The Gunslinger45's top 50 favorite movies

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Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
The Boondock Saints I found quite enjoyable, same as Goodfellas, of which I am not a big fan, unlike most of the people here. I rate them both


I really like Terminator. Arnie's campy acting finally paid off as he found a perfect role for him.


Never seen Ben-Hur and to be honest I am not really looking forward to it. Neither am I impatient to see The Road Warrior.

Tokyo Story is an enthralling film and a proof that you don't need any fancy effects or complicated story to create a good film.


The Hunt for Red October is as mediocre as Goodfellas.*

Vertigo is simply gorgeous.


The Road I loved mainly due to the emotional impact it had on me. I cried during both the movie and the book. Have you read the book?


* I deliberately used the word "mediocre".



I have yet to read the book, but I am buying it eventually. And yes I still feel the emotional impact The Road had on me to this day, and I saw this movie once years ago. THAT is some excellent film making right there! Hence why I put it above what many consider the greatest and most influential post apocalyptic movie of all time.



Wow, a diverse list if ever I've seen one. Some seriously great movies here, albeit for very different reasons
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"Puns are the highest form of literature." -Alfred Hitchcock



I am the Watcher in the Night
Aw man, good to see some of my absolute faves on your list. I'd just like to talk about three of those movies:

Goodfellas: I'm a Scorsese fan and thought Goodfellas was terrific upon first viewing but the more I watch it, the less I like it. De Niro is on cruise control, playing the same character he has played multiple times before in multiple gangster movies. Joe Pesci is brilliant but his character is yet again unoriginal and although Ray Liotta turns in his best performance, I think the ideas of snitching and betrayal within the mafia and their consequences were handled with more gravitous, pinache and brutality in The Godfather Part II. Goodfellas seems a rehash of almost every other gangster/crime thriller ever made.

The Road: One of THE most beautiful and touching movies ever made. I haven't read the novel so don't know how it stacks up but as pure cinema, films don't get much better. I'm often annoyed by child performances in movies but this kid delivers a genuine and heartfelt performance. I found the ending to be slightly out of sync with the overall theme of the movie but hey, we can't have it all.

Team America: I laughed and I laughed hard! That is all I require from a comedy.



I am the Watcher in the Night
Aw man, good to see some of my absolute faves on your list. I'd just like to talk about three of those movies:

Goodfellas: I'm a Scorsese fan and thought Goodfellas was terrific upon first viewing but the more I watch it, the less I like it. De Niro is on cruise control, playing the same character he has played multiple times before in multiple gangster movies. Joe Pesci is brilliant but his character is yet again unoriginal and although Ray Liotta turns in his best performance, I think the ideas of snitching and betrayal within the mafia and their consequences were handled with more gravitous, pinache and brutality in The Godfather Part II. Goodfellas seems a rehash of almost every other gangster/crime thriller ever made.

The Road: One of THE most beautiful and touching movies ever made. I haven't read the novel so don't know how it stacks up but as pure cinema, films don't get much better. I'm often annoyed by child performances in movies but this kid delivers a genuine and heartfelt performance. I found the ending to be slightly out of sync with the overall theme of the movie but hey, we can't have it all.

Team America: I laughed and I laughed hard! That is all I require from a comedy.



And so we resume again

17.
Dirty Harry: 1971 (R)
USA / Warner Brothers
95% (CF)

I love Clint Eastwood, he is my favorite actor, and this is one of his signature roles. Eastwood has a long career playing tough guys from all walks of life, but one of his most popular characters is Inspector Harry Callahan. A no bull **** San Francisco cop who earned the nickname “Dirty Harry” in this franchise of crime thrillers. He is first introduced as he is conducting an investigation of a serial sniper called “Scorpio” who has begun his reign of terror by killing random members of the Bay area populace. Callahan’s attitude about criminals and his preferred method of dealing with them is established in the mayor’s office when he talks about dealing with an attempted rapist. And his effectiveness in doing just that is shown as he responds to a bank robbery that is happening across the street from his favorite diner. It is in this scene where he gives his famous “Do I feel lucky?” monologue. The Scorpio killer continues his campaign of murder, killing people with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. Callahan goes to whatever lengths possible to try and save a captured teenage girl, and breaks more than a few rules of police procedure. This leads to a theme of the Dirty Harry films of political bureaucracy standing in the way of justice. It expresses a perceived frustration of laws enacted that protect criminals more than the civilian populace, and our hero Callahan is the only one who can carry out what is right. This theme actually had more than a few movie critics and cinema goers calling Callahan a fascist and a bigot, and condemned the movie as a “far right assault on liberal values.” But I never saw that. To me he was a guy who, if the law was inept, will cross ethical and legal lines to see justice is done. He also became the template for future rogue cop characters. And the allegations of racism were complete ******** since they were pissed that the bank robbers in one of the first scenes of the movie were Black. The main villain of the damn movie is a white guy and you are seriously pissed some crooks on screen for less than 5 minutes were robbing a bank and happen to be Black? What the hell? But then again this was the 70’s, a time of very hyper political views. And judging by the box office, they were mostly ignored. This movie also was responsible for turning the Smith & Wesson Model 29 into one of the most popular gun purchases in the US at the time and made the 44 Magnum cartridge a big seller. It was a great little crime thriller and was so successful that 4 more sequels were made. Dirty Harry at number 17.



16.
Casablanca: 1942 (PG)
USA / Warner Brothers
97% (CF)

This is a movie most people would not expect me to love. When you look at my list as a whole you see certain commonalities like satire, post apocalyptic movies, zombie movies, B-grade horror comedies, Kurosawa, classic sci-fi, comic book movies, action movies, thrillers, and movies dealing with the Cold War. So a movie that’s focus is centered primarily on a love story don’t generally come to mind when one would think of my favorite movies. Now I have seen some very good romance movies like Ghost, The Quiet Man, and Princess Bride, but they are not among my favorite movies. So what makes this movie so special? Let’s find out. But first some back story. Humphrey Bogart plays Rick, a cynical American expatriate who runs a night club/gambling hall in the Moroccan city of Casablanca. Casablanca is a part of Unoccupied France and is free from Nazi rule. It has also become a beacon for refugees seeking to escape the War and try to go to a safer country. In order to escape to either Portugal or America they need a visa, which they can buy, but they are hard to get, and very expensive. As such many of the now broke refugees are stuck in Casablanca. In Rick’s club a guy named Ugarte (Peter Lorre) has killed two German couriers and stolen letters of transit, which would allow the holder to leave Casablanca and travel to Portugal and he gives the letters to Rick for safe keeping. One of the people to step into Rick’s club is his former lover, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergmen) and her Czech Resistance Leader husband Laszlo (Paul Henreid). The rest of the movie centers on what to do with the letters and the Nazi’s pursuit of Laszlo for his escape from a concentration camp, but the biggest emphasis in on Rick and Ilsa and their past in Paris. Now I love these characters, particularly Rick. Rick is established early on as the ultimate neutral party in the goings on of the world. And after you learn of his past with Ilsa you think he is just a broken cynic. But as you learn more about him you learn that is not the case. You learn he was a gun runner who ran weapons to the Ethiopians when Italy invaded in 1935, and during the Spanish Civil War he fought with the Loyalists against the fascists. Deep down under that hard boiled shell is the heart of a true underdog. This cynic with a heart character is the signature Bogart role which made him a cinema icon. Ilsa’s affair with Rick is also complicated. She loves her husband very much, but she still has feelings for Rick from their time together. You feel the tension the two have, particularly when Ilsa first steps into Rick’s club when she has Sam (Dooly Wilson) play their song “As Time Goes By.” The end scene is one of the most famous in all cinema, and it is one I am not ashamed to say makes me tear up when Rick and Ilsa say goodbye. Deep down I am a very sentimental bastard, and this movie knows how to play my heart strings. And I am not the only one; it is consistently named as one of the greatest films of all time and the greatest romance movie ever. What can I say, I love the movie, and it is my 16th favorite movie.



Some great choices so far, as well as alot of new films for me to watch . I can't wait for your no.1
Glad to see you are enjoying my list. And thanks for the reps. Srsly I check my rep counter a few minutes ago it was like 260 something now it is over 300!


Edit: I just remembered you and me have a common love very very high in my top ten. Hope you like it, I got very wordy and spoiler-ific on my review.



15.
A Fistful of Dollars: 1964 (R)
Italy / United Artists
98% (CF)
This is the movie that started the popularity of the spaghetti western, made by the best director of the genre, and staring my favorite actor in the role that made him big. Need I say more? A Fistful of Dollars was an unofficial remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. But Sergio Leone failed to get the rights. So naturally Toho sued. And though America had to wait a few years to see this movie, it was worth the wait. The plot follows Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name (a parallel to Toshiro Mifune’s nameless “thirty something” ronin samurai) as he rides into town where two crime families are fighting it out in the streets on who gains control of the town. You have the Baxter family and the Rojos, both are bad people so Clint cooks up a plan where he can play both sides of the feud and make some money. This is done by Mifune in Yojimbo, only he does it to whip out the two families so the town can start fresh from corruption and less emphasis on profit. Clint on the other hand is in it for the money and he starts to make a pretty penny. Eastwood also adds nods to Mifune’s performance such as doing everything with his left hand except shoot, and the way he scratches his beard. Both characters are crafty bastards, using their wits to get out of trouble and plan their next move. In addition, Clint gets called by a different name in each of the spaghetti westerns he is in, just like Mifune in Yojimbo and Sanjuro. But I actually like Sergio Leone’s version better. In Yojimbo, the crime bosses are aided by a family in their struggle. In A Fistful of Dollars, the crime family and the business families are merged into one, making the plot a little easier to follow. Making this story into a western fits the John Ford western influence that Yojimbo had, and adding the spaghetti western style score also enhances the mystique of the movie. And the final showdown in this movie is my personal favorite in any movie I have ever seen. When Clint faces down Ramon of the Rojos, Clint has a pistol and Ramon has his rifle, (a parallel to the sword versus gun fight in Yojimbo) and what ensues is an iconic cinematic scene where Clint manages to defeat his enemy using his brain as well as his skill with a pistol. This is the movie I use also use as an example as how a remake can be done right. It takes a previous story, puts a different spin on it, fronts a great lead and has a great director behind it. And while I am certainly breaking some sort of rule by saying it is my favorite of the trilogy above a classic like The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly; after multiple viewings of all three movies I still say that while all of them are great movies, it is this one that still remains my favorite of the three. And I can’t say it is the Kurosawa influence since I came to this conclusion long before I became a Kurosawa fan. This is easily one of my favorite Clint Eastwood movies with my favorite Eastwood franchise, and one of my favorite movies of all time. Classic Eastwood, at the number 15 spot.



Glad to see you are enjoying my list. And thanks for the reps. Srsly I check my rep counter a few minutes ago it was like 260 something now it is over 300!
I repped all the movies you've posted because all the ones i've seen i like/love and the ones i haven't i now want to see



14.
Jaws: 1975 (PG)
USA / Universal
100% (CF)

Adapted from the book by Peter Benchley, the story is of a quiet town in New England community named Amity Island and its struggle to rid itself of a man eating great white shark. The three main characters are Chief Brody (Roy Scheider), Hooper, the shark expert (Richard Dreyfuss), and the deranged seaman Quint (Robert Shaw) and all three are charged with killing it. The opening scene establishes the shark’s presence, but the score by John Williams and the fact that you do not see the shark for most of the movie really makes this movie scary. It follows a lot of the minimalist rules that Hitchcock used to scare and thrill people in his movies. But the shark itself is not the scariest part, it is the parts where you know the shark is there and you cannot see it. That is what makes this movie so terrifying. Particularly to me, since I am terrified of sharks! Obviously my vacations do not lead me to tropical islands. So much so when I decided to join the armed services I opted for the Army instead of the Marines. Why? The USMC is naval infantry. Naval means boats. Boats go in the water. Shark’s in the water. Our Shark. And the thought of a shark that big and has the taste for human flesh scares the **** out of me! The shooting of this movie is notorious as one of the most difficult, with multiple technical issues such as unwanted boats in the shots, the shark not working, Quint’s boat the Orca sinking and multiple delays which sent the film way over budget. It was slated to be released during the summer, which at the time was when studios would release movies they thought would underperform. But then it became the highest grossing movie at that time. This film (along with Star Wars) ushered in the era of the summer blockbuster centered Hollywood business model. Winter would no longer be when the studios would put out the movies they thought would be a hit. That for now on would be the summer. It also caused studios to abandon the small initial release and progress up to more theaters from there to the initial wide release. It also saw auteur movies lessen in favor for the blockbuster’s high profits. As for the movie’s legacy on our culture, the movie score is so iconic that once you hear it you know exactly what it is referring to. This has made it riff for parody and homage. And composer John Williams earned an Oscar for it. The movie also inspired lots of people to not go into the water at the beach (myself included). And sadly it also led to hordes of fisherman who went out in to the waters to fish for sharks and has lead to a significant decrease in the population. This also led to the original author Peter Benchley to write books about the sea and shark conservation in response to these actions. But at its core it is simply an excellent horror/thriller movie. What more can I say about a movie that scares me? It is simply a great movie. Jaws coming in at number 14.



Jaws is a great choice, though I would say that considering its position on my own list. Casablanca's ok, though I've never really gotten what's so wonderful about it. Fistful Of Dollars? Ah, well. Nevermind.