My girlfriend and I have been watching (renting) quite a few movies lately and we have sort of run out of ideas for what to see next. Most recently we have been watching all the Star Wars movies leading up to the newest one in the theaters, which we have yet to see. My favorite movies personally, are the Matrix movies. I was wondering, what are your favorite movies and recommendations?

My favourite movie is Hero.

Other movies I've enjoyed on DVD lately are:
Old Boy
Bubba Ho-Tep
Man on Fire
M (by Fritz Lang)
Freaks

I have somewhat eclectic taste I suppose.

Blazing Saddles (I live a couple of miles from Rock Ridge lol)
CB4
Half Baked
Roadside Prophets (if you can find it)
Ninja Scroll (I'm not an anime fan but this movie kicks butt!)
Demolition Man (classy humor and explosions to boot!)
Joe's Apartment
The Jerk
Fight Club
Evil Dead 2 and/or Army of Darkness
Cheech and Chong's Next Movie

of course it's always a good time to watch Easy Rider.

I want to recommend one new movie...
Gladiator (don't watch this at home unless you have a home cinema system)
... and one movie from the time before I was born:
The Good, the Bad, the Ugly
Truly, I had to recommend all films by Sergio Leone, but I tried to pick the best.

Andreas

I have those 2 on dvd too. As for Sergio Leone, I prefer Once upon a Time in the West. The Dollars films just came out in nice special editions, so I'll get those soon. I love dvd extra's, so I didn't get the vanilla editions.

In fact, about the only plain vanilla dvd I have is of Grosse Point Blank. That's a great little film too. Not to be confused with Point Blank, which I also like, but which isn't out on disc yet.

My dvd collection has about 220 titles by now, and I only got my player 18 months ago. I'm a bit of an addict.

The Good, Bad, Ugly is considered the best in the series for its epic scope, but my favorite of the three Eastwood spaghetti westerns has to be,

For a Few Dollars More - Much tighter pacing than G.B.U. and thus more action packed.

Kelly's Heroes - yes, another Eastwood movie. But this one's a really offbeat film. It's not a war movie; at its core it's a heist movie set in WW2. You get to see a lot of big names of that era in a fun comedy.

Seven Samurai - My favorite subtitled black and white. Hell, my fave B&W, subtitled or not. Toshiro Mifune rocks.

Armageddon - My favorite "guilty pleasure" movie. Despite its major flaws and plot holes (gigantic flaws and plot holes) I guess the idea of sacrificing yourself to save the world' collective bacon has a particular appeal, especially if you get schools named after you and have holidays in your honor. Glorious.

That's funny, I bought "Once upon a Time in the West" last week (DVD Collector edition),
I enjoyed the movie much more than when i watched it way back in 1974
(i was 12 then) I liked the way the movie is filmed, close ups, focus on details, etc.

I liked "the Hunger" another movie that treats the images in a similar way with David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve & Susan Sarandon (odd trio)

"La vie est belle" by Roberto Benigni
"Hasard & coincidence" by Claude Lelouche ( i like several of his movies)
"The Piano" by Jane Campion
"Koyannasqatsi" by Philip Glass

I use to like going to watch the " Lion d'Or" festival of commercials & advertissements
(5 hours of non stop commercials from around the world).

On the other hand, I can't stand the USA Genre movie that have cars flying left & right exploding all the time,
you know the classic scene: the car run into another car and does a sideways flip from behind then it explodes,
I can't believe Hollywood still films such scenes...anyway

Michael

No, no, no!
The Terminator 2 is the best film ever!
Followed by the Aliens Quadrilogy, Die hard trilogy and the Speed.
Some comedies like "Dirty rotten scoundrels" and the "Faulty towers" series are good!
Vadim

Huuh?

This movies are on my favorites too.
Question for Vadim: What do you think of Highlander?
Question to the rest (except Jin): Who else likes movies from Akira Kurosawa?
Since I am talking about directors, I want to state the obvious: Everything from Stanley Kubrick (the only great director not influenced by Kurosawa) is worth buying.

Andreas

I have to agree that Stanley Kubrick was a wonderful director. I loved his directing in "2001: A Space Oddysey", "The Shining", "Full Metal Jacket", and "A Clockwork Orange" (as strange as it was). His long, static shots can at times be tiresome, but that was his style and it worked well to give Space Oddysey the perfect feel. "The Shining" also had a great aesthetic. I never saw "Eyes Wide Shut" though...I heard it was an incomprehesible borefest.

how about TV series?

NARUTO!

KENSHIN!

Highlander is Great! (The original one) I love that film. I really did not like the "Highlander-3" and I cannot remember the number 2 though.

Vadim

I recommend his movie Ikiru.

David J

My film tastes are like my music tastes; I like a good mix of everything.

My personal faves:
1. Steel Magnolias
2. Gone With the Wind
3. Romeo + Juliet
4. Manic
5. The Safety of Objects
6. Lawn Dogs
7. Mission: Impossible (only the first one, MI2 blows)
8. Goodfellas
9. Shawshank Redemption/Green Mile (can't decide!)
10. Fifth Element

I also love The Matrix (first one mostly, Reloaded was okay and the less said about Revolutions, the better), anything starring Sandra Bullock, Pups, kids, Bully and anything even remotely to do with Kevin "Silent Bob" Smith. Oh, and the Back to the Future trilogy.

Can't wait for:
Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Red Dwarf
Sandra Bullock's next film.[/i]

Now that you said this, I have to marry you.
Truth is: I had a friend with a huge DVD collection. Problem was, that every movie I suggestes he disliked. The only exception was Kubricks "2001" and that one was suggested by him.


That would be "Crash".
BTW: She can speak german fluently. I wonder why she doesn't do the dubbing for the german versions.

Andreas

"Crash" was last year. Since then we've had "Loverboy" and "Miss Congeniality 2".
Sandy's next three films are "Il Mare", "Grace" (biopic about Grace Metalious, the author of "Peyton Place") and another as yet untitled film (to be directed by Doug McGrath who did the '96 version of Austen's "Emma"!)
It'll be interesting to see Keanu Reeves and Sandy back together in "Il Mare". Sliiiiightly different subject matter to "Speed"...

Fav. movie eh? Easy one, Ong-bak
Too bad I dont understand the language, makes it all sound, literally, like music

At the moment my favourite is Kill Bill. I also love the spaghetti westerns. The music is amazing.

OK. Better detail:

I already mentioned Akira Kurosawa's "Ikiru."
Very well written and shot
"The Philadelphia Story"
"The Thin Man"

"Romeo and Juliet"
"Mindstorm"
"2001"
"The Sting"

I got to see both "The Fifth Element" and "Galaxy Quest" yesterday.

I particularly like the spaghetti western "My Name is Nobody."

DJ

Thats an interesting movie. How often makes a director fun out of his own movies? I would be like George Lucas directing "Spaceballs"...

Hmm ... Lots of talk about Sergio Leone in this thread. But non has mentioned his true masterpiece ... Once upon a time in America. Great complex story. Best film score ever (Morricone) and it can be seen over and over again dicovering new things u had missed. And oh yes, Elisabeth McGovern was really amazingly beautiful at the time in 1983

Other favorite movies are :

Le Bal (Ettore Scola)
Il Conformista (Bernardo Bertolucci)
1900 (Bernardo Bertolucci)
Jean de Florette I+II (Claude Berri)
One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman)
Children of Paradise (Marcel Carne)
Raiders of the lost Ark (ok this one is very different from my general taste, but i still think it's really good and funny )
Alien I (kinda different too! )
Betty Blue (Jean Jacques Beineix)
Pelle the Conqueror (Bille August)
Mephisto (Istvan Szabo)
The Unbearable lightness of being (Philip Kaufman)
Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick)
Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore)
Il Postino (Michael Radford)

And lots more ...

Cheers!

-Per

I can't believe Godfather II has not been mentioned yet. Also:
Goodfellas
Dead Poets Society
Field of Dreams
Seven
Finding Nemo
Shrek
Snatch
Spaceballs
My Cousin Vinny
Dude Wheres My Car
American Beauty

among others