Top Movie List 11-20

Trevor’s Top Movies 11-20

Now we’re getting to some really tough choices.

20. The Incredibles (2004, Brad Bird) – Pixar doing a superhero movie, sign me up. This movie is so good at just about everything, telling a great superhero story, making fun of superheroes, showing how good Pixar actually is at what they do, I could go on for days. It is very impressive that the bar for superhero movies was raised by a children’s cartoon.

19. The Godfather (1972, Francis Ford Coppola) – Um, yeah, this is a good movie. Like move ‘great’ movies I have a hard time writing about it without just rehashing what other critics have already said. Like I said with To Kill a Mockingbird, you’ve seen it, you know how good it is, you don’t need me to tell you.

18. Batman Begins (2005, Christopher Nolan) – Talk about a movie that just gets better and better each time I watch it. Like I mentioned I love comics and for the most part Batman is my favorite comic book character. While not entirely true to the comics this view of Batman by Christopher Nolan and David Goyer is pretty damn close. Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, Tom Wilkinson, Cillian Murphy (Scarecrow), Morgan Freeman, all just nail their parts. Even the bit players Ken Watanabe and Linus Roache (Thomas Wayne) are intriguing and well done. The only character I don’t enjoy is Katie Holmes which has very little to do with her and more to do with a Bruce Wayne love interest, they just always seem blah to me. The best in the movie however is Michael Caine, what a great version of the ever important Alfred. Man I do love me some Batman.

17. Saving Private Ryan (1998, Steven Spielberg) – The highest placing ‘serious’ movie on my list. Most of the buzz about this movie is the ultra-violent first 30 minute, D-Day sequence but this movie goes so far beyond that. Like Glory this movie gets me every single time I watch it, I know it is coming but I can’t avoid it. When the elder Ryan falls down in tears asking his wife to tell him he’s lived a good life, I mean come on. Even if every critic in the world wasn’t telling me how powerful this movie was I would have known it based on the audience. During the days we would have multiple groups of WWII vets and their wives come to see it. Virtually every single one of the men would leave the theater in tears on the shoulders of their wives. These are men in their 70’s who’ve lived more shit than I can imagine, from a generation that doesn’t allow men to show emotion, in tears, in public, having their wives help console them. Yeah I would say that is powerful.

16. X2: X-Men United (2003, Bryan Singer) – I like the Batman character better and I think the original X-Men and both the Spider-Man movies are great movies but this one. Oh man, is this a great comic book movie or what. I read the X-Men comics for about eight or so years, reading probably 20 years of their stories, and this movie gets it all, every bit of it.

15. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988, Robert Zemeckis) – The 80s were a very down period in US animation but this movie really makes up for it. It is so funny, so well down, so timeless, so brilliant, and even groundbreaking. It has a piano competition/duel of Daffy Duck vs. Donald Duck, it even has Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse on the screen at the same time. It has the most attractive cartoon in history and has spawned a great ride at Disneyland.

14. Superman (1978, Richard Donner) – The one that made you believe someone could fly. This is the first big budget superhero movie and one that will probably remain the most timeless. I attribute that mainly to Christopher Reeve, he is Superman and always will be.

13. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986, John Hughes) – Ferris Bueller is probably the coolest high school student in history. When I was in middle school this was the cool movie, hell it is probably one of the cool movies now.

12. Spartacus (1960, Stanley Kubrick) – I think I had three separate history classes that we watched this movie in. It is a movie I can watch almost anytime, it is so good and I really enjoy it. It was one of the first DVDs we ever purchased.

11. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003, Peter Jackson) – Probably the best of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy but not my favorite and definitely not the most important. I do love it, what a spectacle and how good was Sean Astin in this movie.