Fifty Movies

[valarltd]

I want my children to have a working cinematic vocabulary, one not limited to the latest animated release.

So, my challenge to you, faithful readers, is name 5 movies you consider essential, and are appropriate for ages 8 and up.

Star Wars, Star Trek and Indiana Jones are covered.

On our planned viewing list:
Frankenstein (Karloff)
Dracula (Lugosi)
Young Frankenstein
Robin Hood (Flynn)
Captain Blood
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Metropolis
Singing in the Rain

Comments

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

My sense of appropriate and essential is screwed, I leave the deciding up to you:

Blade Runner
Baron Munchausen*
The Fisher King
The Gods Must Be Crazy*
...I'm stuck here because everything else is absolutely not really appropriate... I didn't watch movies until I left home (other than Star Wars and the Killing Fields and maybe a couple others) as it was not allowed.
Ghost in the Shell, if you deem it appropriate, yeah.

*these are probably just fine for 8 and up. The Gods Must Be Crazy is just brilliant and bizarre (it's about a little Aboriginal tribe coping with the arrival of a glass cola bottle from high above (dropped from a bush plane) and their attempts to take it to the end of the world to give it back to the Gods).

[thefannishwaldo.livejournal.com]

Dead Poet's Society
Good Morning Vietnam
Ghandi
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (funniest thing ever when you're 12!)
Princess Bride

[thefannishwaldo.livejournal.com]

Oh, and make them read "The Outsiders" and then let them watch the movie. :)

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

I TOTALLY read this wrong thinking :8 and under: so when you recced The Fisher King, I was freaking out...

It is, however, one of my favorite movies of all time. Not sure how old H will need to be before I make her watch it.