So, I've mentioned once or twice that if i ever talked about my favourites, I'd save it for a special occasion. And this seems like as good a time as any, so why not celebrate two years by rhyming off twelve of my favourite films?
This was also incredibly difficult. I love movies. A lot. My full favourites list is in the triple digits, and my list of honourable mentions for this is insanely long. That said, I was just about able to narrow it down to twelve. And even though I have decided to rank them, it's worth noting that the ranking is loose and incidental, especially as we get into the top three, which are pretty much tied as my favourite movie. These twelve aren't the all time greatest films, but they are the ones that I find myself coming back to again and again.
Also I decided to make a rule. One film per director. Not just for variety's sake, but also because I want to celebrate some of my favourite filmmakers and what I think is their best film. I also wanted to try to differentiate "greatest" from "favourite". I think that if something is one of the greatest, you admire and respect it as a piece of work and acknowledge its place in the pantheon. But I think favourites go a little bit deeper. These are films that resonate with me personally, and are also just the ones that I love watching and discussing the most.
And hey, if you like to share some of your own favourites, feel free! I'd love to hear them!
So, without further ado, let's get this party started!
12. Young Frankenstein
So I've gone in depth about why this is my favourite comedy before, and that's still something I stand by. Young Frankenstein is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Mel Brooks was always the master of the spoof, and I think that this is definitely his finest. He nails the look and feel of a Universal monster movie, and then proceeds to take the piss out of them for an hour and a half. The passion and work gone into recreating the style it's mocking definitely makes the parody that much stronger. And then there's Gene Wilder's masterful script. Easily one of the most quotable films ever. It's so ridiculous and yet it never gets lost in it's own silliness. It stays within the style it's parodying, to the point where it ends up feeling like a old horror movie that went wrong somewhere, and ended up being incredibly silly. Because the style and atmosphere are what make it. We believe the spoof because the movie believes the spoof. It never takes us out of the illusion, instead bringing us into a world of laughs that's often been repeated, but has never been replicated.
And the cast is perfect. From Gene Wilder's apprehensive, but completely insane Dr. Froncenstein, to Marty Feldman's lunatic assistant Igor, and absolutely everyone in between, this is a great ensemble. Terri Garr, Cloris Leachman, Peter Boyle, Madeline Khan, Gene Hackman, everyone is fantastic. Every performance gets a laugh in this movie, but I really can't overstate how good the dynamic between Wilder and Feldman is. I crack up every time these guys are on screen together, and it's their interaction that I find myself quoting the most.
As a comedy nut, I'm kind of always in awe of how good Young Frankenstein is. I've seen it so many times now, and I actually think it gets funnier every time. Every joke is a stone cold classic here, and it's just such an enjoyable watch. It's also not as crass as other Mel Brooks films. Don't get me wrong, I love how vicious The Producers is, and how vulgar Blazing Saddles is, and I am a huge fan of his style anyway. But Young Frankenstein is just such a gleefully ridiculous film, and I just really love it. There's nothing satirical about it. It's just there to have a laugh, and sometimes, there's nothing better than that.
11. Boogie Nights
I'm a huge PT Anderson fan, and I could have picked any of his films for this slot. There Will Be Blood is a true epic, Magnolia is an operatic and passionate drama, Inherent Vice is a gloriously trippy mystery tale and Punch Drunk Love is one of the most beautifully unusual love stories I've seen in some time. But I think that Boogie Nights is just a little bit better than the others. If there was ever a movie that defied its premise, this is it. "Chronicle of the porn industry in the 70s and 80s" doesn't sound like the best concept for a film, but PTA takes this idea and transforms it into something really special. Especially because of the cast. Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, Don Cheadle, Luis Guzman, Heather Graham, John C Reilly, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H Macy, Alfred Molina and a never better Mark Wahlberg all absolutely wow. I think that everyone can relate to at least one character in this film, or at the very least feel for them. Everyone just feels so real in this movie, and watching their successes and struggles is just such a wonderful experience.
Boogie Nights is such a busy film as well. There's so much going on throughout the whole thing, and there are so many rewards to be had on a rewatch. There's always something happening in the film, and there isn't a single frame of it that's wasted. It's a fantastic rollercoaster ride of a film, and it goes through all of these times and emotions effortlessly. It bounds breathlessly through two decades as it follows it's fantastic ensemble cast through successes and failures, epic highs and crushing lows. It's tender, thrilling, disturbing, upsetting, hilarious, moving and absolutely exhilarating, and by the end of it, you really feel like you've witnessed something truly special. And I think that that's something that I'm naturally drawn to. Movies that fuse together different tones, emotions and ideas to create a dynamic and enthralling experience. Boogie Nights never stays in one place for very long. It always shifts or fluctuates in some way, and it's this epic tapestry of moods and ideas that I just adore.
Above anything else though, I think that Boogie Nights is about change. Whether it be the industry, the people in it, or the society they're a part of, everything in the film goes through some kind of shift. It's so fascinating to watch how everyone in this film changes over time, and how the world of the film itself changes over time. The way PTA brings you through the world of Boogie Nights feels very seamless and flowing, and watching how it progresses over time will never fail to utterly captivate me. It's like a living thing, growing and changing in front of your eyes, and that's just cool.
10. It Happened One Night
So, it's November. I gotta talk about It Happened One Night. I don't know why, but for some reason I talk about this one every November. And every November, it gets a little bit more awesome. Because this one is outstanding. It was the first film I ever talked about on this blog, so it's always been a favourite around here, but even beyond that, it's just so wonderful. Every romantic comedy you've ever seen has borrowed something from It Happened One Night, but I don't think that any of them have come close to being as good as it.
Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert are just fantastic here. They've got amazing comedic chemistry, but are also such a believable couple too, and they never fail to charm throughout. The script is truly wonderful. It's tender, but it's never mushy, and stops any over-sentimentality with an incredibly acidic wit. The quips come quick in It Happened One Night, and the sarcasm is absolutely razor sharp, but these aspects never take away from the film's heart. It nails the sweet/funny balance, and when it starts to weave these things together as it goes on, it gets even better. Especially when the characters start to use their sarcasm to hide how they really feel, which gives every one liner a really lovely edge. As these characters fall in love with each other, you start to fall in love with them too. You laugh at them, believe in them and root for them as they get closer to their hard fought for happy ending. It Happened One Night is a stunning film. I always come back to it, and I think I always will.
9. Fargo
So, the Coens. I love these guys, and almost everything that they do is fantastic. I've got a long list of favourite Coen Brothers films, but I'd be lying if I said it was difficult to pick a favourite. Fargo is simply brilliant. Why? Because it gave us Marge Gunderson. And yeah, there's a lot of other good stuff here too, like the outstanding direction, beautifully dark comic script, eye popping cinematography, phenomenal score and great supporting performances, but for me, Margie is Fargo. She's what makes it a masterpiece. She's what I think of when I think of great movie heroes. Because she's what a hero should be. When everyone around her is consumed by greed, Margie relies on her simple values and honesty to combat injustice.
And that's what this is. It's a parable about the dangers of greed. Margie's not a hero because she's some great action hero, or some badass fighter. She's just doing her job. She knows the difference between right and wrong in a time and place where that seems to be so difficult for some people, and she just can't understand why someone couldn't just settle for the things they do have instead of spilling blood over something like money. In a world that's so seedy, and nasty, and corrupt, Margie is the sole source of goodness in this film, and there are few heroes I root for more. And through her goodness and earnestness, she's forges her own kind of badassery. Under the smile and warm demeanor, Margie is one hell of a detective, and she's no fool when it comes to tracking these guys down. Frances McDormand got the Oscar for this, and rightly so. She turns what could have been a caricature into a fully fledged and absolutely wonderful hero.
Over the course of this gorgeous slow burner, we see Margie gradually work her way towards these guys who think that they're ten steps ahead. This is a film that's firmly rooted in the ideas of right and wrong, and it's one of the absolute best explorations of morality I've ever seen. When Margie tells Gaear that she'll never understand why people do these things, it's done so that we know exactly how she feels. Fargo is a good, honest movie about a good honest woman, who brings her own brand of heroism to the pantheon. And the result is glorious.
8. Amélie
Speaking of remarkable women. There just isn't anything else like Amélie. I can't think of any film that's this wonderful. Amélie is a film that makes me happy just by thinking about it. Just the idea of spending 90 minutes in this woman's world is enough to make me grin like an idiot. Like Fargo, Amélie is a film about simple ideas. In this case, it's about how the little things that you do can change and improve the lives of the people around you. This is an aggressively positive film, one that goes out of its way to see the good in everything. Even though it doesn't wrap everything up neatly, it remains so adamant in its belief of human goodness that if you don't feel even a little bit better watching it, you may well be dead inside. Jean Pierre Jeunet has created such a beautiful vision of Paris in Amélie. Paris in Amélie is a place of wonder, and joy, and Jenunet's ability to find magic in the simple moments makes Amélie the closest thing you'll find to a real world fairly tale.
And Audrey Tatou. Oh my god, this woman. She is perfect in this. She sells the joyful exploits of this lovable weirdo fantastically. Amélie herself is such a glorious oddball, but it's her determination to fix the lives of everyone she crosses paths with that makes her such an incredible character. Amélie will make the world a better place, and there's nothing that can stand in her way. She's so dedicated in her vocation to help people, and the world through her eyes is so wonderful and wholesome. Not that there's no conflict in the film, but it becomes clear pretty quickly that there's nothing that Amélie can't overcome. In Amélie's world, there's nothing that can't be solved with a little bit of mischief, and you get the sense that no matter what happens, everything will work out.
Amélie is the ultimate comfort movie. It's gloriously quirky, and it weaves that into its relentless optimism. It's really like nothing else I've seen, and there's a beauty to how cheerful the whole thing is. It's a film that finds such joy in the small things, and expresses that joy so wonderfully aggressively that it's hard not to walk out of it feeling even a little bit better. Every component works here. Every single character serves a purpose, no matter how small their role is. And even the smallest pieces of information make for the most wonderful story beats, which give the film an air of true wonder. And that's what this is. It's a wonderful film. It deals with ideas of wonder in a wonderful world seen through the eyes of a wonderful woman, and that's just wonderful. Amélie is pure joy in movie form, and it just makes me smile every time I think about it.
7. The Royal Tenenbaums
Wes Anderson is a quirky wizard. His films are like living paintings, and I love them all. But The Royal Tenenbaums just struck a chord with me the first time I watched it, and that love really hasn't gone away. This film is like a machine. It's made of so many smaller individual pieces, and each one does its job perfectly. Everything here works. Everyone in this ensemble is fantastic. And nothing feels wasted. There isn't a single line of dialogue that could be cut here. Not even a single frame. There are so many deliciously offbeat moments in The Royal Tenenbaums, as well as so many moments of genuine melancholy. Rather than try to distract from this with quirky shenanigans, Anderson uses the film's style to explore the genuine emotional and psychological damage of his characters, and the result is sublime. This is a film that never shies away from the dark underpinnings of its story, but frames them in a way that's so niche and stylised that it's just incredible. True, Anderson does that in most (if not all) of his films too, but this film is especially deft in its handling of this stuff, and there's a beautifully unusual magic to it.
And then of course, there's the cast. Where the hell do I even begin? Angelica Huston, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Bill Murray, Danny Glover, everyone is absolutely fantastic here, playing an assortment of dysfunctional people awkwardly navigating through the quirky chaos. Generating this chaos though, is the irreplaceable, incredible and just indelible Gene Hackman. This guy is outstanding. Here, he's Royal Tenenbaum himself, a old bastard who kicks off the plot by reconnecting with his family. Trouble is, the only way he knows how to do anything is by lying, cheating and swindling, and so things don't exactly go to plan. What I really love is that it's obvious that his heart is in the right place. He's doing this for the right reasons. But the fact that he can't do this any other way makes him such a treat to watch. And Hackman throws everything he has into this character. By the end of the film, you get a real sense of his character and the ways that he's changed. And the ways that he really, really hasn't. He's an absolute treasure.
The Royal Tenenbaums is a strange movie about strange people, but that's why it works. It never gets lost in its own quirkiness, instead staying very focused on the deep dysfunction that runs through the story. Which isn't to say that it bogs itself down with this either, because it balances genuinely emotional and sometimes disturbing story beats with some truly hilarious dialogue. Everything here is so specific. There isn't a hair out of place, and it's this uber precise approach to this kind of story that makes The Royal Tenenbaums work. It's a fantastic film about a dysfunctional family, but it never trivialises their issues, even when it does play them for laughs. They're just messed up people living in a quirky world where family isn't a word. It's a sentence.
6. Princess Mononoke
Studio Ghibli make some of the most gorgeous pieces of art that you're likely to see. It's pretty hard not to love these guys, actually. Their back catalogue is stuffed with gems, and there are a lot of Ghibli films that I could have picked for this slot. Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, Grave of the Fireflies, Whisper of the Heart, Arietty, Laputa: Castle in the Sky and My Neighbour Totoro are all films that I really love, but I always come back to Princess Mononoke. This film is just stunning. I mean, just look at the thing. Everything in this film is just beautiful to look at. And coupled with Joe Hishahi's truly mesmerising score, it's just unbelievably gorgeous. It's also one of Ghibli's bigger films. The scope of this one is huge, and the atmosphere is absolutely epic.
But like the best of Ghibli, what makes Mononoke work is the way it handles its moral. It's primarily a cautionary tale, but not a preachy one. Its not about how humans are destroying the environment (although they kind of are), it's about conflict, and more specifically how in times of conflict, nobody wins. This is an idea that Hayao Miyazaki has a very acute understanding of, and something that he urges Ashitaka, and the audience, to be mindful of. Nobody is really in the right here, and the closer they get to all out war, the closer they move towards total destruction. And when you put a hero in that situation who knows that he's going to have to do the right thing in a situation like this, you get a truly dynamite piece of filmmaking.
Mononoke also has two of Ghibli's most fully realised characters. The first is Ashitaka, who I just touched on as being a really wonderful hero, a guy in a situation he didn't ask to be in who now has to navigate the repercussions of this conflict in a time where he doesn't even know what the right thing is. But the second, and one of my favourite movie characters ever, is Lady Eboshi. In any other movie like this, she'd be the villain. She'd be a heartless bastard, tearing down the forest for her own gain. But Eboshi is far from heartless. Yes, she does some terrible things, but everything she does, she does for her village. She's a great character because she's a great leader, stepping up in a time of discord to do what's right for people who would otherwise be completely ignored. She fights for the women, and the lepers, and the people in her society who are completely marginalised. And even when faced with actual gods, Eboshi stands tall. She will fight for her village, no matter what. And yet, even by the end, she learns that maybe not everything she was doing was right, but resolves to build a better village, and even a better future.
Princess Mononoke is phenomenal. It's a beautiful, passionate fantasy tale about how our own tendencies of war and hate will destroy us. And when it does this, it never pretends to have all of the answers. Miyazaki never suggests a concrete solution that will end all conflict forever. Instead, he advocates communication. Not as a definite solution, but as a catalyst to productive action, and maybe even peace. And the fact that a film with talking wolves can cram all of that into its story has to stand for something. Princess Mononoke is utterly marvellous.
5. Brazil
Terry Gilliam is one of cinema's greatest madmen. There really isn't anybody else like him, and each of his films, good or bad, are monuments to his crazy genius. Brazil is the ultimate work of cinematic insanity. I mean, it's a dystopian science fiction Christmas film about a totalitarian government with neo noir overtones strong social commentary, a dark sense of humour and incredibly surreal imagery, and it's all the more glorious for that. Brazil is mindblowingly batshit, but it's also one of Gilliam's finest pieces of work. Like the best science fiction, Brazil is very allegorical, and the observations made about society, security, bureaucracy and heroism are more relevant now then they were in 1985. Jonathan Pryce's Sam Lowry isn't a hero. He's an insignificant cog in the wheel, and even though he uncovers this great conspiracy, he hardly matters enough do be able to do anything about it. Especially when he's in a world of pen pushers who can't breathe without filling in a form, and where the greatest threat to society is an unregistered plumber. You get the sense that Gilliam was pissed when he was writing Brazil. This is an attack on so many things, and the satire is just really gorgeous. I love sharp social commentary anyway, and they don't get much sharper than Brazil.
And then there's the dreams. In a world that's so oppressive and monotonous, Lowry lives in his dreams. And these scenes are just so cool. They're gorgeous to look at, and give Gilliam the chance to go wild with his imagery. Not that he tones that down much in the real world. Brazil has fun with itself. Yes, it's a really fantastic piece of satire, and it's incredibly nihilistic, but it revels in its own craziness, and enjoys it's own insanity. It's beyond fun to watch every little oddity in this film. You could watch it on mute and you'd still have a blast, because it's just so much fun to look at.
Brazil is one of the most fantastic pieces of chaos ever put to screen. The fact that it actually exists (and it very nearly didn't), still floors me. This is Gilliam's brain wrestling its way onto the screen, and exploding into a chaotic mockery of modern society. Gilliam has something to say here, and he's going to say it. What stops Brazil from being pretentious or self indulgent though, is that madness. It's that frantic energy that keeps it grounded. Gilliam never takes the story too seriously. Yes, he does have something to say, but he doesn't act like he's the one with the last word on this. Instead, he just expresses his own exasperation, and has a great time doing it. And when this utterly insane whirlwind of a film crashes down into that ending, it's just unbelievable. Nihilism has never been more fun.
4. Taxi Driver
One thing I love about film is it's specificity. That ability to transport s viewer to a specific time, place, or even a state of mind. Taxi Driver is one of the most beautifully disturbing films ever made. It's not set in New York, but a version of the city viewed from the eyes of a deeply disturbed man. And as Travis' psyche starts to seep into the narrative, Taxi Driver becomes a horrifically surreal nightmare. And yet, it's utterly impossible to look away from. It's not an easy watch, but there's a sinister magnetism to Taxi Driver. It draws you in gradually, until you're absolutely absorbed by the nightmarish world that Paul Schrader and Martin Scorsese so deftly created.
I just love the look and feel of it. This is New York, not as some glorious haven, but as a filthy, neon soaked cesspit, and this is an aesthetic that the film nails perfectly. Bernard Herrman's score is also a big plus. His jazzy composition practically drips off the screen, and gives so much to the hellish atmosphere of the film. Scorsese's direction is magnificent, gradually gliding through the terrifying world of Travis Bickle. The script is quite possibly Schrader's best, with so many single lines being so hauntingly profound and yet so strangely funny. De Niro is the best he's ever been, positively disappearing into his role as Bickle, and absolutely selling his descent into madness. When these aspects combine, you end up with one of the most marvellous depictions of hell on film.
And that's what Taxi Driver is to me. It's one of those movies that lets me look at something awful without actually having to experience it. It's that weird kind of voyeurism, where you're watching a world so far removed from your own, and even though it's petrifying, you also can't stop watching it. Obviously the content here is audacious, and it is shocking, but the film captures these aspects and displays them in a way that's truly captivating. I love this movie because watching it is like looking into a very contained evil, a very specific horror that lesser films could only dream of. It peers into the dark side of humanity, and allows viewers to enter the mind of someone who is disturbed, haunted, and unstable. Of course, it's just a movie, and you'll walk out of it and that visceral horror will wear off. But you'll also never forget it. The evil of Taxi Driver is something that lingers long after the credits roll. And that's the brilliance of Scorsese's opus. He orchestrates this maniacal symphony of sin, dragging the audience along with him. Movies allow you to see some truly incredible things. Not all of them are pleasant, but sometimes it's these dark voyages that we need to take most. Taxi Driver is cinema at its most sinister, but it's also a strange kind of beauty that hasn't really been repeated. And you know what? I'm kind of okay with that. They perfected it first time around.
3. Seven Samurai
As I said, I did try to draw a line between greatest and favourite. There are films that I greatly admire and do think are some of the best films ever, but I tried to specifically fill this list with the movies that have resonated deepest with me over the years. That said, Seven Samurai isn't just one of the greatest films ever, but one that's made an indelible impression on me ever since saw it. Kurosawa was very good at balancing the big and the small. The huge, impressive scale and the very simple ideas. And I think Seven Samurai just nails that. First of all, it's fairly hard to deny the impact this film has had on cinema, especially the action genre. I tend to avoid talking about the technical aspects of filmmaking here because that generally isn't why I watch films, but it's impossible to talk about this movie without talking about how fantastically made it is. For it's time, and even now, everything here is just unbelievable. Every frame is just a work of art. Every camera angle, every editing touch, every subtle placement of the camera is telling a part of the story without making it obvious that that's what it's doing. Every action movie you've ever seen has borrowed a little something from this, and for good reason. It's just a technical marvel.
But that's not why it's one of my all time favourites. These twelve films are very different from each other, but it's only when I sat down and complied the list that I noticed a common thread between so many of them. I'm fascinated with movie heroes. Characters that fight for good, characters that we as an audience root for, and maybe even identify with. Seven Samurai is, in essence, a film about what exactly makes a hero. Each of the seven are a variation of a heroic archetype, and the film explores different aspects of heroic obligation through each of them. You don't just root for the samurai, you come to understand them. Who they are, why they fight, what drives them. And as they go out of their way to defend this village, you see Kurosawa's portrait of what it means to be a hero on full display. But by the end of it, for all of their bravado and heroism, did any of it actually mean anything? That's a big question, and it's one that Kurosawa doesn't actually answer, but that's what makes this film such a stunning portrait of what it means to do the right thing. You're left to decide whether or not it was actually worth it. And it's that sudden pang of doubt that makes this such a powerful ending.
The attitude towards heroism in this film is perfectly summed up in Kikuchiyo. Here's a guy that starts as a nuisance, a wanderer, a fake samurai. He's loud, he's flashy, and he's not the brightest. His sword is way too big for him and he carries a stolen family tree. And as the plot goes on, key revelations shape his true character, so by the end of it, he's become a hero. He's become the hero. He's proves himself as not just a defender, but also a legend. Toshiro Mifune kills as Kikuchiyo, too. He sells this arc through moments of sheer madness, and he's often absolutely hilarious. And yet, by the end, you believe he's changed. You buy his arc. In Kikuchiyo, Kurosawa gave us the ultimate hero's journey. And the film is all the better for it.
And at the time of writing this, Seven Samurai has been voted as the greatest foreign language film of all time by the BBC. And that's hard to disagree with. It's one of the greatest films ever made. But what I always go back to is that discussion on what makes a hero. We could sit here and talk about mechanics all day long, but I love this movie because it's a beautiful portrait of what actually makes a hero. Why do heroes do the right thing? Do we even need them? I'm always obsessed by how the protagonist's journey is handled in a film, and how their idea of heroism informs the story, and I think Seven Samurai does this in a way that's not just utterly epic, but also incredibly specific. It's small, it's intimate, it's human. The action and the scale are massive, but the ideas themselves aren't. They're simple enough, but man they're effective. This is everything I love about heroes in one film. And it's truly magnificent.
2. Pan's Labyrinth
Pan's Labyrinth is one of the most devastating things I've ever seen. Guillermo del Toro is a genius. I'll watch pretty much anything this man makes, because he's one of the most passionate people in the industry. And when you watch a Guillermo del Toro film, you can definitely feel how much he cares, how much love and passion he's put into it. I think that this is something that goes a long way into making Pan's Labyrinth so gut wrenching. This is everything that del Toro cares about when it comes to storytelling. He's got a keen understanding of the fairytale, and why it works, and why it's these stories that people keep coming back to, to the point that he ends up making a modern fable himself, and it's just stunning.
I mean, where the hell do I even begin with this movie? Everything about it is pretty much perfect. I guess I could start by talking about how Guillermo del Toro uses the fantasy genre. This is a genre usually used for stories of escapism, and as dark as can get (check out the Brothers Grimm if you're in any doubt about that), there's also an optimism to it most of the time. I think a lot of this stems from the fable. The moral tale, where everything will be okay if you just do the right thing. Where morality is usually pretty black and white. Del Toro blurs the line here, taking fairytale logic and applying it to the absolute horror of war. And when you take something that's relatively simple and fuse it with something chaotic and hellish, strange magic starts to happen, but del Toro absolutely knows how to control it. This is a story where escapism is impossible. Where the fantasy world that Ofelia escapes to is just as bad as the real world horrors that she escapes from. And the way that del Toro mirrors the civil war setting in the fantasy world is just fascinating. As the film descends further and further into darkness, the tasks get more morally dubious. The monsters get stranger, and scarier. And yet nothing is more horrifying that what's above the surface. The relationship between monsters and men is something that del Toro explores often, but never better than here, where for all of the beasts and creatures, the real horror is the hate and violence going on in the real world. And the result is soul shattering.
But what really affects me in this film is the contrast. The dissonance between innocence and horror. The way del Toro allows the darkness to bleed into the real world, while still having moments of real tenderness to cut the bleakness. Even when the horror is cranked up to eleven, del Toro never forgets the quiet humanity in the story. And that's something that just really destroys me. I actually have a lot of movies that destroy me emotionally, but Pan's Labyrinth is one that's just particularly devastating. It's a beautifully crafted slice of tragedy, and for all of its melancholy, it's one that I've seen way more times than I probably should have. And each time, it absolutely wrecks me. Because it's just so wonderfully crafted. It's a parable of the dangers of hate and violence, and how these things can so often feel inescapable. I'm not going to lie, it's a rough watch, but there's an incredible beauty to del Toro's masterpiece. This is del Toro at his absolute best, telling a tale of innocence lost in a way that's just relentless in its tragedy. Every so often, we need a film that just destroys us, and Pan's Labyrinth is mine. Phenomenal stuff.
1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Picking favourites is never easy. Especially not when there are so many fantastic films out there. As I said, the top three is basically a tied number one. That said, there's something about Milos Forman's film that just hasn't been replicated since. The 1970s are my favourite era for cinema, because so much was changing. This was a period where the films in the mainstream were allowed to go wild with their content, and the result is an archive of beautiful chaos, most of which came to shape cinema as we know it. One Flew Over is a film that's kind of aware of this artistic movement, and so tells one of the most glorious stories of rebellion ever shot. This is a movie that works on every level. First of all, it's ridiculously entertaining. For a film set in a mental institution, there's something that's just so watchable here. Forman isn't afraid to let moments of comedy seep into the drama, because that's kind of how life works. And so, even with the themes and subject matter, One Flew Over is weirdly fun in places.
Also the cast is perfect. This maybe be the best ensemble cast ever. There isn't a single wasted part here, and characters that could have been one dimensional lunatics are actually fairly fleshed out. Forman never plays these men and their struggles for laughs, but instead finds the humour in the situation they live in, and the cast bring this to life perfectly. Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito, Brad Dourif, Will Sampson, Scatman Crothers, Sidney Lassick, William Redfield, everyone is spot on here. Over the course of the film, you actually care about these characters, and because the film just lets the cast breathe most of the time, you end up with this really raw, interesting kind of acting that makes this film what it is.
And then there's Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher. Oh boy. Fletcher excels as the domineering and quietly terrifying Nurse Ratched. She never once raises her voice, instead weaponising the rules of the ward, and using that icy glare to truly chill and petrify. She's the perfect foil here, the face of the system that has done these men wrong. That has mistreated and oppressed them "for their own good". She's what the film's sense of humanity had to try so hard to fight against, but she's also the one with all of the control in this situation. Not that that's going to stop Jack Nicholson's MacMurphy. Nicholson is unbelievable in this. He's beyond perfect. He is, in essence, playing the straight man. A guy who finds himself in a system that's profoundly unfair, but nobody seems to talk about. It's him that questions this system, that challenges where help ends and torture begins. He's no hero, but he's able to stand up and say what others won't, and the result is marvellous. Of course, MacMurphy doesn't understand the size of the operation at work here, or the authority that he's taking on, but it's the fact that he takes a stand and does something about it, the fact that he doesn't let this system grind him down, that he keeps challenging it to the end, that I just absolutely adore.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the perfect cinematic parable. It's about authoritarianism and the abuse of power. It's about what we as a society do with people when we decide they're "beyond helping". It's about questioning this stuff even when it threatens to destroy us. This is fantastic storytelling. It's a perfectly tragic tale that even in its darkest moments, even when everything seems to have gone to shit, keeps a little bit of hope. That ending is soul crushing, but it's not without hope. One Flew Over is quite simply, perfect. There's nothing about it that I don't love, nothing I think could be changed or taken out. It's got one of the best casts ever assembled, with one of the best character dynamics ever written in the power struggle between Ratched and MacMurphy. This film is a masterpiece. Go watch it if you haven't.
So, those were twelve of my favourite movies! Feel free to share your own favourites if you like, and I'll see you next time!
