Greatest Movies by Genre!

[Richard ridealgh]

 

 

Movies by Genre!

 

Winter is upon us and I am considering starting a movie night at World life club in Gui Lin Lu. I have a nice new HDMI TV which I think would be perfect for showing some great movies.

So I need your help, I want to compose a list of movies for each Genre. I think the main thing is that I am looking for the greatest movies ever made in each catergory.

a) Western

b) Sci-Fi

c) Action

d) Romance/Comedy

e) Period/Historic

Thanks for your help, and feel free to add a genre or 2:)

[Chris Knight]

For those of us who are old enough ...

The 1960's:

1. Lawrence of Arabia - (1962, David Lean) (Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness)
2. Psycho - (1960, Alfred Hitchcock) (Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh)
3. Dr. Strangelove... - (1964, Stanley Kubrick) (Peter Sellers, George C. Scott)
4. 8 1/2 - (1963, Federico Fellini) (Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale)
5. 2001: A Space Odyssey - (1968, Stanley Kubrick) (Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood)
6. Once Upon a Time in the West - (1968, Sergio Leone) (Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson)
7. To Kill a Mockingbird - (1962, Robert Mulligan) (Gregory Peck, Mary Badham)
8. Midnight Cowboy - (1969, John Schlesinger) (Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight)
9. Bonnie and Clyde - (1967, Arthur Penn) (Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway)
10. La Dolce Vita - (1960, Federico Fellini) (Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimee)
11. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - (1966, Sergio Leone) (Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach)
12. The Graduate - (1967, Mike Nichols) (Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross)
13. Breathless - (1960, Jean-Luc Godard) (Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg)
14. The Yojimbo - (1961, Akira Kurosawa) (Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai)
15. Wild Bunch - (1969, Sam Peckinpah) (William Holden, Ernest Borgnine)
16. Persona - (1966, Ingmar Bergman) (Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson)
17. The Leopard - (1963, Luchino Visconti) (Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale)
18. L'Avventura - (1960, Michelangelo Antonioni) (Gabriele Ferzetti, Monica Vitti)
19. The Apartment - (1960, Billy Wilder) (Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine)
20. The Manchurian Candidate - (1962, John Frankenheimer) (Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey)
21. Easy Rider - (1969, Dennis Hopper) (Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson)
22. Last Years at Marienbad - (1961, Alain Resnais) (Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi)
23. West Side Story - (1961, Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise) (Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer)
24. Cool Hand Luke - (1967, Stuart Rosenberg) (Paul Newman, George Kennedy, Strother Martin)
25. The Battle of Algiers - (1966, Gillo Pontecorvo) (Brahim Hadjadj, Jean Martin)
26. Doctor Zhivago - (1965, David Lean) (Omar Sharif, Julie Christie)
27. A Hard Day's Night - (1964, Richard Lester) (The Beatles, Wilfrid Brambell, Norman Rossington)
28. Alphaville - (1965, Jean-Luc Godard) (Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina)
29. The Music Man - (1962, Morton Da Costa) (Robert Preston, Shirley Jones, Buddy Hackett)
30. Peeping Tom - (1960, Michael Powell) (Karlheinz Bühm, Moira Shearer)
31. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg - (1964, Jacques Demy) (Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo)
32. The Sound of Music - (1965, Robert Wise) (Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer)
33. Medium Cool - (1969, Haskell Wexler) (Christine Bergstrom, Harold Blankenship)
34. The Producers - (1968, Mel Brooks) (Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder)
35. Planet of the Apes - (1968, Franklin J. Schaffner) (Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowell)
36. In the Heat of the Night - (1967, Norman Jewison) (Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates)
37. Marat/Sade - (1966, Peter Brook) (Patrick Magee, Ian Richardson, Glenda Jackson)
38. Belle de jour - (1967, Luis Buñuel) (Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel)
39. Andrei Rublev - (1966, Andrei Tarkovsky) (Anatoli Solonitsyn, Ivan Lapikov)
40. Blow-Up - (1966, Michelangelo Antonioni) (David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles)
41. The Birds - (1963, Alfred Hitchcock) (Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy)
42. Tom Jones - (1963, Tony Richardson) (Albert Finney, Susannah York, Hugh Griffith)
43. Night of the Living Dead - (1968, George A. Romero) (Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea)
44. The Hustler - (1961, Robert Rossen) (Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott)
45. My Fair Lady - (1964, George Cukor) (Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Wilfrid Hyde-White)
46. Goldfinger - (1964, Guy Hamilton) (Sean Connery, Gert Fröbe, Honor Blackman)
47. Woman in the Dunes - (1964, Hiroshi Teshigahara) (Eiji Okada, Kyôko Kishida)
48. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - (1962, John Ford) (John Wayne, James Stewart, Vera Miles)
49. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - (1969, George Roy Hill) (Paul Newman, Robert Redford)
50. Rosemary's Baby - (1968, Roman Polanski) (Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon)
51. Closely Watched Trains - (1966, Jiri Menzel) (Václav Neckár, Josef Somr)
52. Rocco and His Brothers - (1960, Luchino Visconti) (Alain Delon, Renato Salvatori)
53. Weekend - (1967, Jean-Loc Godard) (Mireille Darc, Jean Yanne)
54. Breakfast at Tiffany's - (1961, Blake Edwards) (Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal)
55. The Longest Day - (1962, Ken Annakin) (Richard Burton, Robert Ryan, Henry Fonda)
56. Point Blank - (1967, John Boorman) (Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn)
57. Oliver! - (1968, Carol Reed) (Mark Lester, Ron Moody, Jack Wild, Oliver Reed)
58. Judgment at Nuremberg - (1961, Stanley Kramer) (Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster)
59. The Dirty Dozen - (1967, Robert Aldrich) (Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson)
60. Dog Star Man - (1964, Stan Brakhage) (Jane Brakhage, Stan Brakhage)
61. Bullitt - (1968, Peter Yates) (Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn)
62. Pierrot Le Fou - (1965, Jean-Loc Godard) (Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina)
63. Mary Poppins - (1964, Robert Stevenson) (Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke)
64. A Raisin in the Sun - (1961, Daniel Petrie) (Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Louis Gossett Jr.)
65. Romeo and Juliet - (1968, Franco Zeffirelli) (Leonard Whiting, Olivia Hussey)
66. The Shop On Main Street - (1965, Jan Kadar, Elmar Klos) (Ida Kaminska, Jozef Króner)
67. Funny Girl - (1968, William Wyler) (Barbra Streisand, Omar Sharif)
68. Hud - (1963, Martin Ritt) (Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, Patricia Neal)
69. In Cold Blood - (1967, Richard Brooks) (Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, John Forsythe)
70. Lolita - (1962, Stanley Kubrick) (Sue Lyon, Shelley Winters, Gary Cockrell)
71. The Pawnbroker - (1964, Sidney Lumet) (Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald)
72. The Innocents - (1961, Jack Clayton) (Deborah Kerr, Peter Wyngarde, Michael Redgrave)
73. My Night at Maud's - (1969, Eric Rohmer) (Jean-Louis Trintignant, Françoise Fabian)
74. Jules and Jim - (1962, Francois Truffaut) (Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner)
75. The Great Escape - (1963, John Sturges) (Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough)
76. Yellow Submarine - (1968, George Dunning) (Animation)
77. Repulsion - (1965, Roman Polanski) (Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry)
78. From Russia With Love - (1963, Terence Young) (Sean Connery, Robert Shaw, Daniela Bianchi)
79. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - (1966, Mike Nichols) (Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton)
80. One Hundred and One Dalmatians - (1961, Clyde Geronimi) (Animation)
81. Elmer Gantry - (1960, Richard Brooks) (Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Arthur Kennedy)
82. The Exterminating Angel - (1962, Luis Buñuel) (Silvia Pinal, Enrique Rambal)
83. Lilies of the Field - (1963, Ralph Nelson) (Sidney Poitier, Lilia Skala, Lisa Mann)
84. A Man for All Seasons - (1966, Fred Zinnemann) (Paul Scofield, Leo McKern, Robert Shaw)
85. Long Day's Journey into Night - (1962, Sidney Lumet) (Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson)
86. Ride the High Country - (1962, Sam Peckinpah) (Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, Edgar Buchanan)
87. A Thousand Clowns - (1965, Fred Coe) (Jason Robards, Barbara Harris, Martin Balsam)
88. Le Trou - (1960, Jacques Becker) (Michel Constantin, Jean Keraudy)
89. Z - (1969, Costa-Gavras) (Yves Montand, Irene Papas, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jacques Perrin)
90. The Pink Panther - (1964, Blake Edwards) (Peter Sellers, David Niven, Robert Wagner)
91. Inherit the Wind - (1960, Stanley Kramer) (Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Harry Morgan)
92. The Haunting - (1963, Robert Wise) (Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson)
93. Shoot the Piano Player - (1960, Francois Truffaut) (Charles Aznavour, Marie Dubois)
94. Cape Fear - (1962, J. Lee Thompson) (Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck, Polly Bergen)
95. Contempt - (1963, Jean-Luc Godard) (Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance)
96. Red Desert - (1964, Michelangelo Antonioni) (Monica Vitti, Richard Harris)
97. Georgy Girl - (1966, Silvio Narizzano) (James Mason, Lynn Redgrave, Alan Bates)
98. Juliet of the Spirits - (1965, Federico Fellini) (Giulietta Masina, Sandra Milo)
99. Darling - (1965, John Schlesinger) (Laurence Harvey, Julie Christie, Dirk Bogarde)
100. The Miracle Worker - (1962, Arthur Penn) (Patty Duke, Anne Bancroft, Victor Jory)

[Chris Knight]

I think that should give you enough movies for a couple of years, Richard.

[Richard ridealgh]

Nice cut and paste Chris!
Ok serious question people. Looking for movies adapted/copied from a book. I always have students arguing that the movie is better than the book yet that ain't always the case. I know it's TV, but "game of thrones" was a great series, yet the books(on the second one now) are without doubt, much better.
I had one sharp kid the other day try to close the gap on what traditionally is seen as a void between book and movie, arguing modern movies and today's directors had made movies that are on a par or better than the books.

[Chris Knight]

hmmmm ... Gimme a few minutes on that one Richard. I'll see what I can dig up. Do comic books count, cuz off the top of my swelled head there's Batman, The Incredible Hulk, Superman, Spiderman, Wonder Woman (I know, it was a TV series), The Fantastic Four, X-Men ...

For movies made from a book, there's Cujo and The Shining, by Stephen King for starters.

Dracula, by Brahm Stoker had two movies made from it. Tom and Huck (1995) from Tom Sawyer. Shrek is loosely based on William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book Shrek!

The Mist (1997) was based on a short story of the same name.

Children of the Corn (1984) was also from a short story.

Dolan's Cadillac (2009) from a book of the same name.

Oh, and before I forget, Both Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me are both based on books of the same name.

 

That's just off the top of my head. I'll see what others I can find for you.

[Lori Rai]

Richard:  Good point and I'd have to say it depends.  "Gone with the Wind" was a great book and in my opinion the  the movie was just as good.  However I loved the book "Interview with a Vampire" but hated the movie.  Sometimes the movie can go places visually where the book can't seem to go and other times the book offers details that don't make it onto the screen.  

Your student makes a good point in that modern movies can adapt and stay fairly close to the book but to say that these movies are better than the books on which they are based is in my opinion not quite true.  For example while some people felt that the "Lord of the Rings" movies were great, I still feel they pale in comparison to the books. 

It's a compelling topic and I'm sure you'll get people on both sides of this issue.

 

 

[CCF Beijing]

While we are practicing our "Cut-n-paste" skills...

.......here's AFI's "Top 100 Movies of All Time"

1. "Citizen Kane," 1941
2. "Casablanca," 1942
3. "The Godfather," 1972
4. "Gone With the Wind," 1939
5. "Lawrence of Arabia," 1962
6. "The Wizard of Oz," 1939
7. "The Graduate," 1967
8. "On the Waterfront," 1954
9. "Schindler's List," 1993
10. "Singin' in the Rain," 1952
11. "It's a Wonderful Life," 1946
12. "Sunset Boulevard," 1950
13. "The Bridge on the River Kwai," 1957
14. "Some Like it Hot," 1959
15. "Star Wars," 1977
16. "All About Eve," 1950
17. "The African Queen," 1951
18. "Psycho," 1960
19. "Chinatown," 1974
20. "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest," 1975
21. "The Grapes of Wrath," 1940
22. "2001: A Space Odyssey," 1968
23. "The Maltese Falcon," 1941
24. "Raging Bull," 1980
25. "E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial," 1982
26. "Dr. Strangelove," 1964
27. "Bonnie and Clyde," 1967
28. "Apocalypse Now," 1979
29. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," 1939
30. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," 1948
31. "Annie Hall," 1977
32. "The Godfather Part II," 1974
33. "High Noon," 1952
34. "To Kill a Mockingbird," 1962
35. "It Happened One Night," 1934
36. "Midnight Cowboy," 1969
37. "The Best Years of Our Lives," 1946
38. "Double Indemnity," 1944
39. "Doctor Zhivago," 1965
40. "North by Northwest," 1959
41. "West Side Story," 1961
42. "Rear Window," 1954
43. "King Kong," 1933
44. "The Birth of a Nation," 1915
45. "A Streetcar Named Desire," 1951
46. "A Clockwork Orange," 1971
47. "Taxi Driver," 1976
48. "Jaws," 1975
49. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," 1937
50. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," 1969
51. "The Philadelphia Story," 1940
52. "From Here to Eternity," 1953
53. "Amadeus," 1984
54. "All Quiet on the Western Front," 1930
55. "The Sound of Music," 1965
56. "M*A*S*H," 1970
57. "The Third Man," 1949
58. "Fantasia," 1940
59. "Rebel Without a Cause," 1955
60. "Raiders of the Lost Ark," 1981
61. "Vertigo," 1958
62. "Tootsie," 1982
63. "Stagecoach," 1939
64. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," 1977
65. "The Silence of the Lambs," 1991
66. "Network," 1976
67. "The Manchurian Candidate," 1962
68. "An American in Paris," 1951
69. "Shane," 1953
70. "The French Connection," 1971
71. "Forrest Gump," 1994
72. "Ben-Hur," 1959
73. "Wuthering Heights," 1939
74. "The Gold Rush," 1925
75. "Dances With Wolves," 1990
76. "City Lights," 1931
77. "American Graffiti," 1973
78. "Rocky," 1976
79. "The Deer Hunter," 1978
80. "The Wild Bunch," 1969
81. "Modern Times," 1936
82. "Giant," 1956
83. "Platoon," 1986
84. "Fargo," 1996
85. "Duck Soup," 1933
86. "Mutiny on the Bounty," 1935
87. "Frankenstein," 1931
88. "Easy Rider," 1969
89. "Patton," 1970
90. "The Jazz Singer                                                                                                                                            91. "My Fair Lady," 1964
92. "A Place in the Sun," 1951
93. "The Apartment," 1960
94. "Goodfellas," 1990
95. "Pulp Fiction," 1994
96. "The Searchers," 1956
97. "Bringing Up Baby," 1938
98. "Unforgiven," 1992
99. "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," 1967
100. "Yankee Doodle Dandy," 1942

 

[Richard ridealgh]

Red!! Really liked this movie.

[Maddalena - Mei Ling]

I'd like to see the new romantic comedy "one day" with Anne Hataway..but maybe too news..I hope in China there's already a pirated version!!^^ah ah!!

anyway great idea the movie night..I miss cinema evenings!!

[David Emmerson Nicholson]

f) Fantasy....Lord of the Rings Trilogy

A) Unforgiven

B) Alien

C) Rambo IV

D) Princess Bride

E) Pride and Prejudice

[CCF Beijing]

"50 First Dates" is a funny romantic comedy.

"Roman Holiday" is even better*.

 

(I forget who was in "Roman Holiday". Was it Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn and RICHARD ROMAN?) Ha ha ahaha ha

[Timothy Cappon]

Thanks for starting this Richard. Being a large-sized movie buff, (I can't be so bold as to say HUGE) I've seen a "few" movies and I know what I like. Sadly, that also makes me hate to stop at just one movie per category....I'll try to keep thinks brief.

a) Tombstone, Unforgiven, The Wild Bunch, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

b) The Empire Strikes Back, Serenity, The Chronicles of Riddick

c) Leon The Professional, State of Grace, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

d) The Girl Next Door, The Apartment, Love Actually

e) Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, The Messenger

As for movies based on books, it's an age-old argument as to which is better; we all read with different levels of imaginations and characterizations.

A good example is Stephen King. I've enjoyed watching  adaptations of his novels, but having tried to read his books, I've found his writing to be less than desirable.

On the other hand, the writer that people seem to forget is Philip K. Dick. He has influenced and inspired more movies than people realize. His writing is edgy, even by today's standards, and he accurately envisioned technological advances so well, it's scary. The most popular adaptation of his work was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? which was made into a little flick called Blade Runner.

Some other classics in writing and film:

Joseph Heller's Catch 22, film by the same name (Alan Arkin and Art Garfunkel!)

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now AND Heart of Darkness: The Making of Apocalypse Now

Alan Moore's The Watchmen (technically a graphic novel, but on Time's top 100 books), film by the same name

Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, film by the same name

Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, fim by the same name

Michale Ondaatje's The English Patient (yes, he's Canadian), film by same name. (one of my all time fave books)

For those of you interested, I didn't include Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odessey because he wrote that as a book/screenplay collaboration with Kubrick.

Which brings me to my last point, <stepping on my soapbox> I am seeing a new brand of "authors" who apparently only write unreadable books with the vision/hope of them becoming movies: Dan Brown being the biggest culprit, but also Thomas Harris, John Grisham, James Patterson and yes, Stephen King. (here comes the hate mail!)

'Nuff said!

-T.

[Richard Roman]

Books into films

The 39 Steps - Book by John Buchan and the film by Hitchcock - one of my all time favourites

The film is SO good!

In fact  a few of Hitchcock's films are from books.... The Birds......