My 101 Favorite Movies of All-Time, 91-101

I make lists. No, not for shopping. In the one area where I probably should make a list, I don't. Partly because I don't go shopping.

But anyway, I started making a list of my favorite movies several years ago. I don't say these are the best movies (OK, yes I do), but I do say these are my favorite movies. There may be better movies out there (there aren't), but these are my favorites.

So, on my list of the 101 Favorite Movies of All-Time, let's look at the bottom eleven.

91. Lost Horizon

Ronald Coleman turns in a tour de force and Frank Capra directs what is either one of the most hopeful or most disturbing movies ever made. Because if there really is a Shangri-La, it's not open to everyone. In fact, some people can't even find it if they go looking for it. The movie is a little slow in parts (especially if you watch the “complete” edition, which is only “as complete as we can find” in that some of the scenes contain audio and only still pictures because the visuals have been lost to time) but it's a fascinating epic in the truest sense of the word.

I think “Robert Conway Lives!” would be a good thing to spread about if I were into graffiti.

92. McFarland USA

A little-noticed movie from 2015 starring Kevin Costner (as Kevin Costner), this is a true story about an almost-disgraced coach who finds redemption in a small, California agriculture town by teaching hard-working teenage boys how to run cross-country. I know that description doesn't sound very interesting, and it was probably a hard movie to make a trailer for, but it really is one of the best movies you've probably never seen.

Costner makes the line, “That's not Danny Diaz!” resound in such a way that I want a reason to use it in every day life.

93. Bullitt

By modern standards, this action movie is not all that action-packed … which shows just how stupid modern standards have become. Steve McQueen plays a San Francisco cop on a race against time in a really cool car in what has to have been the inspiration for “The Rockford Files” on many levels. With anyone else starring, this movie would probably not be remembered by anyone—even those in it.

I once drove by a shop window that had an actual replica of the Bullitt car. Why I didn't stop and get my picture taken with it I don't know.

94. Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown

I'm a HUGE Peanuts fan, as you will no doubt notice later on in this list. Even with my biases, this is a great movie, and something of a departure from all other Peanuts movies that had come before. Part travel-logue, part mystery, it's a great story about old regrets and recapturing the past. Snoopy, of course, steals the show, but the House of the Bad Neighbor kind of creeped me out as a kid.

It's kind of hard to watch this movie, nay impossible, without at least once asking oneself a question along the lines of, “Who lets their grammar school aged children go as foreign exchange students to France with only a beagle to look after them?!?!”

95. Star Wars – The Force Awakens

I am also a rabid Star Wars fan and I enjoyed this movie, but it's definitely the weakest of the 8 that have been made (as of this writing), just barely coming in ahead of those made-for-TV Ewok movies. The special effects are incredible, in fact all of the visuals are beautiful, but—as is his wont—Jar Jar Abrams just created an inferior tribute to a much better movie (see movie number 3 on this list when I get around to it). Basically, The Force Awakens is the most slickly-produced fan-film ever made.

Maybe when The Last Jedi comes out, it'll make TFA a better movie.

96. Bee Movie

Jerry Seinfeld pitched and created a fun little movie about an unlikely friendship between a bee and a human. Maybe there's even a hidden meta message about mankind dealing with our environment … just kidding: it's not hidden so much as front and center.

Chris Rock's mosquito lawyer steals the show.

97. National Treasure 2

This is a wonderfully fun movie, but the final solution is too much like the first one for me to rank it any higher. Nicolas Cage does a wonderful job—in fact, everyone in this movie is great—but there is an overwhelming sense of “I've seen this before.” Many people have marveled that this lucrative franchise didn't produce more entries, but maybe the producers had that rarest of all producer traits: the ability to acknowledge that they have nothing else to say.

The “balancing on the giant table rock” scene suffered from being way too much like the “balancing on the giant table rock” scene Indiana Jones did that same year.

98. The Man Who Knew Too Much

What do you get when you combine Jimmy Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock? Two movies on this list! (They actually made 4 together, but as interesting as The Rope is for it all appearing to be done in one take, the movie itself is kind of boring [IMHO] and while I like Vertigo it's never been one of my favorites). Anyway, this movie plays to a crescendo (if you've seen the movie you'll see what I just did there) that still gets me on edge even though I have seen it many times.

Warning, Doris Day's singing is going to be stuck in your head for days after you watch this movie.

99. Meet John Doe

Another Frank Capra movie, this time starring Gary Cooper (who, legend says never worked on-screen with his best friend Jimmy Stewart because they were deemed to be too much alike). When hotshot reporter Barbara Stanwick is about to be fired she publishes an interview with a man who is going to commit suicide on Christmas Eve to protest man's inhumanity to man. When the publisher decides to keep her on as a writer so she can do a series of interviews with her John Doe, she suddenly has to find someone to be John Doe. Someone honest, down-home and—you guessed it—a lot like Gary Cooper.

Stanwick's speech about why Gary shouldn't kill himself may be one of the best presentations of the gospel message ever committed to celuloid.

100. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Gary Cooper and Frank Capra again. This time, Gary Cooper goes against type and plays an honest, down-home type of a guy whose sudden inheritance propels him into the upper eschelons of society. Certain other people, who were hoping to inherit the money themselves, try to get Gary declared mentally incompetent based on the fact that he's clearly a hick.

She may not have been the prettiest or most glamorous movie star ever, but any sane humanoid male will fall in love with Jean Arthur during this movie.

101. Rescuers Down Under

For some reason, this was one of Disney's biggest animated flops. It's a fun movie, though! The animation is incredible (the flying scenes were some of the first uses of computer animation used in a big screen feature and they still hold up well today), the story is solid, and you just can't beat Bob Newhart's voice work as Bernard (Eva Gabor turns in a great performance, too).

I even have the comic book adaptation of this movie and, if I could remember where I keep it, I'd go read it right now.


To continue on up the list and read about movies 81-90, go here.
To see the whole list, at least as much as I have published so far, click here.