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

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Little Big Man is my #8.

My favorite western, Little Big Man, involves 121-year-old Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman) who relates his adventures, beginning 111 years earlier, to a historian (William Hickey) who hears things which border on the unbelievable. Jack Crabb was adopted by the "Human Beings" (in this case, the Cheyenne) and raised in their culture by Old Lodge Skins (the wonderful Chief Dan George). Eventually, he ends up back in white society where he learns about sex and sin but is comforted by his newly adoptive "mother" (Faye Dunaway). The film covers lots of ground as things eventually lead up to the Battle of Little Big Horn.

Some people might call this an anti-western because it makes the Indians the heroes and the whites the Bad Guys. It basically rewrites some of the history that was taught (or deleted) when I was in school and turns it into what is mostly taught now to my daughter. But at the time, it had some heads shaking. Some people think that it's not really a western at all, but an allegory about the Viet Nam War and genocide. Whatever way you take the film, I generally take it as a highly-stylized, hilarious, heartbreaking journey through the history of our nation at a time when the culture clash of the West in the 1870s was coming to a head. I find all the parallels to American life in the late 1960s to be just frosting on the cake, yet it's true that this film probably only would have been made during a relatively small window of time, and thank God it was.

It's also a very episodic film because Jack Crabb went through several "phases"; among those are his religion phase, his gunslinger phase, his Indian fighter phase, his adventures as a snake oil salesman, his attempt to become a legitimate businessman and a married man, his long search for his white wife after she's been kidnapped by the Indians, and his many confrontations with the dangerously psychotic Custer (Richard Mulligan). Sometimes I see Forrest Gump as a film which took its storytelling style from Little Big Man. However, I find this film to have more genuine humor and tragedy to it. For being as fantastically entertaining as it is, it seems almost unreal that it's such a wonderful history lesson too. Whether you think it's real history, movie history, or just a series of tall tales told by that self-proclaimed liar Jack Crabb is up to you.







" Little Big Man" is my #2. Right there is 42 pts. Still a shot...hopefully!




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5. Pulp Fiction


Director

Quentin Tarantino, 1994

Starring

John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis



#5 was my #5. Classic movie with so many wonderful individual scenes. Super funny. Tarantino's dialogue has few equals. Hit me on the right day and it's my favorite movie.

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Pulp Fiction is Tarantino at the top of his game for me and no surprise at all to see it make the Top Five.

Seen: 86/96 (Own: 46/96)
My list:  


Faildictions (Eternal vsn 1.0):
4. Goodfellas (1990)





Pulp Fiction was #2 on the MoFo ‘90s List. Behind GoodFellas. Uh DUH.
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I'll be intrigued to see how big the point gaps are from here on out because even #5 for Pulp Fiction seems crazy low to me given how universally loved it is around MoFo. I thought top 3 for sure, certainly not lower than Casablanca or Goodfellas. Maybe some people thinking it didn't need their help to make the list.

It's probably Tarantino's best, although I think I personally enjoy Inglourious Basterds a bit more.



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Pulp Fiction is my #24



For me, this is easily Tarantino's best film, and no matter where he drew his "inspiration", it's crammed with quirky, interesting characters and witty dialogue. Iconic scenes abound - the restaurant scene, the dance, the miracle shooting, suitcase, the watch, foot message, the Gimp, prank call, "clean this ***** out", walk the Earth, etc. Just thinking about many of the minor characters makes me smile; people like Steve Buscemi's Buddy Holly, Eric Stoltz's Lance, and Christopher Walken's Captain Koons. Much has been made of the film's non-linear structure, but I find it to be not that significant, at least while watching it. It adds something more to discuss after it's over, but while watching it, I mainly think about how great Samuel L. Jackson and Harvey Keitel are. Back in 1994, this is the way I called the Oscars: I said that Samuel L. Jackson should win Best Actor for Pulp Fiction, but since he was nominated Best Supporting Actor for his role as Jules, and John Travolta was nomed Best Actor for Vincent Vega in the same film, I said, well, that's pretty tough, Samuel L. because there's no way you're going to beat Martin Landau ("Let's shoot this fu(ka") for Best Supporting Actor.

My List

1. Jaws
2. Elmer Gantry
3. Midnight Cowboy
4. Star Wars
5. Raiders of the Lost Ark
6. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
7. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
8. Little Big Man
9. Cabaret
10. The Incredibles
11. LOTR: The Return of the King
12. Schindler's List
13.
14. War and Peace (1966) full 7 hr. version
15. Alice in Wonderland (1951)
16. Back to the Future
17. Richard Pryor Live in Concert
18.
19. The Innocents
20. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
21. American Graffiti
22. Pygmalion
23. Paths of Glory
24. Pulp Fiction
25. The Graduate
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I had Pulp Fiction at #20. Another one of those classics that are, if not undeniable, then close enough to it (even if I have started to think of everything that happens between Christopher Walken's monologue and the countertop machine gun as an intermission).
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It's probably Tarantino's best, although I think I personally enjoy Inglourious Basterds a bit more.
I came to say exactly this. It's better but I enjoy Basterds more somehow.

I've thought a lot about why. I don't have a great answer, but I think maybe part of it was the sheer delight of realizing Tarantino was capable of getting up near those same heights again. And maybe seeing it in the theater, since Pulp came out when I was just 10.



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I'm a little surprised this wasn't top 3, would have thought it was more popular than Casablanca. I've never quite loved Pulp Fiction as much as other people love it, although it is pretty funny and entertaining, in a darkly comic sort of a way. I always preferred Reservoir Dogs (although I watched that again recently to see if it was a top 25 favourite and it isn't).

I do sometimes wonder why Pulp Fiction never seems to have suffered from the same kind of backlash as other 90s films like Fight Club as mentioned earlier. It seems to have had this instant classic status since it came out that has never wavered.



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Pulp Fiction was my #7. In retrospect, maybe I had it a bit high, but there was a time in my life where I watched it daily, and it is one of the most quotable flicks of all time. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, it is also endlessly entertaining, and I always stop and watch it if I happen across it on the tube.
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I came to say exactly this. It's better but I enjoy Basterds more somehow.

I've thought a lot about why. I don't have a great answer, but I think maybe part of it was the sheer delight of realizing Tarantino was capable of getting up near those same heights again. And maybe seeing it in the theater, since Pulp came out when I was just 10.
Yeah, it's hard to put a finger on why. I think for me seeing him take a war film, a genre I love, and brilliantly Tarantinify it is a big part of the reason.

They are horrifying.



Pulp Fiction is a great film. It's one of those films I saw back in the 90s just as I was getting into film more seriously, and it blew me away. I remember that, right as the Jules & Brett scene finished, I had to pause and pace the room just to savor how amazingly awesome that scene was. To this day, I still consider it one of the single best scenes on film. But beyond that, the whole film is great and, to me, Tarantino's best. Excellent dialogue, great performances, amazing direction. That said, it has slipped a bit in my rankings. If we had made this list 10-15 years ago, it would've made it; but as it is, I had it at #28, barely missing the cut.
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Basterds would also be in my top 50. I think it has two of my top 10 scenes in movies. The opening and the bar scene are absolutely fantastic. I don't find it quite as good as Pulp start to finish, but it's pretty close



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
People still think Casablanca is making this list eh? I feel like a certain movie has been disregarded by many that may surprise a lot of ya.


Anyways, I had Pulp Fiction as my #1. I recently wrote a little bit about it in Captain Spauling's thread.
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People still think Casablanca is making this list eh? I feel like a certain movie has been disregarded by many that may surprise a lot of ya.


Anyways, I had Pulp Fiction as my #1. I recently wrote a little bit about it in Captain Spauling's thread.
Casablanca is in then. Unless it's a triple bluff!