This is the second half of a post outlining my top 10 favorite movies. The first half of the post can be seen here.

5. Usual Suspects: If you haven’t seen it yet; too bad, I’m going to ruin it for you right now…Kevin Spacey is Keyser Soze. Ok with that out of the way. I was floored when that fact surfaces at the end. You spend the whole movie entranced with the mystery of Soze, only to find out he’s been on the screen for 75% of the movie. This movie is Brian Singer at his best. The tempo, use of flash backs, narration, and overall story is nearly flawless. Every time I watch The Usual Suspects I stumble across something new I didn’t catch before.

4. Field of Dreams: This is one of the 3 movies that can make me cry. If you’re a guy and you’ve played catch with your dad, how can you not cry? In this flick we have Costner playing one of his two best types of roles: sporting guy (the other one is a character in a western). Field of Dreams is actually a take off of a book and if you’ve ever read the book then you know how close to the mark the movie is. Whether you like baseball or not, the movie warms your heart, and almost makes you want to build your own baseball fiedl.

3. Godfather I: Brando, Pacino, Caan, Duvall, and the list goes on and on. From the opening scene to the final scene the movie delivers. Nino Rota’s score is masterful and the overall story has so many lessons that are applicable in real life. This blog does a GREAT job if outlining some of the key ones.

2. Airplane: So many quotes, so many quotes, so many quotes! I can watch this movie over and over and over. It just rocks. The laughs are big, the story completely unbelieveable, and the characters are just amazing. Plus, this gets bonus points for starring Kareem Abdul Jabar as an airline pilot. Let me say that again, Kareem, all 7 ft. of him is an airline pilot. Long story short; if you haven’t seen this movie you are missing out and if you have seen it then you know what I’m talking about.

1. Almost Famous: I just watched this movie the other night AGAIN; and it reminded me again why I love it: Beautiful story telling. Cameron Crowe does a great job of telling the story in a way the comes across as realistic and makes you feel like you are in each scene. The use of music elevates the movie to #1 status in my book; specifically, the Tiny Dancer scene. And it has one of my favorite all time life lesson scenes. At the end of the movie the band’s manager, Dennis Hope, played by Jimmy Fallon presents the band with a lighter in one hand a closed fist as the other. He ask’s them which they’d rather want…the known entity or the unknown. The band of course wants what’s in the fist even though they have no idea what’s in it. The point of course is we live for the unknown.

Other movies that I love, but that didn’t make the cut:

Braveheart
Legends of the Fall
V for Vendetta
Meet Joe Black
Good Will Hunting
High Fidelity
Heat
The Departed
The Matrix (Part I)
American Psycho
Kingdom of Heaven
The Good The Bad and The Ugly
Goodfellas
Sin City
The Wizard of Oz
American Beauty
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Casablanca