Feeling all list-y today. Two things I learned while compiling this beast: 1994 and 1999 were both banner years for movies, and P.T. Anderson is the greatest film director of the last two decades. I didn’t pick any silent films, though Haxan, Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari almost made the cut; I like those movies but I can’t say I watch them over and over. I tried to pick at least one film by each of my favorite directors, but I couldn’t find room for Terry Gilliam, Werner Herzog and Jan Svankmajer; again, easier to admire than to love.
Listed in order of preference (along with the director’s name and the year the movie came out), here are my…
100 Favorite Movies
1. Chungking Express (Wong Kar-Wai, 1994)
2. Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993)
3. Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971)
4. Band of Outsiders (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964)
5. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
6. The Godfather/The Godfather: Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972/1974)
7. Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
8. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
9. The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998)
10. Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)
11. Songs from the Second Floor (Roy Andersson, 2000)
12. Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988)
13. Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985)
14. The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, 1997)
15. 2001: A Space Odyssey/Solaris (Stanley Kubrick, 1968/Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)
16. Pump Up the Volume (Allan Moyle, 1990)
17. Bottle Rocket (Wes Anderson, 1996)
18. Raising Arizona (Coen Brothers, 1987)
19. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
20. Paths of Glory (Kubrick, 1957)
21. Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (Tim Burton, 1985)
22. True Romance (Tony Scott, 1993)
23. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Zemeckis, 1988)
24. Murmur of the Heart/Au revoir les enfants (Louis Malle, 1971/1987)
25. Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, 1994)
26. Lorenzo’s Oil (George Miller, 1992)
27. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
28. Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)
29. Titus (Julie Taymor, 1999)
30. Badlands (Malick, 1973)
31. The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994)
32. Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (Sam Raimi, 1987)
33. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
34. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
35. River’s Edge/Over the Edge (Tim Hunter, 1986/Jonathan Kaplan, 1979)
36. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Kubrick, 1964)
37. Magnolia (P.T. Anderson, 1999)
38. Oldboy (Park Chan-wook, 2003)
39. A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick, 1971)
40. Miller’s Crossing (Coen Brothers, 1990)
41. Blue Velvet (Lynch, 1986)
42. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Milos Forman, 1975)
43. Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)
44. Almost Famous (Cameron Crowe, 2000)
45. Welcome to the Dollhouse (Todd Solondz, 1995)
46. The 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut, 1959)
47. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
48. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (Sydney Pollack, 1969)
49. Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972)
50. Marathon Man (John Schlesinger, 1976)
51. Angels in America (Mike Nichols, 2003)
52. Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg, 1971)
53. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, 1991)
54. Go (Doug Liman, 1999)
55. Election (Alexander Payne, 1999)
56. Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999)
57. Mysterious Skin (Gregg Araki, 2004)
58. The Last Waltz/Woodstock (Scorsese, 1978/Michael Wadleigh, 1970)
59. The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)
60. Stop Making Sense (Jonathan Demme, 1984)
61. After Hours (Scorsese, 1985)
62. Amarcord (Federico Fellini, 1973)
63. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
64. Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku, 2000)
65. The Iron Giant (Brad Bird, 1999)
66. Forrest Gump (Zemeckis, 1994)
67. Sullivan’s Travels (Preston Sturges, 1941)
68. Waking Life (Linklater, 2001)
69. Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
70. Jacob’s Ladder (Adrian Lyne, 1990)
71. There Will Be Blood (P.T. Anderson, 2007)
72. Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995)
73. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Trey Parker, 1999)
74. Together (Lukas Moodysson, 2000)
75. Ran (Kurosawa, 1985)
76. Punch-Drunk Love (P.T. Anderson, 2002)
77. Flirting (John Duigan, 1991)
78. Funny Ha Ha (Andrew Bujalski, 2002)
79. All the Real Girls (David Gordon Green, 2003)
80. Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata, 1988)
81. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)
82. Dance Party, USA (Aaron Katz, 2006)
83. Wet Hot American Summer (David Wain, 2001)
84. Slacker (Linklater, 1991)
85. Y tu mama tambien (Alfonso Cuaron, 2001)
86. Lolita (Kubrick, 1962)
87. The Devil’s Backbone (Guillermo del Toro, 2001)
88. The Rules of Attraction (Roger Avary, 2002)
89. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (Lasse Hallstrom, 1993)
90. Reality Bites (Ben Stiller, 1994)
91. Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1996)
92. The Man in the Moon (Robert Mulligan, 1991)
93. Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)
94. Hunger (Steve McQueen, 2008)
95. Boys Don’t Cry (Kimberly Peirce, 1999)
96. Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino, 1992)
97. King of the Hill (Steven Soderbergh, 1993)
98. The Lion King (Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, 1994)
99. Detroit Rock City (Adam Rifkin, 1999)
100. eXistenZ (David Cronenberg, 1999)
