Topic of the day is “Epic Movies”. And I don’t mean epic as in scope – I mean it in the way kids in the interwebs use it these days: awesome, incredible, cool, etc.. I asked this question once, but I back then I wanted to narrow it down to SF films. Today there are no rules – tell me about your all time favorite movies regardless of the genre. Comedies, drama, horror, romance – I don’t care, as long as they are awesome. Tell me about movies that are worth watching for whatever reason – because they are smart, because they are thought provoking, because they are quotable, because they make you laugh or because they make you cry.
Let’s say you are preparing for a trip – a long one. Actually, let’s say you are an astronaut preparing to be sent into space on a long term mission to Mars. That’s the sort of ultimate long term trip – you will be away for a while, and your communication with Earth will be asynchronous and delayed most of the way. What movies would you put on your personal laptop so that you can watch them in your free time, or especially share them with your crew mates? Assume that HD space is not an issue.
To start you off, let me give you a short list of movies I personally deem significant or “epic” enough to be taken to Mars:
- Primer
- Donnie Darko
- Memento
- The Matrix
- The Watchmen
- Inception
- Akira
- Ghost in the Shell
- The Dark Knight
- Blade Runner
- Brazil
- Planet of the Apes (original)
- LOTR Trilogy
- Star Wars Trilogy (original)
- Dune
- Fifth Element
- Clerks
- Back to the Future
- Wall-E
- 12 Monkeys
- Strange Days
- Moon
- Gattaca
Now it’s your turn. What movies would you recommend to be added ti this list and why?
I would have pretty much all of yours listed and in addition:
– The Shawshank Redemption (I could watch this a million times)
– The Indiana Jones Trilogy (I say TRILOGY)
– Every Pixar movie
There are plenty others I think, but these would be my favorites.
A Scanner Darkly – A very good PKD adaptation.
Wow…I would agree with most of your list and add:
Buckaroo Banzai
Shaun of the Dead
Hot Fuzz
Alien and Aliens
Nightmare Before Christmas
Corpse Bride
and agree with Phil re: all three of his choices
Might need a comedy (other than Shaun of the Dead), so would throw in Ratrace, Fish Called Wanda, Holy Grail, and Life of Brian
But I would get rid of Clerks, Planet of the Apes, and Dune.
There are too many, but here are some:
» Apocalypse Now
» City of God
» Brutti, sporchi e cattivi
» Being John Malcovich
Pulp Fiction
Fight Club
Inglorious Basterds
Trainspotting
Along with many of those you mentionned.
I don’t know whether it should go on the list but The Bourne Trilogy is pretty good. Also worth mentioning:
L’auberge espagnole
Les poupées russes
Die Welle
Air America – A decent commedy
The Principle
The Blues Brothers
Something Wicked This way comes.
How could I forget The Princess Bride?
Well just about every movie thats on your list is already on mine too, I thought of a few others though:
They Live
Funny Games
The first 20 million is always the hardest.
The Bill and Ted movies
The Big Lebowski
The Crow
Hackers
Pulp Fiction
Dogma
and… The Princess Bride
In absolutely no order:
– All movies by Stanley Kubrick
– The Hero by Ying xiong
– American Beauty
– One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
– Amadeus
– Alien
– Carlito’s Way
– The Shawshank Redemption
– The Sting
– Godfather
– The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
– Life of Brian
– Annie Hall
– Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
– Trainspotting
– The Sixth Sence
– The Cremator by J. Herz
– Requiem for Dream
– Papillon by F.J.Schaffner
– The Bridge on the River Kwai
– Fight Club
– The Fabulous World of Jules Verne by K. Zeman
– My Fair Lady
– Black Cat, White Cat
– Being John Malcovich
and many others ;)
Not necessarily an exhaustive list…
– The Toy Story series (they’re awesome, no debates or questions)
– The Rocky Horror Picture Show (we all have our guilty pleasures)
– Up
– Star Trek 2 (Wrath of Khan), 4 (The Voyage Home) and XI (the one that came out last year)
– The Back To The Future Trilogy
– Cabaret
Odd combination, but it gets me by ;D
– Eternal Sunshines of the Spotless Mind
– 28 Days Later
– Spirited Away
– Man on the Moon
– The Dark Backward (severely underrated)
– Deconstructing Harry (Woody Allen)
– My Sassy Girl (Korean)
– The Third Man
– The Hidden Fortress (Akira Kurosawa)
– Solyaris (Russian version with subs)
– Unbreakable (Shyamalan’s only success)
– Roja (Rare Tamil language film)
and of course:
– Army of Darkness :P
Dileep wrote:
Sixth Sense was pretty awesome too. :D
This one wasn’t mentioned yet:
– Lucky Number Slevin
Princess Bride is a must, most fun when you’re able to annoy friends by quoting over the movie.
Casino had me transported to las vegas for three hours. I felt amazed that i could be so lost in a movie that i absolutely forgot the environment around me.
Boondock Saints is one of my favorites too!
American History X
Ace Ventura 1+2 …. alllllrighty then!
Crash
Rounders
Wow! So many great suggestions. I’m actually going to use some of this as a “to watch guide” but yeah, I agree with most of these. I have no clue how I forgot the Shaun of the Dead or the Princes Bride because they should have been on my list as well. Same goes for Being John Malkovich and Hackers (so bad and corny, and yet I love it so much… Though it might have something to do with the young Angelina Jolie being in it).
Out of the back of my head:
* Usual Suspects
* The Thin Red Line
* Apocalypse Now
* Full Metal Jacket
* Blade Runner
* The Third Man
* The Wind Which Shakes the Barlow
* Alien 1 (Ridley Scott) and 4 (Jeunet)
* Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain
* Delicatessen
* Ronin
* Kagemusha
* Le Diner de Cons
* Being John Malkovich
* Syriana
* Out of Africa
* Trainspotting
* Nikita
* The Blues Brother (the original one, of course)
* Der Himmel über Berlin
* In weiter Ferne, so nah!
* Renn, Lola Renn!
Okay – have to agree with just about all of these except to add:
The Abyss
Edward Scissorhands
Old Boy
Robocop (cheesy, but a seminal movie of the genre)
Well done to @Alphast for the Caro and Jeunet films, you have to add La cité des enfants perdus to that list.
For the record Blade Runner is my alltime best movie.
I would throw in some oldies like Captain Horatio Hornblower. Hell of an awesome movie, Peck at his best.
Another great Peck movie, real heartwarming tale, would be Keys to the Kingdom.
Also there’s Kurosawa – Ikiru and Seven Samurai. Both are just great stories. Ikiru in particular, it struck me how despite the fact it came out over 50 years ago it still rung true in today’s world.
For utterly dark humor, there’s Otis. A movie that makes light of kidnapping and potential rape.
[REC] – the best zombie movie hands down, also a great thriller/suspense.
And then as mentioned in your Sci-Fi thread, there’s Timecrimes. Even with a second viewing with knowing everything beforehand it was still fun to think about it and still somehow blows my mind to contemplate.
Also there’s The Experiment, suspenseful type movie.
And I’ll finish with Run, Lola, Run. Fast paced crazy German movie.
Oh. And. A recent Hollywood movie that really got to me was Up in the Air with George Clooney. A tale of a man who deliberately isolates himself.. so it really resonated within me. It was humorous at times, but ultimately depressing. Which, I enjoyed the movie for. I find it brave of Hollywood to dare to release such a real and depressing movie.
One other one I forgot is an Italian Movie, La vita è bella, or Life is Beautiful, set in World War II. It’s a lovely movie, but tragic in other ways… it’s worth watching.
Stranger Than Fiction was one I picked up a couple of weeks ago for cheap on DVD, and I almost cried at the end.
Yeah, I’m a bit like that. Go figure. :P
I know I’m late to the party but I’ll add my picks that aren’t mentioned yet.
American Psycho
Chocolate (by Prachya Pinkaew)
Contact
Cube
Dark city
Dr. Strangelove
Interview with a vampire
Lo
Logan’s run
Pan’s Labyrinth
Slumdog Millionaire
12 angry men
Children of men
The usual suspects
What a great collection of movies! Bookmarked.
But you miss two great movies
– Dead Snow
– District 9 (i wasnt’t impressed like that from a movie for years)
Most of the movies on here seem “great.” A “great movie” is far below the standards of an “epic” movie.
Apocalypse Now is an epic movie. Full metal jacket is great – I have enjoyed that movie several times. But it is just great in my mind — not epic.
What makes for an epic movie versus just a great movie? What do you think the difference is?