RosieCotton's Top 99 Movies
- The Great Train Robbery (1903)
- New York Hat, The (1912)
- One A.M. (1916)
- Daddy Long Legs (1919)
- One Week (1920)
- The Kid (1921)
- Our Hospitality (1923)
- Go West (1925)
- Gold Rush, The (1925)
- Tumbleweeds (1925)
- General, The (1927)
- Triumph of the Will (1934)
- Top Hat (1935)
- My Man Godfrey (1936)
- Captains Courageous (1937)
- Heidi (1937)
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
- Olympia (1938)
- Destry Rides Again (1939)
- Gone With The Wind (1939)
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
- Ninotchka (1939)
- Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
- The Wizard of Oz (1939)
- The Women (1939)
- His Girl Friday (1940)
- Philadelphia Story, The (1940)
- Citizen Kane (1941)
- Casablanca (1942)
- Mrs Miniver (1942)
- Ox-Bow Incident, The (1943)
- Battle of San Pietro, The (1945)
- I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)
- The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
- Louisiana Story (1948)
- Adam's Rib (1949)
- Rio Grande (1950)
- Streetcar Named Desire, A (1951)
- High Noon (1952)
- Ikiru (1952)
- From Here to Eternity (1953)
- Tokyo Story (1953)
- La Strada (1954)
- Seven Samurai (1954)
- All That Heaven Allows (1955)
- Night and Fog (1955)
- Pather Panchali (1955)
- The Searchers (1956)
- An Affair to Remember (1957)
- Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957)
- Incredible Shrinking Man, The (1957)
- Apartment, The (1960)
- Trou, Le (1960)
- Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
- A Hard Day's Night (1964)
- Mary Poppins (1964)
- Sound of Music, The (1965)
- Tokyo Olympiad (1965)
- Alfie (1966)
- In the Heat of the Night (1967)
- Midnight Cowboy (1969)
- Mean Streets (1973)
- Wicker Man, The (1973)
- Conversation, The (1974)
- Jaws (1975)
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
- All the President's Men (1976)
- Star Wars: Episode IV:, A New Hope (1977)
- Chariots of Fire (1981)
- Fox and the Hound, The (1981)
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
- An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)
- Blade Runner (1982)
- Natural, The (1984)
- Starman (1984)
- Brazil (1985)
- Out of Africa (1985)
- Princess Bride, The (1987)
- Raising Arizona (1987)
- Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
- Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)
- Silence of the Lambs, The (1991)
- Reservoir Dogs (1992)
- Groundhog Day (1993)
- Indian in the Cupboard, The (1995)
- Toy Story (1995)
- As Good as It Gets (1997)
- Gattaca (1997)
- Run Lola Run [Lola Rennt] (1998)
- Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
- Dirty Pretty Things (2002)
- Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary (2002)
- Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
- The Gospel of John (2003)
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
- Hotel Rwanda (2004)
- The Incredibles (2004)
- The Passion of the Christ (2004)
My criteria:
I do not like to watch the same movie more than once.
I do not claim to be consistent. There are movies I would rate three or four stars that are on this list, while some of my five-star movies are missing.
Category A:
Regardless of how I feel about this movie, I am a better person for having seen it, and you should see it too.
Category B:
It makes me feel good, just thinking about it.
I'm not tired of it.
Category C:
I can still remember what it's about, months or years later.
I would watch it again with a friend who hasn't seen it, even if I've already seen it a million times.
It affected me emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, or psychologically.
I'm proud to be associated with it.
Category D:
Movies that used to be in category B or C, but have since dropped out. I keep them on the list for sentimental reasons.
Category E:
Three- or Four-star movies that I've recently discovered, to my delight.
They are in alphabetical order, by year.
After analyzing this list two years later, I see I have a dual personality. One likes melodrama, moral courage, traditional romance, spirituality, family, justice, adventure, equality, and humor, and the other likes irony, subversion, realism, and cynicism.
My thoughts on this:
very personal, and therefore great (thx for putting it up!)
pretty unusual, and therefore interesting (thx again for putting it up!).
I'm glad you appreciate it.
I think I have finally struck upon what fascinates me most about your selections.
You often love the films I like and like the films I love. This great overlap in our tastes leaves me pleasantly baffled as to why our favorites do not match up more closely.
That, of course, is at least half the fun.
A good number of your later choices that I have yet to see are already in my NetFlix queue (and I think Blind Spot is quickly coming up).
Earlier, you said that on one of my lists (I believe) that Bringing Up Baby might make your top ten. Imagine my surprise not to find it on your list of 99!
That sprang to mind because I do find it very intriguing that we seem to agree more on films up until 1945 or so...
Biggest shocks? An Affair to Remember, Alfie, The Fox and the Hound, and Run Lola Run (which I thought you might like but not quite this much). No, I'm not entirely sure why, but those are the ones I least expected here.
I really need to see The Passion of the Christ. The film has so many critics beating up on it, I am half-afraid that I won't like it and will just be one more voice in that frenzied crowd, and that's no fun. Still, I will make an effort to watch it.
Great list; I enjoyed it oodles, gobs, and tons!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
I do not know why Bringing up Baby is missing. I would put it under Category D if I included it, along with An Affair to Remember and the Fox and the Hound.
Alfie is a Category A film. I don't enjoy watching it, but I think it's an important film, because there are people out there just like him.
Run Lola Run is about how "love is stronger than death."
The Passion of the Christ is also about how "love is stronger than death." It's a Category A film. Unpleasant to watch, but necessary, because I believe it portrays exactly what Jesus went through for his love of mankind. He voluntarily took upon himself the wrath of God as a substitute for everyone else so that, God's wrath being appeased, we could be forgiven. I don't know how anyone can watch it if they don't get that aspect of it.
I'd like to think that my choices are all about Love, Truth, and Beauty, but they're more often about ordinary delight and enjoyment, or revelation.
I'm glad you enjoyed my list.
Wow, nice list! I like so many of these, I too am going to have to plunder this for my queue.
Another Gattaca fan!
Of those I have seen, the only one I can't really relate to rating so highly is Dirty Pretty Things. What made it work for you?
Are you going to tell us which movies fall under which categories?
Are you saying that this list influenced your decision to see some of these films for the first time? If so, I am very proud.
I love Gattaca. It's exactly my kind of science fiction. Grounded in possibilities. Social, political, and intellectual. I still think about all the DNA I leave in my keyboard every day :).
Regarding Dirty Pretty Things: I like the way Okwe's character is slowly revealed. I like how he maintains his decency amidst his environment, how he rises above a very broken system and does the right thing.
The categories helped me refine my choices, to simplify what is to me, a very complex task. I feel toward movies the way I feel toward people. Each one is unique and almost all deserve to exist. I'm afraid people will infer from my categories some kind of hierarchy they don't deserve.
Yes indeed, this list will indeed influence me next time I load up my queue. First one to leap out at me is Starman, which I somehow missed despite liking both Jeff Bridges and John Carpenter. And I'd be a fool not to take your silent era recommendations, next time I'm feeling the urge to round out the early years on my "seen in..." lists.
I hear ya on the categories front.
I hope you like Starman. (Hint: It's a sentimental favorite of mine)
"I do not like to watch the same movie more than once." - This baffles me. I just don't understand. You seem to be a big film fan, but if that's the case how can you not like watching films more than once? Or indeed how can you even compile a favourite films list? To me a favourite film is one which you can enjoy coming back to again and again.
In order to make this list, I had to decide by what criteria to measure all the films I've seen in order to choose which ones represent my taste most closely. One of those criteria is re-watchability, so some of the films on this list are favorites in that sense.
So you DO watch films more than once? What does "I do not like to watch the same movie more than once" mean in that case then?
It has to be a pretty special film for me to want to watch it more than once.
Right, so are all these films "pretty special" enough for you to see them again? Because if not, how can they be your favourite films? To me the definition of favourite means something you enjoy coming back to time and time again.
My definition of favorite is different from yours. I used "favorite" to mean "one that is treated or regarded with special favor or liking." There are some films on this list which had a huge impact on me, evoking powerful emotions, such that I will always honor them and recommend them to others, but I find them too difficult to watch repeatedly.
Fair enough. I just find it somewhat strange that you seem to like watching films so much but rarely watch the same one twice. To me a lot of the pleasure I get from watching films comes from repeated viewings, and a lot of films gain emotional depth and meaning that way, as well as you spotting things you didn't the first time, and getting different things out of it depending on your mood. Also for me, films like Rio Bravo I enjoyed so much more the second and third (and on) viewings because the plot was kind of out of the way - you know it, and now you get to hang out with these great characters and enjoy the dialogue and interaction and atmosphere. To each their own, though, I guess.
I agree, but I don't have time to do that any more. I used to watch the same movies repeatedly, until Netflix came along. Netflix changed my appetite for movies. I feel like I went from eating fast food to eating at a luxurious buffet. I want a taste of everything. I am greedy to see as many movies as I can! Once I've seen them all, then I can afford the time to return to my favorites.