Must see Pre 2000 movies!

[000Ronald]

Here are a few really good movies that I haven't seen posted yet

What Dreams May Come
Goodfellas
The Godfather
For A Few Dollars More & A Fistfull Of Dollars (both prequals to The Good, The Bad and the Ugly)
The Highlander & The Highlander 3 (the second one sucked, don't watch it)
The Thing (with Kurt Russel)
Hook
Dazed and Confused
My Cousin Vinnie
Dragonheart
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (anime)
Jurassic Park (just don't watch the sequals)
Lean On Me
Clerks (f***ing excellence incarnate)
Mr. Smith Goes to washington
Life According to Garp
What's Eating Gilbert Grape

And if you can find it, there was an Anime my dad used to wach on the Sci-fi channel called "Robot Carnival." It was basically a bunch of short movies about robots, but it was really cool; Most of the stories didn't even have diolauge, but had kick-ass music. Also, he reccomended Clean & Sober and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I haven't seen them, but my dad's sort of a film nut, too. I'd trust him.

 

[Conqueror Kenny]

Little Nickey 1999 or 2000. It must have been one of the funniest dumbest films i have seen in a long time truely exelent.

 

[Cousin_IT]

[oh & I got another film from my distant memory I need naming. Cant be as specific in details as the last one. I remember it involving a boy who goes to a library n finds some big books. Then theres a wizard for some reason n suddenly it goes from real acting to animation & the books are alive. Then theres a big gap in my memory about what happens till the end where its back in real acting n the animated books sneak into the kids room & everyone is happy as it were. For some reason I can only remember it as the neverending story (which of course it isnt]]

That sounds somewhat like The Pagemaster, from what I recall.

hurrah another memory given a name (if only it was the last one). TY

 

[Spinwhiz]

Thank you for all the movies guys! I can't wait to view them all!

 

[bamforth]

The Godfather, Alien + Aliens, all the Monty Pythons, Platoon, Predator, The (ORIGINAL) Italian Job, The Matrix and Mars Attacks.

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

How about some samurai films? I'd give plot summaries but they all pretty much boil down to "a samurai does something because he feels he has no choice and then has to fight a lot of other samurai." These aren't straight-up action flicks, they are Japanese historical dramas (jidai-geki).

Kill!
Sword of Doom
Samurai Rebellion
Harakiri
Ran - Kurosawa's epic retelling of the King Lear story.
Samurai Spy
Sword of the Beast
Roningai

You pretty much can't go wrong with anything by Kurosawa, or anything that has Toshiro Mifune or Tatsuya Nakadai.

These don't make the cut for pre-2000 but they are still awesome

Twilight Samurai
The Hidden Blade
When the Last Sword is Drawn

If you are looking for straight-up swordfight action (chambara movies), go for the "Zatoichi" and "Lone Wolf and Cub" series. Between the two of them, there are probably about 50 movies, so that should really keep you occupied.


Some Chinese martial arts films:

Iron Monkey
Wing Chun
Fist of the Red Dragon, also released as Heroes Among Heroes - one of them has an absolutely craptastic English-language dub/subtitle track, but I don't remember which one.
Once Upon a Time in China I, II, and III
A Chinese Ghost Story
The Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
House of Flying Daggers
Moon Warriors (if only for the OMGWTFWHALE?!? element)
The Bride With White Hair
Drunken Master
The Emperor and the Assassin
Raise the Red Lantern (Not martial arts, just amazing, and Gong Li may be one of the most beautiful women in the history of the human race.)

Films that didn't make the 2000 cut
Hero (probably my favorite film ever)
Seven Swords
Warriors of Heaven and Earth

 

[Fire Daemon]

There is a book called "999 movies you need to see before you die". I recomend giving it a look.

 

[cleverlymadeup]

the last man on earth - it's a more true to form version of "i am legend" with vincent price

phallus in wonderland - it's one of gwar's movies, it's bad but oh so good
blazing saddles - we don't need no stinking badges

any of the old horror films too, stuff with vincent price, christopher lee and peter cushing.

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

Has anyone mentioned "Dead Alive" yet? Rats raping monkeys. "I kick ass for the LORD!" Zombies + lawnmower FTW!

 

[Scypemonk]

If it has to be one movie:

Army of darkness

Because it's just the happens to be the best adventure/comedy movie ever. The LOTR movies, are fantastic, but doesn't even come close to the amount of awesomnes of this one.

 

[Alphavillain]

Films you may like: Stanley Kubrick's films, especially "Clockwork Orange" (although "2001" is better); "Eraserhead" by David Lynch (not "Dune"; it bites); "Raging Bull"; and when you're ready anything by Andrei Tarkovsky ("Solaris"; "Mirror"), Ingmar Bergman ("Smiles Of A Summer Night"), Jean-Luc Godard ("Pierrot Le Fou", "Bande A Part"), Bela Tarr, Luc Besson ("Nikita", "Leon"), Robert Bresson ("Balthazar"), Orson Welles ("Citizen Kane"), Wim Wenders ("Paris, Texas"), John Ford ("The Searchers"), Marin Scorcese ("Taxi Driver")

 

[invictuslemming]

My top picks for pre-2000:

Dogma - (November '99, just barely made it in here.)
Full Metal Jacket - (Its like 2 movies in one, neither for the feint of heart though.)
The Rock - (Not the wrestler, the movie. 1996, Good old action, shoot em up, blow em up)
Fight Club - (Its just cool)

 

[Alphavillain]

mshcherbatskaya: Raise the Red Lantern (Not martial arts, just amazing, and Gong Li may be one of the most beautiful women in the history of the human race.) I agree about Gong Li. Also "Ju Dou". Fantastic.

And yes, anything by Kurosawa (especially "Rashomon", one of the most important films ever made); any of the Musashi Miyamoto films; "Beat" Takashi Kitano; "vengeance Is Mine" by Imamamura; Miike's "Audition"; and of course the great Ozu and Mizoguchi.

 

[ayoama]

Good old Hitchcock is always remembered for Psycho, The Birds etc., but I also strongly recommend The Paradine Case. I never get tired of watching it (that could be partly explained by the presence of Alida Valli ^^).

 

[Alphavillain]

Good old Hitchcock is always remembered for Psycho, The Birds etc., but I also strongly recommend The Paradine Case. I never get tired of watching it (that could be partly explained by the presence of Alida Valli ^^).

Mmmm, Alida Valli, especially in "The Third Man". Great last shot to that one, where she just walks past him...

 

[Cousin_IT]

On the sbject of martial arts films, I quite like Legend of a Fighter (Huo Yuan-Jia) (the 1982 origional not Jet Li's 2006 Fearless which is based on same story)

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

Naked Lunch - my girlfriend and I went to see it several times when it first came out and would make bets on whether people would leave in the middle of the movie and in what scene. "Those two? Totally not making it past the Parrot Cage." "Absolutely."

Also, the book is fantastic. William Burroughs was a brilliant freak. I've heard that it's intended as a circular book, which is to say, you can start at any point, read through, go to page 1 and read up to the point you started, and it still makes as much sense as if you simply read it front to back. I've tried it and it works.

 

[cleverlymadeup]

WHERE THE HELL IS THE FIFTH ELEMENT AND HARD BOILED? WHY HASNT ANYONE MENTIONED THESE?

didn't say either one cause tho hardboiled isn't that far off the beaten path, fifth element is on the beaten path, was originally the theme

the last man on earth - vincent price as dr robert morgan, yes the same dr robert morgan that will smith plays, cept vincent's version is more like the book than will's

tho i will say any old horror film with either vincent price, christopher lee and/or peter cushing is good and worth the watch