What movies (that you saw in a theater) made the biggest impression on you? You know, where you walked out with your consciousness changed? For me, here’s the top five:
1. Star Wars (the original)
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
3. Brazil
4. Poltergeist
5. Saving Private Ryan
It’s been a decade since I’ve seen a movie that impressed me much at all. I never did get into the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Matrix movies bored me, but I never saw any of them in the theater. I think the last movie I went to was the Tron sequel, and that was pretty cool. I saw the last Star Trek movie, too, and I thought it was very good.
The first ones that come to mind are, in chronological order:
I forgot A Clockwork Orange. Definitely should have been on my list.
Stanley Kubrick is well represented on your list. Deservedly so.
I love all Kubrick’s films, but the only one I saw in a theater was his worst, Eyes Wide Shut.
Should be against the law in this country to show 2001 on anything other than a large screen indoor public cinema.
Ditto for a few David Lean films like Larry of Arabia and Dr Zhivago.
2001 in the cinemas in 1968 was a mind blower of a huge cultural event.
Clockwork Orange — was at the top of my list of favorites 30 years ago but these days I prefer films with less “negative energy”.
The Wizard of Oz
Star Wars
Slingblade
Breaking the Waves
No Country for Old Men
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Midnight Cowboy
Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Times of Harvey Milk
American Beauty
Heh, Liberty Valence.
A better film than Ford’s much appreciated Stagecoach, especially I the more complex character development and the moving way he delivered unorthodox and conflicted western heroes.
In near chronological order
— Mary Poppins (I was 5)
— 2001 on the big screen in 1968 in a grand old theater on Bloomfield Ave in Montclair NJ ( I understand it has been recently restored)
— Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid — in the same Theater
— LeMans
— Casablanca
— One Flew of the CooCoo’s Nest
— Catch 22
— Failsafe/Dr Strangelove
— Bananas
— Annie Hall
— Cool Hand Luke
— The Sting
— The Hustler
— Shawshank Redemption
— Stand By Me
— The Molly Maquires
— The Deer Hunter
— Unforgiven
— The Grifters
— Rounders
— Senna (Even if you are not a race fan this is an amazing story of achievement, purpose of life and spirituality)
There must be something more recent but I rarely find a new movie these days even worth watching.
Of that list the only ones I’ve seen in the theater are Unforgiven (the most memorable film not on my list) and Casablanca. Of course, I’d seen Casablanca a dozen times on teevee before I ever saw it in a theater.
I think I saw Raiders with you in Lawrenceville, and the whole audience gave it a standing ovation at the end.
I saw Superman at the same theater where I saw Star Wars. It was the one near the diner on Route One. I forget what it was called. Superman was pretty memorable to me as a kid. And it was cool that Christopher Reeve used to visit our neighbors.
Prince Theater.
I saw it with Phil and Robin. I don’t remember if you tsgged along but I do remember I didn’t like it much.
The whole cartoons as movie things doesn’t work for me. Dick Tracy, Popeye, Green Lantern, Green Hornet, Captain America, the Batman thing just don’t hold that much appeal for me. I know I am in the minority but it takes too of my own imagination away I guess.
We saw Raiders there too. I liked it but when he rode half way around the world on the outside of a U boat I lost my whole “suspend disbelief” thing and it ruined the movie for me.
As for other films I found really important. Who Will Stop the Rain with Nick Nolte and Tuesday Weld. And Slap Shot. Best hockey movie ever made and George Roy Hill’s least known work of genius filmed in Johnstown, PA and an accurate social commentary on American decline in the 80s America.
I need to add To Have and Have Not. In many ways I like it more than Casablanca.
Prince theater, saw Black Beauty and Return of the Jedi there
The Usual Suspects
Lone Star
Brick
This is actually kind of a hard question for me. Hafta think about childhood films from 70s/80s and recent stuff too.
What’s funny is that the 3 films I listed, off the top of my head, were either from 1995/96 when I grew up/moved out/went to college (the first two), or made me feel nostalgia for that time in my life (Brick).
The pull of the past exerts powerful gravity on me, I guess.
I don’t think I’ve seen any of those films.
Watch Brick, it’s starting Joseph Gorden Levitt and is a really great noir style film tucked cleverly into a high school drama.
Also, I’m assuming you’ve seen Inception and Dark Knight? To me those are the best movies in the past couple of years, and the fact that they are both written and directed by Chris Nolan and his brother is no coincidence.
I saw Dark Knight. That was pretty awesome.
The Usual Suspects is a must.
Well, since others have covered for me on Usual Suspects and Brick, I’ll do Lone Star. It’s set in a Texas border town and is a whodunit. Chris Cooper and Elizabeth Peña star, and John Sayles directs. Great sense of place, characters, and flashbacks (Matthew McConaghey and Kris Kristofferson play antagonistic ’60s sheriffs). One half of the movie is flashback to the ’60s, and the other is contemporary ’90s. Lots of other people have great bit parts in it too.
Usual Suspects is awesome.
Great list. More people should see Brick.
It was filmed in South Orange County where I grew up. My mom actually went to San Clemente High school, the campus in the film. Lots of good ghosts in that movie for me. š
I love Brick. After streaming the whole Veronica Mars series, Netflix recommended it to me. I never knew it existed before then. There are so many relatively obscure but extremely good films being made.
Almost all of these are from when I was a teen or young adult. Guess I’m just not as impressionable any more. In no particular order:
Apocalypse Now
2001
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Brazil
Being There
Blade Runner
Ran
Honorable Mention: This is Spinal Tap
I saw Brazil and Being There in the theater. I loved them both. I’ve tried watch Brazil on television, and it’s boring. But in the theater it was mind-altering. My friends and I all felt like we’d smoked a bunch of pot after watching that movie. But we hadn’t.
Being There was also great. Peter Sellers was completely brilliant in that role.
Brazil would be great in a theater. It’s a favorite of mine. Being There was good for me in a theater but just didn’t have as deep or lingering an impact as others have for me.
Being There: Sellers was brilliant, and Hal Ashby was a great director (I’m also fond of Harold and Maude), but I also saw it when I was 19, and I haven’t seen so trenchant a deconstruction of media and politics in a movie theater, before or since. It hugely influenced my latent political cynicism. Also, as with Brazil, I adore the ambiguous ending, even though it drives some people nuts.
How did you like Wag the Dog? I couldn’t put it on my list because I only saw it in DVD. One of my favorites though…
I didn’t list Apocalypse Now because I’m too young to have seen it in the theater, but I saw it twice and both times it really messed with me:
* as a senior in high school, for part of a joint 12th grade Lit Analysis group project including Heart of Darkness and Dante’s Inferno.
* as a college freshman first semester, in my dorm room with lots of people I’d later be great friends with.
Thinking chronologically.
1. Bambi – saw the second release of it at age 4. Was a sucker for fighting forest fires
when Smokey the Bear appeared on the scene.
Situation, zeitgeist, and mood are as important in movies that change your consciousness as the artistic or technical quality of the film.
The only one of those that I saw in a theater was Forrest Gump. I saw that in Kalamazoo.
Which bring to mind another memorable experience. I saw Coal Miner’s Daughter in the old theater in Kalamazoo when it came out in 1980. I was probably nine at the time and I’d never seen a movie in such a fancy theater. It was a little adult for me, complete with a rape scene IIRC, but it was a powerful movie.
Watched bambi many times with my kids. The simple fairy tales, well told, have incredible emotional strength. Also have always loved Snow White — Disney’s first masterpiece.
Oh crap, theater changing moments? The only one on that list I’ve seen in the theater was Revolutionary Road. I’d never miss a Sam Mendes flick š
Oh, how could I forget? 50/50. That recently came out this year, too. It was fantastic. Probably one of a kind movie that looks at cancer from those vantage point(s).
The thing is, I don’t go to the theater that often, given that it’s so expensive.
I saw American Beauty in the theater. It was good but I was really surprised that it won an Oscar. I believe my parents walked out of it. I know they walked out of Clockwork Orange, which doesn’t surprise me. That’s a difficult movie to watch.
I know a lot of older people who walked out on it, or disliked it immensely. They saw it as an attack on them personally…and in a way, it was. I would say I’m surprised your parents would walk out — given their education and background — but my uncle’s mother who’s turning 89 next year hated it even though she’s very educated and very liberal. I don’t know that they disliked it for the same reasons, so that’s an assumption I’m making anyway.
I suspect that my parents didn’t care for a middle age man lusting after a 16 year old girl, but I’m really not sure what their specific problem was.
Well, maybe Mom
Jurassic Park
The Exorcist
Poltergeist
Josie Wales
Buckaroo Banzai
Josie Wales in the theater must have been awesome.
When I saw Poltergeist at the Princeton Garden (across the street from the university) I was sitting in the last row. When the clown came out, every person in the theater jumped about three inches out of their seat (including me).
Saw it in the same theatre. You might have gotten some of my popcorn in your face in that scene
You’re from Princeton?
Spent several very happy years there in the early 80’s, as a grad. student.
well, maybe I did see your head jump.
You could have seen my head over a pitcher of beer on any given night in the Debasement bar at the grad. college.
I know that little bar quite well.
!! Those youthful misspent hours were happy hours indeed.
Always have had a soft spot for Buckaroo Banzai. John Lithgow is so over the top he comes out the other side.
And oh, the immortal line, “No matter where you go, there you are.”
Another movie I really liked in the theater was Lost in Translation.
We just saw this again this week. Her most recent movie, Somewhere, is also quite good.
Yeah, I forgot to list that one too.
Another moment–and it was only a moment, because the movie was good but not great–was the opening credits for “25th Hour.” Spike Lee directs Ed Norton, Barry Pepper, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It came out spring 2002 and the opening sequence was just the WTC ground zero spotlights from different angles, with Arabesque singing as soundtrack.
This was in a random theater in Santa Barbara, but the audience gasped, and seemed a bit jumpy throughout the rest of the film.
OK, I wanted to answer this without reading anybody else’s response, so I wouldn’t be influenced. My five are:
Only one film from the last 20 years.
Oops, major omission here.
6. If….
Seen on the tube, not in the theatre. Each is a gem. There are more but I’ll stop at 8
Top Hat
Treasure of Sierra Madre
Red River
The African Queen
The Philadelphia Story
A Christmas Carol (Alistair Sims version)
Lawrence of Arabia
A Night at the Opera
As you can see from my list, I would agree, after adding on a couple more decades.
Recently:
“Adaptation”
“There Will be Blood”
Way Back:
“Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”
“Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind”
“Brubaker”
“Dead Ringers”
“Au hasard Balthazar” (my all time favorite film)
…of course, as soon as I start thinking about it 50 titles want to crawl onto that list.
I still have nightmares about Dead Ringers!
I’ve thought about watching it on DVD but nothing could top the experience I had in that theater.
I agree with many of the above (including original Star Wars) and can add Tombstone. Val Kilmer’s performance was simply stunning.
Animal House
Alice’s Restaurant
I saw Alice’s Restaurant in a theater and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was well aware of the song by then though and it was a theater in Munich – so watching the crowd’s response was more entertaining than the movie.
And I was the only one singing a long at the end…
Geez Booman, Spielberg/Lucas fanboy much? That’s four of five there.
well, they make impact movies. None of those five movies are among my favorite films, but they had the biggest impact in the theater.
Consciousness changing, to me, means a film that truly blew my mind, that altered the way I saw the world forever afterwards. My list is, therefore, not necessarily the films I enjoyed the most altho there are a couple of overlaps.
The first movie that left a lasting impression in my head was “Funny Face” with Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire. It was 1957. I was 9 yrs old and it shaped my hopes and dreams for decades. I still watch it whenever I feel terribly depressed and it cheers me right up.
My next reality-altering film is totally obscure: “Week-end”, 1967, Jean-Luc Godard. I have not seen it recently, nor would I want to, but looking it up just now and seeing it described as a satire and humorous amazes me. It was traumatic to me! It made me completely paranoid about the imminent collapse of civilization and I’ve never gotten over it.
Then, ya’know, comes “2001” which should be on everyone’s list. Now, there was word-of-mouth back in 1968 so I, perhaps foolishly, dropped a tab of acid to see this flick on a HUGE screen and Holy Tao! Mind BLOWN! I had to go back and see it sober to be sure it had really given me this vast long view of history and faith in humanity’s survival.
Kubrick couldn’t have me suffering from delusions so he made “A Clockwork Orange” to traumatize me into accepting that humans are just awful and the future is bleak. I saw it stone sober and almost walked out a couple of times but made myself sit through it. (I did not make it though “The Shining”; it scared me too much and I still haven’t seen the whole thing.)
“What Dreams May Come” also left a lasting impression because it was amazingly beautiful but mainly because I really, really want to believe in an afterlife that’s surreal and wonder-full.
Finally, the last movie I saw in a theater that changed my mind was “V for Vendetta”. It filled me with a ridiculous feeling of hope and faith in the “power of the people”. I obviously wasn’t the only person who got this message from it.
I’ve pretty much stopped going to movie theaters since then. Too expensive, people are rude and noisy, can’t put it on pause to go to the bathroom and the nearest theater is a 60 mile round trip.
V for Vendetta is the only movie that immediately sprang to mind for me. Everyone should watch it tomorrow – it will be the 5th of November, after all.
I seldom see Hollywood films in the theater anymore. I look forward to the Chicago Film Festival for the chance to see something fresh. I can still remember first impressions of some I saw as long ago as 30 years:
Office Space
Ballad of Narayama
Superfly
Tin Drum
Pather Panchali
Alice in Wonderland (recent Depp version)
Bladerunner
Bubba Hotep
Brother from Another Planet
Glory – I still can’t watch the scene where Matt Broderick whips Denzel Washington without becoming emotional.
The Color Purple – I can quote whole segments of this movie. Oprah’s bigg moment, the sisters: Cellie & Nettie saying goodbye and hello again, Sug Avery’s “I’se married na” the whole movie touches my soul.
Malcolm X – Even knowing how the movie ends I still was upset at the end. Denzel Washington was that good as Malcolm X.
Mississippi Burning/Rosewood/A Time to Kill – this whole genre of movies just always makes me mad and irritated at the injustice and bigotry of people and I’ll admit, I need a breather before I’m okay to speak to certain people without censure in my voice.
Imitation of Life – Forget about the racial storyline about the light-skinned daughter of a Black mother passing as white and ignoring and not acknowledging and being ashamed of her dark-skinned mother, and just look at the story of a child who took her mothers love for granted and never took the time to give her mother her due, and try NOT to cry at the funeral scene if you are a monster.
When I was younger I used to go to a lot of movies… but I’ve pretty much stopped watching movies in theaters (or at home) since the whole battle with the MPAA over DVD encryption in the late 90s. Since then I’ve only seen about a couple dozen movies in theaters. But when I was going and in no particular order…
Thanks for the links! Very helpful.
Oh yes, Dr. Strangelove. A great great flick. And Nosferatu — still the best vampire movie evah. Creeeepy.
“The Longest Day” In particular the juxtaposition of scenes with the American General in the first and the German General in the scond, each wondering whose side God is on.
Also loved the scene with the aristocratic Field Marshall (von Rundstedt?) reacting to the suggestion that he call Hitler directly to request the reserve Panzers. “Mich? Auf mein Knien zu dem Boemische Korporal?” (“Me? On my knees to that Bohemian Corporal?”)
Well, personally affecting big screen experiences:
2001
Dr No/FromRussia with Love (awakened me as a kid to sexy women)
My Fair Lady/The Sound of Music (showed how great musicals could be for all those who usually hate them)
The Graduate (another major cultural event in 1968)
The Godfather (near perfect a film as has ever been made; again a social-cultural major item that everyone was buzzing about)
JFK (Oliver Stone upsets the political establishment in a brilliant depiction of the murder conspiracy that is still too taboo to accept for most in the MSM)
To name a few:
The Day The Earth Stood Still
The Grapes Of Wrath
The Days Of Wine And Roses
To Kill A Mockingbird
Psycho
M*A*S*H (A couple of people made derogatory comments and left after the blood gushing from the neck scene)
Dr. Strangelove
The Graduate
2001: A Space Odyssey
Young Frankenstein
Apocalypse Now
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
Fargo (Hooked me on the Cohen Bros.)
Not seen in a theater, but well worth seeing at home – true story.
The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (Le scaphandre et le papillon)
Henry Fonda’s final speech in the Grapes of Wrath still chokes me up.
Yeah, sometimes it seems like we haven’t come very far at all from the Okie days.
Chelsea Girls (Andy Warhol)
Woman In The Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara)
Even Dwarves Started Small (Werner Herzog)
Interesting selection, ww.
Speaking of Warhol, I knew Paul America for a time after he left Warhol and the Factory to rejoin his two brothers here in a nearby commune (Kneadmore, if anyone around NYC ever mentioned it). Poor guy was so fried, we called him Lurch, like the big guy in the Addams Family. I heard he came to a bad end in Florida a couple of years later.
In no particular order.
The Lion In Winter
Jeremiah Johnson
A Man Called Horse
A Fistful of Dollars
Apocalypse Now
Platoon
Saving Private Ryan
Blade Runner
The Matrix
I’m sure there are others, but those are the ones that immediately come to mind.
I had to include TV as I had extremely limited access to movie theaters until I was 21.
12 Monkeys
American Beauty
Pulp Fiction
I should see more films in the theater though.
Age disclaimer: I am 46.
scene I experienced in a movie theater was in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. When McMurphy started to choke Nurse Ratched almost everyone in the packed movie theater started screaming “kill her”. I admit to being one of them.
I think for me, my top 5 would be:
There are others…I’m an Anime fan, so I’d recommend
Princess Mononoke!
Mystic River