Hulu has their Criterion Collection. Most of it is Crap. If you want the list. THE LIST. Of movies that You Have To Watch. Here it is. It’s a Check List. If you have not seen one of these movies, you are Wrong and you need to correct yourself.
1. Seven Samurai
2. Predator
3. Big Trouble in Little China
4. Aliens
5. The Untouchables
6. 13th Warrior
7. Blade Runner
8. Full Metal Jacket
9. Pitch Black
10. The Last of the Mohicans
11. The Longest Day
12. The Thing
13. Centurion
14. Ronin
15. 300
16. 28 Days Later
17. Fist Full of Dollars
18. Lone Wolf McQuade
19. High Plains Drifter
20. Master and Commander
21. Tombstone
22. Saving Private Ryan
23. Bullitt
24. Hard Boiled
25. Raiders of the Lost Ark
26. Rambo (2008)
27. Heat
28. The Expendables
29. Unforgiven
30. Zulu
31. Die Hard
32. Tears of the Sun
33. The Matrix
34. 30 Days of Night
35. Dirty Dozen
36. Man On Fire
37. The Professional
38. Gladiator
39. A Man Apart
40. The Departed
41. Blackhawk Down
42. The Last Samurai
43. Equilibrium
44. Kingdom of Heaven
45. Braveheart
46. Gods and Generals
47. The Patriot
48. Patton
49. Act of Valor
50. Wild Bunch
Dang, I can’t argue with that list. Comprehensive.
All the Bases are Covered.
Zulu is missing.
Ronin?
How about Serenity?
The Shootist, Dirty Harry, They Were Expendable, Hamburger Hill, Outlaw Josey Wales,
The Usual Suspects.
Repo Man.
Four Rooms.
Pulp Fiction.
Soldier of Orange.
Breaker Morant.
“Shoot straight you bastards!”
Payback
Replacement Killers
Ditto on “Payback”
“Winchester 73”
“Ronin” and “Enemy at the Gates”????????
Thought for sure you would have listed Red Dawn.
RED DAWN and RONIN came very very close to making this list.
Platoon? Seriously? One of the worst Vietnam movies ever. It is a propaganda piece of crap that has every single leftist anti-war bullshit talking point. Drugs? Check. Killing civilians? Check. Fratricide? Self inflicted wounds? Check and check. I hate this movie with a passion. Oliver Stone is a hack liar. This and jfk are two of the worst movies ever.
Concur.
The professional
#37, missed it
Several I disagree with there.
Where is Carpenter’s “The Thing”?
Substitute “Sanjiro” for “Fist Full of Dollars” and add “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly” instead they would be a better representation of both genres.
I still don’t see what is so great about “Event Horizon” it is not scary or even very profound. “Solaris” is better even with it’s slower pacing.
How about “The Shootist” or “The Sons of Katie Elder” or “High Noon”?
If you wanted an anti-war film, instead of “Platoon” why not “Johnny Got His Gun” or “All Quiet on the Western Front”?
Why no Film Noir? “The Maltese Falcon” or “The Big Sleep”
Nope, need to refine that list a bit I think.
From a historical stand point I’ve always had a problem with the portrayal of the town’s people as cowardly. A large number of them were veterans of the civil war and were quick to join posses at a sheriff or marshal’s request. If you robbed a bank in a Western town in the years after the Civil War you’d better get in and get out and get out fast. So I’ve never been able to enjoy High Noon. Even 40 years after Western towns remained dangerous because of attitudes, just look at what happened to the Dalton Gang:
“5 Oct 1892–The notorious Dalton Gang rode into Coffeyville, Montgomery County, Kansas and attempted to rob two banks, the Condon Bank and the First National Bank. They took about $25,000 in 12 minutes. A shootout followed which claimed the lives of eight men: the outlaws, Grat and Bob Dalton, Dick Broadwell and Bill Powers; and four Coffeyville residents, Charles T. Connelly, Coffeyville city marshal (killed by Grat Dalton in “Death Alley”), Lucius M. Baldwin, George B. Cubine and Charles Brown. Three other townsmen were wounded.”
that’s one heck of a nice list you have there, think i have seen them all. I would quickly add:
The Horde
the Professional (Leon)
Last man standing
the Last boyscout
if you get HBO or skin-o-max,
Generation Kill (HBO Series)
Band Of Brothers (HBO Series)
Strike Back (Max series)
Oh, and of course the Evil Dead series.
The Professional is on the list.
ah, ya. i should have got that more expensive remedial reading class
Is your list ranked in order best to slightly less best?
Good to see Seven Samurai at the top! Pretty much the ultimate action movie to me.
No Wild Bunch?
Gods and Generals over Gettysburg (only seen Gods and Generals once though)?
The Professionals with Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Woody Strode, and Robert Ryan is really worth a look if you haven’t seen it. Terrific movie.
Also, Jack Cardiff’s Dark of the Sun from 1967. Mercenary movie set in the Congo with Rod Taylor and Jim Brown. Quite possibly the most macho movie ever made. Pretty heavy duty.
Not sure I agree that most of the Criterion Collection is crap. Not gonna go all art house on ya here, but there are some pretty terrific samurai movies in there. Sword of Doom, Samurai Rebellion, Harakiri. All just absolutely killer stuff!
The list is only going to fifty.
Hour of the Gun with James Garner, Jason Robards, and Robert Ryan is awesome too. Wyatt Earp movie that picks up where John Sturgis’ Gunfight at the OK Corral ends. It’s the “Hell’s Coming With Me!” part of the Earp story. Pretty darn cool movie.
Great list. Looking through it, I am fairly sure I have seen all of them.
I’d have to include “Zulu” in the list.
Great movie! Also, No Country for Old Men
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Bridge on the River Kwai.
Also the new Judge Dredd movie that came out a couple months ago was surprisingly awesome.
Raiders was very close to making the list.
Raiders of the lost Ark is #25
It is now. Just revised this Roster.
Zulu would get my vote as well.
Lone Wolf McQuade? Even as a kid I thought it was silly.
And I can’t believe the first Taken film wasn’t on there. Liam Neeson was nothing if not badass to the 10th power.
Would second Dan A with Raiders of the lost Ark and add The Wild Bunch
That is an awesome list. Made me smile at each title as I remembered it. There are so many good movies, this movie starts na avalanche of memories. How can stop at just 50: Shoot em up, Desperado, Collateral, Unforgiven…
Collateral. If Cruise as Vincent wasn’t badass I don’t know what is.
ZULU HAS GOT TO BE IN HERE
DUDE, no Apocalypse Now! Really?
Still a good list, but you should leave it alone. Given the number of movies, you can’t include everything. I am going to have to watch Zulu again (it is on Netflix, I think), as I remember it being good, but I don’t remember it being all that badass.
George, good list and I have few to complain about and a few movies I’ve yet to see. My list would have to include:
Payback (not the director’s cut, that version SUCKED!!)
No Country for Old Men
Alien
District 9
300
Beerfest
Blood diamond
Bourne Identity
Dawn of the Dead (2004 version)
A Fistful of Dollars
The Good the Bad and the Ugly
300 really should be in there.
Great list! I think I would add Road to Perdition (Paul Newman, Jude Law, Tom Hanks, Daniel Craig) and A Clockwork Orange for my own list..
Glad to see Zulu was added. Firebase Gloria is worth watching again; might make the list. Highlander (“there can be only one”) was the best movie available during a lifetime of TDY at Camp Fuji.
Americathon needs to be redone and redistributed as Obamathon.
Great list. Great comments.
Last Man Standing?
Boondock Saints if for nothing other than the part with the poor cat lol. Really good list though
This may sound a bit odd, but I think it qualifies:
“Second Hand Lions” – Passing the torch of badassery.
Have to second (pun intended) this suggestion … the short speech that Hub (Robert Duvall’s character) delivers in the diner sums up a manly life …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkccqolaVGg
Not sure it should be in the top 50 but I liked … Book of Eli.
Open Range.
Open Range is a great Western. Costner’s best role outside of 3000 Miles to Graceland. I liked Open Range a lot… I really did. But it’s not TOP 50 Great.
Cool Hand Luke, Once Upon A Time In The West, A Man Called Horse, Dirty Harry, Hard Times, Many many more. But an excellent list none the less.
“Each movie teaches lessons in about being a fucking Man, and not a sensitive metrosexual guy with a spare vaginia in his man-purse.”
Ok, so how the hell is The Last Samurai on the list? A movie that features at least a an hour of Tom Cruise crying and drinking. Cruise ruined a movie that should have been completely focused on Katsumoto.
Road to Perdition or Air Force One should have been in that spot instead. How the hell is Air Force One not on the list?
Because I didn’t like that movie.
In regards to Samurai… Tom did a great job playing the character, but the focus is on Katsumoto, not Tom.
They are all perfect.