The most important films in American history

Excluding The Wizard of Oz, there’s no correlation between “important” and “good” in your list.

What a boring list. We’re begging you to start watching more interesting films, OP.

If those are the best, then Hollywood is overrated.

Like all these threads, this will just become a list of films we like.

Important also means that there is a personal connection that a great many Americans of different background share with each film.

Citizen Kane

The Birth of a Nation

Buck would have never had such pedestrian taste.

Gee OP, why not also include Showgirls? Your list is absolutely groundbreaking!!!!

I've only seen two films on OP's list. I don't care to see the rest.

Cats

Mahogany

Bonnie and Clyde

In what way are the films supposed to be important; artistically or culturally. Jaws and Star Wars are important films even though some may think they don't deserve to be. Then you have films like Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and To Kill a Mockingbird whose cultural impact was more important. Then you have films that defined new subgenres. Most of those were made in the 50s and 60s.

Big Bad Mama

No list is complete without the Police Academy Saga.

If we're going by PC standards, everything released before 2000 is too dated or problematic.

Valley of the Dolls

It's Pat

Norbit

Too Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar

Norbit will inspire young filmmakers for decades to come

Pulp Fiction??? Really?? I mean, really hon.......

The Deep

With Six You Get Eggroll

The Love Bug (1968)

Loved Pulp Fiction when it came out, now I find it unwatchable. OTOH some of these movies provide pleasure each time.

requiem for a dream the exorcist

Dreamgirls

“Important” in what way?

The LOTR trilogy isn’t American. The Sound of Music, Star Wars, and Pulp Fiction are all dull as dirt, although important from a box office standpoint.

Taxi Driver inspired a presidential assassination attempt, so it obviously makes the list.

And you can’t be serious, R20. Pulp Fiction was massively influential, and it probably changed filmmaking more than any movie from the past thirty years. I’ve always been a bit cool on it, but that movie had a tremendous impact.

I don’t think The Sound of Music deserves a place on the list. It’s massively beloved, but it’s more a culmination of all the mega-musicals that preceded it before they fell out of fashion than influential in its own right.

There are some films that are important for their cultural impact. They might not be your favorite but they impact our culture...and they father other movies that imitate them.

So IMO I would add Jaws to that list. I would add The Godfather.

Singing in the rain

R27 here. I meant to include the Alien trilogy. But really the first one was definitive.

I'd say the following films are among the most important in terms of the development of cinema as both an art form and an industry:

Birth of a Nation (1915)

The Jazz Singer (1927)

42nd Street (1933)

Becky Sharp (1935)

Citizen Kane (1941)

The Robe (1953)

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Star Wars (1977)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

The Dark Knight (2008)

The Sound of Music wasn't a landmark American film, neither was Pulp Fiction, and neither, really, was Lord of the Rings. Despite being produced by an American studio, LOTR is really viewed as British/Australian. The landmark special effects were done in New Zealand, the director was Australian, and most of the major roles taken by Brits and Australians.

If any R&H filmed transfers of their stage plays were important, they were "Oklahoma" - the first of its kind in Technicolour - and "Flower Drum Song", the first major Broadway show and then film to feature an all-Asian cast. The Sound of Music broke some attendance records, but so did lots of other films.

The really important films definitely included:

Gone with the Wind

The Wizard of Oz

The Godfather

And, with regret, I'll admit Star Wars

But Pulp Fiction? Not. Sound of Music? Not. LOTR? Not.

I would add to the list some more serious candidates:

George Stevens' "A Place in the Sun" (those intimate closeups of Taylor's and Clift's faces had not been done before)

"High Noon"

"Five Easy Pieces"

"On the Waterfront"

"The Graduate"

Those were films with huge cultural impact and markers of their eras, as well as great scripts, photography, technological achievements, and casts.

Also, for landmark presentations, you have got include Disney's first feature-length fairy-tale cartoon, "Snow White", and "Fantasia".

I'd add in, "Psycho" for its graphic murder, it's not the best Hitchcock film ever, but it was probably his most controversial for the shower murder.

State Fair (1945) was the first R&H film in color.

Hollywood produced so many great films it's hard to come up with a limited list, much less 10 or so. New great films are still being produced every year. We don't know it yet but many of the films made in the last 5 years will be remembered for many decades to come.

R31, I don’t think the international nature of LOTR disqualifies it from being an important American film, since those lines have always been very blurry. Hollywood has been an industry for immigrants since its inception, especially into the Golden Age (Wilder, Hitchcock, Capra, Wyler, and so on...). I think its production within the Hollywood system is enough to qualify it.

I’d disqualify it for other reasons, though; its cultural footprint disappeared rather quickly, despite how huge the original trilogy was at the time. Nor quite to the level of Avatar, but it’s comparable.

I would say Chinatown, but maybe that's more just for California?

R32 - You're right, but State Fair was a remake of a 1933 film (same studio, Fox, if I remember), not a "first". But I was wrong about the Technicolour - it was another process that made Oklahoma! a blockbuster: it was the first feature film photographed in the Todd-AO 70 mm widescreen process (and was simultaneously filmed in CinemaScope 35mm), which gave it its BIG look.

Midnight Cowboy, Deep Throat and Boys in the Sand- don’t forget the X rated films.

OP must be 12 years old. Where’s:

CITIZEN KANE 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY CHINATOWN BIRTH OF A NATION WIZARD OF OZ

GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN

I think some of the early science fiction films should get a mention, notably The Invisible Man, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Fly, THEM, and The Thing (the original, of course).

The Maltese Falcon isn't A Place in the Sun in terms of depth and questions raised, but it's an iconic film noir - where would we place that?

As noted by others, what was really good wasn't necessarily important. I think Wyler's "The Best Years of Our Lives" a really first-class American film, but I wouldn't call it important in terms of cultural impact. It's hard to make that distinction.

"Snow White" was a miraculous and backbreaking achievement in film. Disney and his staff, at the premiere, were terrified that they'd be laughed out of the theatre. The Disney company and studio had sunk everything into it.

When the scene arrived where Snow White is lying in her death sleep in the cottage, with the dwarves weeping around the bed, and the animals outside looking in the windows are crying, with the raindrops sliding down the windows merging into the animals' tears, Disney took a quick look over where Clark Gable was sitting, and Gable was bawling like a baby. Disney sank back in his chair and muttered, "We've done it."

Scorsese needs a place on the list. I would argue for GoodFellas over Taxi Driver.

The Best Years of Our Lives still might qualify because it’s the defining film about the postwar experience for veterans, R40. It might not be a Casablanca or Citizen Kane in terms of popular impact, but it has a valuable place in the historical record. It is interesting to parse that distinction between quality and significance, and some movies I absolutely love and think are great movies don’t quite measure up on the latter.

Thanks R40, for mentioning science fiction films of the 1950’s, which had a huge impact on the American psyche of the time... but are rarely included on lists of classics. To your list, I’d add THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (directed by Robert Wise) and IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (in 3-D).

Additionally, two films by gay director James Whales are considered classics of the horror genre... FRANKENSTEIN (1931) and BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935)

LOTR isn't even on the radar of important films. Same with Pulp Fiction.

Star Wars completely changed how Americans responded to films. It is the one film that is responsible for how films were created going forward. Hell, it even changed how future films were projected. It was the first film to tie in merchandise and forever changed how movies are marketed. It is the #1 most important film in American history because of it's emphasis on sound design which resulted in THX sound being created and the eventual moving from film to digital projection with Phantom Menance. Say what you will about George Lucas, but he is single handedly responsible for the evolution of the film industry.

Human Centipede is missing from that list

[quote] Like all these threads, this will just become a list of films we like.

Like all these threads, this will just become a list of films we like that are boring and 100 years old.

R43 - Thanks in return for reminding me of The Day the Earth Stood Still, it absolutely belongs on the list, as does Frankenstein.

Re musicals, West Side Story (speaking of Robert Wise) broke ground with its visuals. It probably deserves a place on the list.

And comedies deserve a place of their own - that's the thing, you see, the apples to oranges problem. Where would we place Busby Berkeley's 1930s groundbreaking "backstage" musicals?

What about Billy Wilder's stuff - "Some Like it Hot" was absolutely filthy yet passed the censors in the 1950s. It's also iconic, but is it important?

Wilder also did "Lost Weekend", I think the first film to deal with alcoholism, he did "Double Indemnity" surely another iconic film, Sunset Boulevard, Sabrina - surely one of those belong on the list?

R40

Yeah, r38, 12-year-olds are known for their love of Gone With the Wind

John Ford's "The Grapes of Wrath" needs to be added.

What constitutes important? Define it. Is it like to the film industry, is it art, is it subjective, is it cultural, WTF are you asking for OP? Can you be CLEAR?

R46, just because you liked a film you saw in your teens does not make it a great film. If you were a little more educated, you’d see the importance of a “boring film from a hundred years ago”

R23, you can make an argument that "The Exorcist" makes for a great allegory for broader, darker things happening within American culture within the last dozens of years or so. It was very prescient.

Goodfellas

Xanadu. Fuck Gone With The Wind

Two of a Kind

Halloween, Texas chainsaw massacre, and silence of the lambs were all groundbreaking for their time.

What's the Matter with Helen?

R55 Do we deserve a second chance? How did we fall into this circumstance?

The Matrix

Baps

Yuck. No Citizen Fucking Kane and no Tarantino please.

Gone with the Wind is without doubt one of the shittiest movies ever made. No wonder Margaret Mitchell's husband pushed her in front of a car.

R62 And then burned down her house.

Hello?

‘Casino’ is peak extravagant 90s American filmmaking. A must-see.

Rosemary's Baby

Deliverance

There Will be Blood

In terms which had a huge impact on American culture, your list is absolutely appropriate, OP>

The Lord of the Rings absolutely does not belong there, unless Peter Jackson paid for it to be listed there.

Star Wars annoys.

I would remove LOTR and put Citizen Kane in its place. Otherwise, good list OP. All these films had a huge impact on the American psyche and all are great movies.

R35 - And Oklahoma! looks amazing in Todd-AO, as do TSoM and South Pacific, even if SP is the lesser of the three 70mm R&H pictures.

Monster

R71 The movie, or are you commenting on someone choices? If movie are Charlize?

R62 - GWTW is a fantastic film. You're letting your PC biases get in the way of cinematic achievement. The cast was terrific, the narrative riveting, the film gorgeous to look at, even the score became iconic.

In fact, the film is very much like the book: not Great Lit but a very, very, very high grade of top-notch storytelling. Yes, it told the story from the South's point of view. It was very much a product of its time.

But as movie-making and story-telling - some of those shots are still part viewed as huge breakthrough's. Jack Cardiff's cinematography was stunning.

Come on. It got Hattie MacDaniel the first Oscar for an actor of colour.

You're free not to like it because you can't take the era's racialist view, or because it's too much of a chick flick - but calling it a shitty movie is absurd.

Thank you for not including Citizen Kane. It's an overblown piece of crap. The only good thing about it is the cinematography. The storyline (William Randolph Hearst) and Orson Welles hammy acting are over the top. It survives as a piece of camp film.

Taxi Driver

Coming from the broken education thread, this movie thread is proof of that. How many times in school have you had an assignment where the answer was ambiguous or had multiple solutions?? It doesn't matter what you pick, so long as you can DEFEND your pick. Other posters have already explained at R5, R27, & R34.

Anyways, my picks are:

Birth of a Nation The Wizard of Oz Star Wars Jaws Mississippi Burning Titanic Avatar

These films are notable for their impact on American culture and innovation in cinematography. Can we make an argument for The Da Vinci code? Or no, long != Great....

Don't forget The Blair Witch project!

Rear Window

Vertigo

North by Northwest

Psycho

The Birds

Definitely Psycho. Tapped into so many silent universal fears.

Same with Jaws.

Apocalypse Now? Saving Private Ryan?

Dawson’s 50-Load Weekend.

Does the Dawson’s Load person get a commission every time they post the movie title?

2001 A Space Odyssey

2001 definitely!

All about Eve

Streetcar named Desire

Sunset Boulevard

“The Three Stooges Meet Hercules” works on two levels: silly comedy for kids and satire of the sword and sandals movies of the era for adults. I think it’s a direct forerunner to “Blazing Saddles.”

Mame

R77, even reviews of Mississippi Burning at the time knocked it for being a movie about the civil rights movement focused on white heroes. I can’t imagine the consensus on the film being any kinder now, even with the fine cinematography.

OP is pretty much spot on with his choices of important films. Gone With The Wind definitely belongs at #1.

Nobody mentioned Alien?

Do the Right Thing

OP and most of these replies don't know the meaning of important.

American History X

What do you think is important then, R95?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

I picked LOTR for many reasons. There is no Game of Thrones without LOTR. Aside from that it has a great many elements in it from "Oz", " The Godfather", "The Sound of Music" and " Star Wars". Movies that import themselves into the culture always have elements of other important films. I left Disney and Hitchcock off the list because their catalog is too important to the history and making of films period. They are ubiquitous in any list. But there is no "Oz" without Disney, and there is no " Pulp Fiction" without Hitchcock. And R44 Mary Pickford and Disney were the first filmmakers to market their films with consumers products from the films.

Song of Norway.

Sure R91, but like you said, excellent cinematography.

I would definitely include Saving Private Ryan.

American Psycho.

Forrest Gump! (No one has said this one yet!) It's a very valuable, cultural piece in retelling American history of the mid-20th century.

Sorry, but Forrest Gump is absolute crap.

Brokeback Mountain

I second r35 in nominating CHINATOWN.

R101, it’s fascinating how American Psycho has been reappraised over the past few years. I remember enjoying it when I saw it in the theaters twenty years ago, but the reviews were lukewarm. I think once Christian Bale was firmly established as the Very Serious Thespian of his generation, it allowed people to appreciate the movie and his work in it.

Back in 2000, the discussion around the movie focused on how DiCaprio didn’t do it as planned, but he would have been totally wrong for the role.

This has made me realize how many movies I hate.

Night of the Hunter was one I liked. Freaky atmosphere. I think Mitchum could really scare the shit out of you.

What's that one where Burt Lancaster plays an evangelist? I liked that one too. Psychological horror - guess that's my thing.

I ranted all the way home from seeing Star Wars when it came out. Loud, overwrought, an assault on the senses. Haven't gotten over it yet. I kept thinking I'm not a 7 year old boy and I don't give a fuck about star ship zooming around and frat boys blustering.

“A Free Soul” from 1931. It shook society as a pre-code film that made it okay for a good respectable girl to leave her respectable beau for the sexy bad guy When Clark Gable struck Norma Shearer and she liked it he became a star overnight There is a court room scene where Gable is on trial for murder and he has to try on a hat found at the scene and it doesn’t fit. You can see where Johnnie Cochran got “ If it doesn’t fit you must acquit”. Adrian may have created the broad shouldered look for Joan but he created the halter look for Norma.

I also would add “I’m No Angel” from 1931. Mae West saved Paramount from bankruptcy. She was a woman ahead of her time.

From that pre-Code era, one of my favorites is Night Nurse, with Barbara Stanwyck and Clark Gable. It was released the same year as A Free Soul. Might not be a well-remembered film, but it really captures the feel of that era of filmmaking.

R106 - Elmer Gantry is the film you're thinking of.

Saving Private Ryan was one of the worst-written films I have ever sat through. It had no cultural importance whatsoever and I leapt out of my seat with joy when it didn't win Best Picture The only thing in it worth seeing is the first twenty minutes and, frankly, silent black and white real footage of the bodies on the beach that day had more emotional clout.

No one has mentioned Cagney's great breakthrough film, Public Enemy. It was far more iconic than most of the other films mentioned.

Westerns are another overlooked category - only High Noon has gotten a mention as an important film. But there were others that were fine and questioned cultural assumptions: "The Ox-Bow Incident" with a young Dana Andrews; Ford's controversial "The Searchers" with that matchless fadeout; "Cheyenne Autumn", which told the Native American tragedy rather than the old Cavalry-Indian showdown, and of course the hugely iconic "Stagecoach".

This quintessentially American genre has to be included on any list of the most important American films.

R100 Why I love datalounge. Amazing that a mega-bomb musical released in the mid-60s that nobody saw, and practically nobody remembers, is still mentioned over 50 years later on this site.

Has anybody here ever seen the movie? I picked up a vinyl recording of the soundtrack for $2 at a thrift shop but have never taken the record out of it's cover. Think it's worth anything? (anything more than what I paid for it, of course).

Platoon.

The first American war film to depict war as it truly was in all it's ugliness and gory details. I remember when it came out, some Vietnam vets could not sit through it as it hit very close to home. After that came an onslaught of war films that depicted the horrors of war. Saving Private Ryan would not have been made had it not been for Platoon.

R111 - Platoon was very much NOT the first film to depict war as it was and to question the glorification of war. It was, however, the first of those focussing on Vietnam and was followed only three years later by Born on the Fourth of July.

All Quiet on the Western Front came out in 1930 and was lauded as the harrowing account of the slaughter of WWI

Wellman's The Story of GI Joe - 1945, based on Ernie Pyle's memory of what one company went through

Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957

Kubrick's antiwar film, also 1957, with Kirk Douglas, Paths of glory

And on the black comedy side, The Americanization of Emily is a standout.

Some of these are more and less graphic, but they all question the glorification of war and some show its horrors very graphically.

Wait, didn’t Kubrick absconded to the UK? At what point did his movies move to being British instead of American?

Movies like Mildred Pierce and The Postman Always Rings Twice were culturally significant.

Chinatown

Nashville

[quote]The Lord of The Rings Saga

Are you mental?

[quote]Wait, didn’t Kubrick absconded to the UK? At what point did his movies move to being British instead of American?

Lolita (1962) was his first British film. Filmed in the UK even though it takes place in America.

I Could Go On Pinging.

The Zapruder film.

As I Lay Lypsinching

Imitation of Life Rear Window Rosemary's Baby The Exorcist Saturday Night Fever Apocalypse Now

R122 - "Imitation of Life" is also ran on this list, as "Pinky", which preceded it in 1949 and starred Jeanne Crain, Ethel Waters, and Ethel Barrymore, is not only the more important film in for the first time portraying the mixed race woman who passes for white, but was a better film than the more expensive later one.

"Saturday Night Fever" is also an "also ran" on this list.

"Rear Window" is nothing of the kind, it was far from being Hitch's best - "Psycho" was more important, so was "Strangers on a Train". Nor was "Rosemary's Baby" or "The Exorcist".

"Apocalypse Now" was a massive, overblown dud (Clint Eastwood said when it was released that if you gave him $42 million, an astronomical cost at the time, he really could invade a small country).

Anyone mention Deep Throat?

R124 Yes, I mentioned it along with Midnight Cowboy and Boys in the Sand as X rated movies, which were important.

[quote]Apocalypse Now" was a massive, overblown dud (Clint Eastwood said when it was released that if you gave him $42 million, an astronomical cost at the time, he really could invade a small country).

Yeah, it was a lot of claptrap.....the horror....the horror.

R126 - Platoon was way better, so was Born on the Fourth of July, so was Coming Home.

What does "important" mean?

R128 - As I understand it, films that represented cinematic achievements (e.g., special effects, the intense facial closeups in A Place in the Sun, the famous shots in GWTW of the warehouse burning and the streets of Atlanta, the development of CGI, etc.), and/or that recognised or helped pushed forward cultural shifts, and/or had an impact on movie-making itself.

In terms of special effects, I'm surprised no one has mentioned the legendary Ray Harryhausen who created a form of stop-motion model animation known as "Dynamation" which you can see in films like "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad".

I should add to my post about "Pinky" a few posts back that in fact the earliest film to address the "black woman passing for black" theme) was the very first filming of "Showboat" in 1936, with Irene Dunne in the later Kathryn Grayson role, directed by none other than DL fave James Whale.

OP has bottom of the barrel taste in cinema.

OK. The answer is Birth of a Nation. Notoriously important in culture. But also extremely important in the development of narrative feature film-making. It innovated how to narrate (and edit) a story.

^ You really think Pulp Fiction and The Godfather are terrible films?!

Important?

Internationally, Battleship Potemkin is the most important film, socially and cinematically, of all time.

The Birth of a Nation (Alas.)

Gone with the Wind (perpetuating the campaign to "celebrate" the wonderful old South of nobility and happy slaves.)

Jaws and Star Wars (Setting the stage for the controlling forces of American cinema for the next 45+ years and affecting the way audiences interpret and internalize popular culture's meaning for them. Easy pleasure, shocks, platitudes, permanent adolescence in taste.)

Philadelphia (not a fan here, but its impact on opening viewers' eyes to HIV and AIDS, thanks to the face of Tom Hanks was important.)

An Inconvenient Truth and Day after Tomorrow (The former was an introduction to climate change for many and research among viewers of the second, amazingly, showed lasting effects on knowledge and attitudes about human harm to climate.)

Blackfish (It's only orcas to some, but the movie did permanently change how aquariums and animal shows handled their "specimens.")

Casablanca, Mrs. Miniver and other WWII propaganda films (Mixing great entertainment, at least in the former, these movies all were important to the American war effort.)

Porky's

The Yekaterinburg Job - the super klassy blender of the jewel steal guy and the movie of the spy

Contagion is emerging as an "Important Film." If you haven't seen it, it's on HBO On Demand right now. Watch it.

Grey Gardens

It's important if it's groundbreaking, or if it spawns a lot of copycats, or if it takes a genre and re defines it. Those are my standards. So maybe Memento and Inception?

And the original Alien trilogy for how they made Ripley the Hero. Or Shero.

Can I make a suggestion: Too many of our nominees here are from modern cinema. If you're a real film buff or film historian, take a look back at some of the genres to see how experimental films from the late 20's and early 30's influenced Filmmaking.

"Mona: The Virgin Nymph"which opened in San Francisco and New York City in 1970. The first hardcore "feature' with a plot to open in mainstream cinemas. Until then, hardcore footage was relegated to pseudo documentaries and filmed marriage manuals.

R132, yes, they’re both garbage.

I am (Curious) Yellow.

Home Alone 2

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens

Of course we've been trading Olde Tyme Movie recommendations during the home sheltering. That's where OP got the idea of "American history"— because I've been advising people to check out the American Film Institute's 100 Best list.

Imitation of Life (1934)

Rebel without a cause

In the heat of the night

Philadelphia

E.T.

R64 mention "Jaws" but not why it;s an important movie. Not just because it's agreat movie, which helps, itls because it's Considered the first blockbuster film. Up until "Jaws" a big film would open in the least amount of theaters possible. A big movie like "The Sound Of Music" or "My Fair Lady" would premiere as a "Roadshow" Engagement and play in big cities on a single screen, sometime as long as a year, like a Broadway show one show a day at 8:00pm and a 2:00 matinee on weekends. Big action pictures like "The Poseidon Adventure" or "The Towering Inferno" would play exclusive engagements in one or two screens for weeks and weeks before opening all over country.

Universal has such a great response form early previews of "Jaws" they decided to open "wide" in the summer of '75 and it became a phenomenon becoming the biggest grossing film in history in weeks and the blockbuster was born. Can you imagine a Marvel movie opening today on ten screens over the entire country for months before coming to you local multiplex?

R225 - I suppose after "begat", "saith" shouldn't be too much of a stretch.

Anyone know what was genuinely the first ghost/horror film in American cinema?

"The Uninvited" (a very good film but not nearly as rich as Dorothy MacCardle's beautifully written novel) was 1944, and despite its English setting, cast, and the novel it is based upon, was American (distributed by Paramount and shot, believe it or not, in San Francisco and Phoenix). There is some insistence that "The Uninvited" was the first ghost film to portray ghosts as legitimate entities rather than illusions. "Topper" came out in 1937 but that was a comedy.

And, "The Uninvited" introduced "Stella by Starlight" by Victor Young.

^*Apologies for that first line in post above - it belonged to another thread.

R149

Gigli

Bullets Over Broadway

Best in Show

Funny Girl

The Way We Were

L'Année dernière à Marienbad. One of the few French-language American classics that really captures the daily atmosphere of growning up poor and black on Louisiana's Cajun Bayou.

So THAT'S what it was all about, r154!

Has anyone yet mentioned the impact of 1939's "Snow White"? The first full-length cartoon feature with hand-done animation?

The Disney Studio changed everything with that film.

I find Snow White to be sinister and if I had kids I wouldn't let young ones watch it.

Snow White is a genuine masterpiece. It's been said that Walt was nervous at the premiere, not knowing if the audience would accept a full length cartoon. When Snow White was poisoned with the apple the audience was horrified. And when the dwarfs were circled around her glass coffin crying, the audience wept, and Disney knew it had worked.

R157 - All powerful fairy tales, the ones that last, have archetypal darkness in them - that's what gives them their power.

R159 When Disney had the guts to do such stuff.

R158 - Actually, Disney was seated in the last row of the theatre during the premiere of "Snow White" - the studio had sunk everything into it and Disney knew if it flopped, they were finished.

In that scene where the dwaryves weep around what they think is Snow White's body, surrounded by candles, it is raining out, and the forest animals are outside with their faces pressed up against the window, and the raindrops sliding down the panes of glass merge with the animals' tears sliding down their face. It's an iconic moment in animation.

Disney allegedly peeped over to where Clark Gable and Carole Lombard were sitting, and Gable was sobbing like a baby. "We've done it!" Disney whispered.

Pussy

The most important films in American history:

1. Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)

2. Swirlee (1990)

3. Homebodies (1974)

4. Lost Horizon (1973)

5. Fantastic Four (1994)

6. Tank Girl (1995)

7. Howard the Duck (1986)

Who framed roger rabbit is a masterpiece

Lady and the Tramp

In the Heat of the Night

Carmen Jones

Lone Star

Member of the Wedding

12 Angry Men

From Here to Eternity

She's Gotta Have It

The Times of Harvey Milk. Not because this is a gay site and it's about a gay man. It just says so much about America.

Broadway:The Golden Age. The American Broadway Musical is one of our greatest inventions and this is the best documentary on the subject. Must viewing for every theater lover.

R166 That it’s homophobic, lethally violent and we eat to much junk food?

Yes the Twinkie defense is the takeaway. Hostess should be in prison.

[quote]The Times of Harvey Milk. Not because this is a gay site and it's about a gay man. It just says so much about America.

It's OK R166, don't have to explain, there are important documentaries too and you're right.

Great trailer for "Broadway, The Golden Age " R167 In the 80's I asked Shirley MacLaine if the big movie musical would make a comeback and she said no, not like it was and she was right and now we get one every once in a while.

Black Panther

Dog Day Afternoon

"Dude, Where's My Car?"

Saw.

Die Hard

Back to the Future

"Rosemary's Baby"

I don’t mean to sound boastful, but the film and its ENORMOUS success speak for its self- Brendad Ickson, Welcome to My Home: 30th Anniversary Collectors Edition

Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?

What's the Matter with Helen?

Who Killed Auntie Roo?

[quote]"Dude, Where's My Car?"

Well important to little gay boys who don't get to see his in mainstream movies very often.