Top 50 Reely Bernie Faves

“But it’s good. It’s my life.”

-Becky (Juliette Lewis) from What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

It’s good. It’s my list.

It was an absolute joy reflecting on 50 formative movie favorites of mine, recalling who I saw them with, and realizing how much the 1980s complete me (fourteen titles from that whacky decade made my list).

I’ll take the hit on the lack of Westerns and sci-fi. That’s just not who I am. You won’t see any Stanley Kubrick here either. My only regret is not being able to fit in anything Akira Kurosawa, Agnès Varda, or William Friedkin. However, I do seem to have an interesting predilection for sequels.

If anything, my list has been chance to walk in the shoes of my favorite movie characters—both the good and the bad—by way of cinematic proxy.

The rankings became more superfluous as I approached my Top 10, but all fifty of these titles are near and dear to me either in my memory or my Letterboxd Watchlist for another repeat.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to conversations about these movies and for sharing your favorites as well.

The moviegoing journey certainly doesn’t end here. It just seemed like the right time to document my nostalgia through the gift of movie nerdom, empathy, and escape. It has been a fulfilling project, for sure.

Thank you to all my movie-loving friends,

Reely Bernie

Another look at my Top 50 Reely Bernie Faves:

1. Amadeus (1984)

2. Magnolia (1999)

3. Poltergeist (1982)

4. Pulp Fiction (1994)

5. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

6. The Godfather Part II (1974)

7. Weekend at Bernie’s (1989)

8. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

9. Goodfellas (1990)

10. Nosferatu (1922)

11. Pollock (2000)

12. Kicking and Screaming (1995)

13. Jaws (1975)

14. Fargo (1996)

15. Citizen Kane (1941)

16. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

17. The Endless Summer (1966)

18. Back to the Future (1985)

19. Angel Heart (1987)

20. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

21. The Goonies (1985)

22. Trainspotting (1996)

23. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)

24. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

25. Bambi (1942)

26. The Paradise Lost Trilogy (1996-2011)

27. Psycho (1960)

28. Parenthood (1989)

29. Swingers (1996)

30. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

31. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

32. Smoke (1995)

33. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

34. A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

35. Edward Scissorhands (1990)

36. City of God (2002)

37. 1917 (2019)

38. Black Swan (2010)

39. School of Rock (2003)

40. Mulholland Drive (2001)

41. Groundhog Day (1993)

42. If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

43. The Greatest Showman (2017)

44. National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983)

45. The Florida Project (2017)

46. Cinema Paradiso (1988)

47. So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)

48. Shadowlands (1993)

49. Steve Jobs (2015)

50. ¡Three Amigos! (1986)