Top 50 Movies of All-Time (The Honorable Mentions)

After sitting down for the last few days and making a list of every single movie I have ever seen (yeah that took a while), I have condensed all of them down to the top 50 movies I have ever seen.  I will be breaking them down in groups of 10 and posting them over the next few days.  Today will be the first part with a list of the 10 movies that just missed the cut.  Make sure to check all of them out because these are all great movies.

Honorable Mention

The Immigrant

This 2014 movie was surprisingly ignored by the Academy at this year’s Oscars.  Starring Academy darling Marion Cotillard, The Immigrant seemed to be a great Oscar-bait movie as a historical film on the struggles of 1920s European immigrants.  Definitely a great movie to check out.

Toy Story 2

This movie just missed the cut.  The other two movies in the trilogy definitely made the top 50, but Toy Story 2 just barely missed out.  Almost everybody has seen this movie, but for the few out there who haven’t seen it, make sure to check it out.

Better off Dead

An almost certain future underrated movie of the week, Better off Dead is a comedy featuring a depressed teen played by John Cusack.  After his girlfriend leaves him for a competitive skier, he hates his life until a new foreign exchange student from France waltzes into his life.  Plus there is a funny newspaper kid who seems straight from hell:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iayLBI7nsE0

Star Wars (II): Attack of the Clones

With big franchises like Star Wars, I take each movie and judge it as a stand alone movie.  Attack of the Clones was a solid movie, but not quite great enough to crack the top 50.  This won’t be the last time you read Star Wars however.

Angels in the Outfield

This is just a fun movie to sit down and watch with the family.  Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Matthew McConaughey, Christopher Lloyd, Tony Danza, and Danny Glover, the movie has a great cast and innocent plot line.  It is the perfect movie to order a pizza and sit on the couch with the family.

Field of Dreams

This movie can make even the toughest men cry.  A perfect father-son bonding movie, Field of Dreams features Kevin Costner as he hears a voice telling him to build a baseball field in the middle of his farm.  He overcomes all sorts of ups and downs to walk away successful at the end.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Considered one of the biggest cult comedies out there, Monty Python and the Holy Grail has become one of the most recognizable British comedies out there.  We follow King Arthur and his knights and their hilarious quest to discover the holy grail.  It is definitely a must-see.

The Lion King

While there won’t be a ton of animations on the list of my top 50 movies, The Lion King definitely makes the cut.  Loosely based the story of Hamlet, The Lion King is one of the most popular Disney movies out there.

Man of Steel

While this is by no means the best superhero movie out there, Man of Steel still has some great performances and action sequences.  Henry Cavill and Amy Adams give solid performances and Hans Zimmer’s score both combine to make Man of Steel an honorable mention.  Plus, how awesome is this trailer? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejXjZ-k6Myc

Dr. Strangelove Or:  How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Of all the movies in the honorable mention category, this is the one I wanted to squeeze into the top 50 the most.  While number 51 is not too shabby, Dr. Strangelove is great political satire on the Cold War.  If you’re in a sarcastic mood, this is the movie for you.

Make sure to check in tomorrow for when I release numbers 50-41 and let me know what you think.  Is Lion King a top 50 movie?  Should Field of Dreams even be on this list?

Top 5 Baseball Movies of All-Time

Players are officially reporting to Spring Training and the baseball preseason is officially upon us.  In honor of the start of baseball, here are the top 5 baseball movies of all-time.

#5:  Moneyball

The 2011 movie was based on the book by Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane.  While teams like the New York Yankees bought up ever decent free agent in the early 2000s, Beane had to become creative for his less fortunate A’s.  The movie follows Beane (Brad Pitt) and his assistant Peter Brand (Jonah HIll) and their efforts to convince the baseball community that batting average, homeruns, and RBIs are not the only important statistic in the sport.  While Oakland is still looking for their World Series title over 10 years later, the new “Moneyball” scouting method has become the main form of scouting in Major League Baseball.  Pitt and Hill were both nominated for Oscars for their performance while the movie was nominated for Best Picture.

#4:  Angels in the Outfield

Angels in the Outfield is a 1994 film that follows the California (now Los Angeles) Angels.  We watch a deadbeat team turn their luck around when a young fan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) notices an angel (Christopher Lloyd) in the stadium.  Suddenly, the field is filled with angels that assist each of the players perform better.  The movie is filled with a pretty solid cast.  Along with being one of Gordon-Levitt’s first movies, Lloyd (Back to the Future), Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon), Matthew McConaughey (Interstellar), and Tony Danza (Don Jon) all star in the movie.  As the season starts to draw to a close, Gordon-Levitt’s character JP, an orphan, has become a central figure to the team as they compete for an American League Pennant.  It’s definitely one of the greatest family movies to sit down and watch.

#3:  The Sandlot

The early 1990s was a great time period for family baseball movie.  The Sandlot follows a young boy named Scotty Smalls (Tom Guiry) who is the new kid in town.  Desperate to bond with the other kids in the neighborhood, Smalls joins the rest of the boys on the baseball field.  He quickly learns that he is terrible at baseball.  Most of the kids mock him, but he befriends the team leader Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez (Mike Vitar).  The group of boys eventually bond and go through misadventure after misadventure.  Eventually, Scotty loses his stepfather’s baseball that was autographed by Babe Ruth.  The group goes through high hell to make sure they get the ball back.  The Sandlot is one of the best father-son movies to sit down and watch together.  I say one of the best because the best is…

#2: Field of Dreams

It doesn’t get much better than Field of Dreams.  It is the ultimate father-son movie to sit down and watch.  Ray Kinsella (Kevin Kostner) is told to cut down part of his corn field in Iowa and build a baseball field.  While he ignores the voices he hears, Kinsella eventually breaks down and builds it.  After he builds it, he sees the infamous baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson, whose reputation was tarnished in the 1919 Black Sox scandal.  He is sent on a mission to find Terence Mann (James Earl Jones) and the two bond.  After eventually being brought back to the farm, Ray sees his father, who passed away shortly after they got into a big fight.  The two bond and reconcile their past.  The end of the movie will leave even the toughest men like this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMQJBRRWmmU

Honorable Mention:

42

Bull Durham

The Rookie

#1:  Major League

This 1989 comedy is by far the best baseball movie of all-time.  Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, and Wesley Snipes star in the fictionalized version of the Cleveland Indians.  When Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton) takes over as the new owner of the team, her goal is to create a team so bad that she can have them moved from Cleveland to Miami.  She brings in washed up veteran Jake Taylor (Berenger), unknown speedster Willie Mays Hayes (Snipes), convict Ricky Vaughn (Sheen), and Cuban slugger Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haybert) who cannot hit a curveball to save his life.  The team gets off to an awful start, but when the team learns of Phelps plan, they decide to play well to spite her.  As a result, we get to witness one of the best comedies ever created.  The team becomes competitive for the playoffs and the stakes grow.  It will be a long time before a baseball movie knocks off Major League as the best baseball movie ever, but I am very okay with that.  If you ever have two hours to blow, watching Major League is definitely a great way to spend those two hours.