What's your favorite movie/tv series? (And why)

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The Fugitive may be my favorite Harrison Ford film outside of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. Still want to see his new movie The Call of the Wild.
 
Good point, OScarlett. It was Dr Nichols and his henchmen like Mr Sykes who were the true bad guys.
 
TV series? Right now, I’m going to say ITV’s Unforgotten. There are three series, with a fourth hopefully out later this year. Why is it so great? The plots are fiendishly clever and develop over six 45-minute episodes, so a total of 4½ hours per series. It’s a pretty original concept: early on in each series, we are introduced to a number of seemingly unconnected people, and, as the story unfolds, we gradually discover how they connect with each other and with the murder victim and how each one of them had motive, opportunity, means, and an alibi! It also has a first-rate cast, starring Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar, joined by some of the greatest talents in British acting, such as Tom Courtenay and Alex Jennings.

Proxime accessit to The Missing/Baptiste (a spin-off which is essentially series 3). Series 2 is extraordinary. Some of the plot twists are truly mind-boggling. As well as regulars Tchéky Karyo and Anastasia Hille, it features some fantastic actors such as Roger Allam (perhaps best known for playing Fred Thursday in Endeavour), Keeley Hawes, and Lia Williams.

ETA: Apart from British crime dramas, my favorite TV series would have to be Frasier. There’s no other TV show that has humor on that level. I also love that it’s about a pretty odd family, but they all turn out okay in the end because they love each other and they’re there for each other. There are occasionally moments in Frasier when it actually stops being funny and somebody says something really serious, and it’s all the more poignant because you were expecting a joke. I’ve watched it over and over and it’s just as brilliant every time.
 
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My favorite for relaxation is the sc-fi comedy Galaxy Quest. I also really enjoyed “Travellers” on Netflix, and am watching Longmire, a cowboy mystery series with excellent actors.
 
MrZoom said:
I note from the links you shared that both the 1925 and 1959 versions of Ben-Hur are on the U.S. National Film Registry.

Is there any other case where two versions of the same story are on the registry? 🤔

(BTW, I have the 4-DVD set of the 1959 Ben-Hur, which also includes the 1925 silent version.)
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Do you like the 1925 version? I haven’t seen the whole thing. I do see it is still, a very highly praised movie as well, checking IMDB ratings (Internet Movie Data Base in case anyone does not know that).
 
Throw in Straw Dogs, Bloodsport, and Enter the Dragon, and you have perhaps the 5 most manly movies ever.
 
You are much braver than I am… I can’t watch movies where an animal dies. 😭 😭 😭
I think it all began when I was a little kid and saw Bambi and Old Yeller…
 
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tuscany said:
You are much braver than I am… I can’t watch movies where an animal dies. 😭 😭 😭
I think it all began when I was a little kid and saw Bambi and Old Yeller…
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…or Land Before Time. SOOOO sad when the mother dinosaur dies! 😭
 
Favorite movies:

Twelve Angry Men: twelve men decide on the guilt or innocence of a young man tried for murder. The entire movie could have been shot in the jury room.

The Enemy Below: during WWII a U S destroyer plays a cat and mouse game with a German U-boat

The Princess Bride: Why? Because it’s inconceivable!!!

I’m sure there are others but it’s past my bed time.😜

Pax
 
My favorite movie would have to be A Patch of Blue from 1965 with Sidney Poitier and Elizabeth Hartman. It’s such a great film about a poor, blind white girl from a chaotic family who befriends a young black man. Throughout the course of the film he helps her and teaches her things and watching the two of them get to know each other is simply wonderful. The dialogue between them is very charming. And what I love about it is that it’s not overly “romancey” like in so many films.

My second choice, only slightly behind A Patch of Blue is the Hitchcock film, I Confess about a priest who hears a confession from a murderer, a man who works at the rectory. Slowly, the circumstantial evidence begins to point to the priest and yet he can’t say anything to defend himself because of the seal of confession. The priest, played by Montgomery Clift is a very sympathetic character and watching him grow increasingly agonized is gut wrenching and suspenseful.

As for television series, my favorites would have to be the original Hawaii Five O and the Fugitive!
 
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That film is just so sad.

Poor young woman, no one around her was ever kind to her, not even her own mother.

Shelley Winters really was good at playing bad mothers.

This film, Lolita, maybe in the Night if the Hunter as well.
 
I have to say Downton Abbey and Blue Bloods, and for similar reasons: they both portray the upper and lower echelons, and they portray people at all levels as real people with both good and bad.

DA shows how feudalism was supposed to be: the lord of the manor caring for those on his lands. He wasn’t perfect, but who is? No one was glorified or vilified because of their station in life.

BB is similar in that way, along with the stories of family members coming into conflict and resolving it.

Second tier favorites: LOTR, Law and Order, NCIS, Hill Street Blues, and just for fun, the Scarlet Pimpernel, Wooster and Jeeves, MASH,…

Hmmmm, I have a surprising number of second tier favorites for someone who really doesn’t watch tv much!
 
I’m currently watching The second season of My Brilliant Friend, on HBO.

The cinematography is really beautiful, and the storyline is really complex.

It’s about two childhood friends who grew up in a very poor area of Naples. They have a close but difficult friendship.

It’s based on a series of books. The characters are so exasperating, and there are a number of really bad villains.
 
My parents and I are gonna start Battlestar Galactica. I’ve seen the first two episodes and they were really good.
 
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