My Top 21

Scott McLain’s

All Time Top 21

1 .Life is Beautiful
2. Seven Samurai
3. Citizen Kane
4. Schindler’s List
5. BladeRunner
6. It’s a Wonderful Life
7. The Great Dictator
8. 2001:a Space Odyssey
9. The Passion of the Christ
10. Brazil
11. Star Wars:Empire Strikes Back
12. The Godfather
13. Once Upon a Time in the West
14. Psycho
15. The Deer Hunter
16. Pulp Fiction
17. Hunger*
18. Goodfellas
19. Taxi Driver
20. Toy Story
21. Groundhog Day

* Hunger recently displaced Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind from #21.

Honorable mentions: Baraka, Monster's Inc, Tommy Boy, Minority Report, The Bridge Over the River Kwai, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Magnolia, The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Abyss

Let's face reality, it's not everybody's list, and frankly I probably couldn't get anyone at a film school to agree with me, but who cares? This list is absolutely unassailable. Seven Samurai for #2? Every serious filmmaker references this film at some point and it's been copied like, a zillion times. The Passion of the Christ? Mel Gibson = tremendous risk, tremendous reward. Toy Story? First major animated feature by Pixar - started a revolution in filmmaking. Brazil at # 10? It's Terry Gilliam. Need I say more? It was either that or 12 Monkey's (a close call really) and finally, do I really think Hunger is a better film than Goodfellas and Taxi Driver? Yes but very very marginally. Groundhog Day? Humorous, well written, totally watchable and manages to tap into the deep spiritual psyche of most people. I've watched it like, 30 times. I've only seen BladeRunner more times. and that's at number 5.