Rick's List of Best Movies Ever Made
(of the movies I've seen, that is, and I've seen a lot of them!)
 My definition of a great movie is a movie which I can enjoy watching repeatedly. These are the movies that meet that definition for me, in rough order of greatness.
  1. Groundhog Day -- A self-centered man is mysteriously forced to repeat the same day of his life over and over and over . ..
  2. Fight Club -- A directionless man becomes best friends with the leader of an anarchist organization.
  3. Brazil -- A low-level bureaucrat in an Orwellian world falls in love with a suspected terrorist.
  4. The Wizard of Oz -- A young girl is carried by a tornado to a magical land and must find her way home.
  5. It's a Wonderful Life -- A man on the brink of suicide is shown what the world would be like if he had never been born.
  6. Planet of the Apes (original version) -- An astronaut awakens in the distant future on a planet ruled by apes.
  7. Pi -- A mathematical genius discovers a mystical number that governs the universe, that others will kill for . . .
  8. Life is Beautiful (Original Italian title: La Vita e bella) -- A father helps his son survive a Nazi concentration camp.
  9. Bladerunner -- In Earth's future, a man hunts down artificial humans whose only crime is wanting to live.
  10. Star Wars -- A young man named Luke Skywalker joins a rebellion against an evil galactic empire.
  11. The Empire Strikes Back -- The Star Wars saga continues; Luke is trained to use a mystical Force against the empire.
  12. Return of the Jedi -- The Star Wars trilogy concludes; Luke confronts his destiny during an epic final battle.
  13. Attack of the Clones -- Part 2 of 3 Star Wars prequels: Anakin falls in love while fighting to protect the Republic.
  14. The Phantom Menace -- Part 1 of 3 Star Wars prequels; a young boy named Anakin helps a peaceful planet being invaded.
  15. Forbidden Planet -- A spaceship sent to investigate a lost space colony finds a disturbing secret.
  16. Meet John Doe -- A newspaper fakes a story about a suicidal man and hires an unemployed man to play the part.
  17. Jacob's Ladder -- A Vietnam veteran begins to hallucinate an alternate reality. Or is it the real one?
  18. The Sixth Sense -- A pschyologist tries to help a young boy terrorized by a secret fear.
  19. Mr. Smith goes to Washington -- A newly elected Senator filibusters an issue he believes in against all odds.
  20. The Truman Show -- A man's entire life is a television show without his knowledge.
  21. Run Lola Run (Original German Title: Lola Rennt) -- A woman has 20 minutes to find $100,000 or her boyfriend will be killed.
  22. Terminator 2 -- Two robots from the future go back in time--one to kill a future human leader, the other to protect him.
  23. Dead Poet's Society -- A gifted teacher challenges his private-school students to sieze life.
  24. Harvey -- To his family's chagrin, a man claims he has a giant invisible rabbit for a companion.
  25. Casablanca -- A woman in WWII Morocco must choose between her husband and the man she is in love with.
  26. The Graduate -- A college graduate has an affair with an older woman and then falls in love with her daughter.
  27. Schindler's List -- A WWII German industrialist rescues Jews from death by keeping them as factory workers.
  28. Gandhi -- The life of Mohatma (Mohandas) Ghandi, unofficial leader of the nation of India until his death.
  29. All Quiet on the Western Front (original version) -- A WWI German soldier learns war is not as he idealized it to be.
  30. Dances with Wolves -- A U.S. soldier on the 1860's Western frontier befriends the Indians he is supposed to hate.
  31. Apocalypse Now -- A U.S. soldier is sent into the jungles of Vietnam to find and eliminate a rogue army commander.
  32. Slingblade -- A mentally disabled man is released from a hospital after decades and must make a new life.
  33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest -- A convict sent to a mental hospital rebels against its senseless rules.
  34. Signs -- A global rash of crop circles signals the coming of aliens.
  35. Being There-- A simple man is mistaken for someone who he is not.
  36. The Great Dictator -- Charlie Chaplin's brilliant satire of Hitler and the ideology of fascism.
  37. The Gold Rush -- A man seeking fortune in the Alaskan gold rush falls in love with a brutish man's girlfriend.
  38. City Lights -- A homeless tramp falls in love with a blind girl who believes he is wealthy.
  39. Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory -- A candymaking tycoon gives five children a tour of his never-seen factory.
  40. Contact -- Signals from intelligent life in space are received by Earth for the first time ever.
  41. Close Encounters of the Third Kind -- A man has an encounter with "something" and is driven to seek it out.
  42. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid -- The legendary tale of a team of two sophisticated Western bandits.
  43. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly -- Two rival old West gunfighters each possess half of the directions to buried gold.
  44. Rashomon (Japanese) -- In ancient Japan, several witnesses to a crime all tell radically different stories.
  45. The Fischer King--An aimless man finds meaning by redeeming himself for the death of another man's wife.
  46. The Day the Earth Stood Still (original version) -- A spaceship lands on Earth with a message for the human race.
  47. The Sound of Music -- A nanny overcomes the hostility of children and falls in love with their engaged father.
  48. The Manchurian Candidate -- A squad of MIA soldiers during the Korean War return but are not what they seem.
  49. Miracle on 34th Street (original version) -- A department store Santa Claus claims to be the real thing.
  50. Citizen Kane -- A journalist investigates the meaning of a billionaire's last dying word: "Rosebud."
  51. 2001: A Space Odyssey -- A space mission is sent to Jupiter to investigate a mysterious signal.
  52. Silent Running -- One man tries to save the biospheres containing the last living trees of Earth.
  53. Toy Story 2 -- A group of toys tries to rescue one of their stolen comrades.
  54. Titanic -- An elderly survivor of the Titanic disaster recalls her journey aboard the ship.
  55. I Heart Huckabees -- An angst-ridden young man hires a team of existential detectives to find the meaning of his life.
  56. Liar Liar -- A young boy wishes that for 24 hours, his father cannot lie, and his wish comes true.
  57. Psycho (original version) -- Guests at a motel run by a young man and his mother begin to be murdered.
  58. Wall*E --The last robot on a future uninhabitated earth meets another robot sent by humans in space.
  59. Sexmission (original Polish title Seksmisjha)- - Two frozen men awaken in a future world containing only women.
  60. Harrison Bergeron -- In a future United States, all citizens are forced to be perfectly equal.
  61. Equilibrium -- After World War III, drugs suppress all human emotions, and feeling is a crime.
  62. Pleasantville -- A boy is magically transported into a 1950's TV sitcom where everyone and everything is "perfect."





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