Twenty Favorites

Inspired by Dave McDougall, Michael S. Smith, and Darren Hughes (links thanks to, respectively, Michael Blowhard, Andy Horbal, and Andy Horbal):

This is the top twenty I came up with recently when I was compiling an All-Time Top Ten for the annual List Party that I have with my college film buff buddies. This is definitely a personal list, which may seem a little weird since most of the movies on it are pretty standard Best of All-Time Choices, but they're honestly the ones I like most (right now at least). I didn't want to through in some of the more off-the-beaten-path movies that I like slightly less (Shadow of a Doubt, Modern Romance, Videodrome) just to be willfully quirky. I followed Sight & Sound's convention of grouping together the multi-part epics, although, technically, that makes this a Top 23 List. And I didn't restrict myself to one film per director, which is only fair, as this list might as well show off my particular love for Kurosawa, Altman, and Hawks.

1. The Apu Triology


2. The Godfather and The Godfater Part II


3. The Night of the Shooting Stars


4. Play Time


5. Seven Samurai


6. Nashville


7. The Rules of the Game


8. Vertigo


9. Bringing Up Baby


10. Blue Velvet


11. Seven Chances


12. Sans soleil


13. Singin' in the Rain


14. Schindler's List


15. The Leopard


16. Children of Paradise


17. Intolerance


18. Shoot the Piano Player


19. Citizen Kane


20. Rio Bravo


For comparison, here's a list of 20 of my favorite films that probably wouldn't show up on very many film buffs' top 20 lists (i.e., the willfully quirky and off-the-beaten-path list):

1. Aloha Bobby and Rose
2. Modern Romance
3. Die Hard
4. Dumb and Dumber
5. To Live and Die in L.A.
6. The Hollywood Knights
7. Akira
8. Battle Royale
9. Scanners
10. Kingpin
11. Red Dawn
12. A Girl in Every Port
13. The Big Broadcast of 1938
14. Austin Powers
15. The Last American Hero
16. Thunder Road
17. Scrooged
18. Caddyshack
19. The Towering Inferno
20. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

(Someday I'll get around to writing an appreciation of Floyd Mutrux.)

Looking at the two lists, I imagine a Forager Film Series where the double features were made up of one movie off each list: To Live and Die in L.A. and Shoot the Piano Player, Singin' in the Rain and Aloha Bobby and Rose, The Hollywood Knights and Nashville, California Split and Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin and The Apu Triology, The Godfather movies and Scrooged, and Intolerance and The Towering Inferno (bring your lunch to this one).