Movies You've Seen a Million Times or Movies You Never Tire of Watching
@Bijoux
It cracks me up that anyone would take it any other way.
Yeah, you’re right. But the enthusiasm expressed makes the expression seem like they mean it literally.
At the risk of more ridicule from you :P, a part of me feels like maybe we should be a little more precise one what we mean by “never tire of”—i.e., try to quantify it. For example, never tiring of a movie has to be more than seeing a film once a year, imo. That doesn’t constitute “never tiring” to me.
Also, to be only half-serious, I wonder how many people have actually seen the films that they would “never tire of?” I remember when I first saw It’s a Wonderful Life, I felt like I’d never get tired of it. I would show the film to whomever I could and I saw it several times within the a few years of seeing it. By the time I got to the seventh or eighth time of seeing the film, it didn’t feel like a film I’d never tire of. (And that’s my all-time favorite movie.)
Robley said, I’ve watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Finding Nemo somewhere in the area of 40 times over the last year if I had to guess. I’m already fairly tired of both.
OK, 40 times in one year would definitely qualify as “never tiring of a film.”
The fact that you got tired of the films speaks to another issue, namely the time frame one has seen the films. 40 times in seven months is a lot—and it’s much different from 40 times over forty years.
@Christopher
I think what you’re going for is the cinematic equivalent of a grilled cheddar sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup, yes? Comfort foods as movies.
Not exactly what I had in mind, but close enough—and it’s an interesting angle. I think there’s a better chance of me having movies as comfort food rather than movies I never tire of.
The original King Kong. I do watch it over and over again. I also have watched all the special features more times than I can count. It never gets old. I also find myself returning to Jackie Brown quite often. I watch these two enough that whenever I put the disc in, I feel a little shitty that I’m not using that time to watch something new.
I will probably never tire of any of the films on my “Favorites” here, but the ones that I most often reach for when I want to watch something fall into categories for me: Silly Films (The Thin Man, The Producers, Airplane!, Legally Blonde, Mean Girls), Romances with Quotable Scripts (Casablanca, Shakespeare In Love, The American President), and Films From My Youth That Made An Impression (Star Wars, M. Hulot’s Holiday, Singin’ In The Rain).
Also, anything directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Om Shanti Om.
And speaking of guilty pleasures:
Chandni Chowk to China.
(Yes… Akshay fan)
I’ve seen these 3 many times.
The Shining
Hannah and her Sisters
A Christmas Story
Sometimes, whenever I can’t decide what film of mine to watch since I’ve got probably over 300 DVDs, I by default put in Blade Runner. It’s just such a beautiful film to look at, hear the sound of the rain, the great Vangelis score. Somebody mentioned Hannibal. I’ve watched that many times. I don’t know if it’s one of the best films I’ve ever seen, but it’s very entertaining. I would call it a guilty pleasure as I’ve said on other threads on MUBI in the past. A lot of Kubrick’s films I’ve watched many times such as 2001, The Shining, Clockwork Orange and Dr. Strangelove. And I used to watch a lot of Hitchcock such as Rear Window, North By Northwest, Vertigo, Psycho and Marnie. I think the Birds as well. When I used to own less movies, those would be some of the films I would watch more because I had a smaller collection. I’ve watched the James Bond films On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Goldfinger and I’ve watched the Spy Who Loved Me so many times that when I owned the tape, I had to get a new copy. Then there’s the James Bond film Moonraker, where I will not watch the whole film but just part of the starting, the cable car sequence in Rio De Janero and the last little over about 40-45 minutes up to the very end. 8 1/2 and Citizen Kane I’ve watched many times as well as La Dolce Vita, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Fight Club, The Shame (by Bergman), Apocalypse Now, Yojimbo, The Matrix, M, Eraserhead, The Conformist and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. There’s probably some others as well and if I think of them, maybe I’ll try and type them down, but this is what I will go by now.
I think Ive seen these more than 10 times each, Grease, Zangiku Monogatari, Singin’ in the Rain, That’s Entertainment III, Naked Gun, Sansho Dayu, Magnolia, I Was Born But, A Woman Under the Influence, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Milestones.
@JAZZ “Not exactly what I had in mind, but close enough—and it’s an interesting angle. I think there’s a better chance of me having movies as comfort food rather than movies I never tire of.”
I think it could be a combination of both.
Ok, I can’t explain why but I’ve seen these around 40 times throughout the years-
BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK (Sturges)
MANHATTAN (Allen)
FOUR ADVENTURES OF REINETTE AND MIRABELLE (Rohmer)- not on dvd, and my vhs is totally worn-out.
STRAY DOG (Kurosawa)
GREGORY’S GIRL (Forsyth)
LES BONNES FEMMES (Chabrol)
AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON (Ozu)
PHANTOM OF LIBERTY (Bunuel)
REAR WINDOW (Hitchcock)
THAT MAN FROM RIO (de Broca)
OPERATION PETTICOAT (Edwards)
GHOST WORLD (Zwigoff)
LOCAL HERO (Forsyth)
The Shining
The Battle of Algiers
The Big Lebowski
Reservoir Dogs
Citizen Kane
It’s a Wonderful Life
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure
Pinocchio
The Iron Giant
Taxi Driver
The Godfather
The Godfather Part II
Vertigo
On the Waterfront
1776
The Birdcage
Night of the Living Dead
Halloween
Heathers
Trainspotting
Hot Fuzz
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Star Wars: A New Hope
The Empire Strikes Back
Annie Hall
Dang it, I forgot about
DAWN OF THE DEAD (Romero) 50+
ONLY YESTERDAY (Takahata/ Ghibli)
PLAYTIME (Tati)
I like films that challange me on a rational level. The ones that I could always get back to however, are first and foremost the films that catch me on a purley emotional/aesthetic level and I often cease to analyse the material in detail…. :) Most of the entries also have a strong musical direction IMO.
Chungking Express
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Taxi Driver
Love Exposure
Grave Of The Fireflies
Night on Earth
Mulholland Drive
Fireworks
Princess Mononoke
Ghost in the Shell
Smoke
Audition
The Elephant Man
Ghost World
All About My Mother
Last Life in the Universe
My Neighbor Totoro
Peppermint Candy
Go
Rurouni Kenshin: Trust & Betrayal
Ghost World
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Sonatine
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
5 Centimeters per Second
Failan
Strawberry Shortcakes
Linda Linda Linda
The Taste of Tea
9 Souls
For me it’s Chungking Express, Clerks, Ghost World, Firefly – Serenity, Darjeeling Limited.
mine are all comedies: A New Leaf, Caddyshack, Kingpin, Uncle Buck, Fletch, The Producers, anything with Laurel and Hardy, anything with WC Fields, Woody Allen in his “early, funny” period, Tex Avery cartoons ..
I watch The Godfather 1&2 once every year. I find it soothing, they remind me of why I’m into this stuff in the first place.
Refn’s Drive is a new one I’ll watch multiple times each year.
Just last night, I watched a film that I’ve seen umpteen times before. Thing was, I was screening it for someone who’d never heard of it before, let alone watched it.
I thought that might be why I enjoyed it…again…so much, seeing it “through their eyes”. But actually, no. I truly, personally loved re-watching this 20-year-old film.
Just now, I scanned everyone’s post on this thread. Not only hasn’t this movie been mentioned, not one of these posts mentions a single film from the genre. No one has selected a documentary.
Mine is “Paris is Burning”.
Man With a Movie Camera
Journey To Italy
Le Mepris
Histoire(s) du cinema
Lady From Shanghai
Oddly, The Last Bolshevik
There is more.
Paris is Burning! ++
I always watch good documentaries a couple of times, especially if they contain conversations with some of the people I admire.
Ghost World, Mean Girls (yeah, I know…), Vivre Sa Vie, Manhattan, Pulp Fiction, Billy Elliot :)
Casablanca
To Kill A Mockingbird
Most Hitchcock Movies
Double Indemnity
Laura
Out Of The Past
The Big Heat
Sunset Boulevard
The Year My Voice Broke
Ghost World
Cinema Paradiso
In A Lonely Place
The Maltese Falcon
Most Bogart movies.
Annie Hall.
Monty Python and The Holy Grail
Some Like It Hot
Cool Hand Luke
The Shawshank Redemption.
Blade Runner
PolarisDiB
“Do you think the decision to change the ending in the 11th hour helped or hindered the movie?”
It was contrived and sort of ‘Hollywood’ in the pejorative, nobody allows sadness sense of the term, but at least the raddest guy in the room survived I guess.
—DiB