This is my partially complete list of "classic", right-of-passage movies everyone should see. I had my kids in mind when crafting this list. I drew from a much larger list of movies I want them to experience wanting to cull it down to an elite must-see list.
It is partially complete because while it is a top 100, I am open to changing what makes the list. But I do feel that 100 is a sufficient number such that to be added to the list a new entrant would need to bump a movie from the list.
Do not confuse this with a “greatest 100 movies” as this is not a measure of cinematic excellence or advancement of the medium. It is closer to a kind of most culturally important list, which overlaps largely but not entirely with a most popular list. Case in point: no one would list Caddyshack as a movie that set a bar artistically. However, it’s influence on and depiction of the subculture of golf has been phenomenal. I would bet that virtually everyone who has played a round since the movie came out roughly 40 years ago has during a golf outing made or heard a reference (if not many) to that movie.
Additionally, there are other criteria or factors that to some degree contribute to a movie’s inclusion on the list including: I enjoy the movie/it has some nostalgia value for me, it is a movie that speaks to an important truth/it teaches something about the time it is set in or its genre or its underlying story, and it has cultural importance. Being culturally important and being on the list means that you can’t just read a synopsis of the movie to fully understand the cultural importance. You have to see it to get it.
The list in alphabetical order (sorry about "The" titles):
2001: A Space Odyssey
A Christmas Story
A Few Good Men
A League of Their Own
Airplane!
Alien
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Apocalypse Now
Apollo 13
Back To The Future
Beetlejuice
Big
Braveheart
Caddyshack
Casablanca
Christmas Vacation
City Slickers
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Cool Hand Luke
Dead Poets Society
Die Hard
Dirty Dancing
Duck Soup
E.T.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
Fletch
Footloose
Forrest Gump
Ghostbusters
Good Will Hunting
Grease
Gremlins
Groundhog Day
Happy Gilmore
Home Alone
Hoosiers
It's A Wonderful Life
Jaws
Jurassic Park
Karate Kid
Lethal Weapon
Life Is Beautiful
Match Point
Men in Black
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Mr. Mom
Mrs. Doubtfire
Napoleon Dynamite
North By Northwest
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Office Space
Old Yeller
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Poltergeist
Psycho (1960)
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Rain Man
Raising Arizona
Remember the Titans
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi
Rocky
Seven
Spaceballs
Spies Like Us
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
Swingers
The Bad News Bears
The Big Lebowski
The Blues Brothers
The Breakfast Club
The Dark Knight
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
The Godfather I
The Godfather II
The Goonies
The Jerk
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Matrix
The Princess Bride
The Royal Tenebaums
The Sandlot
The Shawshank Redemption
The Shining
The Silence of the Lambs
The Sixth Sense
The Terminator
This Is Spinal Tap
Three Amigos!
Titanic
Top Gun
Trading Places
Vacation
War Games
Weird Science
When Harry Met Sally
Young Frankenstein
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