I’ve seen 1,863 movies in my life… give or take.

Yes, I know, how can you know how many movies you’ve seen all your life… but trust me, with a very good memory, access to IMDB, and plenty of time at hand , surely you can come upon your number.

When you assume an average 90 mins per film, it means that I’ve spent 167,670 minutes, 2,794.5 hours, 116.4 days of my life glued to a screen. 116 days!!!!!! And that’s not counting the repeats… if I start considering the number of times I’ve seen Star Wars or Jurassic Park… better not.

So, 116 days of my life watching movies, and when consider how many bad bad bad movies I’ve seen, then you realise how much time of your life has been wasted.

However, there are those precious few movies that make it all worthwhile. And here I’ll list my top films of all time. Now, I could be snobby and include Citizen Kane, The Godfather and Casablanca on my list, but even though I liked them enough, the films listed here are the ones that I like to watch over and over and over again.

So here they are, in no particular order, my all-time greats:
Jurassic Park

This is probably my favourite movie of all time. I saw it 3 times in the cinema, then in VHS, then in DVD, then in BluRay, then in BluRay 3D! The music, the visuals, the story… a flawless movie that still takes me back to when I was twelve years old and wishing with all my heart that dinosaurs were real. The sequels, unfortunately, weren’t that great. But next year “Jurassic World” is out… fingers crossed it will be amazing.
Star Wars

George Lucas is a great storyteller, but a lousy director. As such, the prequels, and even the original Star Wars Episode IV, feel a bit wooden. And I thought Star Wars itself was just okay at first, to be honest. But then, one day back when I was ten or so, they showed the original trilogy back-to-back-to-back… and I was hooked. So yes, big Star Wars fan, with The Empire Strikes Back by far my favourite of the lot. Here’s hoping Episode VIII is more Empire and less Jar Jar Binks.
Indiana Jones

Every time I hear the Indy theme… can’t help but smile. Indiana Jones was such a brilliant character, the right mix of action, adventure and comedy. Raiders was amazing. Temple of Doom was good, but not great. The Last Crusade is my favourite though, the interaction between Sean Connery and Harrison Ford pure gold. I’m not mentioning the last one, as I’m ignoring its existence.

The Dark Knight

 

Let’s put it out there… massive Batman fan. Love the story, have read the comics, was fine with the campy 1960s TV show, enjoyed the first two Burton Batman, hated the other films… and then came Batman Begins. Great film, good set up for what was coming, but came a bit short to greatness in my opinion. Thank God for The Dark Knight. The movie is truly amazing. So bloody well made, brilliantly acted, perfectly executed. I liked The Dark Knight Rises, despite the plot holes that I still struggle to understand. But The Dark Knight stands as the best of the lot, the best superhero movie, and among the finest films I’ve ever seen.
Braveheart

Picture the scene… I’m lying on the couch, watching Braveheart for the first time. And cue “Freeeeedddoooooommmm” and I start crying, like I’ve never cried for a movie before. My mom walks in and asks what’s wrong… and I somehow blurb… William…sniff…Wall…sniff…ace. I credit this movie as the only one that has really made me cry (not just bring a small tear to my eye). I loved every minute of it… awesome film.
Back to the Future

The Delorean… enough said.
Jerry Maguire

Part Rom-Com, part sports drama, part comedy… they call it the ultimate date movie because it just works in so many levels. Fact is, it was only after watching Jerry Maguire that I started to follow the NFL a bit more (and that has led to an unhealthy obsession with the San Francisco 49ers and Fantasy Football!) “Show me the money!”
The Lord of the Rings

Of course it had to be here. Epic, majestic, breathtaking, exhilarating… words come short to describe what Peter Jackson managed to do with these films. The set pieces, the characters, the effects… there’s just not flaw when it comes to The Lord of the Rings. A large group of friends went to the cinema to see “Fellowship”. I came out of the theatre saying “Best Movie Ever!” But my friend Andres said… “what? That was terrible!!” I was gobsmacked… so when I asked why he said… “well, it just ended. What kind of movie is that?” It was only when I said, “dude, it’s a trilogy” that he decided that it was actually great. Great indeed. No question!
Harry Potter

The first two were cute, but that was it… then came Azkaban, and what a game changer. Like the books, the movies took a much darker tone as Harry grew up, and were made better because of it. Many great children books fail to be a successful film (see “The Golden Compass”, ughh!) but the Potter films are great in every way. Big fan.
The Sixth Sense

I’m not a fan of scary movies… I usually don’t find them that scary, and they tend to not work for me. Except The Sixth Sense… that movie scared the beejezus out of me! I was lucky that I saw it at the cinema on opening night, so no one was able to even mention the twist at the end. Still remember heading back home after the cinema, and feeling petrified. No other film has impacted me that way. Many would say it’s not scary at all, but I beg to differ.
Saving Private Ryan

Those first 20 minutes… there’s no better example for awesome filmmaking. I saw this movie at the cinema on my own, and sat quite close to the screen. And was blown away by the action, the drama, the intensity of the film. The movie is amazing, but just for that opening scene, it takes a place among my all-time favourite.
Die Hard

 

Best action film of all time. Sequelwise, enjoyed the third. The others… meh! Someone should tell Bruce Willis that sticking the name Die Hard (or any other variation of the name) to an action movie (beyond McClane has no connection to the previous films) is becoming a useless gimmick. Nonetheless, Die Hard stands as one of those movies you can see over and over and over. Say it with me: Yippie-kay-yee mother%^&&$!!!
The Matrix
      

Let’s ignore the pointless sequels and concentrate on the original. What a film! Breathtaking, groundbreaking, amazing in every way. Still remember walking out of the theater, feeling completely blown away. A true shame that the trilogy took so much away from the first one… as a stand-alone, it would’ve worked in every way. A genre defining film, one of the best ever made.

**

So there you have them. My list of favourite movies.

Other worthy mentions: Terminator 2, The Shawshank Redemption, Silence of the Lambs, Groundhog Day, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Se7en, Looper, Minority Report, Children of Men, Moneyball, Gladiator.