Eric Heidemann's Top Ten Movie List

1. "Blade Runner" (1982; Director's Cut 1992)
   I watch this annually, the original about ten times & the Director's Cut seven times (haven't done my 1999 viewing yet) & I get more out of it every time
   
   
2. "Forbidden Planet" (1956)
   A thing of wonder, without which there would have been neither Star Trek nor Star Wars. I've watched it annually since first discovering it on TV in 1964 ("Hey, this is good!") when I was 11. Watching it for the 36th time at Diversicon in August, it occurred to me that Robby the Robot has a lot of Marvin the Paranoid Android in him (which is to say, the reverse).
   
   
3. "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935)
   First saw in 1969, just before King Karloff died; another ann ual treat. Karloff's greatest performance, brilliant acting by Elsa Lanchester & Ernest Thesiger, the directorial masterpiece of James Whale (subject of the 1998 biopick Gods and Monsters) featuring a fully orchestrated musical score by Franz Waxman, which was often reused (in the Flash Gordon serials, for example). Quirky, funny, exhilarating, moving--everything I love about horror pictures radiates out from this, the supreme example of the form.
   
   
4. "Casablanca" (1942)
   'Nuf said.
   
   
5. "The Maltese Falcon" (1941)
   Ditto
   
   
6. "The Wizard of Oz" (1939)
   Rainbow.
   
   
7. "Duck Soup" (1933)
   The Marx Brothers at their maddest, without studio interference.
   
   
8. "Vertigo" (1958)
   The best film of our best director (Hitchcock), featuring the finest performance of our best actor (James Stewart) and the most magnificent score of our best cinema composer (Bernard Hermann). Harrowing--to watch it is to be changed.
   
   
9. "It's A Wonderful Life" (1946)
   James Stewart's second best performance. Love that Capra-corn.
   
   
10. "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1959)
    The Hammer Studios version, featuring Peter Cushing as my favorite Sherlock Holmes & Andre Morell as an unusually intelligent Dr. Watson.