Surath Giri's Blog

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Dec 9, 2010

My journey of 1000 movies and 100 movies you shouldn't miss!

  December 09, 2010    

I recently watched the French movie "Persepolis" and with it completed my journey of watching 1000 movies. My obsession with movies started a couple of years back when I rented the movie "House of Wax" and watched it. Though I was able to get a fair sense of the storyline and what's happening, I was surprised at my inability to understand the dialogues. It was a disgrace to my knowledge of English language that I couldn't understand it being spoken in a movie properly. The indignant me then embarked on a movie watching spree. I watched one movie after another until I could hardly find a movie in the store that I hadn't watched already.

One year and more than 300 movies later, I was still pretty bad at understanding the dialogues and subtitles were my saviors but it didn't matter anymore as a whole new exciting world of art had opened up before me.Movies now were rarely just a 2-3 hour enjoyment but more than that they were a form of art that drew upon a lot of factors including social trends, values and norms of the society they reflected, the viewers they addressed and the philosophy, vision, techniques and idiosyncrasies of their makers. Any they were immensely informative. I realized movies if watched with discretion would be much more than just an idle time pass.

I went on to watch IMDB's Top 250 movies ever made and American Film Institute's Top 100 movies of the last century (97 out of 100 yet.) and Time's Top 100 movies (81 out of 100 yet). I sought after earliest of the movies (earliest one I have watched is "The Great Train Robbery") and movies from various countries (USA, UK, France, South Korea, Italy, Iran, India, China, Nepal, Mexico, Sweden, Israel to name a few) and watched as many as I could find.I realized along the way that the more movies you watch the more you wean away from mainstream movies and towards art and independent movies. Well, after watching 1000 movies all I can say is I am ever more eager to watch more movies.
By the way, you can read the whole list of movies I have watched to date here and below are the 100 (there are more though) of my most favorite movies (in alphabetical order) I have watched to date and think you shouldn't miss them if you are into the business of watching movies. Not all the movies in the list are great movies in the "great movie" sense but all of them are my favorite. Enjoy!
  1. 12 Angry Men (1957)
  2. A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
  3. A River Runs Through It (1992)
  4. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
  5. Aguirre, The wrath of God (1972)
  6. Alien (1979)
  7. All About Eve (1950) 
  8. Amadeus (1984)
  9. American History X (1998)
  10. Apocalypse Now (1979) 
  11. Big Fish (2003)
  12. Braveheart (1995)
  13. Brief Encounter (1945)
  14. Brotherhood (2004)
  15. Casablanca (1942)
  16. Casino (1995)
  17. Children of Heaven (1997)
  18. Crash (2004/I)
  19. Departures (2008)
  20. Downfall (2004)
  21. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
  22. Fight Club (1999)
  23. For a Few Dollars More (1965)
  24. Forrest Gump (1994)
  25. Gandhi (1982)
  26. Gattaca (1997)
  27. Glory (1989)
  28. Gone with the Wind (1939)
  29. Goodbye Lenin! (2003)
  30. Goodfellas (1990)
  31. Gran Torino (2008)
  32. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
  33. Hotel Rwanda (2004)
  34. Ice Age (2002)
  35. In the Mood for Love (2000)
  36. Inception (2010) 
  37. Innocent Voices (2004)
  38. Into the Wild (2007)
  39. Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
  40. Jurassic Park (1993)
  41. Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
  42. Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001)
  43. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
  44. Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
  45. Life Is Beautiful (1997) 
  46. Little Manhattan (2005)
  47. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
  48. Malèna (2000)
  49. Mary and Max (2009)
  50. Masaan (2015)
  51. Memento (2000)
  52. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
  53. Mulholland Dr. (2001)
  54. Nights of Cabiria (1957)
  55. North by Northwest (1959)
  56. Oldboy (2003)
  57. Paths of Glory (1957)
  58. Planet of the Apes (1968)
  59. Pulp Fiction (1994)
  60. Requiem for a Dream (2000)
  61. Schindler's List (1993)
  62. Se7en (1995) 
  63. Singin' in the Rain (1952)
  64. Some Like It Hot (1959)
  65. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003)
  66. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
  67. Swades: We, the People (2004)
  68. Taxi Driver (1976)
  69. The 400 Blows (1959)
  70. The Battle of Algiers (1966)
  71. The Conversation (1974)
  72. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
  73. The Departed (2006)
  74. The Dark Knight (2008)
  75. The English Patient (1996)
  76. The General (1926)
  77. The Godfather: Part II (1974)
  78. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
  79. The Hustler (1961)
  80. The Last Emperor (1987)
  81. The Last Samurai (2003)
  82. The Lives of Others (2006) 
  83. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)
  84. The Machinist (2004)
  85. The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
  86. The Pianist (2002)
  87.  The Prestige (2006)
  88. The Sea Inside (2004/I)
  89. The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)
  90. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
  91. The Sixth Sense (1999)
  92. The Social Network (2010)
  93. The Usual Suspects (1995)
  94. The Wages of Fear (1953)
  95. The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)
  96. Toy Story Trilogy (1995-2010)
  97. Up in the Air (2009/I)
  98. V for Vendetta (2006)
  99. Walk the Line (2005)
  100. Whiplash (2014)
So what do you think of my list? What movies did I miss? Share about your favorite movies in the comment box below.

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