Quote:
Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan
17. The African Queen
21. The Grapes of Wrath
27. Bonnie and Clyde
30. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
39. Doctor Zhivago
41. West Side Story
57. The Third Man
64. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
69. Shane
88. Easy Rider
I guess my question is, which of these are "must watch". Which should I start with?
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I’ve seen all of them.
Highly recommended:
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre - Takes a while to get going, but it’s a classic high-stakes suspense film. Gritty and intense. Will help explain why Bogart was such a big star. With its unsympathetic protagonist, feels like a more modern movie.
The Third Man - Another shades-of-grey morality movie. A thinky, rather than emotional film. Rightfully famous for its post-war Vienna setting and unsettling cinematography.
Doctor Zhivago - Classic big-canvas historical epic of sort they genuinely don’t make anymore. Looks amazing. Great score. Larger-than-life set pieces and melodrama. Save for a winter evening with a pot of tea.
Not missing much:
Bonnie and Clyde - Badly dated. Built its reputation on shocking (for the time) violence, which just looks cheesy today. Otherwise dull and ugly.
West Side Story - Unless you like musicals and cringey, patronizing depictions of urban ethnic communities you’re not missing anything.
Easy Rider - Even more dated than Bonnie and Clyde. Amateur and low-budget, and not in a good way. I guess if it was the first time you saw hippies smoking pot in a movie, it would have been pretty groundbreaking stuff. Otherwise its self-indulgent crap.
The others on the list are worth watching, but nothing spectacular IMHO.
Just checked, and I’ve seen 88 of 100 (Casablanca was my local videostore in my 20s).
Can’t say I feel any great deficiency in not having seen Yankee Doodle Dandy or the Jazz Singer. But I should probably get around to watching Duck Soup and A Streetcar Named Desire.