Thursday, November 13, 2008

Top 100 Movies I'm Ashamed I Haven't Seen

I saw one of these lists and realized that I, too, am continually paralyzed with guilt that, despite making my living as a video producer and filmmaker, I have not properly entrenched myself in the classic films of yore. Or the popular films of my generation. Or those films that are generally agreed to be pretty crummy but are also considered to be the landmarks of the past 30 years so that it's ridiculous I haven't yet made time to see them (I'm looking at you, Grease).

In order of guilt:

1. The Godfather, Part II
2. Gone With The Wind
3. 12 Angry Men
4. The Philadelphia Story
5. Bonnie and Clyde
6. Blazing Saddles
7. Breathless
8. Dances With Wolves
9. Fletch
10. Goodfellas
11. Rocky
12. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb
13. Taxi Driver
14. City Lights
15. Days of Heaven
16. Grease
17. Caddyshack
18. The Last of the Mohicans
19. Manhattan
20. Silence of the Lambs
21. Die Hard
22. Raging Bull
23. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
24. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
25. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
26. Apocalypse Now
27. The English Patient
28. Chinatown (And less embarassingly, The Two Jakes)
29. The Third Man
30. Aliens
31. North by Northwest
32. The Apartment
33. Sunset Boulevard
34. The Grapes of Wrath
35. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
36. Marathon Man
37. A Streetcar Named Desire
38. The Seven Samurai
39. Lawrence of Arabia
40. The Maltese Falcon
41. Rebel Without a Cause
42. Full Metal Jacket
43. The Bridge On The River Kwai
44. All About Eve
45. On The Waterfront
46. Touch Of Evil
47. Harold and Maude
48. Kramer Vs. Kramer
49. Ordinary People
50. His Girl Friday
51. Midnight Cowboy
52. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
53. Dog Day Afternoon
54. Brazil
55. Slacker
56. The Way We Were
57. Doctor Zhivago
58. Coming To America
59. Scarface
60. High Noon
61. Pretty Woman
62. Platoon
63. The Exorcist
64. The French Connection
65. Hannah and Her Sisters
66. Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
67. JFK
68. 48 Hours
69. M*A*S*H*
70. Terms of Endearment
71. My Left Foot
72. Waking Life
73. Rashômon
74. The Big Sleep
75. The Green Mile
76. Spirited Away
77. Notorious
78. Monty Python’s Life Of Brian
79. Serpico
80. Stand By Me
81. Harvey
82. All Quiet On The Western Front
83. Spartacus
84. Adam's Rib
85. St. Elmo's Fire
86. Rain Man
87. Air Force One
88. Beverly Hills Cop
89. Total Recall
90. Blues Brothers
91. Stripes
92. Sophie's Choice
93. Footloose
94. The Natural
95. Heathers
96. Natural Born Killers
97. Reservoir Dogs
98. Scent Of A Woman
99. The Seventh Seal
100. Tron

If you feel that I should be more - or less - embarrassed about any of these, feel free to let me know.

11 Comments:

At November 13, 2008 7:34 PM, Blogger GraniteDad said...

I've seen 9 of them. Out of those, Die Hard is the best one.

 
At November 13, 2008 9:43 PM, Blogger Kevin said...

wow.time to update your netflix queue.

i'm kind of surprised and ashamed you haven't seen some of these.

get to work and start with these...

1. The Godfather, Part II
9. Fletch
10. Goodfellas
20. Silence of the Lambs
25. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
31. North by Northwest (also watch "Rope")
35. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
58. Coming To America
59. Scarface
89. Total Recall (a classic bad sci-fi action movie)
90. Blues Brothers
94. The Natural
95. Heathers
97. Reservoir Dogs

 
At November 14, 2008 6:35 AM, Blogger Erin said...

What ever happened to your CD list? I don't think you ever got past #80...

 
At November 14, 2008 6:05 PM, Blogger Assistant Village Idiot said...

You have way too much guilt about this. The era when people saw everything important ever made is long gone - except for people with no other lives.

I understand this. I used to have a mental list of books that I had to read. That way madness lies. You got a liberal arts education precisely so you could fake it on no information.

 
At November 14, 2008 6:32 PM, Blogger Ben Wyman said...

So that's why I got it.

Erin, you're right, I need to finish my CD list. I've had the next section almost done for months and haven't touched it.

 
At November 14, 2008 7:17 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can't believe there are 9 or 10 (I'm not sure whether I've seen Spartacus or not) movies I've seen that you haven't. You are so far ahead of me in seeing movies.

 
At November 14, 2008 10:41 PM, Blogger Erin said...

AVI: "The era when people saw everything important ever made is long gone - except for people with no other lives."

...and those with Asperger's and a movie fixation.

 
At November 15, 2008 6:09 PM, Blogger Assistant Village Idiot said...

Yuh. Erin. Redundant.

 
At November 16, 2008 9:38 PM, Blogger bs king said...

I've seen 73 of them.

That's what happens when you're an engineer and you try to dodge doing homework.

 
At November 16, 2008 10:01 PM, Blogger Ben Wyman said...

Cripes, Bethany. I'm humbled.

By the way, here's five I should have listed but did not:

Traffic
The Bicycle Thief
Say Anything
Crimes and Misdemeanors
The Player

 
At November 18, 2008 6:46 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Caught your site on a link from Tam and her "View from the porch". Anyway there are quite a few films in your list that before I viewed another new release I would track these down.
5. Bonnie and Clyde - A total complete 10 -essential
8. Dances With Wolves - A total complete 10 -essential
12. Dr. Strangelove - Seriously Insanely funny. 2 words - Peter Sellers -essential
18. The Last of the Mohicans - A total complete 10.
30. Aliens - Maybe the best action sci-fi ever....well besides THEM.
36. Marathon Man - A total complete 10 -essential (This is how you do a Jason Bourne film)
61. Pretty Woman - Greatest Chick Flick
62. Platoon - A total complete 10 -essential
74. The Big Sleep - Bogie! Chandler! Bacall!
78. Monty Python's Life Of Brian - Seriously funny sh*t. -essential
86. Rain Man - A total complete 10
97. Reservoir Dogs - A total complete 10 -essential

Keep in mind that movies are relatively timeless so if not for any other reason you should see the movie on your 100 list because they were damn frigging good.
#101 - Ninotchka (1939)- Greta Garbo - a total complete 10 and maybe the funniest film I have ever seen
#102 - Mad, Mad World (1963)- a total complete 10 and maybe the funniest film I have ever seen.

 

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