Movie Lists Are Very Important

I pretty much do whatever Will Ferrell tells me to. On Funny or Die, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay posted the fourteen films they think we should see before we die. It’s a fun, unpretentious list. Ferrell and McKay made a point to leave off their list the movies that always end up on lists like this, so we’re left with the idea that the fourteen included movies they actually love and recommend. Why fourteen? I dunno, why ten? Why twenty? Lists are weird. They’re also fun. I made one of my own, and asked my friends Wade and Jerry to do the same. No obvious classics, no repeats from Will Ferrell’s list, and a rule just for me: if Wade or Jerry picked something on my list, I changed mine. What are yours? Leave them in the comments.

Will Ferrell and Adam McKay

Goodfellas

Election

The Man Who Would Be King

Tin Men

Cinema Paradiso

Nights of Cabiria

Airplane!

Series 7: The Contenders

The Exorcist

Mail Order Wife

Rear Window

The Sound of Music

Tron

Flirting With Disaster

I haven’t seen a couple these, but I’m going to, because I love so many of the others. If I’d made my list before seeing this one, Goodfellas, Election and Rear Window would be there for sure.

Wade (the comments on Wade’s are mine.)

An American Werewolf in Paris

Paris? You mean London? Not London? Okay, buddy. I'll take your word for it. So, to anyone wondering, "Is there a Tom Everett Scott movie I have to see before I die?" The answer is yes. I might be a dead man. (That's how it works, right? If I don't watch these, I'm going to be killed?)

Tombstone

Singles

The Pallbearer

Fargo

Killing Zoe

The Dark Crystal

Um, anybody got a kid they want me to babysit? Cause otherwise, I'm just never gonna see this.

The Shawshank Redemption

When Harry Met Sally...

President Obama’s Inauguration Speech

Wade, this isn't a movie! It totally happened! (And it's the reason I got an extra entry on my list. Hey, you probably should watch this, but it's not a movie, so I get fifteen.)

12 monkeys

Primer

Fahrenheit 911

Starship Troopers

Jerry

Purple Rain

Because Prince told you to watch. Bitch. Really though, you're gonna watch it the first time, cause why not, it's Purple Rain. You'll watch it a second, third, and fourth time and so on because the music is that good.

The Believer

I believe (see how I did that), that Ryan Gosling's performance as a Neo-Nazi who happens to be Jewish is his finest.

Stop Making Sense

In which David Byrne sings to a lamp and wears a giant suit. Best concert film ever? I think so.

Bottle Rocket 

Wes Anderson's first and probably most overlooked. A few dummies try to become small time crooks. Some old fashioned fun.

The Wrestler 

This is some desert island shit.

Leon 

Who should see this? EVERYONE!!!

Wet Hot American Summer 

A fun summer camp spoof.

Little Otik 

So...the husband in this movie gives his sterile wife a root from a tree that looks like a small child in an effort to help her feel better about not being able to have a baby. She decides to treat it like an actual child. It comes to life, eats shit and stuff. The end. Awesome.

Miller's Crossing 

You'll never see anybody beg for his life as well as John Tuturro.

Mullholland Dr. 

I really don't know what to say. You won't either.

All the Real Girls 

It's Paul Schneider, come on!

Hated 

A great documentary about the self-proclaimed "savior of rock 'n' roll", GG Allin.

Me and You and Everyone We Know 

))<>((. Forever.

The Shining

Why should you watch anything? Just do it.

My List

Raising Arizona

You should see all of the Coen brothers’ movies, but I think this is the place to start. It’s always funnier, sweeter, and more violent than I remember. 

Children of Men

The future is a horrible, desolate place, with fucking awesome cinematography. 

Lost in Translation

I originally had Magnolia in this slot, but Bill Murray isn’t in Magnolia.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Cameron Crowe went undercover in a high school to write this. Was he independently wealthy? How do you get away with that shit if you aren’t rich? Did Rolling Stone pay more than I realize? I need answers. 

Aliens

You guys, the tracker isn’t wrong! The aliens are in the ceiling. THE FUCKING CEILING.

Last Train From Gun Hill

I watch this at least once a year with my dad. Kirk Douglas holds Anthony Quinn’s rapist son hostage in a burning hotel. I don’t want anyone to remake this, but I can’t believe no one’s tried yet.

Die Hard

The most copied movie on this list. Perhaps the most copied movie of the past twenty years, period. The most recent rip-off was Taken, which my friend Doug calls “My Daughter’s Been Taken” and I call “Die Hard in Paris”.

Kill Bill Volume 1

There might actually be more reasons to recommend Volume 2, but you cannot watch that until you’ve seen the Bride take on the Crazy 88.

The Vanishing

Nothing scarier than a movie that saves the most frightening scene for the end. The Vanishing is terrifying, and then it’s over. The American version cops out; get the original.

Zodiac

A movie this cool has no need to also be this thoughtful. I think this is David Fincher’s best movie, and of its genre, second only to The Silence of the Lambs. 

Adaptation

Meryl Streep gets high and impersonates a dial-tone.

In America

When the little girl sings Desperado at the school talent show, I turn to water, burst and crash to the floor, like the bigoted senator in X-Men.

The Truman Show, To Die For, King of Comedy

Three films that simultaneously warn against and spoof the current celebrity-for-the-sake-of-celebrity world we live in. Not a false performance in any of them, but I think the highlight is Illeanna Douglas in To Die For.