Top 100 Favorite Films....

Okay, this was tough. I love so many films. How could I possibly settle on a mere 100 to call my favorites? And since I’m assembling this list from memory, how accurate could it possibly be? Yeah, this was tough. I’ve agonized over this all day, pouring over my DVD Profiler database and imdb.com, and I can (cautiously) say that, as of right now (3/18/2008, 3:10 p.m.), these are my top 100 favorite films of all time. But I also acknowledge that this list is by no means definitive. I’ll undoubtedly fall in love with new movies as well as previously undiscovered classics in the months and years to come. The next time I do this (maybe in five years), I imagine the list will look very different.

I tried to be brutally honest, including guilty pleasures (Better Off Dead, Happy Gilmore, Sixteen Candles) but ignoring undeniable masterpieces that I respect but don’t love (8 ½, Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather). And I should mention the Five Year Rule: movies less than five years old were not allowed on the list, since my opinions of them may very well change over time (if I still love a film after five years, then it has officially proven its staying power; however, let me tell ya, it just about killed me leaving Good Night and Good Luck and Pan’s Labyrinth off the list).

The films are in alphabetical order, NOT in order of preference....

12 Angry Men (1957, Sidney Lumet)
12 Monkeys (1995, Terry Gilliam)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) (2001, Steven Spielberg)
Abyss, The (1989, James Cameron)
Alien (1979, Ridley Scott)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959, Otto Preminger)
Angel Face (1952, Otto Preminger)
Bambi (1942, Walt Disney, David Hand)
Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bête) (1946, Jean Cocteau)
Better Off Dead (1985, Savage Steve Holland)
Blade Runner (1982, Ridley Scott)
Blow Out (1981, Brian De Palma)
Bride of Frankenstein, The (1935, James Whale)
Cape Fear (1962, J. Lee Thompson)
Carnival of Souls (1962, Herk Harvey)
Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz)
Christmas Story, A (1983, Bob Clark)
Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977, Steven Spielberg)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Wo Hu Cang Long )(2000, Ang Lee)
Dark City (1998, Alex Proyas)
Dark Passage (1947, Delmer Daves)
Day the Earth Stood Still, The (1951, Robert Wise)
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982, Carl Reiner)
Die Hard (1988, John McTiernan)
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988, Frank Oz)
Dogma (1999, Kevin Smith)
Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder)
Eyes Wide Shut (1999, Stanley Kubrick)
Face/Off (1997, John Woo)
Fantasia (1940, Walt Disney, various directors)
Fight Club (1999, David Fincher)
Gattaca (1997, Andrew Niccol)
Happy Gilmore (1996, Dennis Dugan)
Hardware (1990, Richard Stanley)
Hero (Ying Xiong) (2002, Yimou Zhang)
High Fidelity (2000, Stephen Frears)
Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959, Alain Resnais)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, Don Siegel)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra)
Jacob’s Ladder (1990, Adrian Lyne)
Jane Eyre (1944, Robert Stevenson)
Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg)
Jerry Maguire (1996, Cameron Crowe)
Kill Bill, vol. 1 (2003, Quentin Tarantino)
Kiss Me Deadly (1955, Robert Aldrich)
L.A. Confidential (1997, Curtis Hanson)
Laura (1944, Otto Preminger)
Lost Weekend, The (1945, Billy Wilder)
Manchurian Candidate, The (1962, John Frankenheimer)
Matrix, The (1999, Andy and Larry Wachowski)
Memento (2000, Christopher Nolan)
Minority Report (2002, Steven Spielberg)
Murder, My Sweet (1944, Edward Dmytryk)
Naked Lunch (1991, David Cronenberg)
Night of the Living Dead (1968, George A. Romero)
Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock)
Office Space (1999, Mike Judge)
On Dangerous Ground (1952, Nicholas Ray)
Orpheus (Orphée) (1950, Jean Cocteau)
Persona (1966, Ingmar Bergman)
Pi (1998, Darren Aronofsky)
Planet of the Apes (1968, Franklin J. Schaffner)
Portrait of Jennie (1948, William Dieterle)
Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock)
Pulp Fiction (1994, Quentin Tarantino)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, Steven Spielberg)
Raising Arizona (1987, Joel and Ethan Coen)
Rashômon (1950, Akira Kurosawa)
Reservoir Dogs (1992, Quentin Tarantino)
Say Anything (1989, Cameron Crowe)
Se7en (1995, David Fincher)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943, Alfred Hitchcock)
Shawshank Redemption, The (1994, Frank Darabont)
Shining, The (1980, Stanley Kubrick)
Silence of the Lambs, The (1991, Jonathan Demme)
Sixteen Candles (1984, John Hughes)
The Seventh Seal (Sjunde Inseglet, Det) (1957, Ingmar Bergman)
Snatch (2000, Guy Ritchie)
So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993, Thomas Schlamme)
Solaris (2002, Steven Soderbergh)
Spellbound (1945, Alfred Hitchcock)
Star Wars (1977, George Lucas)
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980, Irvin Kershner)
Starship Troopers (1997, Paul Verhoeven)
Strangers on a Train (1951, Alfred Hitchcock)
Swingers (1996, Doug Liman)
Talented Mr. Ripley, The (1999, Anthony Minghella)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991, James Cameron)
Third Man, The (1949, Carol Reed)
Throne of Blood (Kumonosu Jô) (1957, Akira Kurosawa)
Tingler, The (1959, William Castle)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, Robert Mulligan)
Touch of Evil (1958, Orson Welles)
Vanilla Sky (2001, Cameron Crowe)
Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)
Virgin Spring, The (Jungfrukällan) (1960, Ingmar Bergman)
Wings of Desire (Himmel über Berlin, Der) (1987, Wim Wenders)
Wild Things (1998, John McNaughton)

HONORABLE MENTIONS (less than five years old)….

Batman Begins (2005, Christopher Nolan)
Fountain, The (2006, Darren Aronofsky)
Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005, George Clooney)
House of Flying Daggers (Shi Mian Mai Fu) (2004, Yimou Zhang)
Kill Bill, vol. 2 (2004, Quentin Tarantino)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005, Shane Black)
Michael Clayton (2007, Tony Gilroy)
Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) (2006, Guillermo Del Toro)