My Favorite 100 Films: 75-51

Part 2

75.) Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Director: Vittorio De Sica
IMDB: 8.3

I know that I talk about this movie a lot, but it's just a truly great piece of work. Nominated for best writing and given an honorary award for Best Foreign Language Film, as it wouldn't be an official award until 1956. The Bicycle Thieves is a real gut punch as a down and out father in post WWII Italy finally gets a job, but has his bicycle stolen. The movie tracks his adventure, but because this is Italian Neorealism, don't expect a happy ending.

74.) North By Northwest (1959)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

IMDB: 8.3

A New York City man is mistaken to be a government agent by a group of spies. His world is turned upside down as he attempts to escape those who are following him. He meets a woman in Chicago who turns out to not be as innocent as she seems. Of course it features the epic plane chase shown on the poster, as well as a fight on the top of Mount Rushmore, though the graphics certainly held up over time. Look for a young Martin Landau among the many men attempt to capture or kill Cary Grant's character. Also, I forgot until I was looking stuff up that this movie has some of my favorite opening credits and they remind me loosely of the ones that were used at the beginning of the first Spider-Man movie with Tobey Maguire.

73.) A League of Their Own (1992)

Director: Penny Marshall

IMDB: 7.3

My favorite baseball movie and it would be even higher if it weren't for the opening 20 minutes of the day. Still, Geena Davis is great as catcher Dottie Hinson and has great chemistry with Tom Hanks, who plays the legendary manager, Jimmy Dugan. Dugan of course utters the most quoted line from this movie, "There's no crying in baseball!" Madonna, Rosie O'Donnell, Lori Petty, and Megan Cavanagh help round out the rest of this team of loudmouths, showoffs, and great ballplayers.

72.) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Director: Milos Forman

IMDB: 8.7

This movie was the top dog at the Oscars in 1976 as it won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Jack Nicholson), and Best Actress (Louise Fletcher). Fletcher is the big surprise as the cold Nurse Ratched as she would never come close to matching this performance again. Nicholson is at his best as a criminal who pleads insanity to get out of prison and insteads winds up in a mental facility. His character R.P. McMurphy riles up the patients and butts heads with Nurse Ratched throughout the film.

71.) Jaws (1975)

Director: Steven Spielberg

IMDB: 8.0

While One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest made me never want to be admitted into a mental ward, Jaws destroyed any sense of my enjoyment to go in the ocean. I once went to the Atlantic Ocean in Maine and was terrified to dip my toes in the water. I went a little deeper on my trips to Hilton Head Island, but that robot shark was always in the back of my mind. After Duel, Spielberg made one of his first blockbuster films and still that mechanical shark, like Alien, is better than any CGI shark I've seen and certainly better than the 3D shark in Jaws 3. I've watched this movie probably a dozen times thanks to it being run on TNT or something that like and there are parts that still make me uneasy.

70.) Cinema Paradiso (1989)

Director: Giuseppe Tornatore

IMDB: 8.5

Like Hollywood, I love movies about movies. This winner for Best Foreign Language Film from Italy tells the story of a young boy who sits in the projection room of his town's theater and his great friendship with the projectionist. Philippe Noiret is excellent as the projectionist Alfredo and is a great guide for cinema and fatherly advice for Salvatore who dreams of making movies and leaving his small village.

69.) Gladiator (2000)

Director: Ridley Scott

IMDB: 8.5

Once my favorite movie as a teenager, this is still a great adventure of a Roman general Maximus (Russell Crowe) who sets out to seek revenge against the emperor (Joaquin Phoenix) who murdered his family and mentor. Maximus re-enters Rome as a Gladiator and wins over the crowd much to the dismay of the emperor. He also gets to drop one of my favorite lines in movie history (see video).

68.) Heat (1995)

Director: Michael Mann

IMDB: 8.2

As I mentioned for The Town, I love a good bank heist movie. A cat and mouse game between Lt. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) and criminal mastermind Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro). There are some great heists scenes and the big showdown is just a gunfight on the street with Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, and De Niro carrying bags of money through the streets while Pacino and Wes Studi chase them down. Also, look for a young Natalie Portman as Pacino's daughter.

67.) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Director: Stanley Kubrick

IMDB: 8.4

An insane general starts on a path to nuclear war and politicians must try and work to figure out how to stop it from happening. Sterling Hayden returns to this list as the crazed general, George C. Scott gives a stellar performance as one of the generals in the War Room, but this movie is all Peter Sellers. He plays a total of three characters, a group captain, the U.S. President, and Dr. Strangelove, a wheelchair bound former Nazi who has an issue with his left arm saluting.

66.) Amelie (2001)

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

IMDB: 8.3

Amelie is a young French girl who decides to secretly help those around her and ends up finding love in the process. The Travelocity gnome certainly has this movie to thank. One of the people she helps is her father who dreams of traveling the world, so she takes his garden gnome and gives it to her friend that works for an airline, who in turn, takes pictures of the gnome in front of famous landmarks.

65.) Toy Story (1995)

Director: John Lasseter

IMDB: 8.3

I feel like if you haven't seen Toy Story, you've been under a rock somewhere. In case you haven't, Woody is Andy's favorite toy until he get Buzz Lightyear for his birthday. Andy begins to favor Buzz over Woody and after Buzz is accidentally knocked out of the window, the other toys in the room blame Woody, who they say is jealous of Buzz. Woody sets out to find him and the adventure begins. I saw this movie probably ten to fifteen times in theaters because my mom was working at a movie theater that summer. Three sequels and 25 years later, these are now films that my kids and I can share together.

64.) Memento (2000)

Director: Christopher Nolan

IMDB: 8.4

A man with short term memory loss uses tattoos and photos to help remember the events of the past to help track down his wife's murderer. This is Christopher Nolan's second film after Following, which is a pretty solid debut from one of my favorite directors. There's so many twists and turns that I'd hate to reveal anything more about this thriller.

63.) The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Director: Jonathan Demme

IMDB: 8.6

A young F.B.I. cadet (Jodie Foster) taps the mind of the highly manipulative and cannibal, Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) to help track down a serial killer who skins his victims. Like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,this movie swept at the Oscars in the big four categories. Oddly quoteable, this film has so many memorable scenes including the night vision sequence where Clarice Starling is trapped in the dark with "Buffalo Bill".

62.) Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Director: Mike Nichols

IMDB: 8.0

Nominated for 13 Oscars and the winner of five, including a Best Actress win for Elizabeth Taylor who is perfect for this role as a bitter alcoholic wife who berates her equally drunk husband (Richard Burton). Perhaps Taylor and Burton were so good in these roles because art imitates life, as the two were married twice and had a tumultuous relationship. These miserable people bring their problems to a young couple they spend the evening with, played by Sandy Dennis (Best Supporting Actress) and George Segal. I love this movie for its authentic feel and the it's truly just chalked full of uncomfortable moments.

61.) Goodfellas (1990)

Director: Martin Scorsese

IMDB: 8.7

The story of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) and his rise and fall within an Italian-American crime syndicate. Robert De Niro is solid in this film and there's even a small bit role for Samuel L. Jackson early in his career, but for me Joe Pesci takes the cake in this one. He would win an Oscar for his role as Tommy DeVito, an unhinged mobster who gives the classic line, "but I'm funny how, like a clown? Do I amuse you?"

60.) Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Director: Darren Aronofsky

IMDB: 8.3

A hard to watch film about the dangers of drug use and addiction in its many forms. Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, and Marlon Wayans give great performances as three people from Coney Island struggling to get through life, with each meeting a horrifying demise. Ellen Burstyn gives an Oscar nominated performance as Leto's mother who begins to abuse amphetamines prescribed by her doctor after she becomes obsessed with being invited on a TV show.

 

59.) Jurassic Park (1993)

Director: Steven Spielberg

IMDB: 8.1

What a year for Steven Spielberg at the Oscars in 1994. In total his films Jurassic Park and Schindler's List garnered 15 nominations and took home 12 Academy Awards. The visual and effects awards all went to this movie as it was truly astonishing to see in action, especially when you see how they did it behind the scenes. Bringing back dinosaurs from dead and making a theme park seems like a great idea until Newman Nedry shuts all the power off and lets all the dinosaurs loose. For a six-year old this was one of the coolest things to see and guaranteed that dinosaurs would be an essential item to gather as much information as I could. Jurassic World is the only one of the five sequels that comes close to this one, but none can capture the awe inspiring scenery and stunning effects quite like the original.

58.) The Prestige (2006)
Director: Christopher Nolan
IMDB: 8.5

Not all magic is an illusion, but it is certainly all about deception. Two rival magicians (Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale) try to outperform the other with grand tricks and sleight of hand, while also taking every chance to sabotage the other. It all comes to a head when Robert Angier enlists the help of Tesla to create a trick by the name of "The Transported Man". The ending and twist are truly amazing.


57.) Lars and the Real Girl (2007)
Director: Craig Gillespie
IMDB: 7.3

Admittedly this is a strange movie. Ryan Gosling plays a man who has a relationship with a doll that he got from the internet. He brings his doll companion out in public and treats her like a real person, but what happens when he makes a connection with a real girl? This garnered an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay and I can definitely say that it is an original story that I was pleasantly surprised by.


56.) Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Director: James Gunn
IMDB: 8.0

The funniest of all the Marvel movies (apologies to Thor Ragnarok). I wasn't sure what to expect because I wasn't familiar with any of the source material. It's truly amazing because I can't think of anybody in this movie that should be played by someone else. Like Dave Bautista is just perfect for this. You can clearly tell that they're having fun making this movie and many of James Gunn's familiar cast of characters such as his brother Sean, Michael Rooker, and Nathan Fillion all make appearances throughout. Also, very few movies have a soundtrack that fits quite as well as this one.


55.) Adaptation. (2002)
Director: Spike Jonze
IMDB: 7.7

Spike Jonze directs and Charlie Kaufman writes the screenplay for a movie about Charlie Kaufman trying to write a screenplay about Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief. Kaufman is played wonderfully by Nicolas Cage who does double duty as Donald Kaufman, Charlie's identical twin in the movie. The story is about the struggles and insecurities he faces while trying to make the screen adaptation of the book. Cage garnered an Oscar nomination as did Meryl Streep for her performance as Orlean, but it was the man who inspired the story that won the big prize. Chris Cooper plays the orchid hunter John Laroche and did so well enough to earn the honor of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. It certainly continues the theme of weird movies.


54.) The Intouchables (2011)
Director: Olivier Nakache/Eric Toledano
IMDB: 8.5

The story of a rich man who becomes a quadriplegic after a paragliding accident. He enlists the young man from the projects to be his caregiver. Initially Driss (Omar Sy) had only applied for the job so he could continue getting unemployment benefits, but Philippe (Francois Cluzet) challenges him to try the job out for a month. They agree to turns and learn life lessons from each as Philippe exposes Driss to the arts while Driss helps take the monotony out of everyday life at the mansion.

53.) Marriage Story (2019)
Director: Noah Baumbach
IMDB: 8.0

I very much enjoyed the first film I watched by Noah Baumbach, The Squid and the Whale. This here though is my favorite of his because like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? it features very realistic dialogue that is uncomfortable and intense between two people falling out of love. It's Scarlett Johansson at her best though she was pretty darn good in Jojo Rabbit too. Adam Driver brings both a softness and intensity to his character and the part where the lady from child services comes over is so incredibly awkward. Laura Dern is phenomenal in the role of Johansson's lawyer, but a special shout out to Alan Alda who briefly plays Driver's lawyer before he ultimately switches to Ray Liotta's character once things get ugly.


52.) Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
Director: Nicholas Stoller
IMDB: 7.1

The lowest rated of any of the movies on this list, it's one of my favorite comedies made at the height of the Apatow era. Often quoted in the Pool household, this is film about a famous actress who breaks up with her composer boyfriend and leaves him for a British singer, shares some similarities from Jason Segal's real life break-up with actress Linda Cardellini (apparently the towel scene was an example of this). The former couple end up at the same resort in Hawai'i and hijinks ensue. One of my favorite characters from this movie is Chuck (Paul Rudd) who plays a surfing instructor. He randomly has one of the more quotable lines "Oh the weather outside is weather" (sung to the tune of "Let it Snow"). Segal's character has the other most quoted line when he sings a song about him needing to see a psychiatrist.


51.) Dogma (1999)
Director: Kevin Smith
IMDB: 7.3

For some reason, everyday after school while folding papers for my paper route this movie would be on STARZ and I watched the final 25 minutes of this movie. Once I finally saw the whole thing, I immediately loved it even though the Catholic Church did not. Maybe as a Catholic schoolboy, I felt a little rebellious watching a movie about two angels that try to end the world. Also there's a demon made entirely out of poop and the Mooby's restaurant that would play such a big role in the film Clerks II. It's probably the best cast assembled for any Kevin Smith movie.


100-76   50-26