Movies to Recommend by Genre

Well, I haven't posted in a while, but now that school's starting up again, I'll probably have a lot more relative downtime and focus on my hands, and can work out some stuff. I don't know for sure which director I'll do next, but I'm thinking after two directors who's stars have been rising it's time to do a dwindling gem, like Oliver Stone. Anyway, I made this list because a friend asked me if there were any movies I could recommend to her, and I have no sense of scale.

I’ll include the top 10 films of each genre that I’ve seen. Message me if I forget a genre or two. Also, I made sure that no movies are on both lists, so some movies got robbed (I would have put Blues Brothers in comedy and musicals, for example). Also, some are stacked because they exemplify the genre better, even if I don’t like them as much as others farther down the list (Inception is lower in the Mystery section than Memento, for example).

Comedy (for Horror Comedies, Romantic Comedies, and Black Comedies, see below)

1. The Blues Brothers (four fried chickens… and a coke)
2. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
3. Monty Python’s Life of Brian (Better than Holy Grail)
4. Wayne’s World (It’s Excellent!)
5. Ghostbusters (and now I want a Twinkie)
6. The Big Lebowski (the world’s greatest parody)
7. Hot Fuzz (secretly a parody of Chinatown)
8. Robin Hood: Men in Tights
9. History of the World, Part 1 (there is no part 2, but it’s the full title)
10. Groundhog Day

Period Drama

1. Seven Samurai (if you see any movie from before you were born, see this one)
2. Gladiator (ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!)
3. Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro’s magnum opus)
4. Citizen Kane (maybe the greatest movie of all time. maybe)
5. Days of Heaven (remember when Terrence Malick was kind of normal?)
6. The Prestige (revenge is a dish best drowned)
7. Rashomon
8. Amadeus (It was not I that pu this film here. IT WAS GOD!)
9. Gangs of New York
10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (suck it Forrest Gump)

Romantic Comedy

1. Annie Hall (Woody Allen’s greatest work)
2. Roman Holiday (Audrey Hepburn’s greatest acting)
3. It Happened One Night (also His Girl Friday and Bringing Up Baby)
4. High Fidelity (John Cusack being way too good)
5. When Harry Met Sally… (Oh god YES!)
6. (500) Days of Summer (the ending to this movie is what you make of it)
7. Chasing Amy (Man meets Woman. Man falls in Love. Woman is a Lesbian)
8. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
9. Music and Lyrics (I don’t like Notting Hill, Love Actually, or Sense and Sensibility)
10. Definitely, Maybe (I heart Ryan Reynolds so much)

Musicals (I still haven’t seen Singin’ in the Rain. Sue me.)

1. West Side Story (feel free to judge me, but if Sondheim didn’t top the list, something is wrong)
2. A Hard Day’s Night (It counts!)
3. Funny Girl
4. The Wizard of Oz
5. Chicago (and all that jazz)
6. Boyz N The Hood (IT COUNTS!)
7. This Is Spinal Tap (technically a concert movie parody, but whatever)
8. Fiddler on the Roof (JEWS!)
9. Victor/Victoria
10. Dreamgirls (proving once again that American Idol ain’t worth shit)

Noir (Let’s play a game called Heist, Murder, or Conspiracy)

1. The Maltese Falcon (I want to be Sam Spade)
2. Casablanca (Ingrid Bergman wishes she was Diane Keaton)
3. Sunset Blvd. (I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille)
4. The Big Sleep (The single most unorganized series of murders ever)
5. The Killing (Stanley Kubrick does Noir. SO COOL!)
6. The Third Man (Orson Welles pulls a Judi Dench before Judi Dench does)
7. Double Indemnity 
8. The Blue Dahlia (original)
9. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles again)
10. Dead On Arrival

Mystery (or, neo-noir’s highlights) NOTE: I have not seen most of Hitchcock’s masterpieces, and thus they are absent from the list. Also, for the really good Mysteries, check Noir.

1. Memento (This is the end of the list, even though it comes first)
2. The Usual Suspects (The last five minutes are the best five minutes of film. Ever)
3. Chinatown (Roman Polanski gets it right in a BIG way)
4. Inception (Technically a heist, but also a mystery)
5. L.A. Confidential (Because Kevin Spacy MUST appear twice)
6. Rear Window (one of the only Hitchcock movies I’ve seen)
7. Shutter Island
8. In The Heat Of The Night (They call me Mr. Tibbs!)
9. Brick (SEE THIS MOVIE! It’s a favorite, made on a tiny budget)
10. Oldboy (revenge and incest)

Black Comedy (or How the Coen Brothers and Terry Gilliam run a Genre) 

1. Fight Club (okay, so this is David Fincher)
2. Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb(and this is Stanley Kubrick)
3. In Bruges (and this is Martin McDonagh)
4. Brazil (but this is Terry Gilliam)
5. Barton Fink (and this is Coen Brothers)
6. Fargo (Coen)
7. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Gilliam)
8. The Adventures of Baron von Munchausen (Gilliam)
9. Raising Arizona (Coen)
10. The Room (Wiseau…wait, how did this get here?)

Horror

1. Silence of the Lambs (AAAAAAGH!)
2. The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (German expressionism that isn’t M)
3. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original, but the remake is good)
4. Alien (Haunted house…. IN SPACE!)
5. The Shining (…red…rum…redrum…redrum, Redrum, REDRUM!)
6. Let The Right One In (This movie is too beautiful)
7. Carrie (can we all acknowledge that Sissy Spacek is amazing?)
8. Nosferatu (FW Murnau strikes again!)
9. Dawn of the Dead (the remake)
10. Dawn of the Dead (the original)

Horror Comedy

1. Shaun of the Dead
2. Evil Dead 2 (especially the scene with the possessed hand)
3. Zombieland (“Is there anything you regret?” “Nothing… Garfield”
4. Dead Alive (The only OTHER excellent Peter Jackson movie)
5. Gremlins (created the PG-13 rating)
6. An American Werewolf in London
7. Beetlejuice (Tim Burton’s last original plot)
8. Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein
9. Black Sheep (a semi-lost gem)
10. Young Frankenstein (“He would have an enormous schwanzstucker” “Well that goes without saying”)

Biopic (I could make a top 30 of this category and still make some painful cuts. Raging Bull isn’t on here!)

1. Schindler’s List (the best “serious” Spielberg movie)
2. GoodFellas (Martin Scorcese’s best film)
3. Walk The Line (Would be number one on my Musicals, but here instead)
4. Malcolm X (The closest we’ll get to an MLK Jr. Biopic. That’s sad)
5. The Aviator (Howard Hughs wants this to be 5.5, exactly in the center)
6. Lawrence of Arabia (Not accurate. Still good)
7. Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman thought he was terrible in this. HE IS WRONG!)
8. The Elephant Man (David Lynch, return to sanity!)
9. Erin Brockovitch (Look kids! Steven Soderbergh is doing something awesome so he can do something stupid later)
10. Patton (One of cinema’s greatest speeches)

Animation-Traditional

1. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (don’t try to tell me this doesn’t count)
2. Fantasia (Yes, above all other Disney movies, this is the greatest)
3. The Secret of Nimh (Don Bluth tries his damnest to frighten small children)
4. Princess Mononoke (Miyazaki’s best work)
5. Spirited Away 
6. Aladin
7. My Neighbor Totoro
8. Paprika (RIP Satoshi Kon. Now if only people stopped robbing your grave.)
9. Beauty and the Beast
10. AKIRA (if there’s anything you don’t understand about this film, Ask me)

Animation-Stop Motion

1. Chicken Run 
2. The Nightmare Before Christmas 
3. Fantastic Mr. Fox (one of the only Wes Anderson films I’ve seen)
4. Mary and Max 
5. Joseph the Dreamer
6. James and the Giant Peach
7. The Magic Pipe (really unique and beautiful)
8. The Book of the Dead
9. Corpse Bride
10. $9.99 (disgusting and I love it)

Animation-CGI (Pixar except for three)

1. Toy Story Trilogy (this is cheating, deal with it)
2. WALL-E (Robot Love!)
3. Up (the first ten minutes is the best opening to a movie, ever)
4. How To Train Your Dragon (I like this movie too much)
5. The Incredibles
6. Finding Nemo
7. Monsters, Inc.
8. Tangled (Almost Pixar, not quite)
9. Ratatouille
10. TMNT (Guilty Pleasure)

High Fantasy (Actually my least favorite film genre)

1. Lord of the Rings (all three, extended edition)
2. The Princess Bride (It counts. There are inexplicable things that occur!)
3. The Black Cauldron
4. Conan the Barbarian (original)
5. The Beastmaster
6. Legend (Tim Curry as The Devil. Perfect!)
7. Excalibur
8. Merlin
9. Ladyhawke
10. The Chronicles of Narnia (the new ones are pretty good)

War

1. Apocalypse Now (So good I want to kill Francis Ford Coppola for making anything after it)
2. Grand Illusion (certainly the most beautiful war film ever)
3. Paths of Glory (Kirk Douglas called this his greatest achievement in cinema)
4. Full Metal Jacket (Stanley Kubrick creates Adam Baldwin. Geeks everywhere cheer)
5. Saving Private Ryan
6. The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick is loved by stars everywhere)
7. M*A*S*H
8. Life is Beautiful (Cheating again. I don’t care)
9. Empire of the Sun (Almost cheating, but not really)
10. Born on the Fourth of July (Some people think Platoon is better. They are wrong)

Western

1. Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood at a directoral high)
2. Once Upon a Time in the West
3. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (And the Spaghetti Western is perfected)
4. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
5. The Searchers
6. Tombstone
7. The Magnificent Seven
8. High Noon
9. Blazing Saddles
10. Stagecoach (Trivia: Orson Welles watched this on repeat to make Citizen Kane)

Science Fiction (And now, for this edition, what author[s] inspired these films?)

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Clarke)
2. Blade Runner (Dick)
3. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn (Melville, Milton, and Shakespeare)
4. Metropolis (Tolstoy… kinda)
5. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (Kurosawa)
6. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Bates)
7. Planet of the Apes (the original, and Boulle)
8. Aliens (The Vietnam War)
9. Total Recall (Dick)
10. Moon (Clarke)

Silent

1. City Lights (Charlie Chaplin rules!)
2. Greed
3. The Gold Rush
4. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
5. Intolerance
6. Greed
7. The General (Buster Keaton looses to Chaplin again)
8. Sherlock Jr.
9. The Phantom of the Opera (not the musical)
10. The Passion of Joan of Arc (NOT to be confused with The Passion of Christ)

Coming-of-Age

1. Good Will Hunting (Ben Affleck’s first sign of genius)
2. Stand By Me (so good it hurts to watch sometimes)
3. Almost Famous 
4. The Last Picture Show (Jeff Bridges became famous because of this)
5. My Life As A Dog (this should be under Swedish films, but I like it here better)
6. Secondhand Lions (Ladies and Gentlemen, Haley Joel Osment has grown up)
7. American Graffiti (George Lucas was better when he was younger)
8. The Graduate
9. The Breakfast Club (We can never know if this is really a Coming-of-Age tale, but I like to think it is)
10. Lord of the Flies

Martial Arts (For this edition, the stars that drive the picture will accompany them)

1. Way of the Dragon (Bruce Lee)
2. Shaolin Soccer (Stephen Chow)
3. Drunken Master (Jackie Chan)
4. Ong Bak (Tony Jaa)
5. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Chow Yun-Fat)
6. Kill Bill (Uma Thurman)
7. Fearless (Jet Li)
8. Kung Fu Hustle (Stephen Chow)
9. Once Upon a Time in China (Jet Li)
10. Fist of Fury (Bruce Lee)

Foreign-Swedish (Or How Many Ingmar Bergman Films Have I Seen. By the way, only numbers 8 and 9 aren't Bergman-directed. Aslo, My Life as a Dog and Let The Right One In would both be on this list if they hadn’t already been used)

1. Fanny and Alexander
2. Persona
3. Wild Strawberries
4. Smiles of a Summer Night
5. Scenes from a Marriage
6. Autumn Sonata
7. The Virgin Spring
8. Pelle the Conquerer (technically a Danish film, directed by Billie August)
9. Dancer in the Dark (one of the most depressing films ever, directed by Lars Von Trier)
10. Shame

Foreign-Italian (See above, but replace Ingmar Bergman with Frederico Fellini, this time all but 2, 4, 8, and 9

1. 8 1/2
2. Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore directs)
3. La Dolce Vita
4. L’Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni directs)
5. La Strada
6. Nights of Cabiria
7. Amarcord
8. Amici Miei (Mario Monicelli directs)
9. Divorce, Italian Style (Pietro Germi directs)
10. Juliet of the Spirits

Foreign-Japanese (Not actually going to make a list, just watch ten Kurosawa films. I’ve used too many of them in other lists already)

Foreign-British (This counts! Lawrence of Arabia should be number 1, Kubrick and Lean would fill this list more often, but their films are scattered throughout)

1. A Clockwork Orange
2. Bridge Over The River Kwai
3. Trainspotting
4. Barry Lyndon
5. The Ladykillers (the original)
6. Don’t Look Now
7. Doctor Zhivago
8. Get Carter
9. Hamlet (Kenneth Branaugh)
10. The Crying Game

Low-Budget Films (under $1 million budget)

1. Following (budget of $6,000)
2. Night of the Living Dead ($114,000)
3. Once ($160,000)
4. THX 1138 ($777,777.77)
5. The Evil Dead ($350,000)
6. Clerks ($27,575)
7. El Mariachi ($7,000)
8. Little Shop of Horrors (the original, $30,000, filmed in two days!)
9. Mad Max ($400,000)
10. Paranormal Activity ($15,000)