This article is about top 10 movies in the 20th century.
Star wars
Director: George Lucas
“Star Wars” is a fairy tale, a fantasy, a legend, finding its roots in some of our most popular fictions. The golden robot, lion-faced space pilot, and insecure little computer on wheels must have been suggested by the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow in “The Wizard of Oz.” The journey from one end of the galaxy to another is out of countless thousands of space operas. “Star Wars” taps the pulp fantasies buried in our memories, and because it’s done so brilliantly. But the magic of “Star Wars” is only dramatized by the special effects; the movie’s heart is in its endearingly human (and non-human) people.
Matrix
Director: The Wachowski Brothers, The Wachowski Brothers
“The Matrix” is a visually dazzling cyber adventure, full of kinetic excitement, but it retreats to formula just when it’s getting interesting. It’s kind of a let-down when a movie begins by redefining the nature of reality, and ends with a shoot-out. We want a leap of the imagination, not one of those obligatory climaxes with automatic weapons fire.
“The Matrix” recycles the premises of “Dark City” and “Strange Days,” turns up the heat and the volume, and borrows the gravity-defying choreography of Hong Kong action movies. It’s fun, but it could have been more.
A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.
Godfather
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
One of the top movie all time. When it comes to cinematic techniques The Godfather has not been as revolutionary as Citizen Kane, but its influence on motion pictures is comparable. Rarely a movie has defined or re-defined a genre as much as this one did for “gangster movies”, but its influence goes well beyond that.
But to say that The Godfather is simply “influential” is to diminish its true qualities, and so is to describe it simply as “a movie about gangsters”.
Seven
Director: David Fincher
It is almost always raining in the city. Somerset, the veteran detective, wears a hat and raincoat. Mills, the kid who has just been transferred into the district, walks bare-headed in the rain as if he’ll be young forever. On their first day together, they investigate the death of a fat man they find face-down in a dish of pasta. On a return visit to the scene, the beams of their flashlights point here and there in the filthy apartment, picking out a shelf lined with dozens of cans of Campbell’s Tomato Sauce. Not even a fat man buys that much tomato sauce.That is the sensation Fincher creates here.
Alien
Director: Ridley Scott
At its most fundamental level, “Alien” is a movie about things that can jump out of the dark and kill you. Look at that movie, and you see “Alien” in embryo.
The result is a film that absorbs us in a mission before it involves us in an adventure, and that consistently engages the alien with curiosity and logic, instead of simply firing at it.
“Alien” has been called the most influential of modern action pictures, and so it is, although “Halloween” also belongs on the list.
Predator
Director: John McTiernan
Predators” may be the first film in history to open with a deus ex machina. Yes, the entire plot and all the human characters drop into the movie from the heavens. The last thing they remember is a blinding flash of light. Now they’re in free fall, tumbling toward the surface, screaming, grabbing for ripcords on the parachutes that they didn’t know they had.
Never mind. The movie is mostly about our nasty heroes being attacked by terrifying antagonists in incomprehensible muddles of lightning-fast special effects. It lacks the quiet suspense of the first “Predator,” There are always a few characters who get killed in attack movies like this.
Gladiator
Director: Ridley Scott
A foolish choice in art direction casts a pall over Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator”.The
This same story could have been rousing entertainment; I have just revisited the wonderful “Raiders of the Lost Ark,”.But “Gladiator” lacks joy. “Gladiator” is being hailed by those with short memories as the equal of “Spartacus” and “Ben-Hur.” This is more like “Spartacus Lite.” Or dark. Its story is a whole heck of a lot better than the “Gladiator” screenplay, even if Shakespeare didn’t make his Titus the only undefeated champion in Roman history.
Dracula
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
First, some good news: “Dracula Untold,” a sort of “Batman Begins” prequel, isn’t as tacky as it sounds. There are glimmers of a brooding and icky horror epic scattered throughout the film, particularly in its surprisingly romantic, matte-painting-ensue backdrops and impressionistic vampire’s-point-of-view shots. There’s not much more to “Dracula Untold,” but it does periodically throb with surface-deep tension.
Forest gump
Director: Robert Zemeckis
I’ve never met anyone like Forrest Gump in a movie before, and for that matter I’ve never seen a movie quite like “Forrest Gump.” Any attempt to describe him will risk making the movie seem more conventional than it is, but let me try. It’s a comedy, I guess. Or maybe a drama. Or a dream.
Shaw sunk Redemption
Director: Frank Darabont
A strange comment to make about a film set inside a prison, but “The Shawshank Redemption” creates a warm hold on our feelings because it makes us a member of a family. Many movies offer us vicarious experiences and quick, superficial emotions. “Shawshank” slows down and looks. It uses the narrator’s calm, observant voice to include us in the story of men who have formed a community behind bars. It is deeper than most films; about continuity in a lifetime, based on friendship and hope. It’s also quite interesting about the hero.
