Ask Lemmy

In the 40s & 50s, Alfred Hitchcock made a series of incredible thrillers that hold up to this day. Some were B&W, some were color, but ALL of them were at least 4 star movies, and many are 5 stars, and some are absolute CLASSICS.

My favorites:

• Lifeboat (1944)
• Notorious (1946)
• Rope (1948)
• Strangers on a Train (1951)
• Dial M For Murder (1954)
• Rear Window (1954)
• The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
• The Wrong Man (1956)
• Vertigo (1958)
• North By Northwest (1959)
• Psycho (1960)

He made a lot more than these, and like I said, they're all terrific, but these are my personal favorites. Rear Window is my favorite film of all time, a PERFECT movie. Also, in Rear Window, Grace Kelly was the most beautiful woman who has ever appeared on screen. Watch it, and tell me I'm wrong.

Hitchcock is addicting.

Heat, Alien, Groundhog Day

Leon: the professional

The Wicker Man (1973)

project hail mary

everything everywhere all at once

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

little miss sunshine

Salome's Last Dance, one of my favorite's in the weird category. I saw it on TV a long time ago.

https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/70842-salome-s-last-dance

I used to always automatically answer Apocalypse Now for this question. I'm not sure anymore, but it's still a great movie.

Don't watch the director's cut. It's longer and adds nothing of value.

Blade Runner is also up there. Do watch the director's cut with no narration.

If I’m in the mood for something slow and meticulously well crafted, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Even though it was released in 1968(!), the special effects hold up better than they do in many films made decades later.

If I want well-written action with excellent character development, then it’s Heat (1995) hands down. If something in that film doesn’t strike an emotional chord with you, even a little, then there’s a good chance you’re a sociopath.

Give us a few to go on, OP.

i.e. Sci-Fi

• Arrival

• 2001

• Dune (2021)

i.e. Crime

• Heat

• Sicario

• Brick

i.e. Non-Blockbuster Comic Book

• Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys

• Comic Book Villains

• Dredd (2012)

i.e. Beautiful/Painful international

• Dancer in the Dark

• Incendies

• La Vita e Bella

The Death of Stalin is hands down my favorite movie. I have seen it about once every 6 months give or take since covid.

The Tin Drum

My actual personal favorite is Back to the Future Part 2, but if you’re looking for something you might not have seen, I’ll hit you with 3:

Baby Driver - A thrill a minute heist movie to a killer soundtrack and stellar cast

Everything Everywhere All At Once - An emotional rollercoaster as the title implies, go in blind

Ex Machina - Absolute masterclass in cinematography and storytelling about a billionaire and his invention

What are the 3 you watched last year?

moves my top is the lotr trilogy for series its firefly. still.

The Thing, one of the most suspenseful and terrifying movies ever

Duck Soup, comedy mostly a satire on politics, society, government, and military

Die Hard, classic 80s action, lots of guns and explosions and jumping off things. Terminator 2 for the 90s version.

Heavy Metal

• Lost Highway
• Cure
• Pulse
• Blade Runner
• Session 9

Fight Club (1999). If you don't know the twist, don't read anything about it, just watch it. I really like David Fincher's films but this is definitely my favorite.

Honorable mentions: Poor Things (2023) Parasite (2019) Midsommer (2019) Requiem for a Dream (2000) Oldboy (2003)

Jurassic Park

Off the top of my head (after scanning the thread):

• About Time
• Looper
• Nightcrawler
• Dark Knight trilogy
• Your Name (Kimi no Na Wa)
• Suzume

Probably The Longest Day. It was my favourite movie as a kid, because I was very into World War 2 back then. My sister can recite all lines in The Lion King, for me that’s with The Longest Day.

I like the delivery of the lines, the acting and the shots. There’s a really impressive single shot from above, where masses of Brits (I think) fight through a French town. There’s lots of explosions and a bridge which is destroyed. All one shot, really impressive especially for the time (I think). I also like that it’s not a purely English spoken film. I don’t watch movies in which ze Germans speak English, sorry. This is a really long movie though, three hours.

Another pick might be Coming out. Not a very good film I think, but I watched it quite a lot when I was younger. It’s an openly queer film made in the GDR and therefore already very special. Even more so as it had its premiere on the very night the Berlin Wall fell.

It’s about a guy who meets a girl and goes out with her, ends up moving in. Then, he randomly enters a gay bar and gets into the whole cruising thing. Then he finds a guy for real, but he still has his girlfriend. This goes wrong, of course. Interesting is that, near the end, an elder in the bar tells him that he was a loyal member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD, pre-war), but that didn’t help him as a gay guy. Now, it doesn’t matter if you’re jewish or whatever - but if you’re gay, people still hate you.

The run down.

If you don't watch it, then you're just Wolfgang stuck then, aren't ya...

I don't really do favourites, can never seem to decide on just one thing forever.

However, a couple of movies that I've seen recently that I've enjoyed Pixar's new animation Hoppers. Before that it was actually another animation, this time an anime, A silent voice. And one of the few movies I've ever felt the need to rewatch quite soon after watching the first time and I'm probably gonna rewatch at some point, into the wild. Went in blind and was amazing.. plus soundtrack made by Eddie Vedder that was probably my second most listened to album that year.

Reprise

The Lure. It's a Polish horror musical about mermaids. I could see it being polarizing.

Kramer vs Kramer for some reason

Not enough Nolan films mentioned:

• Interstellar
• Inception

Someone else mentioned Primer, which is also an amazing mind bender.

As a kid in the 80s, Flight of the Navigator and Explorers (just turn it off once they meet the aliens, lol) were awesome.

Also not a lot of Miyazaki mentioned:

• Howl's Moving Castle
• Castle in the Sky
• Kiki's Delivery Service
• Spirited Away
• Porco Rosso
• Ponyo

If you only watched three movies in a year and didn't like two of them, are you just not into movies? Or do you like a specific type? What kind of books do you like?

Beyond the infinite two minutes. Quirky sci fi, one take movie, mind fuck. And adorable.