if you have to ask what it symbolizes, it didn't

    This is the next of several (seven?) posts that springs from an article, essentially listing "the most [x] book I've read." Having worked through the list in book form (e.g. here), I've decided to do the same with movies.   

 

The most daunting movie I saw: Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

     Why daunting? It's long (2 hours, 59 minutes) it's packed with heavy-hitter stars (Spencer Tracy! Burt Lancaster! Maximilian Schell! Marlene Dietrich! Montgomery Clift! Judy Garland! Werner Klemperer!); its subject matter is heavy, heavy, heavy (one of the war crimes trials following World War II, this one involving Nazi judges); and, personally, it's long on two focus areas of my adult life: History and Law. 

    And it is so good. Profoundly. Wonderfully and devastatingly worth the time and attention.

    (reviewed here)

 

The most disappointing movie I saw—ugh, another example of my refusal to promote something disappointing, I will (as with the book prompt) replace this with 

    The most re-watched movie not otherwise listed in this series: sex, lies and videotape (1989)

    Another movie that I first saw in theaters, then bought on VHS, and since have replaced with DVD. It would be impossible for me to stumble upon this movie on TV (as if that would ever happen) and not watch it again. I've probably seen it 25 times, and there's still something about it that makes me think I might've missed something, and need to watch it again.

    (reviewed here and here)

 

The most double-d-daring movie I saw: Black Snake Moan (2006)

    If ever there was a movie worthy of Samuel L. Jackson's trademark 'motherfucker', it's this one. Weird, tawdry, a little scary, a little funny, enthralling, strangely endearing, bizarrely redemptive, it's like nothing else I've seen or even heard of. I've tried to watch this with other people a couple of times but it hasn't worked. It's really, really not for everyone.

    (reviewed here) 

 

The most technically elegant movie I saw: Shaolin (2011)

    Why do I watch so many martial arts movies? Why am I drawn to a culture I've never really known, a place I've never lived or even thought to visit, and people whose actions are essentially foreign to me? It's because of movies like this. IMDB classifies movies by genre. This one is, in order, Martial Arts, Action, Drama. It is certainly all of those, each of those, at once. But there is one scene—described and shown in my review—that is the very definition of technical elegance, both in film-making and in martial arts.

    (reviewed here) 

 

The saddest movie I saw: In America (2002)

    Other people might not call this "a sad movie," exactly, as if that's a descriptor on the level of "drama" or "musical." As a connoisseur of sad media, though, it makes a slam-dunk. It is also unique, beautiful, sometimes funny, surprising, and thoughtful.

    (reviewed here)

 

 [based on this post; the title quotation is from Roger Ebert]