Over the past fifteen to twenty years I’ve sporadically kept a list of my favorite movies, and a few years ago I put it all together into a list I keep on an Excel spreadsheet. Later I decided to put the list on my website, not because I’m trying to show off, but because I believe writers can learn several things from movies, especially good movies. That being said, any list of favorite movies is necessarily prepared with considerable amount of opinion or, if you will, personal preference. These are the movies I like, many of them I’ve liked for a long time. I’m certain those of you who scan this list won’t find all your favorites here, though you may find one or two.
The movies are listed in order of the year of release. I will say I have one favorite above all the others (see below), but I’m not going to take the time to list the rest of them in order of how much I “like” them. Also, giving the date of release distinguishes two movies of the same name. (For example, Mutiny on the Bounty of 1962 instead of the movie of 1935, or The Bounty of 1984.) This list isn’t necessarily complete; I certainly will add others if I feel they deserve it.
A. The Main List
1939 The Wizard of Oz
1942 Casablanca
1943 The Song of Bernadette
1946 Song of the South
1948 Fort Apache
1949 Treasure Island
1949 Twelve O’clock High
1950 King Solomon’s Mines
1951 A Christmas Carol
1951 Quo Vadis
1952 The Greatest Show on Earth
1952 High Noon
1952 The Quiet Man
1952 The Robe
1953 Island in the Sky
1953 Julius Caesar
1954 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
1954 The Caine Mutiny
1954 The High and The Mighty
1955 Mr. Roberts
1955 The Seven Year Itch
1955 Strategic Air Command
1955 To Catch a Thief
1956 Around the World in Eighty Days
1956 Moby Dick
1956 The Ten Commandments
1957 The Bridge on the River Kwai
1957 The Enemy Below
1957 Paths of Glory
1958 South Pacific
1959 Anatomy of a Murder
1959 Ben-Hur
1959 North by Northwest
1959 On the Beach
1959 Operation Petticoat
1959 Porgy and Bess
1960 The Apartment
1960 The Magnificent Seven
1960 Psycho
1960 Sink the Bismark
1960 Spartacus
1960 West Side Story
1961 The Absent-Minded Professor
1961 The Guns of Navarone
1962 Lawrence of Arabia
1962 The Music Man
1962 Mutiny on the Bounty
1963 Captain Newman, M.D.
1963 Charade
1963 Lillies of the Field
1964 Becket
1964 Dr. Strangelove
1964 Mary Poppins
1964 My Fair Lady
1965 A Thousand Clowns
1965 Dr. Zhivago
1965 In Harm’s Way
1965 The Sound of Music
1966 A Man for All Seasons
1967 In the Heat of the Night
1968 2001: A Space Odyssey
1968 The Lion in Winter
1968 Rosemary’s Baby
1969 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
1970 Airport
1970 Patton
1971 Fiddler on the Roof
1975 Jaws
1976 All the President’s Men
1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind
1977 Star Wars – A New Hope
1980 9 to 5
1980 Star Wars – The Empire Strikes Back
1980 Tom Horn
1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark
1982 Gandhi
1983 Star Wars – Return of the Jedi
1984 Amadeus
1986 Hoosiers
1988 Mississippi Burning
1989 Dead Poet’s Society
1990 Dances With Wolves
1990 The Hunt for Red October
1991 Silence of the Lambs
1991 Thelma and Louise
1992 Hero
1993 Cool Runnings
1993 Dave
1993 Schindler’s List
1996 Fargo
2001 A Beautiful Mind
2010 The King’s Speech
B. Disney Animated Films
1937 Snow White
1940 Fantasia
1940 Pinocchio
1942 Bambi
1949 The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
1950 Cinderella
1951 Alice in Wonderland
1953 Peter Pan
1955 Lady and the Tramp
1959 Sleeping Beauty
1961 One Hundred and One Dalmatians
1963 The Sword in the Stone
1977 The Rescuers
1990 The Rescuers Down Under
With a list like that, there’s a tendency to wonder what the list can tell us. It should be borne in mind that the fact that this is a “favorite” list limits any message we can glean from it, but there are several things that stand out. (This is not a list of my “best” movies, it’s my favorites.) First, movies have to be written. Like a novel they have plot, characters and setting, and a movie can be compared to a fast-paced novel. Everything in the movie has to be important. Anything that doesn’t need to be there detracts from the overall experience.
Second, and probably most important, each of the movies on my list has a story to tell and in every one of them, the plot is pressed forward all the time. Including the cartoons. Nothing in these movies slows or bogs down the story line. It keeps going, sweeping the viewer along with it. I noticed this most particularly in 1957’s The Paths of Glory which I saw for the first time only a few weeks ago. (I’m writing this on 2/1/2013.) Everything in that movie pushes inexorably forward; there’s no wasted effort in the script.
Third, there’s little or no gratuitous violence. No Schwarzenegger movies here. The Terminator is one of the worst movies ever made because it allows Arnold to go around shooting and killing indiscriminately. And he’s proud of it. (I find that appalling.) It glorifies murder under the mistaken assumption that because his character has come back from the future, he can somehow justify blowing people away. There is violence in the movies on my list, certainly. I admit it. Many of the movies are war movies, but the violence is always central to the plot and doesn’t get in the way of the story. No blowing people away just to make a movie that appeals to viewer’s violent sides.
Fourth, there’s a variety of moods in these movies. They’re not all full of conflict or tension. Contrary to what some people say, every scene doesn’t have to drip tension or conflict to hold the viewer’s attention. What’s far more important is a variation in the amount of tension from scene to scene. Fort Apache, for example, has scenes of the Cavalry chasing Apache indians, even scenes of Cavalry men getting massacred, but it’s interspersed with scenes of humor and relaxation.
I have no documentaries here. I’m not sure why. Sorry, Al.
That being said, what can we say about a movie that makes it great? That is, in an absolute sense. Like most artistic endeavors, a determination of “goodness” or “greatness” is overwhelmingly subjective. What one person thinks is good, another may dislike considerably. For a movie to be great, many things have to fall in line. The starting point for a movie is the script. But acting, too, has to be excellent. Then there are so many other things that have to fall into place: film editing, sound and sound effects, lighting, directing, you name it. Music is tremendously helpful in elevating the mood of the film. The music in Lawrence of Arabia is a good example. Without it, the broad, expansive scenery might just turn out to be just any other desert.
In short, it takes a team to make a movie, good or bad. That’s so much different than writing a book. A novel is the work of one, rarely two, individuals.
Some movies didn’t make the list. Some Like it Hot just didn’t do it for me even though it’s a top-rated movie. I liked the trains in the movie, but seeing men dressed as women turned me off. There’s only one Marilyn Monroe movie here, The Seven-Year Itch. I’ve never been terribly impressed with Monroe, though this movie is her best. Also, notice Dumbo is not on the animated movies list.
Additionally, there are few movies with serious special effects, such as the second trio of Star Wars movies. They were good and I enjoyed watching them, but I felt the special effects were there largely to provide the characters with a difficult situation to get out of. The first three Star Wars movies were better. More interpersonal relationships. The first Star Wars movie (now called “A New Hope”) came out in 1977, before computer-generated special effects were developed. Special effects are also a large part of why I have few recent movies. Movies do special effects well, perhaps better than a novel, but too much reliance on technology simply destroys the plot line.
Some movies didn’t make the list. The movie The Searchers is not here. Every listing I’ve seen that includes that movie gives it a four or five-star rating, depending on how many stars they have to give out. It’s considered one of the best westerns ever made. But I hated it. I thought it was poorly acted, poorly directed, poorly written, and the basic premise was weak to begin with. Not to mention promoting the stereotypical view of Native Americans as bloodthirsty savages. I wouldn’t put The Searchers on my list if you paid me two trillion dollars. Fort Apache is a far better western. But that’s me.
I said one movie remains my all-time favorite. That’s Lawrence of Arabia. I’m not going to rate the others; that would take too much time and wouldn’t be worth it anyway. What would it tell me?