The Movie Forums Top 100 of All-Time Refresh: Countdown

Taxi Driver is my favorite Scorsese film and it was my #6. I've got two more films coming.

My List:
1. Unforgiven (#43)
3. North by Northwest (#57)
4. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (#23)
6. Taxi Driver (#14)
10. A Clockwork Orange (#32)
15. Metropolis (#73)
21. Enter the Dragon (#97)
24. There Will Be Blood (#60)
25. Persona (#45)

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I may go back to hating you. It was more fun.

I thought the new placement of Alien was a mistake. NOPE. Shocked that it did not make the last list. How? Moulin Rouge made the last list for crying out loud.

Alien was one of the first R rated movies I ever saw. At my uncles for family get together, everyone was in the living room and my dad grabbed Alien on VHS and said I could watch it. I went to my uncles bed room and sat there engulphed by the horror on the screen. I also had a big smile on my face when Weaver was running around in her underwear.

Alien is one of the best films of all-time and I desperately want to take my wife to see it in theatres one time.

Taxi Driver is top 3 Scoresese for me. The film 'feels' dirty and I want to shower after I watch it.

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Suspect's Reviews

my Chyp-inspired stats:
Seen: 3/88
My list: 28/25

Those numbers may (or may not) have been copied from random other posts along the way. I just want to fit in =\

Oh, and at Chyp: if my use of your name, Chyp, is getting weird or whatever, just lemme know. k, Chyp? Thanks, Chyp. Thanks.



(you can just stop at 00:21, but it does getter pretty great during the second half)

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"Ever try to forcibly pin down a house cat? It's not easy." - Captain Steel

"I just can't get pass sticking a finger up a dog's butt." - John Dumbear

Ah, Rinko Kikuchi. Kumiko could hunt my treasure any day.
Umm...you all should probably ignore that.

But anyway, I hope that's a positive reaction.

Sure is.

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My IMDb page

Woo!
Alien was one of mine

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Taxi Driver very good film, not top 25 for me personally, but good to see it here. Not that it was really ever in any doubt.

Alien starts brilliantly, and I think there's a lot about it that's brilliant, but it turns into basically a slasher type horror movie and that's always where it loses me.

Taxi Driver was on my list. It's one of the first truly adult films that I saw, and by that I mean it not only dealt with mature themes of loneliness, urban decadence, alienation and much more, but did so in a complex and subtle manner that challenges you as a viewer to unwrap them yourself. I was used to films holding my hand and guiding me through its story, characters and themes in an easily digestible way. But Taxi Driver was something different. It opened the door for me to take a more serious interest in films.
As for the film itself, it's obviously a classic; brilliantly directed, amazing lead performance and excellent screenplay. The score by Bernard Herman is also one of my favourites that perfectly complements and enhances the film.



Alien is a great film and almost made my list. Sci-fi horror of the highest quality.

I share this sentiment. I like the second half just fine, but most of what I think is perfect in the film happens in the first half and throughout the chestburster sequence. It's still a great film though. Just not a personal favorite of mine.

I think the retrospect problem with Alien's third act is that every single movie since has tried to replicate it.

It's like The Thing.
Got a friend of mine to watch it about 2 years ago, and he said it was predictable.
The problem is that every single movie since, again, has copied it.

When modern audiences are watching movies like Alien or The Thing, they're forgetting that a lot of the tropes they're witnessing are the first time they'd been put on screen.

Amazing how modern copycats can almost ruin the reputation of the original.

It isn’t so much as in “retrospect” about Alien that makes it a decent film as opposed to a great film, so much as I one described it to my brother as Jaws in space. Which I don’t know if I coined that or not, as I think I read another describing it as such.

It is definitely full of atmosphere (*snicker*) and has a a unique style but outside of Ripley, the other characters were ill defined.

Good film, falls short of being great. But I do recognize it’s place in history and understand others who feel differently

Fair point. However, I don't think my issue with the second half has much to do with predictability as much as it's due to it lacking my favorite elements from the first half (the hypnotic and, er, alien production design of the Nostromo and the alien ship on the moon, the ambiguity over who's going to live to the end, or the fantastic chestburster sequence).

It instead opts to be a by-the-numbers segment. Does this act have some really good/great suspenseful and scary moments? Of course. I just don't think it's nearly as impressive as what comes before it.

Although, I think it's still a great film and that it's strengths are enough to save it. It's never made the jump from great to favorite for me though.

This is what I meant by the retrospect thing...

Even the early slashers didn't do this.
If you watch Halloween from just a year before Alien came out, it doesn't follow the tropes that we've become accustomed to in slasher or horror movies.

Also, such a chop and change between the first and second halves, and the 2nd half using what has since become the slasher trope.
Jaws did it successfully in 74... and maybe this is where Scott got inspiration for the change in tone for Alien...

But, a movie starting atmospheric, using the set design and lighting as a backdrop for the atmosphere... and then builds up, builds up, builds up... and then scares come from flashy lights, action and jump scares.

Every horror movie since has copied Alien in this respect, even slasher movies, and this trope of starting small and building to something bigger, even changing tone completely for the 3rd act, has become a "by-the-numbers" boring and predictable trope since Alien first did it in 1979 and Jaws in 1974.

It'd be like watching Fallen Kingdom, then Jurassic World, then JP3, then The Lost World... then going back and watching Jurassic Park for the first time, and calling it predictable because it follows the same plot and basic outline as the others.

Edit: Like I said, it's amazing how an older movie can have its reputation affected by movies that copied it.

These are all Fair points, but in the end, for me, it didn’t have anything to do with it being “predictable” so much as the lack of depth in character development. *
Jaws* holds up so well because of Brody, Hooper and Quint are colorful characters with an individual traits to keep it grounded.


*I use Jaws as a reference point because it clearly influenced Alien.

I see what you mean. I don't think my issue is solely the fact that it shifts tone and turns into a by-the-numbers film though, as much as how I don't think the strengths of the second half are as profound or impressive as what comes before.

As you say, Jaws has the same structure, but I prefer that film by a decent margin (partly due to the characterizations that Wyldesyde mentioned), Quint specifically.

I think with Alien though, it's more subtle than just having arguments between the characters.

If you look back at Alien... they're not a handful of characters who have only just met one another.
They're Space Truckers who have worked together for years, maybe even decades and are comfortable with each other... so there's no real reason for actual character arcs exactly.
These characters all know each other already when the movie starts.

As the audience, we need to be shown this in a slow subtle way rather than seeing them meet for the first time and get to know each other with clashes of personality.

• The conversation at the breakfast table... specifically Parker and Lambert awkwardly flirting... then Parker and Brett winding Ripley up and Dallas getting annoyed at their antics.
• The tension between Ripley, Parker and Brett when she goes down to Engineering to check on their work.
• Dallas and Kane's relationship is subtly touched upon when they land on the planet and Kane immediately says he wants to be part of the away team. Dallas simply says "I thought you would". These two know each other well.
• Ripley and Dallas having a more relaxed relationship. Possibly even once had a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship.
• Parker telling Ash to get out of his chair. Says to me Ash doesn't quite fit within the group.
• Then there's the incident with Ash when he ignores Ripley's orders which seems out of place for him to do so... it is only then revealed about half way through the movie that Ash is not an original crew member. He's only been on the ship since they left Gateway on this mission a year before.

There's no real reason for arcs within the story apart from maybe Ripley who was seemingly a non-feeling Officer, driven by duty rather than emotions... and having to actually give a sh*t on a personal level about the crew she's been living with.
This is where she decides to go back into danger for a cat instead of just hitting the button on the EEV and leaving to safety.

Edit:
Ripley going back into danger is a trope touched upon in Scream...
"Slashers are always about a dumb woman who runs upstairs instead of going out the front door to safety"
Alien did it first

Those are all great points and another viewing might get me to like it more. By the sounds of it though, I think most of what you're describing applies for the first half and the chestburster sequence, which are, again, where my favorite aspects from the film reside.

After the chestburster sequence, not only does the tone change, but it also forgoes a lot of the elements I love for other strengths, which isn't a bad thing ofc. I just don't think it's as impressive.

Hard to believe it took Scott this long to get in, but he eventually did. Obviously thid means Gladiator has no shot. Scorsese finally joins the multiples, though this should'vehappened much earlier since we still haven't found Goodfellas or The Departed (or even The Last Waltz yet.

IV

• Alfred Hitchcock: North By Northwest (57), Rear Window (40), Psycho (27), Vertigo (19)

III

• James Cameron: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (71), The Terminator (56), Aliens (37)
• Steven Spielberg: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (89), Saving Private Ryan (83), Schindler's List (41)

II

• Akira Kurosawa: Ikiru (95), Seven Samurai (26)
• Andrej Tarkovsky: Andrej Rublev (67), Stalker (25)
• Billy Wilder: The Apartment (84), Sunset Boulevard (53)
• Coen Brothers: No Country for Old Men (51), The Big Lebowski (18)
• David Fincher: Fight Club (52), Se7en (49)
• John Carpenter: Halloween (44), The Thing (20)
• Martin Scorsese: Raging Bull (49), Taxi Driver (14)
• Milos Forman: Amadeus (50), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (33)
• Paul Thomas Anderson: Magnolia (74), There Will Be Blood (60)
• Peter Jackson: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (42), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (28)
• Robert Zemeckis: Forrest Gump (65), Back to the Future (34)
• Roman Polanski: Rosemary's Baby (91), Chinatown (17)
• Sergio Leone: Once Upon a Time in the West (31), The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (23)
• Stanley Kubrick: A Clockwork Orange (32), The Shining (21)
• Victor Fleming: Gone with the Wind (55), The Wizard of Oz (36)

The Big Lebowski isn't their best film, but it was well-acted, fun to watch and quite twisty. I'd say it's their fourth best.

Taxi Driver has three great acts, but acts two and three practically forget most of what made act one so good, including the side-character development. 9.5. Alien does not make that act structure mistake, although the slightest bit of extra character development (though it was still pretty good development) would have allowed the cast of the first film to rival the sequel's cast and possibly make it a better movie. 9.9/10. Otherwise, I absolutely adore it. Let me be kiddy and say it was the first rated-R movie I ever bought (bought the whole trilogy).

I understand all of these examples but I just don’t see it the same way. I’m sorry. Please don’t think I’m dumping on the film, I like it for what it is. Just not at the same level as it’s sequel.