1. Taxi Driver
2. The Third Man
3. The Dark Knight
4. Escape From New York
5. Boogie Nights
6. Dr. Strangelove
7. Kill Bill
8. No Country For Old Men
9. High and Low
10. Ghost World
1. Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick)
2. The Godfather (Coppola)
3. The Social Network (Fincher)
4. Goodfellas (Scorsese)
5. Casablanca (Curtis)
6. No Country For Old Men (Coen)
7. Lawrence of Arabia (Lean)
8. The Deer Hunter (Cimino)
9. Tombstone (Cosmatos)
10. 12 Angry Men (Lumet)
1) Point Break
2) The Godfather 1&2
3) Die Hard
4) Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
5) Heat
6) The Shawshank Redemption
7) Predator
8) Alien / Aliens
9) Crocodile Dundee
10) Bladerunner
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2. Raising Arizona
3. Fight Club
4. The Godfather / The Godfather Part II
5. Inception
6. The Matrix
7. Primer
8. The Shining
9. Goodfellas
10. The Royal Tenenbaums
I watched it a few months ago in a theater and I was shocked at how hard the car chase scene still rips. As most films from the era it’s a slower pace and a lot of scenes of one guy following another around New York trying not to be seen
I couldn’t wait to watch the French connection.. then I did and I felt a little let down. I love 70s film and the last act is amazing but I guess there was so much hype I wanted more? Maybe I need another watch. The conversation (with Gene Hackman as well) I guess was some inspiration for Robert Pattinson Batman. That thing is a slow burn.
Understandable. Originally, I had little interest in watching it because of the hyped-up car chase sequence. Then I watched the film and became mesmerised by the vérité-style depiction of New York City (thus, overtaking TAXI DRIVER as my favourite 'New York film'). It's a great precursor to David Simon's HOMICIDE and THE WIRE about the demythologisation of the American detective: the case is never about moral rights and wrongs; it's about winning.
I have. While it was a little over-the-place for me, the dialogue and cinematography, especially, has stayed with me since I watched it.
Do you have any recommendations for lesser-known 70s films? I've watched most of the classics but I'm always on the hunt for more. Also, what's your top ten favourite films?
I’m not gonna say I’ve seen every 70s movie. But some you most likely have seen but maybe not are.
5 easy pieces
Play misty for me
California split
Killing of a Chinese bookie(most likely)
Mean streets (most likely)
King of comedy (most likely)
My top 10? Impossible to rank but I gave it a shot.
1. No country for old men
2. The prestige
3. Pulp Fiction
4. There will be blood
5. Inglorious Basterds
6. The Shining
7. Grand Budapest Hotel
8. One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
9. Big Lebowski
10. Inside Llewelyn Davis (easiest to rank)
1. Mulholland Drive (Lynch)
2. The Tree of Life (Malick)
3. Magnolia (Anderson)
4. The Master (Anderson)
5. Synecdoche, New York (Kauffman)
6. The Dark Knight (Nolan)
7. Oppenheimer (Nolan)
8. Phantom Thread (Anderson)
9. Inland Empire (Lynch)
10. Melancholia (von Trier)
All these films are post-2000 I guess!
1. Blue Velvet (1986)
2. Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)
3. Mulholland Drive (2001)
4. Mysterious Skin (2004)
5. Melancholia (2011)
6. Taxi Driver (1976)
7. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
8. Blue Spring (Japan 2001)
9. After Hours (1985)
10. My Own Private Idaho (1991)
1. The Seventh Seal (Bergman)
2. Hamlet (Branagh)
3. La Haine (Kassovitz)
4. My Fair Lady (Cukor)
5. Wings of Desire (Wenders)
6. Black Swan (Aronofsky)
7. Parasite (Joon-ho)
8. The Social Network (Fincher)
9. My Neighbor Totoro (Miyazaki)
10. Funny Games (Haneke)
My list:
1. Big Night (1996, Tucci, Scott)
2. The Godfather (1972, Coppola)
3. Vertigo (1958, Hitchcock)
4. Dark City (1998, Proyas)
5. Throne of Blood (1957, Kurosawa)
6. Taxi Driver (1976, Scorsese)
7. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977, Spielberg)
8. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Kubrick)
9. Casablanca (1942, Curtiz)
10. Children of Men (2006, Cuaron)
My ratings of your list:
1. There Will Be Blood (2007, Anderson) - 4/10
2. The French Connection (1971, Friedkin) - 9/10
3. Three Colours: Red (1994, Kieślowski) - 9/10
4. Trainspotting (1996, Boyle) - 4/10
5. Jaws (1975, Spielberg) - 10/10
6. Naked (1993, Leigh) - 5/10
7. 8½ (1963, Fellini) - 7/10
8. Master and Commander (2003, Weir) - 10/10
9. All That Jazz (1979, Fosse) - NS
10. Jackie Brown (1997, Tarantino) - 9/10
Interesting! Let me join in the fun. I’d rank yours…
1. Big Night - 4/5
2. The Godfather - 5/5 (anything less would be sacrilegious)
3. Vertigo - 3½/5
4. Dark City - NS
5. Throne of Blood - 4/5
6. Taxi Driver - 5/5
7. Close Encounters - 3½/5
8. 2001: A Space Odyssey - 5/5
9. Casablanca - 4½/5
10. Children of Men - 5/5
Wow, so not even a negative rating in the bunch, that’s surprising!
Can I ask how old you are and how long you’ve been into film?
I also would love to hear why these ten movies? To me that’s the real story in any list, the why, otherwise it’s little more than a collection of titles.
27 and most of my life. I remember watching Star Wars and a litany of Spielberg films when I was a kid (even Jaws). Was also watching movies like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon from a young age.
My list is always changing. Some on the top ten weren't even there six months ago (All That Jazz, especially). What about yours?
I’m 40, and I’d say I got seriously into movies around 19. It had kinda started when I saw Taxi Driver at 16 and it haunted me in a way that no other movie ever had, but I couldn’t explain why. Then at 19 the 2002 Sight and Sound list came and I had started reading Roger Ebert’s reviews at the time. Of course he talked about the list and about his own list and I went into to expecting it to be like the AFI lists they had done where I knew of all the movies even if I hadn’t seen them.
But I looked at the S&S list and was like “I’ve never even heard of *most* of these movies, I should see if the video store has any of these and see if I think they’re as good as these stuffy critics all think they are, especially this Seven movie that seems to be so popular.” Not realizing that I was conflating both The Seventh Seal and Seven Samurai as being the same movie. So those were the first two I checked out, absolutely blown away by Seven Samurai, didn’t like Seventh Seal, and then I kinda went from there.
Then for a while I kinda led the double life of watching mainstream Hollywood stuff with my family, but watching as many foreign movies as I could by myself. But I’d also just started college so I had a lot of time to myself. That’s when I went through the classics of world cinema, watching Kurosawa (still my favorite filmmaker), Fellini (meh), Bergman (mixed), Truffaut (meh), Herzog (all time top 10 director), and tons of others.
By the time I got into my 20’s, I also had started writing about movies, so I could then watch indie or Hollywood or foreign or whatever movies and articulate why I liked or disliked something. That was a huge one for me, so that when I saw a movie like Big Night, I could see why it felt like a movie made just for me, about all things that fascinate me (sibling rivalry, the immigrant experience, cooking, the battle between art and commerce, etc.) and know that it’s not a movie for everyone, but it was for me and it became my favorite movie. And I could talk about the why of each of the movies on my list in that way, and have written reviews of most of them.
Thank you for sharing, legend. It's very interesting that you note reading Roger Ebert's reviews. I did the same thing! I'd recommend it to any up-and-coming cinephile. His wit and intellect was so impactful in opening my eyes to cinema outside the mainstream.
Yeah, I also think Ebert was so great for me because even when I disagreed with him, I could usually see his line of thinking and see how he got to his opinion. Sometimes I couldn’t see it but agreed with him about the movie (Blue Velvet is an example where I don’t agree with his logic but we ended up in the same place about the movie).
I also ended up on the old IMDb message boards (when they existed, which is actually how I ended up here on Reddit, when some of us started r/IMDbFilmGeneral once the boards on IMDb shut down) where if you have strong opinions, and I do, you had better be ready to defend them. So I got a thick skin on being challenged on my opinions and people agreeing or not agreeing with me started mattering less, and the back and forth of conversation became the most important thing to me. We can disagree on a movie and be civil to one another, and it can be a great conversation if you can say what you hate and I say what I love about the same movie (or actor or filmmaker or whatever) and we do it respectfully.
It’s a movie that I loved, easy 10/10 when I saw it in the theater. I’ve seen it a couple of times since then and I gotta say it has only gotten better. It’s a mark of how much I love the 2000’s that it’s only at like #29 on my top movies of that decade list.
1. Taxi Driver 2. The Third Man 3. The Dark Knight 4. Escape From New York 5. Boogie Nights 6. Dr. Strangelove 7. Kill Bill 8. No Country For Old Men 9. High and Low 10. Ghost World
1. Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick) 2. The Godfather (Coppola) 3. The Social Network (Fincher) 4. Goodfellas (Scorsese) 5. Casablanca (Curtis) 6. No Country For Old Men (Coen) 7. Lawrence of Arabia (Lean) 8. The Deer Hunter (Cimino) 9. Tombstone (Cosmatos) 10. 12 Angry Men (Lumet)
1) Point Break 2) The Godfather 1&2 3) Die Hard 4) Once Upon A Time In Hollywood 5) Heat 6) The Shawshank Redemption 7) Predator 8) Alien / Aliens 9) Crocodile Dundee 10) Bladerunner
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 2. Raising Arizona 3. Fight Club 4. The Godfather / The Godfather Part II 5. Inception 6. The Matrix 7. Primer 8. The Shining 9. Goodfellas 10. The Royal Tenenbaums
Damn. Primer! I haven’t seen this movie in so long and Raising Arizona is such a slept on Cage & Coen Bros movie. 🤘
I really should watch the French Connection
I watched it a few months ago in a theater and I was shocked at how hard the car chase scene still rips. As most films from the era it’s a slower pace and a lot of scenes of one guy following another around New York trying not to be seen
Too true!
I couldn’t wait to watch the French connection.. then I did and I felt a little let down. I love 70s film and the last act is amazing but I guess there was so much hype I wanted more? Maybe I need another watch. The conversation (with Gene Hackman as well) I guess was some inspiration for Robert Pattinson Batman. That thing is a slow burn.
Understandable. Originally, I had little interest in watching it because of the hyped-up car chase sequence. Then I watched the film and became mesmerised by the vérité-style depiction of New York City (thus, overtaking TAXI DRIVER as my favourite 'New York film'). It's a great precursor to David Simon's HOMICIDE and THE WIRE about the demythologisation of the American detective: the case is never about moral rights and wrongs; it's about winning.
That version of NYC is great to see. Have you seen Mikey and Nicky? 70s NYC at its worst. EDIT: It was filmed in Philly so lm dumb.
I have. While it was a little over-the-place for me, the dialogue and cinematography, especially, has stayed with me since I watched it. Do you have any recommendations for lesser-known 70s films? I've watched most of the classics but I'm always on the hunt for more. Also, what's your top ten favourite films?
I’m not gonna say I’ve seen every 70s movie. But some you most likely have seen but maybe not are. 5 easy pieces Play misty for me California split Killing of a Chinese bookie(most likely) Mean streets (most likely) King of comedy (most likely) My top 10? Impossible to rank but I gave it a shot. 1. No country for old men 2. The prestige 3. Pulp Fiction 4. There will be blood 5. Inglorious Basterds 6. The Shining 7. Grand Budapest Hotel 8. One flew over the cuckoo’s nest 9. Big Lebowski 10. Inside Llewelyn Davis (easiest to rank)
No country for old men is a god damn masterpiece. We share a #1
It’s so good it made me read the book
Cormac McCarthy is the man. Read “The Road”? The movie doesn’t give the book justice at all. But the book will own you.
No Country’s number 13 on my list
1. Mulholland Drive (Lynch) 2. The Tree of Life (Malick) 3. Magnolia (Anderson) 4. The Master (Anderson) 5. Synecdoche, New York (Kauffman) 6. The Dark Knight (Nolan) 7. Oppenheimer (Nolan) 8. Phantom Thread (Anderson) 9. Inland Empire (Lynch) 10. Melancholia (von Trier) All these films are post-2000 I guess!
1. Blue Velvet (1986) 2. Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) 3. Mulholland Drive (2001) 4. Mysterious Skin (2004) 5. Melancholia (2011) 6. Taxi Driver (1976) 7. A Clockwork Orange (1971) 8. Blue Spring (Japan 2001) 9. After Hours (1985) 10. My Own Private Idaho (1991)
1. The Seventh Seal (Bergman) 2. Hamlet (Branagh) 3. La Haine (Kassovitz) 4. My Fair Lady (Cukor) 5. Wings of Desire (Wenders) 6. Black Swan (Aronofsky) 7. Parasite (Joon-ho) 8. The Social Network (Fincher) 9. My Neighbor Totoro (Miyazaki) 10. Funny Games (Haneke)
Really good list!
Love the love for Branagh’s Hamlet
My list: 1. Big Night (1996, Tucci, Scott) 2. The Godfather (1972, Coppola) 3. Vertigo (1958, Hitchcock) 4. Dark City (1998, Proyas) 5. Throne of Blood (1957, Kurosawa) 6. Taxi Driver (1976, Scorsese) 7. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977, Spielberg) 8. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Kubrick) 9. Casablanca (1942, Curtiz) 10. Children of Men (2006, Cuaron) My ratings of your list: 1. There Will Be Blood (2007, Anderson) - 4/10 2. The French Connection (1971, Friedkin) - 9/10 3. Three Colours: Red (1994, Kieślowski) - 9/10 4. Trainspotting (1996, Boyle) - 4/10 5. Jaws (1975, Spielberg) - 10/10 6. Naked (1993, Leigh) - 5/10 7. 8½ (1963, Fellini) - 7/10 8. Master and Commander (2003, Weir) - 10/10 9. All That Jazz (1979, Fosse) - NS 10. Jackie Brown (1997, Tarantino) - 9/10
Interesting! Let me join in the fun. I’d rank yours… 1. Big Night - 4/5 2. The Godfather - 5/5 (anything less would be sacrilegious) 3. Vertigo - 3½/5 4. Dark City - NS 5. Throne of Blood - 4/5 6. Taxi Driver - 5/5 7. Close Encounters - 3½/5 8. 2001: A Space Odyssey - 5/5 9. Casablanca - 4½/5 10. Children of Men - 5/5
Wow, so not even a negative rating in the bunch, that’s surprising! Can I ask how old you are and how long you’ve been into film? I also would love to hear why these ten movies? To me that’s the real story in any list, the why, otherwise it’s little more than a collection of titles.
27 and most of my life. I remember watching Star Wars and a litany of Spielberg films when I was a kid (even Jaws). Was also watching movies like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon from a young age. My list is always changing. Some on the top ten weren't even there six months ago (All That Jazz, especially). What about yours?
I’m 40, and I’d say I got seriously into movies around 19. It had kinda started when I saw Taxi Driver at 16 and it haunted me in a way that no other movie ever had, but I couldn’t explain why. Then at 19 the 2002 Sight and Sound list came and I had started reading Roger Ebert’s reviews at the time. Of course he talked about the list and about his own list and I went into to expecting it to be like the AFI lists they had done where I knew of all the movies even if I hadn’t seen them. But I looked at the S&S list and was like “I’ve never even heard of *most* of these movies, I should see if the video store has any of these and see if I think they’re as good as these stuffy critics all think they are, especially this Seven movie that seems to be so popular.” Not realizing that I was conflating both The Seventh Seal and Seven Samurai as being the same movie. So those were the first two I checked out, absolutely blown away by Seven Samurai, didn’t like Seventh Seal, and then I kinda went from there. Then for a while I kinda led the double life of watching mainstream Hollywood stuff with my family, but watching as many foreign movies as I could by myself. But I’d also just started college so I had a lot of time to myself. That’s when I went through the classics of world cinema, watching Kurosawa (still my favorite filmmaker), Fellini (meh), Bergman (mixed), Truffaut (meh), Herzog (all time top 10 director), and tons of others. By the time I got into my 20’s, I also had started writing about movies, so I could then watch indie or Hollywood or foreign or whatever movies and articulate why I liked or disliked something. That was a huge one for me, so that when I saw a movie like Big Night, I could see why it felt like a movie made just for me, about all things that fascinate me (sibling rivalry, the immigrant experience, cooking, the battle between art and commerce, etc.) and know that it’s not a movie for everyone, but it was for me and it became my favorite movie. And I could talk about the why of each of the movies on my list in that way, and have written reviews of most of them.
Thank you for sharing, legend. It's very interesting that you note reading Roger Ebert's reviews. I did the same thing! I'd recommend it to any up-and-coming cinephile. His wit and intellect was so impactful in opening my eyes to cinema outside the mainstream.
Yeah, I also think Ebert was so great for me because even when I disagreed with him, I could usually see his line of thinking and see how he got to his opinion. Sometimes I couldn’t see it but agreed with him about the movie (Blue Velvet is an example where I don’t agree with his logic but we ended up in the same place about the movie). I also ended up on the old IMDb message boards (when they existed, which is actually how I ended up here on Reddit, when some of us started r/IMDbFilmGeneral once the boards on IMDb shut down) where if you have strong opinions, and I do, you had better be ready to defend them. So I got a thick skin on being challenged on my opinions and people agreeing or not agreeing with me started mattering less, and the back and forth of conversation became the most important thing to me. We can disagree on a movie and be civil to one another, and it can be a great conversation if you can say what you hate and I say what I love about the same movie (or actor or filmmaker or whatever) and we do it respectfully.
Glad to see some Master and Commander love!!
It’s a movie that I loved, easy 10/10 when I saw it in the theater. I’ve seen it a couple of times since then and I gotta say it has only gotten better. It’s a mark of how much I love the 2000’s that it’s only at like #29 on my top movies of that decade list.