Karina Montgomery

There are a jillion essential lists (AFI's many iterations come to mind) but my list I hope serves the purpose of wanting to share movies I would be sadder never having seen before and movies that are crucial touchstones in pop culture. There are of course as many more essential films, by other criteria, as there are letters in this email, but these movies are essential to me.

  1. Clue (1985) .. Jonathan Lynn
  2. Young Frankenstein (1974) .. Mel Brooks
  3. Sense and Sensibility (1995) .. Ang Lee
  4. Alien (1979) .. Ridley Scott
    Aliens (1986) .. James Cameron
  5. Titanic (1997) .. James Cameron
  6. While You Were Sleeping (1995) .. Jon Turteltaub
  7. The Sixth Sense (1999) .. M. Night Shyamalan
  8. The Wizard of Oz (1939) .. Victor Fleming
  9. Singin' in the Rain (1952) .. Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
  10. Finding Nemo (2003) .. Andrew Stanton
  11. The Iron Giant (1999) .. Brad Bird
  12. Boogie Nights (1997) .. Paul Thomas Anderson
  13. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) .. The Coen Brothers
  14. The General (1927) .. Clyde Bruckman & Buster Keaton
  15. Scream (1996) .. Wes Craven
  16. This Is Spinal Tap (1984) .. Rob Reiner
  17. The Women (1939) .. George Cukor
  18. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) .. Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones
  19. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) .. Michel Gondry
  20. Saving Private Ryan (1998) .. Steven Spielberg
  21. Memento (2000) .. Christopher Nolan
  22. Schindler's List (1993) .. Steven Spielberg
  23. Hairspray (1988) .. John Waters
    Hairspray (2007) .. Adam Shankman
  24. Chicago (2002) .. Rob Marshall
  25. The Wiz (1978) .. Sidney Lumet
  26. Nine to Five (1980) .. Colin Higgins
  27. Waltz with Bashir (2008) .. Ari Folman
  28. The Lives of Others (2006) .. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
  29. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) .. Stanley Kubrick
  30. Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) .. Stanley Kubrick
  31. It's a Wonderful Life (1946) .. Frank Capra
  32. The Empire Strikes Back (1980) .. Irvin Kershner
  33. Psycho (1960) .. Alfred Hitchcock
  34. Babe (1995) .. Chris Noonan
  35. The Color Purple (1985) .. Steven Spielberg
  36. The Breakfast Club (1985) .. John Hughes
  37. Romeo and Juliet (1968) .. Franco Zeffirelli
    William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996) .. Baz Luhrmann
  38. Dead Again (1991) .. Kenneth Branagh
  39. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) .. Peter Jackson
  40. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) .. Alfonso CuarĂ³n
  41. Blade Runner (1982) .. Ridley Scott
  42. The Music Man (1962) .. Morton DaCosta
  43. Fantasia (1940) .. various
  44. Ed Wood (1994) .. Tim Burton
  45. Big Night (1996) .. Campbell Scott & Stanley Tucci
  46. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) .. Robert Mulligan
  47. The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) .. Frank Oz
  48. Airplane! (1980) .. Jim Abrahams & David Zucker & Jerry Zucker
  49. Return to Me (2000) .. Bonnie Hunt
  50. Galaxy Quest (1999) .. Dean Parisot

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