I like films, and at one time in my life was fairly obsessive about it. Because of this, I am often asked for movie recommendations, and I usually draw a blank aside from a few obvious choices.
In this post I present the films that I would recommend to people, but with a few notes:
- First, it’s entirely possible that there are quite a few more films that I would recommend that I’m not remembering right now.
- Second, there are many more films that I enjoyed, but not enough to add them to this list.
- Third, while some are truly great films, I avoid overly violent films so those are absent from the list.
- Finally, as new films come along that I love, I’ll come back to this with edits.
Cute, simple fun
Before we get to the real list, let’s start with a selection of cute, simple films that are rewatchably fun but that I wouldn’t exactly want to add to a list of recommended films. I realize there are people who might roll their eyes at me for loving these films, but love them I do, and I rewatch them often:
50 First Dates- About a Boy
- America’s Sweethearts
- Blast From the Past
- Clueless
- Legally Blonde
- Notting Hill
- Shallow Hal
- You’ve Got Mail
The real list
Here’s the list, presented alphabetically, of films that I think are excellent for one reason or another. I considered sorting these by genre, but there are too many that are too difficult to sort. I will forever be editing this list…
About Time- Across the Universe
- Amelie
- American Beauty
- American President
- Bunraku
- Cabin in the Woods
- Cast Away
- Chicago
- Coming to America
- Constantine
- Dave
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (can we call this a film?)- The Fall
- The Fifth Element
- Fight Club
- Forgetting Sarah Marshall
- Galaxy Quest
- Get Shorty
- Groundhog Day
- Hopscotch
- The Informant
- Joe vs. the Volcano
- Kill Bill 1 & 2
- Little Shop of Horrors
The Long Kiss Goodnight- Love, Actually
- Lucky Number Slevin
- Magnolia
- The Man With One Red Shoe
- The Martian
- Matrix (only the first one!)
- Memoirs of the Invisible Man
- Men In Black trilogy
- Overboard (the original, not the remake)
- Pleasantville
- The Postman
- Princess Bride
Pulp Fiction- Real Men
- Roxanne
- The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (the remake)
- Serenity
- Shaun of the Dead
- Shawshank Redemption
- Signs
- The Sixth Sense
- So I Married an Axe Murderer
- Spirited Away
- Stranger Than Fiction
There’s Something About Mary- Trading Places
- The Truman Show
- Unbreakable
- Up
- Usual Suspects
- Warm Bodies
- Yesterday