Theatre in D.C. Those twin bills were great! Anyone here remember their printed schedules and their 10-for-$10 ticket books?
As a connoisseur of off-the-wall humor, Monty Python and the Holy Grail tops my list; by my lights, it’s the funniest movie ever made. A møøse once bit my sister…
Then there’s Airplane!, Blazing Saddles, Duck Soup, Monkey Business, Horsefeathers, The Princesss Bride, The Producers, and the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Madness takes its toll.
In more conventional movies, there’s The Philadelphia Story, A Thousand Clowns, Casablanca, To Have and Have Not, The Maltese Falcon, All That Jazz, Butch and Sundance, and Groundhog Day.
ETA: Speaking of MP&HG, I was told something last night that I haven’t had time to verify, but it would add a certain something to one part of the movie. Supposedly a ‘shrubbery’ was Brit slang at the time for a condom. Anyone know about this?
Matt McIrvin
@thruppence: I was a fan of a lot of dumb music when I was a teenager, but Talking Heads is one preoccupation that totally holds up. I saw Stop Making Sense a couple of weeks ago and have been earwormed by “Found A Job” ever since. (That’s the one that predicted YouTube: “They might be better off, I think / the way it seems to me / making up their own shows / that might be better than TV.”) Looked up videos on YouTube about the song and learned that Tina Weymouth’s peculiar, funky bass line for that one is revered by bassists. I hadn’t paid close attention to it before.
Matt McIrvin
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Ladyhawke had that kind of amazing Tangerine Dream synth soundtrack on a medieval-themed fantasy movie. I think it actually works. But it so precisely pins the movie to a particular moment in time–I can’t imagine that being done in any other era but the deepest Eighties.
…I guess A Knight’s Tale did something kind of similar, but it was going for more of a Moulin Rouge vibe, calling attention to the incongruity.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
The Muppet Movie for me. For so many reasons. So many lines that I’d flood the nearly dead thread with them.
Kosh III
Sunset Blvd I am always ready for my closeup
Donovan’s Reef Hilarious spoof–Lee Marvin was marvelous as always
Babette’s Feast A well-deserved Oscar winner
Porky’s Cause we need a good laugh about high school and tallywhackers.
2001: A Space Odyssey I’m ready for the next stage of eveolution
JDM
For the last couple years especially I’ve been watching various things again, and some of them over and over. The one I find I can watch virtually any time (like 3 times in a couple weeks) is the 1973 “Day of the Jackal”. I’ve also read Steven Soderbergh saying he could watch it every month.
Other movies I can watch most any time:
Day the Earth Stood Still (the original)
The Sting
The Big Lebowski
North by Northwest
BillD
Is it possible I’ve scrolled this far without seeing Shane or High Noon? I’ll also throw in Mr. Roberts.