Perfect Ten films

Watch and learn

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I have always been into films, but usually something doesn’t quite fit and pulls me out of immersion – a plot hole, a product placement, some bad acting, a character making a bad choice.

The films I would give ten out of ten to is a relatively small category. They have to immerse me completely from the first viewing, and stand up to repeat watchings. Then they have to go further, and trigger something in my imagination, so that I want to live in that world, or so that I think about the film often, or even just because every scene is perfectly done. Each of them must be timeless, as entertaining today as when they were first released. Here is my current top ten. I’ll put the films chronologically.

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What’s Up Doc? (1972)

I’ve never been a fan of Barbra Streisand, and yet, when I watch this film, I kind of fall in love with her character. And the film makes me laugh so much, with inventive, ever-changing scenes, many of them classics. (Wikipedia entry)

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The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

This blew me away when I first saw it. I remember watching it on VHS and pausing it so I could write down the lyrics to all the songs and memorise them. I used to be able to recite every line of every song in order, and it passed the time as I walked into Stretford to catch a bus to college. Nostalgic, haunting, funny, sexy, alien – the adjectives apply to the film as a whole, and to Tim Curry's portrayal of Frank-N-Furter. (Wikipedia entry)

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Dawn Of The Dead (1978)

Nowadays zombies are boring and overused, but back in time I was obsessed with Romero’s trilogy. Nothing else captured the fantasy of trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. His original trilogy used consecutive settings of a farmhouse, a shopping centre, and a military base, but it is this one, in the middle of the trilogy, that sparked my imagination the most. I once printed out a boardgame version of it but never played it because the rules were overly complex – however, just looking at the box would bring back memories of four people and a world of dead-eyed consumerism. (Wikipedia entry)

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Alien (1979)

The marketing for this was wonderful, because it just hinted at the content. The name gave little away due to its ambiguity, and even the posters just showed some kind of light coming out of an oval. When I watched it (on a pirated VHS, probably 1980) it blew me away. At a certain meal scene we were so amazed that we immediately rewound the film and watched that scene three times. I appreciate elements of the sequels, but only the original felt like a perfect and timeless haunted spaceship story (no wonder I ended up writing Lost Solace). The Alien was often in the back of my mind, infecting my dreams, making me wonder what would happen if it ever reached Earth. (Wikipedia entry)

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Blade Runner (1982)

Moral and identity ambiguity, plus a vision of the future that was all too believable: decay, environmental degradation, poverty for the many and luxurious wealth for the few, and yet it cohered as a believable and consistent world with its own identity. The complex characters of Roy, Rachel, Pris and Deckard always gave me a lot to think about. (Wikipedia entry)

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Flashdance (1983)

A guilty pleasure? The template has been oft-repeated since then, but this film nailed the mix of music, dance, and seizing opportunities. And it spawned this. (Wikipedia entry)

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Dune (1984)

The visuals, the Harkonnen horror, the characters, the electric guitar, the vistas ... I felt like I was genuinely glimpsing a lived-in universe, alien yet comprehensible. This is the second film on my list with Sean Young in a major role. The book is excellent, also. (Wikipedia entry)

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Dirty Dancing (1987)

Oh boy. I adore this film. I’m not going to say anything else about it (except Jennifer Grey was perfect as she was, and it’s a shame she took to the knife). (Wikipedia entry)

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Step Brothers (2008)

I seem to be descending more and more into guilty pleasure territory. But this film makes me laugh so much, replacing Dodgeball as one of the films I watch just for fun. (Wikipedia entry)

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John Wick 2 (2017)

Beat perfect in every scene, it may not be high art, but it is perfection as an action film. The music, the side characters, the choreography, the colours, the plotting, the humour: it takes what works in the original, then turns it up to eleven. (Wikipedia entry)

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Honourable Mentions

Excalibur (1981) – as a kid I’d missed the beginning but caught it as I flicked through the channels late at night, watched the whole film, skipped school the next day – part of a pattern that repeated throughout my school years. But my imagination was fired, and it fed in to my love of role playing games (I used to GM Dungeons & Dragons every Sunday).

An Officer And A Gentleman (1982) – stop laughing. It perfectly married scenes targeted at men and women and mushed them together. Up Where We Belong is a classic ending song, sung by Jennifer Warnes and Joe Cocker. Jennifer Warnes also sang the theme for another of the films on my list: I’ve Had The Time of My Life (duet with Bill Medley).

The Thing (1982) – an exercise in slow-build tension and paranoia where there are threats from without and within. And when the tension is relieved with action, you’ll be on the edge of your seat. I saw this again at the cinema a few years ago, and it was even better than I remembered.

Are any of those among your favourite films? What would you add to the list?

PS Damn, I forgot Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight – a brilliant trilogy. I may have more news about that during Book Week Scotland this year.

PPS My subscriber posts include some other films.