After much thought and deliberation, I have decided to expand this year’s Movie Project to a full 50 films, just like last year. It was hard to narrow down my proposed list to just 50, but I am feeling pretty good about this year’s batch. I kept most of the suggestions from my initial announcement, and I added several films that I have been wanting to see for a long time. I tried to incorporate a good mix of genres from all eras, and I included a few films from trilogies that I have not yet completed (Dollars, Indiana Jones, Vengeance). I am eager to get this project started, so be on the lookout for the first post sometime soon.
The Final List:
Metropolis [1927, Fritz Lang]
M [1931, Fritz Lang]
Modern Times [1936, Charlie Chaplin]
The Philadelphia Story [1940, George Cukor]
Gilda [1946, Charles Vidor]
Notorious [1946, Alfred Hitchcock]
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre [1948, John Huston]
All About Eve [1950, Joseph L. Mankiewicz]
Singin’ in the Rain [1952, Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly]
On the Waterfront [1954, Elia Kazan]
The Searchers [1956, John Ford]
Paths of Glory [1957, Stanley Kubrick]
Touch of Evil [1958, Orson Welles]
Shadows [1959, John Cassavetes]
Some Like It Hot [1959, Billy Wilder]
Lawrence of Arabia [1962, David Lean]
To Kill a Mockingbird [1962, Robert Mulligan]
A Fistful of Dollars [1964, Sergio Leone]
For a Few Dollars More [1965, Sergio Leone]
The Wild Bunch [1969, Sam Peckinpah]
The Last Picture Show [1971, Peter Bogdanovich]
Vanishing Point [1971, Richard C. Sarafian]
Aguirre: The Wrath of God [1972, Werner Herzog]
Pink Flamingos [1972, John Waters]
Coffy [1973, Jack Hill]
Enter the Dragon [1973, Robert Clouse]
The Sting [1973, George Roy Hill]
Rocky [1976, John G. Avildsen]
The Blues Brothers [1980, John Landis]
Blow Out [1981, Brian De Palma]
Paris, Texas [1984, Wim Wenders]
Blue Velvet [1986, David Lynch]
The Fly [1986, David Cronenberg]
Cinema Paradiso [1988, Giuseppe Tornatore]
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [1989, Steven Spielberg]
The Nightmare Before Christmas [1993, Henry Selick]
Dead Man [1995, Jim Jarmusch]
Ringu [1998, Hideo Nakata]
Rushmore [1998, Wes Anderson]
The Truman Show [1998, Peter Weir]
All About My Mother [1999, Pedro Almodóvar]
O Brother, Where Art Thou? [2000, Coen Brothers]
The Bourne Identity [2002, Doug Liman]
Chicago [2002, Rob Marshall]
The Pianist [2002, Roman Polanski]
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang [2005, Shane Black]
Lady Vengeance [2005, Chan-wook Park]
Casino Royale [2006, Martin Campbell]
The Lives of Others [2006, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck]
Into the Wild [2007, Sean Penn]
So, what do you guys think? Are any of your favorite movies listed? Are there any films in particular that I should see first?
My favs: M, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, All About Eve, Paths of Glory, Lawrence of Arabia, To Kill A Mockingbird, For A Few Dollars More, The Blues Brothers, The Fly, The Last Crusade, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Bourne Identity, Casino Royale, The Lives of Others.
Should be an awesome project.
Excellent, thanks for sharing your favorites PG! I can’t wait to see all of them.
Wow, there are a lot of awesome movies on this list. A lot I haven’t seen, but some I have, and love. Rocky is such a great movie, I can’t believe you haven’t seen it given how much it’s on tv. And the Last Crusade is a great way to end the Ibdy trilogy. If you haven’t seen the previous two movies, you should watch them too. And I don’t care what people say: there are only 3 Indiana Jones movies.
I feel like I have seen bits and pieces of ALL of the Rocky movies, but I haven’t actually sat down to watch one in its entirety (except maybe Rocky IV; for some reason, I remember most of that one). The Last Crusade is the only Indiana Jones movie I haven’t seen (aside from, well, you know). I loved Raiders of the Lost Ark but didn’t care for Temple of Doom at all. I think my disdain for Temple is what has kept me from watching The Last Crusade for so long. Looking forward to watching it, though!
Ahaha scary I haven’t seen 36 of those and the vast majority of them are clustered in the first half of the list. Looks like a great list Eric
Haha well that’s fourteen more than me! Thanks Castor.
A lot of awesome films.
Thanks, looking forward to diving in!
I’ve only seen about half of these (yay! more movies to watch) but I have a quick question for you- what made you choose Sympathy for Lady Vengeance over Oldboy?
Lady Vengeance is the one film from the Vengeance trilogy that I have yet to see. I love Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy, so I am pretty excited to watch the third.
I gotcha. And Lady Vengeance is a good one- it definitely does justice to the first two in the trilogy.
Oddly enough I have seen more from the first half and less from the second. I actually have quite a few on here I need to see as well!
On the Waterfront is probably a top 30 all time great for me, looking forward to hearing your thoughts on that one in particular!
Great to hear about On the Waterfront! I don’t think I have heard a bad thing about that one yet. Really looking forward to seeing it.
I haven’t seen half of these. So I am very much looking forward to reading your write ups Eric!!
Thanks
Thanks Scott. Can’t wait to get this started.
I can honestly say I’ve seen about 27 of those films. Of the ones I haven’t seen, I’d really love to see Touch of Evil and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Let me know when you get to those and I’ll be sure to stop by. Singin’ in the Rain is an all-time favorite of mine.
Twenty seven — nice! I’ll make sure to give you the heads up when I visit Touch of Evil and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Thanks Max!
Ahah, I’ve only seen 10 of ‘em from your list. I’m stoked that you’ll be seeing a Bond movie for the first time. As a lifelong Bond fan I just presume everyone has seen at least one Bond movie
I look forward to your reviews of these Eric, especially ‘Mockingbird’ which is so dear to my heart. The 50th Anniversary box set has just been released!
Thanks Ruth! I can’t wait to see both, especially To Kill a Mockingbird. That one seems to pop up in nearly every list of “must see” films.
Amazing list, looking forward to your thoughts. SO many I also want to see on here! My faves on here are: Cinema Paradiso, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Truman Show, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Into the Wild. In for some real treats there. Very much look forward to hearing your thoughts on Vanishing Point, Aguirre and Blow Out, three that I’m dead keen to see! Good luck with it!
Thanks Pete! I am very eager to see all of the movies you mentioned, and Vanishing Point is actually at the top of my Netflix queue. Should be a lot of fun.
Lots of good stuff here, I have seen a lot of them already.
Vanishing Point apparently was an influence for Drive (2011) , I want to catch that too.
Didn’t enjoy The Searchers Aguirre, Paris Texas, or Lawrence of Arabia, boring in my opinion. But don’t let that stop you from trying them ( :
I also want to watch On the Waterfront during 2011, Elia Kazan is a director to explore , as Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire was powerful(and is also a classic)
Thanks for the feedback, Chris! I am really looking forward to Vanishing Point and On the Waterfront (A Streetcar Named Desire just missed my list). Lawrence of Arabia ought to be an interesting watch — its length is daunting, but I think it has appeared on the most lists from icheckmovies.com.
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Awesome idea sir, and quite a diverse. looking forward to your take on Coffy and Metropolis – they’re both favourites.
Thank you! Can’t wait to see both movies.
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Great project. I try to do catch up on a lot of great older films as well, although I wish I had your motivation and organization to actually make a list and goals.
If you decide to go down a Jim Jarmusch path in the future, I highly recommend Night on Earth. I love that film. Great cast and great storytelling. If David Lynch – try Mulholland Drive (though Blue Velvet is better). Definitely watch The Apartment after you watch Some Like It Hot. They both star Jack Lemmon but are so different;The Apartment is much darker and emotional.
Of the ones you finalized, I’ve seen around 25 of them and want to fully endorse The Philadelphia Story, Gilda, the Leone films, the Peckinpah (one of my all-time favorites), Cinema Paradiso, All About Eve (watch this BEFORE you watch All About My Mother from Almodovar), The Sting, and Rushmore.
Paris, Texas is on my movie queue as well. I love Harry Dean Stanton and have heard this one is great.
Also, I’m not sure if you live in the States, but Turner Classic Movies did their annual 31 Days of Oscar series and many of these were aired commercial-free. I must have watched about five dozen movies during the series. It’s wrapping up this week so see if any of these are playing and definitely tune in to it next year.
p.s. I always assumed that Tim Burton directed The Nightmare Before Christmas!
Hi Shiney, thanks for the very insightful comment! I have slowly been going through the project (watched five so far, with four reviews being posted), and it has been a lot of fun already. I ended up watching Coffee & Cigarettes all the way through, and I loved it. Can’t wait to see more Jarmusch, so I’ll make sure to check out Night on Earth.
For Lynch, I actually included Mulholland Drive in last year’s project, and I really liked it. I couldn’t stop thinking about the ending for quite some time. Looking forward to Blue Velvet.
I was positive that I included both The Apartment and Some Like It Hot, but I must have forgot to re-include the former. I ended up watching both in the last couple weeks. The Apartment was easily a 10/10 for me. I will be writing about Some Like It Hot soon.
I don’t have cable TV, unfortunately, so I will have to miss out on the TCM marathon. Sounds terrific, though.
Thanks again for stopping by! Hope to see you around.
Pingback: Movie Project #5: Some Like It Hot [1959] | The Warning Sign
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Pingback: Movie Project #10: The Lives of Others [2006] | The Warning Sign
Pingback: Movie Project #11: All About Eve [1950] | The Warning Sign
Pingback: Movie Project #12: The Bourne Identity [2002] | The Warning Sign
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Pingback: Movie Project #14: To Kill a Mockingbird [1962] | The Warning Sign
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