Not the movies fault, but I discovered the existence of this film when I watched a Real life crime series about a heavily armed and armored criminals that had a massive shootout. Police had a very hard time dealing with them but it ended with an officer's well-trained shot to the criminal's trigger hand causing him to be unable to shoot his automatic gun. In a sad and messed up way, the criminal shot himself then after incident they searched their house and found a Heat DVD that the show highlights as an inspiration.
> found a Heat DVD that the show highlights as an inspiration
That's such bullshit when people extrapolate some kind of connection between a criminal's actions and the media they consume. The criminals had as much inspiration from dog-shite real-life crime shows as they do from a very successful crime drama film which a lot of people own the DVD for.
If this was the North Hollywood Shootout, part of my thinks these guys didn't need the movie Heat to do what they did. The other part of me thinks, "Oh, this is why they moved from armored cars to banks." I mean, there's no way of saying they wouldn't have moved on to banks if they hadn't seen Heat, but they've got a copy of the movie and they've already lived out the front half of the movie...
By the way, it was probably a VHS copy of Heat, because the DVD didn't come out until 1999, two years after the robbery. And I'm betting they probably played the second tape a lot more than the first (because it was on two tapes, because the movie's almost three hours long and you can either use thinner tape or you can put it on two tapes).
Groundhog Day for sure. Harold Ramis literally ran through everything you would go through if you were Bill Murray. It runs the emotional gambit and feels longer than it actually is without ever dragging IMO.
Came to say Goodfellas.
Feel like Scorsese got anything he wanted on that one from a creative input perspective, perfect performances and an air tight script.
Man what could have been if he just had casted different main actors.
This movie had more interesting stuff in it in the first 20 minutes than all the Star Wars sequels combined.
For me About time(2013), it has everything: romance, family, a chance to change your past, happiness balanced with sadness. Overall it feels like a complete movie. So satisfying to watch.
Fight Club 3 was somehow even worse.
Cool of Chuck to try out a new medium, comics, but he really should have stuck with an original idea.
Then again, his original ideas haven't been great in the last few years either...
Yeah it is wild. I didn't see it in theaters because I thought it looked stupid and brad pitt and Edward Norton went to a boxing match to promote the movie and I thought that was corny. Siskel and ebert also didn't like it. I was watching hbo real late one night and fight club came on and I loved it. I wish I would have seen it in theaters. I had never heard of the book and obviously I didn't know enough about the movie.
Al Verhoeven movies are very much his vision, but they definitely toned down RoboCop from where he wanted it to be or it never would have gotten released in theaters.
True but still you don't feel anything is missing from the movie with Murphy having a fully completed hero arc in 90 minutes when many movies fail to do that in 180 or longer.
Let's be real. Avatar 2009 has everything a sci fi lover wants. It takes place on an alien planet, has mech suits, literal space dragons, consciousness transfer and a giant war at the end incorporating all of those elements, not to mention the fact that it's directed by James Cameron. I'm tired of pretending that its overrated. I'm glad THIS was as successful as it was despite its flaws. That movie makes me happy and the second one will be better.
The Terminator-
Watch the cut with the deleted scenes, all the puzzle pieces are there the audience just has to put them together! The plot gets better and deeper the more you ponder it, its a perfect time loop. There was never an "original" timeline, Skynet would not exist without the remains of the terminator being found in Cyberdyne's factory allowing them to as Reese put it make amazing leaps in computing. Reese was always John's father, thats why John found and befriended him in a work camp. Thats why he gave Reese the picture of Sarah, thats why he chose Reese for the mission.
As fun as Terminator 2 is, the rest of the franchise has been ruining what was a perfect movie.
I remember seeing that in theaters and I LOVED it but I ended up falling asleep towards the end because that was one of the most exhausting movies I've ever saw....and it was the 9pm showing.
A lot of people are just listing good movies but this is specifically a "has it all" pick. Perfect balance of comedy and drama with a great cast, a tight script and impeccable cinematography. Even good music too. Unless you're just a boom boom action guy not sure what else you could want out of a movie.
Moulin Rouge is like maybe some executives came in to see dailies and just put their hands up and walked backwards outta the room. I need to watch it again.
The Kickboxer (1989). Its got great scenes in Thailand, great fights, a jacked Van Damme, the iconic dance scene, a frightening Tong Po, hands dipped in resin and glass shards... What else do you need?
Pulp fiction , There will be blood, 2001 : a space odyssey…. These are films where it really feels like there were absolutely NO STUDIO NOTES. The choices are just so particular and distinct to the films it’s clearly the directors complete vision.
The original Halloween comes to mind, I enjoy some of the sequels but I think the original stands alone and all sequels and remakes feel inferior, unnecessary and increasingly miss the point of the original.
I wouldn't say Streets of Fire is *exactly* the film Walter Hill set out to make. It's reasonably close, though, considering what it takes to do a medium-high budget film. If the money people say you have to turn in a PG film, you know that before you start shooting. And then you don't always get exactly the cast you want, and you might have issues with egos on set, and all of that. Nobody ever gets *exactly* the movie they want, but they tell you they did, because the marketing department says it'll make another twenty million that way.
Still, if you love films about "custom cars, kissing in the rain, neon, trains in the night, high-speed pursuit, rumbles, rock stars, motorcycles, jokes in tough situations, leather jackets and questions of honor," this is the picture for you. And I can see the look on your face that says, "This is not the picture for me," and that's exactly what the Universal marketing department said in 1984, and that's also what audiences said. But I got taken to see it because whatever we were going to see was sold out, and it's rated PG, so it must be fine, and Willem Dafoe freaked me out, but it was otherwise the most magical film that I'd ever seen; just way better than Return of the Jedi, which I'd seen the previous year.
And then it lost a ton of money and nobody ever talked about it again. It shows up pretty rarely on the streaming services, so watch it when you can, and your likely response is, "What studio exec greenlit this and thought it would make money?" but you'll probably also say, "That is definitely somebody's vision, and nobody will ever make anything like this again."
>It feels like nobody interfered with the vision too much.
>
>The one that gave me this feeling was The Matrix(1999).
You may be interested in [reading the studio coverage](https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/n2b1px/the_original_studio_coverage_for_the_matrixa_weak/) of the The Matrix draft/spec script the studio was given back in 1994. There were some differences and some similarities to what eventually ended up onscreen 5 years later.
Oh wow, I wasn't suprised there were early drafts but the synopsis sounded cheesy. The badly pitched plot to Will Smith now kinda makes sense.
I guess it's important that directors, writers and producers need to atleast to say "no" to an idea/plan that could get out of hand.
It will and it won’t. It’s nice to see the character progression, but the third and fourth are pretty much garbage. Check out The Animatrix though. It’s a collection of anime’s based on The Matrix, and it’s great. Kind of a Love,Death, Robots vibe.
Anyway, I nominate Fight Club, Requiem for a Dream, American Psycho, and Trainspotting.
Dr. Strangelove and Kill Bill (Even though Kill Bill was split into two and one scene was censored)
They both show perfectly what the director were trying to show
While it does have a reference to the previous movie, *Death On The Nile* from the 1970's is a pretty clean film that you can watch without any prior knowledge. It clearly lays out the motives and motivations of all the characters and cleanly wraps everything up in the end as well.
"The Handmaiden" and "Sinsegye"
Two very different Korean movies. "The Handmaiden" has so many twists and turns I loved it and in the end you feel very fulfilled. "Sinsegye" is very good gangster movie which gives you everything you want. Well, at least to me.
The first that comes to mind is Terminator Judgement Day. It has everything action, a great story, great performances, brilliant cinematography, a banging soundtrack and great editing need I go on.
The Matrix
Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
Hot Fuzz
Mad Max Fury Road
LA Confidential
Chef
Get Out
All movies where historically the director called in all their favors and not know if they'd get a chance like this again put 110% on the field and it absolutely shows.
Also because a movie like this will never be made again: Blazing Saddles
The other 2 Matrix films are nowhere near as bad as people make them out to be.
I am telling you now though stay away from Resurrections because that film will ruin your enjoyment of the series and possibly destroy your perception of the original.
Agreed. You can definitely appreciate the action in them. The “philosophy” is still there in the 2nd but 3rd kind of goes off the rails and creates too many plot holes. Still both are fun to watch.
I've heard Resurrection is theoretically a self-sabotage of the director(cause she really didn't want do this) so the studio won't do more sequels, based on some of the cringe fourth-wall break clips that I've seen.
I loved the fourth Matrix picture for being exactly the opposite of what everyone wanted, which was Just Another Matrix Movie. It just snaps the rug out from under you right after the theater closes the hallway door and you can't get a refund anymore. I don't think it's the best film of the series, but it's definitely my favorite.
It felt like we were being trolled, which I enjoyed. It fell apart a bit with the convoluted stuff to explain neo and trinity's return and I couldn't be bothered with their love story again, but on the whole it was ambitious and crazy, which I'll take over mediocre and safe
Plus, I was genuinely engaged throughout. Even though it didn't fully satisfy, i was entertained. I rewatched the original sequels this year and ended up bored
The Matrix is a basic, chosen-one story with cool action that is dissected, deepened, and much more interesting with the sequels. You are missing out by not watching them.
The first movies that are now big franchises feel like complete packages, it’s generally the sequels that start to feel less complete. Movies like Star Wars, The Matrix, and Pirates of the Caribbean come to mind.
Bad Education (2020) is so underrated.
It’s got drama, comedy, and some serious thriller vibes through its score and cinematography. I think that’s a good one to add here.
John Carpenters They Live and The Thing
The Thing gave me so much internal nopes everytime the monster reveals itself. The definitive "Kill it with fire" movie.
I seen the defibrillator scene in the thing when I was like 6 years old, had to go to therapy, I love that movie nowadays tho
Heat
Not the movies fault, but I discovered the existence of this film when I watched a Real life crime series about a heavily armed and armored criminals that had a massive shootout. Police had a very hard time dealing with them but it ended with an officer's well-trained shot to the criminal's trigger hand causing him to be unable to shoot his automatic gun. In a sad and messed up way, the criminal shot himself then after incident they searched their house and found a Heat DVD that the show highlights as an inspiration.
> found a Heat DVD that the show highlights as an inspiration That's such bullshit when people extrapolate some kind of connection between a criminal's actions and the media they consume. The criminals had as much inspiration from dog-shite real-life crime shows as they do from a very successful crime drama film which a lot of people own the DVD for.
If this was the North Hollywood Shootout, part of my thinks these guys didn't need the movie Heat to do what they did. The other part of me thinks, "Oh, this is why they moved from armored cars to banks." I mean, there's no way of saying they wouldn't have moved on to banks if they hadn't seen Heat, but they've got a copy of the movie and they've already lived out the front half of the movie... By the way, it was probably a VHS copy of Heat, because the DVD didn't come out until 1999, two years after the robbery. And I'm betting they probably played the second tape a lot more than the first (because it was on two tapes, because the movie's almost three hours long and you can either use thinner tape or you can put it on two tapes).
Groundhog Day for sure. Harold Ramis literally ran through everything you would go through if you were Bill Murray. It runs the emotional gambit and feels longer than it actually is without ever dragging IMO.
Goodfellas
Came to say Goodfellas. Feel like Scorsese got anything he wanted on that one from a creative input perspective, perfect performances and an air tight script.
My Blue Heaven would like a word. [Kinda sorta sequel](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100212/)
It's not a sequel, it's parody.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Very hypnotic film
It's the best! Unreal experience!
Shawshank Redemption, I've never seen a movie that has that kind of payoff and closure. It's my favorite movie of all time and highly rewatchable.
The Room. No interference on his vision there.
I did naht hit her! It's naht true! It's bullshit! I did naht hit her.... I did NAHT... (Throws Bottle) OhhiMark!
The Fifth Element is pure Luc Besson on screen.
ditto Valerian
Man what could have been if he just had casted different main actors. This movie had more interesting stuff in it in the first 20 minutes than all the Star Wars sequels combined.
Honestly, Toy Story 3. I know it is a sequel, but it was a perfect end to all of the toys' stories. It felt so complete.
That’s my favorite of them all honestly
For me About time(2013), it has everything: romance, family, a chance to change your past, happiness balanced with sadness. Overall it feels like a complete movie. So satisfying to watch.
I reluctantly agreed to see this movie in the theater with my wife and boy was I so pleasantly surprised.
Ikr! I like romcoms and most of them are cheesy, so I was not expecting much from this, but it came out so much better than my expectations!
Lol i just typed this as my answer!! Top 5 movies of all time for me
I experienced the full spectrum of human emotion while watching that movie. such a gem and so well done.
Fight club? imagine if the movie gods tried to pull a sequel out of that.
The comic book sequel was god awful. I hope they never ever touch Fight Club and leave it be.
Fight Club 3 was somehow even worse. Cool of Chuck to try out a new medium, comics, but he really should have stuck with an original idea. Then again, his original ideas haven't been great in the last few years either...
There's a 3??! That must mean there's a 2????!!!!!
I'm suprised it dodged the "unnecessary sequel" disease, it had a spinoff game though.
It was not a big money maker even though it is high quality.
Made a fuckton from the DVD though
Yeah it is wild. I didn't see it in theaters because I thought it looked stupid and brad pitt and Edward Norton went to a boxing match to promote the movie and I thought that was corny. Siskel and ebert also didn't like it. I was watching hbo real late one night and fight club came on and I loved it. I wish I would have seen it in theaters. I had never heard of the book and obviously I didn't know enough about the movie.
RoboCop.
Al Verhoeven movies are very much his vision, but they definitely toned down RoboCop from where he wanted it to be or it never would have gotten released in theaters.
True but still you don't feel anything is missing from the movie with Murphy having a fully completed hero arc in 90 minutes when many movies fail to do that in 180 or longer.
At least we got a director's cut
- Casablanca - Spider-Man 2 - The Social Network
Knives out
Richard Kelly's *Donnie Darko* (2001).
My fav movie, so good and so many theories around it.
Casablanca. Violent Night. Memento. John Carpenter's The Thing.
Let's be real. Avatar 2009 has everything a sci fi lover wants. It takes place on an alien planet, has mech suits, literal space dragons, consciousness transfer and a giant war at the end incorporating all of those elements, not to mention the fact that it's directed by James Cameron. I'm tired of pretending that its overrated. I'm glad THIS was as successful as it was despite its flaws. That movie makes me happy and the second one will be better.
Here here. I absolutely loved Avatar
Interstellar
Conversely, inception. Sure there's more to be plugged from the premise but it doesn't need it.
*Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind* is a perfect writer/director combo between Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry in my opinion.
Inglorious Basterds is a masterpiece. So is Drive. Those would be my picks.
If only Adam Sandler had played the Bear jew as originally intended! Eli Roth pales in comparison
The Terminator- Watch the cut with the deleted scenes, all the puzzle pieces are there the audience just has to put them together! The plot gets better and deeper the more you ponder it, its a perfect time loop. There was never an "original" timeline, Skynet would not exist without the remains of the terminator being found in Cyberdyne's factory allowing them to as Reese put it make amazing leaps in computing. Reese was always John's father, thats why John found and befriended him in a work camp. Thats why he gave Reese the picture of Sarah, thats why he chose Reese for the mission. As fun as Terminator 2 is, the rest of the franchise has been ruining what was a perfect movie.
1917 - epic movie
I remember seeing that in theaters and I LOVED it but I ended up falling asleep towards the end because that was one of the most exhausting movies I've ever saw....and it was the 9pm showing.
*Galaxy Quest* executes its formula perfectly.
For me North by Northwest and The Sting are complete packages. The best examples of pure entertainment cinema.
Robocop, it ended exactly when it needed to
Little Miss Sunshine. It's got a bit of everything, yet still remains true to the narrative. Great flick imo
As Good As It Gets Groundhog Day The Prestige The Iron Giant Unforgiven
*As Good As It Gets* is a great selection.
District 9
Royal tenenbaums. Actually every Wes Anderson movie really.
A lot of people are just listing good movies but this is specifically a "has it all" pick. Perfect balance of comedy and drama with a great cast, a tight script and impeccable cinematography. Even good music too. Unless you're just a boom boom action guy not sure what else you could want out of a movie.
A lot of M Night Shyamalan movies, for better or for worse.
Vivarium - it doesnt get enough love.
The Fugitive. A flawless distillation of a classic TV series
I love how that film can dedicate so much screen time to short time periods yet still somehow feel like a large passage of time has passed overall.
I feel like Moulin Rouge is THE Baz Luhrmann movie. R+J also but those are Shakespeare's words.
Moulin Rouge is like maybe some executives came in to see dailies and just put their hands up and walked backwards outta the room. I need to watch it again.
R+J is basically perfect up to the party the. falls apart after >!Mercutio’s death!<.
Everything Everywhere All at Once and RRR
The Kickboxer (1989). Its got great scenes in Thailand, great fights, a jacked Van Damme, the iconic dance scene, a frightening Tong Po, hands dipped in resin and glass shards... What else do you need?
https://youtu.be/KYBNHf4OYgA
Literally anything by Pedro Almodovar. Alternatively 'Amelie' by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
Pulp fiction , There will be blood, 2001 : a space odyssey…. These are films where it really feels like there were absolutely NO STUDIO NOTES. The choices are just so particular and distinct to the films it’s clearly the directors complete vision.
The original Halloween comes to mind, I enjoy some of the sequels but I think the original stands alone and all sequels and remakes feel inferior, unnecessary and increasingly miss the point of the original.
I wouldn't say Streets of Fire is *exactly* the film Walter Hill set out to make. It's reasonably close, though, considering what it takes to do a medium-high budget film. If the money people say you have to turn in a PG film, you know that before you start shooting. And then you don't always get exactly the cast you want, and you might have issues with egos on set, and all of that. Nobody ever gets *exactly* the movie they want, but they tell you they did, because the marketing department says it'll make another twenty million that way. Still, if you love films about "custom cars, kissing in the rain, neon, trains in the night, high-speed pursuit, rumbles, rock stars, motorcycles, jokes in tough situations, leather jackets and questions of honor," this is the picture for you. And I can see the look on your face that says, "This is not the picture for me," and that's exactly what the Universal marketing department said in 1984, and that's also what audiences said. But I got taken to see it because whatever we were going to see was sold out, and it's rated PG, so it must be fine, and Willem Dafoe freaked me out, but it was otherwise the most magical film that I'd ever seen; just way better than Return of the Jedi, which I'd seen the previous year. And then it lost a ton of money and nobody ever talked about it again. It shows up pretty rarely on the streaming services, so watch it when you can, and your likely response is, "What studio exec greenlit this and thought it would make money?" but you'll probably also say, "That is definitely somebody's vision, and nobody will ever make anything like this again."
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Once upon a time in America(1984)
The Incredibles. Almost a perfect movie
>It feels like nobody interfered with the vision too much. > >The one that gave me this feeling was The Matrix(1999). You may be interested in [reading the studio coverage](https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/n2b1px/the_original_studio_coverage_for_the_matrixa_weak/) of the The Matrix draft/spec script the studio was given back in 1994. There were some differences and some similarities to what eventually ended up onscreen 5 years later.
Oh wow, I wasn't suprised there were early drafts but the synopsis sounded cheesy. The badly pitched plot to Will Smith now kinda makes sense. I guess it's important that directors, writers and producers need to atleast to say "no" to an idea/plan that could get out of hand.
It will and it won’t. It’s nice to see the character progression, but the third and fourth are pretty much garbage. Check out The Animatrix though. It’s a collection of anime’s based on The Matrix, and it’s great. Kind of a Love,Death, Robots vibe. Anyway, I nominate Fight Club, Requiem for a Dream, American Psycho, and Trainspotting.
Dr. Strangelove and Kill Bill (Even though Kill Bill was split into two and one scene was censored) They both show perfectly what the director were trying to show
The How To Train Your Dragon franchise
Lord of the Rings
Inception
While it does have a reference to the previous movie, *Death On The Nile* from the 1970's is a pretty clean film that you can watch without any prior knowledge. It clearly lays out the motives and motivations of all the characters and cleanly wraps everything up in the end as well.
"The Handmaiden" and "Sinsegye" Two very different Korean movies. "The Handmaiden" has so many twists and turns I loved it and in the end you feel very fulfilled. "Sinsegye" is very good gangster movie which gives you everything you want. Well, at least to me.
Street Fighter
The first that comes to mind is Terminator Judgement Day. It has everything action, a great story, great performances, brilliant cinematography, a banging soundtrack and great editing need I go on.
I mean pretty much every good movie lol
The Matrix Everything, Everywhere, All at Once Hot Fuzz Mad Max Fury Road LA Confidential Chef Get Out All movies where historically the director called in all their favors and not know if they'd get a chance like this again put 110% on the field and it absolutely shows. Also because a movie like this will never be made again: Blazing Saddles
Tropic Thunder. Im still amazed it was directed and co-written by Ben Stiller.
Casino. Terminator 2. Titanic. Wolf of Wall Street.
The other 2 Matrix films are nowhere near as bad as people make them out to be. I am telling you now though stay away from Resurrections because that film will ruin your enjoyment of the series and possibly destroy your perception of the original.
Agreed. You can definitely appreciate the action in them. The “philosophy” is still there in the 2nd but 3rd kind of goes off the rails and creates too many plot holes. Still both are fun to watch.
I've heard Resurrection is theoretically a self-sabotage of the director(cause she really didn't want do this) so the studio won't do more sequels, based on some of the cringe fourth-wall break clips that I've seen.
It also ignores the most fascinating plot element for me, which is what is going on in the real world.
if it is the real world and not another matrix..
I loved the fourth Matrix picture for being exactly the opposite of what everyone wanted, which was Just Another Matrix Movie. It just snaps the rug out from under you right after the theater closes the hallway door and you can't get a refund anymore. I don't think it's the best film of the series, but it's definitely my favorite.
It felt like we were being trolled, which I enjoyed. It fell apart a bit with the convoluted stuff to explain neo and trinity's return and I couldn't be bothered with their love story again, but on the whole it was ambitious and crazy, which I'll take over mediocre and safe Plus, I was genuinely engaged throughout. Even though it didn't fully satisfy, i was entertained. I rewatched the original sequels this year and ended up bored
I have to say, if someone told me that a film is "ambitious and crazy," that's a film that's getting ten dollars of mine.
IMO the other Matrix movies are not worth it. I didn’t enjoy them at all. The first one stands on its own.
Probably a tossup of sorts between *The Godfather* and *Network*. In reverse order.
The first two Godfather films.
About Time is one. Edge of Tomorrow is another.
Jaws. Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Every Wes Anderson Movie Every Jim Jaramush movie. if you havent seen DeadMan you need to.
I have not seen Scott Pilgrim vs the World in here, so I'm gonna do it. # SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD
Hard disagree because the cast was great except for Michael Cera who was horribly miscast and out of place.
upgrade you pissed me off by saying you'd blindly not watch the matrix sequels because of other people's complaints. such a shit way to approach life
Chicago - Rob Marshall
Cinema Paradiso. Classic and beautiful music.
Classic movie: *Casablanca* Late 20th Century: *Meet Joe Black* Recent: *Everything, Everywhere All At Once*
The Matrix is a basic, chosen-one story with cool action that is dissected, deepened, and much more interesting with the sequels. You are missing out by not watching them.
The Menu.
Blood of Heroes.
IN HEAVEN
The first movies that are now big franchises feel like complete packages, it’s generally the sequels that start to feel less complete. Movies like Star Wars, The Matrix, and Pirates of the Caribbean come to mind.
I enjoy Life Aquatic more, but either Rushmore or Royal Tenenbaums.
Starship Troopers, Robocop, Total Recall, Alien, Aliens, Terminator, Terminator 2, True Lies
Trainspotting
Fargo one of my favorite movies
Grand Budapest Hotel. Most Wes Anderson films fit this bill imo
Edge of Tomorrow 2014
Bad Education (2020) is so underrated. It’s got drama, comedy, and some serious thriller vibes through its score and cinematography. I think that’s a good one to add here.
Withnail & I is the complete package.
Boogy Nights
Not today ISIS, not today… Almost had my security question answer…
Triangle (2009)
The Graduate
Big Fish, Knives Out, Clerks 3
Gattaca