Name a film that you can't improve

[IrishEyes]

Last edited Fri Sep 27, 2019, 06:30 AM - Edit history (1)

A film that you can't think of any way to improve it. A wonderful cast, dialogue, storyline, etc.

Here are a few that I thought of

The Princess Bride
The Blues Brothers
Bad Day at Black Rock
Singing in the Rain
Some Like it Hot
Philadelphia Story

[3catwoman3]

1. The American President.

Starman.
My Fair Lady.

[mainstreetonce]

27. ET

Phone home

[OilemFirchen]

2. Lawrence of Arabia

The Graduate
Cool Hand Luke
The Conversation

[emmaverybo]

3. On the Waterfront as a film, not for its anti-union sentiments.

[regnaD kciN]

62. Not just "anti-union"...

That film was created by people who had "named names" during the Red Scare, and was basically an extended justification for their actions in putting others on the blacklist.

[applegrove]

4. All The President's Men

My Brilliant Career
Much Ado About Nothing
The Post

[jg10003]

5. The Best Years of Our Lives. Shane. Casablanca.

[Freethinker65]

64. Just recommended Best Years of Our Lives to a good friend

[Miles Archer]

6. Road House, The Big Lebowski, Key Largo, Plan Nine From Outer Space, Tombstone...

...those were the first ones that came to me.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

140. tombstone, yes

I'm also partial to Unforgiven.

[AJT]

7. 12 Angry Men

[DemocracyMouse]

8. 2001: A Space Odyssey directed by Stanley Kubrick

I win!

[Codeine]

40. A thousand times this.

What a perfect film.

[yonder]

74. Yes you do. I was going to post another. This stopped me short.

[catbyte]

9. All About Eve. The Philadelphia Story. North By Northwest. To Catch A Thief. Kundun.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

120. Oh thank you for mentioning Kundun!

What a great film!

I think Mongol was pretty special too.
Wish I was better at remembering the names of all the terrific films!

[Skittles]

10. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

[7wo7rees]

11. Shawshank Redemption

Godfather
Godfather II
Treasure of Sierra Madre
Chinatown
Alien

[Totally Tunsie]

12. An Affair to Remember

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

[Cartoonist]

13. Goldfinger

The Maltese Falcon
A Hard Day's Night
Von Ryan's Express
Fantasia

[stopbush]

14. Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo.

And that’s just a couple of Bogey movies.

[Sherman A1]

21. Agreed

All are superb!

[malthaussen]

36. "Maltese Falcon" could be improved...

... by losing Mary Astor. IMO, she butchered the role, making it very hard for me to believe Bogart would have had any feelings for her. Might have been the director's fault, of course.

-- Mal

[Kablooie]

15. Plan 9 from Outer Space

It's so bad that no one could improve it.

[FuzzyRabbit]

16. A League of Their Own, Local Hero, Cat Ballou

[Upthevibe]

17. Shawshank Redmeption,

Goodfellas, It's a Wonderful Life, (and more recently) The Hangover, and Bridesmaids (there are many others but I'm fading out for the night...

[First Speaker]

18. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Monsignor, The Exorcist Part Two...

...Supergirl, Heaven's Gate, The Sound of Music--well, maybe that doesn't quite have enough Nuns 'n Nazis--At Long Last Love, Parnell, Birth of a Nation, A Place for Lovers, Jaws: the Revenge, and The Oscar. I wouldn't have a moment of these golden treasures changed at all...

[mr_lebowski]

33. lol ... yeah, those are GREAT!

Actually Sound of Music is pretty classic ... same with TTCM.

[Ahpook]

39. Funny you mention Texas Chainsaw

Whether you like horror movies or not, that one leaves you breathless. I wanted a shower after first viewing

It just oozes insanity!

[BlancheSplanchnik]

121. Texas Chainsaw truly was perfect. And that reminds me: The Devil's Rejects

Directed by Rob Zombie.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. The Lion in Winter

"It's 1183 and we're barbarians"

In my opinion the very best movie ever.

This was Anthony Hopkins very first movie role. Wow.

[BlueTsunami2018]

20. Pulp Fiction.

Just a perfect movie. Hell, I’d put almost every QT film on the list.

Shawshank
Jaws
Young Frankenstein
Slap Shot
White Heat

[Sherman A1]

22. 12 O'Clock High

Casablanca, Key Largo, High Noon, 12 Angry Men, The Magdalene Sisters, Rabbit Proof Fence and Downton Abbey come to mind.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

23. Citizen Kane, Frankenstein, Philadelphia, Cold Turkey

[lastlib]

24. On Golden Pond

Jeremiah Johnson

[Brother Buzz]

25. East of Eden - John Ford understood the power of B&W film

The 'I'll Be There' scene the glues the whole film together:

Tom: I been thinking about us, too, about our people living like pigs and good rich land layin’ fallow. Or maybe one guy with a million acres and a hundred thousand farmers starvin’. And I been wonderin’ if all our folks got together and yelled…

Ma: Oh, Tommy, they’d drag you out and cut you down just like they done to Casey.

Tom: They’d drag me anyways. Sooner or later they’d get me for one thing if not for another. Until then…

Ma: Tommy, you’re not aimin’ to kill nobody.

Tom: No, Ma, not that. That ain’t it. It’s just, well as long as I’m an outlaw anyways… maybe I can do somethin’… maybe I can just find out somethin’, just scrounge around and maybe find out what it is that’s wrong and see if they ain’t somethin’ that can be done about it. I ain’t thought it out all clear, Ma. I can’t. I don’t know enough.

Ma: How am I gonna know about ya, Tommy? Why they could kill ya and I’d never know. They could hurt ya. How am I gonna know?

Tom: Well, maybe it’s like Casy says. A fellow ain’t got a soul of his own, just little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody, then…

Ma: Then what, Tom?

Tom: Then it don’t matter. I’ll be all around in the dark – I’ll be everywhere. Wherever you can look – wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready, and when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise and livin’ in the houses they build – I’ll be there, too.

Ma: I don’t understand it, Tom.

Tom: Me, neither, Ma, but – just somethin’ I been thinkin’ about.

[regnaD kciN]

66. Since everything you mentioned was about "The Grapes of Wrath"...

…I assume that's what you meant?

Anyway, East of Eden was directed my notorious McCarthyite snitch Elia Kazan (see On the Waterfront, above), and was shot in color.

[Brother Buzz]

71. TOTAL BRAIN FART!!!! LOL, yes I meant Grapes of Wrath

I'm gonna leave it up there because I'm an idiot with a Swiss cheese brain.

Elia Kazan aside, I did not like reading East of Eden. The book was dark, and so I had a predisposition to not like the film, even though it was filmed mostly in Mendocino.

[Docreed2003]

26. Shawshank...and Seven Samurai

[LiberalLoner]

28. Probably no one else besides me has seen this film,

But I saw it as a little girl and loved it, still think it’s a great film, Jackie Gleason in “Gigot.”

[BlancheSplanchnik]

122. Omg yes, I loved that film!

Saw it as a little kid too! I still love Jackie Gleason, he reminded me of my Dad.

Thanks for reminding me, I’ll have to find it now.

Did you love Thomasina? That’s another great children’s movie from my past.

[LiberalLoner]

134. ❤️

[redstatebluegirl]

29. All The President's Men

[customerserviceguy]

30. Completely with you on the Blues Brothers. n/t

[42bambi]

31. A Few Good Men. nt

[phatkatt]

32. Taxi Driver

.

[Tech]

34. And of course, Reefer Madness. I am partial to black and white movies, Thin Man series

Harvey, Arsenic and Old Lace. They still make me laugh. I don't normally like watching movies more than once, but I can still giggle every time I watch these.

[Upthevibe]

76. I have DVR'd Arsenic and Old Lace and watch it at least once per week. Sometimes when I'm down I'll

have it playing on in the background every damn day...

[Smickey]

35. Dr. Zivago,

or Lawrence of Arabia

[malthaussen]

37. Hard to see how "Blazing Saddles" could be improved. n/t

[Captain Zero]

38. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

I know because I've probably watched it 15 times.

[The Polack MSgt]

41. Raising Arizona. Nt

[edbermac]

42. The Godfather.

[empedocles]

128. Surprised it took this long to make the list.

I remember this 'take the cannoli' scene, was cited by a pop philosopher [name escaping me now] as encapsulating the philosophy of the Godfather family.

[Initech]

43. Animal House!

[IrishEyes]

44. I absolutely agree.

I forgot to include that film.

[Initech]

46. Well you know what we got to do! Toga party!

Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga!

[IrishEyes]

68. "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son"

I really want to be able to use that quote someday.

[Initech]

69. I did the other day. It was a reply to @realDonaldTrump.

[Demovictory9]

92. ugh. that racist scene

[jmowreader]

45. Okay...

Snakes on a Plane
Apocalypse Now
The Truman Show
Full Metal Jacket
Batman (the Michael Keaton one, not the crappy Nolan ones)
The Green Mile

[Initech]

47. What? The Dark Knight is awesome.

[Orrex]

75. Agreed. And the Burton films are very close to unwatchable

Aside from a few strong moments in each, they're so unrelentingly terrible that I can't believe that people are still willing to pretend that they were good.

[Throckmorton]

95. Except the part where Christian Bale steals my luggage. NT

[Initech]

48. The Big Lebowski

Especially since this scene is so relevant right now:

[Generic Brad]

49. Die Hard

Yippee-ki-yay.

[RobinA]

50. Many

But first The Wizard of Oz.

[yellowdogintexas]

51. Victor , Victoria The Sting

there is no way to improve on these

[Glorfindel]

52. Sixteen Candles, Big Business, Donnie Darko

Twelve Monkeys, Ready to Wear, The Hudsucker Proxy, Latter Days

[bronxiteforever]

53. A Man for All Seasons, Henry V (Branagh version), The Verdict

[OregonBlue]

54. To Kill A Mockingbird, Little Big Man

[Doodley]

55. Schindler's List.

[defacto7]

56. Little Big Man

Jeremiah Johnson

[lpbk2713]

57. Unforgiven

Very well done. Even the score was good.

Also ... It Happened One Night

[GP6971]

58. Dr. Zhivago. n/t

[Hoyt]

59. In Cold Blood, Easy Rider; Black Like Me; 12 Angry Men.

[LakeArenal]

60. Now Voyager

Paul
Airplane
Last of the Mohicans

[appalachiablue]

63. 42nd Street, Dark Victory, Casablanca, The Third Man, The Red Shoes,

The Heiress, The Verdict, All The President's Men, Schindler's List, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Selma, Dances with Wolves, 12 Years A Slave, so many more.

[jrandom421]

65. Here are mine

Saving Private Ryan
We Were Soldiers
The Great Santini
Iron Man
Marty

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

141. Great line from Sam Elliot

Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: I think you oughta get yourself an M-16.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Sir, if the time comes I need one, there'll be plenty lying on the ground.

[jrandom421]

142. Don't forget this one as well

Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: "Custer was a pussy. You're not, Sir."

[Bayard]

67. Benny & Joon

The Princess Bride
Legends of the Fall
Dances with Wolves (Both Dances and Legends written by Michael Blake)
Shawshank Redemption
Jeremiah Johnson
Silverado (except for the way Scott Glenn rides a horse!)

[cos dem]

70. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

This Is Spinal Tap
Full Metal Jacket
The Big Lebowski
Airplane!
The Killing
Dr Strangelove (at least it used to be funny).
2001
O Brother Where Art Thou?

[Dem2theMax]

72. Far too many that I thought of have already been listed.

So I will add;

Dodsworth
The Court Jester
Home Alone
The Santa Clause
The Women ( the original version)
Galaxy Quest
The Station Agent
Death at a Funeral ( the English version)
Make Way for Tomorrow ( if you catch this on TCM, bring two boxes of Kleenex)
White Christmas
West Side Story

If I keep thinking, I'll be here all night. This is a good start.

[missingthebigdog]

73. My Cousin Vinnie

Dirty Dancing
Aliens
Rain Man

[Hokie]

77. How about a movie that would be improved by never having been made?

Forest Gump.

And Shawshank Redemption is perfect.

[Kablooie]

78. Saran Wrap. Its a thin film and I'd have no idea how to improve Saran Wrap.

[Hokie]

79. High Noon,Forbidden Planet,Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (except for the last 15 minutes),The Green Mile

[Hokie]

80. North by Northwest, maybe the best Hitchcock movie

[dawg day]

81. I can't improve Godfather 1

I can improve the new film Ad Astra.

[List left]

82. Seven Samurai

Seven Samurai

[SeattleVet]

83. Harold and Maude; Dark Star; A Clockwork Orange

[Tikki]

84. Being There, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Stranger Than Paradise...

Repo Man, Alfie....


Tikki

[Mike Nelson]

85. The Last Picture Show

[Mike Nelson]

86. All Quiet on the Western Front

[Mike Nelson]

87. Ninotchka

[Mike Nelson]

88. Sunset Boulevard

[Mike Nelson]

89. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

[Mike Nelson]

90. Network

[mucifer]

93. "Night Nurse" with Barbara Stanwyck (especially if you have been a night nurse) :

1931 sassy nurse whose boyfriend is a bootlegger. I LOVE this film. It's a hoot!

[50 Shades Of Blue]

101. I love it too!

[CommonSenseMom]

94. Wow. Love so many listed, adding . . .

A Christmas Story
When Harry Met Sally
The Green Mile

[Major Nikon]

96. Reefer Madness

[MrsMatt]

97. Many have already been listed, but these two came to mind

Young Frankenstein

Bringing up Baby

[MontanaMama]

98. A River Runs Through It.

Beautiful Girls.
Field Of Dreams

[AmandaRuth]

99. smoke signals

The Commitments

[NoPasaran]

100. The Producers (Zero Mostel/Gene Wilder version)

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World
No Country For Old Men
The Great Escape
Bridge on the River Kwai

Just to add a few I don't think anyone has mentioned yet

[Beringia]

123. Ya, The Producers, such perfection

[50 Shades Of Blue]

102. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House; The Long Long Trailer

Lady & the Tramp
101 Dalmations
The Trouble with Angels
The Curse of the Cat People

[Doreen]

103. Mine are

Creator
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
The Green Mile
Shawshank Redemption
Blazing Saddles
Airplane 1 and 2

[LisaM]

104. Henry and June.

Uma Thurman at her best.

[ZZenith]

105. Any of the "Three Colours" trilogy from Kieslowski

And “Wild Strawberries,” “Winter Light,” and “Fanny and Alexander” by Bergman.

Also “Rashomon” and “Seven Samurai.”

Yes, I am into moody foreign films.

[nocoincidences]

130. I love the Three Colors.

My preference for which one has changed as I aged.

[ZZenith]

133. My preference is always the most recently watched.

[Vox Populi]

106. Withnail and I

Best film ever made

[dawg day]

107. Stage Door: Check out the cast--

They live together in a boarding house at 158 West 58th Street in New York City. The film stars Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Ann Miller.

1937, and totally passes the Bechdel test: 1. It has to have at least two [named] women in it. 2. Who talk to each other. 3. About something besides a man.

In fact, men are practically irrelevant in this film, except for the Harvey Weinsteinish producer (things haven't changed much in 80 years) and a few dates who are useful to pay for a good dinner out some nights.

[Major Nikon]

108. TMax 400

[SeaTownBlue]

109. Forrest Gump

Saw the prezident. Uhginn.

[pansypoo53219]

110. witness. flash gordon. lol. airplane.....

[DFW]

111. Four: Young Frankenstein, If, The Witness (Harrison Ford), and The Verdict (Paul Newman)

And about 200 others that are ALMOST perfect.
e.g. The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, The Shawshank Redemption, Die Blechtrommel, Les 400 Coups, Ådalen '31, L'Homme de Rio, The Life Of Brian, Luftslottet Som Sprängdes, Avatar, Fame, Mrs. Doubtfire, August Rush, The Illusionist, Godfather II, the list goes on.....

[Nay]

112. Office Space, Robocop

[Mike 03]

113. A few..

2001 A Space Odyssey
Barry Lyndon
Lawrence of Arabia
Casino
Melancholia
My Dinner with Andre
All That Jazz

[JCMach1]

114. Young Frankenstein

And basically anything by Kubrick

[lastlib]

115. "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes"!

NO WAY it could be made any funnier!

And "Tunnelvision"--"the 'No-Bullshit network"!

[gratuitous]

116. Many good ones, but I don't find Body Heat

I think a present-day sequel could work. William Hurt gets out of prison, and looks up Ted Danson. Hurt persuades Danson that Kathleen Turner is still alive, and they go off to find her and bring her to justice.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

117. No Country for Old Men. NT

[IGoToDU]

118. A few

Room With a View
Like Water for Chocolate
A Little Romance
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (both the Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp versions!)
Love Actually (minus the fat shaming)
Glory
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Roger and Me
What About Bob
Breakfast Club
Christmas Story
Its A Wonderful Life

[Paladin]

119. "Chinatown" "LA Confidential" (nt)

[Leith]

124. The Harry Potter Films

Whatever you may think of the film adaptations and how they differed from the books, the films were beautifully done and the actors were superb.

While Casablanca is my favorite movie of all time, I have one nitpick with one minor character: the wife of the young couple from Bulgaria. A cardboard cutout could not have been worse.

[DeminPennswoods]

125. To Kill A Mockingbird,

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Judgement at Nuremberg
My Fair Lady
Gypsy
The Music Man

[nocoincidences]

126. Women in Love

&has_verified=1

[Cicada]

127. Jaws

[Zoonart]

129. Mine are...

Local Hero
All About Eve
Fargo

[randr]

131. King of Hearts w Alan Bates

[spooky3]

132. I liked a lot of these and would add Hidden Figures Nt

[Blue_playwright]

135. Star Trek IV, Major League, African Queen. Nt

[sorcrow]

136. Dersu Uzala

Dersu Uzala by Kurosawa

Watch it if you haven't.

My favorite movie of all time.

Regards,
Crow

[LAS14]

137. Jeremiah Johnson, African Queen, Casablanca

[mokawanis]

138. Apocalypse Now

[aikoaiko]

139. Clerks, with all its imperfections, was perfect.

It really spoke to me as a poor, struggling graduate student.

[yellowdogintexas]

143. Did anyone mention "In The Heat of the Night" ???

I have seen it so many times and I still have to think through how (Mr) Tibbs puts it all together.

Fabulous movie Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger were magic.

"we got the motive which is money and the body which is DEAD"

[MrScorpio]

144. The Great White Hype

[canetoad]

145. Rebecca 1940

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