My IMDb Top 250 Challenge Rankings So Far

I started this project, my IMDb Top 250 Challenge, on the 1st of January 2013 having already seen 151 of the 250 movies in the Top 250 IMDb list at that time. My goal was to watch the remaining 99. I’m taking my time but, eight years later, I’ve managed to watch 65. Only 34 left to go!

I figured it was time to make more of an effort to watch the remaining 34. I’m putting a list together of those remaining, which I’ll post in a few days. Would like to hear from people on which of those 34 I should try to watch first. 🙂

I’ll also soon post about a new project, the Best Picture Project, which I know many people have done. A far easier project as that list always stays the same with just one new addition each year! There are only 31 Best Picture Oscar Winners I’ve not seen (not too bad, right?). There are also several films on both the Top 250 & Best Picture lists that I need to see so might as well kill two birds with one stone.

For now, I thought it was be fun to rank the 65 movies I’ve watched so far for the Top 250 challenge. So here are My IMDb Top 250 Project Movies Watched So Far (Ranked From Least Favorite To Very Favorite & With Links To My Reviews):

65-61:

65. Mary And Max – watched 7/6/13 – Rating: 4/10

64. Slumdog Millionaire – watched 28/4/13 – Rating: 5/10

63. Oldboy – watched 27/12/19 – Rating: 5.5/10

62. Manhattan – watched 15/10/16 – Rating: 6.5/10

61. Warrior – watched 22/8/15 – Rating: 6/10

60-51

60. Life Of Pi – watched 15/1/13 – Rating: 6.5/10

59. A Separation – watched 9/8/14 – Rating: 6.5/10

58. The Wild Bunch – watched 28/5/19 – Rating: 7/10

57. 3 Idiots – watched 9/11/19 – Rating: 7/10

56. The Night Of The Hunter – watched 15/8/17 – Rating: 6.5/10

55. Paths Of Glory – watched 22/8/15 – Rating: 6.5/10

54. On The Waterfront – watched 9/9/14 – Rating: 7/10

53. Touch Of Evil – watched 27/5/19 – Rating: 7/10

52. No Country For Old Men – watched 18/7/20 – Rating: 7/10

51. Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? – watched 24/3/13 – Rating: 7/10

Top Fifty:

50. Raging Bull – watched 29/9/13 – Rating: 7/10

49. The Killing – watched 8/6/19 – Rating: 7/10

48. Unforgiven – watched 17/8/14 – Rating: 6.5/10

47. Dog Day Afternoon – watched 18/1/13 – Rating: 7/10

46. The King’s Speech – watched 25/2/18 – Rating: 7/10

45. Bringing Up Baby – watched 31/1/21 – Rating: 7/10

44. Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid – watched 26/1/13 – Rating: 7/10

43. Anatomy Of A Murder – watched 2/8/15 – Rating: 7/10

42. Witness For The Prosecution – watched 12/1/13 – Rating: 7/10

41. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance – watched 9/9/14 – Rating: 7/10

Top Forty:

40. Roman Holiday – watched 5/12/17 – Rating: 7/10

39. Sleuth – watched 5/2/13 – Rating: 7/10

38. City Of God – watched 18/1/14 – Rating: 7.5/10

37. Bicycle Thieves – watched 5/6/13 – Rating: 7.5/10

36. Notorious – watched 6/5/13 – Rating: 7.5/10

35. The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups) – watched 30/3/19 – Rating: 7.5/10

34. Sunset Boulevard – watched 7/11/15 – Rating: 7.5/10

33. Shadow Of A Doubt – watched 5/1/13 – Rating: 7.5/10

32. Citizen Kane – watched 13/1/18 – Rating: 7.5/10

31. A Fistful Of Dollars – watched 28/4/16 – Rating: 7.5/10

Top Thirty:

30. In The Heat Of The Night – watched 15/2/19 – Rating: 7.5/10

29. Rope – watched 4/1/13 – Rating: 7.5/10

28. For A Few Dollars More – watched 14/5/16 – Rating: 7.5/10

27. Nosferatu (1922) – watched 14/7/13 – Rating: 7.5/10

26. Some Like It Hot – watched 2/12/17 – Rating: 7.5/10

25. Rashômon – watched 16/8/14 – Rating: 8/10

24. It Happened One Night – watched 9/1/21 – Rating: 8/10

23. The Hustler – watched 7/1/17 – Rating: 8/10

22. Million Dollar Baby – watched 11/2/17 – Rating: 8/10

21. Howl’s Moving Castle (Hauru no ugoku shiro) – watched 14/9/14 – Rating: 7.5/10

Top Twenty:

20. The Secret In Their Eyes – watched 23/3/13 – Rating: 8/10

19. Ip Man – watched 28/3/19 – Rating: 7.5/10

18. Infernal Affairs (Mou gaan dou) – watched 4/5/19 – Rating: 7.5/10

17. Full Metal Jacket – watched 11/5/14 – Rating: 8/10

16. M – watched 26/9/15 – Rating: 8/10

15. Once Upon A Time In The West – watched 02/07/13 – Rating: 8/10

14. Grave Of The Fireflies (Hotaru no haka) – watched 1/1/15 – Rating: 8/10

13. Yojimbo – watched 30/10/19 – Rating: 8/10

12. The Untouchables – watched 16/8/17 – Rating: 8/10

11. The Kid – watched 19/2/13 – Rating: 8.5/10

*****Top Ten:*****

10. Rocky – watched 12/2/17 – Rating: 8.5/10

9. Laputa: Castle In The Sky – watched 7/3/13 – Rating: 8/10

8. Metropolis – watched 11/5/18 – Rating: 8.5/10

7. The Great Escape – watched 28/10/13 – Rating: 8.5/10

6. Modern Times – watched 1/1/13 – Rating: 9/10

5. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly – watched 16/2/16 – Rating: 8/10

4. Princess Mononoke – watched 25/1/13 – Rating: 8.5/10

3. The Bridge On The River Kwai – watched 23/6/13 – Rating: 9/10

2. City Lights – watched 15/2/13 – Rating: 9/10

1. Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind (Kaze no tani no Naushika) – watched 2/11/14 – Rating: 9/10

In 2016, I did take the new IMDb Top 250 list to see if there were any new additions I’d not seen. There were lots of new ones but only 14 I’d not seen. I’m working through those too (as well as any on the current list), but the 2013 list is my first priority. Here are 5 of the 14 I’ve watched so far from the 2016 list:

***IMDb Top 250 New Additions As Of 01/01/2016 Watched:***

5. The Grand Budapest Hotel – watched 12/4/19 – Rating: 5/10

4. The Hunt (Jagten) – watched 20/4/19 – Rating: 7.5/10

3. Hachi: A Dog’s Tale – watched 20/5/20 – Rating: 7.5/10

2. Les Diaboliques – watched 20/2/21 – Rating: 7.5/10

1. Ikiru – watched 1/1/16 – Rating: 8/10

It’s annoying that I’ve not reviewed 4 or 5 of these, including the amazing Akira Kurosawa films as I wanted to do a specific Kurosawa project on this blog. Maybe someday…

Hayao Miyazaki art show features stunning illustrations of Studio Ghibli classics

The Sketchpad Gallery in San Francisco recently had an art show called Miyazaki Spirit, celebrating Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli films. Oh MAN I’d love to own some of this art! 🙂

You can check out more of the fabulous pieces from the show at The Verge.


My Top Ten Studio Ghibli Movies (So Far)

First of all, Happy Birthday to Hayao Miyazaki! Co-founder of Studio Ghibli along with Isao Takahata, Miyazaki has directed the majority of the most well known & highly regarded Ghibli films.

As I said, I’ll be reviewing some Studio Ghibli films throughout January. I don’t have a definite schedule in mind plus I’ll probably post some non-Ghibli reviews as usual as well. So far, I’ve watched 10 of the 20 Ghibli movies I could possibly watch (2 aren’t yet available on DVD). I’ve mostly watched the ones directed by Miyazaki so I’ll first focus on reviewing these ten I’ve seen so far plus the two Miyazaki ones I have left to watch. I may then continue Studio Ghibli Month after January & do the remaining films as well. I’m halfway through writing my review for Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind so that will probably be the review you’ll see here tomorrow.

So, these are My Top Ten Favorite Studio Ghibli Movies (So Far) counting down from ten to one. I’ll update it once I’ve seen the rest of the Ghibli films but I’ll be surprised if the list changes much. 🙂

**List updated 5/1/17. You can see my ranking for all the Ghibli films I’ve now seen HERE**

10. The Cat Returns

9. Howl’s Moving Castle

8. Grave Of The Fireflies

7. Ponyo

6. Kiki’s Delivery Service

5. Princess Mononoke

4. Spirited Away

3. Laputa: Castle In The Sky

2. Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind

1. My Neighbor Totoro

My Top Ten: Royalty In Movies

To celebrate today’s royal birth (it’s a boy!), I thought I’d post my Top Ten Royalty In Movies. I’ll count down from ten to my number one favorite:

10. Coming To America – Prince Akeem (The royal penis is clean!)

9. Princess Mononoke – Princess Mononoke
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8. The Lion King – Simba & Mufasa (And I’d like to point out that Mufasa is voiced by James EARL Jones! Ha!)
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7. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure – The Earl Of Preston & The Duke Of Ted (And if that’s not acceptable, I’ll go with the two princesses. Those are historical babes! Plus, the royal ugly dudes…)
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6. Monty Python And The Holy Grail – King Arthur
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5. Pulp Fiction – Royale With Cheese
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4. The Princess Bride – Prince Humperdinck & Princess Buttercup
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3. Rear Window – Grace Kelly (Actual royalty! Am going with my favorite of her films. Look at her – classic beauty!)
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2. Star Wars – Princess Leia (Of course!)
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1. Aliens – The Alien Queen (Look at that! Freaking awesome. The genius of H.R. Giger)
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Honorable Mentions:

Spaceballs – Princess Vespa
Stephen King Adaptations – Stephen King cameos
Carrie – Carrie White (prom queen! yeah?) :-p
Disney Princess Movies – I’ll be lazy & just say all the princesses
The Aristocats – Duchess
The Neverending Story – The Childlike Empress
King Kong – King Kong
Purple Rain – Prince
The King Of Comedy – Rupert Pupkin
Enemy Of The State – Because it stars The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air AND Regina King :-p
Star Wars (and many other soundtracks) – The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

And finally:

Flash Gordon – Emperor Ming The Merciless, Prince Vultan, Princess Aura, Prince Barin, some more I think, AND music by Queen. This movie is royal-rific! And Ted loves it…

**A Note:

These are the types of films I like. I looked at lists of proper “royal” films. You know what? I’ve seen hardly any of them! So this is my list of personal preferences. And I think it’s way more fun. 🙂

Princess Mononoke (1997) Review

Princess Mononoke (1997) – IMDB Rank #94

Watched 25/1/13

This is my fourth Studio Ghibli film (I first saw Spirited Away years ago and then both My Neighbor Totoro & Ponyo more recently). I’ve never really quite been able to get into them (although I do love the character of Totoro – would like to re-watch that with subtitles as I saw it dubbed when it was on TV and I really hate dubbing). Maybe Spirited Away wasn’t a good introduction to Studio Ghibli for me as it was pretty “out there” – I should have started with Totoro or Princess Mononoke.


I really enjoyed Princess Mononoke and would have to say it’s my favorite I’ve seen so far (I’ll see if Totoro ends up my favorite after watching it with subtitles). It’s made me much more eager now to see the rest of the Studio Ghibli films in the top 250. To be honest, it’s probably because I found the story much more straight-forward for my simple, Western, Disney-loving ways. 😉 It had very strong main characters, a groovy Deer God, and, most importantly, Kodama! I LOVED these dudes. I do think they’re what helped make me enjoy Princess Mononoke so much.

Deer God:

A bit about the Kodama (from the ever-reliable Wikipedia! :-p ):

A kodama (木魂?) is a spirit from Japanese folklore, which is believed to live in certain trees (similar to the Dryad of Greek mythology).

Cutting down a tree which houses a kodama is thought to bring misfortune, and such trees are often marked with shimenawa rope.

In Princess Mononoke they have these adorable little bobble-heads that rotate. They’re awesome and I want a few of them to follow me around every day & keep me company.



Watching Princess Mononoke was an enjoyable experience and I’m now looking forward to exploring other Studio Ghibli films and re-visiting the ones I’ve already seen. And out of the 9 films I’ve watched so far for my IMDB top 250 project, this is my second favorite one (Modern Times being first – it will be interesting to see if anything beats that one for me as I absolutely loved it).

My Rating: 8.5/10