I love the variety the movies come in and the way you can choose a film to suit your mood. If you need to feel better, want to cry, feel like being frightened, its all possible.
The following are my favourite films in what I consider the main genres of cinema;
Action, Adventure, Animation, Biography, Comedy, Crime, Documentary, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Romance, Sci-fi, Sport, Thriller, War and Western.
Some of my choices may seem odd or you may disagree, that's cool. This is MY list of MY favourites. Hope you enjoy...
Action:
The Dark Knight
The second part of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy wins my favourite action film. This film is huge. I remember the first time I saw it, I hoped it wouldn't end. It got dark and Gothic as Batman should be and it gave us the performance of a life time from Heath Ledger. His portrayal of The Joker being one of the single greatest performances in cinematic history, no exaggeration.
Christian Bale improves in his role and the story line develops like the epic it is. It is dark, dingy and dirty. You feel like Gotham is the shit hole it is meant to be. With this second dose of Nolan's vision of Batman we finally saw the end of DC Comics flawed previous debacles.
Adventure:
Indiana Jones; Raiders of The Lost Ark
We first met Indie in 1981 in Raiders of The Lost Ark. This was seven years before I was born but I was brought up with a love for this franchise. It is cheesy at times and predictable but gave birth to an extremely successful franchise of films which many people love. It is exciting and entertaining, even if the special effects look dated now they can still be appreciated. Harrison Ford is brilliant as our hero and even though he was not the first choice for the part, I can't imagine anyone else doing it better, not even Tom Selleck!
Animation:
The Lion King
Biography:
Into The Wild
Even Kristen Stewart's inability to act doesn't take away from this film (why do people cast her?!) Sean Penn directs the film superbly and Emile Hirsch plays his role well. It follows the true story of Christopher McCandless who after graduating from university donates all of his savings to charity and hitchhikes to Alaska where he lives in the wild.The film shows his journey as close to the truth as is possible with the people he met, the things he did and the tragic end. A beautiful film I highly recommend.
Comedy:
Airplane!
Comedies simply need to be funny. It doesn't really matter how they achieve this, so long as you laugh. Airplane damn near killed me the first time I saw it. It is old, it is cheesy, it is dated and predictable, yet it is still hilarious. In every scene, background, foreground, voice over, everywhere, something funny is happening. From slapstick to one liners. Stereotypes to taboo mocking. This film implements every style of comedy it can. With a legend like Leslie Nielsen on board you know it will make you laugh. It does this in abundance. The best thing about this film is how simple it is. You don't need to think with this film, you can just watch it and piss yourself. It takes an easy storyline and fills it with extraordinary humour. If you don't laugh at this film you are dead inside. Simple! All comedy writers could do worse than refer to this film as a base structure. Keep it simple, make it funny in every way and make people laugh. That's why people watch comedy. The storyline is secondary, the humour is the goal.
Crime:
Trance
Great director, great cast, great twist, great film! I am a massive James McAvoy and Danny Boyle fan. So a film combining them was always going to win me over, but add to that great performances all round and a plot twist that fooled even me, and we have a sure fire winner for best crime film! It's a great piece of cinema and probably deserved more attention then it got.
Documentary:
9/11 The Falling Man
For my generation, the "where were you when..." moment was 9/11. Like our parents had the Kennedy Assassination or the moon landing, we had September 11th 2001. Like many people my age I was transfixed by the utter carnage that day and amazed by the love and sense of togetherness in the immediate aftermath. I have had somewhat of an addiction to the stories form 9/11 ever since. I have seen so many documentaries about that day, but none so poignant as this.
Falling Man is an image which was used in newspapers soon after the 9/11 attacks. It caused great controversy because of what the image shows. A man falling to his death from the World Trade Centre after the attacks. The picture was published due to the photographer who found it having an overriding sense of at ease from it. As if the man had accepted his fate and had made peace with it all. A striking image of beauty in a terrible place.
However as the documentary goes on to show in its search to identify the falling man, we learn that he was anything but at ease, and the image used was one of a series which depicts a very different sense all together. We learn the harrowing tales of those trapped in The World Trade Centre and some of the thoughts shared by family members and loved ones of those who chose to jump.
I am not ashamed to say I cried watching this. It reminded me how insignificant many issues can be. I cannot imagine what those poor people went through, but this documentary gets you close. A brilliant piece of investigative cinema and well worth a watch if you can bear to re-live that terrible day.
Drama:
My Sister's Keeper
Not as good as the book but still incredibly emotional and moving as all drama should be and keeps you tense right until the end. An incredibly sad story very well portrayed by the cast. I was surprised just how much I enjoyed this film.
Family:
Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs
A good family film is simply one that the whole family can enjoy. Pixar are incredibly good at making children's films which can reach out to adults with one liners or certain mannerisms etc, but Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs is the first genuine kids film I have watched and cried with laughter at. I love it. I am 25, my brother is 29. We both watch this film and cannot wait for the sequel. This is a film an entire family, regardless of age, can watch together and enjoy. It doesn't matter why the individual enjoys the film, its the togetherness that is accomplished through watching it which is important. A perfect example of a family film which parents will love as much as kids.
Fantasy:
Jurassic Park
I love this film. Great director and cast and the CGI is AMAZING! Even now that it is 20, that's right, 20 YEARS OLD! Can you believe that?! This film smashed box office records in 1993 and rightly so. It is awesome. Perhaps an odd choice for fantasy and could possibly be deemed more sci-fi but I feel it fits well here in my list. The idea of being able to see real dinosaurs is awesome but also only a fantasy, hence why it is my favourite film for this genre.
Horror:
Saw
Forget the franchise and let's just look at Saw, the first movie. As a stand alone piece it is epic. The acting is OK, not great, but good enough. The way it is shot and directed is what makes this film so good. The anxiety the viewer feels throughout the film is unparallelled in any film I have seen since. The gore was unbelievable and it was the first time anything of it's kind had been seen. I have never seen people react the way they did when this film first hit the screens. It blew The Exorcist, Blair Witch and all those others out of the water. This was a new beast in the horror genre. The franchise went too far and diluted this great piece with too much crap which ruined the whole story. However this film on it's own works, and it works well. All coming to a crescendo in that tiled room when the "body" in the middle stands up completely out f the blue. That scene blew my mind. The first saw "twist" and by far the best. This film introduced a range of characters unique to this film and a style which cannot and hopefully will not be copied. We also heard that music for the first time, the one that plays at the end when the film re-caps. Game over...
Mystery:
Shutter Island
GREAT, GREAT FILM! It made my top ten films ever list for a reason! The twist in this film is on the same level as Fight Club. It is immense. Leonardo DiCaprio at his absolute best and supported brilliantly by Mark Ruffalo, who despite a stupid surname, is a fine actor. Another masterpiece by Scorsese who makes this dark, disturbing epic an absolute pleasure to watch. With an ending which leaves the audience guessing and deciding for themselves what might happen next, just like any good mystery should.
Romance:
Love Actually
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7u6bMBlCXw
Sci-fi:
Alien
I had no choice really here. I love sci-fi. I could have gone for any of a hundred films, Blade Runner, Minority Report, Star Wars, Star Trek Into Darkness...
But no. There is one sci-fi film franchise which stands alone from all the others. And it began with Alien.
Following on from the success of Lucasfilm's Star Wars, 20th Century Fox wanted a sci-fi franchise of their own. They found one. Co-written and directed by James Cameron, Alien was the first sci-fi horror film ever. It was completely original in every way. The way it was filmed, the special effects, the use of darkness and sound. The trailer itself was incredibly. Cameron choosing to make several different trailers all involving similar aspects, just sound or flashing images. It was spine chilling.
It often appears in lists of the best films ever made, and even now, 34 years after it's release, new audiences are seeing it and enjoying it. This is one of the rare franchises where the following sequels were good throughout. Some were better than others, but the original, WOW.
Sport:
Invictus
An amazing true story of South Africa's fight to racial equality and how hosting the Rugby World Cup and winning it brought the nation together. Great performances by Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Damon as Francois Pienaar, the captain of South Africa.
Thriller:
We Need To Talk About Kevin
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This is a dark and disturbing film. It is almost as good as the book it is based on. It is filmed in an unusual way which flashes from the past to the present to the distant past. It follows Eva through her life, including the birth of Kevin. It is hard to discuss this film without giving the whole plot away. Just trust me when I say it's worth watching. Stick with it, it moves slowly but Ezra Miller plays a blinder in this film and comes across deeply disturbed. It isn't about jumps and frights, it is a thriller. Designed to make you question the film and anticipate the outcome but never quite knowing.
War:
Saving Private Ryan
An epic, a phenomenon, a masterpiece. Incredible director, incredible cast. Run away performances throughout. Also the only war film I have seen which gets somewhere close to the devastation of World War II and the Normandy landings. The beach scene is one which will always stick out to me as cinematic perfection. Spielberg got it spot on, without going over the top or holding back to protect the viewer. Deserved every award it got and gave rise to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, both equally impressive TV series which not only entertain but educate.
There are many other genres I have missed out. Westerns, Film Noire, Rom-Com etc. I haven't included these because, in the case of Western and Film Noire I haven't seen enough films to make a comparison. My choices would be for Western 3:10 to Yuma and for Film Noire; Sin City. I felt that given the lack of comparison to make I could not give a decent account as to my choices. Rom-com would be Love Actually again so there was no point including it.
I hope you enjoyed my genre favourites.
Much love
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