Welcome to MovieJawn’s first ever Sound & Vision Poll, where our writers share why they love their 10 favorite movies of all time!
by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, Red Herring

When considering what to include in this ballot, I wanted to select movies that I revisit over and over that are also meaningful. There are some movies on this list I have seen dozens of times, and some I have seen only once or twice, but I know I will revisit again and again over the course of my life. Each of these speak to me in some specific way, and I think watching all 10 would give you a decent understanding of who I am as a person.

That said, I could easily make a 10 film list based on this prompt 10 times over without repeating any movies and still feel like they represent me in some way. Heartbreaking omissions here include Lady Bird, Superman: The Movie, representation from the Star Wars franchise, and the spy genre and films by Michael Mann, Peter Weir, Hayao Miyazaki, Billy Wilder, Jean-Pierre Melville, James Whale, or Agnès Varda.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (dir. Richard Fleischer, 1954)

I love science fiction, and always have. I love the sense of discovery and wonder, especially when brought to the screen with such vivid imagination. This adaptation of Jules Verne’s book takes that sense of excitement of traveling in the hidden world beneath the ocean and embraces it. This adaptation has sea shanties, an organ, and whimsical production design for the Nautilus submarine. Kirk Douglas is great in this, especially performing “Whale of a Tale,” one of the aforementioned shanties. But the film belongs to James Mason as Captain Nemo. The definitive version to date, his Nemo is mysterious, driven, and extremely charismatic, constantly changing between anti-hero and villain from sequence to sequence. The giant squid attack provides the sort of spectacle needed from this story, but the production design and the performances are what earned it a spot on my list.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (dir. Ang Lee, 2000)

Like dance numbers in a musical, the fights in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are often expressions of emotions that otherwise would remain bottled up. This is especially true in the film’s climactic set piece, where Jen Yu (Zhang Ziyi) and Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) duel before Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-fat) pursues Jen into a bamboo forest. While the fight is presented as being about control over the fate of the Green Destiny Sword, that is merely the pretext. The duel begins by expressing the two women’s frustrations with their lives’ pursuits, and Mu Bai is ultimately attempting to save Jen from going down a path of evil. The sword plays an important role in the story as a focal point, but it is the characters’ emotions that give the fight dramatic weight. 

Even this style of martial arts action, featuring intricate choreography that resembles ballet with characters able to soar through the air further advances the film’s texture. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon captures a sense of grandeur without sacrificing varying tones, including humor, action, and romance. The film takes its story seriously while also reveling in genre trappings like the collapse of the inn’s mezzanine after an epic sword brawl. 

Grand Prix (dir. John Frankenheimer, 1966)

“It’s marvelous to go very fast!” - Tina (Françoise Hardy)

I wrote a longer piece about Grand Prix in the Spring 2021 issue of our zine, with the core thesis being that racing is as much of a blend of art and motion as filmmaking. This Frankenheimer effort is a true epic in the vein of a David Lean film, taking the "masculine melodrama" approach of Bridge on the River Kwai or Lawrence of Arabia and applying it to Formula 1 racing. The world’s fastest sport has also been one of the most dangerous, historically, and Grand Prix highlights the danger through scenes on and off the track. 

The off-track drama is fun, featuring a cast that highlights the international nature of the competition that includes James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, Toshirō Mifune, Yves Montand, Françoise Hardy, Jessica Walter, and Claude Dauphin. It’s not being subtle about the human drama, which mostly serves to show the glamor of being a racing driver as well as the danger.

Filmed in 70mm, the racing sequences, made with driving at speed with giant cameras strapped to the cars, look better than present day Formula 1 looks on live TV. One perfect shot might be raindrops falling on a stopwatch with a fade to what rain looks like at 100 miles an hour, a cloud of fuzzy droplets. It's masterful. Having one of my non-film interests captured perfectly and so lovingly in a massive production means a lot to me, earning it a spot in this list. 

Sullivan’s Travels (dir. Preston Sturges, 1941)

One of four(!) Preston Sturges movies released in 1941, Sullivan’s Travels endures because of the truth within its satire: Hollywood movies are not good at capturing the “sorrows of humanity.” The film’s central thesis comes to a rousing high point as Sullivan (John McCrea) sits with his fellow inmates watching and laughing along with Disney's “Playful Pluto.” While there are many films that do show the troubles of people and are highly moving, it is important not to forget that movies are a medium of popular entertainment as much as they are works of art. Nor are the two mutually exclusive, as Sturges demonstrates. In showing the power of a short cartoon to provide a few minutes of joy to the mostly Black inmates, the writer-director makes his point about movies and gets close to those sorrows without taking away from the satire. Plus, this was my first exposure to Veronica Lake, one of my favorite Golden Age stars. 

Tampopo (dir. Juzo Itami, 1985)

The film is a smorgasbord of food and comedic delights. A “ramen Western,” mostly as wordplay on spaghetti Westerns, the main thread sees truckers Gorō (Tsutomu Yamasaki) and Gun (Ken Wantanabe) stumble into the decrepit local ramen shop owned by the widow Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto). After a run in with a local ruffian and his gang, they decide to help Tampopo turn her sad noodles into a standard bearer for ramen. They eventually enlist the help of a few experts, a Rocky-esque training regimen, and a tour of other noodle shops to help her complete this goal. All of the characters are warm and engaging, and these segments give the film a hangout feel.

Interspersed throughout are other food-related vignettes, which only amplify the comedy. Only one functions as a recurring subplot, that of a food-obsessed gangster (Kōji Yakusho) and his moll (Fukumi Kuroda), who are seen merging food and sex in ways that might horrify even George Constanza. Others include spaghetti etiquette, an old woman squeezing food in a supermarket, and a hilarious business lunch at a French restaurant.

The entire film plays with how we interact with food, and Itami seems to believe that both high and low cuisine is worth praising given that eating is a fundamental human activity. Suitably, Tampopo plays with being both high and low art. Often uproariously funny while offering social commentary and a charming cast of characters, Tampopo combines various flavors and textures into a satisfying and delicious whole, just like a good bowl of ramen. 

The Searchers (dir. John Ford, 1956)

This was my first John Ford movie, which may have been a mistake. I watched it three years ago in order to write an article about the movies that inspired the films of the Star Wars franchise. While I was surprised by how much I loved it at the time, I have since watched 27 other films by Ford, and find things to appreciate about all of them. I find him a captivating figure as well as filmmaker, and I still have many of his movies to watch as well as at least two books about him on my to-read shelf. The Searchers is one I am eager to revisit. Even three years and hundreds of films later, there are moments that float at the surface of my mind due to the visual composition and the emotional complexity found within. While I adore My Darling Clementine, The Searchers is a movie that I can’t wait to revisit at various points in my life to discover additional shades within. 

The Matrix (dirs. Lilly Wachowski, Lana Wachowski, 1999)

The Matrix is my absolute favorite kind of movie, endlessly fun and entertaining to watch, but also provides hours, if not years or decades of thoughtful discussion and new things to discover about it. Movies are alive, and the way The Matrix has permeated the culture proves it. The way it balances worldbuilding, innovative action filmmaking, and special effects, layering in its philosophical exploration of reality and identity is basically perfect. Twenty-three years later, we are even more plugged in, with some of the biggest businesses’ profits built off of our attention and mental labor. We still need to wake up, fellow coppertops.

Stop Making Sense (dir. Jonathan Demme, 1984)

If I had to pick one last movie to watch before I die, there’s a good chance I’d choose Stop Making Sense. Music is also something that’s very important in my life and this is, hands down, the best concert movie of all time. Watching it during the events of the last few years has been a much-needed source of joy for me, getting me through some of the hardest times. The way that Jonathan Demme (also one of my favorite directors) captures and assembles footage of the Talking Heads performing is incredible and immediate. This must be the place. 

Fantasia (dir. David Hand, James Algar, et al., 1940)

Composed of seven animated shorts with live action wraparound segments, Fantasia is the creative apex of Disney animation. While born out of the “Silly Symphonies” cartoons that focused on pairing music and drawing, Walt Disney used Fantasia to push into more experimental and abstract styles of animation. But it also contains the iconic “The Sorcerer's Apprentice”  Mickey Mouse segment, making Fantasia both challenging and comforting. The musical selections are more familiar now than they were in 1940 (Tchaikovsky, in particular, was rescued by his music appearing here), but the pairing of sound and animation is stunning nonetheless. Weird, strange, innovative, and beautiful, it feels as vibrant today as it did 80 years ago.

Jaws (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1975)

If pressed, I will own up to being someone with “basic,” mainstream taste and admit that Jaws is my favorite movie of all time. There are many reasons why, but for right now I just want to talk about the “scar scene.”

The opening third of the movie is shark vs. island, with all of the danger and intrigue that implies. The last act is man vs. shark, with our trio of men on the Orca battling against the cold heart of nature itself. But the middle third is what I think makes the film truly great. Hooper, Brody, and Quint sort of represent the three stages of man: the foolish youth, the practical middle age, and the wizened elder. 

I used to identify with Hooper the most. But now I watch the film and I see him as kind of a know-it-all, someone who keeps distance between himself and the people of Amity. He sees the shark as a science problem, an experiment. He is also a bit of a coward (which I also did identify with). And at some point I used to idolize Quint. The hardened, wizened man who doesn’t take any shit from anyone. His confidence seems earned, though now when I watch, I recognize more and more a man who has used these things–boiling shark jaws, ribald jokes, an unkempt appearance– to try and seem superior to everyone else around. Ultimately he’s just as much the fool as Hooper is, but he hides it behind experience instead of PhDs. But Chief Brody, the middle age, middle class practical man, who pushes himself beyond his fear of the water, is who I find the most relatable now. He’s an outsider, but he cares about the islanders, he takes his responsibilities seriously, and isn’t afraid to do what he sees as right even when it is unpopular. 

The differences between these three men all play out wonderfully as they embark on the Orca in search of the shark. Hooper and Quint are in constant conflict, measuring the size of their egos, while Hooper tries to learn basic knots and be useful. But then we get to the scar scene. Finally Quint and Hooper are finding common ground, even with Hooper’s soft hands. A little alcohol and some sharing of stories and they are bonding. This section includes Shaw’s incredible monologue about the Indianapolis, which is more arresting than any on-screen shark. The whole sequence is an example of masterful storytelling. 

Brody declines to share his appendix scar. Once again, he is an outsider. The ocean is alien to him, just as whatever shred of culture is shared by Hooper and Quint. As a New York cop, he likely had to deal with some of the hardest challenges offered by other humans, but in his mind, it doesn’t seem to count against whatever the ocean has to offer. But the moment passes, and then all three men are singing “show me the way to go home,” and they have all turned some kind of corner in these relationships. And then the shark chooses that moment to ram the boat. The peace is shattered.

Previously published in our Summer Blockbusters countdown last summer.