John Hawkins polled right-leaning bloggers on their favorite movies, and here are the results. For the record, here are the ten movies I named. I came up with the list pretty quickly, so I probably forgot some more deserving ones. Anyway, trying to not be pretentious, I based my selection on what movies I would be compelled to watch if they were playing on TV (pretending it’s back in the day before DVRs and I watched just random things off the TV). Here they are:
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Princess Bride
Die Hard
The Empire Strikes Back
The Godfather
Tommy Boy
The Matrix
The Incredibles
The Dark Knight
Jaws
Looking at Hawkins’s list, the most glaring ones I forgot about are Raiders of the Lost Ark and Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Also, had I thought of them, Apollo 13 and It’s a Wonderful Life might have made the list.
UPDATE: SarahK’s list is here.
What about “We Were Soldiers”? Should be up near the top of the list.
Wait a minute!
What about The Boondock Saints?
“Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.”
“Serenity” would be near to top of my list.
I strongly urge you to locate a copy of “Montana” starring Kyra Sedgewick, Stanley Tucci, Phiip Seymour Hoffman, Robbie Coltrane, Ethan Embrey, John Ritter, and Robin Tunney. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119699/
I’m so glad you’re not one of the one’s who said “Schindler’s List”. Blech.
I can’t believe you left off Patton!
No “Band of Brothers”? What are you, some kind of Communist?? 8)
Cat Ballou.I know the starlet is a traitorous b**ch. But the movie is great.
Dirty Harry?
Rambo?
The Final Option? (Any movie that starts with a hippie protester getting shot through his bullhorn into the throat with a crossbow bolt has got to be good.)
Ghostbusters, they leave the university and become successful businessmen who make fun of bureaucrats.
Frank, why Empire Strikes Back, and not Return of the Jedi? Or even the original (later redubbed “A New Hope”)? Return of the Jedi had Princess Leia in a bronze bikini, and Vader finding ultimate redemption. Admittedly, there were Ewoks, and they are too close to monkeys for comfort, but a lot of them did die, after all.
You kids and your Hollywood movies…
Six of my list of ten made Hawkins’ top 20:
* Casablanca (1942)
* The Godfather (1972)
* The Godfather Part II (1974)
* Patton (1969)
* The Princess Bride(1987)
* Star Wars (1977)
My other four:
* The General (1927)
* The Magnificent Seven (1960)
* Stagecoach (1939)
* The Wizard of Oz (1939)
The newest movie in my list is 23 years old.
The Hunt for Red October
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Caine Mutiny
The Leone/Eastwood trilogy
The Longest Day
Das Boot
Run Silent, Run Deep
On The Waterfront
Patton
Cool Hand Luke
Rear Window
Sigh!! Blazing Saddles at only got four votes? Are you sure these were right of center blogs that were polled!?
Oooh! Kelly’s Heroes and Fugitive (“YOU FIND THAT MAN!”).
One more. The Seventh Cross.
Conan the Barbarian
The Scorpion King
The Untouchables
Caddyshack
Every Dirty Harry movie
The Green Berets
The Abyss
Aliens
Mad Max/The Road Warrior/Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
BraveHeart
Left off alot of John Wayne movies,Humphrey Bogart Movies, Clint Eastwood movies, Sean Connery Movies….. whittling down to 10 is tough.
Not a single Charlton Heston movie. You damned dirty bloggers 🙂
Ben-Hur is a classic that I enjoy every time I watch it.
“MarkoMancuso says:
March 5th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
The Hunt for Red October
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Caine Mutiny
The Leone/Eastwood trilogy
The Longest Day
Das Boot
Run Silent, Run Deep
On The Waterfront
Patton
Cool Hand Luke
Rear Window”
Run Silent Run Deep. Great choice!
Shawshank Redemption (why am I the first on here to name it?)
The Pianist (Polanski sucks and deserves to share a bottom bunk in the california prison system, but this movie is a masterpiece)
The Hunt for Red October (Right there with Bart Ramius, uh, I mean Marko Mancuso. Sean Connery’s Scottish Russian accent rocks!)
Those are my top three, and they are tied at the top. I love them all equally.
Runners-up include:
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Inglourious Basterds (the Good/Bad/Ugly-inspired Fur Elise at the beginning was sheer genius, as was the entire opening sequence)
To End All Wars
Bridge over the River Kwai
Empire of the Sun
The Longest Day
Empire Strikes Back
The Three Stooges Meet Hercules
Mystery Men
Galaxy Quest
Warriors of the Wind
The Last Unicorn
The Ten Commandments
Lord of the Rings trilogy
Moby Dick starring Gregory Peck
Team America: World Police
Quigley Down Under
All movies I liked enough to buy my own copy of. (except the Ten Commandments, but since that one gets played at least once a year, no need to buy it.)
Basil: Excellent choices, excellent. However I would like to include my old time favorite: “The Great Escape.”
Nobody said Trog? Comon’! Joan Crawford, people!
What about Willard? And Ben? Heh.
Millers Crossing “The Old Man is Still an Artist with a Thompson” Check it out.
And don’t forget Airplane! and The Naked Gun.
They both stick it to liberals so deftly that you don’t even notice that it’s happening.
But it’s really hard to beat On the Waterfront.
Night of the Living dead?
Jeremiah Johnson- 1972
“Matrix” isn’t conservative. It’s Gnostic and anti-authoritarian. And a lot of cops get shot by the “good” guys. Finally, it starts Lawrence Fishbourne, who acts like a pompous hipster douche the whole time.
Try fantasy instead. There’s a LOT of conservatism in fantasy.
“Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe”; and that fifth Harry Potter movie – the one with Dolores, lady of pain.
Then there’s the against-the-upstart-tyrant genre, which in order to work has to show the local, small towns under threat. So, “Scorpion King”. “Shrek”, too.
While there are some excellent nominations mentioned here. I am agonized that no-one has even mentioned the most quotable movie of all time. I am refering of course to “Rustlers Rhapsody” And yeah, it starred John Wayne’s kid Patrick as Bob Barber.
Blackie: Who in the hell are you?
Rex O’Herlihan: Just a stranger passing thru.
Blackie: Where in the hell did you get that shirt?
Rex O’Herlihan: The way a person dresses is nobody’s business but his or her own.
———————————
In another scene
Rex: I’ll curse if I wanna curse! Damn! Damn, damn, hell, damn, tee tee, doo doo!
Shenandoah (1965) with Jimmy Stewart. Worth it if only for the dialogue when soldiers tell farmer Charlie Anderson that his horses are being requisitioned.
“What’s requisition mean, Pa?”
“Stealing.”
Animal House!
Sorry I’m late–I blew out a wheel on my mouse.
The Wild Geese
Black Hawk Down
The Ghost and the Darkness
Fail Safe
Rudy
All of the above and Gran Torino.
Any film starring Chuck Norris. There — just saved this place from certain destruction.
“The Dirty Dozen” (1967)
“Slap Shot” (1977), despite Paul Newman’s big mouth
“Saving Private Ryan” (1998), despite Tom Hanks’ and Matt Damon’s even bigger mouths
Uh, “The Road Warrior”, anyone? How that didn’t make the list, I have no idea. Every time I run across it on TV, no matter at which point in the movie, I’m mesmerized… much to the wife’s chagrin.
How about, Hunt For Red October? In my opinion, the only way that movie could have been improved would have been if Harrison Ford had played the character who was played by Alec Baldwin.
Two of my other favorite movies are, Gunga Din and The Charge Of The Light Brigade, two old black and white movies. They don’t make movies like them anymore.
Scott, while I like Harrison Ford, the Jack Ryan portrayed by Tom Clancy in his novels is borderline wussy at times. He hates nuclear weapons. As president, he is a center-right moderate. He is a fairly ordinary man who is thrust into extraordinary situations and prevails far more by his wits than through his brawn. Alec Baldwin was a better choice for such a role than Harrison Ford, who actually did play the role twice, in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, neither of which were as good as Hunt for Red October. The Sum of All Fears, as a film, does not exist as far as I’m concerned. It is dead to me.