Jeff's Top Ten Favorite Films

I honestly can’t remember a time of my life without movies. There were movies I watched so many times as a kid that I can’t remember when I first saw them and the VHS tapes eventually wore out. Some of these included the original Star Wars trilogy (1977, 1980, 1983) and Steven Spielberg films like E.T. (1982), Hook (1991), and Jurassic Park (1993). To me as a kid movies were these sort of other-worldly awesome things that I never saw as anything more than entertainment. All I knew was that I enjoyed them and couldn’t wait for the next Batman movie, the next Star Wars prequel movie, or when they were finally going to turn Harry Potter into a movie. So at that time I had no interest in movies that weren’t handed to me by current mainstream pop culture.

But then when I was fourteen years old I watched Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining (1980). It wasn’t a movie that terrified me (at first) but I remember that after it was over I was just sort of staring blankly at the screen as the credits rolled. I remember thinking “So was he a ghost? Did the hotel consume him? What was with that bear costume?!?!?” I remember having questions that just weren’t answered and never were when I watched the movie again. And again. And twenty more times. I had never experienced that in watching a movie; something that challenged me and didn’t give me a resolution that I wanted but one that was still satisfactory. So began my journey as a cinephile. I thank Stanley Kubrick for showing me the way, haha.

Like Charlie, it took me a while to pinpoint a list of ten favorites. I would say 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Citizen Kane (1942), and City Lights (1931) have been my absolute favorites for a long time. Recently I’ve been fixated on Brazil (1985) and Groundhog Day (1993) so I knew they should be on the list. Take note that this list is in alphabetical order because I feel it would be unfair for me to place one above any other on the list since I love them all for so many reasons.  

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Brazil (1985)
Citizen Kane (1942)
City lights (1931)
Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Fight Club (1999)
Groundhog Day (1993)
Vertigo (1958)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Honorable mention would include The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), The Big Lebowski (1998), and…ok fine I’ll say it, Die Hard (1988).