Top Ten Films of All Time

There are hundreds of films that I consider great, but the following films are my personal top ten. They are the movies I can watch over and over again and each have informed the person I have become in unique ways. These are my desert island, post apocalypse, save from a fire picks.

There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood is a perfect storm of a film. All aspects are perfect: Paul Thomas Anderson’s direction and screenplay, Johnny Greenwood’s horrific in a good way score, Robert Elswit’s cinematography, the production design, editing, and the acting; particularly Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano. Daniel Plainview and Eli Sunday represent the greed of Capitalism and the opportunism of religious zealotry. The nearly three hour run time always passes like an exploding oil rig. A yearly birthday viewing has become my present to myself.

Annie Hall

Woody Allen and I contrast in many ways; including where we were raised, our age, our religion, how we carry ourselves, and our physical attributes. Despite these differences, there is not a filmmaker I know of who I relate to more. Our worldviews are surprisingly in sync and I enjoy all of his films, even finding something admirable in his unsuccessful ones. Annie Hall is his masterpiece. I have not seen a more realistic depiction of remembering lost love.

Sunset Boulevard

Sunset Boulevard belongs to Gloria Swanson. Her unsympathetic, pseudo autobiographical portrayal of aging silent film star Norma Desmond is the definition of ballsy. Today, actors routinely give performances without regard to their image or persona. In 1950, it was revelatory and served as a predecessor to the warts and all approach that method actors such as Marlon Brando and James Dean would soon popularize. Wilder’s cynical exposé of Hollywood is largely considered to be one of the most truthful films about movie making ever released.   

The Wizard of Oz

When I was three or four, I would wake up every morning before my mom, make a bowl of cereal (usually with water instead of milk) and pop in my VHS of The Wizard of Oz. It’s the epitome of timeless. The transition from sepia to Technicolor as Dorothy arrives in Oz allows us to experience the amazement from her point of view. With the exception of Star Wars, no other film has a more iconic group of characters.

Harold and Maude

This is always the film I turn to when feeling down. Equal parts romantic comedy and dark reaction to Nixon conservatism, Harold and Maude is both uplifting and depressing. Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon are at the top of their game as the titular couple. The film teaches that there is someone out there for everyone. Cat Steven’s music in the film is almost as iconic as Simon and Garfunkel’s in The Graduate.

Midnight Cowboy

Growing up in Texas, I moved to the Philadelphia area when I left home. It was around this time that I discovered Midnight Cowboy. It is flawless in its depiction of the loneliness, freedom, optimism, and sense of dread that comes with being on your own for the first time. The plight of Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) is also a reminder that life can always be worse.  

The Jerk

Easily the funniest movie ever, Steve Martin puts on a comedy class as Navin Johnson. His hillbilly naiveté crossed with dead pan delivery makes Martin both the dunce and the straight man of the film. The humor is edgy in the same way that Mel Brook’s films of the era was. The envelope pushing cleverness of those films have since been replaced largely with gross-out gags and lowest common denominator jokes.

The Ox-Bow Incident

The first time I watched this, I was expecting the standard cowboys and Indians fetishizing of the American Myth that most westerns of the time put forth. I was overwhelmingly surprised to find that it was much more than that. A cautionary tale that warns against mob reactionary mentality, it should be mandatory viewing today. In dealing with issues such as school shootings and other disasters; this film can teach a lesson to both the report first, ask questions later media and the internet users who make a habit of spreading misinformation and rumors as gospel; particularly on social networks. Plus, watching Henry Fonda films have been proven to fight cancer.

Scream

Scream is directly responsible for me being a movie geek. At the impressionable age of twelve, my best friend and I rented it on Pay-Per-View. Available for 24 hours, we stayed up all night and watched it nine times in a row. There is something magical about a world that is filled with people as hyper literate about film as the characters in Scream are. Wes Craven manages to both celebrate and subvert the conventions of the slasher genre and led to the rise of Meta.

Jurassic Park

My parents took me to see Jurassic Park during its initial release. It was the most terrifying experience I've ever had in the theater. I spent most of the movie crouched under my seat and literally burst into tears the first time the T-Rex showed up. The CGI is now dated and the seams are now visible, but to a seven year old in 1993, there were real dinosaurs on screen. Growing up as a movie geek in a post Star Wars/Pre Lord of The Rings era, this was my quintessential popcorn flick.