The spectre of the top 10 lists haunts me again. It is heart-wrenching to leave some unparalleled movies out, for to be eclectic with the works of genius is to commit the sin of heresy.
A lot of the movies I am going to mention are quite old, but they are the foundation of modern movie making. Like Newton the modern movie makers were able to see further, because they stood on the shoulders of giants.
- ’’Dr. Strangelove or: How I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb’’
Written and directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel by Peter George. Peter Sellers playing three different roles, including the title role is awe inspiring and establishes himself as one of the comic geniuses of the 20th century. The movie mocks at the paranoia during the Cold War, the numerous conspiracy theories and of course one of its purposes was to satire the Cuban Missile crisis.
- ’’The Godfather’’:
Written by Mario Puzo and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Godfather launched many stellar careers, featuring a lot of luminaries like Robert Duvall, Marlon Brando and is also one of the movies who’s characters are made fun of the most.
- ’’Duck Soup’’:
The comedy of the Marx brothers maybe antediluvian but it undoubtedly brought the art of the political satire to life on screen. For centuries playwrights have expressed their dissent through comic dramas and the Marx brothers continued the glorious tradition, adding in the process a whole new meaning to the words ’’prodigious talent’’
4.’’The Haunting’’
The Haunting is considered the foundation for many movies like ’’Poltergeist’’, ’’The Shining’’ etc. The specialty of the movie is that it never shows an actual ghost in the movie, preferring to focus on how the fears of people manifest themselves when they are asked to inhabit an eerie tenement.
5.’’Citizen Kane’’
Orson Welles, a giant among giants (physically he was portly lacking too much of a vertical dimension). I’ve been a big fan of his ever since I saw him in ’’A long hot summer’’ with Paul Newman. The movie is billed as being the best movie ever made by critics and tells the story of a newspaper magnate.
- ’’ Touch of Evil’’:
Another Welles movie where he plays a corrupt American cop trying to plant evidence of a bombing on a Mexican national. Charlton Heston plays a Mexican cop and spoiler to Welles’s plans.
7.’’On the waterfront’’:
Marlon Brando laid down the rules for being an alpha-male (as extinct as a dinosaur in today’s ’’la femme egalite’’ world) in this classic portrayal of the reformed enforcer who rebels against his boss. Today’s ’’macho’’ heroes can watch and learn as to how you can exude sexuality without even taking your shirt off, because magnetism and screen presence cannot be got from weight machines. I’ve heard that there is a spiced up Hindi movie telling the same story, however without giving due credit to its ’’inspiration’’.
- ’’Rear Window’’
Hitchcock’s classic movie about an injured photographer played by James Stewart who’s an inadvertent witness to a crime ranks as one of his best. I remember falling in love with the late Grace Kelly when I saw the movie ’’To catch a thief’’ as a 8-yr old kid and this movie only intensified my infatuation with that screen goddess :)
- ’’The Graduate’’
A coming of age story with Dustin Hoffman immortalizing the role of a young confused fresh out of college kid, seduced by a much older Mrs. Robinson played by Anne Bancroft. The movie features some great songs by Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel
- ’’Raging Bull’’
De Niro’s classic about a boxer who’s intense physical strength and lack of anger management makes him a tough competitor in the ring while also making him a physically abusive husband and father.
In addition close contenders were ’’ The Manchurian Candidate’’, ’’Singin in the rain’’, ’’This is Spinal Tap’’.