Home Theater Forum › Home Theater Forum › Entertainment › Movies (Theatrical) › Your ONE Most Favorite Film of All Time?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Your ONE Most Favorite Film of All Time? - Page 5

post #121 of 187
Toy Story 2.

This movie has slowly risen up my list over the last few years, but I find myself more and more appreciating exactly how complicated and heartfelt this film is, full of very adult issues and situations, but speaking to children.  Recounting love lost, outgrowing someone/thing, heartbreak, nostalgia, and the need to find a home.

Toy Story 2 takes so many very difficult themes of so many love stories and handles them in such a direct manner that it acts as it's own disguise... you just don't appreciate how it pulls on the heart strings, and the more you watch it, the more you realize how deep the message is to so many elements.

 

Toy Story 2 may be one of the best SCRIPTS, forget animation, I mean SCRIPTS to read through of all time.  As Jessie recounts her love lost with her owner, it becomes one of those moments that the first time I saw it, killed me.  As I get older, it reminds me everytime of friends, things, and items that unfortunately I can't always see anymore.  And I'm sorry, but has there ever been a better montage/song in a movie then "When She Loved Me"?  ... if you don't feel it in your gut when you see that seen, we probably can't be friends ;)
 


Quote:

[quote]
Through the summer and the fall, we had each other, that was all
Just she and I together, like it was meant to be
And when she was lonely, I was there to comfort her
And I knew that she loved me.

So the years went by, I stayed the same
And she began to drift away, I was left alone
Still I waited for the day, when she'd say "i will always love you."

Lonely and forgotten, never thought she'd look my way,
She smiled at me and held me, just like she used to do,
Like she loved me, when she loved me[/quote]



This movie was note perfect.

"You never forget kids, like Emily, Andy... but they forget you.."

There are a few films I'd also consider, but Toy Story 2 is something I could watch no matter who is with me, and depending on what has happened recently, I always feel like I get new insight from it.  Just a great, great film.

 

post #122 of 187
 Oh come on people... where is the love for JAWS?
post #123 of 187
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonesy View Post

 Oh come on people... where is the love for JAWS?

Love it and it's in my top five easily.
post #124 of 187
Welcome Jim. Good choices. Aliens in my #1 all time fave movie, hands-down. I cannot count the times I have watched and loved it - but it has to be a few hundred times at least!

Quote:
Originally Posted by jimmyf View Post

 Don't think anything will ever beat City Of God in my book.  The only subtitled movie that I've ever been so engrossed in that I was able to subconsciously forget that I was watching it in subtitles.  I think it would still be in my top 5 just watching it in straight Portugese with no subtitles and having no clue what they were saying.  My top 5 change sporadically every now and again, but this one is always at the top consistently.  Only thing else that would ever come close is Heat, which in my opinion is the perfect action movie.  I'd gladly shell out $100 for it if it would EVER come out on Blu Ray.

First Post!



 
post #125 of 187
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonesy View Post

 Oh come on people... where is the love for JAWS?

For a while back in the 70's in my teenage years Jaws (1975) was my no.1 favourite film, I must have seen it at least 10 times at the cinema back then, the only other films I've seen that many times at the cinema are Enter the Dragon (1973) and Star Wars (1977). Since the 80's I rarely go and see a movie more than once at the cinema. Jaws remains one of my top favourite movies 34 years after I first saw it.
post #126 of 187
Jaws is easily one of my favorite movies but it's not my all time favorite movie.
post #127 of 187
Jaws has one of the greatest scenes ever, and it didn't even have the shark in it.  Like every great scene, it can be identified with one quote:  

"Mr. Hooper, that's the USS Indianapolis."

The only scene I love more? 

"Play La Marseillaise!"

Both bring chills.  Perfect movie making.  Simply perfect.
post #128 of 187
Star Wars  (not ANH, just Star Wars. :)


The Empire Strikes Back
Raiders of the Lost Ark and Back to the Future all get honorable mentions.
post #129 of 187

My choice is a little indie that most people have'nt heard of mainly do to the lack of promotion and it's budget was just non-existant.
 


"The Wizard of Oz."
 

Seriously, I love this movie!!! I've seen it a few hundred times and my feelings have definately been transformed over the years. When I was really little, I could'nt bring myself to watch a musical, fast-forwarding(i know, i'm the devil) or stopping a movie dead in it's tracks. But when Dorthy sings "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" - I'm absouletly transfixed everytime.
 

Ryan
 

p.s. I pride myself on having a pretty eclectic top ten, but that's for a different thread.

post #130 of 187
Caddyshack
post #131 of 187
 To Kill a  Mockingbird inspires and thrills me every time I see it. Gregory Peck and the two child actors were perfectly cast. The music and lighting in this black and white film enhanced the mood and the menace. I loved the reminder that the boogey man is not the strange next door neighbor, but the prejudices within. I still look to Atticus Finch as a model for how to lead a good life.
post #132 of 187
'Toy Story 2' is one of my favorite films as well, matt.
post #133 of 187
Tough call but probably Forbidden Planet.  I enjoy it every time I watch it about once every six months (on the great, dead HD-DVD).  Other greats would be Blazing Saddles and Caddyshack.  Those don't get old.
post #134 of 187
Impossible question! The Thing(1982), The Apartment, Duck Soup, The Long Goodbye & The King of Comedy all vie for the top spot. Any one of those five could be the film I consider my all-time favorite, depending on the day you ask me. Apologies for not being able to definitively say one film. Always had trouble with that.
post #135 of 187
Forrest Gump :-)
post #136 of 187
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris View Post

My favorite film of all time is not even on my top-10 "best" film list. Not even close. I don't think it's a great film. But it is a film that if I know it's on TV I will stop everytime and watch.

Groundhog's Day.

 

Last week a local radio station asked a variation on the "favorite film" question - if you were stranded on an island for six months, with food, shelter, electricity, but no computer or communications equipment - just a TV, a DVD player and one movie, which movie would you pick? 

They got all the expected answers (heavily skewed to films made in the last 5 or 10 years, as is usually the case with these polls.)  I called in and said that everybody was missing the obvious:  The only film you could possibly choose, as the one film you would have to watch day after day until you were rescued from your predicament, would be Groundhog Day.  (And it is Groundhog Day - not Groundhog's Day  That goes for the holiday, as well as the film.) 

And I disagee with you about the quality of the film.  I think it is very well-made, perfectly cast, and it has a really interesting message underneath all the clever dialogue.  People have written papers about the film and it is taught on college campuses - in the philosophy and psychology departments, not film school.  It is one of those rare comedies that can lead one into a really serious conversation about the nature of reality, human psychology and the possibility of redemption. 

That said, I would still pick Casablanca if someone held a gun to my head and made me pick one favorite film. Lawrence of Arabia is a magnifcent film, as are Citizen Kane, 2001 and The Godfather, as are some of genre films, action pictures and musicals I'm fond of.  Certainly many films are greater works of art than Casablanca.  But for me it is a perfect little gem of a film.  It has a good story, well-told, strong, memorable characters (down to the supporting roles played by the wonderful Warner Bros. stock company of European refugees), real heroes and villains and an ultimately happy, if somewhat bittersweet ending.  If it has a weakness it is Paul Henreid's Victor Lazlo, who is somewhat underwritten and comes off as rather a cardboard saint.  But it also has Ingrid Bergman as her most luminous, so I'm willing to forgive the filmmakers for Lazlo.  And if she weren't enough to make up for that one slip, there's Claude Raines, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet! 

Finally, like all great films, Casablanca is endlessly quotable and appicable.

"Here's looking at you, kid."

Joe
post #137 of 187
Casablanca
post #138 of 187
Touch of Evil

"...He doesn't look like a Mexican..."
post #139 of 187
The Fellowship of the Ring.

Anticipated it more than just about any film ever released, being a fan of both Tolkien and Peter Jackson (Heavenly Creatures is probably in my top five). I never thought it could live up to my expectations. And then, in a feat I can only describe as a miracle, it exceeded them.

It's so great, even the rest of the trilogy can't compete with it, although the last half of ROTK comes damn close.

I rarely watch it, in part because of its length, but also because I don't want to dilute its impact too much. In fact, I haven't watched the DVDs in years, as I've been waiting (and waiting and waiting and waiting) for the blu-ray. That false-start release that was rumored for last November was a real heartbreaker. I'm thrilled to death it's finally been announced for real. April can't get here soon enough.

--Jefferson Morris

P.S. My previous number one was Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. I guess you could say I have a weakness for fantasy.
Edited by Jefferson Morris - 12/28/09 at 6:42am
post #140 of 187
As someone said earlier, a near impossible question to answer.

Having said that after much thought, I would have to say..." Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."

Easily one of the best comedies ever made and feature's stellar performances by Peter Sellers. Not to mention it's a Stanley Kubrick film. Not his best movie, but easily my favorite.
post #141 of 187
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick Deschaine View Post

As someone said earlier, a near impossible question to answer.

Having said that after much thought, I would have to say..." Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."

Easily one of the best comedies ever made and feature's stellar performances by Peter Sellers. Not to mention it's a Stanley Kubrick film. Not his best movie, but easily my favorite.


One of my top favourites. The blackest of black comedies.
post #142 of 187
A lot of the choices I see are on my list of five-star movies. Of the movies mentioned so far, Ben-Hur is the highest on my personal list.

My favorite movie of all time (at least for today) is The Sound of Music. It is the ultimate in heartwarming films, and I fall in love with Maria and the von Trapps each time I watch it. Of course, the Rodgers and Hammerstein songs contribute greatly to its lasting appeal.
post #143 of 187
My favorite film of all time is still in its initial theatrical run!  AVATAR was absolute magic for me and has supplanted Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark as my most beloved theatrical experience in 33 years.

I also dearly love many of the films listed by others in this thread.
Edited by DaveB - 1/11/10 at 7:09pm
post #144 of 187
 The Empire Strikes Back, for me as well. I first saw it in 1982 when they re-released both Star Wars and Empire theatrically (I saw SW for the first time that year as well), building up to the Return of the Jedi release in '83. I guess I loved the darkness of Empire, the ending, etc. Darth Vader was so scary and menacing in that film, especially to an 11-year old like me. 

I was glad to have a chance to see it theatrically for a 2nd time in '97, although I didn't care at all for the Special Ed. alterations.

I also remember being totally blown away by Raiders of the Lost Ark. Going in, I knew nothing more about it than "that guy from Star Wars" is in it, and it might be about Noah's Ark. LOL. Those were the days.
Edited by MielR - 1/10/10 at 9:31pm
post #145 of 187
The Princess Bride/ The Empire Strikes Back - Tie because I can

Admittedly not the best movies but personally my favorites.
post #146 of 187
I'm surprised no one mentioned "Fight Club".  Great blend of action and social commentary.  Still my favorite after all these years.
post #147 of 187
 North by Northwest...modern action films have nothing on the Hitchcock classic which looks and sounds better than ever on BD. :)
post #148 of 187
Raiders of the Lost Ark. I saw it at a sneak preview 2 months before it opened. I had no idea what I was about to see.

Closely followed by The Big Sleep (1946)

Doug
post #149 of 187

Do I have to choose just one???

 

I mean there are a few that have a profound effect on me at the time I first saw them. The Secret of Nimh, The Labyrinth, Back to the Future Trilogy, Henry V, Brave Heart, Gladiator, Dark Knight. But if I had to narrow down to just one, well a trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. I'm sure I'll be adding the fourth #1 when The Hobbit comes out.

post #150 of 187

I would suppose it turns into a "why?" 

 

Princess Bride as a favorite comedy, as opposed to, say, Blade Runner for favorite cinematography, or Pricillia, Queen of the Desert for favorite costuming?

 

Or even, say,  the Rank & Bass Hobbit for favorite film when I was in elementary school, versus, say, Ladyhawke for favorite film when I was in middle school, to... high school, college, and so on?

 

But sadly, I fear this thread is "one most favorite film of all time."

 

Which is actually a really tough question.

New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Movies (Theatrical)
Home Theater Forum › Home Theater Forum › Entertainment › Movies (Theatrical) › Your ONE Most Favorite Film of All Time?