Favorite Movies
Pictures are for entertainment, messages should be delivered by Western Union. —Samuel Goldwyn
Ran, Greenwich Film/Nippon Herald/Herald Ace, 1985
I must have seen thousands of movies. Some are the ones that I’m not very proud of having seen, such as Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Titanic (1997), and the LOTR trilogy; some others are, well, my favorites.
CURRENT FAVORITE(S)
- MOVIE: Pete Docter and Bob Peterson’s Up (2009)
- CHARACTER: Christoph Waltz’s Colonel Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009)
MOVIES (selected)
- Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972)
- Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca (1942)
- Kurosawa Akira’s Ran (1985)
- Zhang Yimou’s Ying xiong (2002)
- Luc Besson’s Léon (1994)
- Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
- Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
- Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001)
- Andy and Larry Wachowski’s The Matrix (1999)
- Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995)
DIRECTORS
- Kurosawa Akira (1910-1998) in Rashômon (1950), Shichinin no samurai (1954), Kagemusha (1980), and Ran (1985)
- Zhang Yimou (1951-) in Da hong deng long gao gao gua (1991), Wo de fu qin mu qin (1999), Ying xiong (2002), and Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia (2006)
- Giuseppe Tornatore (1956-) in Nuovo cinema Paradiso (1989) and Malèna (2000)
STORIES
- Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola’s in The Godfather (1972)
- Kurosawa Akira, Oguni Hideo, and Ide Masato’s in Ran (1985)
- Li Feng, Wang Bin, and Zhang Yimou’s in Ying xiong (2002)
- Philip Epstein, Julius J. Epstein, and Howard Koch’s in Casablanca (1942)
- Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D.M. Marshman Jr.’s in Sunset Blvd. (1950)
- Lars von Trier’s in Dogville (2003) and Manderlay (2005)
- Amy Tan and Ronald Bass’s in The Joy Luck Club (1993)
- Jonathan Hensleigh and J.J. Abrams’s in Armageddon (1998)
- Woody Allen’s in Match Point (2005)
- Tennessee Williams’s in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
- Joel and Ethan Coen’s in No Country for Old Men (2007)
- Jonathan and Christopher Nolan’s in The Dark Knight (2008)
- David Hare’s in The Reader (2008)
QUOTES
- Don Vito Corleone. I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can be careless. But not men. The Godfather (1972)
- Don Vito Corleone. I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse. The Godfather (1972)
- Don Vito Corleone. Never tell anybody outside the family what you’re thinking again! The Godfather (1972)
- Michael Corleone. Keep your friends close but your enemies closer. The Godfather: Part II (1974)
- Rick Blaine. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine. Casablanca (1942)
- John Keating. Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary. Dead Poets Society (1989)
- Gordon Gekko. Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Wall Street (1987)
- Alfred Ludlow. I followed all of the rules, man’s and God’s. And you, you followed none of them. And they all loved you more. Legends of the Fall (1994)
- Charles Foster Kane. Rosebud. Citizen Kane (1941)
- Bruce Nolan. Love me. Love me. Bruce Almighty (2003)
- King Qin Shihuang. Tian xia [All under heaven]. Ying xiong (2002)
- Joseph Goebbels. Es hat uns selbst beauftragt [They gave us the mandate]. Der Untergang (2004)
- Chris Wilton. The man who said, “I’d rather be lucky than good,” saw deeply into life. Match Point (2005)
- Prince Philip. Sleeping in the streets and pulling out their hair for someone they never knew. And they think we’re mad! The Queen (2006)
- Harry Lime. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, and they had 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. The Third Man (1949)
CHARACTERS
- Harada Mieko’s Lady Kaede in Ran (1985)
- Anthony Hopkins’s Dr. Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
- Marlon Brando’s Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972)
- Gary Oldman’s Detective Norman Stansfield in Léon (1994)
- Audrey Tautou’s Amélie Poulain in Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001)
- Belle in Beauty and the Beast (1991), Dr. Aki Ross in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), and Princess Fiona (before sunset) in Shrek (2001)
- Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine in Casablanca (1942)
- Charles Laughton’s Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
- F. Murray Abraham’s Antonio Salieri in Amadeus (1984)
- Chen Daoming’s King Qin Shihuang in Ying xiong (2002)
- Bruno Ganz’s Adolf Hitler in Der Untergang (2004)
- Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
- Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men (2007)
- Christoph Waltz’s Colonel Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009)
ACTORS
- Gary Oldman (1958-) in Dracula (1992), Léon (1994), Air Force One (1997), and Hannibal (2001)
- Anthony Hopkins (1937-) in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and The Remains of the Day (1993)
- Marlon Brando (1924-2004) in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), The Godfather (1972), and Ultimo tango a Parigi (1972)
- Robert De Niro (1943-) in Raging Bull (1980), The Untouchables (1987), and Cape Fear (1991)
- Kevin Spacey (1959-) in Se7en (1995), The Usual Suspects (1995), and American Beauty (1999)
See also:
Favorite Music
