What is your favorite movie?

Just like books, I can’t possibly limit that to a single film.It depends on the genre and the mood.

Here is a selection of the films that I regularly watch (genre alphabetically).

Attention: I haven’t seen any of the English-language films in German, so I can’t judge whether they are synchronized as well as in the original.

Documentary (unfortunately no German versions found)

• Svante Pääbo A Neanderthal Perspective Lecture at UC Berkeley on the Neanderthal Genome Project.
• The Hitch Documentary about the journalist Christopher Hitchens
• The Lost Tribes of Humanity Documentation on Paleoarchaeology

Fantasy

• Lord of the Rings

  Not as good as the books, but as a film one of the best ever.

Comedy

• A Fish Called Wanda with John Cleese, Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis
• The Life Of Brian by and with Monty Python
• 3 men in the snow with Paul Dahlke, Klaus Biederstaedt and Günther Lüders

  While the first two are funny to roar, the third film is rather smirily funny, but much more charming.

Crime

• The Shawshank Redemption with Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman
• Murder on the Orient Express
• Pulp Fiction

  “Murder in the Orient Express” and “Pulp Fiction” will be familiar to most.

“The Convicted” tells the story of Andy Dufresne, who is innocently sentenced to 19 years in prison. After a novella by Stephen King.

Romance

• Actually Love Actually
• Four Weddings And A Funeral
• Sleepless in Seattle
• Email for you (You’ve Got Mail)

  Ok, it’s 4 instead of three, but I couldn’t choose between “Sleepless in Seattle” and “Email for you.”

Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are just one of my absolute favorites.

Science fiction

• The Day After Tomorrow
• Independence Day
• Terminator 2

  Yes I know.

In addition to “Terminator 2”, which at that time mixed up the special effects world and is rightly regarded as a classic, the other two films are clearly dropped. BUT they’re still one of my favorite movies because I find Will Smith funny and Day After Tomorrow is about a theme that’s very close to my heart (and the movie has great special effects).

Thriller

• Jason Bourne
• Leon the Professional
• Die Hard

  Do you really have to say something about these three films?

Absolute cult all three.

Western

• Play Me The Song of Death (Once Upon A Time In The West)
• Dancing With Wolves
• Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid

  These are 3 classics of the genre, but in completely different ways.

“Play me the song of death” and “The one dancing with the wolf” are powerful with great music and ruthless in their statement.

“Two Bandits” is funny (at least in the original, I haven’t seen the German version) and is staffed with two of my favorite actors (Paul Newman, Robert Redford).

So I’m breaking off here now, even though I would have several other genres, but otherwise it will probably be too long.