30 Years... 30 Movies
Ever since Sarah celebrated her 30th birthday by sharing the 30 movies that have been the most influential to her, I’ve been aching to piggyback off of this idea and make a list myself. Now, with just a few short days left in my 20s, the time has come.
I’ve been doing a lot of home video conversion over the past year or so, and I’ve noticed that most of the images preserved from my childhood involve me watching movies. At more than one family gathering (in the recorded history of my life), there I am, standing right in front of the screen, transfixed to the point that everything around me disappears. While anyone looking at me in this state might think, “There’s another one of those mindless, TV-obsessed zombie children...” I know what’s going on: a child is falling in love with an art form. For a long time, movies seemed to mean more to me than they did to anyone else I knew. At that point, I didn’t know that there was a whole field of study just waiting for me to discover it, or that I would end up spending countless hours, reading, writing, and even teaching film and television with a group of people who were as passionate as I was (including Sarah!). When I see this kid, eyes glued to the screen, I remember that even at that point I was a life-long film fan, and am so excited for that kid’s film-heavy future.
Just one example of my normal childhood state. If memory serves, I’m watching Disney’s Robin Hood.
Yikes. That was sugary sweet, wasn’t it? What can I say? This is just about the most sentimental list a person can make, being composed of the movies I believe are essential to the person I am today. While many of these are films that have been with me my whole life, I have also included some more recent films that have impacted me so strongly, which I’m sure will stay in my heart. It is the hardest list I’ve ever made, by far. It turned out to be more of a painful exercise than I anticipated. There are so many movies that it killed me not to include, but I’m sure there will be plenty of time to mention them in future posts. Also, like Sarah’s, this list isn’t ranked, but rather in chronological order by release date. Enjoy!
Heidi (1937, dir. Allan Dwan)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940, dir. John Ford)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, dir. Frank Capra)
Old Yeller (1957, dir. Robert Stevenson)
One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961, dir. Wolfgang Reitherman, Dlyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske)
A Raisin in the Sun (1961, dir. Daniel Petrie)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, dir. Robert Mulligan)
Mary Poppins (1964, dir. Robert Stevenson)
The Sound of Music (1965, dir. Robert Wise)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966, dir. Mike Nichols)
Oliver! (1968, dir. Carol Reed)
A Woman Under the Influence (1974, dir. John Cassavetes)
Stranger Than Paradise (1984, dir. Jim Jarmusch)
Anne of Green Gables (1985, dir. Kevin Sullivan)
Beaches (1988, dir. Garry Marshall)
Do the Right Thing (1989, dir. Spike Lee)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991, dir. Jonathan Demme)
Newsies (1992, dir. Kenny Ortega)
The Secret Garden (1993, dir. Agnieszka Holland)
The Lion King (1994, dir. Rob Minkoff, Roger Allers)
Billy Elliot (2001, dir. Steven Daldry)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001, dir. John Cameron Mitchell)
Juno (2007, dir. Jason Reitman)
Black Swan (2010, dir. Darren Aronofsky)
Frances Ha (2012, dir. Noah Baumbach)
Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016, dir. Taika Waiti)
Lady Bird (2017, dir. Greta Gerwig)
The Florida Project (2018, dir. Sean Baker)
Burning (2018, dir. Lee Chang-dong)
The Favourite (2018, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)
What do you think of the films listed here? What movies are essential to the person you have become? Let me know in the comments below, and please forward all 'Happy Birthdays' to Norman Lear, who deserves them way more than I do.
Copyright © 2021 Bailey Lizotte
