When I started this list back around '94, I'd hafta revise it after nearly every theater visit or video rental. Since the dawn of the new millennium, I apply a mild touch-up every 5 years. And with each new approach I reassess myself as much as the flicks I file.
I've seen very few new releases that have dazzled me since my last proclamation, which is par for the course in this sour stretch of time in which I find myself. And so once again, the less I've stirred the drink, the more the cream has risen to the top. But this most recent quinquennial period was a lot less ordinary, wasn't it...? Heightened political and social awareness, conflict between the tired trailblazers and the thickheaded theme parks, the almost-instantaneous availability and popularity of Video on Demand, and the inevitable mercy killing of The Movie Theater. Ambitious, complex stories became Miniseries, and Miniseries became "Limited Series Events." Hollywood sex scandals went from sensual and alluring to dark and depressing. Nostalgia reigns, originality wanes.
That's the big picture; a broad scope of negatives. My own hot take of how dumb everything is. But all of that is out there - objective, beyond my control, beneath my interests. I've stopped caring that they're serving bread & water day-in and day-out, because I got a pantry full of snacks. My five year story is richer and warmer. Contemporary Cinema became "content" - a white noise I could ignore, and give better focus to all that I have: a vast, growing library of physical media (and, admittedly, access to several streaming services to fill in anything I consider to be a gap). And incidentally, as DVD and BluRay rapidly fell from "basic household item" to "niche collectible," the media itself has moved away from the mainstream and more towards the underground. Disney's not gonna spend ten cents on a Home Video release when everyone's already watching it at home. But the stuff we haven't seen (genre films, foreign films, adult films, MIA gems from the drive-in and video store) continue to be consistently available in a tangible form, and they're packaged and promoted with an intense respect that reinvigorates my lust for the medium. Criterion no longer sets the standard - every film is an important film, and the current state of video distribution is validating that fact. Much as I intend to do.
Five years spent at home, watching the STAR WARS and Batman I remember, while the bastards are out there desperately reheating these institutions and trying to sell them back to me. I'm not in the market for nostalgia, I'm in it for great film, and I've already paid my money. I have a son now who loves Gizmo and Gozer - not because he grew up with them, but because he's growing up with them. I'm seeing things with fresh eyes, unaccompanied by a lotta the baggage I would otherwise bring to them, and I've found that all these movies have "held up" or "aged well" or whatever other weak phrase people use to vindicate a piece of the past that may or may not meet their current standards of social mores. More importantly (and pertinently) I've aged well - and this is a compilation of the ultimate "All About Me."
It's pretty simple, and I've been advocating its simplicity ever since I brought you here... What do I wanna watch right now? What I am in the mood for? How much time goes by before I wanna watch it again? How often do I think about it? Quote it? Is it casual viewing or is it an event? Does it feel fresh or is the relationship stale? At a glance, the narrow-minded will exclaim, "You think this is better than that?" as they pee in their pants. Ah, to be so young. But the royal we are done with those days; the order is calculated by an impulsive "would you rather" scenario. There's a whole mean/median/mode thing here that involves a bit of science, but that's not the simple part. The simple part is determining what movies I like and how honest I can be about it - with you and with myself. It can never be perfected, it can never be final, and that's what the bootlickers don't get - it's alive (for however long I am). Were I to die tomorrow, this list would be an accurate eulogy.
One might even point out that I've simply nestled into a rut of "comfort movies" and that I'm simply not capable of connecting to newer stuff due to age or some other preset criteria that's preventing me from being moved by modern stuff. Of course, if someone were to say that, then they've clearly skipped over this preamble - as well as every other thing I've written ever. You have no frame of reference, Donnie.
No video, no posters, no pageantry to get in the way of the plot - just a fat, double-spaced list of hot fudge and extra cheese. I've always maintained the subjective approach; that these are my favorites. Stick it in your ear - these are the greatest movies of all time. For now.
- Paul
1. Magnolia (1999)
2. GoodFellas (1990)
3. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
4. Pulp Fiction (1994)
5. A Clockwork Orange (1972)
6. The Fisher King (1991)
7. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
8. The Insider (1999)
9. No Country For Old Men (2007)
10. The Conversation (1974)
11. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
12. Forrest Gump (1994)
13. JFK (1991)
14. The Exorcist (1973)
15. Eraserhead (1977)
16. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
17. Glory (1989)
18. The Right Stuff (1983)
19. Ghostbusters (1984)
20. Midnight Run (1988)
21. Manhunter (1986)
22. The Paper (1994)
23. Boogie Nights (1997)
24. The In-Laws (1979)
25. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
26. The Wizard (1989)
27. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
28. Se7en (1995)
29. Back to the Future (1985)
30. The 'Burbs (1989)
31. Plains, Trains, and Automobiles (1987)
32. Running Scared (1986)
33. And the Band Played On (1993)
34. Executive Decision (1996)
35. Nashville (1975)
36. Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991)
37. Hard Eight (1996)
38. The Thing (1982)
39. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
40. Arthur (1981)
41. Midnight Cowboy (1969)
42. The Money Pit (1986)
43. Little Monsters (1989)
44. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
45. All the President's Men (1976)
46. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
47. It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
48. Ed Wood (1994)
49. The Revenant (2015)
50. Dick Tracy (1990)
51. Beetlejuice (1988)
52. Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)
53. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
54. Phantom Thread (2017)
55. Sneakers (1992)
56. The Fog (1980)
57. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
58. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)
59. Easy Rider (1969)
60. Falling Down (1993)
61. Suspiria (1977)
62. Schindler's List (1993)
63. The Graduate (1967)
64. Hurlyburly (1998)
65. STAR WARS Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
66. Cobra (1986)
67. What About Bob? (1991)
68. My Cousin Vinny (1992)
69. Play it Again, Sam (1972)
70. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
71. Narrow Margin (1990)
72. The Godfather (1972)
73. Easy Money (1983)
74. The Age of Innocence (1993)
75. Duel (1971)
76. Starman (1984)
77. Point Break (1991)
78. The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
79. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)
80. Barton Fink (1991)
81. I Love You to Death (1990)
82. INLAND EMPIRE (2006)
83. The Time Machine (1960)
84. Vibes (1988)
85. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
86. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
87. The Neon Demon (2016)
88. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
89. Casino (1995)
90. Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
91. Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
92. Three O'Clock High (1987)
93. Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)
94. Bound (1996)
95. Halloween II (2009)
96. After Hours (1985)
97. The French Connection (1971)
98. Deliverance (1972)
99. City of the Living Dead (1980)
100. ...And Justice For All (1979)
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