Your Favorite Movie of All Time

[transmogrifier]

No series/lists/trilogies. One film and one film only.

Mine:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51dK0%2BbTf%2BL.jpg

[Dukefrukem]

Adds Wild Bunch to queue...


Is this the favorite / best argument? What consensus did we land on there?

[transmogrifier]

Adds Wild Bunch to queue...


Is this the favorite / best argument? What consensus did we land on there?

To me, favorite = best. But plenty of people disagree, and when this happens, their "favorite" movie almost always turns out to be more interesting than their "best" movie, which is typically some canonical, critically-beloved, slightly boring choice (2001: A Space Odyssey! Citizen Kane!). So I decided to head off the argument by using "favorite" and produce a more interesting list.

[TGM]

Frozen

[transmogrifier]

Bold choice

https://images.adrise.tv/xbF3cDMHVRsIImB1qfQxxYfPuOc=/400x574/smart/img.adrise.tv/16197a49-a93d-4ccf-89a7-5dfb03b6b83b.jpg

[dreamdead]

I'm also partial to Vertigo for this choice, but if I'd have to choose which to start watching right now, it'd be:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71Q%2Bbn9xGaL._SY606_.jpg

My question for all who answer this would be: what age were you when you first saw the film? I was 19-20 when I saw this when it first came out on DVD, which is the right age to find and treasure a film.

[Stay Puft]

Chris Marker's La Jetée


My question for all who answer this would be: what age were you when you first saw the film? I was 19-20 when I saw this when it first came out on DVD, which is the right age to find and treasure a film.

I was in college when I discovered Marker, so... yeah, about 19-20.

[baby doll]

https://www.carlthdreyer.dk/files/styles/dfi_crop_2x3_1020x1530/public/2018-02/39-dk683.png?itok=IeD-vDmA

Also first encountered in my late teens or early twenties, although it bored me the first time I saw it.

[Dukefrukem]

When anyone asks me my favorite movie my mind immediately goes to Army of Darkness. Not only do I know the entire movie from start to finish, I acted out the whole movie in seventh grade in front of my English class.

The comedy really defines me here. It's a soft R rating, so my parents let me watch it after it left theaters on VHS when it hit HBO (so I was 10). I think one of my father's friends taped it for me.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BODcyYzM4YTAtNGM5MS00NjU4LT k2Y2ItZjI5NjkzZTk0MmQ1XkEyXkFq cGdeQXVyNjU0OTQ0OTY@._V1_.jpg

[Skitch]

https://i.imgur.com/itBzmMx.jpg

What does this film have? Action, drama, comedy, science fiction, horror, with commentary on society, religion, politics, military, revolution...

[megladon8]

I can’t pick. It feels like Sophie’s Choice, except worse, because I’m trying to pick a movie and not some stupid kid.

[Skitch]

I can’t pick. It feels like Sophie’s Choice, except worse, because I’m trying to pick a movie and not some stupid kid.

When I did a top 100, I would look at the piles of movies I put together, and pick the ten worst films on it. Those ten became 91-100. Then I'd look for the next ten worst. So on and so forth.

[Lazlo]

Raiders of the Lost Ark. Saw it on TV sometime between 5 and 8 years old. Blew my mind.

[Dukefrukem]

https://i.imgur.com/itBzmMx.jpg

What does this film have? Action, drama, comedy, science fiction, horror, with commentary on society, religion, politics, military, revolution...

I remember it vividly. Saw this in 8th grade after my friends and I pooled our money together to spend $60 on a VHS tape at Suncoast...
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b4/7f/05/b47f05cbc07d3fa12b20b00dde34e2 12.jpg

[TGM]

My question for all who answer this would be: what age were you when you first saw the film?

I would've been 27. ;)


I can’t pick. It feels like Sophie’s Choice, except worse, because I’m trying to pick a movie and not some stupid kid.

This was me most of my life. I almost dreaded anytime someone new would inevitably ask that question, "what's your all time favorite movie?", because I never really had an answer. I had maybe like a Top 5 all time favorite movies, but which one was at the top could change depending on the day of the week.

But once I finally got around to seeing the movie that would become my all time favorite, I finally had a definitive answer to that question, which felt pretty nice. It didn't even hit me immediately (I actually didn't even initially rank it #1 of that year at the time), it took maybe about half a year before it really sunk in just how much I absolutely loved that movie. But once that realization hit me, yeah, it just felt right. You don't even have to think about it, you just know it's your favorite, and all the others are fighting for second best at that point. :)

[Skitch]

I remember it vividly. Saw this in 8th grade after my friends and I pooled our money together to spend $60 on a VHS tape at Suncoast...

That is a special memory! I rented it when I was probably...14 or 15. I was very confused by it, I didn't know animation for adults was a thing. I was shocked...bewildered...amazed. ..and felt like I was going to get in trouble lol. It took years for me to really understand it, but I had to watch a bunch more anime to "get" what it is or could be. I also had to pretty much buy any anime if I wanted to see it, and they were all minimum $30. Way too expensive for blind buying. Thank god the internet came around so you could discuss this stuff and know which you could take a chance on.

Fast forward a few more years and Netflix is putting out so much anime you can't remotely keep up.

[Dukefrukem]

I almost dreaded anytime someone new would inevitably ask that question, "what's your all time favorite movie?", because I never really had an answer. I had maybe like a Top 5 all time favorite movies, but which one was at the top could change depending on the day of the week.


TGM, Do you know jealous I was of Axis/Match-cutters who had a top 100 list? That goes back to 2004 when people would post their lists like it was nothing.... I just finally completed a top 100 that I wasn't embarrassed to post this year at the age of 35.

Look at my top 100 a mere 10 years ago (http://matchcut.artboiled.com/showthread.php?1904-Post-your-top-100-in-here/page11&p=154492#post154492).... smh

[megladon8]

I would've been 27. ;)



This was me most of my life. I almost dreaded anytime someone new would inevitably ask that question, "what's your all time favorite movie?", because I never really had an answer. I had maybe like a Top 5 all time favorite movies, but which one was at the top could change depending on the day of the week.

But once I finally got around to seeing the movie that would become my all time favorite, I finally had a definitive answer to that question, which felt pretty nice. It didn't even hit me immediately (I actually didn't even initially rank it #1 of that year at the time), it took maybe about half a year before it really sunk in just how much I absolutely loved that movie. But once that realization hit me, yeah, it just felt right. You don't even have to think about it, you just know it's your favorite, and all the others are fighting for second best at that point. :)

And it is?

[Dukefrukem]

That is a special memory! I rented it when I was probably...14 or 15. I was very confused by it, I didn't know animation for adults was a thing. I was shocked...bewildered...amazed. ..and felt like I was going to get in trouble lol. It took years for me to really understand it, but I had to watch a bunch more anime to "get" what it is or could be. I also had to pretty much buy any anime if I wanted to see it, and they were all minimum $30. Way too expensive for blind buying. Thank god the internet came around so you could discuss this stuff and know which you could take a chance on.

Fast forward a few more years and Netflix is putting out so much anime you can't remotely keep up.

The motivating factor for us to see it and pay for it, was we heard from a friend, who knew a friend, who knew a friend that say it and said it was impossible to understand it the first time through. I think we took that as a challenge.

[TGM]

When I did a top 100, I would look at the piles of movies I put together, and pick the ten worst films on it. Those ten became 91-100. Then I'd look for the next ten worst. So on and so forth.

Heck, I'm currently going through this process just trying to whittle down my top films of the decade. Trying to get a head start on it. :p


And it is?


Frozen

^ ;)


TGM, Do you know jealous I was of Axis/Match-cutters who had a top 100 list? That goes back to 2004 when people would post their lists like it was nothing.... I just finally completed a top 100 that I wasn't embarrassed to post this year at the age of 35.

Look at my top 100 a mere 10 years ago (http://matchcut.artboiled.com/showthread.php?1904-Post-your-top-100-in-here/page11&p=154492#post154492).... smh

Top 100? Man, in terms of "all time" lists, I still struggle to even make it to 10 without feel uncertain, lol. >.>

[Irish]

I've watched "Hondo" six times in the last year. So that's a new favorite. I originally wanted to see it because of this scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQIftpijTRM), which someone posted on twitter, and because I unapologetically love John Wayne.

"Hondo" is not a great movie but it's a good one. It's a prime example of quick and cheap mid-century moviemaking and, in a lotta ways, what the movies used to be about: Pulling together disparate sources to make something that's nothing but entertaining. (And also ruthlessly economical: over and done in 84 minutes and not a second on screen is wasted.)

Most of it is messy. The script was cobbled together from a Louis Lamour short story; the movie was photographed in 3-D and has ridiculous shots of actors lunging at the camera to take advantage of that; the ending has almost nothing to do with the rest of it; some action sequences were secretly shot by John Ford, as a favor to Wayne, because the original director had to drop out (and boy, can you tell).

But it also has two incredible performances by John Wayne, a guy who learned the craft on the job, and Geraldine Paige, a method actress in her first film role. Both of them deliver unforgettable and surprising monologues. The character have gentle arcs to them, and their motivations comes from their core values and their immediate needs. At the start I thought I was watching an action picture, but by the end I realized I had been watching a romance.

All-time favorite for many years is "Get Shorty." Sharp dialogue taken directly from Elmore Leonard's source novel. All-star cast perfectly in sync with the material. Ceaseless humor based on the intersection of pretense and ambition that can only be found in Los Angeles. A movie about the movies that doesn't have an axe to grind, and is more hopeful and funny than nihilistic and cynical. I've watched it so much I can recite the dialogue in perfect time with the screen.

Of the two, I'd watch "Hondo" over "Get Shorty," but only because I've seen "Shorty" so many times. (And I kinda want to watch "Hondo" again, right now, after talking about it.)

[megladon8]

That’s not an answer, Irish.

[TGM]

I've actually recently found myself pretty fascinated by this topic in general, so I'm glad somebody started it. I'll agree with the sentiment that there's a difference between someone's favorite movie, versus what they feel may be technically the best movie they've seen. I certainly don't feel Frozen is the best movie I've seen, it has a number of flaws to it, but that doesn't change the way I feel about it. But I've found that oftentimes you really will get some just genuinely interesting results asking that question, assuming someone has an answer. Like, a journalist that I follow sorta dropped on one of his videos that his all time favorite movie is Doctor Strange. Now, I didn't even really like that movie all that much, but to hear someone claim it to be their #1 all time favorite just kinda made me go, "huh." It just fascinated me, and makes me really wanna dive in deep into conversation and discuss what it is about this movie that hit them to that degree to make them feel it's their all time favorite. Or like, on one of the last short films I worked on in New York, our gaffer mentioned that his favorite movie was Blade Runner 2049, and really emphasized that it was definitively his all time favorite at that. And I really wanted to just stop everything and do precisely that, just have a real in-depth discussion about the movie and what it is about it that touches him so much, because it's just such an interesting pick to not just be a favored movie in general, but an all time #1 favorite. But alas, we were on a tight schedule and super busy, and I never got the chance to ask him about it.

But I know that Frozen is a movie I could just talk about on and on and on, and I've had many conversations with people IRL about it, many of whom weren't fans of the movie, where I would find myself just gushing about it all the same, and would just speak so passionately about it that some of them actually reconsidered their position and mentioned their desire to give it another shot afterwards. Meanwhile, I've found I don't quite have nearly that same level of passion for even the next batch of favorites that follow. But I kinda feel that's likely what it takes to be an all time favorite, is just something that really brings out your absolute love and passion for it like none other, and especially for some of these weirder picks that you wouldn't necessarily expect to be somebody's all time favorite, I just find it all to be really interesting, and it just really makes me want to know more about what it is about these movies that moved them to such high levels of passion.

[Irish]

That’s not an answer, Irish.

Huh? I answered as completely as I can.

[Skitch]

Very much in the same camp, TGM. I know its a topic that splits MC, thats fine too. There are masterpiece, 10 out of 10 movies on my top 100 that are lower than non-10/10s, simply because of rewatchability. Grab the popcorn kids, its time for our monthly viewing of Schindler's List! Yeah, not so much.

[megladon8]

Huh? I answered as completely as I can.

I’m just yanking your chain.

[Irish]

I’m just yanking your chain.

BULLSHIT ARTIST!

[megladon8]

BULLSHIT ARTIST!

I’ve been making olive oil in my bedroom.

[baby doll]

Very much in the same camp, TGM. I know its a topic that splits MC, thats fine too. There are masterpiece, 10 out of 10 movies on my top 100 that are lower than non-10/10s, simply because of rewatchability. Grab the popcorn kids, its time for our monthly viewing of Schindler's List! Yeah, not so much.There are different kinds of rewatchability. There are films that genuinely reward multiple viewings, because there's too much sensory information on the screen to process it all in a single screening and key plot points are handled in an unemphatic, offhand manner (e.g., anything by Godard, Hou, or Straub-Huillet, and most films by Edward Yang), and then there are films people watch over and over the way they watch reruns of old sitcoms because life under late capitalism is terrible and at the end of the day they just want something that will hold their attention without taxing their perceptual and mental faculties very much (cinematic comfort food), but which don't offer any more on the thirtieth viewing than they did on the first, any more than an old episode of Friends or The Office.

[Skitch]

I do not disagree.

[Dukefrukem]

I've actually recently found myself pretty fascinated by this topic in general, so I'm glad somebody started it. I'll agree with the sentiment that there's a difference between someone's favorite movie, versus what they feel may be technically the best movie they've seen. I certainly don't feel Frozen is the best movie I've seen, it has a number of flaws to it, but that doesn't change the way I feel about it. But I've found that oftentimes you really will get some just genuinely interesting results asking that question, assuming someone has an answer. Like, a journalist that I follow sorta dropped on one of his videos that his all time favorite movie is Doctor Strange. Now, I didn't even really like that movie all that much, but to hear someone claim it to be their #1 all time favorite just kinda made me go, "huh." It just fascinated me, and makes me really wanna dive in deep into conversation and discuss what it is about this movie that hit them to that degree to make them feel it's their all time favorite. Or like, on one of the last short films I worked on in New York, our gaffer mentioned that his favorite movie was Blade Runner 2049, and really emphasized that it was definitively his all time favorite at that. And I really wanted to just stop everything and do precisely that, just have a real in-depth discussion about the movie and what it is about it that touches him so much, because it's just such an interesting pick to not just be a favored movie in general, but an all time #1 favorite. But alas, we were on a tight schedule and super busy, and I never got the chance to ask him about it.

But I know that Frozen is a movie I could just talk about on and on and on, and I've had many conversations with people IRL about it, many of whom weren't fans of the movie, where I would find myself just gushing about it all the same, and would just speak so passionately about it that some of them actually reconsidered their position and mentioned their desire to give it another shot afterwards. Meanwhile, I've found I don't quite have nearly that same level of passion for even the next batch of favorites that follow. But I kinda feel that's likely what it takes to be an all time favorite, is just something that really brings out your absolute love and passion for it like none other, and especially for some of these weirder picks that you wouldn't necessarily expect to be somebody's all time favorite, I just find it all to be really interesting, and it just really makes me want to know more about what it is about these movies that moved them to such high levels of passion.

Who's the resident Disney shill now?


There are different kinds of rewatchability. There are films that genuinely reward multiple viewings, because there's too much sensory information on the screen to process it all in a single screening and key plot points are handled in an unemphatic, offhand manner (e.g., anything by Godard, Hou, or Straub-Huillet, and most films by Edward Yang), and then there are films people watch over and over the way they watch reruns of old sitcoms because life under late capitalism is terrible and at the end of the day they just want something that will hold their attention without taxing their perceptual and mental faculties very much (cinematic comfort food), but which don't offer any more on the thirtieth viewing than they did on the first, any more than an old episode of Friends or The Office.

Very articulate and almost poetic description of rewatchability. Much like D&MU's "hot potato exposition", I am going to forever use this definition moving forward.

[StanleyK]

Has to be 2001: A Space Odyssey for me, I don't care how boring or safe a pick it is. I saw it at 15/16 and didn't like it at all, as is the case with many of my current favorites, and it didn't leave my mind until I had to watch it again, and then again. It's basically the platonic ideal of what I consider a good movie (technically excellent, emphasis on action over dialogue, respects the intelligence of the audience, I'm a sucker for long takes too). Shout-out to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly which is the movie that got me to watch movies in the first place.

[Milky Joe]

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51VXjnU5S1L.jpg

[TGM]

Who's the resident Disney shill now?


Sign up for D23, and get Disney+ for $4/month by paying for a three year commitment priced at $140.97 . (that's cheaper than a year of netflix)


https://d23.com/disney-plus-exclusive-offer/

Still you. :p

[Dukefrukem]

Hey I'm thinking of the kids. :D

[megladon8]

Has to be 2001: A Space Odyssey for me, I don't care how boring or safe a pick it is. I saw it at 15/16 and didn't like it at all, as is the case with many of my current favorites, and it didn't leave my mind until I had to watch it again, and then again. It's basically the platonic ideal of what I consider a good movie (technically excellent, emphasis on action over dialogue, respects the intelligence of the audience, I'm a sucker for long takes too). Shout-out to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly which is the movie that got me to watch movies in the first place.

Jesus, the parallels between you and I I’m your post are crazy.

I also saw 2001 when I was 15/16, didn’t think much of it. But had a friend who obsessed over it and insisted I watch it again. I did, and liked it more but still wasn’t in awe. I kept coming back to it every year or so, and liking it more each time. Now it’s probably got a spot in my top 10 (top 20 for sure).

And The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was one of the first movies my family owned on DVD. Given to my dad by my uncle, for his birthday. It was within weeks of having had a major operation which required 6 months’ bedrest, so all I did for that time was watch movies. And that’s the time I “credit” with changing me from a movie lover to a movie obsesser/enthusiast.

[Mysterious Dude]

Look at my top 100 a mere 10 years ago (http://matchcut.artboiled.com/showthread.php?1904-Post-your-top-100-in-here/page11&p=154492#post154492).... smh
Has it already been over ten years since that thread? My list hasn't changed much.

Are we doing posters? Here's a poster.

https://i.postimg.cc/RFrKhb9q/400-blows-italian-poster.jpg

[Ivan Drago]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZjk3YThkNDktNjZjMS00MTBiLT llNTAtYzkzMTU0N2QwYjJjXkEyXkFq cGdeQXVyMTMxODk2OTU@._V1_.jpg

[Grouchy]

https://imgc.artprintimages.com/img/print/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-italian-movie-poster-1966_u-l-p96feq0.jpg?h=900&w=900

[MadMan]

I guess for now it's The Big Lebowski. Mine has changed almost every half decade or so.

[Rico]

It's changed over the years. But finally landed on the movie that probably gives me the most joy to watch. Cinema Paradiso.

http://www.siciliaconvention.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/copertina1.jpg

[Yxklyx]

I saw 2001 first in a High School theater in the early 70s and I grew up with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly which was often on TV but my favorite film of all time is:

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1057/4964/products/the-nights-of-cabiria-vintage-movie-poster-original-french-small-23x32-3686.jpg?v=1534399890