photo 1536440136628 849c177e76a1 Ryan Night's Top 100 Movies: 30-21

Ryan Night’s Top 100 Movies: 30-21

Top 100 movies continues. Inching ever closer to the top 10. This has been… a bit of a marathon to write. But I guess I’ll always have something to refer to if anyone ever asks me for my top 100 movies, at the very least.

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 40-31, click here.
For 20-11, click here.
For 10-1, click here.

30. Memento
Who could forget the classic Chris Nolan movie starring Guy Pearce about a guy who has no long term memory? The movie is filmed backwards. I mean, not exactly like you’d expect; it’s filmed as though they took the outline cards for the scenes and put them backwards, really. It’s a great movie. Interesting structure, sure, but it’s also an intriguing murder mystery where the answer, it turns out, came at the very start (the end). Chris Nolan makes weird movies and he has ever since Following. This is a particularly good one.

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29. The Matrix
Maybe the most iconic movie of the 90s. It’s a killer movie, very stylish, lots of thought-provoking sci-fi concepts and it got me to read a bunch of Jacques Derrida philosophy which, by the way, is very depressing. It taught me something very important not only about storytelling, but about the world and how ideas spread in it. Esoteric, dense philosophy can be made palatable to mainstream audiences if you embed it inside a narrative and have enough CGI violence and trench coats to keep people watching in between philosophical lecture dialog (ala The Republic or any other of Plato’s dialogs). The second two movies kind of ruined the balance of that formula, but I liked them. Not as much as the first one, though. Still, that Architect speech is a great scene. I mean, if you like wild philosophical concepts.

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28. American Psycho
The second Bret Easton Ellis novel adaptation to make this list, American Psycho is about the psychotic Patrick Bateman whose attachment to materialism and status leads him to go on a classist murder spree throughout New York that’s so brazenly swept under the rug he, himself, is not even sure that it occurred. A person whose whims are catered to, to such a degree, even when he purposefully commits himself to pure evil, the world twists itself in knots to excuse him. Of course, the movie is quite a bit about self-image and narcissism. It’s a great mirror-to-society movie with a lot of memorable scenes.

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27. Snatch
Next on the top 100 movies list, this Guy Ritchie movie is about the intertwining lives of several prominent members of the British underworld in their quest to retrieve a valuable diamond. Intertwining lives plots were all the rage in the 90s. This was actually Guy Ritchie’s second film about the British underworld (the first being Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels), and it is easily the better one. The style in this movie is really great. It has a lot of directorial voice both in terms of the art direction and the dialog/pacing. The characters are all memorable. Years after seeing it, I can vividly recall Brick Top, Bullet Tooth Tony, Mickey the Pikey, Boris the Bullet Dodger, etc. This movie just delivers. Solid, from top to bottom.

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26. Trainspotting 2
Why not Trainspotting 1, you ask? Because Trainspotting 1 is also on this top 100 movies list, it’s just further along. Trainspotting is the only film to have both the original and the sequel on this list. Trainspotting was a completely self-contained movie with no need whatsoever for a sequel. Did you know they made a Fight Club 2? And it was unnecessary. And they made a Watchmen sequel series? And it was stupid. But did you know they made a Trainspotting 2 and not only is it excellent in its own right, it’s an excellent sequel to Trainspotting 1, feels totally organic, adds to the overall story and succeeds where so many other properties have failed? Yeah, Trainspotting 2. Quite the rare bird.

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25. Kill Bill
My favorite of the Quentin Tarantino movies, it’s probably my favorite straight action movie of all time. Straight action is not typically a genre that I go for, but mixed with Tarantino’s directorial style, the East-meets-West mise-en-place, the kung fu movie/TV influence, the anime sequences, the general colorfulness and high style of the whole package, the great story and all the mythology/lore about this all-girl kill squad he manages to pack into two tight movies, Tarantino delivered something really special. I can’t think of anything that’s out of place in these movies. It feels like every piece of them is exactly where it should be. I hesitate to say masterpiece, because in the end it’s just a revenge movie with exactly the same structure as Scott Pilgrim, but for what it is, I can’t imagine how it could be better. Like this movie a lot.

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24. Joker
The most recent movie to make this top 100 movies list, and it gets a pretty high spot as well. Neither Taxi Driver, nor the King of Comedy, the movies from which this film are derived, made this list; Joker is somewhat of an evolution. This movie is timely, it’s deep, it has mainstream appeal, it’s well-directed, the photography direction is engaging and colorful. It works on a lot of different levels. It’s been a long time since I saw a movie in theaters that I really liked, ever since “made to please everyone” mainstream blockbusters totally sucked the air out of the room. Before this I think it was Upgrade and Sorry For Bothering You (neither of which made this list). It hasn’t been since… Nightcrawler that I saw something that actually made this list. Which means, 5 years ago. So good work, Joker team.

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23. Being John Malkovich
I used to be really into Charlie Kaufman movies, ever since Adaptation. I read all their original scripts and stuff. Actually, interestingly, most of the scripts for these movies are even more interesting than what ended up on screen. In Being John Malkovich, originally the ending involved the Devil and the main character revealing himself and getting famous as the puppeteer of John Malkovich. Anyway, I like this movie on a lot of different levels. I like the weirdness of it, I like the Spike Jonze directorial style. During a certain phase of my life I developed a new appreciation for this movie through relating to the main character’s self-loathing, envy and bitterness. This movie, despite its magical realism components, captures a real kernel of humanity.

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22. Nightcrawler
I mentioned this above, but this is the second-most recent movie to make the top 100 movies list. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, this movie is about an unemployed millennial during the Great Recession who’s a little... off. Perhaps a little sociopathic. His desire to succeed takes him to dark places that not only does he show no discomfort with, he seems to enjoy and thrive in. It’s a bizarre movie, because the villain doesn’t seem to be the creepy main character, nor his direct antagonists, but the setting in which this type of character becomes a legitimate role model. The main character is simply better at, more well-specialized for, the same system in which everyone else in the movie is trying to compete within. This is another fantastic mirror-to-society movie. I saw Gyllenhaal talking on Charlie Rose about his performance and he said he tried to model his performance after the human personification of a hungry hyena, and I think that was both visible in the final product on-screen, and was a decision that probably took this movie above and beyond.

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21. Gandhi
I mean… honestly, what is there to say about this movie? It’s the definitive biopic of one of the most beloved and influential figures in all of human history. Gandhi, though the argument may be made that he had the wind at his back historically speaking, non-violently won a revolutionary war and didn’t give up on his principles. Not only ‘doing the right thing’, but tactical intelligence, very smart understanding of how power functions, and intentional, strategic use of media power. What a boss. There aren’t a lot of heroes out there, in the world. Gandhi made a short, short list of names. And the movie is great. Ben Kingsley does a fantastic job. The film, despite being epically long, flows nicely and the pacing doesn’t drag. This movie should probably be required reading for everyone, especially those interested in politics, and especially those who may embrace tactics used by those they would attempt to replace. Gandhi is not only important in terms of who he was and what he accomplished, but in how media power and propaganda (a force that could be used for either good or evil) is dominant in the “age of spin” and “fake news” that we live in today.

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Whew, just two more installments of the top 100 movies to go. You know I basically have written an entire eBook now on this subject?

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 40-31, click here.
For 20-11, click here.
For 10-1, click here.

Author

  • Ryan Night

    Ryan Night is an ex-game industry producer with over a decade of experience writing guides for RPGs. Previously an early contributor at gamefaqs.com, Ryan has been serving the RPG community with video game guides since 2001. As the owner of Bright Rock Media, Ryan has written over 600 guides for RPGs of all kinds, from Final Fantasy Tactics to Tales of Arise.

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