My Top 100 Movies

I've meant to do this for a while, my own list of Top 100 movies. It was tough narrowing down to this list of 100 movies and even harder to rank them. In the end, I decided to skip the ranking altogether as it would have been an extremely guilt-ridden task to say I favor "Shawshank Redemption" over "Gandhi". While compiling this list, I try to equate the word "Top" to "having significant impact on my perspectives on the themes that the particular movie addresses". To the very least, these movies should leave me wanting to find out more; if I actually go on Wikipedia to dig up something I just learnt from the movie, it probably has the potentail to make the following 100. Of course, some of these movies' sigificance to me depends on my age when I first watched it. "Totoro" probably won't make the list if I had not watched it as a little kid, still full of childlike innocence and boundless imagination. Likewise, I'd never appreciate a film like "Crash" if I had not come to America. In the end, this list is an intimate reflection of my gratitude to this art form that I truly admire; this reminds me of a scene in Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity"...I did not make these movies, but this list is mine and mine only.

1. Shawshank Redemption
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. Finding Nemo
4. 12 Angry Men
5. Notting Hill
6. Tonari no Totoro
7. Dr Strangelove
8. Memento
9. City of God
10. Vita è bella, La (Life is beautiful)
11. Great Escape
12. The Incredibles
13. Spring Summer Fall Winter and Spring
14. Crash
15. Twilight Samurai
16. Motorcycle Diary
17. Untergang, Der (Downfall)
18. Salvador
19. The Man who Copied
20. Laputa Castle in the Sky
21. Mar adentro (The Sea Inside)
22. The Killing Fields
23. 無間道 (Infernal Affairs)
24. Gandhi
25. The Corporation
26. March of the Penguins
27. Spirited Away
28. Kolya
29. Ocean's Eleven
30. Winged Migration
31. Sjunde inseglet, Det (The Seventh Seal)
32. Sin City
33. Sideways
34. Ran
35. Waking Life
36. No Direction Home: Bob Dylan
37. Monsieur Ibrahim
38. 龍鳳鬥 (Yesterday Once More)
39. The Pianist
40. The Sting
41. 英雄 (Hero)
42. Boot, Das
43. Back to the Future
44. 螢の墓(Graves of the Fireflies)
45. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
46. 唐伯虎點秋香
47. The Godfather
48. The Man who would be King
49. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
50. To Kill a Mockingbird
51. The Manchurian Candidate
52. The Apartment
53. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
54. The Graduate
55. The Hustler
56. Vertigo
57. Rashômon
58. Dead Poets Society
59. The Bridge on the River Kwai
60. Reservoir Dogs
61. Batoru rowaiaru (Battle Royale)
62. It's a Wonderful Life
63. The Minority Report
64. Forrest Gump
65. The Lion King
66. Beauty and the Beast
67. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
68. Bowling for Columbine
69. Shrek
70. The NeverEnding Story
71. Chicken Run
72. An American Tail
73. Shine
74. Before Sunrise
75. Magnolia
76. The Big Chill
77. Sunst Blvd.
78. Marathon (Korean movie in 2005)
79. V for Vendetta
80. Rear Window
81. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
82. Gladiator
83. Titanic
84. 2001: A Space Odyssey
85. Jerry Maguire
86. Mr Smith goes to Washington
87. 醉拳 (Drunken Master)
88. 賭神 (God of Gamblers)
89. 最佳拍襠
90. Band of Brothers
91. Hotel Rwanda
92. Almost Famous
93. 九品芝麻官
94. Oldboy
95. Donnie Darko
96. 搭錯車
97. Pride and Prejudice (1940)
98. Mickey Blue Eyes
99. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
100. Toy Story 2