What are your "must-watch" movies?

[memfree@piefed.social]

Jesus Christ Superstar

I actually like the orginal album of the songs (which came out before the movie) more than any of the movie versions, but I grant that seeing a movie version makes the album even better!

[001guy001@sh.itjust.works]

Old classics:

• It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
• Citizen Kane (1941)
• Casablanca (1942)
• 12 Angry Men (1957)
• Mr. Deeds Goes To Town (1936)
• Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939)

Drama/misc:

• Gandhi (1982)
• Network (1976)
• A Few Good Men (1992)
• The Truman Show (1998)
• Dead Poets Society (1989)
• Pay It Forward (2000)
• The Green Mile (1999)
• The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
• Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1967)

PG sci-fi/fantasy:

• Back To The Future (trilogy, 1985+)
• E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
• Jumanji (1995)

Action/etc.:

• The Matrix (1999)
• The Terminator (series, 1984+)
• Die Hard (series, 1988+)
• Mission: Impossible (1996)
• Air Force One (1997)
• Independence Day (1996)
• Speed (1994)
• Limitless (2011)

Generally romance-centered (other than Casablanca):

• Titanic (1997)
• Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)
• The Notebook (2004)
• Ghost (1990)

Comedies:

• Duck Soup (1933)
• The Great Dictator (1940)
• Monty Python And The Holy Grail (1975)
• Office Space (1999)

[skarabrae@lemmy.world]

• Alien, then Aliens, then stop. If you watch Alien 3 then watch Alien: Resurrection, too, to get the taste out of your mouth, but then definitely stop.

• Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• House of Flying Daggers

If you watch Star Wars, then watch in this order:

• Episode 4 A New Hope

• Episode 5 The Empire Strikes Back

• Episode 2 Attack of the Clones

• Episode 3 Revenge of the Sith

• Episode 6 Return of the Jedi

[pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

I love Ahmir Khan's movies so any of those are great. Didn't really like Dangal Dangal but that's just me

[maltasoron@sopuli.xyz]

There are way to few people recommending The Lord of the Rings Extended Editions. I recently rewatched them after not seeing them for a decade and I was surprised by how much growing older allowed me to better recognize the themes in the story. My wife watched them for the first time with me and she said they're the best movies she's ever seen.

[impudentmortal@lemmy.world]

My thought process for this was asking myself what movie I'd recommend to people who have little to no experience or interest in specific genres. Tried to pick a wide range of movies

Comedies (my favorite genre)

• Kung Fu Hustle (probably favorite movie of all time): fun comedy action movie involving gangsters and a poor neighborhood. Think classic Hong Kong kung fu meets super hero movie. Haven't met anyone who didn't like the film
• Airplane: insanely funny movie with nonstop jokes. One of the best movies for comedy because you've got all types of jokes (puns, visual humor, recurring jokes etc)
• Blazing Saddles: revovles around a small western town through the perspective of a former slave turned sheriff. Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little have such great chemistry
• The Naked Gun trilogy: if you liked Airplane you'll love the Naked Gun. Has a lot of ridiculously silly lines told with a straight face.

Action

• LOTR trilogy: I feel like this needs no explanation.
• Star Wars original trilogy: no hate to the prequels (and a lot of hate to the sequels) but nothing quite hits like the OG Star Wars trilogy
• The Mummy: fun, interesting plot, charming characters just the quintissential 90s action movie. Also a great first movie for many people's bi-awakening
• Police Story (trilogy, but mainly 3): it's been a while since I've seen this trilogy but I distinctly remember really liking the third one because it features both Jackie Chan and Michel Yeoh as equal badasses. If you've never seen Jackie Chan's Hong Kong films, this franchise is a great start.

Animation

• Spiderman Into The Spiderverse: beautifully animated movie that does an amazing job of capturing the feel comics in both style and vibes. Definitely way better than the sequel, in my opinion.
• Tokyo Godfathers: touching anime movie about 3 homeless people who ind a baby on Christmas. Don't want to spoil any more than that but it has a good balance of comedy and drama and unlike other anime movies I've seen, completes the story so well that you're not wanting more
• Up: my personal favorite Pixar movie and the first 20 min are a master class of short story telling. Was debating between this an Wall E but I think Up has a better story

Horror

Admittedly my least favorite genre. These movies are closer to thrillers than they are horror

• Train to Busan: zombie outbreak on a train. Premise is simple enough but the storytelling and characters are so well written that you get too attached and actually get anxiety when things are happening. It's a movie with an ending that stays with you
• The Silence of the Lambs: there's a reason Hannibal Lector is the most memorable part of this movie despite having only 16 minutes of screen time

Movies to watch only once

These are movies that will make you feel such intense emotions (usually sadness but not necessarily) that I would only watch once. No descriptions to avoid spoilers

• Grave of the Fireflies
• Schindler's List
• Old Boy

[impudentmortal@lemmy.world]

The Room

One of these is not like the other

[fritzapollo@lemmy.today]

I haven't seen any LOTR so I might have to watch at least one of them.

[fritzapollo@lemmy.today]

I agree re: Up and Train to Busan. I'll have to check out your comedies.

[memfree@piefed.social]

I'm going to restrict this list to older movies and imports since there's already most of Hollywood's best listed by other people.

• Ran (1985): Japanese take on King Lear. Kurosawa.
• 12 Angry Men (1957): Fonda has doubts about the man charged. Sidney Lumet.
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962): Based on actual WWI British officer T.E. Lawrence, but more story than history. David Lean.
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975): Jack Nicholson leads this Milos Forman movie about what it was like in mental hospitals (based on Ken Kesey's book of same name -- see also Keroac book On the Road for more of that generation).
• The Man Who Would Be King (1975) : Sean Connery and Michael Caine star in John Houston movie based on Ruyard Kipling story. There are more famous names to pack in there, but mostly the story is great (though told from a supremely Colonial POV).
• Grand Illusion (1937): French Jean Renoir film classic about WWI.
• Beauty and the Beast (1946): French Jean Cocteau masterpiece of the fairytalke before it got Disney-fied.
• The Tin Drum (1979): German Volker Schlöndorff film of Günter Grass story about a boy who won't grow up.
• Amarcord (1973): Italian Federico Fellini film about growing up. You could sub in Nights of Cabiria or Satyricon as a starter Fellini pic.
• Kes (1970): British Ken Loach film about a boy and a bird.
• Winter Light (1963): Swedish Ingmar Bergman about a priest struggling with faith. The 7th Seal probably a better place to ease in to Bergman, though.
• A Man for All Seasons (1966): British Fred Zinnemann telling of how Sir Thomas More was stuck between his Church and his King. For an alternate take on same chunk of history, see Wolf Hall.

There's so many more. Rosselini's Open City, Jodorosky's El Topo/Santa Sangre, Errol Morris documentaries (Fog of War, etc.), Les Blank docs (from music to Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe), oh! and Herzog flicks! I should stop.

[khannie@lemmy.world]

Thanks. Haven't come across this one before. It's on prime for anyone interested.

Will add this to the watchlist.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1352802/

Edit: Watched it just now as it's short and the house is quiet. I wouldn't have it on my must see list but it was enjoyable

[memfree@piefed.social]

Wings of Desire (and Wim Wenders in general) is AMAZING, but it requires a... sort of quiet solitude such as a theater where the length and pacing won't lead to distractions. I love that movie and the rest of the set.

[fritzapollo@lemmy.today]

Some intriguing ones on this list. Cheers.

[maltasoron@sopuli.xyz]

You should watch all three, it's one cohesive story (But you'll probably want to do so anyway)

[lobut@lemmy.ca]

City of God - movie about the struggles of growing up in a tough spot in Rio de Janeiro, it's just great

Gattaca - my favourite sci fi film, it's just a simple concept ... what if we could tell who you were going to grow up to be, just from your blood

[sapphironza@sh.itjust.works]

• Grand Budapest hotel.
• All the movies made by Quintin Tarentino.
• Lord of the Rings trilogy
• 2001 a Space Oddesy
• Dracula dead and loving it.
• Conspiracy (2001)
• Star Trek: First Contact
• the Incredibes
• Mad Max: Fury Road
• We were soldiers
• Sweeny Todd
• Tron Legacy
• Office Space
• Jurassic Park
• Fury (2014)
• Eurotrip
• Redline (2009)
• The 12 Tasks of Asterix
• Gormenghast (mini series)
• Conan the Barbarian
• True Lies

[insaneinthemembrane@lemmy.world]

That's a fantastic list.

[insaneinthemembrane@lemmy.world]

Great list and I love that you wrote something about every one of them.

[insaneinthemembrane@lemmy.world]

Or you're younger than the posters, lots of these are quite old.

[fritzapollo@lemmy.today]

I like a certain type of war movie, but I like lots of different things. It's impossible to specify everything exactly, so it's good that I'm getting a wide range of things. I might check out Waterloo.