IMAsubstack Summer Series: Favorite Movies
Part I (Introduction & Honorable Mentions)
With Brad Lander’s victory safely in hand, I am now looking forward to my annual friends and family trip to Fire Island and settling in to draft my third academic article. I have also been working on a longer piece about immigration that I hope to post on IMAsubstack sometime next month.
In the meantime, welcome to my summer series!
When I was in college, I really liked the movie High Fidelity. In that film, John Cusack says to the camera: “it’s not what you’re like but what you like that is important.”
I may have agreed with that sentiment when I was 19, but certainly not at 44. I do agree, however, that talking about movies, books, and music is a great way to get to know someone, including yours truly.
First, a disclaimer on the “Kanye of it all.” For many years, I was a huge fan of Kanye’s music. I love(d) Woody Allen movies. I think The Pianist is an incredible film. In my view, whose art a person chooses to enjoy is their own business. I don’t enjoy dancing to Michael Jackson’s music anymore, but I readily admit it remains undeniably excellent art. And so, rather than derail the process litigating each artist’s personal sins, I will rank the art itself and note where the artist’s actions influenced whether I continue to support their work.
Summer Series: IMA’s Favorite Movies
Note (6/26/26): As I remember movies I’ll likely add and edit below.
During COVID, I worked my way through AFI’s list to fill in some classic movie gaps and more contemporary top 100 lists, especially Timeout’s. Since then, the New York Times put out the beautifully presented list of the 100 best movies of the 21st century, and I have been filling gaps from that list now as well. These lists all focus on what movies are the best. My own list is broader—there are movies I love because they are incredibly crafted films, others because they still make me laugh after the 10th rewatch, and then a few that I love because they make me think of someone or some special night many years ago (some are naturally a combination of these subgroups). So, instead this is my list of my favorite movies.
Honorable Mentions
10 Things I Hate About You (Junger) (1999)
A Hard Day’s Night (Lester) (1964), Always Be My Maybe (Khan) (2019), Amadeus (Forman) (1984), Apocalypse Now (Coppola, F.) (1979), Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (Roach) (1997), Avengers: Endgame (Russos) (2019), The Aviator (Scorsese) (2004)
Bad Boys (Bay) (1995), Barbie (Gerwig) (2023), Best in Show (Guest) (2000), The Birdcage (Nichols) (1996), Blade Runner 2049 (Villeneuve) (2017), The Blues Brothers (Landis) (1980), Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Charles) (2006), Boyhood (Linklater) (2014), Boogie Nights (Anderson) (1997), Boyz n the Hood (Singleton) (1991), Bull Durham (Shelton) (1988), Bulworth (Beatty) (1998)
Caddyshack (Ramis) (1980), Cast Away (Zemeckis) (2000), Catch Me If You Can (Spielberg) (2002), Children of Men (Cuarón) (2006), Clueless (Heckerling) (1995), Crazy Heart (Cooper) (2009)
Dave (Reiner) (1993), Dirty Dancing (Ardolino) (1987), Dogma (Smith) (1999), Django Unchained (Tarantino) (2012)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Spielberg) (1982)
Fargo (Coens) (1996), Field of Dreams (Robinson) (1989), The Firm (Pollack) (1993), Friday (Gray) (1995)
Grand Budapest Hotel (Anderson) (2014), Grease (Kleiser) (1978)
Hit Man (Linklater) (2023), Hoosiers (Anspaugh) (1986)
Inception (Nolan) (2010)
Juice (Dickerson) (1992)
La La Land (Chazelle) (2016), The Last Waltz (Scorsese) (1978), Lincoln (Spielberg) (2012), Little Women (Gerwig) (2019)
Mallrats (Smith) (1995), Michael Clayton (Gilroy) (2007), Midnight in Paris (Allen) (2011), The Mighty Ducks (Herek) (1992), Miracle (O’Connor) (2004), Mission: Impossible (I) (De Palma) (1996), Moneyball (Miller) (2011), Moonstruck (Jewison) (1987), Moulin Rouge! (Luhrmann) (2001), Mulholland Drive (Lynch) (2001)
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (Chechik) (1989), Nashville (Altman) (1975), No Direction Home (Scorsese) (2005)
Office Space (Judge) (1999)
The Pelican Brief (Pakula) (1993), Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (Lonely Island) (2016), Pride & Prejudice (Wright) (2005), The Princess Bride (Reiner) (1987), Purple Rain (Magnoli) (1984)
Rocky (Avildsen) (1976), Romeo + Juliet (Luhrmann) (1996), Runaway Jury (Fleder) (2003), Rushmore (Anderson) (1998)
Saving Private Ryan (Spielberg) (1998), Schindler’s List (Spielberg) (1993), Searching for Bobby Fischer (Zaillian) (1993), Sense and Sensibility (Lee) (1995), Snake Eyes (De Palma) (1998), Speed (de Bont) (1994), Star Wars: Episode IV--A New Hope (Lucas) (1977), Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back (Kershner) (1980), The Sting (Hill) (1973), Stop Making Sense (Demme) (1984), Stripes (Ramis) (1981), Superbad (Mottola) (2007)
Theatre Camp (Gordon & Lieberman) (2023), Tokyo Story (Ozu) (1953), Tommy Boy (Spheeris) (1995), The Truman Show (Weir) (1998)
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (Kasdan) (2007), What About Bob? (Alda) (1991), When Harry Met Sally... (Reiner) (1989), White Men Can’t Jump (Shelton) (1992)