Film critic Jim Emerson’s list of …
… the movies you just kind of figure everybody ought to have seen in order to have any sort of informed discussion about movies. They’re the common cultural currency of our time, the basic cinematic texts that everyone should know, at minimum, to be somewhat “movie-literate.”
I’ve marked the ones I’ve seen with asterisks.
* 2001: A Space Odyssey
The 400 Blows
8 1/2
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
* Alien
* All About Eve
Annie Hall
* Apocalypse Now
* Bambi
The Battleship Potemkin
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Big Red One
The Bicycle Thief
* The Big Sleep
* Blade Runner
Blowup
Blue Velvet
* Bonnie and Clyde
Breathless
Bringing Up Baby
Carrie
* Casablanca
Un Chien Andalou
Children of Paradise / Les Enfants du Paradis
* Chinatown
* Citizen Kane
* A Clockwork Orange
* The Crying Game
* The Day the Earth Stood Still
Days of Heaven
* Dirty Harry
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Do the Right Thing
La Dolce Vita
Double Indemnity
* Dr. Strangelove
* Duck Soup
* E.T. — The Extra-Terrestrial
Easy Rider
* The Empire Strikes Back
* The Exorcist
Fargo
* Fight Club
* Frankenstein
The General
The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II
* Gone With the Wind
GoodFellas
* The Graduate
* Halloween
* A Hard Day’s Night
Intolerance
It’s a Gift
* It’s a Wonderful Life
* Jaws
The Lady Eve
* Lawrence of Arabia
M
* Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior
* The Maltese Falcon
* The Manchurian Candidate
* Metropolis
Modern Times
* Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Nashville
The Night of the Hunter
* Night of the Living Dead
* North by Northwest
Nosferatu
On the Waterfront
Once Upon a Time in the West
Out of the Past
Persona
Pink Flamingos
* Psycho
* Pulp Fiction
Rashomon
* Rear Window
Rebel Without a Cause
Red River
Repulsion
The Rules of the Game
Scarface
The Scarlet Empress
Schindler’s List
The Searchers
* The Seven Samurai
* Singin’ in the Rain
Some Like It Hot
* A Star Is Born
A Streetcar Named Desire
* Sunset Boulevard
Taxi Driver
The Third Man
Tokyo Story
Touch of Evil
* The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Trouble in Paradise
* Vertigo
West Side Story
The Wild Bunch
* The Wizard of Oz
Which I think is 47 of 102. So I’m … half-literate.
(via kottke)
I’ve only seen 22, so I’m not even quarter-literate by his standards. The interesting thing to me is the number of movies on that list that I’ve never even heard of (the 400 Blows is one — sounds like porn to me :-). Of course I’m not very literate with respect to the canon of English literature either.
I just saw “The Wild Bunch” on DVD a few weeks ago. It’s worth seeing. I can see why people thought it was revolutionary when it was first released. It’s an attempt to look at violence as art that I think would have been shocking in 1969. The DVD edition I saw included some scenes that had been cut from the released version, and the video and audio were both restored to make it look and sound good. It was a little longer than I thought it needed to be, but overall I recommend it (only for adults — in spite of how society has changed over the years, it’s still not suitable for kids in my opinion).
400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups)
Huh.
(Idly wonders if the porn version would be more entertaining.)
Dude, you totally left off ‘Snakes On A Plane’!
Well, hell, it doesn’t have Buckaroo Banzai on there, either, so how good a list can it be?
* 2001: A Space Odyssey (It’s full of stars)
The 400 Blows
*8 1/2
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
* Alien
* All About Eve
*Annie Hall
* Apocalypse Now
* Bambi
*The Battleship Potemkin
*The Best Years of Our Lives
*The Big Red One
*The Bicycle Thief
* The Big Sleep
* Blade Runner
Blowup
*Blue Velvet
* Bonnie and Clyde
Breathless
*Bringing Up Baby
*Carrie
* Casablanca
Un Chien Andalou
Children of Paradise / Les Enfants du Paradis
* Chinatown
* Citizen Kane
* A Clockwork Orange
* The Crying Game
* The Day the Earth Stood Still
Days of Heaven
* Dirty Harry
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
*Do the Right Thing
*La Dolce Vita
*Double Indemnity
* Dr. Strangelove
* Duck Soup
* E.T. — The Extra-Terrestrial
*Easy Rider
* The Empire Strikes Back
* The Exorcist
*Fargo
* Fight Club (2 hours of my life I want back)
* Frankenstein
*The General
*The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II
* Gone With the Wind
*GoodFellas
* The Graduate
* Halloween
* A Hard Day’s Night
Intolerance (I do not know which version is being referred to)
*It’s a Gift (I will assume the W.C. Fields version)
* It’s a Wonderful Life
* Jaws
The Lady Eve
* Lawrence of Arabia
*M (Fritz Lang, Peter…Lorre good times 🙂 )
* Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior
* The Maltese Falcon
* The Manchurian Candidate
* Metropolis
*Modern Times
* Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Nashville
The Night of the Hunter
* Night of the Living Dead
* North by Northwest
*Nosferatu
*On the Waterfront (vastly over rated movie with a putz Director)
*Once Upon a Time in the West
Out of the Past
Persona
*Pink Flamingos (John Waters, Divine…good times)
* Psycho
* Pulp Fiction
*Rashomon
* Rear Window
*Rebel Without a Cause
*Red River
Repulsion
The Rules of the Game
*Scarface (I have seen both versions, and the B/W one is good and the one from the ‘80s is a comedy)
*The Scarlet Empress
*Schindler’s List
*The Searchers
* The Seven Samurai
* Singin’ in the Rain
*Some Like It Hot (So many great Billie Wilder movies)
* A Star Is Born
*A Streetcar Named Desire (STELLA!)
* Sunset Boulevard
*Taxi Driver
*The Third Man
Tokyo Story
*Touch of Evil (Mmmm…Noir…. 🙂 )
* The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Trouble in Paradise
* Vertigo
West Side Story
*The Wild Bunch
* The Wizard of Oz
83 out of 102.
Movies I am shocked that Dave has never seen, I will have to do my best to rectify:
The Battleship Potemkin
Bringing Up Baby
Double Indemnity
Fargo
M
Once Upon a Time in the West
Rashomon
Some Like It Hot
The Third Man (the first Noir…plus a whole Pinky and the Brain EP was based off of this movie)
Touch of Evil (another good Noir)
West Side Story (Duuuude…West Side Story ?!? and you go and have been musicals.)
The Battleship Potemkin – clearly known as a classic, just never had the chance.
Double Indemnity – something I’d very much like to see.
Fargo – Ditto.
M – Has never sounded like my cuppa, though I acknowledge that it’s a classic.
Rashomon – Definitely on my list. Just never quite had the chance
The Third Man (the first Noir…plus a whole Pinky and the Brain EP was based off of this movie) – On my list.
West Side Story (Duuuude…West Side Story ?!? and you go and have been musicals.) – I actually don’t care much for musicals, and I’ve not enjoyed much of the Bernstein score for this I’ve heard. Certainly it’s a seminal piece of stage. I’ve seen the “Goodfeathers” version of it, if that counts …
And … sorry you didn’t like Fight Club. I thought it was great, though, having bought the DVD, I’ve never watched it again.
Fight Club was good for the first 20 minutes or so when Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter are fighting over who gets to go to which 12 step support group.
Comedy genius that. 🙂
But then Brad Pitt shows up and ruins the movie with a plot so utterly stupid I could not deal with it (other than Snatch, I do not watch Brad Pitt movies since he sucks as an actor almost as badly as Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts).
I mean…
You see a guy-beating-the-crap-out-of-himself-in-a-parking-lot and you think “Wow that guy is pretty cool, let’s form a terrorist organization with him as the leader!”
But first we are going to follow the-guy-beating-the-crap-out-of-himself-out-in-a-parking-lot in to a damp basement and relive our glory days of high school.
No, most people would stay away from the-guy-beating-the-crap-out-of-himself-in-a-parking-lot, and maybe even call the police if they are feeling nice.
How does a normal guy become an expert on bomb building? No clue?
Fight Club ranks right up there with Titanic, Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys, Armageddon and any movie made from a TV show from the 50s-80s as one of the worst movies ever….It doesn’t even have good mock and snark appeal.
Don’t beat around the bush, BD, tell us what you really think of it … 🙂
…And another thing! ;P
Of the 38 I’ve seen, several weren’t starred by Dave. I’ll mention some of them here.
Bringing Up Baby – Very funny, quintessential screwball comedy. Cary Grant’s good at that kind of humor, and works very well with Katharine hepburn. My only quibble is with the MacGuffin, as it were. Dinosaur bones are fossilized. They’re stone, and way too heavy for that little dog to run off with one in his mouth. I always have trouble suspending my disbelief with that, but it certainly doesn’t ruin the experience for me.
Double Indemnity – Must gotta haveta see! I’d consider this the absolute best film noir ever! Barbara Stanwyck is my second-favorite actress of all time, and Fred MacMurray and Edward G. are both great! It’s always nice to see Fred in his leading-man days, before My Three Sons changed his image forever.
It’s A Gift – Soooo funny! Absolutely the best film W. C. Fields ever did, I have to say! The movie’s only a little over an hour long, and about 10 minutes is taken up by a single sequence of Fields trying to take a nap on his balcony, but it’s a riot! I saw this when I was about 22, and was unconsciously regularly quoting a line from it (“Don’t tell me after we pass it, tell me before we get to it!”) whenever my then-wife and I were driving around looking for someplace (she had seen it, too, but we had both forgotten the line until she bought me the video). Truly a comedy classic. I’d say the funniest film ever, but that’s me.
M – Petter Lorre’s wonderful in Lang’s first talkie. I won’t give away any plot elements, but will say it’s the one subtitled film I’ve thoroughly enjoyed.
The Third Man – TCM recently showed both versions of this one, back-to-back. Either version is fine. It’s interesting to note that one of the most famous lines in the movie was improvised by Welles (or so I was told recently).
Touch of Evil – Man, I really wanted to go see the remastered “director’s cut” of this when it was released a few years ago! Apparently the studio edited out a lot of Welles’s footage. Still an excellent film, and Welles is really creepy in it.
You get Turner Classic Movies, Dave? Most of these turn up there regularly. Do yourself a favor and record them.
One of my great regrets of the Compaq DVR (vs, say, TiVo) is that you can’t do a “Google Alerts” sort of thing (“If X ever comes on, record it”). You can only record things that show up in the 2-weekish schedule window.
I supposed I could go to the TCM site and find the movies and then tell the DVR to record that date/time block, but that’s too much like work.
Yes, it’s a pain.
I subscribe to TV Guide, though, and they have a 4-page Movie Guide, which lists several movies playing each day, and a sidebar of the **** movies showing that week. Thirteen of the movies on that list are playing the first week in May, including Double Indemnity Tuesday afternoon on TCM.
And once every couple of weeks, I scroll through the guide to see what’s worth recording, usually films I’ve never seen before. TCM devotes each month is devoted to a particular star, with a heavy load of their films. I greatly enjoyed Barbara Stanwyck month! This month is Deborah Kerr.
Of course, you could just go to the TCM website and click on Month Schedule to see what’s playing when.
I think that’s what I just dismissed as “too much work.”
When we first got the DVR, I did try to do a weekly or bi-weekly scroll through stuff. Frankly, CoX has gotten *way* in the way of my TV watching … which is probably a good thing. 🙂
Touch of Evil is on TCM Monday at 6 PM.
I’ll have to try and make a note of it.
Did record (and watch) Double Indemnity. Fine movie, that.
Saw the restored Touch of Evil at the Mayan. Good stuff. Orson is so slimy he leaves a trail.
Also on Wednesday is The Thin Man, at 3:00 PM on TCM. It should have been on the list.
As should Gaslight, tomorrow (Monday) morning at 8:00 AM on TCM.
Seen The Thin Man. Loved it. And, in fact, have it on the DVR at the moment to record.
Don’t agree, though, that it’s critical cultural literacy to have seen it. Though I certainly would encourage anyone to do so.
My feeling is that The Thin Man is to its genre, the urbane detective, what Double Indemnity was to film noir. Gaslight, of course, is the quintessential psychological thriller.
Coming up on TCM the week of May 29 – June 4 (subtract an hour if you’re on Central time):
The Big Sleep Tue 4 PM
Bringing Up Baby Tue 10 AM
On the Waterfront Sun 4 PM
Pulp Fiction Mon 11:30 PM
Scarface Tue 8 AM
On other channels:
Chinatown Sun 3:05 AM (HBOS)
Pulp Fiction Fri 11 PM, Sat 3 AM (IFC)
Two personal recommendations that aren’t on the list:
The Bridge on the River Kwai Mon 2:15 PM (TCM)
To Have and Have Not Tue 2 PM (TCM)
I might have to set the DVR.
Kwai is the first theater movie I remember (we went to the drive-in, I was quite young, my vision was fuzzy even then, but I remember Alec Guiness, and lots of people either in khaki or bare to the waist).