My Favorite Movies: What Does It All Mean?

About halfway through my postings of my Top 25 Favorite Movies, longtime college friend and annoying contrary muse "Tuck" texted me this message: "If, at the end of your 'my favorite movies' series, you don't write a wrap-up of what connects these movies (thematically, structurally, philosophically, artistically, etc.) other than your good opinion, you won't have answered the central question of 'why this series?'"

Do you see why I call him my "annoying contrary muse"? I hadn't blogged in forever until he told me a couple of months ago to get up off my ass and start writing again. Thank God for honest friends. Plus, every writer needs someone who cares more about the quality of the work than boosting your self-esteem, and Mike's been my most honest critic since the late eighties.

So what ties these 25 films together, and why did I choose them instead of many other worthy contenders? As I said in the introductory blog, these are all representative of movies from a variety of different genres, so the voice and tone of each movie is distinctly different. I did try to balance the concept of "my favorites" (hence the much-ridiculed choice of The Cutting Edge, which I will not apologize for loving like a teenager's first crush) against "the best," which placed Schindler's List ahead of Inception at the pinnacle of the list.

The artistic connection is obvious—it's a list of great directors. One of my biggest dreams as a kid was to be a movie director. I used an old Super-8 camera to make stop-motion animation movies in my teens. Look at the directors on my list: Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarentino, Jonathan Demme, Brad Bird, Ron Howard, James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, Rob Reiner, Ivan Reitman, Cameron Crowe, Mel Brooks...a list of amazing artists whose careers would fill at least several dozen "best movies" lists.

But that's not the commonality to be found in my list. These movies are reflective of who I am and share as a central theme the most important quality in my life, the value I see as the most essential component of human life: Redemption.

Redemption is a word that goes back thousands of years that originally meant "to be bought out of slavery." In the modern sense, it means restoration, to have something that has gone wrong to be made right again. As a follower of Christ, it means that my previous life of pessimistic hopelessness and cynicism has been redeemed by unconditional love so that I can live with hope and optimism. As a recovered alcoholic, it means that my slow march to an early grave was redeemed with a life in recovery that has been, for more than 25 years at this point, characterized by happiness, joy, and freedom. As a philosopher, it means that I am a champion of the idea that the universe and all that resides in it has a specific reality and meaning that transcends the narrow boundaries of our short human lives. Redemption is the theme of my life, and each movie on my list is, in big and little ways, a narrative of redemption.

The Romantic Comedies
Dan in Real Life is about how a widower finds new love; the wrong that needs to be made right is the unfortunate reality that his perfect mate is dating his shallow brother. Almost Famous, The Cutting Edge, ...say anything, and When Harry Met Sally are about overcoming the obstacles that keep us apart from the ones we love. Russell's cynicism about the music business is redeemed by William's youthful passion. Doug and Kate redeem their Olympic dreams by learning to trust each other. Lloyd and Diane are redeemed from their family's and friend's expectations. Harry and Sally are redeemed from the past mistakes of failed relationships.

The Animated Features
Ratatouille is an underdog (well, under-rat) story; how someone from humble beginnings can become a great artist. Remy's talents redeem his antagonistic relationship with humans, as well as redeeming Linguini's relationship with his late father, Chef Gusteau. In The Incredibles, Bob redeems his misery of living in hiding and not using his super powers by defeating the villain he created out of his own disregard for others, and in doing so, resolves much of the conflict in his marriage and family. Hiccup and Toothless redeem each other's lives in How to Train Your Dragon while also resolving the age-old conflict between Vikings and dragons. It's a story about enemies redeeming each other as friends.

Science Fiction
Kirk finds redemption for his past mistakes with Khan, his relationship with Carol Marcus, and most of all, his sense of age and mortality in Star Trek II. Roy Neary is compelled by obsessions he doesn't understand to find redemption in alien contact in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Neo is, quite literally, "The One," the redeemer of humankind in The Matrix. Ripley redeems her nightmares and saves Newt, who becomes the daughter Ripley lost during her years drifting in space, in Aliens (which is why I refuse to acknowledge that the next movie even happened). Finally, The Empire Strikes Back is part of an ongoing double redemption story: redeeming the galaxy from the tyranny of the Empire, and redeeming Anakin Skywalker back from the Dark Side of the Force.

Comedies, Thrillers, and Action/Adventures
Although they are both silly beyond measure, Young Frankenstein and Ghostbusters both feature scientists who are trying to redeem their reputations by proving that their scientific theories are true. They succeed in both instances, with disastrous and hilarious results. In the thrillers, the protagonist must redeem their people from a monster. In Jaws, Chief Martin Brody has to save his home from the shark, and in doing so, confronts his fear of the ocean. Clarice Starling is tasked with saving Catherine Martin from the serial killer Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs, and in turn confronts the demons of her own past with the counsel of another monster, Hannibal Lecter. John McClane and Indiana Jones are both redemption heroes in Die Hard and Raiders of the Lost Ark. McClane saves his wife and the other Nakatomi hostages, while Dr. Jones saves the world from the specter of Nazi domination. In both cases, their redemptive heroism mends their relationships with the women they love.

The Dramas
Henry Hill's redemption story is ironic because he doesn't want to change or leave his life of crime, but he makes that selfish sacrifice to save his own life, as well as his wife's and children's, in Goodfellas. Pulp Fiction's redemption story is much more clear, as Jules decides to leave his life of crime after the miracle of the missing bullets. In contrast, Vincent rejects the notion of the miraculous and ends up dead in Butch the boxer's bathroom.

In Apollo 13, the crew finds their redemption in "successful failure"; they failed to land on the moon as planned, but they made it home safely. In this case, hundreds of men and women worked tirelessly to bring the three astronauts home alive. The Shawshank Redemption has the word in its title, for Pete's sake. Andy is redeemed from a crime he didn't commit, and by keeping his own hope alive, he redeems Red from his own hopeless imprisonment. For Dominic Cobb in Inception, he must find a way to redeem himself from the guilt he feels over his wife's death, and the only way for him to do this is to confront her in the dream reality that they created and that destroyed her. The entire mission for Cobb is about saying goodbye to Mal and getting back to his children.

Finally, Schindler's List is about a man who was a literal, traditional redeemer. He used his own ill-gotten fortune to buy the lives of more than 1,100 Jewish men, women, and children who would most likely have perished in the Holocaust had it not been for his determination to save their lives. As he is told at the end of the war, "He who saves one life saves the world entire." 

My Favorite Movies: #1—Schindler's List

1. Schindler’s List (1993) 

Genre: Historical Drama 

Director: Steven Spielberg 

Writer: Steven Zaillian (screenplay), Thomas Keneally (novel) 

Stars: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Embeth Davitz 

Awards: 7 Oscars—Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction, Editing, Music 

Metacritic score: 93 

IMDB Ranking: #6

The greatest movie ever made, and hence the movie at the top of my list, is Steven Spielberg's epic masterpiece, Schindler's List. If I was just going on "favorite," my #2 pick, Inception, would be in the top spot simply because it is more "entertaining" in a conventional way. But film is often art as well as entertainment, and in the case of Schindler's List, although the entertainment value is tempered by the vast seriousness of the subject, it is a work of profound artistry, deeply moving, historically important, and most of all, sublimely beautiful.

The movie is beautiful because it's honest. Spielberg, master of dramatic camera angles, lets the story speak for itself. Not that it's not brilliantly photographed—the black-and-white cinematography won Janusz Kaminsky a well-deserved Oscar—it's that Spielberg lets the story speak for itself, often opting for hand-held cameras in a documentary style rather than his more familiar Hollywood techniques. The acting is impeccable throughout, and the story is so powerful, it will stay for you forever.

If for some inexplicable reason you don't yet know the story, Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) is an opportunistic German businessman (that's being generous—he's a classy grifter) who comes to Nazi-occupied Krakow, Poland, and takes over an enamelware factory using cash from recently displaced Jewish investors. He draws on the expertise of accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) to run the company, which operates using a Jewish labor force because they're more profitable.

The business is an enormous success, and Schindler uses his fortune to bribe Nazi officials and bed beautiful women, and he revels in his success. But the Nazis are not interested in profit; they are working toward their "final solution" for the Jews in Europe. Schindler's work force is relocated to the Plaszow labor camp, run by psychopathic commandant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes, ten times more terrifying than Voldemort because he's playing a real monster). 

Goeth informs Schindler that all the Jews are being moved to Auschwitz concentration camp. Schindler uses his fortune to purchase more than 1,100 Jewish lives from Goeth and death at the hands of the Nazis. In one of the most emotionally devastating scenes of the movie, Stern asks Schindler how he accomplished this: "What did Goeth say about this, you just told him how many people you needed, and..." Stern's face breaks with realization: "You're not buying them? You're buying them? You're paying him?"

The Bible talks about the concept of redemption, which in those times, meant buying someone out of slavery. Oskar Schindler was a modern-day redeemer, one who had no other significant success in his life, but who was placed in the right place at the right time to exploit a group of people for his own profit, money that he would eventually use to buy their lives and their freedom. Stern tells him, "The list is an absolute good. The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf."

I love this movie more than I can adequately express, but if you've never seen it, there are some harrowing scenes that will haunt you afterward. It is a movie of contrasts, of death and life, of terror and of hope. I revel in Schindler's first scene, where he ingratiates himself to the Nazi military brass in Krakow, collecting numerous photographs of them together. It's exciting to watch how he uses the Polish black market to collect luxuries with which to grease the wheels of his success.

It's also horrifying to watch the Nazis liquidate the Krakow ghetto. Spielberg didn't shy away from the brutality of that event. You see men, women, and children shot dead at point-blank range. You see the utter lack of humanity is the guise of the Nazi soldiers. Later, Schindler's woman workers are mistakenly routed to Auschwitz. The camera follows them into a dark chamber, where they are stripped naked and locked in. The lights go out and they all scream, shaking and huddling together. They don't know if they are about to die. Then, water streams out from overhead. It's a shower, not a gas chamber, and their cries of terror melt into tears of relief and joy.

This is not an easy movie to watch. It's more than three hours long, and it's mostly in black-and-white, which is a turn-off for many modern viewers (which it shouldn't be—the photography and lighting is simply genius). But it's perhaps the most important movie ever made. Spielberg used the success and notoriety of this movie to start the USC Shoah Foundation, a nonprofit organization established to record testimonies in video format of survivors and other witnesses of the holocaust.

But in the end, this is a movie about World War II and the Holocaust that ends with a message of hope. In a war where so many people died, in a situation where a war profiteer could have walked away with the fortune he made, Oskar Schindler saved more than 1,100 lives, the descendants of whom today number more than 6,000. In contrast, less than 4,000 Jews remain in Poland today. 

When you watch it, and I think every person has a moral responsibility to watch it at least once, you will cry at several points, but at no point do I avoid a really ugly red-faced snotty cry than at the very end, when the actors from the film walk side-by-side with their real-life "Schindler's Jews" counterpart to place a stone on the grave of Oskar Schindler. Coupled with John Williams' theme played on violin by Izhak Perlman, even the hardest of hearts could not fail to be moved.

 

I first saw this movie in St. Louis at a special sneak preview. I was invited to be part of a focus group audience. We were given questionnaires to fill out afterward, with a number of categories asking us to rank the film from 1 to 10. I gave it tens in every category. I knew from that moment that it would win most of the Oscars that year, and it did, seven in all, including Spielberg's first (and long overdue) Best Director award. Clearly from my list, I love Spielberg's work, and I'm always excited to see what he'll do next, but he will never surpass this achievement. I think he would agree with me on that. 

 

My Favorite Movies: #2—Inception

2. Inception (2010) 

Genre: Sci-Fi Thriller 

Director: Christopher Nolan 

Writer: Christopher Nolan

Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy 

Awards: 4 Oscars—Cinematography, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects             

Metacritic score: 74 

IMDB Ranking: #14

The penultimate film on my list, Inception stands as my favorite movie of all-time in terms of pure entertainment value. That is to say, I have more fun watching this movie as opposed to tomorrow's top pick, for reasons that I will explain when I unveil the top spot.

Inception is about a group of high-tech thieves who use futuristic military technology to invade people's dreams in order to steal their secret ideas—this is called "extraction." The angle for the plot, however, is about "inception"—planting an idea into a subject's mind that will cause him to do something he wouldn't ordinarily do. The idea must be planted so deeply that the subject doesn't realize that he's being manipulated by an outside mind.

Dominic Cobb (DiCaprio) is the leader of the group, a pioneer and expert in dream extraction who is haunted by the death of his wife, Mal (Marian Cotillard). He feels responsible for her death, a suicide that she made look like a murder, because as they became lost in the world of each other's dreams, he used inception to bring her back to the "real world." It drove her insane, however, and now he cannot return home to his children without being arrested for her murder.

He is aided by the team leader, Arthur (Gordon-Levitt), Eames, the forger (Hardy), Yusef, the chemist (Dileep Rao), and Ariadne, the architect (Page), all of whom are funded by Japanese billionaire Saito (Ken Watanabe). Their target is Robert Fischer, the son of the owner of the world's largest energy conglomerate, played by Cillian Murphy; their goal is to plant the idea for him to break up his father's company, left in his care by his late father's will.

The fun and the thrill of this movie is found in the dreamscape. All the participants, except for the unwitting mark of extraction or inception, are lucid dreamers, which means they can manipulate the reality and physics of the dream. The special effects for these impossible actions are amazing, and in many cases, done with old-fashioned stunts, explosions, set design, and camera trickery rather than CGI. In fact, director Christopher Nolan intentionally limited his use of CGI to make the dreams seem as realistic as possible.

In order to make their plan work, Dom and his team must go down three levels—a dream within a dream within a dream. The conceit is that because the mind works faster in the dream, the farther down you go, the more time is stretched out. Level one is a rainy city, one week. Level two is the interior of a hotel, six months. Level three is a wintry fortress in the mountains, 10 years. What lies deeper? Limbo. Infinite subconscious. Yeah, you know we're going there. For Dom, he's going back to confront the dream of his late wife that continues to haunt him.

 

There are countless Internet theories as to what Inception means, but my favorite interpretation is that it is an allegory for making movies. Saito is the studio head who puts up all the money. Arthur is the producer, Dom is the director, Eames the actor, Yusef does special effects, and Ariadne is the set designer. Fischer, and ourselves, are the audience, the ones who have this idea planted inside our heads that becomes the dominant thought in our minds.

I've always been interested in lucid dreams, the ability to realize, while in a dream, that you are dreaming, then use that knowledge to manipulate and change the dream. Again, the Internet is full of advice on how to train your mind to do this, but it is difficult and complicated. But I've done it a few times, most recently causing myself to levitate to the roof of a building and descend to the ground again safely. Every time I watch Inception, I wish that their lucid dreaming technology was real.

But there's a danger in that. When Dom first meets Yusef, it's in a basement filled with men and women who come every day to dream for twelve hours at a time. As an old man tells them, "For them, the dream has become the real world." Why would we choose to live in a world where free will is so limited, where we are subject to the whims of fate and time, when we could live in a world where everything around us is our own creation? Who would be able to resist the idea of becoming your own god, even if it was just for a few hours a day?

 

These are the type of deep philosophical ideas that Inception causes us to confront. The most controversial question about the movie is whether the ending takes place in "reality" or whether Dom is still experiencing a dream. In fact, some wonder if the entire film is just Dom's dream. I think it's clear that the top is beginning to wobble, which clearly indicates that he's not dreaming, but it's also clear that the entire concept of Inception is that each of us has the power to create our own reality, whether it's in the real world or the dream world. 

 

My Favorite Movies: #3—Pulp Fiction

3. Pulp Fiction (1994) 

Genre: Gangster Drama 

Director: Quentin Tarantino 

Writer: Quentin Tarantino 

Stars: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Ving Rhames 

Awards: 1 Oscar—Original Screenplay

Metacritic score: 94 

IMDB Ranking: #7

I first heard about this movie driving to work in St. Louis and listening to Morning Zoo radio host J.C. Corcoran try to describe this new movie he saw called Pulp Fiction. He failed, admittedly. He did not have words to explain the absolute genius of what he saw. All he could effectively say about it was go see it. I did.

Pulp Fiction is a completely transformative movie experience. It completely wipes away all your preconceived notions about linear narrative structure, plot connectivity, even cause-and-effect. It takes, quite literally, the types of lurid, violent, sexual stories from '50s-era pulp novels (named for the cheap paper they were printed on) and turns them into three interlocking cinema novellas that, when released, transformed everything we thought about what movies should and could be.

This was the movie that made Quentin Tarentino the most exciting director in Hollywood, that made Samuel L. Jackson a movie star, that made Uma Thurman a household name, but most unexpectedly, resurrected John Travolta's career from the dead in a way for which there are few other analogues in cinema history. 

Every aspect of this profane, violent, thoughtful, and darkly hilarious film is extraordinary, but allow me to point out a few of the more obvious qualities of greatness. Of course, the non-linear story structure, while not unheard of in film, has never been done more effectively. Massively complicated flow charts have been posted on the Internet attempting to chart the chronology of events, but that's not necessary. In fact, the non-linear structure is one of the primary appeals of the film.

The three stories work independently but contain important interactions. The primary story is that of Jules (Jackson) and Vincent (Travolta), two hired killers in the employ of drug kingpin Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames), who are sent to reacquire a briefcase with something extremely valuable inside. We never find out what it is, which gives the film a timeless mystery for film geeks to debate about. They kill three young men to get the briefcase, taking their inside man along with them as they leave. This is the story that essentially opens the movie, with the aftermath acting as the close.

The next story is self-contained, although Jules and Vincent discuss it in the first part. Marcellus is out of town and has asked Vincent to take his wife, Mia (Thurman), out to keep her company. There are two problems here. First, there is an enormous attraction between Vincent and Mia, which Vincent works hard to resist, as he has no desire to mess with the boss's wife. Second, Vincent is a heroin addict, and Mia is a coke head. She finds Vincent's bag of heroin, and mistaking it for cocaine, snorts a bunch of it and has a nearly fatal overdose. If you've never seen what Vincent does to save her life (and by extension, his own), I'm not going to spoil it for you except to quote Rosanna Arquette's reaction to what happens: "That was fuckin' trippy!"

The third story is called "The Gold Watch." Washed-up boxer Butch (Bruce Willis) is paid by Marcellus to throw a fight. Instead, he bets a ton of money on himself, knocks out and kills his opponent, then grabs his girlfriend to run away with his money. One problem: she forgot to pack his gold watch, his only connection to the father he never met who died in a Vietnamese prisoner-of-war cell. He risks everything to get his father's gold watch, and I do mean everything. What happens is another bit of genius that I won't spoil; suffice it to say that when Butch tells his girlfriend, "Baby, this has been the weirdest day of my life," you will totally agree with him.

The last act of the movie is titled "The Bonnie Problem," and it is a continuation of the briefcase story that opened the film. Vincent accidentally shoots their young accomplice, Marvin, in the face, splattering his head all over the inside of the car. They flee to the home of their nearest compatriot, a coffee connoisseur named Jimmy (Tarantino, who likes to act, too), who only agrees to help them if they're gone before his wife, Bonnie, comes home from work. Jules calls Marcellus, who assures him to relax...he's sending "The Wolf" (Harvey Keitel), who "solves problems." Boy, does he ever!

The dialog throughout the movie is perhaps the best of any movie I've ever seen. Tarentino's real genius is for making mundane conversations seem deep and meaningful, and scene after scene of this movie does that so effectively. Like my previous two selections this week, every scene is iconic, but none more so than when Vincent and Mia dance at the retro restaurant "Jack Rabbit Slims." (Side note: why did no one ever make this restaurant a reality?)

I can't depart without mentioning the soundtrack as well. A mix of R&B, blues, rock, pop, oldies, and surfer-dude guitar, the soundtrack is as important as any other aspect of this film in making it so memorable. I could write an entirely different blog entry (and very well may someday) on the philosophy of this movie, which grapples with the concept of miracles and fate in a way that few other scripts dare to attempt. I have no further superlatives with which to praise this film, other than to urge anyone who hasn't seen it before to watch it at your earliest opportunity.  

My Favorite Movies: #4—The Silence of the Lambs

4. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) 

Genre: Suspense Thriller 

Director: Jonathan Demme 

Writer: Ted Tally (screenplay), Thomas Harris (novel) 

Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Scott Glenn 

Awards: 5 Oscars—Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Adapted Screenplay

Metacritic score: 85 

IMDB Ranking: #23

My blog club buddies Steve Lewis and Jeff South have already written great blogs about this movie, both gentlemen writing eloquently about the genius that is the classic film The Silence of the Lambs. (Read both their blogs, linked with their names above, about this film to get their take on the mastery of the acting and the filmmaking.) So rather than go back over territory that has been properly covered, let me take a different angle toward this movie.

The Silence of the Lambs follows the classical pattern of the Greek and Roman hero story, but in this case, our hero is a woman. The pattern is as follows: a) The function of the hero is to redeem humanity; b) The hero's final burden is confronting his own mortality; c) He pursues death to achieve immortality of reputation; d) He is isolated from others yet craves companionship and love; e) women are either a distraction or a threat; f) His heroic skills puts his home city at risk.

How does Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) fulfill this heroic pattern? Her task is to redeem humanity in the person of Catherine Martin (Brooke Smith), who stands to be the next victim of serial killer Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). As Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) so astutely perceives, she thinks that if she saves Catherine, maybe it will exorcise her own demons in her past—to make the lambs stop screaming.

In order to do so, she confronts the reality of death at every turn. She is forced, in her conversations with Dr. Lecter, to talk openly about the death of her father, the primary event of her childhood that haunts her. She pursues death in getting the advice of a cannibalistic serial killer in order to catch another killer who skins his victims to make himself a woman suit. She assists in autopsies and comes face-to-face with the darkest aspects of human depravity.

Her special talents as an investigator bring her into the service of FBI agent Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn), but that isolates her from the rest of her FBI Academy classmates. She only has one close friend, Ardelia, a fellow cadet, but men loom over and around her throughout the movie. Director Jonathan Demme shows us over and over again how men are constantly looking at Clarice with either distaste or lust. Every man in this movie is either a threat or a distraction to her, even those who help her. Her skills don't put a city at risk, but because she finds Buffalo Bill separate from her FBI colleagues, it puts both herself and Catherine Martin at great risk.

Greek heroic stories also followed a predictable pattern that is mirrored in Clarice's story. Heroes often had to avoid death as an infant. In Clarice's case, she has to survive being orphaned rather than dying herself. Heroes often had prophecies spoken about them. For this movie, Hannibal Lecter is the Oracle who is called upon to provide the secret knowledge needed for Clarice to complete her quest.

The heroic journey follows, taken either alone or with companions, in which the hero faces multiple challenges, usually consisting of monsters. Clarice has Ardelia and Agent Crawford helping her, but she faces the monsters of Lecter, Bill, and Dr. Frederick Chilton (Anthony Heald, so creepy!) on her own. Part of the quest involves a descent into the underworld in order to learn how to complete the quest. Clarice descends into the underworld twice, the first time she meets Dr. Lecter (look how she goes down, down, down, how everything is red and then cold and dark...brilliant!) and when she descends into Bill's basement to confront her final terror.

The victorious hero in Greek mythology was often rewarded with a throne and a bride. Clarice gets to graduate from the FBI Academy, which was her initial goal. The movie itself did something almost no other movie in American pop culture history has ever done—sweep the five major Oscar categories: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay. Even more amazing, this movie was released in February of 1991, 13 months before the Academy Awards that it would dominate.

This is not just an absolutely terrifying movie (although it is, and you really can't get a sense for how scary it was unless you see it in a dark theater for the first time), it is a brilliant psychological thriller as well as a master class in writing, acting, and directing. It is an absolute masterpiece. 

 

My Favorite Movies: #5—Raiders of the Lost Ark

5. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) 

Genre: Action-Adventure 

Director: Steven Spielberg 

Writer: Lawrence Kasdan (screenplay), George Lucas (story) 

Stars: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, John Rhys-Davies, Denholm Elliott 

Awards: 4 Oscars—Art Direction, Sound, Editing, Visual Effects 

Metacritic score: 85 

IMDB Ranking: #41

The greatest adventure movie of all time, Raiders of the Lost Ark was the brainchild of friends and fellow wunderkind directors Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, and it's still one of the best movies either man has ever made. It's also what I consider Harrison Ford's most iconic role; with all due respect to Han Solo, who I love unconditionally, when I think of Ford, I think of Indiana Jones.

Spielberg and Lucas wanted to make an homage to the adventure serials of their youth, low-budget, cheesy productions with two-dimensional characters, predicable plots, mustache-twirling villains, damsels in distress, and most of all, weekly cliffhangers that kept you coming back for more. What they did with the concept was to turn it all into high-quality movie magic.

The characters are familiar tropes with complex motivations. Indiana Jones is an archaeology professor with a passion for history and a belief that the treasures of antiquity belong to the whole human race, and therefore, inside a museum. His antagonist foil is Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman), a French archaeologist who always seems one step ahead of Dr. Jones, showing up to collect by force what Indy has gained by guile, wit, and bravery.

The movie's plot has epic, monumental stakes at hand. The Nazis, on the verge of taking control of Europe, are digging in Egypt for the fabled Lost Ark of the Covenant, the golden chest sacred to the Israelites of the Old Testament, in which they kept the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. Hitler believes possession of it will make his army invincible. Belloq wants to use it to talk to God. Indy wants to put it in a museum. The Ark itself has other intentions.

Marian Ravenwood (Karen Allen) is no damsel in distress. She can outdrink and outfight most of the men who are trying to get from her a piece of the puzzle that leads to the Ark. She's an old flame of Indy's whose presence in his adventure gives him an additional motivation. As he says at one point, when threatening to blow up the Ark with a rocket-launched grenade, "I just want the girl."

Every scene in this movie is not just memorable but iconic. The opening scene in South America where he grabs a golden idol, only to barely escape a gauntlet of booby traps, has been imitated and parodied countless times. From the bar fight in Nepal to the street fight in Cairo, from the map room to the Well of the Souls, from the truck chase through the desert to the ship and the submarine, and finally, to the terrifying conclusion in which the true power of the Ark is revealed, every second of this movie is positively brilliant.

That's not to say it's perfect, however. There are plenty of plot holes to quibble about, as was infuriatingly pointed out in an episode of The Big Bang Theory. I had my own questions at age 13 seeing it for the first time, especially wondering why Indy didn't drown on top of the submarine. I think Spielberg actually left the plot holes in on purpose as an homage to those cheesy old serials. Something can't be "greasy burger and fries" if you're actually going for "escargot and caviar." I think he wanted the flaws so we would use our imaginations to fill in the blanks just like he and George did when they were kids. 

It didn't matter to me then, and it doesn't matter to me now. I saw this movie six times in the theater during its initial release in 1981, and I loved every minute of it. This may actually be the most iconic movie in American history. Think about how many other movies where only two props—a brown fedora and a bullwhip—tell the whole story. Out of the magnificent career of composer John Williams, has there been a more stirring and inspirational theme than that of Indiana Jones? Yeah, Star Wars, probably, but they are cut from the same cloth.

There are a lot of movie goers who hated the fourth movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I'm not among them. Was it silly and unnecessary? Of course it was. Was there a lot to complain about? Sure. But I got to see Indy and Marion finally walk down the aisle together. That was worth the price of admission alone. And to be completely honest, I would pay ten dollars to watch a two-hour movie called Indiana Jones and the Archaeology Lecture. 

Truth be told, so would many of you!

My Favorite Movies: #6—The Shawshank Redemption

6. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) 

Genre: Prison Drama 

Director: Frank Darabont 

Writers: Frank Darabont (screenplay); Stephen King (story) 

Stars: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman 

Awards: 7 Oscar nominations—Picture, Actor (Freeman), Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Sound, Film Editing, Original Musical Score 

Metacritic score: 80 

IMDB Ranking: #1

I think I may have finally reached the one film that we all can agree deserves to be on most people's "Best/Favorite" Movies list, although we can (and almost certainly will) quibble about where it deserves to place in the final tally. I originally had it on my master list all the way down at #14, but every day that I've worked on this, I've compared it to the movies I rated above it and moved it up. This is as high as it can go for me, however, not because The Shawshank Redemption is not an almost perfect film in every way, but because my top five are so good and closer to my own heart and experience.

The movie's own road to success and adoration has been a strange story in itself. Virtually overlooked in its initial theatrical run, it was nevertheless nominated for a Best Picture Oscar in 1994. That bit of notoriety led to a growing popularity on home video (remember that, kids?) and eventually its ubiquitous presence on cable TV, where I will watch it when found, regardless of what point in the movie it's playing. 

It's also probably the best movie ever made based on material previously written by Stephen King. Since it's not a horror or supernatural story, and it comes from a lesser-known collection of novellas called Different Seasons (which also features "The Body," which became Stand By Me), it was never marketed as a "Stephen King movie." The original story is called "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption," and it's the rare case in which the movie is actually better than the original story.

There are few modern movies as beloved as The Shawshank Redemption (it's rated #1 on IMDB), and I give credit to the two main actors for this. As an audience, we are totally invested in the friendship between Red (Morgan Freeman) and Andy (Tim Robbins). Over a span of 20 years, we see through Red's eyes how Andy learns to survive in prison, how he trades his financial skills for special privileges, and how he escapes in the most unlikely of ways.

But this isn't the end of the story, nor is it the part that we take away from it. Red is eventually paroled—ironically, once he reaches the point where he no longer cares what the parole board thinks—and he follows a series of clues that Andy left behind for him to join him on a beach in Mexico. Their final reunion on the shore of the blue waters of the Pacific is one of the most beautiful and emotionally satisfying conclusions to any movie I've ever seen. 

Credit also goes to Frank Darabont, a genuine Stephen King junkie who wrote the screenplay and directed the film. It was his vision and desire that helped get the film made as well as creating the classic that we love. The supporting cast of character actors are also highly memorable, particularly William Sadler (Heywood), Bob Gunton (Warden Norton), Clancy Brown (Captain Hadley), James Whitmore (Brooks), and Gil Bellows (Tommy).

Ultimately, this is a movie about hope. Red considers hope to be dangerous, the one thing an inmate cannot afford, lest it drive him to madness. Andy teaches him that hope is perhaps the best thing that a man can have, and it is this lesson that enables Red to survive both prison and parole long enough to be able to take the chance to look for Andy on that Mexican beach. And in that moment, we as an audience share in that hope as well.