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!”
“Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”
“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?”
“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.”
“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!!”
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of Christmases Past, Present, & Future on, of course, Christmas Eve. He is shown the error of his ways and wakes up on Christmas morning a changed man. Along the way we meet Scrooge’s poor but cheerful nephew Fred and Bob Cratchit, Scrooge’s underpaid and mistreated clerk, who is barely able to support his large family, which includes young son Tiny Tim, who has been stricken with a disease that is never specified and will die without proper (and expensive) medical care. 
mistake…the real star of the show is the shark. Jaws was directed by Steven Spielberg before anyone knew or cared who he was, and he does a masterful job of exercising restraint, creating suspense and drama instead of just enabling the cheap blood and gore mentality. Much of this was due to a limited budget and a lot of headaches during filming, but those negatives are turned into such a positive that Jaws is and will forever will be a legendary movie. It is not a coincidence that several subpar sequels were made and that Spielberg was not involved in any of them. I would be remiss if I did not mention the haunting musical contribution of composer John Williams. Who knew that two simple notes could be made into such spectacularly memorable music?? Jaws is like a fine wine…its greatness grows on a person over the course of time and multiple viewings. Modern filmmakers should take heed of the lessons learned from this movie. Just because one has access to unlimited funds and countless technological toys does not mean that the movies they make are great. Write a good story first, then get some truly talented actors (and just because they are huge movie stars does not mean they qualify as good actors). Don’t go too crazy with all the special effects…a little goes a long way. Throw in a quality musical score and you just may have something. Spielberg’s offerings have been kind of hit or miss over the last decade. Minority Report?? War of the Worlds?? Come on Spielberg…step away from the pitcher of Tom Cruise Kool-Aid. But no matter what he does in the future he must always be given kudos for the ultimate summer blockbuster.
joneses, but there are certain books that I feel need to be read and certain films I think need to be seen in order to become the well rounded, educated, cultured person that elevates one above toothless hillbilly, perpetual bottom feeder status. I am proudly born and bred in the great state of West Virginia and tend to be sensitive to such things. At any rate, Casablanca stars Humphrey Bogart as Rick, an American misanthrope running a nightclub in the French controlled North African colony of Morocco during World War II at a time when the Nazis are steadily taking over the vast majority of Europe. Rick gains possession of “letters of transit” which would allow the bearer to escape to America. Things get complicated when Rick’s ex Ilsa pops in, with her husband, a Czech resistance leader, in tow. Ilsa’s appearance explains Rick’s cynical resentment and hardscrabble attitude. She attempts to convince Rick that she is still in love with him in order to gain possession of the letters of transit so her husband can escape to America. Rick seems to buy into it, but at the last second pulls an ol’ bait & switch, revealing himself to be more of a softy than we realize. He makes Ilsa get on a plane with her husband, and runs interference against the Nazis and the corrupt local French police captain while the couple make their escape. Casablanca is one of our most quotable films and there is not a bad performance from any of the cast. It is a nearly flawless exercise in filmmaking. There’s a little romance, a little drama, some suspense, a twist ending, and even a laugh or two. There simply aren’t enough superlatives in the dictionary to properly encapsulate its greatness, and nothing I write can do it justice. Rent it at your local video store or make an effort to catch it sometime on AMC or TCM and you will understand. I hope that younger generations continue to embrace the superb quality of Casablanca and use it as an example in demanding better stories from modern Hollywood.
The Manofesto 