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What the heck, I’ve been watching movies all my life, and I think I can sort the wheat from the chaff, so I’m going to have a stab at it: here is my personal choice for the top ten movies of all time.

It is better than any list you’ll find at IMDB, Metacritic, or Rotten Tomatoes. I have thought long and hard about it. It is not the collective wisdom of the “Z generation” or newspaper posers. It is pure. It is unsullied. It is mine.

Note: Links go to Amazon Region 1 DVDs (US + Canada)!

Local Hero (1993)

An American business whiz kid arrives at a little Scottish village intending to buy it up for an oil company. Bill Forsyth’s brilliant and ultimately uplifting little film focuses on questions of wealth, quality of life, and contentment. Local Hero

Remains of the Day (1993)

I love a good romantic period piece like Room With a View, and I particularly like Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins, so this movie was just made in heaven as far as I’m concerned. A slow but deeply moving look at love, relationships, and seizing the moment. The Remains of the Day (Special Edition)

Alive (1993)

An exciting, disturbing, harrowing, but ultimately uplifting movie that is about overcoming any obstacle by sheer force of will. Probably the most religiously inclined entry in this list, it makes you wonder about humanity and our place in the world. Alive

The Fisher King (1991)

Probably the best fantasy film ever made, grounded in the harsh reality of New York. Mercedes Ruehl and Robin Williams play their socks off, and Lydia Oh! Lydia! A movie about friendship, self-loathing and redemption. The Fisher King

Alien (1979)

The ultimate SF movie for me. I would to have loved to put 2001, Bladerunner, Contact, or I Robot in here, but Alien just had the scale right, made space a scary (but somehow wonderfully exciting) place, and had a wonderful creature not bettered until District 9. Alien (The Director's Cut)

Unforgiven (1992)

Well, you’ve got to have a western haven’t you, and this is the best western ever made, not all comic-booky like The Good the Bad and the Ugly, but just as bleak as High Noon. Eastwood is a genius as this movie makes it plain. A deep and thoughtful examination of violence and its consequences. Unforgiven (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Shrek (2001)

A close run thing between this and Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, but the donkey edges it for me. A meditation again on what true friendship means, and how we should think about ourselves. And a heck of a lot of fun. Shrek (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Sideways (2005)

Unforgettable characters that are perfectly true to life appear everywhere in this sharp and warm little winery excursion. The film focuses on friendship and self-worth, and those little everyday deceptions that make us human. Sideways

About a Boy (2002)

I’m a great fan of English mannered comedies, and of Mr Floppy Hair and the wonderful Toni Collette, and this movie gets beyond to mildly humorous to become a moving story of loneliness and rediscover through the neediness of a small boy. It brings a tear to my eye. About a Boy

Strictly Ballroom (1993)

Dance movies, yes! If only I could have squeezed the wonderful Ms Lopez in her for her turn in Shall We Dance, but no this one’s a fractionally better movie, if only for paso doble scene. Wonderfully warm, and truly funny. Strictly Ballroom

There are many fantastic, enthralling, movies out there, but there are only 10 of them are good enough to make it to my list. Arsenic and Old Lace, Casablanca, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Twelve Angry Men, Chinatown, Apocalypse Now, Ironman, The Iron Giant, Toy Story, Beauty and the Beast, Life of Brian…they are all wonderful movies, but they don’t make my top ten because these movies are better.

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