Posted on 09/12/2009 9:47:56 PM PDT by Saije
Frank Darabont, the director of The Shawshank Redemption, has words for the millions of people who believe his 1994 prison drama is the greatest film of all time. “I think that’s a little crackers, to be honest, especially when you think of the other films on the list.” He means films such as The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Lolita, Vertigo and foreign-language contenders like Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist, Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, Luis Buñuel’s Belle de jour or Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant.
But, hey, pointy-headed film critics can have their highfalutin’ crushes. There’s no getting round the fact that The Shawshank Redemption, which stars Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, is consistently being voted the best film ever in all sorts of readers’ polls. It currently sits atop the 250 best movies of all time on the world’s most popular cinema website, imdb.com, as it has done for most of the past decade...Empire’s readers have also voted Shawshank their favourite film of all time.
What gives? How has a film set mainly in a bleak prison, in which women are barely glimpsed, by an unknown first-time director, adapted from a little-known Stephen King novella, become such an enduring crowd-pleaser? Shawshank tells the story of the friendship of two prison inmates, Andy, played by Robbins, and Red, played by Freeman. It’s a film that can make strong men — including the rugby star Jonny Wilkinson, who loves it — blub like babies and insist that they will change their lives pronto. Devotees quote its life-affirming mantras: “You can get busy living or get busy dying”; “Fear can keep you a prisoner. Hope can set you free”.
(Excerpt) Read more at entertainment.timesonline.co.uk ...
I like all three.
Best film ever is The Goonies!
Followed closely by Braveheart, Goodfellas, and The Silence of the Lambs.
It would have been OK if Robbins wasn’t so much of an ***!!!
Not even close.
Nothing with Tim Robbins could be the best film ever.
Hey all the ones you listed are in my top 10. (except goonies)
Well he did make Shawshank before he became so well known as a lefty d**che so I try to look past that.
Heat is one of the most underrated movies of all time . . . probably because of its inaccurate reputation as a “shoot ‘em up” action movie. Great cast, awesome story line, and compelling dialogue. Riveting, dramatic scenes, too.
ditto! and i didn't even see it for the first time until 2-3 years ago... i've seen it 4-5 more times since...
It’s probably in the top 5 best prison movies ever.
Shawshank’s an example of a movie so compelling that you can watch it multiple times and feel a little bit more human and enlightened each time. There are a couple of dozen films like that. But the best one of all is Doctor Zhivago. David Lean is like Rembrandt with a movie camera; and the script is quote after quote as to why communism sucks to high heaven. Quotes and scenarios, like a parade (or a funeral procession) simply and mercilessly hammer communism into the ground.
i wouldn’t put Vertigo on that list... it’s good—but one of the best?
Red Dawn (#1 most hated film by the left)Green Berets (#2 most hated film by the left)
Terminator 1
Godfather
Scarface (Pacino)
Cross of Iron
Goodfellas
Das Boot
Casino
Dirty Harry
Let's see what film critic Jeremiah Wright says
It only starred one black man. That's a lotta crackers!
Absolutely agree. It is definitely more than an action movie. Not a movie critic so won’t try to act like one but Heat operates on multiple levels and I think something different about it everytime I watch it.
Shawshank was obviously a lefty film.
come on.. Gigli IS the best movie ever!!
I loved Red Dawn!
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