My Top 50 Films of All-Time

In honor of finally reaching 1,000 views on this here blog, I decided to present a list of my favorite 50 films in order (going from 50 to number 1).  Now obviously this list is constantly changing, so this is just my list as of today, January 13th, 2014.  I narrowed this down from about 100 movies that I really enjoy so maybe next week I'd have other films I want to take out or put in, but for the most part my list shouldn't change too drastically.  Also, 50 films is a lot to do a comedic and serious write up for, and I want you guys to actually read this and be able to finish it in the same sitting, so I'll try to be both comedic and analytical in the same paragraphs.  Anyway, here are my 50 favorite films, enjoy the read and let me know what you think of my list.

In All Seriousness:

50. West Side Story (1961) 

Director: Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise

Starring: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, George Chakiris, Rita Moreno

I don't have much to say here that I didn't say in my Netflix Pick of the Week post.  The music is really great, the acting is good.  You'll have these songs stuck in your head for days after you watch this movie.  Something that isn't ever annoying is performing your own rendition of these songs for all of your friends.  It's even better if you change the lyrics.

49. Stripes (1981)

Director: Ivan Reitman

Starring: Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, John Candy, Warren Oates

I consider this film kind of a comedic Full Metal Jacket.  Or maybe I consider Full Metal Jacket a dramatic Stripes since this came out first.  Well anyway they are both kind of structured similarly where the first half is training and the second half is more combat based.  And both halves kind of work as their own film for both Stripes and FMJ.  The Names scene is one of my comedy scenes of all-time, and it's all improvised.  Also Bill Murray could read a Thesaurus and I would watch it.

48. Mullholland Dr. (2001)

Director: David Lynch

Starring: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring

David Lynch is one weird genius.  I'm really fascinated by him, and I like that it usually takes more than one viewing to even start to grasp one of his films.  That increases the films replay value for sure, and Mullholland Drive is definitely something you should watch more than once.  It also really helps if you read about the film after you watch it.  Naomi Watts gives, in my opinion, the best performance of her career.  And one of my favorite female performances of all-time as well.

47. Schindler's List (1993)

Director: Stephen Spielberg

Starring: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley

Schindler's List is a tough one to get through, but if you can it's definitely worth the watch.  Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes are both fantastic.  Although it's not my favorite by him, I think it is Stephen Spielberg's most well-made film.  He doesn't waste a shot, and he has us worrying with every single second of the film.

46. Die Hard (1988)

Director: John McTiernan

Starring: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson

When talking about action movies, Die Hard is always the first to come to mind.  I wish the people making some of these action movies today would take a look at Die Hard (the original, not the newest one).  It's a great model for how an action movie should be made, and a lot of it has to do with the script.  Create good characters and good sequences, and you'll have a good film.

45. Touch of Evil (1958)

Director: Orson Welles

Starring: Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, Janet Leigh

Citizen Kane is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made.  I do like it a lot, but Touch of Evil is my favorite Orson Welles film.  Orson Welles changes a lot as a filmmaker (and he becomes a different shape) from Kane to Touch of Evil.  The long opening shot at the beginning is incredible, and unbelievably influential.  The cast does their part, but the story is really what makes this such a good film.  This tale of police corruption holds on to you like a baby holding on to any finger (babies love fingers), and it doesn't let you go until the very end.

44. Django Unchained (2012)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson

The most recently released film on the list.  What can I say, I just really enjoy this movie.  Tarantino writes enjoyable scripts, and his use of music is some of my favorite.  Those are really 2 of the most important aspects of films when I decide how much I like them.  I love a well-written script, and I love music being use in creative ways.  The characters are over-the-top, but so interesting.  Plenty of great cameos, just a really entertaining film.

43. The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Director: Charles Laughton

Starring: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish

This film has influenced countless filmmakers (The Coen Brothers, Spike Lee, Paul Thomas Anderson) to name a few.  This was the only film Charles Laughton directed, which is kind of a shame because I would have liked to see more from him.  Robert Mitchum is terrifying as a fake priest who torments his ex-cell mates kids when he finds out that they know where a large sum of money is.  Great use of shadows in the cinematography, which has been copied many times throughout the history of cinema.

42. Rushmore (1998)

Director: Wes Anderson

Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams

Jason Schwartzman's character, Max Fischer, can be a real butt head sometimes, but his ambition is what I admire the most.  I love his character so much because I feel like there are parts of him that I can absolutely relate to.  The friendship that grows between him and Bill Murray's character is a joy to watch.  Wes Anderson is one of the most stylistic filmmakers alive, and he'll have a fan in me for as long as he continues to make films.

41. Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Starring: Matthew Modine, Vincent D'Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, Arliss Howard, Adam Baldwin

Full Metal Jacket, or as figured out earlier in this post, the more dramatic Stripes.  Even more so than Stripes, FMJ feels like two movies rather than one.  Each half of the film is basically an obstacle that Private Joker (Matthew Modine) is trying to get past.  Both halves work so well that I don't even care that they aren't really merged well.

40. Psycho (1960)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Starring: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam

It still holds up to this day.  Even though I knew a lot of the plot, it still made me jump.  The acting felt very modern, and the whole film just feels ahead of it's time.  In my opinion the best work of Hitchcock's mostly excellent filmography.

39. The Departed (2006)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, Vera Farmiga

Bahhston accents gahlore.  Top to bottom, a fantastic cast with great chemistry.  Like probably one of my favorite casts, I love all of these people.  Their chemistry is great, and the story is entertaining.  That plus Marty at the helm is really all you need for great film.

38. My Man Godfrey (1936)

Director: Gregory La Cava

Starring: William Powell, Carole Lombard, Gail Patrick

A funny, smart script sets this film apart from a lot of the films from this era.  It's one of my favorites comedies, and I wrote a 10 page paper on it this past semester so if you need to know anything about it, I'm the guy to go to.  William Powell's Godfrey is such a wonderful character.  And brilliantly matched with Carole Lombard's wild character.  This would be the first film I'd recommend for someone who's intimidated by watching older movies.

37. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Director: Henry Selick

Starring: Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara

Another musical on the list.  I watch it around every Halloween and Christmas, and I never get sick of it.  The songs are contagious, and you'll find yourself singing them randomly throughout life, not even around the two holidays.  The number of times I've been in a store and sung to myself 'What's This?' while look at different objects would surprise you, and cause me to lose most of my friends.

36. Drive (2011)

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, Christina Hendricks, Oscar Isaac

My man crush for Ryan Gosling is astounding.  It wouldn't be so strong if he wasn't a great actor, and so cool.  This film really surprised me with how much I loved it.  The cinematography for the night time scenes are beautiful, and the soundtrack is one of the coolest. Also Albert Brooks gave my favorite performance of 2011 in this film.

35. Se7en (1995)

Director: David Fincher

Starring: Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow

Quite a dark film.  If you haven't seen this yet, the last 25 or so minutes is a really crazy ride.  Even though I wouldn't consider this a horror film, it has some truly scary moments.  I'm gonna keep this short, because if you haven't seen the film, it's best if you know as little as possible going into it.

34. The Big Lebowski (1998)

Director: The Coen Brothers

Starring: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, John Turturro

A hilarious film, with great characters.  Jeff Bridges and John Goodman are perfect together in one of their most memorable roles each.  The Coen Brothers have some very quotable films, but Lebowski is by far the most quotable.  And if you don't think so, well then, just insert the most quoted line of the film here, man.

33. Chinatown (1974)

Director: Roman Polanski

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston

Every single person who has even thought about becoming a screenwriter needs to see this film.  It's widely considered the greatest screenplay of all-time.  It really is great, so many twists and turns that just really work.  The pacing of the story is fantastic, and Jack Nicholson is at the top of his game in this film.  Dunaway is also really fantastic.

32. Black Swan (2010)

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel

I fell in love with this film the first time I saw it.  Natalie Portman mesmerized me with her performance, and I thought the story was so cool.  The score is really effective, and Darren Aronofsky's directing here is some of his best work.  I think one reason why I like this film so much is because it introduced me to Aronofsky, who I now consider one of my favorite directors.

31. The Godfather Pt. 1 and 2 (1972 and 1974)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Starring: Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, James Caan, Robert Duvall, John Cazale, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire

I always group these two together on my list because I like them both pretty much equally, so they would be back to back, and I don't feel like bumping anything else off the list.  So yeah, The Godfather 1 and 2.  Both incredible stories, with a great cast, directed well, yadda yadda yadda.  You've heard people praise these two films before, if you still haven't seem them then go do that soon.

30. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)

Director: Sergio Leone

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef

If you have a well-crafted film, that's also really cool, then you have a fan in Ryan Moncrief.  Westerns are really cool, and it's absolutely why so many little kids want to be cowboys when they grow up (and I for damn sure don't mean the NFL team).  All three films in Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name trilogy are great, but none of them beat this last film.  A legendary film with a legendary score that you've heard a million times, even if you haven't seen the movie.

29. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Director: Stephen Spielberg

Starring: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi, Jeremy Davies

I can't tell you for sure if it's a realistic portrayal of WWII, because I wasn't in that war (or any war for that matter).  But it looks closer to what I imagine it is like than any other movie portrays it, which is why I'm such a big fan of this film.  The opening storming the beaches sequence feels horrifically real, and allows you to sympathize even more with the soldiers that were actually there.  Stephen Spielberg is one of, if not the best at capturing the feeling of historic events.

28. Toy Story (1995)

Director: John Lasseter

Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, John Ratzenberger

Something I'm probably going to do in the future is scream, "YOU ARE A TOY!" to any of my friends who say they are gonna try something that might not work out.  This movie makes me happier than most things, it's just such a cool concept that the kid inside me just eats up every time.  Like most of the pixar films that followed this influential piece of cinema, Toy Story is funny throughout, intense at parts, and touching in parts as well. 

27. Field of Dreams (1989)

Director: Phil Alden Robinson

Starring: Kevin Costner, James Earle Jones, Ray Liotta, Amy Madigan

A really good sports movie is harder to come by these days, than it was back when I wasn't alive yet.  I always liked baseball movies the best, and Field of Dreams is by far my favorite.  All of the interactions between Kevin Costner and James Earle Jones are awesome.  Ray Liotta is great as Shoeless Joe Jackson.  Several very quotable lines, and the ending will make even the manliest of men get choked up.

26. The Lord of the Rings Series (2001, 2002, 2003)

Director: Peter Jackson

Starring: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellan, Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, Viggo Mortensen

Like The Godfather films, I like to group these up.  Whenever I watch these films I have to free up a day or two, because I always watch them back to back to back, and I watch the extended editions which adds up to about 10 hours.  I'm not so into these films to the point where I dress up as the characters or have a replica of the ring that I wear all the time, but it is definitely my favorite film trilogy.

25. The Dark Knight (2008)

Director: Christopher Nolan

Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman

Now on to the middle film of another one of my favorite trilogies.  This film at one point was number 1 on this list, but as you can see it's moved up a bit.  It's still by far my most watched film of all-time.  I've easily seen this film upwards of 30 times since it came out, and I still enjoy it every time.  Obviously Heath's performance is spectacular.  I think the thing I liked about it the most was it had more crime movie elements than comic book movie elements.  Because while I do like many comic book movies, I'm a much bigger fan of (somewhat) realistic crime thrillers.

24. No Country For Old Men (2007)

Director: The Coen Brothers

Starring: Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, Kelly Macdonald, Woody Harrelson

Not one of the Coen Brothers funnier films.  But one of their bests for sure.  The cinematography is beautiful and it's overall just an intense film.  The Coen Brothers create suspense so effectively in this film.  That is helped a lot by Javier Bardem's terrifying performance as Anton Chigurh.

23. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Director: Wes Anderson

Starring: Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Danny Glover, Bill Murray

After making the brilliant Rushmore, Wes Anderson could really cast anyone he wanted in his film, and it seems like he did.  Such a great cast of talented people.  I really love the theme Anderson has in his films of adults acting childish and children acting more mature than they should be.  The story book feel of Tenenbaums with Alec Baldwin's great narrating is unique and a primary reason why this is my favorite Wes Anderson film.  His use of music is fantastic here too.

22. Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring: Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Phillip Seymour Hoffman

The fact that this is my third favorite Paul Thomas Anderson film, and it's this high up on my list shows how much I love his films.  He always has some humor in his films (except for maybe There Will Be Blood), but Punch-Drunk Love is his only movie that just makes me laugh so hard throughout the whole thing.  I wouldn't even consider it a typical comedy, but I find it hilarious.  My favorite Adam Sandler role, and it's not even close.

21. American Beauty (1999)

Director: Sam Mendes

Starring: Kevin Spacey, Annette Benning, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, Chris Cooper

Another film with a great screenplay that any hopeful screenwriter should see eventually.  When a film uses voice-over really well it can go a long way, and American Beauty incorporates it effectively.   Possibly Kevin Spacey's best performance of his career.  To tell the end of the story at the beginning, and still have it be a good ending means the journey to that ending has to be great.  And that is precisely the case with American Beauty.

20. (500) Days of Summer (2009)

Director: Marc Webb

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel

Guys all over the world who are dragged to romantic-comedies by their girlfriends would be much happier if a majority of the romantic-comedies being made in recent years were more like (500) Days of Summer.  Really funny, entertaining story that will break your heart and then mend it within the film's 95 minutes.  Really creative way of telling a story by jumping back and forth between the days.  Great script too.

19. Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Starring: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn

Other than the show How I Met Your Mother, this film is one of the first things that comes to mind when I see a suit.  Great soundtrack, which is true for pretty much all of Tarantino's films.  Making an interesting film about a heist, without ever showing the heist is something only a talented writer could do.  And Tarantino is a talented writer for sure.  Suits, sunglasses, awesome music, the title, the nicknames, the slow-motion walking scene, this film just oozes with coolness.  I can't stand it.

18. Blue Velvet (1986)

Director: David Lynch

Starring: Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Laura Dern, Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper was born to play this role.  He was a crazy guy, and really embraces his craziness in this role, which is one of my favorite characters of all-time.  This movie can be darkly funny at times, but also really scary.  One of David Lynch's more conventional films (I'm guessing.  I've only seen this and Mullholland Drive).  But still very weird, uncomfortable at times, but worth a watch for sure if you're into Lynch or filmmakers similar to him (if there even are any).

17. The Shining (1980)

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers

My favorite horror film, even though I haven't seen many horror films, or at least not as much as I'd like to.  I don't even find this movie scary, I just think it's so well-made.  There are endless amounts of essays, theories and documentaries (see the film Room 237) on this film.  I love films that you can analyze every time you watch it, and get something new from it with each viewing.  The Shining is without a doubt one of those movies.

16. Inglorious Basterds (2009)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Starring: Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Diane Kruger

Oddly enough, this is the first Tarantino film I ever saw.  I was amazed by how unique the dialogue was.  And that scenes would go on for long periods of time, and be mainly dialogue.  Everything about it just seemed cool to me, and I knew after seeing it that I wanted to see more films like this.  So it kind of got me into a lot of the films I'm into now.  Also Christoph Waltz is just great, and I'm happy this film turned him into a well-known actor.

15. Goodfellas (1990)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Starring: Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino

The best Ray Liotta was and ever will be.  This is really the film of his entire career, and possibly Joe Pesci's best film as well.  Here is another instance of good voice-over being crucial to making a film great.  Even though Martin Scorsese has make plenty of films that have nothing to do with gangsters, the popularity of Goodfellas classified him as a great gangster film director.  And he took that success and made several more gangster films, none of them have come close to Goodfellas though.

14. There Will Be Blood (2007)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Dillon Freasier

You'd be hard-pressed to find a performance better than Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood.  Whenever I watch this film, I forget what he normally sounds and looks like.  Brilliant directing from PTA, a haunting score, gorgeous cinematography, this film is really a technical masterpiece.

13. Fargo (1996)

Director: The Coen Brothers

Starring: Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare

My favorite Co Bros film.  I don't know why I shortened Coen Brothers, it's pretty short already.  But anyway, does a good job of exposing it's antagonists flaws, and making the protagonist seem like an angel.  To be fair Frances McDormand as Marge is one of the nicest characters, you just want to have dinner and play board games with her.  This film is the perfect example of The Coen Brothers dark comedic style, and one of the best dark comedies made in a long time.

12. Sideways (2004)

Director: Alexander Payne

Starring: Paul Giamatti, Thomas Hayden Church, Virginia Madsen, Sandra Oh

Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church have great chemistry in this wine comedy from Alexander Payne.  This schlubby character was made for Paul Giamatti, he's perfect and so funny in this role.  Great lines throughout, and the kind of awkward comedy that I enjoy a lot.

11. Fight Club (1999)

Director: David Fincher

Starring: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf, Jared Leto

If this film doesn't make you want to punch someone right in the face, then that's probably good.  Violence isn't great in real life usually, but it's pretty fantastic in this movie.  I've noticed that a lot of the films I like have a very rebellious nature, maybe that's because I'm generally just really nice and a rule follower.  But who cares, I'll live my rebel life through Tyler Durden.

10. Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Director: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris

Starring: Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carell, Alan Arkin, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin

Great scriptwriting, and talented cast make this movie an excellent indie comedy.  Alan Arkin is hilarious as the grandpa of the family, and his scenes with the extremely cute, young Abigail Breslin are some of the bests in the film.  My favorite scene though is when the whole family dances to Super Freak.  I won't give anymore away, you have to see it to truly enjoy it.

9. Scarface (1983)

Director: Brian De Palma

Starring: Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio

I don't know what it is, but watching a gangster do gangster things is just fun.  This nearly 3-hour gangster film starring Al Pacino is filled with excessive violence, drugs, money, women, cars, guns, etc.  It's what you'd expect from a gangster film, and it's entertaining to watch this rise and fall from cuban immigrant to drug lord.  You don't always agree with Tony Montana, but you root for him all the way through.

8. The Graduate (1967)

Director: Mike Nichols

Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross

This film is kind of depressing, because as a college student I wonder what is going to happen after college.  Am I going to know what to do?  Am I going to find a job?  I don't know, but this film does a good job making you think about the future.  You might have that moment in life that Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) has where you just think to yourself, "Now what?"  Despite the fact that it can be a little depressing, I just can't stop from wanting to watch this movie.  It's had a strong effect on me since the first time I saw it.

7. Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connolly, Marlon Wayans

Speaking of depressing movies, it doesn't really get more depressing than this.  Darren Aronofsky's drug-addict film has some of the most horrifying scenes I've ever watched.  It probably sounds kind of messed up, but I find it really interesting to see how people react to this film.  Because even though it's just a movie, and people who watch it know that these are characters, it still strongly effects them to these characters go through what they go through.  And a lot of that has to do with Aronofsky's great use of editing, camerawork, and music.

6. Taxi Driver (1976)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Starring: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shephard, Harvey Keitel, Albert Brooks, Peter Boyle

Love me some depressing movies!  No but this is weird that three movies that are depressing to me are right next to each other within my Top 10.  This movie shows the disgusting, horrible part of society that you want to ignore and hope it goes away.  Taxi Driver is a great portrait of a guy who just can't handle the filthiness of people and city life, so he slowly becomes insane.  Great performance from Robert De Niro.

5. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick McGee, Michael Bates

Even by today's standards, this film pushes the boundaries a little bit (a lot).  That's what I like about it though, it's a brilliant, over-the-top story adapted from Anthony Burgess's book, but it doesn't sugar-coat anything.  Stanley Kubrick portrays this dystopian future world with beautiful imagery.  The use of classical music is a joy, and the Singing in the Rain scene is one of my favorites solely because of how effectively it uses that song.  Malcolm McDowell, although he has been in MANY movies and tv shows, will always be known as Alex from A Clockwork Orange.

4. The Social Network (2010)

Director: David Fincher

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Anthony Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, Hunter Pence, Rooney Mara, Rashida Jones

In my opinion, this is a modern masterpiece.  I believe people are still gonna look back on this decades from now, and still recognize it as an incredible film.  And if not, I know I will.  Top to bottom, every aspect of the film is well-done.  The direction, the fantastic Aaron Sorkin script, the score, the acting, the cinematography, the editing.  Rather than just list every thing that goes into making a film, I'll just tell you to watch this film if you haven't seen it, and watch it again if you have seen it.

3. Pulp Fiction (1994)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Starring: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames

It's hard to think of something to say about that hasn't been said a million times.  It's cool, the soundtrack is one of the greatest, the writing is fantastic.  That's not something different, but I don't care.  It's Pulp Fiction, you should have seen this already.

2. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Director: Sidney Lumet

Starring: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning, Chris Sarandon

Films that take place primarily in one place, and work well are really interesting to me.  I love the idea of a guy getting trapped in a bank because something goes wrong when he tries to rob it and the police find out about it.  Al Pacino runs the show here, in my favorite performance from him.  It's not a typical bank robbery film, although it does have the intensity of one.  There are numerous funny moments, but it's really all about suspense and tension.  It's kind of crazy that we want this bank robber to succeed, but that's how movies work I guess.

1. Boogie Nights (1997)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Bert Reynolds, Heather Graham, John C. Reilly, Don Cheadle, William H. Macy, Nicole Ari Parker, Luis Guzman, Melora Walters

My favorite film of all-time, and it has been for a few years now.  It has so many of my favorite things: my favorite director, my favorite movie soundtrack, my favorite scene, my favorite opening shot, my favorite cast, and I'm sure there is more.  I could talk about this movie endlessly, I've written a paper and done a presentation on this movie for school.  I've watched this movie on Blu-ray, and then watched it again with the commentary on right after.  It's the main inspiration for me to push myself to be creative.  It makes me want to make good movies, and for that I owe a lot to this movie.

~Ryan Moncrief