Movies

[Joker]

If I want to consider myself a movie buff, which movies do I have to have seen?

 

[Asmo]

Casablanca

Asmo

 

[coyote6]

Citizen Kane. The Godfather.

You could probably take something like one of AFI's lists and watch, say, at least the top 20 or so. For example, AFI's top 100 American movies (where the top 3 are Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and The Godfather, as it happens).

 

[jonesy]

In a Lonely Place.

It's a film noir masterpiece. It's what Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce watched to prepare for L.A. Confidential. I think it's Gloria Grahame's best movie, Bogart's second best.

 

[Joker]

You know, I've seen both In a Lonely Place and Citizen Kane but shamefully I got both The Godfather trilogy and Casablanca for Christmas about three years ago but have not seen either.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

If I want to consider myself a movie buff, which movies do I have to have seen?

To be a movie buff you only have to enjoy movies of reasonable variety of genres, and have an appreciation for even those movies you may not have liked. Seeing or NOT seeing a particular movie doesn't make you any more or less of a movie buff. This is a matter of real-world practical impossibility. If you see 1 movie on just ONE Top-100 list every three days you'll have spent a year of your spare time, but you'll have BARELY started to build a truly appreciable repertoire.

It really isn't so much what you have/haven't seen as it is that you enjoy seeing movies enough to spend more than an average persons time watching movies.

I suspect that what you're really looking for though is just a list of what are considered the best movies. That's a very subjective subject. I'd say you probably want to get a list of the AFI top 100, IMDB's top 250, and maybe a few other large top-whatever lists from reputable critics (Ebert/Roper, Leonard Maltin, whoever). Go down the list and note which ones you've seen. Now go back and look at which ones you HAVEN'T seen. Think about WHY you haven't seen them, especially if you've had the opportunity but chose not to. Were you genuinely not interested in the subject, or open dislike of an actor or director? Those choices can be forgiven, but I think a film buff is the sort of person who will see a large number of movies that he hasn't seen and simply be able to say, "YES, I want to see that one, and that one and that one..."

By my count I've seen 179 out of the IMDB top 250. A lot of the ones I haven't seen are because A) they're foreign films and thus harder to come across casually, and B) they're older and thus harder to come across. Some of those I don't really care if I ever see, some I'm totally unfamiliar with, but many of them I will happily watch when they finally cross my transom. It's easy to find The Godfather, for example, but what are your chances of getting hold of, say, The Best Years of Our Lives (seen it, and HIGHLY approved), or The Wages of Fear (never seen, but which was remade as the excellent Sorceror - which I HAVE seen and highly approve.) Or take Metropolis as an example. I had never seen it but have long wanted to. The few times it's been around to see I've just never been able to get to it. But recently a friend noted that it had just had a ton of footage restored and was playing again so we went to see it and it's now one more notch on my belt.

The point being that NOT having seen it didn't make me less of a film buff (and particularly as a SF film buff since so much is owed to that movie), but A) I knew that it was considered important to see and worth seeing, B) I wanted to see it to judge its merits for myself, and C) even if I hadn't enjoyed it for what it was (I did), here I am talking about it... because I'm a film buff, not because I'm such a film EXPERT or critic.

I saw The Godfather many years ago. I barely remember it anymore. It didn't make a large, lasting impression on me and I have to say that I don't care if I ever see it again. I probably should, but just because I'm a film buff I don't have to have Godfather at the top of MY OWN Top 100 list - but I do appreciate that it IS considered one of the greatest films of all time, and I have no doubt that if I ever do see it again my appreciation for it will dramatically increase. I may even become a particular fan. But that's not required to be movie buff.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Since you're asking this question on a RPG site, I think that you should see:

• All the Monty Python movies--yes, even Jabberwocky.
• The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
• The Star Wars trilogy (!)
• Some classic Jackie Chan, like Supercop.
• At least twenty horrible to mediocre Sword & Sorcery flicks, preferably from the 80's where everyone had bad hair.
• Ralph Bakshi's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies.
• Dune.
• All of the Superhero movies: Superman, Batman, Spiderman, etc. I think you can skip Daredevil/Electra though.
• Pan's Labyrinth
• The Wizard of Oz
• The Princess Bride
• Highlander--but only the first one!
• Ladyhawke
• Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer.
• Harry Potter
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• Labyrinth
• Raiders of the Lost Ark

--I'm sure there are more.