What's your favourite classic movie you think everyone should have seen once in their life?
What's your favourite classic movie you think everyone should have seen once in their life?
Me and two friends had "classic movie nights" for a couple of years before I moved away. We would watch something which is considered a classic and it had to have been released before 2000. We watched only those which none of us three have seen before and we would watch it like once every two months or so. Movies like:
- M
- Gone with the Wind
- The Godfather
- Taxi Driver
- Murder on the Orient Express
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- Rear Window
- Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
- Chinatown
- Le Grande Bouffe
- L'Avventura
- Tengoku to jigoku
- etc.
It was a ton of fun and we talked about the movie before, what our expectations are and after just generally and each of us would give it a IMDB star rating.
Now sadly my friends live 9 time zones away, so we can't really do that anymore. But I was thinking to try to convince my wife to do this classic movies night with me. Right now she is reluctant because English is her 4rth language and especially older movies are using language differently too, but one day she will give in :D.
Anyway, now that you know the rules, what movies do you think I still missed and should watch?
In no particular order:
- Monty Python's Life of Brian
- The Matrix
- Cool Runnings
- Inception
- Akira
- LOTR original trilogy
- Gladiator
- Alien
- Blade Runner
- Jurassic Park
- Shaolin Soccer
- Kung Fu Hustle
I'm sure there are more I could think of, but these are some of my favourites.
What do you mean when you say LOTR original trilogy?
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Would you and your wife be okay with reading subtitles? Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa is a Japanese movie, released in 1950, that explores how truth is perceived differently by different people.
Yes we read subtitles all the time, but my wife speaks Japanese so it would only be for me :D
Haha, then that makes the movie easier for her to enjoy. Have fun on your movie date nights!
Not much love for comedies so far, huh?
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- Blazing Saddles
- Airplane!
- Planes, Trains and Automobiles
- Spaceballs or Galaxy Quest (flip a coin)
Also, the Back to the Future trilogy.
Airplane!
Surely you can’t be serious‽
I am serious and don't call me Shirley
Why not start with classic films in your wife's first or second languages?
Almost every language has a few films that stand out, and she'd be more engaged this way too.
And works very well as a good springboard for exploring the world's cinematic greats.
Tampopo (dandelion). Japanese film from the 80s about food and god knows what else, but very funny.
I think about this most times I eat ramen, and I eat ramen a lot.
Bit of trivia: the director Jūzō Itami was thrown off a rooftop by the yakuza and they typed up a suicide note for him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juzo_Itami#Death
In 2008, a former member of the Goto-gumi yakuza group told reporter Jake Adelstein: "We set it up to stage his murder as a suicide. We dragged him up to the rooftop and put a gun in his face. We gave him a choice: jump and you might live or stay and we'll blow your face off. He jumped. He didn't live."
In the first season of Tokyo Vice, which is loosely based on the life of Jake Adelstein, there's a scene where this choice is offered to a yakuza member. I wonder if the writers took inspiration from your piece of trivia or whether it's just a common way of covering up murders over there.
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
This movie has a special place in my heart. For me it constantly remains you who's the most important person in your life. Your time together is short and fleeting. Unfortunate things can happen. You really need to hold the moments you have together while it lasts.
I feel like First Blood is not only a good movie but a glimpse into how traumatized veterans were neglected by the US government and stigmatized by the general population. With the current administration shitting on veterans left and right, they’re definitely keeping that tradition alive, and the movie has become a lot more relevant because of it.
Growing up I preferred Rambo 2 and 3 but as an adult First Blood is a masterpiece.
12 Angry Men (1957)
Definitely. I love this movie and I think it’s a great heavy character driven story. I believe it is something that everyone should watch once, at the very least. After all these years I’m still undecided on whether I would vote guilty or not guilty, there’s a lot to consider in the case and the jurors all have their flaws which makes it more interesting than just “juror good, juror bad”.
It's a film that you can enjoy on so many levels. You can appreciate the way they keep a story shot essentially in a single room so visually stimulating the entire way through, or the performances from the cast whose characters grow into the film as more is revealed about their lives, or the way the film makes you think at the end about the morality, the legal system, peer pressure and the human desire to conform, etc. If you're honest with yourself it's a film that can really challenge some previously automatic beliefs you had about yourself as a person. Like the first time I watched it in my early 20s, admitting to myself that I probably would have been one of the jurors to cave to the majority opinion purely out of peer pressure was a reality I didn't really want to face.
- Brazil
- Nausicaa valley of the wind
- Requiem for a Dream
- Grave of the fireflies
All good films. Which reminds me, I should watch Brazil again.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
Casablanca.
- Where Eagles Dare
- The Professionals
- Indiana Jones Trilogy
- The Great Escape
- Three Days of The Condor
- The Sting
- Thief
- The Mummy
- Ghostbusters
- Secret of NIMH
- It Happened One Night
Upvote for secret of NIMH!
Here's some good movies in each decade which are classics:
1930s: Modern Times
1940s: Double Indemnity
1950s: Vertigo
1960s: Bonnie and Clyde
1970s: Alien
1980s: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
1990s: Edward Sissorhands
The Thing
I still can’t believe this movie flopped at the box office and almost ended John carpenter’s career. It’s an amazing whodunnit with the thing being able to be anyone at anytime. I watch it once a year when it’s really cold and snowing.
Blade Runner: The Final Cut. My favorite movie. If you watch the theatrical cut, shame on you. Seriously don’t do it. Sadly the sequel and related media are all connected to the theatrical cut. They fundamentally changed parts of the lore because of this. Secondly, The Final Cut is the canonical version.
Run Lola Run (German film, subtitles available in several languages)
Citizen Kane
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Ocean's Eleven (2001, watch it anyway, it's great!)
12 Monkeys
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
2001 A Space Odyssey
The ShiningPulp Fiction, Fight Club, Wizard of Oz, Raging Bull, Samurai Trilogy (Musashi Miyamoto), Ran, TMNT, Stand By Me, Mulholland Dr., Papillon, Kids, The Professional, The Toxic Avenger...super random list here off the top ...
What about foreign:
Breathless
The Bicycle Thief
Rashomon
Rope
Rear Window
Wait until dark
Watch Double Indemnity and Body Heat same day or next day for a genre experience.
Casablanca