The Billiken's Bluff

Every once in a while the 15 year old video store clerk nerd in me resurfaces and I find myself in class reading movie trivia on imdb.com.
Today in class I took a look a list they have of the highest rated movies of all time as compiled from the ratings of site visitors from around the world. Considering what such a list might reveal a great deal about the human race, I found it pretty interesting (but not surprising).

Anyway, self-absorbed guy that I am, I says to myself - I says - I wonder what such a list might look like if it was just ME voting. Faced with the option of either taking notes on car crash lawsuits or proceeding in such a nerdy endeavor, I played God in my own little imdb world, pulling a John Cusack from High Fidelity and whipping up a list - of NDot's top 50 movies of all time! (The Got himself has been working on the same list to be posted tomorrow.)

I'm probably not very original. The list represents NDot personal favorite movies rather than what I consider to be the best films made. (I had to leave of some , like Apocalypse Now, that I both love and thought were among the greatest).

So its heavily tilted towards comedy and gangster films, and probably those that most dudes of my demogaphic could get down with, with a few randoms. Some of them are pretty new, so its hard to tell if they would have the staying power of some of the more "classic" titles on the list. To this day my closest friends and I will carry on meaningful conversations consisting entirely of quotes from the top 20.

If you dont strongly like most of the movies on this list, you and I probably wouldn't get along. Respect it, bitches.

THE TOP 20 (in rough order):

1. Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?
2. The Shawshank Redemption
3. Scent of a Woman
4. Goodfellas
5. Braveheart
6. L.A. Confidential
7. The Godfather (I and II)
8. The Big Lebowski
9. Billy Madison
10. Casino
11. Office Space
12. Made
13. Boyz ‘N the Hood
14. Boogie Nights
15. The Apartment
16. Pulp Fiction
17. Stand by Me
18. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
19. Good Will Hunting
20. Waking Life

THE RUNNERS UP (in no real order):

21. Swingers
22. Clerks
23. Fargo
24. Rain Man
25. Full Metal Jacket
26. Old School
27. Annie Hall
28. The Usual Suspects
29. Election
30. The Silence of the Lambs
31. The Exorcist
32. Dazed and Confused
33. Heat
34. Seven
35. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
36. Fight Club
37. Donnie Brasco
38. Gladiator
39. Casablanca
40. Sideways
41. Miller’s Crossing
42. Life of Brian
43. The Shining
44. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
45. Catch Me if You Can
46. Forrest Gump
47. The Royal Tennenbaums
48. Schindler’s List
49. Meet the Parents
50. Mystic River