Top Eleven Best Movies (Drama) Of All Time
Posted by supercynic on June 21, 2008
OK, I don’t believe you can rank movies of different genres together. For example, Fletch is a classic. So is Schindler’s List. I would feel morally bankrupt placing them on the same list. So, this post is limited to the best movies — drama — of all time. Giving it 5 minutes thought, here are mine, in no particular order:
1. Schindler’s List
2. The Godfather
3. Hotel Rwanda/Sometimes In April (These were both movies about the Rwanda genocide, so I put them together.) By the way, if you can watch the scene toward the end of Hotel Rwanda where they find their nieces and nephews at the UN refugee camp and not cry, then you may need to check your chest cavity to see if your heart is still there.
4. Citizen Kane (I finally watched this classic about a year ago.)
5. Love Always
6. Goodfellas
7. The Departed (We Irish can be just as crooked and corrupt as you Italians.)
8. Halloween (A truly scary movie.)
9. My Life (Michael Keaton videotapes life lessons in his final months of life for his soon-to-be-born child.)
10. Glory (Denzel Washington and Matthew Broderick)
11. Star Wars (The original; none of the new ones).
HONORABLE MENTION:
Steel Magnolias
Terms of Endearment
The Libertine
Yack said
I agree with most of yours. I guess Ashley added Steel Magnolias and terms of Endearment. I’ll add a few:
Rocky – The original was truly a great movie
Platoon
A Few Good Men
Rainman
The Green Mile
The Sound of Music
To Kill a Mockingbird – had to put an oldie in there
The Outsiders – stay gold ponyboy
supercynic said
The inclusion of Terms of Endearment and Steel Magnolias shows my softer, more sensitive side.
That post-funeral Steel Magnolias scene where Sally Fields is going off about wanting to hit someone and Olympia Dukakis holds Shirley MacLaine and says, “Whack her” is a classic. Here it is.
A Few Good Men is my guilty pleasure movie. There are so many melodramatic scenes and lines in there, but I find myself watching it over and over again. The Green Mile is great. Can you believe Stephen King wrote that?
I almost put Rocky in, but I just couldn’t find room, and now I feel bad that I didn’t remember To Kill A Mockingbird. I just read the book again a few months ago, so I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it.
travellinbaen said
Casablanca. Always.
Citizen Kane? That’s like putting James Joyce on your top author’s list. Nobody really watches that and your claim to have seen it is completely unverifiable since no one living can quiz you on it.
supercynic said
Citizen Kane was about this guy who wrote scathing comments about a blogger’s tastes in movies, both comedy and drama. Actually, b/c Citizen Kane was set in the early 20th century, they were scathing letters to the editor about the newspaper’s book reviews.
He was soon beaten to a pulp and left for dead on a deserted country road by a roving group of book reviewers. You should check it out some time.
Madd Dawg said
I can’t handle lists that are not comprised of ten, no less and no more, items. I am, thus, somewhat confused by this blog….
TB, you criticize SC for Citizen Kane, criticism with which I agree, and you then throw out Casablanca?? C’mon TB!
SC, no matter how much you liked Steel Magnolias and/or Terms of Endearment (for the record, I have proudly seen neither), I could not have brought myself to place them on a favorites list. I guess that makes you a better man, or woman, then me. :)
supercynic said
MD — you would then hate my new blog “Top Any-Number-But-10 List Of ____.” The inclusion of Steel Magnolias and Terms of Endearment shows how comfortable I am with my heterosexuality. I need not watch every Die Hard sequel while pulling the wings off of houseflies to prove my manhood.
However, from time to time, I do walk across the street and take away toys from my eight-year-old neighbor. After slashing the tires on his bike, I come back home and watch Steel Magnolias to reconnect to my sensitive side.
Madd Dawg said
You have some balance in your sexuality, so I guess you’ve got that going for you….which is nice. I try to stay on the hetro side, but TB balances that, so all is good.
travellinbaen said
MD, this passion for units of 10 is interesting. I’ve posted several times about my appreciation of the odd numbered list, which I presume led you to send me a chain political email each time in retaliation. You DO realize that the socialist Europeans are the same way about units of 10? Metric system? And now homophobia. Your psychological profile as displayed in the above comments would make an excellent problem for the game show I’m developing–”Gay or European”. And though I have lived with men the majority of my adult life and though I have actually seen Brokeback, even I am not gay enough to have ever seen Terms of Endearment. I am gay enough to have seen Steel Magnolias on both stage and screen.
And now I feel compelled to talk about how hot Anne Hathaway was naked in Brokeback.
Finally, only a neanderthal would not appreciate the greatness that is Casablanca. Bogey rules.