MY 100 FAVORITE MOVIES (FOR THE MOMENT, ANYWAY...)
One day last week on Facebook my buddy Henry Covert posted a list of his 100 favorite movies and challenged some of us to compile our own lists. This is what I came up with, bearing in mind that such lists can be fluid things and that if I were to compile the same list a week or month or year from now many of those listed here might be in a somewhat different order, or not included at all.
I have long maintained that there is a tie for my all-time favorite motion picture: "Star Wars" (the original, which could easily have stood alone without the other films in that series) and "The Man From Snowy River." My reasons for sharing the top spot between these two are too lengthy to go into here; perhaps one day I’ll devote one of my newspaper columns to
this subject. We’ll see...
Allowing for this tie, then, the remaining 98 titles on my personal list of list of 100 favorite movies reads as follows:
3. Raiders Of The Lost Ark
4. Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein
5. A Night At The Opera
6. How The West Was Won
7. The Time Machine (George Pal version)
8. The Mark Of Zorro (Tyrone Power version)
9. The Adventures Of Robin Hood (Errol Flynn version)
10. King Kong (1933 version)
11. West Side Story
12. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (Disney version)
13. Journey To The Center Of The Earth (James Mason version)
14. Planet Of The Apes (the original)
15. Back To The Future
16. Silverado
17. John Carter
18. Braveheart
19. A Day At The Races
20. Buck Privates
21. Tarzan The Ape Man (Johnny Weissmuller version)
22. The Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.)
23. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
24. The Alamo (John Wayne version)
25. Frankenstein (Boris Karloff version)
26. Superman (Christopher Reeve version)
27. Batman (Michael Keaton version)
28. Help!
29. Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
30. The Untouchables
31. The Time Of Their Lives
32. Super 8
33. 1776
34. War Of The Worlds (George Pal version)
35. Spartacus
36. Yankee Doodle Dandy
37. Duck Soup
38. American Grafitti
39. The Empire Strikes Back
40. Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade
41. The Bride Of Frankenstein
42. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
43. Singin’ In The Rain
44. Fantasia
45. Stagecoach (original version)
46. Mister Roberts
47. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (Disney version)
48. Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan
49. Hidalgo
50. Casablanca
51. Help!
52. That Thing You Do!
53. It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
54. Road To Perdition
55. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
56. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
57. Island At The Top Of The World
58. Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze
59. A Hard Day's Night
60. Goldfinger
61. The Rocketeer
62. Return Of The Jedi
63. Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
64. Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith
65. Tarzan And His Mate
66. The Apple Dumpling Gang
67. Tarzan The Magnificent
68. Back To The Future Part III
69. Dracula (Bela Lugosi version)
70. Man Of La Mancha
71. The Thin Man
72. Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
73. Return To Snowy River
74. Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom
75. Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
76. Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man
77. Ben-Hur
78. Xanadu
79. Captain America: The First Avenger
80. Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones
81. Beneath The Planet Of The Apes
82. Batman (1966 version)
83. Red Tails
84. Star Trek: First Contact
85. Abbott & Costello Meet The Invisible Man
86. The Phantom
87. Air Force One
88. Star Trek: The Motion Picture
89. Superman II
90. The Ten Commandments
91. Horse Feathers
92. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
93. Animal Crackers
94. Head
95. Live And Let Die
96. Star Trek: Generations
97. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
98. Crocodile Dundee
99. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
100. The Mummy (Boris Karloff version)
Now, taking Henry's idea for a list one step further, I compiled the following catalog of my favorite movie series (of three or more films):
A. The “Star Wars” Series
Episode I: The Phanton Menace
Episode II: Attack Of The Clones
Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith
Episode IV: A New Hope*
Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi
(* - This was the first film actually produced, originally released in 1977 simply as “Star Wars.”)
B. The Adventures of Indiana Jones
1. Raiders Of The Lost Ark
2. Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom
3. Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade
4. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
C. The “Star Trek” Films
1. Star Trek: The Motion Picture
2. Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan
3. Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
4. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
5. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
6. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
7. Star Trek: Generations
8. Star Trek: First Contact
9. Star Trek: Insurrection
10. Star Trek: Nemesis
D. The Universal Pictures “Monster Cycle”
(Listed in more or less chronological order)
1. Dracula (1931)
2. Frankenstein (1931)
3. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
4. Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
5. Son of Frankenstein (1939)
6. The Wolf Man (1941)
7. The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)
8. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1942)
9. Son of Dracula (1943)
10. House of Frankenstein (1944)
11. House of Dracula (1945)
12. Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
E. The “Planet Of The Apes” Quintet
1. Planet Of The Apes (the original 1968 version)
2. Beneath The Planet Of The Apes
3. Escape From The Planet Of The Apes
4. Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes
5. Battle For The Planet Of The Apes
F. The Johnny Weissmuller “Tarzan” Series*
1. Tarzan The Ape Man
2. Tarzan And His Mate
3. Tarzan Escapes
4. Tarzan Finds A Son
4 Tarzan’s Secret Treasure
5. Tarzan’s New York Adventure
6. Tarzan’s Triumph
7. Tarzan’s Desert Mystery
8. Tarzan And The Amazons
9. Tarzan And The Leopard Woman
10. Tarzan And The Huntress
11. Tarzan And The Mermaids
(* - Bearing in mind that there are much better Tarzan movies, but that this series does represent my first exposure to the character as a small child)
G. The “Lord Of The Rings” Trilogy
1. The Fellowship Of The Ring
2. 4The Two Towers
3. The Return Of The King
H. The “Back To The Future” Trilogy
1. Back To The Future
2. Back To The Future, Part II
3. Back To The Future, Part III
I. The Sean Connery James Bond Films:
1. Dr. No
2. From Russia With Love
3. Goldfinger
4. Thunderball
5. You Only Live Twice
6. Diamonds Are Forever
7. Never Say Never Again
J. The “Thin Man” Series
1. The Thin Man
2. After The Thin Man
3. Another Thin Man
4. Shadow Of The Thin Man
5. The Thin Man Goes Home
6. Song Of The Thin Man
In : Pop Culture
Tags: lists movies
John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996).
Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.)
John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something.
In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems.
He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.
