Note: This list is comprised completely of my own personal opinions. And remember I haven't seen everything.
Pulp
Fiction is a strange movie; it defied what we consider entertaining at the time of its release.
It's a two and a half hour movie driven only by dialog. There is no central
conflict, there is no singular plot, and it’s different from so many movies
before it. But Pulp Fiction's dialog is of such a high quality, it is unmatched
by almost every other movie ever made. The movie manages to stay serious while
making you laugh on more than one occasion. Another aspect that always
interested me is the characters, they are some of the worst people I have ever
seen in the movie but I like them. They are mean, selfish killers but I care
what happens to them. Pulp fiction is a phenomenal movie that defined 90's
cinema, and one of my top five favorite movies.
Consistently
ranked as one of the greatest directors of all time, Martin Scorsese has made
so many good movies it's hard to keep track. But of all the movies he's done,
the one that stands out above all the rest is Goodfellas. Released in 1990 to
universal acclaim, the movie somehow was robbed for best picture. Goodfellas is generally considered the best gangster film since the Godfather part 2. I look
at Goodfellas as the story of the American dream; I see a bunch of
people who just want to make a name for themselves. I see people trying to
become as successful as they can possibly be, even if that means stomping on
anyone in the way. Sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Are these good
people? No. But somewhere deep down inside, you want to see them succeed.
This
movie was like nothing that came before it, a visionary masterpiece that
changed the science fiction genre like no other had before and no movie has
since. Coming out the mind of the most unappreciated director of his
time, Stanley Kubric created one of the most unique movies that has ever been
shown on the silver screen. Upon its release the film was met
with polarizing viewpoints; while some praised it for being one of
the most daring and ingenious movies ever made,
others criticized it saying they didn't even know what the f*ck it
was about. Now a day’s many are turned off by its slow pace, but I don't look
at it like it's slow but instead it's giving me a chance to think differently.
It challenges me to think outside the norms of the traditional movie and just lets me dream.
Jaws is quite possibly the most terrifying movie ever made, legend has it after its release towns on the east coast that rely on tourism had to file for bankruptcy because people were to afraid to go to the beach. Jaws was the first summer blockbuster and it was an unimaginable success, becoming the highest grossing movie of all time. It changed how the film industry promotes and released movies. What makes the movie so impressive is that it's scary even though it barley shows the shark. If you watch the movie most of the time when the shark has reared its ugly head it's only implied he's there. We see the shark for maybe five minutes out of the entire movie. Jaws was a movie that defined a generation and still holds up today.
Charlie
Chaplin is one of the most legendary and influential members of the film
industry we've ever seen. He's been involved in some of the all time greats:
movies like Modern Times, The Kid, The Gold Rush, and the Great Dictator. But
his unrivaled masterpiece is City Lights. This is one of the funniest and
touching movies I've ever seen, not a single word is spoken yet the love
between the tramp and the blind girl is stronger than any other romance movie
I've ever see. I remember watching this for the first time in my tenth grade
theater class and along with everyone else we were almost falling out of our
seats laughing. City Lights is the greatest comedy film of all time, the greatest romance film of all time, and the
greatest film of the silent era.
When I was a child I didn't concern myself with whether a movie was good or not, it just was. It wasn't until the last couple years I refined my pallet on what I consider to be "good." When I look back on what I saw as a child, my viewing experience consisted of Pixar films, Star wars, and Indiana Jones. One movie I had seen countless times but didn't really enjoy when I was younger was the Wizard of Oz. Watching it now I see one of the most delightful and even magical movies to come out of Hollywood. The love and care put into this movie is only rivaled by a small number of other films. The movie is just joyful, a film that should be mandatory for every man woman and child to watch. They could be the most cold hearted bastard ever born, but this movie will make them feel warm inside.
Apocalypse
Now is one of the haunting images of cinema, a disturbing look into the madness
of war and what it does to people. Created by Oscar winning director Francis
Ford Coppola, Apocalypse now is the greatest war movie ever made. Taking place
at the height of the Vietnam War, a small group of soldiers are tasked
with traveling deep into south East Asia to find a colonel whose
gone rogue. And on this journey the soldiers are greeted only with
death and destruction, concluding in one of the most disturbing movie endings
ever. At the end nothing is gained, nothing is learned, only despair is left.
The movie even spawned the greatest documentary of all time Hearts of Darkness:
A Filmmakers Apocalypse, a look at the hell people had to go through
to make this masterpiece. But in the end it was worth it.
Whenever
someone ranks The Good, the Bad and the Ugly among some of the greatest movies
of all time, the argument the nay-sayers always bring up is that it
can't be good because it's a spaghetti western. I
absolutely despise that, I believe that spaghetti westerns are far
superior to the traditional ones in every way. Both as entertainment and as an
art form. The master of the spaghetti western was Sergio Leone; and his best
movie is undoubtedly the final installment in the "dollars" trilogy, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The problem is
that people take spaghetti westerns to seriously, they are meant to be
tongue-in-cheek satire of the genre. Everything is extremely over exaggerated
on purpose, and somehow it works perfectly.
Lawrence
of Arabia is the most daring and ambitious epic of all time, it truly
was a stroke of mad genius. At the time of its creation it was one of the
most expensive movies ever made. Years after the films release one of the stars said on the films ambition "If you are the man with the money and somebody comes to you, and says he wants to make a film that's four hours long, with no stars, and no women, and no love story, and not much action either, and he wants to spend a huge amount of money to go film it in the desert--what would you say?" But in the end it all paid off by winning
seven Oscars as well as becoming the highest grossing movie of all time (not
accounting for inflation). Everything about this film is perfect, but the most
notable aspect is the star Peter O' Toole. In my opinion, he put on the finest
performance in the history of cinema. Lawrence of Arabia is a movie that truly defines its genre, and will go down in history as one of the greatest.
It might be a little unfair to have two movies take up the number one spot, but it seemed redundant to have two movies from the same trilogy be ranked at number one and two. The Godfather Part 1 and 2 are the greatest movies ever shown on the silver screen. Directed by one of the all time greats Francis Ford Coppola, the first two installments in the Godfather trilogy are just about perfect. Whether it be the some of the greatest performances of all time from Marlon Brando, Robert Di Nero, and Al Pacino or some of the most memorable scenes ever put into film. The Godfather Part 1 and 2 have remained unchallenged on top of the mountain as the all time greatest, even after 40 years.
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