Free Republic's Top Movies (Vanity)

- ^ | 2/23/03 | Me

[pupdog]

In a recent thread, Freepers were asked to discuss their favorite movies, and we did, 470+ posts worth.

Well, far be it from me to miss an opportunity for statistical analysis and scientific inquiry, so I compliled all of the results, and present them to you here. I bring to you, Free Republic's Top 124 movies:

#77-124 (3 votes each):

The Andromeda Strain, Armageddon, Arsenic and Old Lace, Back to the Future Part 3, The Birds, Cinema Paradiso, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Dawn Of The Dead, Deliverance, Dirty Harry, The Empire Strikes Back, Flight Of The Phoenix, Forbidden Planet, Full Metal Jacket, Glory, Gone With The Wind, Groundhog Day, Heat, Henry V, The Hunt For Red October, Immortal Beloved, Kelly's Heroes, Last Of The Mohicans, Lawrence of Arabia, Life Is Beautiful, Little Big Man, Machurian Candidate, McClintock, The Mummy, My Fair Lady, The Pink Panther series, Popeye, Predator, Raisin' Arizona, Sand Pebbles, Sense And Sensibility, Signs, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Spiderman, Star Wars, The Thing, The Third Man, Tremors, True Lies, Unforgiven, The Usual Suspects, The Women, Yentl

#53-76 (4 votes each):

Aliens, Back To The Future, The Best Years Of Our Lives, The Big Lebowski, Black Hawk Down, Blade Runner, Caddyshack, A Clockwork Orange, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Exorcist, Fiddler On The Roof, The Gods Must Be Crazy, Life Of Brian, The Man Who Would Be King, O Brother Where Art Thou?, The Quiet Man, The Searchers, The Shawshank Redemption, Stalag 17, Thin Man series, Top Gun, Treasure of the Sierra Madres, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Wizard Of Oz

#32 - 52 (5 votes each):

Amadeus, Apocalypse Now, Ben Hur, Brazil, Chariots Of Fire, Dumb & Dumber, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, A Man For All Seasons, Midway, North By Northwest, Office Space, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Rear Window, Shane, The Ten Commandments, This Is Spinal Tap, The Sound Of Music, We Were Soldiers, Young Frankenstein, Zulu

#23 - 31 (6 votes each):

African Queen, Animal House, Apollo 13, Dr. Strangelove, Gettysburg, Gone With The Wind, Goodfellas, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, My Big Fat Greek Wedding

#19 - 22 (7 votes each):

Alien, Doctor Zhivago, Gladiator, The Godfather Part III

#15 - 18 (8 votes each):

Blazing Saddles, Das Boot, Red Dawn, Saving Private Ryan

#10 - 14 (9 votes each):

Citizen Kane, It's a Wonderful Life, Outlaw Josey Wales, Patton, Pulp Fiction

#9 (10 votes):

Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers

#8 (12 votes):

The Matrix

#5 - 7 (13 votes each):

Casablanca, The Godfather Part II, The Patriot

#4 (14 votes):

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

#3 (15 votes):

Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring

#1 - 2 (23 votes each):

Braveheart, The Godfather

Yes, a tie. I'll let you all now fight it out over which one is better.

There were 777 movies mentioned altogether. There was some ambiguity in how people made their selections, but I won't bother getting into methodology, since this was just a fun diversion and not meant to be scientific.

What that, discuss.

[pupdog]

Now, since I compiled them, I get the right to make my-tatest-are-better-than-yours comments. :-) OK, I'll try not to be that bad, but you've been warned.

The Matrix: If you haven't seen them yet, download the trailers for the sequels: movies.yahoo.com has them. I'm salivating.

The Patriot: OK, I'm as patriotic as they get, and yet I'm wondering if I'm the only person here who really disliked this movie. I have a thing against movie cliches, and this one threw them at me faster than I could keep track of. Now Braveheart, on the other hand...

Pulp Fiction: A number of people posted that they didn't understand the appeal of this movie. I think this is really one of those you-get-it-or-you-don't movies. I liked it a lot, but I can see how others wouldn't. The best I can say to explain it is that it's not about plot, and entirely about dialogue. It's probably right up there at this point with Holy Grail for most-quoted-movie.

Brazil: Even with 5 votes, I think this was underrated. And I agree with those who pointed out how especially appropriate the movie is right now.

Dumb And Dumber: You know, I like dumb movies, and I love Jim Carrey. But...but... can I at least suggest Man On the Moon to ya? The Truman Show? Liar Liar? Even the first Ace Ventura?

The Wizard Of Speed And Time: The best movie that got only 1 vote. The reason I feel this way is I was the one vote. :-) I'm on something of a personal mission to spread awareness of this one as much as possible, so if you ever see it, rent it, buy it, etc.

[Az Joe]

SGT YORK-What a morality tale, what a war movie, what an American story.

[Capitalism2003]

Where is Terminator 2!? The action scenes in that are still tops...It's definately one of my favs...one vote!

[The Duke]

And you mean "To Kill A Mockingbird" received no votes?

[pupdog]

T2 got 2 votes, and yes, it is outstanding. I do wish, though, that they had left in the scene where John and his mother are having a power struggle over what to do with the cyborg, and left out the "Talk cool like a human" scene. Change that, and I'd probably add a vote for it.

[pupdog]

Nope, none at all. I saw it myself only once when I was really young (grammar school), so I think I need to pop that in again.

[pupdog]

Since some folks are asking about movies that aren't included above, here's the full list.

[speedy]

How in the name of Halliwell did "Yentl" make a Freeper list? And no "King Kong" or "Top Hat"?

[Cultural Jihad]

No mention of Luis Bunuel's "The Phantom of Liberty"?

"Disgusting!"

Or Costa-Gavras' "Z" or "The Confession"?

Or Frank Herbert's "Dune"?

[A_perfect_lady]

OMG, my all-time top-of-the-list movie that I love, that I saw in the theater 3 times, that I bought the minute it came out, it's not there!!

Does no one appreciate the cleverness and razzle-dazzle of MOULIN ROUGE???

And no, I am NOT being sarcastic. I really love that movie.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

I disliked The Patriot also. Too violent. I turned it off when they started burning down Mel Gibson's house.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Isn't that bottom one the bad old "Dune"? (OK, so the Harkonnens were better than the ones in the later version, but the miniseries did a much better job overall).

[chnsmok]

Can I vote again? I didn't understand that ballot. I think I voted for "Moon over Miami".

[Cultural Jihad]

The special effects may have been better in the SciFi miniseries, but the acting was rather flat, IMHO.

[Tamzee]

I have to admit to my fondness for Matrix :-)

BTW, am I the only one to see an analogy between the Zombie Liberal Sheeples and those poor suckers in Matrix living in the sickly green world of mind control and delusion?

[Cultural Jihad]

The 5th Element:

"This is the most extraordinary thing I have ever seen in my whole life!"

[pupdog]

BTW, am I the only one to see an analogy between the Zombie Liberal Sheeples and those poor suckers in Matrix living in the sickly green world of mind control and delusion?

Wake people up from the Matrix? Why, what kind of cruel person are you? The Matrix gives us everything we want: food, shelter, stability, warmth...OK, it's all computer generated, but you try telling that to a mother of 6!

The real word, on the other hand, is cold, it's dark, food is scarce, there's no health coverage, no education, no way for someone to find a meaningful job, it's all of our worst nightmares: and you just want to throw people into that based on your warped definition of freedom????

...uh yeah, I think I see what you're seeing. :-)

[Tamzee]

Every time I think of the two-party system, I can't help but see the scene with Morpheus and Neo...

The blue pill or the red pill? ;-)

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Something about "The Matrix" I never quite understood - why couldn't it just make everybody really happy, all the time? By all appearances, Neo's life in the matrix sucked.

[pupdog]

Something about "The Matrix" I never quite understood - why couldn't it just make everybody really happy, all the time? By all appearances, Neo's life in the matrix sucked.

They actually explained this. The first design of the Matrix did this, and "entire crops were lost." People simply couldn't accept it. What they redesigned it to, people could. It seemed more real. But even then, what wakes people up out of it is that sense that something is still wrong.