1. Standy By Me
Original
Story By: Stephen King (The Body, a short story in the book Different Seasons)
Based on Stephen King’s short story
“The Body”, “Stand By Me” tells the tale of Gordie Lachance, a writer who looks
back on his preteen days when he and three close friends went on their own
adventure to find the body of a kid their age who had gone missing and presumed
dead. The stakes are upped when the bad kids in town are closely tailing – and
it becomes a race to see who’ll be able to recover the body first. That such a
great film can be made from a mere short story says a lot about Reiner’s
excellent directing skills. Both this, and Shawshank Redemption (also by
Stephen King) rate in the IMDB top 250. Considering that Different Seasons was
a rather mediocre book compared to some of King’s great books (such as The
Stand), make these two films clear winners for this list.
Interesting
Fact:
At the insistence of director Rob
Reiner (an avid non-smoker who campaigned for anti-smoking laws in California),
the cigarettes smoked by the boys were made from cabbage leaves.
Original Story By: Philip K. Dick
(Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
In a cyberpunk vision of the future,
Man has developed the technology to create replicants, human clones used to
serve in the colonies outside Earth but with fixed lifespans. In Los Angeles,
2019, Deckard is a Blade Runner, a cop who specialises in terminating
replicants. Originally in retirement, he is forced to re-enter the force when
six replicants escape from an offworld colony to Earth.
Interesting
Fact:
Philip K. Dick claimed that footage
of the film was exactly what he had envisioned when he wrote the book. However,
Ridley Scott, who was notorious for having gotten exactly the visual look he
wanted, claimed to have never read Dick’s source novel “Do Androids Dream of
Electric Sheep?”
3. The Godfather
Original Story By: Mario Puzo
Vito Corleone is the aging don
(head) of the Corleone Mafia Family. His youngest son Michael has returned from
WWII just in time to see the wedding of Connie Corleone (Michael’s sister) to
Carlo Rizzi. All of Michael’s family is involved with the Mafia, but Michael
just wants to live a normal life. Drug dealer Virgil Sollozzo is looking for
Mafia families to offer him protection in exchange for a profit of the drug
money. Puzo is a good writer, but Coppola is a better director and consequently
this film rocketed Puzo to fame he would never have achieved alone.
Interesting
Fact:
During rehearsals, a false horse’s
head was used for the bedroom scene. For the actual shot, a real horse’s head
was used. The head was acquired from a dog-food factory.
4. The Shawshank
Redemption
Original Story By: Stephen King
(Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, a short story from Different Seasons)
After the murder of his wife,
hotshot banker Andrew Dufresne is sent to Shawshank Prison, where the usual
unpleasantness occurs. Over the years, he retains hope and eventually gains the
respect of his fellow inmates, especially longtime convict “Red” Redding, a
black marketeer, and becomes influential within the prison. Eventually, Andrew
achieves his ends on his own terms. This film has become so popular it now
ranks as the IMDB number 1 film – knocking the Godfather in to the number 2
spot. There is no doubt that the film is excellent, but I do not believe it
deserves the number 1 spot on this list.
Interesting Fact:
The mugshots of a
young-looking Morgan Freeman that are attached to his parole papers are
actually pictures of Morgan’s younger son, Alfonso Freeman.
5. Gone With The Wind
Original Story By: Margaret Mitchell
The epic tale of a woman’s life
during one of the most tumultuous periods in America’s history. From her young,
innocent days on a feudalistic plantation to the war-torn streets of Atlanta;
from her first love whom she has always desired to three husbands; from the
utmost luxury to absolute starvation and poverty; from her innocence to her
understanding and comprehension of life. This one hit wonder book by Margaret
Mitchell not only worked out brilliantly for her publishers, it also became the
highest-grossing film in the history of Hollywood, and received a
record-breaking number of Academy Awards.
Interesting
Fact:
The movie’s line “Frankly, my dear,
I don’t give a damn.”
was voted as the #1 movie quote by
the American Film Institute (out of 100).
6. Silence of the Lambs
Original Story By: Thomas Harris
Clarice Starling, a young
intelligent FBI trainee, has been sent to the Baltimore state hospital for the
criminally insane to interview an inmate Dr. Hannibal-the cannibal- Lecter. A
brilliant renowned psychiatrist turned infamous psychopathic serial killer. She
must match wits with Lecter -who has the darkest of all minds- and trust him to
give her clues in the search for “Buffalo Bill”. This is, undoubtedly, one of
the greatest psychological thrillers ever put to screen. The success of this
film contributed largely to the success of Harris as a writer.
Interesting
Fact:
Anthony Hopkins studied videotapes
of serial killers as part of his research for the film. After noticing that
Charles Manson hardly ever blinked when he spoke, he did the same for Hannibal
Lecter.
7. Ben-Hur
Original Story By: Lew Wallace
When Prince Judah Ben-Hur hears that
his childhood friend Messala has been named to command the Roman garrison of
Jerusalem, he is thrilled. He soon finds however that his friend has changed
and has become an arrogant conqueror, full of the grandeur of Rome. When Judah
refuses to divulge the names of Jews who oppose Roman rule, Messala decides to
make an example of him and sends him off as a galley slave. Through fate and
good fortune, Judah survives the galleys and manages to return to Jerusalem in
the hopes of finding his mother and sister, who were also imprisoned, and to
seek revenge against his one-time friend.
Interesting Fact:
Initially there
were queries over whether William Wyler was the right director for the job, as
he’d never tackled a film of this scale before. One of the doubters was Wyler
himself.
8. Jaws
Original Story By: Peter Benchley
A Great White shark decides to make
the small beach resort town of Amity his private feeding grounds. This greatly
frustrates the town police chief who wants to close the beaches to chase the
shark away. He is thwarted in his efforts by the town’s mayor who finally
relents when nothing else seems to work and the chief, a scientist, and an old
fisherman with revenge on his mind take to the sea to kill the beast. Jaws was
a bestselling book for Peter Benchley, but it took the force of a movie to
frighten generations away from the beaches!
Interesting
Fact:
After the shark was built, it was
never tested in the water, and when it was put in the water at Martha’s
Vineyard, it sank straight to the ocean floor. It took a team of divers to
retrieve it.
9. Psycho
Original Story By: Robert Bloch
Phoenix officeworker Marion Crane is
fed up with the way life has treated her. She has to meet her lover Sam in
lunch breaks and they cannot get married because Sam has to give most of his
money away in alimony. One Friday Marion is trusted to bank $40,000 by her
employer. Seeing the opportunity to take the money and start a new life, Marion
leaves town and heads towards Sam’s California store. Tired after the long
drive and caught in a storm, she gets off the main highway and pulls into The
Bates Motel… This is a film that no one will dispute deserves a place on this
list. It is perhaps the greatest horror movie across all generations.
Interesting
Fact:
When the cast and crew began work on
the first day they had to raise their right hands and promise not to divulge
one word of the story. Hitchcock also withheld the ending part of the script from
his cast until he needed to shoot it.
10. The Searchers
Original Story By: Alan Le May
Ethan Edwards, an ex-Confederate
soldier from the Indian Wars, finds that his family has been massacred and his
niece captured by the Comanches and vows to bring her back and kill everyone of
the Indians who did this to him. He travels for five years in order to find her
and when he does reallizes even though she has been found she has become one of
them. The Searchers was ranked #1 on the American Film Institute’s list of the
10 greatest films in the genre “Western” in June 2008.
Interesting
Fact:
Lana Wood played young Debbie
Edwards and Natalie Wood, who was Lana’s older sister by eight years, played
teenaged Debbie Edwards.