Candidates for The Perfect Movie (?)

[Cato]

Recently the just okay movie Lady Bird was called "perfect" by more than one critic, according to a CBS news review.

I disagree, and thought it might be of interest to list (one of GMG's favorite activities     )  candidates, perhaps by genre, for The Perfect Movie.

Drama (there could be sub-genres e.g. Western, War Movie, Historical, Contemporary), Comedy, Musical...

I will start with just a few off the top of my head:

Comedy

It's a Gift,  Horse Feathers, Groundhog Day, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Danny Kaye's original), The Music Box, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Drama/Horror/Crime

Psycho, Sisters, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Night of the Hunter, M

Drama/Western

The Searchers, The Big Country, Shane, Unforgiven, Lonesome Dove (T.V. movie, which should have been on the big screen)

Drama (General)

Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, Jean de Florette/Manon of the Spring, The Field, Doctor Zhivago, A Passage to India, The Best Years of Our Lives

Drama/Historical

Ben-Hur, Spartacus, Braveheart, War and Peace (Sergei Bondarchuk's version)  Hamlet (Laurence Olivier version)

Science Fiction

King Kong (1932), Forbidden Planet, Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Planet of the Apes (Charlton Heston version), 2001: A Space Odyssey

Time to stop!   0:)  Let's have other nominees for Perfection!

[Biffo]

'Some like it hot' is the perfect comedy. 'Unforgiven' is a fine western but I prefer 'The good, the bad and the ugly'.  Don't have any candidates for the other categories (just yet).

[Marc]

When I read the thread title I was thinking it meant "select some favourite actors/artists to play in either a favourite movie or to play in a movie after a screenplay written by yourself."

If so, I would have picked a British detective movie, asked the late John Thaw to rise from the dead and play Morse again, and let him hopelessly fall in love with a certain soprano called Carolyn Sampson, who sings like an angel, is a major suspect in a complicated murder mystery according to sgt. Lewis, but Morse keeps on defending her, and then he finds out that the lovely soprano is actually is the mastermind behind a series of wicked murders. Which leaves him absolutely shellshocked, with only Lewis to support and comfort him.

That's honestly one of the first things I thought when I saw and heard Carolyn Sampson for the first time about 12 years ago: she'd be the 'ideal' very British Femme Fatale for poor inspector Morse.
Funny enough, when they decided to make a series about the young Morse (with Shaun Evans as Endeavour Morse), they did make an episode like that. (But not with Sampson .)

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I don't know what your definition of a perfect movie is. Mine is a movie in which nothing could be altered without doing harm to the film as a whole, i.e. all the parts fit together perfectly. And all those components have to be of high quality to begin with.

From your list, I agree Groundhog Day fits this definition. Also Citizen Kane and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Not sure about the others, and I wonder what Braveheart (a remarkably crude film, IMHO) is doing on that list.

Among my choices would be

The Conversation (FF Coppola). I think I mentioned this one on the "favorite directors" thread - it's a great example of a film where all the parts work together perfectly.

Roger Ebert makes the case that Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a perfect film. I might agree, I need to see the film again:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-mccabe-and-mrs-miller-1971

I would also nominate Jim Jarmusch's first film, Stranger than Paradise. An audacious formal experiment (every scene is a single B&W shot, fading to black at the end), and it works perfectly.

Errol Morris' documentary about pet cemeteries, Gates of Heaven, also strikes me as a perfect film, tho' I can't explain why.

[Marc]

Some nice choices here.

I'd like to add (in various genres):

Casablanca
White Heat
North by Northwest
Dr. Strangelove
A Hard Day's Night
Taxi Driver
Monty Python's Life of Brian
The Empire Strikes Back
Festen
Fucking Åmål
The Blair Witch Project
Italiensk for begyndere
Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain
Love Actually
Låt den rätte komma in
and
Taxi Teheran.

(Among many others I forgot.)

[Cato]

When I read the thread title I was thinking it meant "select some favourite actors/artists to play in either a favourite movie or to play in a movie after a screenplay written by yourself."

Sure!  That works too!   0:)  Hypothesize what the perfect movie would be!

[Karl Henning]

Comedy

It's a Gift, Horse Feathers, Groundhog Day, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Danny Kaye's original), The Music Box, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

I'd add The In Laws, and probably Earth Girls Are Easy.

[Rinaldo]

Master & Commander springs to mind immediately. Such a well-crafted movie, I wouldn't change a single frame.

Both Barry Lyndon and 2001.

[Jo498]

Braveheart is fairly horrible, apart from being one of the most blatantly wrong of all historical movies. Master and Commander is in a completely different class, a great and accurate historical movie but I am not quite sure if it is that good overall as a movie.

Among comedies, I agree with "Some like it hot" and I'd also nominate "Arsenic and old lace" (Capra) and "One, two, three" (Wilder).

[North Star]

Comedy
Some Like it Hot, The Big Lebowski

Drama
Autumn Sonata, Bicycle Thieves, Le Cercle Rouge, Fanny & Alexander, The Godfather I & II, Le Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, Paris Texas, Pickpocket, Ran, Rififi, Rome Open City

Horror
Don't Look Now, Les yeux sans visage, Psycho

Prison
Hunger, Shawshank Redemption

Western
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Yojimbo

[vandermolen]

It's A Wonderful Life
Goodbye Mr Chipps (Robert Donat)
Alien
Aliens
Jason and the Argonauts (original)
The Lives of Others
The Cruel Sea
Dunkirk
Double Indemnity
Murder My Sweet
Ben Hur
Conan the Barbarian
The Name of the Rose
City Lights
Dead of Night
Casablanca
Some like it Hot
The Ladykillers (original)
Carry On Don't Lose a Your Head.
The Seventh Seal
Ivan the Terrible (1 and 2)
War and Peace (Bondarchuk).
Great Expectations (David Lean)
Excalibur

[bwv 1080]

A bunch of historical pics

Barry Lyndon
Ran
Schindler's List
12 Years a Slave
Come and See

[Jo498]

The Ladykillers (original)

This must be also a candidate for the best movie with the worst remake.

[Karl Henning]

This must be also a candidate for the best movie with the worst remake.

The remake, I have negative interest in checking out

[Ken B]

The Lady Eve Not actually my very favourite Sturges, but one of them, and as close to perfect as can be.

Trouble in Paradise Not just perfect, Lubitsch perfect.


Vertigo

Citizen Kane

Sunset Boulevard

Rear Window

Kind Hearts & Coronets

Seven Samurai

[Ken B]

This must be also a candidate for the best movie with the worst remake.

A slam dunk.

[Cato]

Upon further reflection, here are a few more candidates for The Perfect Movie:

White Heat - James Cagney, Director Raoul Walsh

Yojimbo - Toshiro Mifune, Director Akira Kurosawa

The Straight Story - Richard Farnsworth, Director David Lynch

[North Star]

Upon further reflection, here are a few more candidates for The Perfect Movie:
Yojimbo - Toshiro Mifune, Director Akira Kurosawa

Good pick

Western
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Yojimbo

[Spineur]

A few silent

Intolerance W. Griffith

Metropolis Fritz Lang

Napoleon Abel Gance

Modern times Charlie Chaplin

[Cato]

Yojimbo

Good pick

Yojimbo - Toshiro Mifune, Director Akira Kurosawa

Proof of Perfection!   0:)

A few silent:

Intolerance  D. W. Griffith

Metropolis Fritz Lang

Those for sure: I have not seen the other two completely.