My Faves - Wrapped Up!

For your easy perusal, my list of movies that I rated 10 out of 10 on imdb.com.  I hope you had fun going through my series, agreeing or disagreeing, it's all good 'cause that's the great thing about movies...everybody has a different take on them.  I'll list my top choices again, then I'll list the movies that just missed, ones I rated 9 out of 10, in case you were wondering.  After this post starts the real fun; movies I rated 1 out of 10, the worst of the worst.  I plan on getting angry with some of those entries, so be ready for some vulgar language!





10 out of 10's

• The General (1926) 
• City Lights (1931)
• The 39 Steps (1935)
• The Adventures Of Robin Hood (1938)
• The Wizard Of Oz (1939)
• Citizen Kane (1941)
• Casablanca (1942)
• Double Indemnity (1944)
• Brief Encounter (1945)
• It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
• The Third Man (1949)
• Rashomon (1950)
• Strangers On A Train (1951)
• Singin' In The Rain (1952)
• On The Waterfront (1954)
• Rear Window (1954)
• Seven Samurai (1954)
• La Strada (1954)
• 12 Angry Men (1957)
• The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)
• Touch Of Evil (1958)
• Some Like It Hot (1959)
• The Apartment (1960)
• Psycho (1960)
• Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)
• Dr. Strangelove (1964)
• A Man For All Seasons (1966)
• The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966)
• The Graduate (1967)
• Once Upon A Time In The West (1968)
• Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)
• The French Connection (1971)
• The Godfather (1972)
• The Exorcist (1973)
• The Sting (1973)
• The Conversation (1974)
• Chinatown (1974)
• The Godfather, Part II (1974)
• Young Frankenstein (1974)
• Jaws (1975)
• Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
• One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
• Taxi Driver (1976)
• All The President's Men (1976)
• Rocky (1976)
• Annie Hall (1977)
• Star Wars (1977)
• Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)
• The Deer Hunter (1978)
• Manhattan (1979)
• Kramer Vs. Kramer (1979)
• The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
• The Blues Brothers (1980)
• Airplane! (1980)
• Raging Bull (1980)
• Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)
• E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
• This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
• The Terminator (1984)
• Back To The Future (1985)
• The Princess Bride (1987)
• Wings Of Desire (1988)
• A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
• Die Hard (1988)
• Field Of Dreams (1989)
• Do The Right Thing (1989)
• Crimes And Misdemeanors (1989)
• Cinema Paradiso (1989)
• Goodfellas (1990)
• The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)
• Reservoir Dogs (1992)
• The Player (1992)
• Jurassic Park (1993)
• Dazed And Confused (1993)
• Schindler's List (1993)
• In The Name Of The Father (1993)
• The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
• Pulp Fiction (1994)
• Toy Story (1995)
• Fargo (1996)
• Boogie Nights (1997)
• Jackie Brown (1997)
• The Big Lebowski (1998)
• Rushmore (1998)
• Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
• Almost Famous (2000)
• Unbreakable (2000)
• Finding Nemo (2003)
• Lost In Translation (2003)
• Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
• Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
• Collateral (2004)
• The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit (2005)
• Once (2006)
• The Fall (2006)
• The Visitor (2007)
• Wall-E (2008)
• Up (2009)
• Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
• The Trotsky (2009)
• Kick-Ass (2010)
• Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage (2010)
• Toy Story 3 (2010)
• Inception (2010)

Ok, that's 104 titles that I gave a perfect score.  Out of 2,546 titles I've rated on imdb.com, that comes out to 4% of all my ratings.  I feel that's not too bad.  Now, the longer list, my 9 out of 10's:

• The Gold Rush (1925) - Charlie Chaplin eating shoes; dancing dinner rolls
• The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935) - awesome special effects for it's time
• Bringing Up Baby (1938) - great comedy with Hepburn and Grant
• The Lady Vanishes (1938) - Hitchcock on a train
• The Philadelphia Story (1940) - Hepburn, Grant and Stewart at their best
• The Maltese Falcon (1941) - Bogart and the stuff dreams are made of
• The Pride Of The Yankees (1941) - the story of Lou Gehrig, cameo from Babe Ruth
• Shadow Of A Doubt (1943) - Hitchcock and the two Charlies
• The Big Sleep (1946) - Bogie and Bacall heating up the screen
• The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948) - Bogie as an American down on his luck
• Key Largo (1948) - Bogie, Bacall and the incomparable Edward G. Robinson
• The Bicycle Thief (1948) - wonderful Italian movie from Vittorio De Sica
• Sunset Blvd. (1950) - not 10/10 because it's narrated by a dead guy...pet peeve of mine
• A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) - Stellllaaa!!  Brando doing Tennessee Williams
• The African Queen (1951) - Bogie again, this time butting heads with Hepburn
• High Noon (1952) - Gary Cooper, done in near real time.  The beautiful Grace Kelly!
• Stalag 17 (1953) - great war prison film with William Holden, directed by Billy Wilder
• Les Diaboliques (1955) - French suspense, redone poorly in the 90's
• The Killing (1956) - Early Kubrick, racetrack heist, Sterling Hayden is great
• Witness For The Prosecution (1957) - Wonderful courtroom scenes with a great twist
• Paths Of Glory (1957) - Kubrick again, fabulous story, Kirk Douglas is great!
• The Seventh Seal (1957) - Bergman and death...quite the combo
• Anatomy Of A Murder (1959) - James Stewart in a great, underrated role
• North By Northwest (1959) - Hitchcock, Grant, crop-duster, Mount Rushmore
• The 400 Blows (1959) - Francois Truffaut's French New Wave drama
• Shoot The Piano Player (1960) - Truffaut again, this time directing a crime/thriller
• Yojimbo (1961) - Kuwosawa film that was remade as "A Fistful Of Dollars"
• The Hustler (1961) - Newman is great, but Jackie Gleason is pristine!!
• West Side Story (1961) - Romeo and Juliet as a Spanish Harlem musical
• To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) - Gregory Peck's best performance, Robert Duvall is Boo Radley
• Repulsion (1965) - Roman Polanski's take on losing one's mind; Deneuve is awesome!
• In The Heat Of The Night (1967) - "They call me Mr. Tibbs!". Poitier and Steiger are great!
• Bonnie And Clyde (1969) - Violent, romantic and wonderfully filmed.  Great secondary characters.
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - would have been 10/10 if not for crazy long ending
• Midnight Cowboy (1969) - Hoffman was fabulous; groundbreaking for it's time
• The Wild Bunch (1969) - Sam Peckinpah violence with a great cast
• MASH (1970) - super fun Robert Altman film that became one of TV's greatest shows
• Patton (1970) - George C. Scott is spot-on perfect!  Long, but soooo good!
• A Clockwork Orange (1971) - a little super-violence from Kubrick
• Harold And Maude (1971) - funny, quirky, sweetly romantic, Bud Cort is superb
• Dirty Harry (1971) - the original is the best
• Sleuth (1972) - super fun with Caine and Olivier...DO NOT WATCH THE REMAKE!!!!
• Paper Moon (1973) - hard to believe Tatum O'Neal was only 10 years old 
• Mean Streets (1973) - Scorsese's first great film
• The Taking Of Pelham One, Two, Three (1974) - Walter Matthau is great; wonderful suspense
• The Front (1976) - Woody Allen acting, not directing, and the wonderful Zero Mostel
• Network (1976) - "I'm mad as Hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"
• The Goodbye Girl (1977) - Richard Dreyfuss is perfect in this adaptation of a Neil Simon play
• The Last Waltz (1978) - great documentary of The Band's last performance
• Animal House (1978) - not a great movie, but so much fun!
• Halloween (1978) - the first is easily the best, the first movie to scare the crap out of me
• The China Syndrome (1979) - Jack Lemmon, Michael Douglas, Jane Fonda..c'mon!
• Apocalypse Now (1979) - near perfect re-working of Heart Of Darkness
• Life Of Brian (1979) - Monty Python's hilarious take on the times of Jesus
• Being There (1979) - a little long, but Peter Sellers was never better!
• The Changeling (1980) - probably the scariest movie I've ever seen, and it's Canadian!
• The Elephant Man (1980) - phenomenal performance from John Hurt, haunting and heartbreaking
• Tootsie (1982) - great comedy with top notch performances from Hoffman and Lange
• Zelig (1983) - Woody Allen's fake documentary on a human chameleon...hilarious
• Ghostbusters (1984) - "Dogs and cats, living together...mass hysteria!".  Lotsa fun!
• Amadeus (1984) - Tom Hulce was fantastic, but what about F. Murray Abraham?  Awesome.
• Blood Simple (1984) - The Coen Brothers' first feature, a sign of greatness to come
• Lost In America (1985) - my favourite Albert Brooks film...very funny
• After Hours (1985) - a very dark comedy by Scorsese, overlooked as one of his best
• Runaway Train (1985) - great drama with Jon Voight, Rebecca DeMornay and Eric Roberts
• Hannah And Her Sisters (1986) - Woody Allen again, mixing comedy and high drama so well
• Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) - I know every line, every intonation, always a great time
• Raising Arizona (1987) - hilarious Coen Brothers film with Nicolas Cage's best performance
• Rain Man (1988) - great drama with some truly great performances
• Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) - it might get silly, but it's soooo funny!  Martin and Caine are perfect!
• Talk Radio (1988) - a wonderful performance from Eric Bogosian, directed by Oliver Stone
• Glory (1989) - as good as Denzel is, Matthew Broderick is as great!
• Wild At Heart (1990) - David Lynch film that is definitely not for all tastes, weird but wonderful
• Miller's Crossing (1990) - another great film from the Coen Brothers
• Reversal Of Fortune (1990) - Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close are fabulous.  Best closing line ever!
• Dances With Wolves (1990) - Kevin Costner made something special with this one
• La Femme Nikita (1990) - remade and re-done but the original is great, by Luc Besson
• Truly Madly Deeply (1990) - one of the most romantic movies I've ever seen.  Fabulous!
• Defending Your Life (1991) - another smart comedy from Albert Brooks
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) - great idea for a sequel, and lots of money to make it look good
• Bugsy (1991) - great job by Warren Beatty playing real-life gangster Bugsy Siegel
• JFK (1991) - it may be a little too long, but it is always interesting
• Unforgiven (1992) - Clint Eastwood was never this good, and Gene Hackman was never so evil!
• Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) - Lemmon, Pacino, Arkin, Harris, Spacey, Baldwin...'nuff said
• Aladdin (1992) - Robin Williams as the Genie is the reason I rate it so high
• A Few Good Men (1992) - great drama with great performances, except for Demi Moore
• Lorenzo's Oil (1992) - based on a remarkable true story about a man who helps cure his son from a rare disease.  Unbelievable!
• Groundhog Day (1992) - great fun with Bill Murray giving one of his best performances
• True Romance (1993) - written by Tarantino, violent crazy action throughout
• The Remains Of The Day (1993) - wonderful drama with a lesson in acting from Anthony Hopkins
• A Perfect World (1993) - loved this drama directed by Eastwood, and Costner at his best
• Philadelphia (1993) - performance driven drama by two of the best, Hanks and Washington
• Forrest Gump (1994) - a true epic that rarely disappoints
• Heavenly Creatures (1994) - early Peter Jackson treasure starring a relatively unknown Kate Winslett
• The Professional (1994) - Luc Besson's beautiful action/thriller.  Natalie Portman is wonderful
• The Usual Suspects (1995) - one of the best scripts to come out of Hollywood in many a moon
• Braveheart (1995) - rousing Mel Gibson epic, "They'll never take our freedom!!"
• Babe (1995) - that goddamn pig makes me cry every freakin' time!!
• Se7ven (1995) - dark, mysterious, edgy, great!
• Leaving Las Vegas (1995) - not a lot going on, but the performances are fantastic.  Great music, too.
• Big Night (1996) - two Italian brothers make a huge dinner for a star that never shows.  Awesome!
• Trainspotting (1996) - that baby crawling on the ceiling sealed it for me!  Great writing, performances and camera work
• Bound (1996) - yeah, it's sexy, but it's also a very good thriller
• Hamlet (1996) - a four hour adaptation of Shakespeare's play by Kenneth Branagh is worth the time invested
• The Assignment (1997) - little known thriller with Aidan Quinn and Donald Sutherland is surprisingly good
• Out Of Sight (1998) - awesome adaptation of a Elmore Leonard novel, directed beautifully by Steven Soderbergh
• Saving Private Ryan (1998) - the most intense first half hour of a movie I've ever seen!
• A Bug's Life (1998) - great, funny animation good for all ages
• Run Lola Run (1998) - non-stop action/drama and our first look at Franka Potente.  Awesome camera work
• Notting Hill (1999) - it may be sappy Brit-com, but it's really, really good
• American Beauty (1999) - if it wasn't narrated by a dead guy it would be perfect!  Still, I love!
• Fight Club (1999) - wonderfully imaginative story with great performances by everyone
• Three Kings (1999) - David O. Russell takes on the Gulf War with darkly funny themes
• Being John Malkovich (1999) - one of the most inventive films ever, kudos to Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich!
• Toy Story 2 (1999) - still a great watch, but it slowed down on the fun for me
• Gladiator (2000) - lots of action and a great good versus evil story
• Requiem For A Dream (2000) - Ellen Burstyn is remarkable, and the editing is top notch
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) - magical and mysterious, beautifully filmed by Ang Lee
• Memento (2000) - hey, world, introducing Christopher Nolan!  Awesome plot construction
• Shrek (2001) - great fun for all ages, Mike Myers makes a great ogre
• The Others (2001) - Nicole Kidman in a horror story that took me for a loop, big time!
• Secretary (2002) - another film that's not for everyone, but I fell in love with Maggie Gyllenhaal
• Spider-Man (2002) - loved this superhero film...lot's of action and more than adequate back story
• City Of God (2002) - fabulous story about two boys growing up in the slums of Brazil
• Punch-Drunk Love (2002) - Adam Sandler should always be in dramas.  He, and everyone else, is super!
• The Rules Of Attraction (2002) - possibly my greatest guilty pleasure, I enjoy this film much more than I probably should
• Adaptation (2002) - another wonderful story from the team that brought us "Being John Malkovich"
• Dirty Pretty Things (2002) - awesome crime/thriller with my first introduction to the remarkable talents of Chiwetel Ejiofor
• LOTR: The Return Of The King (2003) - the best of the three, with more action than the other two combined
• Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004) - crazy, inventive story with some fabulous filmmaking by Michel Gondry
• The Notebook (2004) - I know, I know...but the heart wants what the heart wants!
• Shaun Of The Dead (2004) - hilarious, scary, action-packed...great fun
• Millions (2004) - the guy that made "Trainspotting" directs a great film for his kids
• Sin City (2005) - violent throughout, but the look is extraordinary
• The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) - I actually sprayed Sprite out of my nose in the theatre when I saw this!  Still so funny after multiple viewings
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) - comedy/thriller that is super fun because of Downey Jr. and Kilmer
• V For Vendetta (2005) - great adaptation of a great graphic novel, Natalie Portman is perfect
• Tsotsi (2005) - fabulous film from South Africa about a gang leader
• Cars (2006) - very enjoyable animated film for everyone...kids LOVE it!
• Little Children (2006) - hard to watch drama with great performances
• Pan's Labyrinth (2006) - Guillermo Del Toro creates a fantasy world like no other!  Beautiful!
• A Good Year (2006) - Russell Crowe is great in this drama/comedy about a man who inherits a vineyard
• Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) - touching, heartfelt and brutal...great filmmaking!
• Notes On A Scandal (2006) - Cate Blanchett is wonderful, but Judi Dench is sooooo evil!!
• Death At A Funeral (2007) - the original, not the horrible American remake, is hilariously funny
• Ratatouille (2007) - another great animated film made more for adults than kids
• The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) - really liked the first two, loved the wrap up
• Superbad (2007) - some great comic performances add to the fun of the film
• Control (2007) - remarkable docu-drama around Joy Division's lead singer Ian Curtis
• No Country For Old Men (2007) - Coen Brothers again, this time with a top notch villain played perfectly by Javier Bardem
• The Counterfeiters (2007) - remarkable true story that takes place in the prison camps of WWII
• In Bruges (2008) - violent, funny, dramatic, this film has it all, in spades.  Colin Farrell is great!
• The Dark Knight (2008) - the best Batman movie around with a special performance from Heath Ledger
• Hunger (2008) - based on a true prison hunger strike, hard to watch at times, but so worth it!
• Doubt (2008) - a study in great acting from Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep
• The Reader (2008) - a coming-of-age story during WWII with some very powerful scenes
• 500 Days Of Summer (2008) - light, funny, sad, romantic, just a lot of fun
• Black Dynamite (2009) - easily the best send up of Blacksploitation films of the 70's...hilarious!
• An Education (2009) - another coming-of-age story, this time in 60's London.  Carey Mulligan is great
• In The Loop (2009) - quite possibly the funniest movie ever, or close to it anyway
• The Hurt Locker (2008) - great suspense methodically captured by Kathryn Bigelow
• Star Trek (2009) - they got the two best actors to play Kirk and Spock and made the movie infinitely more fun and interesting than the original
• The Informant (2009) - Matt Damon is fabulous as a man who can't stop lying.  Dark and funny
• Zombieland (2009) - great take on the zombie genre with a awesome cameo from Bill Murray
• A  Single Man (2009) - Colin Firth in the best performance by any actor ever!  Seriously!
• The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2009) - the original Swedish version is the best of them
• How To Train Your Dragon (2010) - so...much...fun!  Liked it way more than I thought I would
• Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (2010) - another highly inventive take on loneliness and video games
• The King's Speech (2010) - Colin Firth acting the heck out of another role.  Great history lesson, too
• The Social Network (2010) - Jesse Eisenberg was much better than I could have imagined at first
• Silver Linings Playbook (2012) - not deep, but fun and engaging with a wonderful job by Jennifer Lawrence

WOW!  171 movies I rated 9 out of 10, and going through the list, I think I may have to update my 10 out of 10 lists.  Anyway, I hope I've turned you on to some movies you haven't seen before.  If so, watch 'em and let me know what you think...then I can tell you why you're wrong.  HA!