10 - The Godfather: The Godfather was the Mafia movie to define all mafia movies, with an excellent cast to boot. Not only was the Godfather pleasing on the surface with shootings and grand betrayals but of several levels complexity added to its aesthetic.
9 - Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas: Fear and Loathing, in movie form was not the best film of all time, perhaps not even a great film, but in conjunction with the original gonzo journalism contained in book form it was one of the greatest cinematic master pieces of all time. To learn more about his role Johnny Depp spent a month in Hunter S. Thompson's basement.
8 - French Girl: Any movie that can inspire the same amount of amazement, neither positive or negative, that I felt after watching French Girl, is a masterpiece in its own right. I mean watching a driving scene that lasts for 20 minutes, need I say more? That's David Lynch for you.
7 - Tron: Call me a Sci-Fi loving nerd, but Tron was great. The graphics take me back to a simpler time, when you still could do state of the art CGI in your basement and it was OK to wear a Hawwian shirt in public. Despite being a minor misnomer, the title summons visions of blue tinted battles and horrible abuse of acronyms.
6 - A Scanner Darkly: There are two kinds of dystopian fiction in the world, total control and partial control, A Scanner Darkly is the quintessential of the later group. Besides, any movie based on a Philip K. Dick (the most renowned science-fiction writer of all time) book earns instant credit.
5 - American Psycho: A film that involves a man dropping a running chainsaw on a hooker has to be great, but what's funny is that the far more disturbing part of this movie is the non-murderous side of Patrick Baitman's life. Killing scenes are nice, intense psychological twists are even better.
4 - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: This was the western to end all westerns. Imagine, Three gunslinging characters, all a gritty shade of grey (despite what the title might suggest) battling across both sides of the civil war in a grand and epic struggle for a lifetimes worth of riches. Few films have been more huge in their scope and those that have, have been failures.
3 - Waking Life: After watching this movie I was compelled to flip a light switch every few minutes, it was that compelling. Waking Life moved far from the norm of film making, and achieved something great in doing it. The movie covered a range of topics from gun control to every major fringe science to divinity and god.
2 - Lady Snowblood: Yes, Lady Snowblood is a difficult film to watch, more so if you stick to subtitles as a true fan would, but after watching you will experience one of the most profound experiences of your life. You will realize if you don't have a vendetta against someone you aren't living, and that every revenge film since 1972 has been a ripoff of Lady Snowblood.
1 - A Clockwork Orange: If you want to know more you can read my first blog post. In summary A Clockwork Orange delivered a powerful political message as well a profound moral declaration. It was a revolutionary book that went on to do even more on the silver screen.
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