Top 100 Movies of All Time, 51-60

60. The Deer Hunter (1978)

Directed by Michael Cimino; Written by Deric Washburn

Starring Robert DeNiro, Meryl Streep, Christopher Walken, John Savage & John Cazale

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award winner for Best Picture
In the classic three act structure, "The Deer Hunter" feels more like a Shaw play than a film - and that's where the brilliance of the film occurs. This epic sprawls across oceans, from small town Pennsylvania to Vietnam and adds a bang of Russia if you catch my drift. DeNiro is powerful as the protagonist, Streep is beautiful, but the main focus will always be on Walken's dark and turbulant performance as Nick. Wanna play some roullette?

59. Fargo (1996)

Directed by Joel Coen; Written by Joel & Ethan Coen

Starring Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, John Carroll Lynch, Steve Buscemi & Kristin Rudrud

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award winner for Best Actress - Frances McDormand
"Fargo" incorporates the Coen's brothers' fascinating angle of comedy plus the drama and thrills. Set in northern U.S.A., we hear dozens of silly talking folks in serious and silly situations. But don't be fooled by their Sarah Palin-like dialect, McDormand's Police Cheif Marge Gunderson; she's one sharp pregnant cop. The Coen brothers never fail to understand that humor lies under humanity.

58. American Beauty (1999)

Directed by Sam Mendes; Written by Alan Ball

Starring Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, Chris Cooper, Peter Gallagher & Allison Janney

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award winner for Best Picture

An intricate and interesting analysis on the middle class American, Mendes captures a glossy beauty in every scene. The acting is excellent - especially Spacey & Cooper - and scenes, such as the plastic bag, the rose pedals atop Suvari, and each character's reaction to the ending, are forever embeded in my mind as one of the greatest spectacles on film.

57. Fantasia (1940)

Directed by James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, Ford Beebe, Norman Ferguson, Jim Handley, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, & Ben Sharpsteen; Written by a bunch of other people

Voiced by Walt Disney & Deems Taylor

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award Honorary Award in 1942

Although, as a child, this film seemed to be ten hours long, it always amazed me. I will forever love classical music because of this intriguing cartoon - yet, it's beyond that word. Only certain children appreciate this film. Without words, how do we express ourselves? Nietzsche would love this masterpiece. I still remember hiding when the dinosaurs fight.

56. Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)

Written & Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Starring Uma Thurman, Lucy Lui, Vivica A. Fox, Darryl Hannah, Julie Dreyfus, Chiyaki Kuriyama & David Carradine

Greatest Award/Nomination: Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress (Drama) - Uma Thurman

Though "Vol. 2" is just as worthy with leading performances by Hannah and Madsen, the first "Kill Bill" will always reign supreme for me. It appears to conjure more realms and genres than the second and incorporates more mystery. Thurman gives her best performance ever while Tarantino delivers his most artsy, kickass film to date.

55. Pretty Woman (1990)

Directed by Garry Marshall; Written by J. F. Lawton

Starring Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Jason Alexander, Laura San Giacomo & Hector Elizondo

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award nominee for Best Actress - Julia Roberts

This is one of those movies I can watch over and over and over again. It never gets old. EVER. Julia Roberts couldn't have picked a more perfect role and, although he doesn't shine as brightly as she does, Gere isn't so bad himself. By far the sexiest Cindarella story out there.

54. Fight Club (1999)

Directed by David Fincher; Written by Jim Uhls

Starring Edward Norton, Brad Pitt & Helena Bohnam Carter

Greatest Award/Nomination: MTV Movie Awards nominee for Best Fight - Edward Norton vs. Edward Norton

It still astonishes me how perfectly the movie follows the book. It's as if Uhls was behind Palahniuk's shoulder when he wrote the novel. Norton embodies the narrating protagonist while Pitt allows the audience to envy, hate, love, and want to be Tyler Durden. It's cinematography is dark and dirty, the characters sweaty and confusing, and the effects leading to the end result mesmerizing.

53. Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Written & Directed by Roman Polanski

Starring Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Sidney Blackmer & Ruth Gordon

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award winner for Best Supporting Actress - Ruth Gordon

Probably one of the creepiest movies ever. I first saw this film on Christmas night two years ago and freaked myself out. Ruth Gordon gives a twisted performance that is menacing for Rosemary, played by Farrow. Gordon is sweet, yet not, and trustworthy, yet not. The parallels of the movie to Christianity are also astonishing and eerie. Don't watch it on Christmas day!

52. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Directed by Jonathan Demme; Written by Ted Tally

Starring Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn & Ted Levine

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award winner of THE BIG FIVE

One would never guess that this movie would be one of the three films to win "the big five" Oscars, but after one viewing, you know they deserve every single one. Foster, on the case of a psychotic killer, must trust an even deadlier man - Hannibal Lector (Hopkins). This evaluation of trust, truth, and evils send shivers down the spine and makes you never want to use night-vision goggles again.

51. Being John Malkovich (1999)

Directed by Spike Jonze; Written by Charlie Kauffman

Starring John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener & John Malkovich

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award nominee for Best Original Screenplay

Erratic, goofy, intriguing, exciting, and inspirational - just a few of the adjectives that come to mind after watching this movie. Kauffman writes his most off-the-wall scripts, while all four aforementioned actors become characters they normally would not choose - even Malkovich as himself! Part love-quadralateral, part ode to Alexander Pope, part interpretation of the American Dream, "Being John Malkovich" shocked the cinematic world, allowing films that don't quite make sense at first to be invited into Hollywood.

Top 100 Movies of All Time, 61-70

70. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Directed by Stephen Spielberg; Written by Robert Rodat

Starring Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Vin Diesel, Paul Giamatti & Giovanni Ribisi

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award winner for Best Director
One of the most visually stunning war films ever created, Spielberg's World War II drama sets a group of American soldiers with the task of saving a man who lost all of his fellow military brothers. Against many well-known battles, this question - whether it's right to save one man while others die - is so very profound and rattling. In the end, the answer is not right and wrong or morals, it's being courageous and believing in a greater good.

69. Singin' in the Rain (1952)

Directed by Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly; Written by Adolph Green & Betty Comden

Starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Rita Moreno & Jean Hagen

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award nominee for Best Supporting Actress - Jean Hagen
It seems that 1952 treated "Singin' in the Rain" the same way I did. It was a fun musical with a great cast, but not one of the top films ever created. This film is the one of the few films in top of AFI's 100 that doesn't have an Oscar nod for Best Picture. It's as if it takes time for the movie to grow on you - the music, the people, the fun. Afterwards, I consider it one of the best movie musicals and really enjoy every minute of the film.

68. Match Point (2005)

Written & Directed by Woody Allen

Starring Johnathan Rhys Meyers, Scarlett Johansson, Brian Cox & Emily Mortimer

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award nominee for Best Original Screenplay

Oh, Woody Allen. Though I haven't seen every Allen film, I know enough to say that he's one of the most egotistical, narcissistic, compulsive, destructive writers in the business - which is why he's amazing. However, it's great to see him put himself aside, allow the story to unfold without nagging (though hilarious) monologues and arguments, and provide the actors with a script made for characters. "Match Point" is just that. It's modern, sexy, and has a jaw-dropping ending. Who doesn't want to see Scarlett and Rhys Meyers go at it?

67. Cidade de Deus "City of God" (2002)

Directed by Fernando Meirelles & Katia Lund; Written by Braulio Montovani

Starring Alexandre Rodrigues, Phellipe Haagensen, Leandro Firmino & Alice Braga

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award nominee for Best Director

A surprise of a film that is extraordinarily compelling in its ability to give a story and shed an idea of what life is like in third world countries. It's a look into the slums of Rio de Janiero, the gangs compiled there, and a young man's quest to make something of his life, rather than falling into the usual pitfall of drugs and gang wars.

66. Braveheart (1995)

Directed by Mel Gibson; Written by Randall Wallace

Starring Mel Gibson, Sophie Marceau, Catherine McCormack & Brendan Gleeson

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award winner for Best Picture
If anything is epic, this movie is. Gibson puts forth the true story of William Wallace: the rebel, the outlaw, the lover, and the hero. It's triumphant how one man can and did change a millions of lives across numerous countries and heart-breaking in that the man who changes rarely sees his transformed world. The battle scenes in "Braveheart" are beyond anything of its time in realism and Gibson was not holding back.

65. The Little Mermaid (1989)

Written & Directed by Ron Clements & John Musker

Voiced by Jodi Benson, Pat Carroll, Christopher Daniel Barnes & Samuel E. Wright

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award winner for Best Original Score - Alan Menken

What kid didn't watch Disney movies? When I saw this in theaters when I was four, I fell in a deep loving crush with the red-headed mermaid, Ariel. This movie is so entertaining and full of songs that will never die. "The Little Mermaid" is certainly the best Disney film produced in its prime fairy tale era. Then everything went computerized.

64. Jaws (1975)

Directed by Steven Spielberg; Written by Peter Benchley

Starring Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw & Richard Dreyfuss

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award nominee for Best Picture

Dun-dun. Dun-dun dun-dun. It sends shivers down my spine. With the combination of Spielberg, William's music, and a man-eating shark, it's no wonder people of the 70s were terrified to go to the beach! Benchley's script is an obvious tribute to Melville's masterpiece "Moby-Dick," Shaw, of course, being Captain Ahab. Pure and utter blood-thirsty revenge is what drives the men to seek the sea creature and kill him. It's hubris at its best.

63. Moulin Rouge! (2001)

Directed by Baz Luhrman; Written by Baz Luhrman & Craig Pearce

Starring Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, John Leguizamo, Jim Broadbent & Richard Roxburgh

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award nominee for Best Picture

Luhrman brings to life a musical of contemporary songs, assembling them in a beautiful mosaic of a film with Bohemian France for a back-drop and the faces of Kidman and McGregor to fit the molds of the Juliet & Romeo-type Satine & Christian. Visually, this film pushes the envelope of usual Hollywood hits and creates something indulgent and enticing. Besides romantic, endearing and dramatic, "Moulin Rouge!" is so much fun and very funny.

62. Sophie's Choice (1982)

Written & Directed by Alan J. Pakula

Starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline & Peter MacNicol

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award winner for Best Actress - Meryl Streep
Meryl, Meryl, Meryl. This is the performance of a lifetime. This is one of the greatest performances ever in the history of Hollywood. Streep captivates every single frame as Sophie Zawistowski, both as the foreign, Jewish, blond bombshell wildly in love with Kline's Nathan and as the oppressed version of the same woman, trying to survive the wrath of the Nazi Empire. Her choice is both between the two men she fell in love with in America and something so unfathomable that it's nearly impossible to ponder what you would do in Sophie's shoes.

61. The English Patient (1996)

Written & Directed by Anthony Minghella

Starring Ralph Fiennes, Kristen Scott Thomas, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Naveen Andrews & Colin Firth

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award winner for Best Picture

At the beginning winning streak of Miramax films, "The English Patient" focuses of memory, love and war. A tale of a man who transformed into something horrible and his road to the sick bed. The performances in this movie are incredible - especially Binoche - and it's raw directing by Minghella renders a look into the lives of several characters at the end of the second World War.

Top 100 Movies of All Time, 71-80

80. 12 Angry Men (1957)

Directed by Sidney Lumet; Written by Reginald Rose

Starring Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb & Jack Klugman

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award nominee for Best Picture

In Sidney Lumet's directorial debut, this film unleashes information like a dealer passes players their hands. The numbered and unnamed jury members are convinced that the defendant is guilty, however Henry Fonda's role is to assure them of his innocence. It's a fascinating view of our judicial system and how easy it is to assume.

79. Magnolia (1999)

Written & Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, John C. Reilly, Phillip Seymour Hoffman & Tom Cruise

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award nominee for Best Original Screenplay

An intertwining story that braids several characters together in a film about love, death, addiction, and truth. The moral is that coincidence only exists to the people who do not believe and that frogs can fall from the sky. Nothing is impossible. Anderson sweeps you away, bringing and excellent script to the screen and directing an all-star cast. It's riveting, inspirational, and very creative.

78. Carrie (1976)

Directed by Brian De Palma; Written by Lawrence D. Cohen

Starring Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie & John Travolta

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award nominee for Best Actress - Sissy Spacek

Based on an okay Stephen King novel, this cast - studded especially with Spacek and Laurie - creates an environment that's a combination of "Mean Girls," "The Exorcist," and "Seventh Heaven." I'm not sure if that makes sense, but it's true. Spacek delivers a frightening, disturbed performance as the loner Carrie and Laurie haunts me still as her Jesus-crazy mother.

77. Blazing Saddles (1974)

Directed by Mel Brooks; Written by Mel Brooks & Norman Steinberg

Starring Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens, Harvey Korman, Mel Brooks & Madeline Kahn

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award nominee for Best Supporting Actress - Madeline Kahn

The most entertaining of Brook's films, "Blazing Saddles" pushes the race card past the limit and doesn't look back. A spoof on cowboy films when spoofs were good films and an upwoawious performance by the widiculous Madeline Kahn as Lili Von Schtupp. Though I prefer the British 70s humor of Monty Python, Brooks surely has a way of making the laughs constant and the plot unmistakably unpredictable.

76. There Will Be Blood (2007)

Written & Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring Daniel Day-Lewis & Paul Dano

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award winner for Best Actor - Daniel Day-Lewis

The best film of last year, one of the decades greatest performances by Daniel Day, and a new breed of Anderson films, "There Will Be Blood" engrosses its audience in a tale of obsession, money, religion and family. Which of the four is more important? Only the film will tell.

75. Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Directed by John Schlesinger; Written by Waldo Salt

Starring Jon Voight & Dustin Hoffman

Greatest Award/Nomination: Acadmey Award winner for Best Picture

In an era of sex, drugs, and rockin' music, Schlesinger's film was the FX of Hollywood in 1969. Voight brings an endearing quality to his gigolo character, while Hoffman brings a filthy rag of a man to become one of the most empathetic characters in cinema. If the film were made today, the ambiguities would probably be told straightforwardly, however the equivocal script is what makes this movie so damn good.

74. Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Directed by Clint Eastwood; Written by Paul Haggis

Starring Hillary Swank, Clint Eastwood & Morgan Freeman

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award winner for Best Picture

In all its simplicity - both stylish and enticing, dark and humorous, honest and brutal - Eastwood's most recent award-winning film serves as a tribute to the hard-working Americans going for that dream. There's so much commonality in Haggis' script to an American, and the finality is that life throws the hardest punches of them all. Swank is stellar as the protagonist and is backed up by her more seasoned co-stars Eastwood & Freeman.

73. Cabaret (1972)

Directed by Bob Fosse; Written by Jay Allen

Starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem & Joel Grey

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award winner for Best Director

"Cabaret" is much like "The Sound of Music" in that is fulfills a hunger for music and history, but Minnelli and her clan of "chums" bring a sexier, more hip idea to the screen - not to mention an incredible directorial job by Fosse, an innovator of style, jazz, and dance. Minnelli's Sally is the keystone to later eccentric, egotistical, eclectic female characters such as Annie Hall and Clementine Kruczynski and a memory of the life actresses like Marilyn Monroe brought to the screen.

72. Apocalypse Now (1979)

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola; Written by John Milius & Francis Ford Coppola

Starring Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne & Marlon Brando

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award nominee for Best Picture

A grueling war film that enhances the Vietnamese jungles to feel more like Elm Street. The structure of Coppola's writing and directing is truly brilliant, taking us on a journey to meet a man that puts Lucifer on the bench: Marlon Brando. Paranoia, obsession, and mental decadence travel through every shot as themes of the war and of human existence.

71. Finding Nemo (2003)

Directed by Andrew Stanton & Lee Unkrich; Written by Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson & David Reynolds

Voiced by Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Eric Bana, Elizabeth Perkins, Allison Janney, Geoffery Rush & Willem Defoe

Greatest Award/Nomination: Academy Award winner for Best Animated Feature

Pixar paddles its way into success with an uplifting film about a father who loses his son and will stop at nothing to find him. The only problem is that they're clown fish, he befriends another fish with short-term memory loss, and he has the entire ocean to search around. This movie is fun and entertaining, especially with the greatest voiced performance by Ellen DeGeneres; without her wit and genius, "Finding Nemo" would never have been the success it is.