Every year, “The Guardian” publishes a list of the top fifty US and UK films released in the past calendar year. Question: If your film is number 50, isn’t it something to be ashamed of more than a source of pride? And how bad does a film have to be not to make it onto this list?
Here’s a list of my favorite Hollywood movies (most of them), arranged chronologically. This is not a list of the best movies. Rather, these are movies that I will watch again if I catch them on TV, even though I own most of them on DVD. There are plenty of good and even great movies that don’t meet that standard. Your list will undoubtedly be different.
1940-1949
Citizen Kane, dir. Orson Welles, 1941
The Maltese Falcon, dir. John Huston, 1941. Favorite quotes: “Everybody has something to conceal” and “I don’t mind a reasonable amount of trouble.”
Sullivan’s Travels, dir. Preston Sturges, 1941
Casablanca, dir. Michael Curtiz, 1943. Favorite quote: “If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not with him, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.”
Double Indemnity, dir. Billy Wilder, 1944
It’s a Wonderful Life, dir. Frank Capra, 1946. Favorite quote:
George: You know what the three most exciting sounds in the world are?
Uncle Billy: Breakfast is served, lunch is served, dinner…
Miracle on 34th Street, dir. George Seaton, 1947. Favorite quote: “There’s a lot of bad ‘isms’ floatin’ around this world, but one of the worst is commercialism.” Almost the first words spoken in this film are: “I don’t want to buy anything.” Imagine hearing that at Christmastime! Later: “Intangibles are the only things that are worthwhile.” What an excellent movie this is, from first frame to last. I watch it every year, and recommend everyone do the same, especially grandparents and their grandkids. Even the trailer is unusually good, as it follows the producer around the studio lot as he elicits opinions from the various film people he runs into. BTW, the Guardian (December 2017) had a list of Christmas movies, most of which the writer disparaged for their commercialism, including It’s a Wonderful Life. She did not even mention Miracle on 34th Street.
The Third Man, dir. Carol Reed, 1949. Favorite quotes: “I believe in God and Mercy and all that. But the dead are happier dead. They don’t miss much here, poor devils.” “Do you suppose he was laughing at fools like us all the time?” – Graham Greene’s take on Kim Philby.
Honorable Mention: Going My Way, dir. Leo McCarey, 1944. A warm-up to An Affair to Remember.
1950-1959
Harvey, dir. Henry Koster, 1950. Favorite quote: “Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d say, ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be’ – she always called me Elwood – ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.’ Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.”
Sunset Boulevard, dir. Billy Wilder, 1950. Favorite quote: “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”
An Affair to Remember, dir. Leo McCarey, 1957. Favorite quote: “The Empire State Building is the closest thing to heaven in this city.”
12 Angry Men, dir. Sidney Lumet, 1957. Favorite quote: “Supposin’ you talk us all out of this, and the kid really did knife his father?” And: “Is that the Woolworth Building? – Isn’t that funny? I’ve lived here all my life. I’ve never been inside it.” This has been remade with 11 jurors initially voting innocent and the lone holdout convinces them the suspect is guilty; also with an all-female case under the title “12 Angry Women.” But the best I have seen is a Spanish movie, “The Method” (2005), in which seven men and women are locked in a room for a job interview and vote each other out until only one is left.
Vertigo, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1958
Witness for the Prosecution, dir. Billy Wilder, 1958. When I saw this as a child, I assumed that the similarity of Sir Wilfrid to Sir Winston, and his residence to Nr. 10 Downing Street, was a product of my overactive imagination. Favorite quote: “One can get very tired of gratitude.”
Some Like it Hot, dir. Billy Wilder, 1959. Favorite quotes: “He’s not only got a yacht, he’s got a bicycle.” Also: “Nobody tolks loike thet.” (Jerry imitating Joe imitating Cary Grant)
Honorable Mention: Bridge on the River Kwai, dir. David Lean, 1957. This was my parents’ favorite movie.
Overrated: Foreign Intrigue, dir. Sheldon Reynolds, 1956. I’ll watch most anything with Robert Mitchum, but this was a poor knock-off of The Third Man. See my brief review in Academy of the Overrated elsewhere on this site.
1960-1969
The Magnificent Seven, dir. John Sturges, 1960. As Martin Scorsese says, “For children, movies become part of your life.” When Magnificent Seven first came out, I was impressed by the team’s selfless dedication to a noble cause with little prospect of remuneration. Also intrigued by Lee (Robert Vaughn), who seems somehow different from all the others. Yul Brynner is rather self-consciously cat-like, and prowls around like a feline god who has descended to earth, where the actions of the humans alternately amuse and annoy him. Chico (Horst Buchholz) talks too much, but once he grows up is ultimately rewarded with the girl (Rosenda Monteros). The rest of the “Magnificents” are all strong, silent types, but Lee alone seems the melancholy holder of a secret (he thinks he has lost his killing touch); so cool he needs to wear a vest and black gloves in the summer heat of Mexico. When I was eight years old and first saw this movie, I wore gloves until Easter.
Unforgettable score by Elmer Bernstein. Drawback: Like most operas, it goes on too long. Still, after seeing it again and doing a little reading, I have moved it out of the “Underrated” category. Favorite quotes: “If God didn’t want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep.” And: “You’re like the wind – blowing over the land and… passing on.” Reminds me of a line from Brecht, except his wind was passing through an empty city.
Psycho, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960. I was lucky enough to first see this movie under ideal conditions: in a cinema, with a good copy on a full screen, and not the faintest idea what was going to happen next. Favorite quote: “A boy’s best friend is his mother.”
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, dir. Mike Nichols, 1966. I walked into this completely naïve (as with Psycho), and left thinking, “How did Albee know my parents?” Favorite quote: “Martha? Rubbing alcohol for you?”
A Man for All Seasons, dir. Fred Zinnemann, 1966. Favorite quote: “It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world… but for Wales?”
The Graduate, dir. Mike Nichols, 1967. Favorite quote: “I think you’re the most attractive of all my parents’ friends. I mean that.” Nice references to it in The Player (with screenplay writer Buck Henry) and The Holiday (with Dustin Hoffman in a cameo).
Easy Rider, dir. Dennis Hopper, 1969. Favorite quote: “They’ll talk to ya and talk to ya and talk to ya about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it’s gonna scare ’em.”
Honorable mention (though it’s not a Hollywood movie): Masculin Fèminin, dir. Jean-Luc Godard. I happened to be somewhere in Germany (probably Mainz 1974) during a Godard retrospective, and was hooked. Had never seen anything like this before. Also Play Dirty, dir. Andre de Toth, with Michael Caine (1969) – a rare example of a WW 2 movie without a happy end for the good guys.
Overrated: The Wild Bunch, dir. Sam Peckinpah, 1969. For some reason I dragged my father to see this, and was surprised when he didn’t like it. Now I think back to all that fetishized violence and wonder what was going through my mind. Adolescence.
1970-1979
Patton, dir. Franklin Schaffner, 1970. Favorite quote: “There’s one big difference between you and me, George. I do this job because I’ve been trained to do it. You do it because you love it.” (Omar Bradley to Patton)
Carnal Knowledge, dir. Mike Nichols, 1971. When my first wife decamped, someone – I suspect one of her relatives – took my video of this along. Haven’t seen it since. Most of the top quotes over at IMDb involve the showdown between Jack Nicholson and Ann Margaret, rightly so. Love the way the wallpaper starts rolling upward during the last scene. Even on first viewing, the rhythm of the film seemed inspired by comic strips strung together, so I was not too surprised to learn that the screenplay was by cartoonist Jules Feiffer.
The Godfather, dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1972. At a screening in April 2017, celebrating the 45th anniversary of the film’s release, Coppola said he ran into roadblocks at every turn, as Paramount looked simply to cash in with a quickie movie based on Mario Puzo’s runaway bestseller. Showing once again that the bottom-line mentality, while claiming to be hard-nosed, is often just short-sighted.
The Godfather, Part II, dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1974. Favorite quote: “We’re bigger than U.S. Steel.” Rare case of the sequel being arguably better than the first part.
Chinatown, dir. Roman Polanski, 1974. Favorite quote: “Most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the right place, they’re capable of anything.” The evocative theme played on trumpet by Uan Rasey, maybe his most famous solo.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1977. Under the guise of a sci-fi movie, the focus for most of this is the obsession that seizes an artist, and the consequences that has on his family and neighbors. Who can watch Ray sculpt the mashed potatoes and not think of Michelangelo? Casting Teri Garr as the sane one in the family was a stroke of genius. The obsession manifests itself first as an affliction, as madness, before turning into mass hysteria. Later we are entertained by a vast government conspiracy to deceive the public, complete with black helicopters.
Annie Hall, dir. Woody Allen, 1977. Favorite quotes: “Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ’em says, ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know; and such small portions.’ ” (An oldie but a goodie.) Also: “Awards! They always give out awards! I can’t believe it. Greatest Fascist Dictator: Adolf Hitler.” Also: “I was thrown out of N.Y.U. my freshman year for cheating on my metaphysics final, y’know. I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me.”
Manhattan, dir. Woody Allen, 1979. Favorite quote: “Yale: You think you’re God! Isaac: I gotta model myself after someone!”
Being There, dir. Hal Ashby, 1979. Favorite quote: “I like to watch.” See my personal recollection elsewhere on this site.
Honorable mention: A Woman Under the Influence, dir. John Cassavetes, 1974; Taxi Driver, dir. Martin Scorsese, 1976 – this is Manhattan the way I remember it, though I lived there 2-3 years later. While I was lucky enough never to experience the violence, the movie captures the grime and the tawdriness. Watching it now, I can almost smell the asphalt again.
1980-1989
The Shining, dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980. Saw this when it first came out, in a cinema in Brooklyn. At the beginning, when the camera (in a helicopter) stops following the car and veers off the cliff, you feel a moment of weightlessness or vertigo – a sensation you don’t get when watching it on a small screen at home. This was the last movie for which Stephen King did not have final say on the script; it also happens to be the best film version of any of his books, by a mile.
Body Heat, dir. Lawrence Kasdan, 1981. Until I started to compile this list, didn’t realize it was a remake of Double Indemnity, at least to the extent both are based on the same James M. Cain novel. Brief shot of the sad clown might be a nod to a similar scene in The Blue Angel.
Blow Out, 1981. Brian Di Palma’s homage to Blow Up. Still amazing that no happy end was tacked on. Loved the scenes in Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, especially the hooker brushing her teeth in the ladies’ room while John Lithgow waits for his opportunity. Once I had a long wait between trains in that very station and popped out to a movie house nearby. When I began to get nervous about missing my connection, I approached one of the cops lining the back wall and asked for the time. To judge by his reaction, I don’t think he was expecting anyone to come up to him, or maybe he was just a little reluctant to avert his eyes from the screen (the movie was Deep Throat), but with a glance at his watch he told me. No doubt he and the other officers were all there to make sure the movie conformed to local decency standards. I made my train.
Tootsie, dir. Sydney Pollack, 1982. Best cross-dressing movie since Some Like It Hot. Favorite quotes: “How much trouble could a baby be?” and “I just gotta learn to do it without the dress.”
After Hours, dir. Martin Scorsese, 1985. I lived in New York in the late ’70s, so for me this feels in parts like a documentary. “Behind every comic turn of the film, there is a sense of menace that increases as Paul journeys ever deeper into this lunatic underworld.” (Vincent Canby, NYTimes) Of all the movies inspired by Kafka, this is by far the best, because it is about the only one that gets his black humor. Favorite quotes: “Must be a full moon out there.” Also: “I wanna see a Plaster of Paris bagel and cream cheese paperweight, now cough it up.” Similar to but better than “Desperately Seeking Susan,” also with Rosanna Arquette, made the same year.
_1_1000_420_90_c1.jpg)
Back to the Future, dir. Robert Zemeckis, 1985. Favorite quote: “I guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it.”
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, dir. Leonard Nimoy, 1986. Love those scenes in SF, back before it was discovered by people with too much money. Favorite quote:
Kirk Nobody pays attention to you unless you swear every other word. You’ll find it in all the literature of the period.
Spock For example?
Kirk Oh the collected works of Jacqueline Susann. The novels of Harold Robbins…
Spock Ah, the “giants”.
A Fish Called Wanda, dir. Charles Crichton, 1988. Starts as a tried-and-true bank heist story but adds a subtext of Brits v. Yanks. Everybody likes John Cleese’s forced apology, but the subsequent scene, with Kevin Kline’s tortured effort to say “I apologize” through clenched teeth, is just as good. Favorite quotes: “Don’t call me stupid.” And: “Aristotle was not Belgian…. I looked it up.” Plus this exchange:
Otto Oh, you English are so superior, aren’t you? Would you like to know where you’d be without the old US of A, to protect you? The smallest fucking province in the Russian empire, that’s what! So don’t call me stupid, lady. Just thank me.
Wendy Well, thank you for popping in and protecting us.
Dead Poets Society, dir. Peter Weir, 1989. I’m a sucker for the “inspirational teacher” genre, and for any movie that quotes Thoreau: “I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately…. and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Back to the Future 2, dir. Robert Zemeckis, 1989. Similar theme to It’s a Wonderful Life – what the future would be like if you had never existed. Favorite quote: “Manure! I hate manure!”
Honorable mention: Ghostbusters, dir. Ivan Reitman, 1984. Raising Arizona, dir. Coen bros., 1987; they look at humans the way scientists look at rats in a maze: “That one thinks doing this is gonna work – he actually seems to think there’s a way out!” Also The Terminator, 1984, though it has some drawbacks. First, once Schwarzenegger disappears, the gas goes out of this movie for me. From then on, it just turns into special effects, whereas up until then FX was used to enhance Arnold’s character. Second, I just hate those women’s hairstyles from the early 1980s. Seeing this movie again recently, it dawned on me that John Connor – the guy who comes back in time to save Sarah and ends up making love to her – is really her own son (though in terms of the plot he’s a friend of her son’s – classic Freudian displacement). Also noticed how much machines have taken control even in the movie’s present, to say nothing of the future. Tech noir indeed.
1990-1999
With this decade, it begins to get harder to choose favorites; too many directors seem to think that “over the top” was high praise.
Back to the Future 3, dir. Robert Zemeckis, 1990. Favorite quote:
Gun Salesman Where’d you learn to shoot like that?
Marty 7-Eleven.
The Player, dir. Robert Altman, 1992. Love a film where the gauzy-happy end is possible because the bad guy got away with it. The list of references this movie makes to other movies is a mile long. Favorite quote: “Can we talk about something other than Hollywood for a change? We’re educated people.” Griffin Mill’s suggestion is met with a moment of total silence, before everyone sitting around the table – all Hollywood insiders – bursts out laughing.
Groundhog Day, dir. Harold Ramis, 1993. A movie that grows on you with repeated viewing. Favorite quote: “What did you do today?” – “Oh, same old, same old.”
Sleepless in Seattle, dir. Nora Ephron, 1993. Favorite quotes: “You don’t want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie.” “If they say ‘widowed,’ why don’t they say ‘widowered’?” Also the scene in the pub where they imitate Cary Grant. More than just a clever remake of An Affair to Remember. The soundtrack also worth getting – familiar songs in (mostly) unfamiliar performances.
Nobody’s Fool, dir. Robert Benton, 1994, with Paul Newman in one of his last roles. Charles Dickens provides the motto for this film: “We forge the chains we wear in life.” Remember well the location where it was filmed – the Mohawk Valley in upstate NY (here dubbed the Monarch Valley). While I’ve never been in the particular towns where it was filmed, I feel like I know what’s around every corner. They even got the trash cans right.
The director also chose the perfect time of year: the weeks roughly from Thanksgiving to New Year, when the first snow has already fallen and things are turning to brown mush – snow without sentiment. An wistful, elegiac Christmas movie without tears. The geniuses at Paramount Pictures released this with no extras beyond the barest of bones (scene selection and English subtitles).
Forrest Gump, dir. Robert Zemeckis, 1994. The history of my generation, as seen though the eyes of someone who experiences historic events without comprehension or growth, thus allowing him to remain true to himself. Favorite quote: “Run, Forrest, run!” Also his description of Vietnam: “We was always taking long walks, and we was always looking for a guy named ‘Charlie’.”
Nixon, dir. Oliver Stone, 1995. Overhyped when it first came out, it was nominated for four Oscars but came away empty-handed. Since then it’s been underrated. Far better than JFK.
Get Shorty, with John Travolta, 1995. Travolta plays mob enforcer who is in love with movies. While he’s charming and articulate, it’s not clear if he understands much about what it takes to make a good film. His head is full of interesting and arcane trivia, which is not exactly what a producer needs to know. Basically he’s a fan. Still love the movie and recommend it highly.
The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain 1995. Two English surveyors arrive in Wales in 1917 to measure the height of the local mountain and are greeted with the special hospitality the Welsh typically reserve for the English. To persuade the visitors that their hill is really a mountain, the locals need to and so frustrate their visitors’ plans to depart. The Welsh come off as harmless if devious pagans with a veneer of Christianity. Shell-shocked Holmes (Hugh Grant) eventually succumbs to the charms of a local beauty, while sidekick Watson prefers to comfort himself with a bottle of gin. The whole thing is a charming tale told to the gullible, like Rip van Winkle. Favorite quote: “I’m not really qualified to do very much. I could teach, I suppose.”
Run Lola Run, dir. Tom Tykwer, 1998. What if you could get to see the unintended consequences of your actions, and do them over until you got things right (like Groundhog Day)? Not a Hollywood movie, obviously, but a running movie, to that extent a distant cousin of Forrest Gump (indicated by the title, too). Great last line: “What’s in the bag?” I have a predisposition in favor of any film set in Berlin.
The Talented Mr. Ripley, dir. Anthony Minghella, 1999. Like The Player, boy gets girl in the final act without it turning into a happy end. Favorite quote: “You never meet anybody that thinks they’re a bad person.” Nice write-up in The Daily Beast, Dec. 26, 2019 by Nick Schager, about how after twenty years the movie still hasn’t aged because it shows the darkness that underlies all the glitz.
(Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Matt Damon; Miramax)
Honorable Mention: Finding Forrester, w. Sean Connery, 2000. Child of the ghetto proves equally adept at literature and basketball, but must overcome prejudice. Connery plays the crusty but benevolent mentor to Jamal Wallace, F. Murray Abraham the envious one. Main drawback: I needed subtitles to understand a good part of the dialogue.
Worst movie of the decade: Married to It, dir. Arthur Hiller, 1991. Considering the great cast (Beau Bridges, Stockard Channing, Cybill Shepherd, Ron Silver, Robert Sean Leonard, Mary Stuart Masterson), the director must have worked hard to turn out this piece of junk. Listed as a comedy, this is a flick in which the competition for most obnoxious character is intense, even excluding the children. Married couples yell at each other, then make up to sappy music. Stereotypical male bonding followed by the female variant. In the end, everyone falls in love with the person they’re already married to, or once were. Group hug. “They wouldn’t even show this on a plane.” (Desson Howe, Washington Post) If a movie like this can find a producer, think of the ones that didn’t get financed. Nice cameo by Mayor Koch, though. Favorite (?) quotes: “Just when you figure you’re having fun, something always fucks up.” Runner up: “I’ve allowed you to become a royal pain in the ass” (said by a father to his pre-teen daughter; unfortunately, the audience will tend to agree).
2000-present
Black Hawk Down (2001, dir. Ridley Scott) – maybe not an anti-war movie, but certainly an anti-interventionist one. Just wish I could tell the characters apart.
Kate and Leopold (2001, dir. James Mangold) – especially loves the scene where Leo dismantles the despicable J. J. Camden (played by Bradley Whitford)
Legally Blonde 1 (2001, dir. Robert Luketic) & 2 (2003, dir. Charles Herman-Wurmfeld) – what an unexpected treat these two turned out to be.
Everybody’s Fine (2009, written and dir. Kirk Jones) – all-star cast in movie that grows on repeated viewing (for some reason, it gets shown on Russian TV frequently). Would be curious to see the Italian original. Final scene has Christmas reunion in which no one turns on the TV to watch football. Unrealistic!
Solitary Man (2009), with Michael Douglas. At his annual physical, Ben Kalmen gets news that makes him resolve to live the rest of his life to the fullest – a decision that results in him having many one-night stands but basically being a solitary man. Did not realize how much this movie was somewhat of a sequel to “Manhattan” until I listened to the insightful commentary by the two directors, Brian Koppelman and David Levien, one of whom says, “Manhattan hangs over this movie like a big giant umbrella of greatness.”
Nebraska (2013) with Bruce Dern. Son tries to reconnect with taciturn but gullible father. A bit like “Rain Man” if made by Coen Bros. June Squibb deserved Oscar for best supporting actress. Quote: “I can drive a helluva lot better than that moron!”
Related topics: See my reviews on this site of Scott Jordan Harris, World Film Locations New York; Will Hays, Come Home With Me Now; Ring Lardner, Jr., I’d Hate Myself in the Morning; Sidney Lumet, Making Movies. Also Academy of the Overrated, Film Section.
hamiltonbeck 