List of Favorite DVD Movies

Find Ideas for DVD Movie Rentals to Watch this Weekend

There are lists for favorite musicians, favorite musicals, favorite TV shows, best jokes, best new cameras, best handmade guitars, and a million more lists. There’s a list for everything today. Top news stories and top blogs are other list favorites, as well. The most popular, in our minds, is a list of the greatest movies or more specifically, The List of Favorite DVD Movies. There are, of course, lists for movies just released and not yet available on DVD. They have their own recent and fresh write-ups and are easily accessible on the Internet or in the Arts Section of your Sunday newspaper. We don’t target a list for recent movie releases. We do, however, have a series of relevant and enjoyable lists for movies we all loved but have since forgotten; the movies that have been released on DVD and easily accessible for rent by you at your local DVD rental store or through the Internet.

The way we watch movies has changed over the years. Years ago, the excitement of a new release or a hot movie review sent us scuttling to movie theaters to see the latest new production that the Hollywood movie studios had to offer. Find out how the face of Hollywood and the movie industry has evolved over the last century.

Readers Share Their Favorite DVD Movie Rentals and Ideas for Cheap Videos to Buy

Our readers didn’t catalog all of the same old movies you always see on the “Best Movies of All Time” lists. Some of the favorite old standards are included here. But readers also included a healthy dose of fun, unique and interesting DVD movie rentals to watch, including favorite comedies, thrillers and categories like “Best Movie of All Time, Best Soundtrack,” and “Best Drive-in movies” to get you thinking about ideas for movies to watch.

A List of the Best Movie DVD’s of All Time by Darrin Gleeman of New York, New York

10. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) battles Darth Vader (the voice of James Earl Jones) to save Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) in Star Wars, the sci-fi hit of the 70’s.

9. Get Shorty. No holds-barred author Elmore Leonard channels his angst through John Travolta, only to find a hit man with a conscience. The film is witty and fast-moving with great dialogue, all the hallmarks of a great Leonard book.

8. Anthony Hopkins’ Oscar-winning role as Dr. Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs was moving and powerful. Jodie Foster deftly negotiates the plot’s twists and turns, only to find herself the patient- and pawn- of ex-psychiatrist turned serial killer Lecter.

7. Jack Nicholson steals every scene playing McMurphy, the prisoner who fakes insanity and ends up in a psychiatric hospital in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The movie documents the war of wits between rebellious individualist McMurphy and the evil Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher).

6. British POWs (prisoners of war) in The Bridge on the River Kwai are forced to build a bridge for their Japanese captors. Alec Guiness is a marvel of complex emotions as the arrogant colonel who becomes obsessed with the bridge and its testament to his power.

5. Adaptation pits steely and serene Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep) with the mesmerizing John Laroche (Chris Cooper) and the hapless Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage). Charlie wants to adapt Orlean’s book into a screenplay; jaw-dropping plot twists quickly ensue.

4. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial brought a lovable alien to earth, provoking cheers and tears from audiences worldwide. The alien forms a special bond with a fatherless 10 year-old boy (Henry Thomas), who must help him get home.

3. Pulp Fiction is the quintessential Quentin Tarantino film, featuring drugs, murders and electrifying action in several complex interweaving stories. John Travolta melted hearts when he danced on-screen for the first time in years with co-star Uma Thurman.

2. Goodfellas is high intensity fast-paced fun that tells the true-life tale of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), former mobster turned star witness for the prosecution. The movie gave life to the dying mafia film genre with the knuckle-cracking rise of young thugs Henry, Tommy (Joe Pesci) and Jimmy (Robert DeNiro).

1. The Godfather, Parts I, II: The movies, based on the book by Mario Puzo, starred Hollywood heavy-hitters Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall and Marlon Brando and spawned a movie series that changed the way we think about mafia films for all time. Bloodshed, brotherhood and complex family relationships highlight these classic films.

Movie Theaters Change to Meet the Needs of Customers Today
These days, movie theaters have to work harder to earn our entertainment dollars. We can rent or buy cheap videos and DVDs from local video rental stores, on-line at websites like Netflix.com, Half.com and Blockbuster.com. We can also order movies on demand direct from our living room, further lessening our reliance on movie theaters. Public libraries even offer free long-term VHS and DVD movie rentals. Moreover, every time you turn the TV on, it seems another new movie is being advertised. We’re so drunk from all of this advertising that sometimes we just wait until they’re released on DVD or released as made-for-TV movies. Movie theaters continue to battle ever more sophisticated home entertainment systems as well as a movie’s quick jump from the movie theaters to DVD and Video.

Movies are more expensive to make than ever before, with costs increasing exponentially since the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1920’s. But, with picky theater-goers opting to stay home or waiting for DVD releases to see new films, it’s no surprise that movie theaters are pulling out all the stops to make going to the movies a real entertainment event.

Movie theaters have gone to new lengths to grab our attention and our attendance:

• National movie theater chains now offer martini bars, theater wait staff, high end foods and gourmet candies to combat pay-per-view television, movies-on-demand, rising sales of flat-screen TVs as well as exploding DVD sales, which have totaled over $1 billion annually since 2005.
• Surround sound systems, oversized movie screens and stadium-style seating also help entice people to leave the house and go to the theater to see a movie.
• Alternatively, second-run movie theaters, often housed in shopping malls, show movies after their initial release, but before they’re on DVD, at cut-rate prices.

The effort by movie theaters to improve theater attendance has resulted in an upswing in recent years. Some Fast Facts about the Movies from the Motion Picture Association of American (MPAA):

• The U.S. Box office reached $9.49 billion in 2006, up from 8.9 million in 2005;
• 2006 international box office totals peaked at $25.8 billion, the highest worldwide box office totals in history;
• Theater admissions grew slightly in 2006, up to 1.45 billion tickets, after dipping for the past three years;
• 85% of the top 20 movies in 2006 were rated PG (Parental Guidance Suggested. Some Material May Not Be Suitable For Children) or PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned. Some Material May Be Inappropriate For Children Under 13);
• The average cost to create and promote a major movie was $100.3 million in 2006;
• The average cost of a movie ticket in the U.S. increased to $6.55 in 2006;
• The number of movies released each year continues to increase; 607 movies were released in 2006.

We hope you’ll consider sharing your ideas for best movies to watch with the List of Favorite DVD Movies. We look forward to your input and ideas for cheap videos to buy so we can keep growing our lists.

We thank our contributors:

• Darrin Gleeman New York, New York