The Perfect Film

Lost Highway



This movie is a weird but perfect Mobius strip.


..and.. it's got Patricia Arquette ..and Barretta is in it!

 

I agree with that. The best thing about movies is that there are so many great ones that you can experience for the first time. To watch what one considers the perfect movie, if they had to do so on any sort of frequent basis, I'm sure a person would tire of it quickly. I know I would. The joy is in experiencing things that are new and contain genuine surprises (or perhaps watching something several times if a movie has a lot of depth - for 90% of films though, once is enough). And one movie, no matter how great, can encapsulate everything.

But if I had to choose, I think it would come down to the following. Apologies, I have not boiled it down to a single film. I would need to watch these again once or twice, and really think about it, to narrow it down.

Dial M For Murder
Pulp Fiction
Shutter Island
Taxi Driver
Chinatown
Mean Streets
Stand by Me
Carrie
The Shining

 

2001 A Space Odyssey

 

If I had to choose three movies...neither of them would be "perfect" anyway. But, they'd be 2001, Contact, and maybe My Favorite Year...but no...none of them "perfect". Just my choices.

 

City Lights

 

Lawrence Of Arabia

 

Haven't seen The Driver. Thanks. Gloria (the original Casavetes version with Gena Rowlands), of course, is legendary. And I just got around to watching Louis Malle's Atlantic City recently. Stays with you for a while. Susan Sarandon, the late Burt Lancaster and a great supporting cast do a great job of creating the portrait of a crumbling city trying to reinvent itself. It also helped that the city really was.

 

Nice poster. This film could have its own thread. It bears the kind of analysis that would yield pages of discussion and analysis. One of the greatest films, no doubt here.

 

The point was to get you to not think about it. A single choice that is undeniable to you. Nice ones, in any event. Pulp Fiction is very fun, though by design, it's a stylistic amalgamation of numerous film styles from the 1930s on.

 

Still haven't seen it. I'll get on it soon!

 

I think perhaps the most "perfect" film I've ever seen is Gus Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy (1989):

 

Never seen that, what is it about?

 

I first saw this one on a flight, to Japan I suppose. Not the best place to watch anything, and I thought it was just okay. Then I had the chance to see it on a big screen, and being better able to appreciate it, I had that feeling at some point, "Is this one of those perfectly crafted films? It can't possibly hold up." It did, literally to the last scene.

Kore-eda is one of the great filmmakers of any age to me. Before and after my rediscovery of Shoplifters. My favourite of his is Nobody Knows (2004). Never work with children, they say. I don't know how he does it.

 

It's dark but in a very good way if you are a film buff, it also has some good ol' dark humor in the right spots.

 

Dead Man is a great Jarmusch film that is a must see and Robert Mitchum's last film!

 

This thread is great in that it gives me a long list of movies to try and see. I have watched many of those named, but I have also missed a lot of them.

 

Um...snakes...on a plane...with (an angry) Samuel L. Jackson.

 

Harold and Maude

 

Seeing as Miller's Crossing has already been mentioned, I'll just add on its twin brother, The Usual Suspects.

Two films (not the best ever films) that if they happened to be on tv, I'd sit down to watch for the umpteenth time, be enthralled and still find something new.

 

Duck Soup.

If an alien race was asking me about what life is like on Planet Earth, I'd pick this for all its satirical, absurdist glory. Plus if we were facing annihilation, Harpo Marx would save us all. Hail Freedonia!

 

Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal

 

I have hundreds...all personal to me.

 

I occasionally think MEN IN BLACK is perfect. Not the most heartbreaking or meaningful, or necessarily even the funniest, though I do think it's very funny. It just clicks along with a great pace, and the funny, and the fantastic creature work by Rick Baker and just enough Will Smith being Will Smith, reigned in by just enough curmudgeonly Tommy Lee Jones. It has a little tug at the heart strings now and again, but every other bit makes me laugh and it's over in just the right amount of time. Satisfyin'. Perfect popcorn movie. Plus, what would the aliens think?

 

The Sting


It's just perfect in every way. Great acting. Great use of music. Cinematography. Pacing. I can watch it over and over again.