what movies should aaron0000 watch to make him a better film major
 

Here's a short list of some movies that maybe you haven't seen.

1. Wings of Desire
2. Deliverance
3. Motorcycle Boy (lame movie, but really cool cinematography)
4. The Wild Bunch
5. Blue Velvet
6. To live and die in LA
7. Leolo (wierd and cool by a french canadian director)
8. Stray Dog
9. Blade Runner
10. Raging Bull

what else should a student studying film see.

1) Singing in the Rain
2) Captain Blood
3) Birth of a Nation
4) The Red Ballon
5) The Usual Suspects
6) Heathers
7) Pink Flamingos
8) King Kong
9) Greed
10) Thin Blue Line

AFI 100

and try to figure out why they are in the 100.

I would recommend any of the Pauly Shore movies.
You need to learn from others' mistakes, dontcha know? ;)

I'll say a few big name movies then

Scarface - No real reason, just a good movie to watch

Training Day - Good movie to see how a great story can be played out with basically no special effects or anything. Sees what kind of angles work well, etc.

Fight Club - Interesting movie to watch, good movie to learn how events should unfold, how things should look, etc. I'd recommend to read the book before hand though.

It really depends. I don't think seeing specific movies applies in a lot of ways. When I was in film school every jackass was trying to make Resevior Dogs shorts, so there was a lot of cigarettes.

Most films don't apply in a very direct way. Watch a lot of different stuff. Go to indie festivals and foreign film nights. A lot of it will be ass, but some of it will blow you away.

Then figure out how to to that yourself in some way.

Watch stuff that is just different. Fight Club is a good suggestion. How about Memento? Clerks? 2001? A movie shouldn't need to be a blockbuster to learn from.

Nothing by Kevin Smith.

Dune (David Lynch's version)
Heat
Grand Canyon
The Freshman
Montana
Full Metal Jacket
Gattaca
3'o Clock High
Risky Business
Clerks

Beverly hills cop 1 through 3
=/

Bah! Forget Beverly Hills Cop 3!

Seriously though... Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch are two pretty awesome directors.

Three O'Clock High is such a cool under-rated comedy. Great use of the clock motif.

You can't buy it anywhere on VHS and it's not released on DVD i had to rent a copy and fail to turn it in. I have a good friend who says great art is when a scene, image, line stays with you forever. I agree look for films that haunt your memories.

Like the look Elias gives Barnes just before Barnes shoots him in Platoon.

I also agree that you need to find movies that are driven by characters and the script. You're not going to have a ton of money anyway to start. I think the AFI 100 is fairly off the mark. It's not a bad idea though to watch the AFI 100 and figure out why they ended up there.

On the line of don't watch anything by Kevin Smith i'd say don't watch anything with Robin Williams in it.

Oh and watch Blood Simple and Raising Arizona the Brothers C. rock!

a few films I think are paticulary unique:

bamboozled
dark days
jason and the argonauts
the red violin
out of control
amadeus
pulp fiction
battle royale

I'm suprised nobody mentioned Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai."

Apparently he is guy that's influenced a lot of today's major action directors.

Clerks
Usual Suspects
Memento
Highlander...ok I just like that one.

all films by Altman, Kubrick, Welles, Scorsese, Kurasawa and Lynch.

wow. Nobody has mentioned either Pi, or Requiem for a Dream. I think those should be required viewing for Everybody.

Criminey people, some of those are good, but we are talking MUST SEE for a film major:

1) Citizen Kane: Arguably the best film EVER made. It broke all the rules of cinematography.

2) A Clockwork Orange: A horrifying and fascinating movie. Kubric genius at it's greatest, IMO.

3) Casablanca: Bogart and Bergman. You can't call yourself a film major if you haven't seen this.

4) Metropolis (The original): Fritz Lang's masterpiece is uncanny in the way it forsees our technological future and the effect it has on humanity.

5) Nosferatu: A study in horror by F.W. Murnau that cuts to the heart of the matter without the camp that plagued vampires in latter years.

6) The Graduate: Shocking at the time, this movie still stuns with it's cutting commentary on society and it's artifices.

7) The Forbidden Planet: Like all good movies, this science fiction classic uses the setting to probe the basic questions of humanity and what drives us.

8) Dr. Strangelove: Laugh your ass off while our propensity to kill ourselves is painfully spelled out.

9) Star Wars (IV): Yes, this is here on my "Must See List". Possibly one of the greatest Sci Fi films of all time, the story of the hero-quest is as old as time.

10) Deer Hunter/Full Metal Jacket/Platoon: For generations of movie goers who grew up on John Wayne, these movies were the first to bring home the realities of war.

Fight Club
The 6th Sense
The Godfather
Goodfellas
Gangs of New York
Memento
The Matrix
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
25th Hour
Schindler's List

I completely, one hundred percent agree with Lebell (although I haven't seen several of his suggestions). Several of the movies listed are great movies for an average guy to watch, but if we want to see more good movies in the future, the filmmakers are going to have to watch the best of the best. Find the movies that were completely innovative at the time they were released, then find out what made them innovative. An entertaining plot, or a movie being funny doesn't make it a masterpiece. And, like was mentioned in the first post, you may have to sit through a lame movie (I haven't seen Motorcycle Boy either) to learn more about cinematography.

Several great movies were created outside the United States too. Seven Samurai has been mentioned, and that's a great movie. You might also want to check out Fellini's 8 1/2. The Criterion Collection has released several great foreign films (along with the occational crap). So try to check out more of them.

Psycho
anything by Ingmar Bergman



And to whomever suggested "Captain Blood;" if you're going to suggest that classic, you might as well get all of the Big Three that starred Erroll Flynn, director Michael Curtiz, and composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold. "Seahawk" and "Adventures of Robin Hood."

Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story
Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and Rashoman
Orson Welles' Citizen Kane
William Wyler's Ben Hur
Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin
John Ford's The Searchers
Stanley Kubrick's
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and 2001: A Space Odyssey
Carl Dryer's The Passion of Joan of Arc
Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest
Fredrico Fellini's La Dolce Vita
François Truffaut's Jules et Jim and Fahrenheit 451
David Lean's Lawrence Of Arabia
Robert Mulligan's To Kill a Mockingbird
Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and Raging Bull
Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part I and The Godfather Part II

I could go on and on... :)

These are a minimum if you ask me. You should take especial note of the non-American directors and films, as this will broaden your appreciation of film-making.

Good luck. Sounds like an interesting course...

Mr Mephisto

Return to Oz
City of God
Malena
Dancer in the Dark
Irreversible


There are more but I'm out of time. :p

Midnight Cowboy
Citizen Kane
Inbred Rednecks

i don´t think anyones mentioned it yet, but check out The Third Man

great film.

No one has mentioned Willie Wonka yet! That's a must see.

Koyaanisqatsi.

Who needs a big budget, characters, dialoge or a plot to make a powerful and memorable masterpiece?

All you need is philip glass to write a score for you! ;)

As for other films, I'd say check out IMDB's top 250 list.

I haven't seen em all....but I've seen a good two thirds at least. A lot of crap in there, but there is a lot of great films there too! The important thing is being able to tell the difference!
(LOTR...better than Kane!? :rolleyes: )

More specifically, absolutely anything by the Coen Brothers. Each film of theirs is a masterpiece! Fargo especially, one of my favourite films of all time.
Other unmissible Coen brothers treats include The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou and The Man Who Wasn't There.

Also rent a few films by Lynch. Love him or hate him, his films are still worth watching to get an idea of what people are talking about...personally I love him! Get Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive in particular. Stay away from Wild at Heart, that was pretty boring!

Rent everything by Hitchcock. There's no question about that! :D

Rent everything by Kubrick. Another director who released nothing but masterpieces. Especially:
2001, Strangelove, Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket.
Eyes Wide Shut wasn't nearly as bad as many people make out, but it was certainly his weakest moment.


Rent anyhting by Fincher...except maybe Alien 3...that film was butchered by the ignorant "suits". It's suckiness cannot be fairly attributed to Him. Get Seven and Fight Club in particular. See Panic room for an example of a wasted opportunity.

Kevin Smith has already been mentioned. My advice: Watch his films in order.
Clerks - Mallrats - Chasing Amy - Dogma - Jay And Silent Bob.

P.T. Anderson makes damn fine movies! Get Boogie Nights, Maqnolia and Punch Drunk Love.

Get Being John Malkovitch and Adaptation, by Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman. Don't ask questions...just do it damnnit!

Tarrantino...yeah you've already seen all his films....worth a mention though just in case....

Requiem For A Dream and Pi, by Darren Arronofsky. Great films.

Find out what John Woo was like before he moved to Hollywood. Watch Hard Boiled and The Killer, and see how they measure up to the likes of Broken Arrow. No contest. Face/Off was pretty damn cool however.

And then just for a laugh, rent some Troma movies. Get Terror Firmer...their absolute finest moment!

and just some random movies that come into my head:
Spinal Tap
Donnie Darko
Memento
Twelve Monkeys
Dog Day Afternoon
Gattaca
Amelie
Royal Tannembaums
Ghost World
Very Bad Things
Lock Stock and Two smoking Barrels
L.A. Confidential
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
The Usual Suspects

Bloodsucking Freaks. Ok I'm just kidding. I havent even seen that one.

Anything and everything from the Criterion Collection

Yeah, Chasing Amy, Armageddon and Robo-Cop are must sees...:rolleyes: ;)

Movies I would watch as a film student that haven't already been said:

Chinatown
The Treasure of Sierra Madre
The Maltese Falcon
Glengarry Glenn Ross
12 Angry Men
8 1/2
La Strada
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
A Movie
Daughters of the Dust

UH.......I didnt ask for this. Besides I think Ive figured out by now what films are worth seeing and which ones arent.

I think I am quite a good film major already.

but i guess, thanks for the effort

You forgot The Rock. Oh, and I already mentioned 8 1/2 :)

"Hana-Bi" by Takeshi Kitano.

It's my favorite film ever. Dark, violent, humourous.
It's the perfect example of how you don't need cliches or string music to show a couple's love for each other.
You're sitting watching it, wondering how the characters really feel about each other, and in the second half it becomes painfully obvious how much love there is.

Basically, a cop owes a huge sum of money to the yakuza, since his pay check isn't enough to cover his wife's cancer treatment.
So what does he do? He decides to raise enough cash to take her on a holiday. It's the most beautiful movie I've ever seen, and it's very low-key.

Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down

It's a foreign (Spanish) film, but one which can tell you a lot about movie-making...especially on a tight budget.

Plus, it's one that you and your pals can get drunk and watch over and over and over again.

Vertov's "Man With A movie Camera"

And yeah, David Lynch

IMO, David Mamet films (all of them) - are some of the all-around best crafted movies ever made.

I did this at university too.
Turn all the lights out. Make sure your alone. And watch the Thin Red Line.