List your favorite films – one for each letter of the alphabet.
It was harder than it seems! I got stuck on a couple of letters and then there were a couple of letters that were clogged with choices of films and I had to choose.
Anyway, figured I’d make it fun by listing all of my films below – only not naming them directly – just showing a screenshot from the film.
If you MUST peek, I put the answers in the comments section at House Next Door. Fun! Equally as fun to see other people’s lists so feel free to add your own!
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
Hahahahaha. Xanadu. I just watched it not too long ago and the amazing thing about it is that it gets worse and worse with every scene. Just when you think “that is the dumbest thing I have ever seen in a movie,” the next one is even more terrible than the last. Academic essays could be written about how bad that movie is. I may write one myself.
Emily – But I love how we both keep watching it! Ha!!! There’s something riveting about badness that bad!
All About Eve
Bringing Up Baby
Cabaret
Drugstore Cowboy
Empire of the Sun
Fanny and Alexander
Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The
Hannah and Her Sisters
In America
Johnny Guitar
Klute
Lion in Winter, The
Meet me in St. Louis
Nashville
Overboard
Postcards from The Edge
Querelle
Reds
Schindler’s List
Tin Drum, The
Unzipped
Vertigo
Whats Up Doc
Xanadu
You Can Count on Me
Zelig
I adore you for putting Querelle on there. And Overboard!!!
This one’s gonna be a fun one….
Overboard..is one of my major guilty pleasures..have to watch it..have to…and Brad Davis in Querelle in tight black pants..i mean, really?????
He was so hot.
And then of course there was the moment in – was it Del Mor’s – when I said the words “Richard Loomis” and you spontaneously burst into tears? Where were we when that happened??
Oh, definitely, Sheila. Gene Kelly on roller skates. I seriously want to kick the director’s ass for that scene where he’s changing clothes and skating around the shop with all these weirdly dressed people popping up everywhere. One of my favorite quotes is from the guy who played Sonny Malone – forget his name, Michael something, I think (forgive me!) – “The Warriors opened up a lot of doors for me as an actor. Xanadu closed them all.”
Hahahaha.
What a GREAT shot of Marty Feldman. I totally laughed out loud the moment I saw that look.
Used foreign language/English title as it suited me. If that makes me a cheat, well thenâ¦
Au Hasard Balthazar â Robert Bresson
Bade Runner â Ridley Scott
Chinatown â Roman Polanski
Double Indemnity â Billy Wilder
Every Which Way But Loose â James Fargo
Fanny â Joshua Logan
Gilda â Charles Vidor
His Girl Friday â Howard Hawks
It Happened One Night â Frank Capra
Jean De Florette (with Manon Of the Spring, i.e part 2) â Claude Berri
Krótki Film O Milosci (Short Film About Love) – Krzysztof Kieslowski
Les Enfants du Paradis (Children Of Paradise â Marcel Carné
Metropolis â Fritz Lang
None But The Lonely Heart â Clifford Odets
On The Waterfront â Elia Kazan
Pandoraâs Box – Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Quiet Man â John Ford
Roman Holiday â William Wyler
Searchers â John Ford
Third Man â Carol Reed
Un Coeur en Hiver (A Heart In Winter) â Claude Sautet
Vor (Thief)- Pavel Chukhraj
Wild Bunch â Sam Peckinpah
Xâ15 â Richard Donner
Year of Living Dangerously â Peter Wier
Zulu â Cy Endfield
Michael Beck.
I knew that without even looking it up, and that is the saddest thing I’ve ever realized about myself.
Don’t feel bad, Lisa. I was actually kind of ashamed of myself for not being able to remember it.
Great list, nice to see such a preponderance of Hawks (including my own personal favorite, which begins with O). And nice selection of images for the V film; I can’t imagine a frame that better sums up that movie.
Lisa – hahahahahaha Wear your random knowledge with pride!
Ed – the “O” movie is my personal favorite too!
Avoiding looking at others first:
Airplane!
Brazil
City of Lost Children, The
Day the Earth Stood Still
Evil Dead
From Dusk ‘Til Dawn
Grindhouse
House of Sand and Fog
Innerspace (I watched this movie so many times when I was young)
Jacob’s Ladder
Kill Bill
Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
Mad Max
Notorious Bettie Page
Once Upon a Time in China (1-5 are all excellent)
Prophecy
Quiz Show
Repo Man
Seven Samurai
Tears of the Sun
Unbreakable
Very Bad Things
Without a Clue
X-Men
Year of the Comet
Zombies of the Stratosphere
OK, now I can look at other people’s stuff.
Cullen – damn, Brazil – how could I have forgotten it?? Good list!
George – great great stuff. We are kindred spirits in many ways. Year of Living Dangerously – adore it! None But the Lonely Heart – you never hear people talk about that movie!
Top of my head:
Almost Famous
Blade Runner
Casablanca
Dark City
Exorcist, The
Field of Dreams
Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, The
How The West Was Won
Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
Jurassic Park
Kelly’s Heroes
Local Hero
Man In The Moon
No Time For Sergeants
Omen, The
Pulp Fiction
Quick and the Dead, The (Couldn’t think of anything else)
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Sorcerer
Topper
Unforgiven
V for Vendetta
Where Eagles Dare
X-Men
You Can’t Take It With You
Zorro
Sheila, I’ve been lurking here for a few weeks now – I love reading your blog. I finally HAD to come out of lurkerdom to laud your choice of letters G and V (yeah, I scrolled directly to both to see if you’d chosen my personal two faves and indeed you had). Groundhog Day and Vertigo, two of my all-time favorite movies! And Xanadu, of course! I have it on DVD and love it. Who can resist the dueling tap dancing of Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly? Who, I ask? LOL!
There have been many great movies mentioned – no one has gone with my choice for the letter N, which is Network, so I wanted to pitch it out there for consideration. To the poster named George – what a great choice in The Year of Living Dangerously! I’ll never forget the last few minutes of that film, especially when Guy Hamilton says goodbye to his friend (whose name eludes me alas), I’m paraphrasing here, but basically he implores Guy to always remember him in his mind’s eye as sitting at the cafe, drinking coffee. And then Guy Hamilton disappears into the chaos, leaving that guy in the midst of an absolute nightmare. Damn, that scene gets me every time…
[And Sheila, I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for the wonderful essay your wrote on one of my favorite actresses of all time, Gena Rowlands. It was a great read, and I loved every word of it]
There were several letters that were VERY difficult to narrow down, but here’s my list.
A — American Splendor
B — Back to the Future
C — Clueless
D — Dogfight
E — E.T.
F — Fisher King, The
G — Gremlins
H — Hedwig and the Angry Inch
I — It’s a Wonderful Life
J — Jerk, The
K — Karate Kid
L — Life Is Beautiful
M — Magnolia
N — Nights of Cabiria
O — Outrageous Fortune
P — Party Girl
Q — Quick Change
R — Rear Window
S — School of Rock
T — Tootsie
U — Umbrellas of Cherbourg
V — Vertigo
W — Waiting For Guffman
X — (I’m completely stumped on this one. I fail.) (Apparently I don’t like any movies that start with an X.) (I’ve never seen Xanadu.) (I’m just gonna put Joe vs. the Volcano here because it was my second choice for J and I don’t want to leave this blank.) Joe Vs. the Volcano
Y — You Can Count On Me
Z — Zero Effect
So, I’m going to completely be lazy and just turn 180 degrees and look at the wall of DVDs behind me….
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Brick
Cinema Paradiso
Dr. Strangelove
The Empire Strikes Back
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Godzilla
The Hidden Fortress
The Iron Giant
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
Key Largo
Little Shop of Horrors
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Really, any Monty Python could go here…)
Nosferatu
Office Space
Planet of the Apes
Queen of Outer Space
Ravenous
Say Anything…
To Kill a Mockingbird
UHF
Vertigo
Waiting for Guffman
X-Men
Yojimbo
Zack and Miri Make A Porno
C, S and T were a real bitch to narrow down.
Thank you Sheila, for deleting my double post and for censoring me — I tried to e-mail you to apologize for my cursing like a sailor and for the use of a word that ended in “tard,” but it was returned to me. I’m sorry to make you delete this post as well – it will be the last time, I promise. Thanks again for all your great essays!
Elizabeth – I didn’t censor you!! I just deleted one of the comments! Maybe the wording was slightly different in the second comment?? Go ahead and swear all you like, and I also use the word “tard” and although I should be ashamed, I kind of am not!
I loved your comment – and I love when people come out of lurker-dom with an insightful beautiful contribution like yours. I hope you feel comfortable to comment in the future!
Awww, shucks. Thank you for the kind words, Sheila. Actually, what went through my mind after the fact was that your nephew might happen upon this…which, you know, in any other situation would seems incredible to me, that a kid would be perusing through comments on the greatest films from A to Z, but you know, this is Cashel we’re talking about here. *LOL* Wow, what a bright guy he is!
I am working on my list of movies and will post them shortly. Thank you again, dear writer!
Annie Hall
Boot, Das
Conversation, The
Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
East of Eden
Fat Man, Little Boy
Gaslight
His Girl Friday
In-Laws, The (1979)
Julia [Vanessa Redgrave and Maximilian Schell - so amazing.]
King Kong (1933)
Lawrence of Arabia
Manchurian Candidate, The (1962)
Network [great writing - thank you, Paddy Chayefsky!]
Odd Couple, The
Public Enemy, The
Queen, The
Rear Window
Strictly Ballroom
Three Days of the Condor [I love Max von Sydow in this.]
Unforgiven
Vertigo [This is my all-time favorite movie.]
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape / White Heat [It's a tie...]
Xanadu [Yes, I own it. *self-conscious clearing of throat*]
Yankee Doodle Dandy [James Cagney ROCKS!!!]
Z (1969)
Got mine up…I don’t know what was harder, narrowing stuff down for C, D and S, or actually coming up with something to say for Q and X….
This one was a good one….
ok so I’m a little late to the party but I’m going for it anyway.
The Americanization of Emily
Black Narcissus
Chicago
Darling Lili
The Empire Strikes Back
From Here to Eternity
Gigi
Holiday
I Dreamed of Africa
Jarhead
Key Largo
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Marie Antoinette (2006)
Notting Hill
Only Angels Have Wings
A Patch of Blue
The Queen
The Return of the King (Lord of the Rings)
Sense and Sensibility
The Talk of the Town
Under the Tuscan Sun
Volver
Walk the Line
X-Men
The Yellow Rolls Royce
Zoolander
Monique, a Leaf fan, originate this absolutely earnestly to believe. Now, let me core out that this was in no way an crack to official one pair is more wisely than the other. It was upright a goal to glory two things.