Welcome to MovieJawn’s first ever Sound & Vision Poll, where our writers share why they love their 10 favorite movies of all time!

by Stacey Osbeck, Staff Writer

Throughout the day, films come back to me: funny lines, moments of courage. Long ago the lights have gone up, but the movie’s still playing.  

In compiling a top ten, I had to question what makes the cut? Is it movies that have always been on these lists and over time it’s agreed upon that they have a right to be and stay there? Or is that a bit lazy and stale? Stagnating what’s considered great. Many incredible films I sat in awe of but wasn’t compelled to watch again. Or they never revisited me at odd times, unbidden.  

So what follows are pictures that truly utilized the art form to its fullest potential, either through expanding the craft or plumbing the depths of our emotions and secret hopes. Films that have a unique sticking power and help us understand our own worlds and ourselves.

Breaking Away (dir. Peter Yates, 1979)

People go nuts when I tell them my favorite film is Breaking Away. The bike movie? One time when it came up I spontaneously blurted out: it’s the only film that if aliens came down and were ready to wipe out all of humanity and they said you’ve got one film you can show us to possibly change our minds on the value of what it is to be human, I’d show them Breaking Away. It’s about friendship and hometowns and big dreams that only you can see. Crafting who you want to be, while keeping your chin up regarding who you are. Without being saccharine, there’s a good naturedness to this film. Although the alien annihilation scenario probably won’t come up, if it did, I still believe that this film might just save the entire human race.

Some Like it Hot (dir. Billy Wilder, 1959)

It was a different time. Ladies were ladies and men were men. Unless of course two men, who were musicians, witness a mob hit and had to hide out with a traveling ladies' big band where their very lives depended on convincing everyone they were definitely not men. Some Like it Hot is why we go to the movies. Billy Wilder’s clever wit, glamorous costumes, hilarious high jinks, musical numbers—Marilyn Monroe. Many people only know Marilyn as a pretty face they’ve seen over the years on billboards and novelty tchotchkes. However, this performance, and chemistry with Tony Curtis, seals her status as a star and elevates this film to one of the greats.  

Coming to America (dir. John Landis, 1988)

Let me tell you a joke that’s so funny filmmakers were able squeeze almost two full hours from it: An African prince, Akeem, doesn’t want an arranged marriage. He wants love. He employs his trusty sidekick, Semmi, to go on a secret journey to find his future bride. They decide on New York, but search an atlas aimlessly. Semmi asks: Where in New York can one find a woman with grace, elegance, taste and culture? A woman suitable for a king? And the map provides the answer: Queens. So the two go slumming with the rest of us, Akeem delighting in day to day of the common man’s world. The best part of the joke is that even in an unlikely place love can be found, one just has to look.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (dir. Michel Gondry, 2004)

Lacuna Inc. can erase your most painful memories and help you move on with your life. Upon learning his ex-girlfriend Clementine erased him, Joel sets out to eradicate their relationship from his memory to also put it all behind him. In the midst of the process though he becomes lucid. Joel realizes the time spent with Clementine was some of the best moments of his life. Without dipping into time travel this film twists time in inventive ways. Heightened emotion conjures memories into the now, leaving it hard to distinguish between past and present. The audience pieces together the full picture as it simultaneously slips away from the characters. And what carries it all is that hidden hope we collectively posses that even when all is lost, what is ours will find a way back to us.  

The Kid Stays in the Picture (dir. Nanette Bernstein and Brett Morgen, 2002)

Based on the life of producer Robert Evans, this film is the fastest paced most exhilarating documentary you’ll ever see. Probably because it’s based on a subject we all love, the movies. Evans started as a hack actor and eventually found his strong suit producing. He fostered Robert Towne’s script, one that no one else believed in, Chinatown, lured the Polish director Roman Polanski to the states with the story of Rosemary’s Baby, and gave a little know Italian-American director, Francis Ford Coppola, a path to the big time with The Godfather. Probably the most endearing storyline of the film comes from Evans relaying his love affair with actress Ali MacGraw, who he affectionately refers to as Snot-nose.  

Stalker (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)

Hidden in a gated area called the Zone lies a fabled place where once you reach it all your hopes materialize. A man finds the spot and tells the world that yes it exists and yes all his dreams have come true! And the next day he kills himself. The only way to maneuver in the Zone is with a stalker, a guide who knows the ways of the place. A writer and a professor are led by one to find the transformative spot. That question hangs heavy over the two: if everything suddenly went your way, what would posses you to end it all? They journey through a forest with open patches of green and a bombed out abandoned building with chalky concrete walls. Both locations inexplicably feel visceral and luscious. Deep in the Zone the answers they uncover are hard, but profoundly true.  

Back to the Future (dir. Robert Zemeckis, 1985)

Star Wars draws from the old Westerns. Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew set in high school becomes 10 Things I Hate About You. The Amityville Horror is The Shining. But Back to the Future is wholly original. In some time travel adventures the character passively looks on with wonder on how things were. But Marty McFly becomes an active participant in events, first inadvertently, then deliberately as his own existence relies on his setting things right. He’s not trying to save the world or stop JFK from getting shot. He’s maneuvering to get his mom, Loraine, to fall in love with his dad, George, so he can eventually be born and have a future to return to. Marty arranges a situation where his dad will stroll up to a car and save the day. But things go terribly wrong and George McFly learns that in the movies, like in life, you don’t get to be the hero through a contrivance, you actually have to be the hero.  

The Secret of NIMH (dir. Don Bluth, 1982)

Don Bluth renders genuine expressions on animated animals like no one else. This only enhances the tale of a recently widowed field mouse, Mrs. Brisby, who must employ the help of the rats before the farmer gets his tractor up and running and destroys her home. However, rats don’t help mice. But when it’s discovered her late husband was Jonathan Brisby, they allow her into their extraordinary world. Jonathan, like the rats, escaped from an animal testing facility.  They led cruel caged lives as scientists pumped them with drugs to enhance intelligence. Beneath the rosebush the rats created a space of electric lights, waterways and a bit of real magic. As his history unfolds, Mrs. Brisby learns that although Jonathan came from a world anyone would wish to be a part of, in the end he dreamed of the simple life of a field mouse, with a wife and a family, and a place to call home. 

Winter’s Bone (dir. Debra Granik, 2010)

In the insulated poverty of the rural Ozarks, Ree, a teenager tries to keep her family together. Her mother’s mental illness has devolved into catatonia, putting Ree in charge of her younger siblings. It’s become clear her father, a meth dealer, crossed the wrong people and got himself killed. Ree’s able to keep the family going, until she learns her father is due in court next week. He put the house up as bail collateral and unless he shows, they’ll lose their home. Behind closed doors she can conceal that there’s no functional adult running things, she can keep her mother out a mental institution and her siblings out of foster care. But without the house, everything falls apart. The only way to excuse her father not showing at the courthouse would be to prove he’s dead. So Ree must dive into the criminal world of rural meth dealers, the same lot that put an end to her father, to find proof he’s dead and save the house. The film takes on a different shade of terror by exploring not ghosts or ancient curses, but true horrors: poverty, a lack of societal safety nets and meth. 

American Splendor (dir. Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, 2003)

It’s the word splendor that gets me. Based on a true story, Harvey Pekar, a file clerk in Cleveland, decides to chronicle his humdrum life. He meets an up and coming cartoonist, Robert Crumb, who’s happy to illustrate his banal mishaps. While the real life story pushes the boundaries on what comic books can be, this film reinvents how true stories can be told. Interviews with the real life people intermix with actors playing them. All threads becomes truly meta with characters influencing the work and the work influencing characters, an endless feedback loop that gets better and more interesting with each spin.