Tele's 100 Favorite Movies aka "Comfort Food" (complete)

[Fancyarcher]

The Sting is an all-time classic.

[Plain Old Tele]

60. Batman (1989)

 

In this day and age of constant superhero movies, it might be hard to imagine the sheer impact this movie had on a whole generation of kids and twenty-somethings. It was unlike anything a major studio had released. Sure, there are campy moments, and scenes that today are pretty dated (the Joker dances forever to that damn Prince song on the float), but it was such a singular (and dark) vision that it was immediately iconic, and Danny Elfman's score is another amazing accomplishment. This is what introduced me to Batman as a character.

 

[Plain Old Tele]

59. North by Northwest (1959)

 

Cary Grant is a "Mad Man" -- an advertising exec on Madison Avenue who gets caught up in a complicated affair of espionage and danger. This is Hitchcock at his best: it's stylish, funny, and thrilling (sometimes all at once), and pretty much everything is note-perfect. It plays things straight while occasionally managing a little wink at the audience, and it ends on an all-time visual innuendo.

 

[Plain Old Tele]

58. Big Trouble in Little China

 

Another movie people didn't know what to think of when it came out. John Carpenter -- heavily inspired by Asian action sagas -- went comedic instead of dark and threatening, and the result is a mashup that was ahead of its time. Kurt Russell, in a great and hilarious performance, is Jack Burton, the swaggering (typical) hero of American action movies... only the sly joke is that he's kind of a bumbling buffoon. The real hero is his friend Wang, who appears more like the typical sidekick initially but who's far more capable and skilled at fighting than Jack. The two of them team up to take down an evil ghost, and the result is entertaining, fun, and goes for broke. There's stuff here so absurd you have to see it to believe it.

 

[Plain Old Tele]

57. The Matrix (1999)

 

Whoa.

 

I remember seeing this on opening day... not really knowing what to expect, just interested based off the SF/action hinted at in the trailer. It blew my mind, I came out of that theater so stoked and amped and excited -- for the first time in awhile, it was an action movie that took things to a whole new level. Looking back at it now, it's amazing how much this one movie has influenced action films for the last fifteen years.

 

Edited March 9, 2015 by Telemachos

[Ozymandias]

[4815162342]

North by Northwest is legendary.

[MrPink]

I love the Prince soundtrack. Partyman and Trust are dope.

[Fancyarcher]

North By Northwest is fantastic. One of Hitchcock's very best.

[Empire]

The last 3 are all F'N fantastic flicks!

[Plain Old Tele]

56. The Return of the Jedi (1983)

 

It still rocks, Ewoks and all. Yub yub!

 

[Plain Old Tele]

55. Goodfellas (1990)

 

This is another one of those movies that's become so iconic and so quoted that it almost feels just like a series of greatest hits that somehow manage to be formed into a story. Scorsese's film is amazing on many levels, from the detailed and constant use of pop songs to ground the narrative through the decades, to the great editing, the great performances.... the list goes on and on. You get a great sense of why these men cared about each other, and also how their flaws ended up bringing them down. Amazing stuff.

 

[DAR]

Love you sir

[Plain Old Tele]

54. Trading Places (1983)

 

They don't make 'em like this anymore: Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd at the top of their games, and a great story of rags-to-riches (and riches-to-rags) with a great final con to set everything straight. If you haven't seen this, don't read another word -- go find it and watch it.

 

[DAR]

North By Northwest is fantastic. One of Hitchcock's very best.

It's in my top two Hitchcock

[MrPink]

ROTJ. Yes.

 

The space battle is still one of the most breathtaking sequences ever put on cinema for me.

[The Futurist]

I need more John Carpenter, mooooooooore !!!!

[Plain Old Tele]

53. Stalker (1979)

 

(This one's for you, Jack.) Arguably Tarkovsky's masterpiece... a thoughtful, quiet, and perplexing science-fiction story, about broken people seeking truth and clinging to hope in a broken land. It's shot so simply, yet it quietly works its magic on you. Wonderful, haunting, enigmatic, and beautiful.

 

[DAR]

The movies on this page hits on what makes a movie a great for me is no matter what point it is in the film I will sit down and watch the rest of it.

[The Futurist]

ROTJ. Yes.

 

The space battle is still one of the most breathtaking sequences ever put on cinema for me.

ROTJ 's last act is amazing, three battlefronts, ewoks, Leia, Chewy and han vs the empire on Endor, the most fantastic space battle ever put on film ( it s a trap!), and the battle for Luke and Anakin s soul with a haunting Williams score.

Breathtaking and heartbreaking and spectacular.

Ewoks ROCK.