PopGap Extra: Five-Star Movies

PopGap Extra: Five-Star Movies

Written by dorrk
14 August 2017

My final offer is this: nothing.

The trend online these days is to have binary opinions: everything is the best or the worst. I'm very stingy with "the best" and only award my highest ratings of "5 Stars" or "10/10" to movies that I think are either practically perfect or that are so ingrained in my view of what movies should be that I can't possibly think of them objectively.

These are my Top 20 movies of all time, as currently ordered on my Flickchart. Fifteen of these titles have been amongst my favorites since I began discovering movies, in my teens during the 1980s — and a few even predate that. More recent additions, like The Exorcist and Vertigo, have gained in my estimation over the decades, while the three newer entries — Boogie Nights, Lord of the Rings and Zodiac— impressed me later in life as masterful achievements that encompass everything that I love most about movies. Zodiac may be the most personal entry, as it mirrors my own obsessiveness about my favorite subjects, and is also the movie on this list that I, fittingly, still feel unaccountably compelled to watch every year.

#1: The Godfather Part II (1974)

#1: The Godfather Part II (1974)

Dir: Francis Ford Coppola
#2: The Godfather (1972)

#2: The Godfather (1972)

Dir: Francis Ford Coppola
#3: West Side Story (1961)

#3: West Side Story (1961)

Dir: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise
#4: Manhattan (1979)

#4: Manhattan (1979)

Dir: Woody Allen
#5: The Graduate (1967)

#5: The Graduate (1967)

Dir: Mike Nichols
#6: Tootsie (1982)

#6: Tootsie (1982)

Dir: Sydney Pollack
#7: Apocalypse Now (1979)

#7: Apocalypse Now (1979)

Dir: Francis Ford Coppola
#8: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

#8: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Dir: Irvin Kershner
#9: Star Wars (1977)

#9: Star Wars (1977)

Dir: George Lucas
#10: The Exorcist (1973)

#10: The Exorcist (1973)

Dir: William Friedkin
#11: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

#11: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Dir: Peter Jackson
#12: Taxi Driver (1976)

#12: Taxi Driver (1976)

Dir: Martin Scorsese
#13: Annie Hall (1977)

#13: Annie Hall (1977)

Dir: Woody Allen
#14: Vertigo (1958)

#14: Vertigo (1958)

Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
#15: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

#15: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Dir: Steven Spielberg
#16: Boogie Nights (1997)

#16: Boogie Nights (1997)

Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson
#17: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

#17: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Dir: Tobe Hooper
#18: It's a Wonderful Life (1944)

#18: It's a Wonderful Life (1944)

Dir: Frank Capra
#19: Singin' in the Rain (1952)

#19: Singin' in the Rain (1952)

Dir: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly
#20: Zodiac (2007)

#20: Zodiac (2007)

Dir: David Fincher