nick_md wrote:

Casino but no Goodfellas, sorry minks but you're losing points from me. Not as much as someone who puts Godfather above Goodfellas tho.

I'm in the Casino over Goodfellas camp too. Casino has a better final third. But to be honest my favourite of the two tends to be the latest one I rewatched.

Raiziel wrote:

I mean if we ever did a top 10 movie (sorry davy) moments (just to annoy Sparkles) then the “funny how” scene would be in my top three, even if the film doesn’t make my top ten.

Oh for sure.

The opening scene and basement pub scene from Inglourious Basterds would be in mine. Might be my favourite movie ever that.

Cupatay wrote:

I mean if we ever did a top 10 movie (sorry davy) moments (just to annoy Sparkles) then the “funny how” scene would be in my top three, even if the film doesn’t make my top ten.

Oh for sure. The opening scene and basement pub scene from Inglourious Basterds would be in mine. Might be my favourite movie ever that.

There's a pile of scenes in Goodfellas that are pure gold. Casino has them too. I find both films to be sequences of superb scenes and dialogue with little or no filler between. I think I prefer Casino because of the scale of the story. It's main problem is it came after Goodfellas.

The first third of Goodfellas is like being in freefall - it is monumentally good. There's isn't anything to match it.

Mississippi Burning is another tour de force from Gene Hackman. Never mind French Connection!

This is just stupidly tough.

Comedies - Blazing Saddles, The Producers (original), Some Like it Hot, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Spinal Tap!..... That's just off the top of my head.


Michael Caine in Get Carter. Dear me. 

Leon, Boogie Nights, Elephant Man. Deliverance Come on!

I'd struggle to keep it to 100.

Dirty rotten scoundrels
Something about mary
Planes trains and automobiles
Uncle buck
Trading places

All deserve to be in any comedy top 10

Raiziel wrote:

Jacob’s Ladder should also be in my top ten really.  I feel bad for not including Blade Runner 2049 also.

Too many great films! This thread is bollocks.

Minkymu wrote:

Dirty rotten scoundrels Something about mary Planes trains and automobiles Uncle buck Trading places All deserve to be in any comedy top 10

Trading Places. What a film.

A top 20 woukd be easier

So, here's my list.  I'm obviously not suggesting that these are the greatest films ever made, just that, in this precise moment, they're my 10 favourites. There's lots missing (no proper action movies, no Coens, no Paul Thomas Andersen) so I reserve the right to change my mind, but still, in no particular order...

Brazil - Gilliam's messy satire was the first film I saw as a kid that wasn't a straight forward adventurous romp.  As I've got older it's mostly still held up (it helps that I now get the jokes) - and his depiction of an entirely dysfunctional dystopia feels more familiar by the day.

Pather Panchali - The first film in the Apu Trilogy, and utterly beautiful.  There are images in the film I would happily watch on a loop. It's about as fine a depiction of familial love and loss as you could hope to see. A slow burner for sure, but an incredibly rewarding one.

Grosse Point Blank - And this is the opposite end of the scale. A silly rom-com about a hitman returning home, that none the less hits all the buttons for me. Cusack's at a career best, the soundtrack is incredible, and about half the film is endlessly quoted in the Robot household.

My Neighbour Totoro - It would be tempting to partner this in a showing with Pather Panchali - another film about rural siblings. Arguably very little actually happens in Totoro, but you would be hard pressed to find a film more delightful.  I've heard people complain that it lacks an antagonist, but in truth this is a film haunted by the spectre of death - from the Mum's ongoing illness, to Mei's disappearance. Its determination to embrace life despite that shadow, makes it all the more uplifting.

Night of the Hunter -  A weird little film.  Harry Powell is one of film's greatest villains, but it's the mid act switch from straight forward thriller, to surreal dreamlike fairy tale that has always made it stick in my mind. (And likely doomed it on release)

The Third Man - My Dad used to watch this and Walkabout all the time when I was a kid, and both remain embedded in my memory. Whilst Walkabout offers flashbacks of outback suicides and a naked Jenny Agutter, it's none the less this that wins it. The shadow in the doorway, the chase in the sewers, the music, "the cuckoo clock". Just incredible - and again, home to a brilliantly realised villain.

Rushmore - Popular opinion is that this isn't even the best of Wes Anderson's films, but I love it. Andersen's specific trademark style seems particularly suited for the story - everything staged so beautifully that you can't help the suspicion that we're really just watching another Max Fischer production.

Toni Erdmann - A nearly 3 hour multi-lingual German comedy about an uptight business woman and her embarrassing father might be a hard sell, but it's great. There are moments of satire, and observation about the modern world, but it's really about the people. Maybe it's because I live my life equally terrified of embarrassing myself that I find it so effective, but there is a moment in this film in which the lead picks her outfit for a dinner party which is the most tense moment in cinema as far as I'm concerned - and the pay off is genius.

Arrival - I love Sci-Fi, and am generally a fan of good old fashioned pew-pew space lasers. (I can do you a whole separate top 10 of those) But it's rare to get what I would snobbishly call "proper" Sci-Fi on film - something that hits both the science as well as the fiction, and uses the whole thing to find a new way to examine who we are.  This does it better than any other, for my money.  Cerebral, but utterly human at the same time.

A Matter of Life and Death - I had to have an Archers film in here, and whilst Red Shoes and Colonel Blimp are almost certainly technically superior, it's this one that will always have my heart. The moment that Marius Goring steps out of the tedious black and white of heaven, and into the full colour of the real world, declaring that "one is starved for technicolor up there" - I was in love with the film.

acemuzzy wrote:

Pulp Fiction
Chungking Express
Mulholland Drive
Requiem for a Dream
The English Patient
Memento
Shawshank Redemption
The Hangover
Cruel Intentions
Naked Gun

Grosse Pointe Blank is an impeccable movie.

I adored Memento at the time but man the leather and vibe are outdated. Still a great OST.

regmcfly wrote:

Grosse Pointe Blank is an impeccable movie.
.

Fuck. Another good shout.

Total Recall
Sunshine
Being John Malkovich
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
A Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Interstellar
District 9
Everyone Says I love you
North By Northwest
The Color of Paradise

@tin_robot : Matter of Life and Death and Brazil.   Quality. 

I remember seeing Matter of Life and Death when I was pretty young. Was just watching Tv and it came on. I was spellbound and it left quite an impression on me.

Surprised no David Lean as yet. Brief Encounter, Bridge On The River Kwai, Dr. Zhivago or Lawrence of Arabia are at least worth a mention. Ryan's Daughter is under-rated too.

Wild Bunch and Point Blank have popped into my head. As has Fargo.

Kind Hearts and Coronets.

Amadeus and Topsy Turvy are memorable. It just goes on and on.

Problem is I'd have to watch everything that pops into my head again before listing and ranking them.