Melissa forwarded me this article by Matthew Baldwin. He follows up with additional considerations for the list and also references a meta list of movies which is a brain film free for all thread. Many more still here.
One of the common questions in the threads above is: What qualifies a film to be in this list? I tend to enjoy most all of this genre so that question is particularly interesting to me. My answer is: The film’s context of reality is questioned and as such so is our own. A “suspension of belief” occurs and we become more a part of the film itself. You should be able to ask yourself, “Wait, could that actually have happened? To me? How would I even know?”. As one poster above put it, these films”… physically and viscerally divorce you from the underpinnings of reality”.
The original list from the first link above is reordered in MFR (Mark’s Favorite Ranking):
- Primer
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Memento
- The Game
- Donnie Darko
- Jacob’s Ladder
- Dark City
- Mulholland Dr.
- Abre los ojos
Still in the queue:
- Videodrome
- The Quiet Earth
- Solyaris
- La Jetée
- Rashômon
- Spellbound
Here are some additions:
- Ringhu / The Ring
- Stranger Than Fiction
- The Fountain
- The Village
- Brazil
- The Ninth Configuration
- Kafka
- City of Lost Children
- Pink Floyd’s The Wall
- Requiem for a Dream
- 12 Monkeys
- Altered States
- Pleasantville
- Fight Club
- The Truman Show
- Bladerunner
- Total Recall
- The Butterfly Effect
My Top 10 picks of all time:
1. Goodfellas
2. Citizen Kane
3. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
4. The Godfather Part II
5. The Godfather
6. American Beauty
7. Serenity
8. L.A. Confidential
9. Slumdog Millionaire
10. Primer
My other all time favorites, not in a particular order:
Moulin Rouge
Stalag 17
Saving Private Ryan
Pleasantville
It’s a Wonderful Life
Fight Club
The Truman Show
Joe vs. The Volcano
True Romance
Life Is Beautiful
Memento
Apocalypse Now
Star Wars
Bladerunner
Shindler’s List
This Is Spinal Tap
Dr. Strangelove
Pulp Fiction
The Matrix
Go
The Seven Samurai
12 Angry Men
An Officer and a Gentleman
Lost in Translation
The Outlaw, Jose Wales
La Femme Nikita
Watch It!
The Name of the Rose
Lonestar
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
A Few Good Men
M.A.S.H
The Color of Money
2001: A Space Odyssey
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Terminator
Pumpkin
A Boy and His Dog
Blue Velvet
Wild at Heart
The Big Chill
Love, Actually
Broadcast News
The Wall
Fantasia
Heavy Metal
The Shining
Platoon
Nosvaratu, The Vampire
Body Heat
Minority Report
Sunset Boulevard
The Empire Strikes Back
Seven
E.T.
Salem’s Lot
King Rat
Metropolis
Dangerous Liaison
Terminator T2
Mad Max
The Year of Living Dangerously
Diner
To be fair, I have not been the best instructor, since starting the squirrel training courses this fall. The blog has not been updated in a while. This tree squirrel decided not to wait and learned to jump, balance and wait out the spinning long enough to have a nice meal of bird seed. Photo courtesy of Jackie.
