I met a person last year who had never seen The Godfather. And the person wasn’t 13 years old, Amish, or living in a fallout shelter for the past 30 years waiting for the Commies to drop the big one. I couldn’t believe it. There are just some movies you HAVE to see if you care at all about movies or even pop culture in general.
The movies I’m listing below are the films that defined genres and often changed our cultural landscape forever. Plus they’re just damn good movies. If you have seen 15 lame romantic-comedies with Ben Stiller chasing girls half his age and your brain is slowly melting into boiled cabbage, you need to sit down and let some real filmmakers show you what a real movie is all about.
I could probably put 100 movies on this list but I’m going to narrow it down to 10. So don’t kill me if I didn’t mention your favorite movie of all time (if you want “Look Who’s Talking” to be on a “Must See list,” I suggest you create your own). And I will update the list from time to time after some consideration and input.
This is my version of the essentials:
10. The Wizard of Oz
Starring: Judy Garland
Dir: Victor Fleming
Year of release: 1939
This film caught the publics attention and never let go - a splendidly done musical with a mountain of original concepts and styles. There had never been anything like it and very little since. The songs are unforgettable and the dialogue has found it’s way into our every day language. It’s a real original classic.
9. Pulp Fiction
Starring: Uma Thurman, John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis
Dir: Quentin Tarantino
Year of release: 1994
This movie captured the cultural zeitgeist perfectly in the early 90’s. It spawned hundreds of weak imitators, coining the term “Tarantino-esque,” and launched a slew of words and phrases into the common pop culture language. A brilliant contemporary film that Quentin has yet to beat and may never will.
8. Citizen Kane
Starring: Orson Wells
Dir: Orson Wells
Year of release: 1941
It’s almost cliché at this point to put this film in a top 10 list. “Blah Blah Blah it’s a masterpiece, whatever.” But when you actually sit down and watch it, you can’t help but be very impressed. It’s an exceptionally well-done movie with a lot of extremely interesting shots using shadow and depth. It elevates the story to a work of visual fine art. It was really almost too good at the time considering it was Orson Wells’ first real directing gig, and the guy was only 25! To peak at such a young age haunted him for the rest of his days. Nevertheless, the film is brilliant and worthy of it’s praise.
7. Gone With The Wind
Starring: Vivian Leigh, Clark Gable, Olivia de Havilland
Dir: Victor Fleming
Year of release: 1939
This film defines the word “epic.” So many lush, sweeping scenes, so many classic lines. Though the film is nearly 4 hours long, it is a full story that is a major film achievement. At its heart it is a love story, but the backdrop of the Civil War is what makes this stand out and gives it an interesting dynamic. This is “Big Hollywood” at its biggest.
6. Schindler’s List
Starring: Ben Kingsley, Liam Neeson, Raiph Fiennes
Dir: Stephen Spielberg
Year of release: 1993
Schindler’s List took an interesting route into the Holocaust with the story of Oskar Schindler and the Jewish people he saved. And Steven Spielberg nailed it. This is truly his crowning achievement. A labor of love, Spielberg built an amazingly powerful film in black and white. The look is captivating and it casts the story in an entirely different light. It is both devastating and inspiring, extremely well done.
5. The Matrix
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Ann Moss
Dir: The Wachowski Brothers
Year of release: 1999
“Whoa,” as Neo would say. Like Pulp Fiction did in 1994, this movie captured the cultural zeitgeist perfectly for the late ’90s. With the commercial rise of the internet and the dawn of the new millennium, everyone was wide open to some future-based techno science fiction. But while so many previous “cyber-culture” movies feel miserably short, The Matrix got it right on every level and uplifted the whole genre. Scores of imitators also followed this one but the original Matrix movie still stands miles above even its closest competitor, and that includes the 2 lame sequels that followed.
4. Goodfellas
Starring: Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta
Dir: Martin Scorsese
Year of release: 1990
Wow, what a movie! This is easily Martin Scorsese’s best film in a career packed with fantastic films. The way he tells the story here is brilliant. The camera really feels like another one of the actors as we are constantly zooming around the action. So many great shots and so many unforgettable lines. I never get tired of watching this.
3. Star Wars
Starring: Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Alec Guinness, Carrie Fisher
Dir: George Lucas
Year of release: 1977
I gotta include this one. I don’t think any one movie has inspired such a huge genre as Star Wars has. Countless movies and television shows ventured into space as a direct result of the success of Star Wars. Its influence cannot be understated. This is the first film in the hugely successful trilogy that started it all. But this movie stands on it’s own more so than any other movie in the entire 6 episode series. That’s mainly because they didn’t know if there would ever be any sequels so they had to make it a complete film. And it is an amazing accomplishment when you consider that in 1977 almost none of these special effects existed. Lucas and co. had to invent most of what they did and they had to do it with very little money. The end result was “light years” beyond what anyone had seen up until that point, and it was supported by a story ripped right out of classic mythology. Plus it was just plain FUN!
2. The Godfather, Part II
Starring: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Diane Keaton
Dir: Francis Ford Coppolla
Year of release: 1974
This is what a sequel is supposed to be; a true continuation of the story done with the same high quality. This film is so closely related to the first one that they often show a version on cable where they are both edited together into one large film. And it’s pretty seamless. Since it was filmed immediately after the first, it maintains the same look and intensity. Adding to that you have the masterfully done story of young Vito Corleone, played to perfection by Robert De Niro. At this point you can’t watch one without the other. So…
1. The Godfather
Starring: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan
Dir: Francis Ford Coppolla
Year of release: 1972
Simply incredible. If you can only see one film, see this one. It’s a breathtaking look into the mob world done by a Director at the peak of his skills. The layered complexity, the symbolism, the famous lines, the horse’s head - this movie packs quite a punch. It’s like a 2 hour film school.
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So there you have it; 10 films you must see. Again, I could probably make this list go on for about 100 more but I’ll stop at 10. All of them are fascinating in their own way and many represent the best work of amazingly talented Directors. If you haven’t seen them all, I strongly suggest the next time you are at the video store you skip that Jessica Alba piece of crap DVD and get a real movie with real actors directed by real directors. Your brain and spirit will thank you.
