Here’s a fun experiment: Think of your 75 favorite films. Now rank them from most-loved to… Well… Loved but-not-loved-enough to be #1.

The list below are my 75 favorites. I would’ve listed a hundred but that would’ve been too easy. I had to make some serious decisions here, cutting some films that I really loved to narrow the list down.

Over time I’ll be discussing each of these films in a linked article, so watch my regular blog for updates. By writing about them, my goal is to understand exactly what it is that I love about these films.

Also, this list is bound to change with new additions and deletions. Some of my selections are obvious, others pretty surprising, even to me.

(Updated 11/04/2006)

1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
   
2. Annie Hall
   
3. The Shawshank Redemption
   
4. The Seven Samurai
   
5. Manhattan
   
6. The Shining
   
7. Rushmore
   
8. Spirited Away
   
9. Citizen Kane
   
10. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
    
11. The Godfather
    
12. Se7en
    
13. American Beauty
    
14. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds
    
15. Heat
    
16. Being John Malkovich
    
17. The Big Lebowski
    
18. Silence of the Lambs
    
19. Taxi Driver
    
20. Goodfellas
    
21. Drunken Master 2
    
22. Ghostbusters
    
23. Enter the Dragon
    
24. 12 Angry Men
    
25. Gandhi
    
26. Pulp Fiction
    
27. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
    
28. Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
    
29. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
    
30. Star Wars: A New Hope
    
31. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
    
32. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
    
33. Raiders of the Lost Ark
    
34. Aliens
    
35. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
    
36. Hard Boiled
    
37. The Matrix
    
38. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
    
39. Saving Private Ryan
    
40. Fight Club
    
41. Edward Scissorhands
    
42. Glory
    
43. Toy Story
    
44. Kiki’s Delivery Service
    
45. Good Will Hunting
    
46. A Streetcar Named Desire
    
47. Fargo
    
48. The Magnificent Seven
    
49. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
    
50. Manos, the Hands of Fate
    
51. Reservoir Dogs
    
52. Boogie Nights
    
53. Hotel Rwanda
    
54. Election
    
55. Batman (1989)
    
56. Pleasantville
    
57. Raging Bull
    
58. Unforgiven
    
59. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
    
60. Donnie Darko
    
61. Barton Fink
    
62. Mean Girls
    
63. King Kong (1933)
    
64. Lilo and Stitch
    
65. Schindler’s List
    
66. 2001: A Space Odyssey
    
67. The Goonies
    
68. Full Metal Jacket
    
69. Poltergeist
    
70. Blade Runner
    
71. The Last Emperor
    
72. The Royal Tennenbaums
    
73. Repo Man
    
74. Cinema Paradisio
    
75. Pee Wee’s Big Adventure