Ryan Night’s Top 100 Movies: 40-31

Continuing right along with our top 100 movies list, here is 40-31.

For 100-91, click here.
For 90-81, click here.
For 80-71, click here.
For 70-61, click here.
For 60-51, click here.
For 50-41, click here.
For 30-21, click here.
For 20-11, click here.
For 10-1, click here.

40. Moonrise Kingdom
Probably my second favorite of the various Wes Anderson films. You could almost say this represents the totality of the Wes Anderson catalog because most of his movies sort of blend together as modestly different retellings of the same movie (quirky dysfunctional family adventure). However, I definitely like Moonrise Kingdom more than Life Aquatic or Hotel Budapest. Maybe Rushmore deserves this slot more on story merits, but Rushmore lacks the colorful diorama filmmaking style that Wes Anderson perfected after Fantastic Mr. Fox. Moonrise Kingdom is, overall, a charming movie and probably the one I’d recommend if I were only allowed to make one Wes Anderson recommendation (which is kind of the limitation I gave myself for this list).

39. Apocalypse Now
Based on the book Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Martin Sheen plays a U.S. Special Forces agent tasked with eliminating the enigmatic General Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who’s gone native in the Vietnam jungle. A foreboding, suspenseful and unsettling movie, it very well captures the chaos of the Vietnam war and, in Kurtz, portrays a man who is able to embrace and thrive within that chaos. An important contemplation on the horrors and hypocrisies of war.

38. Her
Next on the top 100 movies list is a somewhat bizarre romance starring Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson. I say somewhat bizarre, but I think it will become increasingly less bizarre over time; with AI on the horizon, almost certain people will be developing some kind of projected relationship with their various ‘assistants’ and what-not, whether that’s a human-pet relationship, some kind of projected friendship, or as predicted in this movie, a romantic relationship. I think the sci-fi aspect of this movie is interesting and the future it predicts is mostly likely (the most ridiculous aspect of the movie is that the main character somehow makes an upper-middle class living as a writer for a greeting card company). I also think the romance is well done, thought-provoking and very human.

37. Forrest Gump
An American classic. I don’t really know what to say about this movie, so many film essays have been dedicated to it, and I’m not about to write one here. But one thing I’ll say is that it makes history interesting. By telling history through the lens of a compelling and fictional main character, they make what, in large part, amounts to a documentary about American history very engaging. Obviously this movie works on a ton of levels, I just think that’s one of the most notable and unique levels it works on. Tom Hanks’ performance is a classic; the relationship between Forrest and Jenny is classic, especially in the way it’s so obvious to the audience what’s really going on with that relationship, but so unclear to Forrest who we experience the story though, and thus unstated in the film. Lieutenant Dan is a great character. And, ultimately, Forrest is a good dude who we’re really rooting for who eventually gets his happy ending.

36. American Beauty
Another movie based on a famous novel, this time James Joyce’s Ulysses. This movie tells the story of the events surrounding a suburban family over a short period of time, wherein each member is dealing with the culmination of their own issues. It’s like a very, very dramatic and dark episode of Family Guy. The dad hates his dead-end job and has a crush on his daughter’s best friend; the mom hates her dead-end marriage and wants excitement and to feel alive; the daughter hates her family and wants someone she can feel close to and feel kinship with, etc. All of their self-interest intersects and causes the dissolution of their family. Critics universally loved this movie when it came out, and all universally hate it now. I like this movie quite a bit. I think there’s a lot to relate to in this movie, and I think, at least at the time it was made, it put a very accurate mirror up to suburban middle-class society: burnt out, angry fathers; unhappy mothers; lonely and misunderstood teens.

35. Logan
You might have noticed there are very few comic book movies on this top 100 movies list, even though that’s pretty much all any movie studio has made for the last decade. None, actually, I think. Except this one. Logan is a very good movie about a man past his prime who finds out he has a daughter and does his duty to help her despite great personal sacrifice. It’s a road trip movie, it’s a bit like an old Western, the acting is phenomenally good and it takes itself just seriously enough. Highly, highly recommend this movie.

34. Minority Report
Minority Report may very well be the most technologically accurate portrayal of the future that’s been put to film. It predicted self-driving cars, for example. It predicted ‘pre-crime’, which we have now in the form of red flag laws. It predicted VR-arcades/clubs like drug dens, which are almost assuredly what all of these dying malls are going to be retrofitted into. The actual plot of the movie, eh, I actually barely remember it. But I like all the concepts in this movie, including the concept of pre-cogs, which I think is another apt prediction in a kind of sideways way that I don’t really feel like explaining here.

33. Requiem for a Dream
A dark, dark film about several people’s downward spirals catalyzed by self-destructive behavior and addiction. Jennifer Connely’s downward spiral to sexual servitude; Jared Leto’s downward spiral to loss of bodily autonomy; Mrs. Goldfarb’s downward spiral to loneliness and sloth. This is possibly the most depressing movie ever made and simultaneously the one that feels closest to what life is actually like: a suffocating, unrelenting weight that pushes you toward greater and greater suffering until you reach a point so low you can’t imagine it getting worse, and then the weight continuing to press. Anyway, highly recommended, easily makes it onto my top 100 movies list.

32. High Fidelity
Like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, High Fidelity is a classic ‘guy breakup movie’. Not a huge amount of movies in that category, but High Fidelity is one of them. It’s a good movie on its own, of course, outside of that context but, whew, watch this movie in the right state of mind and you’ll mind-meld with it. John Cusack’s character gets dumped by his girlfriend and he goes through all the classic mood swings you go through during a breakup until he eventually gets her back (this part doesn’t happen in real life, statistically). That’s all wrapped up in some really good dialog, a feeling of detached melancholy, the veneer of rock music & the outskirts of the music industry, and some very memorable and relatable scenes.

31. Pulp Fiction
Last up for this section of the top 100 movies, Pulp Fiction is probably Quentin Tarantino’s most well-known movie, this vignetted, non-linear crime drama captured a lot of people’s imaginations in the 90s. Full to the brim with iconic scenes: Samuel L. Jackson with the burger; Bruce Willis coming in on the cop with a katana; Uma Thurman getting the adrenaline shot. This movie was alive. Very highly stylized. Although I like Kill Bill more than I like this movie, I think when we look back, this is the most Quentin Tarantino thing Quentin Tarantino made and the most successfully the Quentin Tarantino style worked. Reservoir Dogs evolved into this movie; everything else Tarantino made derived from it.

That does it for 40-31. Just 3 more entries to go.

For 100-91, click here.
For 90-81, click here.
For 80-71, click here.
For 70-61, click here.
For 60-51, click here.
For 50-41, click here.
For 30-21, click here.
For 20-11, click here.
For 10-1, click here.