I don't know how to separate favorites from essentials, and I can think of a number of movies that would have been essential had I seen them early enough in life to be shaped by them, but here goes:
Lawrence of Arabia
Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing
Wings of Desire
Serenity
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The Big Chill
Bless the Beasts and The Children (I was 15, okay?)
Star Wars. You know, the first one, in 1977
Big Night
Fearless
As several other meme-doers on my flist have mentioned, I feel more connected to television than to movies. Also, I just saw a photograph of a first hardcover edition of The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe and got to thinking about how much more I was originally shaped by books than by movies.
But, there you go. Ten movies that slotted into my consciousness well enough to make me see them more than once, buy when they came out on DVD, learn lines from, or be influenced by in life (e.g.: I took Arabic in college because of Lawrence.)
Crossposted from Dreamwidth, where there are
Comments
Serenity is the only movie I've ever seen 25 times.