Trash City's Favourite 50 Flicks

2007. Who'd have thought it'd be eight years before I get round to updating this list? And so 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.

There will be two phases to this. Initially, I go back over the original list, re-viewing and re-grading them, to come up with a revised top 50. However, in the eight years since, new contenders have been found, and once we have that top 50, these challengers will also be 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, though that may prove a challenge.

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, 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.

And without further ado, here we go...

Re-Viewed from 1999 Top 50

    A+
  1. Laputa: Castle in the Sky [21]

    A

  2. Tremors [36]
  3. Heroic Trio [26]
  4. Tess [44]
  5. Demolition Man [42]
  6. Flying Dagger [32]

    A-

  7. Starship Troopers [35]
  8. Wings of Honneamise [25]
  9. Army of Darkness # [49]
  10. Aguirre, Wrath of God [30]
  11. The Hidden [22]
  12. Falling Down [27]
  13. The Fly [1986] [28]
  14. Goldfinger # [31]
  15. Edge of Sanity [39]
  16. Braveheart [43]

    B+

  17. Suspiria [45]
  18. Dracula Has Risen From the Grave [23]
  19. My Neighbour Totoro [38]
  20. Saviour of the Soul [34]
  21. Mad Max 2 [40]
  22. Licence to Steal [50]
  23. In the Line of Duty 3 # [37]
  24. A Better Tomorrow 2 # [29]
  25. Wild Things [46]
  26. City Hunter [41]
  27. Gremlins 2 [33]

    C+

  28. M.Butterfly [48]

Pending from 1999 Top 50

  1. Videodrome
  2. Blade Runner
  3. Miracle Mile
  4. Cat People [1982]
  5. Leon
  6. Heathers
  7. The Railway Children
  8. The Fourth Man
  9. Ms45 - Angel of Vengeance
  10. The Thing [1982]
  11. Passion Flower Hotel
  12. Aliens
  13. Date with an Angel
  14. Dangerous Liaisons
  15. The Hitcher
  16. Manon des Sources + Jean de Florette
  17. Basic Instinct
  18. The Hudsucker Proxy
  19. Die Hard
  20. Re-Animator

The following items have been delayed, because I have no access to the film at the present. For example, I don't have a PAL laserdisc player any more, so if that's what I own a film on, the re-view will have to wait until I get it in another format.
  24.  God of Gamblers
  47.  Orphee

Potential new entrants
[Vaguely chronological order...more to follow!]

Back to the TC home page