#7FavFilms is the newest trend on social media, and it’s been a great way to see what movies your friends and family hold close to their hearts. Since we’re all about heart here at Fandom, we’ve gotten some #7FavFilms lists from seven of our awesome contributors. Take a peek at the flicks that we love more than any others.
Nick Nunziata – Managing Editor, Fan Contributor Program
Goodfellas
Goodfellas is in the DNA of so many films that it’s easy to forget what a groundbreaking film it is. The performances, use of the frame, and the emotion it evokes through a very dark and heartbreaking story all feed the magic. Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker are the best pairing of a filmmaker and an editor in history and this is their pinnacle.
The Shawshank Redemption
The Shawshank Redemption boasts a perfect track record in every person I’ve ever spoken with about it. Everyone loves it, and it’s hard not to see why. It’s such a human story and it evokes such a wide range of true emotion that it’s easy to forget all the darkness it contains. It took the oddball pairing of Frank Darabont and Stephen King to pull it off, which in retrospect makes all the sense in the world.
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Wes Anderson took everything he’d amassed as a filmmaker and created the astonishing The Grand Budapest Hotel but it was this charming and ridiculously fresh film that made it all possible. This was the missing link in his filmography and it is absolute perfection. A timeless, smart, and freewheeling masterpiece.
John Carpenter’s The Thing
There is no film that distils dread into something compelling and effectively as John Carpenter’s masterpiece. The design, the music, the cast, and the marriage of material and effects are still the baddest on the block.
The Big Lebowski
Even though it’s spawned a somewhat annoying fandom, The Big Lebowski is a film with swagger and repeat watchability that borders on insane. Every musical cue, performance, line, and lunatic decision works in unison to create an experience that transcends the viewer/film relationship.
The Exorcist
The Exorcist is still notorious forty years later. People are afraid to watch it. They feel it will curse them. That’s the power of marketing and in making art that plays with so many taboos. The reality is that though the film can be harrowing, it’s also impeccably made and acted and much more dense and rich than a “horror” film should aspire to be. It’s so powerful that tons of bad sequels – aside from The Exorcist III, which is great – and pop culture overload haven’t diminished it in the least.
Jaws
Jaws is bigger than film. It’s bigger than Spielberg. It’s bigger than the sea. Jaws is a moment in time where everything clicked into place. Filmmaker, subject matter, release date, audience need, phobia, marketing, and a void in entertainment experienced their own “Big Bang” in 1976. Jaws is still bearing fruit today and its shadow looms impossibly large.
Drew Dietsch – Fan Contributor
RoboCop
Sharp satire, ultra violence, and a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be human. RoboCop can be enjoyed for its surface cool or its surprising depth. One of the greatest science fiction films ever made.
Gremlins
It isn’t Christmas until I’ve watched Gremlins. Devilishly funny and strangely mythic, Gremlins is a modern fairy tale brought to life through some dark magic. And how can you deny the cuteness that is Gizmo?
The Wizard of Oz
My mom’s favorite movie. She has good taste. This is top notch children’s fantasy that has never been matched. Incredible sets, delightful performances, and songs that are woven into our pop culture’s genetic makeup. It also has just the right amount of darkness creeping in from the edges. This is as close to true magic as cinema has ever gotten.
Apocalypse Now
The only war movie that faithfully presents the surreal hellscape of war. More than any horror movie, Apocalypse Now feels like someone filmed a nightmare. Intense acting from all involved helps to sell this American fever dream.
Jaws
The nexus point of everything I love. Action, horror, suspense, and phenomenal characters. It’s a B-movie made with A+ quality.
Tremors
More than a Jaws ripoff, Tremors is the most fun you’ll ever have with a monster movie. Lovable characters and a fantastic creature that slowly gets revealed over the course of the film. This is one I recommend the whole family watches. It’s a shot of pure fun from start to finish.
12 Angry Men
My repressed theater nerd can’t help but go gaga for this one. A masterpiece of performance work. The moral complexity and emotional investment you develop over the film’s running time are incomparable to any other story like it. The most engrossing film I’ve ever seen.
Ryan Aday – Fan Contributor
Tombstone
Good guys wear black in this epic Western about Wyatt Earp. My favorite character ever is Val Kilmer’s Doc Holiday. Showcases the softness of the most hardened frontiersmen.
Beautiful Girls
The only movie ever I’ve ever gotten the majority of the symbolism. A real movie about real people with big names from the era playing simple roles. It hits at the heart of companionship and relationship.
Good Will Hunting
This film started the run of geniuses who can do anything being “cool”. The writing is phenomenal and Damon/Affleck are at their best writing and starring in a film from their backyard. Robin Williams best role, period.
JFK
Oliver Stone’s mix of fact, theory, and hyperbole come together brilliantly in this masterful retelling of the JFK conspiracy. Tommy Lee Jones is brilliant and Costner’s Jim Garrison is riveting.
Gettysburg
As accurate of a historic film as there is. 5 hours long but worth every minute. A Civil War film with a limited agenda which highlights the people behind the most violent conflict in our nation’s history.
Notting Hill
Best. Romantic Comedy. Ever. It is the dream of everyone with a fandom to be in the shoes of Hugh Grant’s William Thacker who meets and dates Julia Robert’s Anna Scott. The supporting cast is witty and endearing which punctuates this joy of a film.
Rounders
An epic film if you love poker and a great film if you don’t. Edward Norton is brilliant and John Malkovich drops quotable line after quotable line. Engaging from the opening line.
Brandon Marcus – Fan Contributor
Zodiac
A film so full of character, detail and story that it almost feels new every time you watch it. The performances are top notch, the direction is utterly flawless and the true life tale is unsettling. David Fincher‘s best film and the greatest based-on-a-true-story movie ever.
E.T.
One of the only movies to make me cry. E.T. captures the awe, wonder, and fear of being young. It’s a big, scary world and Spielberg’s masterpiece nails that. A movie so full of hope and humanity and love that all kids should be required to watch it in grade school.
28 Days Later
Danny Boyle’s zombie movie is legitimately scary, no doubt about that. But it also is able to examine what happens to people when they are surrounded by loneliness and hopelessness. Features brilliant jump scares, fantastic visuals, and real characters. At its core, 28 Days Later is really about people needing other people.
Moulin Rouge
There’s nothing else like Moulin Rouge. Nothing. Baz Luhrmann doesn’t always nail it but when he does he REALLY does. Moulin Rouge is a whizz-bang roller coaster through the ups and downs of love. It feels larger than life but also so painfully real.
The Thing
No other movie creeps me out like The Thing. Carpenter’s movie makes you shiver with dread every single time. Watching it, you feel isolated, you feel suffocated, you feel paranoid and scared. It’s a visceral experience and it’s utterly perfect.
Goodfellas
Scorsese’s Goodfellas feels like three or four movies jammed into one – it’s just that full. It’s long and shaggy and wild but there’s not a single thing I’d change. This is a desert island movie, one you are ready to watch all over again the moment the credits roll.
The Dark Knight
The best comic book film ever made and one of the best crime dramas too. Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is the first movie to perfectly capture the weight on Batman’s shoulders. This movie isn’t just about Batman versus the Joker, it’s good versus evil, it’s chaos versus order. And all of it – every scene – is a home run.
Andrew Hawkins – Fan Contributor
The Producers
My all-time favorite Mel Brooks. Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel are amazing, sad and hilarious in every scene. Way better than any other version could ever hope to be.
The Adventures of Mark Twain
Perfect imagination fodder for impressionable minds. Mark Twain at his most accessible. It plays like an anthology film filled with wonders and nightmares abound.
Time Bandits
Terry Gilliam in ultimate creator mode. Adventure, comedy, time travel, abduction, and theft. An epic fantasy filled with phenomenal visual storytelling. RIP Fidget.
The Omen
One of the best horror films ever made. Filled with more mood and atmosphere than any other from the time period. Iconic in every aspect from the script to the score.
Big Trouble in Little China
Everything about Big Trouble in Little China is fun. Kurt Russell and John Carpenter had a blast during production. Lo Pan, the Storms and the creature effects are just the tip of the iceberg.
Trainspotting
The story, the music, the nihilism, the style. Trainspotting is still just as powerful as ever. An amazing and shocking effort that propelled everyone involved into greatness.
The Seventh Seal
Ingmar Bergman at his most existential. Polished and beautiful portrayal of bleak life during the Black Plague. Max von Sydow leads the incredible cast in this true classic.
Travis Newton – Fan Contributor
Alien
The perfect balance of gloss and grime. The best sci-fi creature movie of all time, with some of the best acting of the 20th century.
Jaws
Not much else compares. A rollicking adventure that runs on primal fear and male insecurity.
An American Werewolf in London
The scariest comedy and the funniest horror movie of all time. Romantic, tragic, and full of great effects.
Dr. Strangelove
Playful, crude, and sardonic as hell. Stanley Kubrick had a weird sense of humor, but this is far and away his funniest film.
A Hard Day’s Night
Pure joy. My favorite movie musical of all time. It plays to the strengths of all four Beatles and never misses a beat.
Wait Until Dark
One of the best stage thrillers of all time became an even better movie. Simple, scary, perfectly cast, and beautifully lit.
The Birds
What seems like a silly concept on paper is transcendent on the screen. Hitchcock never did anything else like it. He uses our fascination with the natural world against us.
Danielle Ryan – Fan Contributor
Pulp Fiction
I remember wanting to see Pulp Fiction for years before I managed to sneak a rented copy past my parents as a teen. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen, with witty dialogue, dark humor, and a retro California vibe. This was my intro to Tarantino, and it remains my favorite of his films.
Blade Runner
Blade Runner will forever be the movie that made me realize the depth of cinema and science fiction. The “tears in rain” speech gets me even to this day. Blade Runner is arguably the best science fiction film ever made, and every time I eat street noodles I totally pretend I’m Deckard.
Slither
There is no movie with a higher rewatch value for me than Slither, James Gunn‘s super-gross out alien love story horror-comedy. The cast is incredible (Elizabeth Banks, Nathan Fillion, and Michael Rooker!) and the movie is hilarious, genuinely scary, and absolutely disgusting. The dialogue is my favorite part of the movie because it absolutely nails the way small-town Southerners would talk in the event of alien invasion. Also, “Meat.”
The Breakfast Club
The John Hughes classic will forever speak to the part of me that endured high school. I was the basket-case and identified with the Ally Sheedy character. The Breakfast Club taught me that we’re all a little screwed up, but that’s okay. Also, the soundtrack is incredible.
Battle Royale
I had a super-weird fear of blood as a kid and used gory movies as I got older to desensitize myself. Battle Royale was one of the first horrifically violent movies I watched, but it was so interesting that I didn’t really mind the copious amounts of blood. Along with Takashi Miike’s Audition, this was my introduction to foreign films.
In Bruges
In Bruges makes me laugh every time I watch it. This somewhat-depressing hitman comedy is one of those few movies that takes me through the full round of emotions. The scene with Ralph Fiennes, his wife, and his telephone is one of the funniest things in all of cinema.
The Brothers Bloom
Much like In Bruges, The Brothers Bloom is an emotional roller coaster. This con-man story is significantly more sentimental, however, and features a lot of great acting from Mark Ruffalo, Adrien Brody, and Rachel Weisz. Rinko Kikuchi stole my heart as Bang Bang, the silent Japanese explosive expert with the kanji tattoo that roughly translates to “when you’re done with something, blow it up.”
