And the Winner is...
Musing on the most significant and most enjoyable products of America's great art form: film.
Recently, a longtime friend (and “founding member” subscriber to our Substack), reflecting on the impending departure of his oldest son for college, asked for my list of ten movies critical to the cultural education of a young American man.
What an honor. Thank you for your tremendous compliment. I love movies, and I love to talk about them.
See below for a list.
If I had to pick approximately twenty-five great American films that tell our story, it might be these:
Casablanca
Rocky
Hoosiers
Apollo 13
That Thing You Do
Lincoln
*
Shane
The Searchers
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Dirty Harry
Unforgiven
Chinatown
*
The Godfather
Goodfellas
Pulp Fiction
Cool Hand Luke
To Kill A Mockingbird
Anatomy of a Murder
The Verdict
*
Absence of Malice
Glengarry Glen Ross
Groundhog Day
The Incredibles
A Serious Man
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
With rejection of a binding schedule, I also commit to a few sporadic expository essays over time offering context, broad cultural frameworks, and brief assessments of each film.
A Few Notes related to this project.
I will not (cannot) confine my list to ten. In this moment, I compiled a list of approximately twenty-five American films. Not necessarily the twenty-five best motion pictures produced during the first 100 years of Hollywood, but a list of significant movies important to me.
Great pictures are the product of many factors including music, plot, beautiful images, cultural resonance, truthful themes, and emotional impact. To make a great film, a huge crew of professionals must come together and work as a team, yielding a “combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.” A motion picture requires a cast and crew so multitudinous that it takes five minutes to list them on the big screen. But, for this project, I will focus on directors, stars, and subject matter (related to genres of American film).
An obvious critique of my own list: this collection is very white and male and, perhaps, overly sympathetic to the traditional view of America as the home of the brave and land of the free.
I will divide my comment into four categories (with the understanding that crossovers will be numerous):
“Who Are We?” American Narratives.
Cowboys and Cops. A Search for Law and Order and Rugged American Individualism.
Gangsters, Crime, and Justice.
Angst in our Modern World and Nostalgia for Simpler Times.
Note: I am leaving the comments section open to all. Feel free to provide your own list and/or critique mine. I am looking forward to talking motion pictures in the weeks and months to come. See you at the movies.
I feel a bit of a need to justify Step Brothers. It is admittedly a sophomoric comedy filled with crude humor. But Will Ferrell’s ability to do comedy with absolutely zero hint of self-awareness (for lack of a better word) and lack of an air of “look how funny I am” is great. But Adam Scott is who makes that film. He has amazing range as an actor and plays his self-absorbed character perfectly. It’s a way of showing my son “You are going to meet people like this in life. Treat them internally like you treat this character internally.”
One spring Saturday afternoon in 1982, you made me watch The Graduate. I didn't admit it at the time, but I was bored for the first 30 minutes. But after 45 minutes, I was hooked. Since then, I have always taken your movie recommendations to heart. I haven't seen every movie on your list, but I'm happy to say I've seen most, and they are definitely favorites...good to have my taste in movies validated! I now have marching orders to finish the rest.
I would add the following:
The Sting
Once Upon A Time In The West
Planet of the Apes
12 Angry Men
Catch Me If You Can
The Music Man
The Andromeda Strain