Trash City's Favourite 50 Flicks

Who'd have thought it'd be eight years before I get round to updating this list? And four more to do it? Much has happened to me in the time since: I was single, living in London and working at HSBC. Now, I'm married, living in Arizona, doing tech-support for a web-hosting company, and happier in all those ways. Oh, how times change. :-) This project was inspired by my bemoaning the chance I had to watch "favourite" films, because of the continual stream of new product on the shelves: the unwatched DVD pile is the 800-lb monster in the corner of the room. So, I decided to revisit the TC Top 50 films, watch some "good" films, and see how they'd stood the test of time. [The 1999 list can be found here]

Phase one has now been completed: going back over the original list, re-viewing and re-grading them, to come up with a revised version of that top 50. However, in the eight eleven years since, new contenders have been found, and these challengers are now being reviewed, to see where, if anywhere, they need to be placed. Those will largely be based off the top ten lists I've done for each year since, along with some older "classics" deemed worthy in the meantime. A couple of minor changes: for series of films, I've now tagged one specific film, the best, as the representative entry. Army of Darkness, for example, is listed as the best, IMHO, of the Evil Dead trilogy. This excludes Evil Dead II from active consideration, even though it might have made it independently. Such entries have been marked with a # in the list, as before. Otherwise, as before, this remains not necessarily the best 50, but my favourites.

All the films listed were re-viewed, specifically for this list, between September 2006 and now [hey, it took a while!], and the ratings reflect my opinion at that time. If older reviews were published in TC for them, these have been retained for historical purposes; but if the pieces were written exclusively for the site, they may have been rewritten - this largely depends on how much my opinions have changed. Elements of the old one may have been retained, or may have been consigned to the dustbin of history, depending on how accurate, representative and/or amusing I found them upon reading them. They've been broken down by grade, but also ordered within grade: the figure in brackets is their position in the 1999 list, where they had one.

And without further ado, here we go...

    A+
  1. Videodrome [1]
  2. Leon [5]
  3. Run Lola Run [NEW]
  4. Cat People [1982] [4]
  5. Aliens [12]
  6. Die Hard [19]
  7. Monsters Inc. [NEW]
  8. Blade Runner [2]
  9. The Railway Children [7]
  10. Ms45 - Angel of Vengeance [9]
  11. Laputa: Castle in the Sky [21]

    A

  12. Miracle Mile [3]
  13. My Fair Lady [NEW]
  14. Tremors [36]
  15. The Thing [1982] [10]
  16. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King # [NEW]
  17. Heathers [6]
  18. The Fourth Man [8]
  19. Heroic Trio [26]
  20. Tess [44]
  21. Dangerous Liaisons [14]
  22. Get Carter [NEW]
  23. Monty Python and the Holy Grail [NEW]
  24. Demolition Man [42]
  25. Jean de Florette + Manon des Sources [16]
  26. Re-Animator [20]
  27. The Natural [NEW]
  28. Flying Dagger [32]

    A-

  29. Starship Troopers [35]
  30. Wings of Honneamise [25]
  31. Army of Darkness # [49]
  32. The Hitcher [15]
  33. Basic Instinct [17]
  34. The Hudsucker Proxy [18]
  35. Aguirre, Wrath of God [30]
  36. Dancer in the Dark [NEW]
  37. The Hidden [22]
  38. Falling Down [27]
  39. The Fly [1986] [28]
  40. Goldfinger # [31]
  41. Ever Since the World Ended [NEW]
  42. Edge of Sanity [39]
  43. Braveheart [43]

    B+

  44. Suspiria [45]
  45. Dracula Has Risen From the Grave [23]
  46. My Neighbour Totoro [38]
  47. Saviour of the Soul [34]
  48. God of Gamblers [24]
  49. Passion Flower Hotel [11]
  50. Date with an Angel [13]

Dropped from 1999 Top 50

Some potential new entrants
[Vaguely chronological order, other may also arise]

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