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I honestly recall the first movie I ever saw but it was highly likely it was on the TV. When I was a kid, cinemas were few and far between on the Far North Coast of New South wales and while my family wasn’t poor, we weren’t flush with cash either so trips to the movies weren’t exactly an everyday occurrence.
But somewhere along the line, I did see more than a few in the cinema and the one that sticks in my mind most clearly is my mum taking me to the wooden one-cinema theatre in Ballina near where we lived and watching Star Wars: A New Hope with me in 1977. No idea how I heard about it, though an ad on TV no doubt did the trick, but I remember HAVING to see it, and yes, getting some merch including a T-shirt and figure of Luke Skywalker which did not stay “mint-in-box” for long.
That visit became the first of likely thousands with 50-70 movies a year now being the norm, and while when I saw some stick in my mind such as Queen & Slim being the last movie I saw before COVID lockdowns or crying my eyes out for half an hour after watching Schindler’s List or discussing The Matrix at length with my friend on the way home, most movies simply fold into a great tapestry if cinema I have been lucky to see.
And yes, you will see from the list below that my tastes are ridiculously eclectic and reasonably mainstream and while I sometimes think I should love some of the more esoteric or artistic of films, the truth is I like films that sit in a particular, reasonably mainstream lane and I’m not a fan of films that embrace non-linear narratives or weird ideas which is strange because in many other respects, I love everything quirky.
Anyway, I loves what I love as Popeye might say, and I am so glad that movies give me the chance to hide away in the dark, choctop in hand and escape into worlds without number for a few hours and to live out the lives of characters I learned to love then … and still very much love now.
- Amelie (2001)
2. Original Star Wars trilogy (1977, 1980, 1983)
3. Toy Story (1995)
4. E. T. (1982)
5. Die Hard (1988)
6. Lethal Weapon (1987)
7. The Sound of Music (1965)
8. Inside Out (2015)
9. Keeping the Faith (2000)
10. 1917 (2019)
11. The Matrix (1999)
12. The Muppet Movie (1979)
13. You’ve Got Mail
14. Up (2009)
15. While You Were Sleeping (1998)
16. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)
17. I Kill Giants (2017/2018)
18. A Monster Calls (2016)
19. Jurassic Park (1993)
20. The Shape of Water (2017)
21. Interstellar (2014)
22. The Boxtrolls (2014)
23. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
24. Speed (1994)
25. Forces of Nature (1999)
26. Barbie (2023)
27. Christopher Robin (2018)
28. Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017)
29. The Princess Bride (1987)
30. Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
31. Twister (1996)
32. The Truth About Cats and Dogs (1996)
33. Paddington (2014)
34. Groundhog Day (1993)
35. A Nice Indian Boy (2025)
36. Wayne’s World (1992)
37. Schindler’s List (1993)
38. The Fifth Element (1997)
39. The Shaggy D.A. (1976)
40. City of Angels (1998)
41. The Sixth Sense (1999)
42. Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)
43. American Beauty (1999)
44. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001, 2002, 2003)
45. The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025)
46. All of Us Strangers (2024)
47. The Wild Robot (2024)
48. The Whale (2023)
49. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022)
50. The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021)
51. Nomadland (2021)
52. Supernova (2021)
53. Queen & Slim (2020)
54. Jojo Rabbit (2020)
55. Life is Beautiful (1997)
56. And Mrs (2024)
57. Back to the Future (1985)
58. Working Girl (1988)
59. Flying High! (1980)
60. Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)