100 movies! 2 eyes! To see them with! 1 brain! To process the images! Because that’s how vision works! Long title!
I haven’t seen very many movies. “But, Lisa! How can that be? You know everything about all the things! You’ve probably seen every single movie ever made!”
Well, thank you, friends, for the kind words that I have decided you will definitely say to me after I post this, but I (incredulously) do not know everything and have definitely not seen every movie.
Examples of movies I’ve never seen! Jaws! The Godfather! Forest Gump! Rocky! Strangely, I get more shit about Forest Gump than anything else. Whether that says more about my friends or the film industry, we’ll never know!! EVER. Because that’s not the point.
To amend the atrocity I have committed by living my life instead of watching lots and lots of movies, I’ve decided that for however long it will take, I will watch one movie a week from Empire’s list of the 500 Greatest Movies of All Time, starting from #100 and working back to #1. (Because, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I’m not committing to 500 movies.) For the movies I’ve already seen, I’ll either skip or re-watch, depending on how much I like that movie, and I may watch more than one movie a week because I am an independent woman and I do what I want.
And so I write on Tumblr, and so it shall be! The list!
1. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981)
3. Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back(Irvin Kershner, 1980)
4. Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994)
5. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
6. GoodFellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
7. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
8. Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, 1952)
9. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
10. Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999)
11. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
12. The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)
13. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
14. Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)
15. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
16. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
17. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
18. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
19. The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
20. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
21. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
22. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977)
23. Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985)
24. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001)
25. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1967)
26. Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
27. Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)
28. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
29. Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988)
30. Aliens (James Cameron, 1986)
31. Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood)
32. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969)
33. Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
34. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Peter Jackson, 2003)
35. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, 1991)
36. Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1969)
37. A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)
38. Heat (Michael Mann, 1995)
39. The Matrix (Andy & Larry Wachowski, 1999)
40. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
41. The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959)
42. Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer, 1949)
43. The Big Lebowski (Joel & Ethan Coen, 1998)
44. Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
45. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
46. On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954)
47. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982)
48. This Is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984)
49. Evil Dead (Sam Raimi, 1987)
50. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
51. 8 ½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
52. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
53. Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)
54. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Peter Jackson, 2002)
55. La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960)
56. Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, 2006)
57. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
58. His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940)
59. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977)
60. Come and See (Elem Klimov, 1985)
61. The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995)
62. The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967)
63. Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)
64. Oldboy (Park Chan-wook, 2003)
65. Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971)
66. Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990)
67. Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
68. Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)
69. Three Colours Red (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1994)
70. Stand by Me (Rob Reiner, 1986)
71. The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)
72. 12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
73. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
74. The Treasure of Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948)
75. A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1946)
76. Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979)
77. Spartacus (Stanley Kubrick, 1960)
78. Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)
79. The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998)
80. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1943)
81. Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan, 2005)
82. The Great Escape (John Sturges, 1963)
83. Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985)
84. L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1997)
85. Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
86. Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)
87. The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese, 1983)
88. Ferris Bueller’s Day off (John Hughes, 1986)
89. Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)
90. When Harry Met Sally (Rob Reiner, 1989)
91. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand, 1983)
92. Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone, 1984)
93. Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973)
94. The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)
95. Yojimbo (Akira Kurosawa, 1961)
96. American Beauty (Sam Mendes, 1999)
97. Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992)
98. North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
99. Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995)
100. Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976)
