100 Favorite Movies – The Complete List

As a coda to the Top 100 Favorite Movies series this is the complete list. All commentaries on each particular movie can be found in the vault. Once again thanks for reading!!

 

 

1       The Godfather

“I’m with you now. I’m with you.”

 

2       Forrest Gump

“Have you found Jesus yet, Gump?”…”I didn’t know I was supposed to be looking for him, sir.”

 

3       Field of Dreams 

“You know we just don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they’re happening. Back then I thought, well, there’ll be other days. I didn’t realize that that was the only day.”

 

4       It’s a Wonderful Life

“Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole.”

 

5       A Christmas Story

“Frah-gee-lay. It must be Italian!”…”I think that says ‘fragile’ honey.”…”Oh, yeah.”

6    National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

“You want to hurry this up, Clark? I’m freezing my baguettes off.”

 

7       Apollo 13

“Failure is not an option.”

 

8       The Star Wars Trilogy

“May The Force be with you.”

 

9       Die Hard

“Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!”

 

10     The Godfather Part II

“Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”

 

11     The Passion of the Christ

“Take this and drink. This is My blood, spilled for you and for many. Do this in memory of Me.”

 

12     Home Alone

“He’s a kid. Kids are stupid.”

 

13     National Lampoon’s Vacation

“This is a damn fine automobile if you want my honest opinion. I owe it to myself to tell you that if you’re taking the tribe cross-country this is the automobile you should be using, the Wagon Queen Family Truckster. You think you hate it now, but wait ‘til you drive it.”

 

14     Planes, Trains, & Automobiles

“Those aren’t PILLOWS!!”

 

15     Office Space

“Ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that’s on the worst day of my life.”

 

16     The Polar Express

“At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell. But as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Though I have grown old, the bell still rings for me. As it does for all who truly believe.”

 

17     Bull Durham

“Man that ball got outta here in a hurry. I mean anything travels that far oughta have a damn stewardess on it, don’t you think?”

 

18     Dead Poets Society

“They’re not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they’re destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? – – Carpe – – hear it? – – Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.”

 

19     The Fugitive

“I’m either lying or I’m gonna shoot you, what do you think?”

 

20     Grease

“Tell me ’bout it…Stud”

 

21     Casablanca

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”

 

22     Jaws

“The thing about a shark is he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes.”

 

23     A Christmas Carol

“Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business.”

 

24     Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

“To the last, I will grapple with thee! From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee! For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee!”

 

25     The Lethal Weapon Series

“I’m too old for this shit.”

 

26     The Blues Brothers

“We’re on a mission from God.”

 

27     Ocean’s Eleven

“You’d need at least a dozen guys doing a combination of cons. Off the top of my head, I’d say you’re looking at a Boesky, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethros and a Leon Spinks, not to mention the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ever.”

 

28     The Ref

“You know what I’m going to get you next Christmas, Mom? A big wooden cross, so that every time you feel unappreciated for your sacrifices, you can climb on up and nail yourself to it.”

 

29     Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

 

30     Rocky

“I was nobody. But that don’t matter either, you know? ‘Cause I was thinkin’, it really don’t matter if I lose this fight.  ‘Cause all I wanna do is go the distance. If I can go that distance, you see, and that bell rings and I’m still standin’, I’m gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I weren’t just another bum from the neighborhood.”

 

31     The Perfect Storm
“She’s not gonna let us out.”

 

32     The Back to the Future Trilogy

“And that’s when you came up with the idea for the Flux Capacitor, which is what makes time travel possible.”

33     Titanic

“God Himself could not sink this ship.”

 

34     A Shot in the Dark

“I believe everything and I believe nothing. I suspect everyone and I suspect no one.”

 

35     Scent of a Woman

“There is nothing like the sight of an amputated spirit. There is no prosthetic for that.”

 

36     Halloween

“I realized that what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply evil.”

 

37     Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

“There’s nobody dumb enough to knock off a toy store on Christmas Eve.”

 

38     Best in Show

“We have so much in common, we both love soup and snow peas, we love the outdoors, and talking and not talking. We could not talk or talk forever and still find things to not talk about.”

 

39     The Shawshank Redemption

“Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”

 

40     Cast  Away

“I’ll be right back.”

 

41     Jerry Maguire

“You had me at ‘Hello’.”

 

42     Rear Window

“We’ve become a race of Peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change. Yes sir. How’s that for a bit of homespun philosophy?”

 

43     Mrs. Doubtfire

“He was quite fond of the drink. It was the drink that killed him…”How awful, he was an alcoholic?”…”No, he was hit by a Guinness truck, so it was quite literally the drink that killed him.”

 

44     Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

“Computer! Computer? Hello, computer.”…”Just use the keyboard.”…”Keyboard. How quaint.”

 

45     Sleepless in Seattle

“Shall we??”

 

46     When Harry Met Sally

“I’ll have what she’s having.”

 

47     Elf

“This place reminds me of Santa’s workshop. Except it smells like mushrooms and everyone looks like they want to hurt me.”

 

48     You’ve Got Mail

“The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing or who on earth they are, can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self.”

 

49     Miracle on 34th Street

“Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to.”

 

50     Little Miss Sunshine

“Nietzsche? So you stopped talking because of Friedrich Nietzsche? Far out.”

 

51     Father of the Bride I & II

“He’s like you, Dad! Except he’s brilliant.”

 

52     Die Hard with a Vengeance

“Look around man. All the cops are into something. It’s Christmas, you could steal City Hall.”

 

53     Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

“You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.”

 

54     Swingers

“Vegas baby! Vegas!!”

 

55     Saturday Night Fever

“You know how many times someone told me I was good in my life? Two! Twice! Two times! This raise today, and dancing…dancin’ at the disco!”

 

56     Batman

“You ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?”

 

57     This Is Spinal Tap

“It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.”

 

58     American Beauty

“I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it’s hard to stay mad when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it. And then it flows through me like rain. And I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life.”

 

59     Vertigo

“I have acrophobia which gives me vertigo and I get dizzy. Boy, what a moment to find out I had it!”

 

60     Hoosiers

“You know, a basketball hero around here is treated like a god. How can he ever find out what he can really do? I don’t want this to be the high point of his life. I’ve seen them, the real sad ones. They sit around the rest of their lives talking about the glory days when they were seventeen years old.”

 

61     Silence of the Lambs

“A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”

 

62     Meet the Parents

“Shut your pie hole and listen to me when I say that I am finished with the checking-of-the-bags conversation!”

 

63     Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

“You think I’m licked. You all think I’m licked. Well, I’m not licked, and I’m gonna stay right here and fight for this lost cause.”

 

64     Raging Bull

“I’m gonna win. There’s no way I’m goin’ down. I don’t go down for nobody.”

 

65     Airplane!

“Surely you can’t be serious?”…”I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.”

 

66     The Frat Pack 3 Pak (Anchorman, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Wedding Crashers)

“Stay classy San Diego”

 

67     Ocean’s Thirteen

“He owns all of the air south of Beijing…”The air?”…”Let me put it to you this way – try building something taller than three stories in the Tiangjin province, and see if his name comes up.”

 

68     The Greatest Show on Earth

“The circus is a massive machine whose very life depends on discipline and motion and speed. A mechanized army on wheels that rolls over any obstacle in its path, that meets calamity again and again, but always comes up smiling. A place where disaster and tragedy stalk the big top, haunt the backyard, and ride the circus train. Where death is constantly watching for one frayed rope, one weak link, or one trace of fear. A fierce, primitive fighting force that smashes relentlessly forward against impossible odds. That is the circus.”

 

69     The Shrek Trilogy

“Once upon a time, there was a lovely princess. But she had an enchantment upon her of a fearful sort, which could only be broken by true love’s first kiss.”

 

70     The Glenn Miller Story

“Maybe it’s good and maybe it ain’t, but it’s radical!”

 

71     The Patriot

“Before this war is over, I’m going to kill you.”

 

72     American Pie

“I got some scotch”…”Single malt?”…”Aged eighteen years. The way I like it.”

 

73     North by Northwest

“That’s funny, that plane’s dustin’ crops where there ain’t no crops.”

 

74     Glengarry Glen Ross

“Put that coffee down. Coffee is for closers only.”

 

75     Goodbye Mr. Chips

“I thought I heard you saying it was a pity… pity I never had any children. But you’re wrong. I have. Thousands of them. Thousands of them… and all boys.”

 

76     Twelve Angry Men

“We have a reasonable doubt, and that’s something that’s very valuable in our system.”

 

77     Rocky II

“Yo Adrian!! I did it!!”

 

78     The Godfather Part III

“Just when I thought I was out they pull me back in!!”

 

79     Saving Private Ryan

“James… earn this. Earn it.”

 

80     Big

“There are a million reasons for me to go home but there is only one reason for me to stay.”

 

81     Trapped in Paradise

“Hey! That’s Timmy’s sleigh!”

 

82     Top Gun

“I feel the need…the need for speed!!”

 

83     Dirty Dancing

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner!!”

 

84     Apocalypse Now

“I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn’t find one of ’em, not one stinkin’ dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like…victory.”

 

85     Brat Pack 3 Pak (The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, St. Elmo’s Fire)

I always preferred to hang out with the outcasts, ’cause they were cooler; they had better taste in music, for one thing, I guess because they had more time to develop one with the lack of social interaction they had. – John Hughes

 

86     Tin Cup

“Sex and golf are the two things you can enjoy even if you’re not good at them.”

 

87     The Big Chill

“A long time ago we knew each other for a short period of time; you don’t know anything about me. It was easy back then. It’s not surprising our friendship could survive that. It’s only out there in the real world that it gets tough.”

 

88     Seabiscuit

“You don’t throw away your life just ’cause it’s banged up a little bit.”

 

89     The Wizard of Oz

“There’s no place like home.”

 

90     The Birdcage

“I’m the Vice President of the Coalition for Moral Order! My co-founder has just died in the bed of an underage black whore!”

 

91     Pride of the Yankees

“Is it three strikes, Doc?”…”You want it straight?”…”Yeah.”…”It’s three strikes.”

 

92     The Ten Commandments

“Let my people go!”

 

93     Honeymoon in Vegas

“We’re the Flying Elvises. Utah chapter.”

 

94     Hook

“Your children love you, they want to play with you. How long do you think that lasts? We have a few special years with our children, when they’re the ones that want us around. After that you’re going to be running after them for a bit of attention. It’s so fast Peter. Just a few years, and it’s over. And you are not being careful. And you are missing it.”

 

95     Uncle Buck

“I don’t have a college degree. I don’t even have a job. But I know a good kid when I see one. Because they’re all good kids, until dried-out, brain-dead skags like you drag them down and convince them they’re no good.”

 

96     School of Rock

“Dude, I service society by rocking, OK? I’m out there on the front lines liberating people with my music!”

 

97     Risky Business

“Every now and then say, ‘What the fuck.’ ‘What the fuck’ gives you freedom. Freedom brings opportunity. Opportunity makes your future.”

 

98     Fast Times at Ridgemont High

“All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I’m fine.”

 

99     E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial

“E.T. phone home”

 

100   Caddyshack

“It’s in the HOLE!!”

 

 

 

 

 

100 Favorite Movies…..#4

There are people who know me well who might be a little surprised by the selection that ranks #4 on The List. Rest assured, however, that there is a method to my madness.

 

You may…or may not…be pleased to know that today’s entry is the final Christmas film we’ll be covering. By my count there are fifteen holiday treats to be found amongst our lot of 100. I am including the Thanksgiving classic Planes, Trains, & Automobiles and the original Die Hard and Lethal Weapon flicks, which may be considered Christmas movies only in the Manoverse but afterall I do make the rules. At any rate, today’s subject is the cream of the crop, the top of the heap, the gold standard. It comes in fourth on the overall countdown because of its genre. You see, these Christmas classics that I love so very much have one limitation. I really only feel compelled to watch them within a two month time frame spanning from mid-November at the earliest to not long after the New Year. On rare occasions I get into a Christmas in July kind of mood and pop one of my faves into the ol’ DVD player on a random warm weather day, but not often. I feel like if I start viewing them any old time of year that it steals away some of the magic of the Christmas season, and I just cannot let that occur. But as the old expression says, absence makes the heart grow fonder. When the proper season does come around I never get tired of watching these fantastic works of art. I enjoy them over and over for weeks. As a matter of fact, the #4 movie on The List gained cultural significance and infiltrated the hearts & minds of millions…including me…mainly due to repeat viewings. Lots of them.

 

I will refrain from boring my dear readers with a bunch of legalese and film industry insider gibberish that I honestly don’t completely understand myself. Suffice to say that due to a lapsed copyright our topic du jour entered what is called public domain in the mid-1970’s, meaning no one entity owned the sole right to broadcast the film. Therefore pretty much everybody did. Television was a different animal back then. CBS, NBC, & ABC were the only three networks, and cable was very much in its infancy. Local stations had time to fill at various points of the day, especially on weekends and late at night after the local news. The Tonight Show was on NBC until 12:30am during the week, but as I recall that was pretty much it. Anyone who is older than me and can add their recollections to that particular era please do. Even into the 1980’s most stations did not have shows on past 1:30. 24 hour television began during the 80’s but didn’t really become the norm until the 1990’s. Anyway, local stations needed programming and though I do not recall what they did for most of the year back then (I was a wee small child in the late 1970’s) I can say how the situation was handled from Thanksgiving to the New Year – It’s A Wonderful Life was shown…ad nauseum.

 

iawl1I do not recall exactly when I first saw It’s A Wonderful Life, though I think it was some time in my mid-teen years. I am a night owl, so if it was a weekend or there was no school the next day it was not unusual for me to be up late. My recollection is that I had heard of IAWL (as us Lifers refer to it) and figured I’d check it out. Afterall, there was no Internet, no round-the-clock news, and even when it did actually air videos there was only so much MTV one could endure. I immediately loved the movie. Loved it. I connected with the story, related to the character of George Bailey, and really liked Jimmy Stewart. I became a big Stewart fan and have since seen many of his movies, but this one is still my very favorite.

 

jsFor those who are unfamiliar (although I cannot imagine that to be a very large group), It’s A Wonderful Life is a 1946 Frank Capra directed film based on a short story. That story, capraThe Greatest Gift, was written by author/editor/historian Phillip Van Doren Stern in 1943. Unfortunately for Stern he was unable to get the story published and decided to just send it to friends as a Christmas present. One of those presents fell into the right hands and the powers-that-be in Hollywood thought it’d make a great movie. If only such Hollywood suits made similarly good decisions nowadays. But I digress. Frank Capra had already made a name for himself by directing such films as It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (#63 on this list), but found himself at a sort of crossroads in 1946. He had spent several years doing PR films for the War Department of the U.S. Government and there was some question as to whether he still had “it”. Movie star Jimmy Stewart was in the same boat. He was an Academy Award winning actor (1940’s The Philadelphia Story) with a successful track record (You Can’t Take It With You, Destry Rides Again, The Shop Around the Corner, the aforementioned Mr. Smith Goes to Washington with Capra), but had been out of the loop since 1941 after deciding to enlist in the Army Air Corps and flying several combat missions during World War II. When The Greatest Gift came into Frank Capra’s possession he immediately thought Jimmy Stewart would make the perfect George Bailey, and thank God for that.

 

Our greatest gift, of course, is life. So it is not surprising that the primary idea of It’s A Wonderful Life centers around suicide. We meet George Bailey as a precocious yet loyal young boy who dreams of escaping his small town of Bedford Falls to go out into the world…to explore, to achieve, to taste success. We also meet Henry F. Potter, a cranky, wealthy, wheelchair-bound curmudgeon…”the richest and meanest man in the county”. Mr. Potter owns almost everything in Bedford Falls and nearly everyone is scared and intimidated by him, including George’s father Peter, who owns about the only remaining entity Potter does not…The Bailey Brothers Building & Loan. Peter Bailey is a kind soul who is a bit too soft-hearted and generous, which doesn’t sit well with Potter, who does occupy a spot on the board of directors of the building & loan. Eventually Mr. Potter drives Peter to his grave. Are you inspired yet?? Is your Christmas spirit glowing with mirth?? Probably not, but stay with me.

 

As George grows into adulthood several chances to leave Bedford Falls and achieve his dream come and go. His father dies just as he is about to leave for college (at the age of 22 because he had to stay home a few extra years to save the money), and the only way to save the family business is to stick around. George allows his younger brother Harry to go to college instead. Upon Harry’s graduation a few years later George is again supposed to escape but doesn’t because Harry has gotten hitched and his father-in-law has made a better offer. Eventually an already frustrated George marries girl-next-door Mary Hatch, who we know from earlier in the story has loved George since childhood. Time passes and George finds himself in the situation a lot of folks do…middle aged, married with children, in a job he hates, smothered by small town life and always wondering what else is out there beyond the confines of his prosaic existence. His Uncle Billy, a loveable drunkard who probably shouldn’t be trusted with any type of responsibilities but has helped run the business from the beginning, loses $8000, which one can assume in the 1940’s was a huge sum of money. The audience knows that the dough has inadvertently landed in the evil, grubby hands of Mr. Potter, but Uncle Billy doesn’t remember that and George has no idea. This causes George to become despondent and yes…suicidal. Fortunately for George Bailey God has sent him a guardian angel in the form of Clarence Oddbody AS2 (Angel 2nd Class), a kindly clockmaker who apparently isn’t too swift and hasn’t earned his wings up in Heaven yet. Clarence gives George the opportunity to see what life in Bedford Falls and the lives of various friends & family would be like if he’d never been born, and it is horrific. Uncle Billy went crazy and ended up in the looney bin. Harry drowned as a child. Bedford Falls has bars and dance halls. And Mary…well…she works at the library!! George decides he wants to live again and all’s well that ends well, especially when old pal Sam Wainwright (who invested in plastics and got rich) bails George out with a generous gift. No one ever remembers or realizes that Mr. Potter has the original $8k. This was lampooned in a fantastic Saturday Night Live skit that I encourage everyone to search for on YouTube or Hulu. Anyway, IAWL ends with the whole town gathered singing Auld Lang Syne and George realizing…yes, you guessed it…that he really does have a wonderful life.

 

iawl-clarenceNow that doesn’t sound like a heartwarming holiday film, and in fact Capra never really thought of it as such. Both he and Stewart loved the concept and afterward considered IAWL one of their favorite projects, but it was not considered by anyone at the time of production to be a Christmas movie. As a matter of fact, IAWL was (and still is to some degree) difficult to pigeonhole. If I am not mistaken theatrical trailers (remember, this was before TV) marketed it as what we would call a romantic comedy. That isn’t completely inaccurate, as there is a love story and some amusing moments, but the overall dark tone of the story isn’t exactly funny. I suppose in modern lingo IAWL would be thought of as a dramedy. One thing I have realized as I have gone through this writing process the past year+ is my affinity for such crossovers. I like my drama with a little humor, my comedy with some pathos, and my action injected with intelligence and realism.

 

There are undeniable parallels between IAWL and Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Both feature an affluent, bitter old sourpuss. Both have a diligent, hardscrabble working man just trying to survive and support his family. Both feature spirits who take their charge on a journey through time so that they may realize the error of their ways. But whereas A Christmas Carol is about redemption…a worthy concept for sure…IAWL is about being happy with what you’ve got and seeing the glass as half full instead of half empty. And maybe that is atleast a more pragmatic goal for most of us.

 

iawl2The days of catching It’s A Wonderful Life dozens of times on a myriad of stations at all hours of the day & night throughout the Christmas season are long gone. Those endless repeated airings are saved for other holiday fare now. Beginning in 1995 NBC bought the exclusive rights to the film and now airs it only twice, usually sometime in early to mid-December and then again always on Christmas Eve. This is a double edged sword. For dyed-in-the-wool Lifers like myself who were used to seeing our favorite flick countless times every holiday season it has been an adjustment. But I also believe that in the eyes of many IAWL had worn out its welcome and had begun to be taken for granted and to some degree was the object of scorn & ridicule. The current scheduling makes each airing special, and for those of us who just have to see the movie more than twice there is always home video.