Tag: Lists

Top 25 Best Movie Trailers (1990-2015): Nos. 25-21

This evening brings us to a new best of list covering the last 25 years of motion pictures. And this time, instead of the best movies, we’re covering my personal list of greatest movie trailers of the last generation.

Let’s be clear: making this particular list was quite difficult. There are lots of criteria for what makes a brilliant trailer. Frankly, it frequently has little to do nothing with whether or not the finished product is any good. There are movies contained in this list that I was no fan of, but that doesn’t mean its teaser or trailer wasn’t pretty sweet. And the teaser and trailer designation is key. I’m including both on this list. There are some teasers that actually had little to do with the eventual picture. And there are some full trailers that effectively captured how terrific the eventual picture turned out to be.

Obviously this list is all in the eye of the beholder (meaning me) and there are several spectacular ones left off. Here’s just a dozen of them: Spider-Man, Zero Dark Thirty, Man of Steel, The Dark Knight, The Day After Tomorrow, Star Trek, Heat, Guardians of the Galaxy, Pearl Harbor, Fight Club, Kill Bill – Vol. 1, and Suicide Squad. I’m also glad I limited myself to the past 25 years because there’s some of the best ever prior to that period – namely Psycho, Alien, and The Shining.

As is typical with these lists, I’ll count down from 25 to 1 in five part installments every day. Here we go:

25. Taken (2008)

It’s not often you can say that one trailer spawned a film franchise, but Taken did just that with its trailer focusing on that famous Liam Neeson speech to his daughter’s captors.

24. Black Mass (2015)

Johnny Depp had starred in a string of commercial and critical disappointments, but one look at this chilling dinner table trailer and you knew he was back in his element. A likely Oscar nomination may well follow early next year.

23. Unbreakable (2000)

It may be hard to recall now, but Unbreakable was M. Night Shyamalan’s supremely eagerly awaited follow-up to his phenomenon The Sixth Sense. This mysterious trailer raised the bar of expectations and though some would disagree with me, I believe the actual film delivered.

22. Red Eye (2005)

The late Wes Craven’s pic has one of the cleverest trailers on the list. The first portion of it makes it seems like a lame romantic comedy (with Rachel McAdams no less, making that prospect more believable). The sudden tone shift makes you realize what you’re really in for…

21. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

It had been 30 years since director George Miller was behind the camera for this franchise and legitimate doubts persisted whether his reboot that replaced Mel Gibson with Tom Hardy would work. Once the first trailer hit, there was little doubt at all in this visually breathtaking work.

We will get to numbers 20-16 tomorrow, folks!

Top 25 Best Movies (1990-2015): Nos. 5-1

This is it, loyal blog readers! We’ve reached the best of the best of my personal favorite 25 motion pictures of the past 25 years. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my picks and keep in mind that while I know your list likely differs from mine, I would encourage all of you to check out any titles on this here list you may have missed.

Our final installment brings us the top five and these are obviously pictures I hold among the greatest of all time. Let’s get to it:

5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Has any actor done more with less screen time than Anthony Hopkins in his iconic role as Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter? I think not. This masterfully constructed suspense thriller deserved the across the board Oscar attention it received – Best Picture, Director (Jonathan Demme), Actor (Hopkins), and Actress (Jodie Foster).

4. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

21 years later, it doesn’t matter how many times I see Andy Dufrane (Tim Robbins) make his escape past that poster on the wall… it still gives me goosebumps. Frank Darabont’s rendering of Stephen King’s short story is one of the ultimate feel good movies of any era about a man who had to experience years of hell to find redemption. And that moment seeing Andy walk the beach to meet Morgan Freeman’s Red gets me every time, too.

3. Boogie Nights (1997)

Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic about people in the California porn industry came out of nowhere and instantly became one of my all time favorites. The lengthy flick with its incredible cast (Mark Wahlberg, Don Cheadle, Burt Reynolds in career best work, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, John C. Reilly, Julianne Moore, Heather Graham and so forth) moves us from the character’s glorious excesses of the 1970s to their dark spiral downward in the 1980s. The drug dealing scene involving Alfred Molina’s crazed character and Chinese firecrackers that serve as an amazing example of sound effects work is the crowning scene in a film filled with many of them.

2. GoodFellas (1990)

Coppola’s first two Godfather masterpieces stood as the highlight of the American Mafia film genre. In 1990, Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas made that list a trilogy. Astonishing from beginning to end, this stands as Marty’s finest hour in a career filled with fabulous work.

  1. Pulp Fiction (1994)

Readers of my blog knew this was coming from a mile away and Quentin Tarantino’s time shifting crime drama/comedy served as a massive adrenaline shot to the movie industry. With an unrivaled cast that included a career resurgent role for John Travolta, Pulp merged the sensibilities of mainstream entertainment with the independent filmmaker spirit in a previously unforeseen way. In a career filled with one terrific picture after another, Pulp still stands as Quentin’s greatest. And that makes it the greatest movie of the last 25 years.

Thanks for reading, ladies and gentlemen! It was a pleasure.

Top 25 Best Movies (1990-2015): Nos. 10-6

This evening on the blog, we move to the top ten of my personal favorite 25 pictures of the past generation, from 1990 to now. Not an easy task for sure, but clearly all of these ten titles (top five coming tomorrow) are masterpieces in my book. Let’s get to it:

10. Seven (1995)

David Fincher’s run of terrific movies began with this gut wrenching serial killer tale with Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, and a deliciously sadistic Kevin Spacey. The final act of these proceedings represent some of the most intense moments on film I’ve ever witnessed.

9. Up (2009)

Over the last 20 years, the creme de la creme of family entertainment has come from Pixar with the Toy Story franchise, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Inside Out, and so on. To me, their absolute high point is Up. I wrote a post on the blog before discussing the sequence which shows the main character’s romance with his wife throughout her life. It’s one of the most beautifully constructed and emotional montages I’ve ever seen, period.

8. The Social Network (2010)

Back to David Fincher again and here we have his brilliant tale of the founding of Facebook that I contend will stand as one of the most important pictures to explain the time we live in.

7. Almost Famous (2000)

Cameron Crowe’s autobiographical tale of his youth spent at Rolling Stone magazine is one of the ultimate feel good experiences filled with great music and performances. The bus scene set to Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” is perfect and one of the best examples ever put to film about music advancing the story line.

6. Groundhog Day (1993)

In a career filled with amazing performances, Bill Murray is at his apex in this uproarious and also touching tale of one very long day. It is easily my favorite comedy of the last many years.

And that’ll do it for today and the top five will hit the blog tomorrow!

Top 25 Best Movies (1990-2015): Nos. 20-16

Today we arrive at part two of my personal top 25 movies of the last generation – 1990 to now and that covers numbers 20-16. Let’s get right to it, shall we?

20. There Will Be Blood (2007)

From master director Paul Thomas Anderson comes this riveting tale of oil and greed at the turn of the 20th century. It features a towering and Oscar winning performance from Daniel Day-Lewis.

19. The Player (1992)

Robert Altman made some incredible pictures in the 1970s and had a career resurgence in the 90s and his pitch black comedy about Hollywood and its superficiality is the best example of it.

18. Kill Bill – Vol I and II (2003/2004)

OK, maybe I cheated a bit here with this actually being two movies, but Quentin Tarantino’s genre hopping master work stands (almost) at the top of his filmography.

17. Being John Malkovich (1999)

Spike Jonze has been making singularly unique films for nearly two decades now and Malkovich is his most rewarding. There’s simply nothing like it and I mean that in a very great way.

16. The Departed (2006)

Martin Scorsese finally earned his Oscar (though he’d been snubbed plenty of times before) for this twisty and deliciously fun and violent crime thriller with a killer cast that included DiCaprio, Damon, Wahlberg, and Nicholson.

And we’ll get to numbers 15-11 tomorrow, readers!