Interesting thought. For me:
Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940)
Sergeant York (1941)
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
The Robe (1953)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdfkD6DErjQ&t=7s
The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)
Major Dundee (1965)
Patton (1970)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
These are not my favorite films, although I enjoyed all of them, but each represent some facets of my interests. Name yours in the comboxes.
Casablanca
It’s A Wonderful Life
They Were Expendable
Gunga din
Battle Ground
Hamburger Hill
Three Godfathers [the Wayne one most]
Gettysburg
A Christmas Carol (1951)
Rio Grande
Uncharitable alert: Does Dreher sit to urinate?
Come on, Don, at least 3 of yours should be Dune (1984).
Neither my virtues nor vices are interesting enough to be in movies. I’ll have to think about this some more, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to come up with ten. I mean, sure, I’d love it if The Mission was essential to understanding me, but a DOS-6 manual probably defines me more.
The Station Agent (2003)
Sunshine State (2002)
Conquest (1998)
La Gloire de Mon Pere (1990)
Metropolitan (1989)
Stand By Me (1986)
Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974)
A Boy Ten Feet Tall (1963)
The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960)
Doorway to Hell (1930)
Come on, Don, at least 3 of yours should be Dune (1984).
🙂
Hmmm, I don’t know whether you’ll know me by these movies but they’re my desert island choices. I’ve included some DVD / TV stuff. to keep to 10 I had to cut some out like Lassie, it’s a wonderful life Casablanca and some others.
Here they are, in no particular order
Gilbert and Sullivan Patience (PBS/BBC version, I’d like to include Iolanths–why didn’t you mention that Don?)
2001 AD
Orient Express (the TV version with Suchet; I’d like to include Miss Marple’s Nemesis also, but..)
A Christmas Carol (original?)
Fantasia (first one, saw it in 1938?? and was hooked on classical music)
Brideshead Revisited
Pride and Prejudice (TV, first one)
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Barchester Chronicles (DVD/TV and if have to pick one, let it be “The Warden”)
Red Shoes
The Tales of Hoffmann (the film, with Moira Shearer)
Can’t think which one I would eliminate to get to 10.
My list may reveal too much about me. While not my favorites, they represent what I’ll watch over and over, each and every time I catch them on TV…even if I’ve already missed some portion.
THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
BRAZIL
TWO FOR THE ROAD
JEREMIAH JOHNSON
THE THIN MAN
ALIENS
SEVEN
STAR WARS
12 MONKEYS
CUBE
Judge as you will. No accounting for tastes, as they say.
Forgot that one. The Best Years of Our Lives is a great film and a fine reference point as well. Every aspect of it is instructive in its way.
High Noon
Casablanca
Miller’s Crossing
Scanners
Watchmen
Groundhog Day
The Matrix
The Truman Show
28 Weeks Later
The Devil’s Advocate (mature audiences only)
Chariots of Fire
Les Misérables
True Grit [ original ]
Waking Ned Devine
Rocky
Ocean of Mercy [ documentary ]
Once
Passion of the Christ
Braveheart
and yes..
It’s a Wonderful Life,
which we watch throughout the year.
“The only things that you can take with you are the things you’ve given away.”- The small plaque that hung below the portrait of Mr. Bailey in the Building and Loan office.
The movie version of Les Misérables is a ten minute movie. It always goes by so fast. One of my favorites.
I judge a movie based on if so remember it long after watching it. Some memorably ones for me which come to mind immediately:
The Agony and the Ecstasy
The Sound of Music
Superman 2 (Christopher Reeve version)
Rocky (all of them)
Steel Magnolias
Only You
Gallipoli
Once Were Warriors
Strictly Ballroom
Braveheart
Strictly Ballroom…Ezabelle.
Oh boy. My wife’s favorite.
Endearing movie.
Fran is great.
Her mother is priceless.
Honorable mention.
Young Frankenstein.
My favorite supporting actress…
Frau Blücher : Stay close to the candles. The stairway can be… treacherous. -Cloris Leachman.
Ha! Your wife has great taste Philip- Fran is great. That movie launched Baz luhrmann’s career. A creative genius IMHO. His wife Catherine Martin is the costume designer on all his movies- just a great duo. I’m looking forward to Elvis coming out next year with Tom Hanks as Col. Tom Parker.
Must look into Young Frankenstein.
Elvis looks promising.
I hope you like YF.
Gene Hackman has a part in it, Harold. Silly movie but good for a couple of laughs.
Peace.
Some movies I never get tired of watching are:
Amadeus
The Right Stuff
Coal Miner’s Daughter
Peggy Sue Got Married
Moonstruck
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Airplane!
Twister
Naked Gun (1, 2 1/2 & 33 1/3)
Austin Powers (all 3)
Anchorman & Anchorman 2 (definitely have a thing for spoofs/satires)
I was trying to think of a way to put Amadeus on my list. Strong contender for best movie ever made.
I saw Twister in a crowded theater. We had to sit on the third row from the screen. Not ideal.
The Sound of Music is incredible.
It needs to be in the top 10.
It needs to be in the top 10.
Not sure Dreher’s idea is the right one, but the notion was to display your interests and influences. It might be in someone’s Top 10, not mine.
(NB. The Sound of Music is fiction that drew on memoir. The problem is that people get the wrong idea about the historical characters involved because the scriptwriters butchered the actual story of the family in question. That’s just not excusable).
A Man for All Seasons
Patton
The Quiet Man
They Were Expendable
Keys of the Kingdom
Ben Hur
The Great Santini
Master and Commander
Monte Walsh (the Selleck version)
Goodbye Mr. Chips (the original)
“The problem is that people get the wrong idea about the historical characters involved because the scriptwriters butchered the actual story of the family in question. That’s just not excusable”
Only a documentary with actual footage of the family will give you the actual true story of events. All movies based on historical or real events are dramatised to a point. To make them entertaining to the viewer. The real story as it happened, acted out with the real personality traits of the real individuals would probably have made one boring movie. And besides, The Sound of Music is technically a musical. I doubt the real Maria went around singing her way through life as the Nazis took over Austria.
A favorite of mine that I overlooked, that I saw at the theatre when released, that I own on dvd and will watch again and again and have just come across on tv at the halfway point:
LILLIES OF THE FIELD
Favorite Movies
Hunt for Red October
Hunter Killer
The Truman Show
The Devil’s Advocate
Watchmen
Man of Steel
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
13 Hours
Gravity
The Dark Knight (2008)
“The problem is that people get the wrong idea about the historical characters involved…”
“Don’t worry, John, the history books will clean it up.”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068156/quotes/qt0443122
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjiBajKfSx0
The fictionalized musical, The Sound of Music, has, imo, so many inspiring moments and filmed on location in many scenes, calls to my heart a truth of God. His mercy. His talents shared with us to use. His instruments. Those that are open to risk something beautiful for God. The nun is a glorious instrument. Fearless and kind. Humble yet stout hearted in her faith. The dutchess was finally moved by the instrument, a pure heart, which is rare.
Rare that a soul could be concerned about so many others while unconcerned for herself.
A imitation of His only begotten.
Not perfect. Not exact. But qualities that reflect the splendor of Mary Ever Virgin. The Christ bearer par excellence.
In regards to the butchery that the playwrights exhibited in putting this story together I only ask one thing.
Did this story move your hearts?
Art Decco could bring to mind the actual accounts of the Vontrap family and I might not even be able to recognize the characters. It may or may not move me to tears, but the Sound of Music is a classic example of talents to be used for the good of others. It reaches into the heart and captures it.
I love the work.
A New Leaf
It’s A Wonderful Life
A Christmas Carol (1938)
Sense and Sensibility
To Kill A Mockingbird
Summer Magic
The Saint (any, all)
Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (all b&w episodes)
Dodson
and a couple of 1940’s in the cobwebs at the moment
re “a couple in the cobwebs” – That’s my problem. There are who knows how many westerns and WWII movies I watched when I was a kid that shaped my sense of right and wrong as well as duty. I probably spent my whole childhood watching Lee Van Cleef sneaking around a barn to try to shoot someone in the back. That’s wrong, Lee, and there you go, you just got shot for trying it. Serves you right.
The scriptwriters are not writing a documentary, they’re telling a story.
Any story will be selective with the granular details of daily life.
In the course of this, conversations will be reconstructions.
It’s a musical. The interactions between the characters are sung.
Stories are structured in particular ways, as is formalist poetry. However, this is a story derived from memoir. One structure that should be respected would be the schematic features of the lives of the characters. The events in question took place over a dozen years, not a year or two. There were 10 children in the family, not 7. Three of the children were borne by Maria Augusta. He wasn’t a baron, he was a hereditary knight (baronet in British parlance, ritter in German). The family took to performing because they were broke. Their departure from Austria did not incorporate nuns sabotaging police vehicles or adolescents climbing mountains. Maria v. Trapp had left the convent a decade earlier and they left the country by boarding a train to Italy. On a fuzzier note, his children complained that the screenwriters and Christopher Plummer misrepresented their father’s personality. People who knew his second wife described her as a ‘force of nature’, and some of the children said her temper could be fierce. While we’re at it, Capt. v. Trapp was 25 years older than his 2d wife; they cast a pair of actors who were six years apart and looked six years apart.
Warm and Fuzzy ….
Nope.
Your point regarding the complete distortion of the truth is appreciated.
Thank you for your research.
I’m understanding of your disdain for the production after reading your post.
Sad story.
I frankly don’t care who or what has criticised it to undermine it as a legacy it it’s own right. The point is that we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. The Sound of Music is an example of life inspiring art and art, in turn, inspiring life. Regardless of the historical inaccuracy of the story the movie itself has had timeless appeal because it’s themes resonate with each generation that watch it. That’s really the point here. I mean, that’s why we tell even our own children that life is not like the movies. It isn’t planned out and perfect and flowing. Any criticism of the Sound of Music shouldn’t mean we should disregard what it stood for and still stand for. And the music plays a big part in connecting the characters and themes with the viewer. It’s a beautiful movie. And each generation who watches it connects with it. That’s remarkable for any movie.
The Sound of Music is the 6th highest grossing movie of all time (adjusted for inflation) taking $2,500,000,000. Gone with the Wind is the highest at $3,700,000,000. That speaks volumes about its appeal.