My top 100

This list took a while to come up with, I like so many movies, but how does one choose a top 100?

Except for the top ten, this list, while numbered is sort of in a random order. I'm going to do five at a time in posts, so that i can write a little blurb about why the film is on the list...

Enough chit chat, lets do this thang!

100. Dracula (1931)

There's been countless versions of Dracula, but I'll always have a soft spot for the Bela Lugosi/Tod Browning classic. Atmospheric sets, iconic imagery, and the haunting music all make this a good candidate to kick off my list.

99. The Commitments (1991)

Hilarious, raw, and full of great music, Alan Parker's film about a working class Irish soul band (based on the novel by Roddy Doyle) finds joy in even the most squalid bits of Dublin, and has good performances by a cast of non-actors.

98. The Evil Dead (1981)

I prefer this original to it's more famous sequels (which aren,t on this list). Sam Raimi did a lot of innovative things with his miniscule budget, already had his now famous hyper-kinetic directorial style well in place, and it's also a very scary (and funny) film.

97. Meet John Doe (1941)

My favourite Frank Capra film. Politics, satire, and populism, with a great cast (Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck). I saw this on TV late one night on Christmas eve, and it's stayed with me ever since.

96. Dances With Wolves (1990)

Kevin Costner takes a lot of crap, and a lot of it he does deserve, admittedly. This one, however, is a great movie. A quiet, almost poetic movie about a war veteran who finds peace within himself living among the indians, only to have it ripped away by western expansion. Costner's mellow acting style was perfect for this, and it's an unfairly maligned film.

Ok, more to come later when I have more time to spend...

You're off to a great start! I love Dances With Wolves, too, and have to defend myself to others for it.

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Well done for making a start! Love that version of Dracula too.

This list is going to be fun... ... great start MP!

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95. Ghost World (2001)

Probably the best movie based on a comic book (by Daniel Clowes, who also worked on the screenplay), this movie very funny, but with a sadness just beneath the surface, and a uniformly great cast. Steve Buscemi's character was based on underground comics artist R. Crumb, who's daughter Sophie provided the artwork in Enid's sketchbook.

94. Rent (2005)

I love musicals. There will probably be more on this list, too. This is a good one, with lots of memorable songs, a moving story, and a great message to live every moment as if it's your last. I honestly didn't think that the director of the first two Harry Potter films would have been the right person to make a film like this, but Chris Columbus has surprised me with his range here.

93. Blazing Saddles (1974)

Mel Brooks is one of my favourite directors, and this is one of his funniest films. The humour is sharp, take no prisoners stuff, Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little work well together, and there are literally hundreds of quoteable lines in this.

92. Drunken Master 2 (1994)

By far Jackie Chan's best movie, full of fast paced action and mad slapstick. Watch the final fight against Ken Lo for seven minutes of no stuntman, no wires, no net martial arts bliss.

91. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

I must have seen this film about 30 or so times when I was younger, and I still love it today. Faye Dunaway is gorgeous, Warren Beatty is cool, and the film is both shocking and funny. I may go watch it again once I've stopped typing this.

Ghost World is on the top half of my list. Great film.

Continuing:

90. Léon (1994)

...or The Professional, as it was called here in the states, but I much prefer the original cut of the film. It's deeper, with more character development, and it's just better all around. A rare action film that will break your heart.

89. Princess Mononoke (1997)

One of my favourite animated films, it's visually stunning, well written, and tosses away the usual black and white, good versus evil world view of most animated features for a complex view of the modern world intruding upon (and destroying) what came before.

88. Modern Times (1936)

When I was a kid, I got sick an awful lot, and I missed out on a lot of things. Whenever I was laid up in bed, my father would bring home videos for me to watch from the library. This was one of them, and it started me on a lifelong love of the films of Charlie Chaplin. I think this is his best, a hilarious and touching comedy/drama about a man (quite literally in one scene) ground up by the gears of big business and industry. Chaplin was adept at mixing politics and slapstick comedy in a way that few, if any, could.

87. Romeo + Juliet (1996)

This movie shouldn't work...but it does, and spectacularly. I haven't liked any of the director's other films, but this one is brilliant. A great way to get this story to those who'd appreciate it most but who wouldn't willingly read the play itself. Plus, I had a serious thing for Claire Danes when this came out, so her being in it didn't hurt the film at all.

86. The Fisher King (1991)

I would have to pinpoint 1991 as the year I started taking films very seriously, and this one from Terry Gilliam is one of the first movies I truly took to heart. Robin Williams takes a lot of crap (probably even more than Kevin Costner, if I think about it), but he's absolutely perfect here as a homeless man who's lost his mind and thinks he's on a quest for the Holy Grail. Jeff Bridges is also good as a radio DJ (patterned after Howard Stern) who feels responsible for the man's plight and tries to help him (and assuage his own guilty conscience).

I love The Fisher King, great job so far monkeypunch. I am also a big fan of Princess Mononoke, they got several very good actors and actresses to do the voice overs too, which I always thought was pretty cool.

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

for Leon and Romeo + Juliet

Thanks! I should have more to come soon, I am still figuring the order of things.

There's going to be at least two more Terry Gilliam films and at least one more Miyazaki film on here before I'm finished.

85. West Side Story (1961)

I suppose that people now would look at this and think it's terribly corny, but then that's their loss.

84. Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)

Sometimes, the funniest films are also in the poorest of taste, and this satire on Hollywood biblical epics certainly fits the bill. This, along with Monty Python and the Holy Grail, warped my sense of humour at a fairly early age. This is, of course, a good thing.

83. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

I'm a fan of the entire Apes series, but only this one and the original make it onto my top 100. Conquest is an extremely jarring and unsettling film on first viewing, and the studio was so afraid of the end product, they had the ending softened before it was released. It's still a disturbing look at racial tension in the sixties and early 70's, but with ape costumes.

82. Jaws (1975)

I can't think of a more suspenseful movie than this. When I was a kid, my family spent our summers in a tiny seaside town, not unlike the one in the film, which makes it seem even more real to me. I remember my mum was terrified of swimming in the ocean after seeing this, which made me want to see it for myself even more. It did not disappoint, and I still watch for sharks every time I go to the beach.

81. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

The first time I saw this, I ran home and raved about it to anyone who'd listen....and then absolutely none of my friends liked it. But it's a brilliant movie, if you ask me. Yeah, everything here's been done to death now, but back in 2000, this was fresh and exciting, and I still watch this on a fairly regular basis. It's a beautifully shot film with a moving storyline and some impressive martial arts sequences.

More to come later...

man, i don't think i've seen 100 films yet lol

never mind, judging by your user name you have some years to go yet

great choices so far Monkeypunch. I love West Side Story too, the music is fantastic.

I've had the same experience over the years as well, but not so much with guys that grew up watching old kung fooey movies you know? Love/Hate is definitely the norm with this movie. Good news though I love it very much and if you like I can be your friend and we can sit around this Internet campfire and gush about it all night long.

You will. And I don't think that The Bourne Identity is the worst spy film ever made, trust me, there are ones that are leagues worse in ways you can't even imagine.

Well then! It's been a while since i've worked on this list, so lets commence, shall we?

80. The Exorcist (1973)

I love horror films, but mostly, they don't scare me at all. The Exorcist is one of the very few that did, and without resorting to cheap "things pop out from behind other things" scares. It's more a prolonged feeling of dread and revulsion. I saw this during it's rerelease in the cinemas a few years back, and seeing it in a darkened theater with no opportunity to pause it and go back to it later if things got too hairy is really the best way to see it.

79. Yellow Submarine (1968)

This is a movie I saw when I was very little, before I even knew who the Beatles were, and was mad about. It ran on local TV every now and again with other cartoon films, but it always stood out to me because it was so crazy and colourful. After a while, it stopped running, and I was pretty sure that my little four year old mind had invented the whole thing, all the blue meanies and flying gloves and submarines, untill it was re-released on DVD. The 32 year old me still loves it just as much, if not more. It's more inventive than any other animated film I've ever seen, it's got a bent sense of humour, and of course, great music.

78. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

This is how you make big blockbuster films. You don't usually equate Arnold Shwarzenneggar movies with the words "Thought-Provoking," but with this, you have to. An action movie thats actually about something, with a pacifist's heart, a philosophical soul, and an eye towards the future. Plus, it's a hell of a lot of fun, and Linda Hamilton is dead sexy.

77. Duck Soup (1933)

One of the funniest films ever made. You have to really pay attention to catch all the gags that are flying at you at a crazy pace, as Groucho Marx becomes the incompetant (and petty) dictator of a tiny country called Freedonia. More laughs in it's hour long running time than most films have in two.

76. Sleepy Hollow (1999)

One of Tim Burton's best, it's a total bastardization of Washington Irving's original story, done as a tribute to Hammer horror films of the 1960's. Its a brilliant mix of low comedy, tragedy, gore, period drama, and beautiful imagery, and it should be required viewing for people who loved Burton and Depp's recent film version of Sweeney Todd. This seems like the warm up round for that.

more to come soon...

Love it, love it, love it! I still have this on VHS and actually just watched it a few months ago. Have you ever checked out A Hard Days Night? It's also extremely good, The Beattle's were really something else.

, Also, HELP! and Across the Universe were awesome, so if you're a Beatles fan, check em out.

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I used to be addicted to crystal meth, now I'm just addicted to Breaking Bad.

I've seen all 3 of the Beatles films, they're a lot of fun, and I've even seen Paul McCartney in concert back in 2005. It was awesome, even if I was in the nose-bleed seats. Hearing him do "Helter Skelter" live was really amazing.

Looks good. I like your style.

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