Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 25 of 42

Thread: Your Favorite Movie of All Time

  1. #1

    Your Favorite Movie of All Time

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

    Mine:
    []
    Last 10 Movies Seen
    (90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)

    Run
    (2020) 64
    The Whistlers
    (2019
    ) 55
    Pawn (2020) 62
    Matilda (1996) 37
    The Town that Dreaded Sundown
    (1976) 61
    Moby Dick (2011) 50

    Soul
    (2020) 64

    Heroic Duo
    (2003) 55
    A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
    As Tears Go By (1988) 65

    Stuff at Letterboxd
    Listening Habits at LastFM

  2. #2
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    37,786
    Adds Wild Bunch to queue...


    Is this the favorite / best argument? What consensus did we land on there?
    Twitch / Youtube / Film Diary

    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  3. #3
    Quote Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
    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.
    Last 10 Movies Seen
    (90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)

    Run
    (2020) 64
    The Whistlers
    (2019
    ) 55
    Pawn (2020) 62
    Matilda (1996) 37
    The Town that Dreaded Sundown
    (1976) 61
    Moby Dick (2011) 50

    Soul
    (2020) 64

    Heroic Duo
    (2003) 55
    A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
    As Tears Go By (1988) 65

    Stuff at Letterboxd
    Listening Habits at LastFM

  4. #4

  5. #5
    Bold choice

    Last 10 Movies Seen
    (90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)

    Run
    (2020) 64
    The Whistlers
    (2019
    ) 55
    Pawn (2020) 62
    Matilda (1996) 37
    The Town that Dreaded Sundown
    (1976) 61
    Moby Dick (2011) 50

    Soul
    (2020) 64

    Heroic Duo
    (2003) 55
    A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
    As Tears Go By (1988) 65

    Stuff at Letterboxd
    Listening Habits at LastFM

  6. #6
    Super Moderator dreamdead's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    5,843
    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:


    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.
    Last edited by dreamdead; 08-28-2019 at 03:26 PM.
    The Boat People - 9
    The Power of the Dog - 7.5
    The King of Pigs - 7

  7. #7
    White Tiger Field Stay Puft's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    3,711
    Chris Marker's La Jetée

    Quote Quoting dreamdead (view post)
    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.
    Giving up in 2020. Who cares.

    maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore (Sky Hopinka) ***½
    Without Remorse (Stefano Sollima) *½
    The Marksman (Robert Lorenz) **
    Beckett (Ferdinando Cito Filomarino) *½
    Night Hunter (David Raymond) *

  8. #8


    Also first encountered in my late teens or early twenties, although it bored me the first time I saw it.
    Just because...
    The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
    Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
    The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild

    The last book I read was...
    The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain


    The (New) World

  9. #9
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    37,786
    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.

    Twitch / Youtube / Film Diary

    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  10. #10
    collecting tapes Skitch's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Neo-Ohio
    Posts
    16,583


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

  11. #11
    The Pan megladon8's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Ottawa, Canada
    Posts
    29,050
    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.

  12. #12
    collecting tapes Skitch's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Neo-Ohio
    Posts
    16,583
    Quote Quoting megladon8 (view post)
    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.

  13. #13
    Screenwriter Lazlo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Charlotte, NC
    Posts
    2,505
    Raiders of the Lost Ark. Saw it on TV sometime between 5 and 8 years old. Blew my mind.
    last four:
    black widow - 8
    zero dark thirty - 9
    the muse - 7
    freaky - 7

    now reading:
    lonesome dove - larry mcmurtry

    Letterboxd
    The Harrison Marathon - A Podcast About Harrison Ford

  14. #14
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    37,786
    Quote Quoting Skitch (view post)


    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...
    Twitch / Youtube / Film Diary

    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  15. #15
    Moderator TGM's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Posts
    3,819
    Quote Quoting dreamdead (view post)
    My question for all who answer this would be: what age were you when you first saw the film?
    I would've been 27.

    Quote Quoting megladon8 (view post)
    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.

  16. #16
    collecting tapes Skitch's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Neo-Ohio
    Posts
    16,583
    Quote Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
    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.

  17. #17
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    37,786
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    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.... smh
    Twitch / Youtube / Film Diary

    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  18. #18
    The Pan megladon8's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Ottawa, Canada
    Posts
    29,050
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    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?

  19. #19
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    37,786
    Quote Quoting Skitch (view post)
    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.
    Twitch / Youtube / Film Diary

    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  20. #20
    Moderator TGM's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Posts
    3,819
    Quote Quoting Skitch (view post)
    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.

    Quote Quoting megladon8 (view post)
    And it is?
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    Frozen
    ^

    Quote Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
    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.... smh
    Top 100? Man, in terms of "all time" lists, I still struggle to even make it to 10 without feel uncertain, lol. >.>
    Last edited by TGM; 08-28-2019 at 10:17 PM.

  21. #21
    - - - - -
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Posts
    11,530
    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, 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.)
    Last edited by Irish; 08-28-2019 at 10:26 PM.

  22. #22
    The Pan megladon8's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Ottawa, Canada
    Posts
    29,050
    That’s not an answer, Irish.

  23. #23
    Moderator TGM's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Posts
    3,819
    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.

  24. #24
    - - - - -
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Posts
    11,530
    Quote Quoting megladon8 (view post)
    That’s not an answer, Irish.
    Huh? I answered as completely as I can.

  25. #25
    collecting tapes Skitch's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Neo-Ohio
    Posts
    16,583
    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.

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
An forum