4-way tie at number 33
Close Encounters of the Third Kind![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d9/Close_Encounters_poster.jpg)
what you the voters had to say about it: One of the first films to depict alien beings as friendly, stupid looking creatures here to steal some of our own kind with no explanation, and share their love of classical music
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban and Cary Guffey. It tells the story of Roy Neary, an Indiana electrical lineman, whose life changes after he has an encounter with an unidentified flying object. However, the United States government is also aware of the UFOs as is a team of international scientific researchers.
Close Encounters was a long-cherished project for Spielberg. In late 1973, he developed a deal with Columbia Pictures for a science fiction film. Paul Schrader, John Hill, David Giler, Hal Barwood, Matthew Robbins and Jerry Belson contributed with script writing work, alongside Spielberg. In the end Spielberg was given solo writing credit.
Filming began in May 1976. Douglas Trumbull served as the visual effects supervisor, while Carlo Rambaldi designed the aliens. Close Encounters was released in November 1977 and was a critical and financial success. The film was reissued in 1980 as Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Special Edition, Spielberg's "director's cut" of the film with additional scenes. The film received numerous awards and nominations at the 50th Academy Awards, 32nd British Academy Film Awards, the Saturn Awards and has been widely acclaimed by the American Film Institute. In December 2007 the film was named to the National Film Registry.[1]
In the Sonoran Desert, Claude Lacombe (François Truffaut) and David Laughlin (Bob Balaban), along with other government scientific researchers discover a lost squadron of World War II aircraft. The planes are intact and operational, but there is no sign of the pilots. At Air Traffic Control in Indianapolis, Indiana, an air traffic controller listens as two airline flights almost have a mid-air collision with an apparent UFO. In nighttime Muncie, Indiana, three-year-old Barry Guiler (Cary Guffey) is awakened when his toys start operating automatically, forcing his mother Gillian (Melinda Dillon) to chase after him.
Meanwhile, during a nearby large-scale power outage, Indiana electrical lineman Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) experiences a close encounter on a dark country road and is soon caught up in a police chase of four UFOs. Roy becomes fascinated by UFOs, much to the dismay of his wife, Ronnie (Teri Garr). He also becomes increasingly obsessed with mental images of a mountain and begins to make models of it. Gillian also becomes obsessed with sketching a unique-looking mountain. Soon after, she is terrorized by a UFO encounter in which Barry is abducted by unseen beings, despite her attempts at securing her house. Meanwhile, Roy's increasingly erratic behavior causes Ronnie to leave him, taking the couple's three children with her. When a despairing Roy inadvertently sees a TV news program about a train wreck near Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, he realizes the mental image plaguing him is real. Gillian sees the same broadcast, and she and Roy, as well as others with similar experiences, head toward the site.
Elsewhere in the world, the pace of UFO activity is increasing. Lacombe and Laughlin investigate a host of occurrences along with other United Nations experts. Witnesses report the UFOs make distinctive sounds: a five-tone musical phrase in a major scale. Scientists broadcast the phrase to outer space but are mystified by the response—a seemingly arbitrary series of numbers repeated over and over—until Laughlin recognizes it as a set of geographical coordinates pointing to Devils Tower. All parties begin to converge on Wyoming. The United States Army evacuates the area, planting false reports in the media that a train wreck has spilled highly dangerous nerve gas, all the while preparing a secret landing zone for the UFOs and their occupants.
While the people drawn to the site are unable to reach Devils Tower, Roy and Gillian persist and make it to the site as dozens of UFOs appear. An enormous mother ship lands, returning people who had been abducted over the years, including Barry. Officials recognize and then hastily prepare Roy to be taken on board the ship. As a last one of the aliens lingers with the humans, Lacombe uses Kodály Method hand signs that correspond to the five-note alien tonal phrase. The alien replies with the same gestures, smiles, and returns to its ship, which lifts off into the night.
on a personal note when I tried watching this film many years ago I literally fell asleep during it
The Terminator![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/70/Terminator1984movieposter.jpg/200px-Terminator1984movieposter.jpg)
The Terminator is a 1984 science fiction/action film directed and co-written by James Cameron. It features Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator, Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor and Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese. The film was followed by three sequels. The franchise has evolved to include video games and a television series.
The film takes place in 1984, introducing the concept of a "terminator", specifically the titular character (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a seemingly unstoppable cyborg assassin who has been sent back from the year 2029 by a collective of artificially intelligent computer-controlled machines bent on the extermination of the human race. The Terminator's mission is to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) whose future son, John Connor, leads a resistance against the machines. A human, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), is also sent back from the future by John Connor himself to protect her.
In 2008, The Terminator was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[1]
In a post-apocalyptic 2029, artificially intelligent machines seek to exterminate what is left of the human race. Two beings from this era are transported back in time to 1984 Los Angeles: One is a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a cyborg assassin programmed to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). The other is Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), a human Resistance fighter sent to protect her. The Terminator stalks Sarah by killing all of the Sarah Connors listed in the telephone directory one by one. Hearing of the "phone book killer", Sarah seeks shelter in a nightclub and phones her roommate to warn her, leaving a message on their answering machine indicating her whereabouts. However, the Terminator has already killed the roommate and tracks Sarah to the nightclub after hearing her message. Kyle also tracks Sarah to the club and saves her from the Terminator's attack.
Kyle explains that in the near future an artificial intelligence network called Skynet will become self-aware and initiate a nuclear holocaust of mankind. Sarah's son John will rally the survivors and lead a Resistance movement against Skynet and its army of machines. With the Resistance on the verge of victory, Skynet has sent a Terminator back in time to kill Sarah before John can be born, as a last-ditch effort to avert the formation of the Resistance. The Terminator is an emotionless and efficient killing machine with a powerful metal endoskeleton, but with an external layer of living tissue so that it resembles a human being.
Kyle and Sarah are again attacked by the Terminator, leading to a car chase and their arrest. Lieutenant Ed Traxler (Paul Winfield) and Detective Hal Vukovich (Lance Henriksen) tell Sarah that Kyle is crazy. Kyle is questioned by psychologist Dr. Silberman (Earl Boen), who concludes that he is paranoid and delusional. The Terminator attacks the police station and kills many police officers in its attempt to locate Sarah, but she and Kyle escape and seek refuge in a motel. Kyle confesses that he has long been in love with Sarah, having been given a photograph of her by her son John. Sarah and Kyle then have sex.
The Terminator tracks them to the motel and wounds Kyle. In the ensuing chase the Terminator is caught in the blast of an exploding gasoline tank truck. With its external flesh burned away, it pursues Sarah and Kyle into a factory. Kyle jams a pipe bomb into its abdomen, blowing off its legs and one of its arms, but Kyle himself is killed. Still partially functional, the Terminator drags itself toward Sarah by its remaining arm. She leads it into a hydraulic press which she uses to crush it, causing it to deactivate.
Some time later, a pregnant Sarah is traveling through Mexico. Along the way she records audio tapes which she intends to pass on to her unborn son John. She debates whether to tell him that Kyle is his father. A young Mexican boy takes a photograph of her which she purchases—it is the photograph that John will later give to Kyle. She drives on towards approaching storm clouds.
Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/df/Homeward.bound_dvd_cover.jpg/200px-Homeward.bound_dvd_cover.jpg)
Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey is a 1993 remake of the 1963 film The Incredible Journey based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Sheila Burnford. The film was directed by Duwayne Dunham who has directed other films such as Little Giants and television shows such as JAG and Twin Peaks. The film stars a Golden Retriever named Shadow, voiced by Don Ameche, a Himalayan cat named Sassy voiced by Sally Field, and an American Bulldog named Chance voiced by Michael J. Fox.
The animals belonged to the Burnford-Seaver family. Bob Seaver (Robert Hays) recently married Laura Burnford (Kim Greist) and merged their families: Peter Burnford (Benj Thall), Hope Burnford (Veronica Lauren) and Jamie Seaver (Kevin Chevalia) - owners of Shadow, Sassy and Chance respectively. The plot begins when Bob must take a one-year job in San Francisco, leaving the animals at a friend's Oregon ranch. Shadow breaks free and leads Sassy and Chance home across a vast mountain range. They encounter dangerous animals, a waterfall and even a frightening dog pound before finding their way back to the children.
The film was released on February 3, 1993 and went on to gross over forty million dollars at the box office. The film was considered a success and a sequel was produced and released in 1996 titled Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco. The sequel featured the same animals and the same actors voicing the animals, except for Shadow, who was voiced by Ralph Waite in the sequel because Don Ameche died shortly after playing his role in the first film.
The film was shot at various locations in Oregon. Four national forests were used in filming, these included Deschutes National Forest, Mount Hood National Forest, Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, and Willamette National Forest. Cities and towns in Oregon that were used for filming included Portland, Oregon, Bend, Oregon, Joseph, Oregon, and Wallowa, Oregon. Two other areas used for filming were the Columbia River Gorge and Eagle Cap Wilderness Area.
This film was rated G by the MPAA.
The film begins with Chance the American Bulldog (voiced by Michael J Fox) telling the story of how he himself arrived in the family. Also living in the family with him are Shadow, an aged, wise Golden Retriever and Sassy, a sarcastic, humorous Himalayan cat. The story begins at a wedding, after which the family has to leave for San Francisco in California for an important trip. They can't take the animals with them, so they leave them at a ranch belonging to an old friend of the wife's. Shadow becomes worried about Peter, the oldest boy in the family and his best friend, so he decides to go and find him. Although unenthusiastic at first and insistent that they must stay at the ranch because their humans may come back for them, Sassy and Chance also go with him.
The three pets make their way through the rocky, mountainous wilderness and eventually need to spend the night there. Chance becomes uneasy and begins hearing strange noises, Shadow tells him and Sassy that it is just a moose. To make it worse, when Chance asks what a moose is, Shadow replies by describing it, sarcastically, as a "Big razor toothed animal that comes out at night to eat the tails of smaller animals".
In the morning, Shadow rouses Sassy and Chance by telling them he's found breakfast: fish. Sassy catches Chance one and he is about to eat it when a pair of juvenile black bears come along and try to steal it from him. Chance manages to frighten them away but then a huge Grizzly bear comes up behind him without him knowing and roars at the trio; this results in them running away from him.
They soon come to a river. Being a cat, Sassy is very unsure of how she can get across. The dogs simply swim across at a shallow, slow-flowing area and ask Sassy to try and swim too, but she refuses and tells them she'll find her own way to get over, which she does, in the form of an old beaver dam. Just as she looks to be safe, the dam breaks apart and Sassy falls into the water and gets washed towards a waterfall. Shadow jumps in and tries to rescue her but doesn't make it in time and the cat goes over the falls.
Shadow mourns the loss of his friend and that night, tells Chance that they had a responsibility to care for Sassy and watch over her like he has to Chance and Peter, and like Chance has to Jamie, the youngest member of the family.
Sassy, meanwhile, is soon found all bedraggled by an explorer and taken to his hut in the forest. That same morning, the two dogs encounter a new problem: they run into a mountain lion. They realise that they need to harness the power of teamwork when they reach a dead end and Chance says "The bones are buried by the jungle gym and the TV remote is under the seesaw." Shadow then has a brilliant idea: they will lure the lion onto a seesaw shaped rock and catapult it into the river, the same as Chance had catapulted Sassy into a sandbox at the start of the movie. Their plan succeeds and they bark in happiness. Sassy, who has been completely rejuvenated by the explorer, hears them barking and runs off to find them. She follows the sound of the barking, leading to a joyful and emotional reunion.
Unfortunately, Chance soon gets into a bit of a fix with a porcupine. Sassy tries to pull the quills out but that only makes things worse. Shadow tells Chance "Whatever you do, DON'T LICK YOURSELF!". Soon, they encounter a young girl who has been separated from her parents. They stay with her for the night and in the morning, Shadow hears people passing by (who, coincidentally, happen to be the girl's parents) and leads the father to her, resulting in lots of happy faces all round.
The pets are soon recognized from a flyer they were on, and are sent to an animal shelter. Chance has had horrible experiences with animal shelters in the past and wants to get out although the doctors remove the quills from said porcupine. Shadow does not believe Chance until then staff put a mouth restraint device on his mouth. Sassy manages to escape the shelter staff, and frees Shadow and Chance. Soon they all escape from the shelter and are well on their way to getting home, as there are only about 40 or so miles left to go.
The animals soon come to a train yard. They very carefully make their way through it but Shadow falls into a pit concealed by boards. Sassy and Chance try to get him to climb out again but he can't do it. He says he's too old to do anything any more, and that the others should just leave him to die.
Near dusk, the family is out in the backyard playing basketball when Jamie hears a dog barking, and thinks it's Chance. Sure enough, it is him, and not far behind is Sassy. Just when it looks as though only these two will return home, Shadow limps over the hill into the yard. An overjoyed Peter dashes to Shadow, reunited with his best friend. The movie ends with Chance saying that after all that excitement, he finally has a home.
rounding out number 33.......
The Matrix![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c1/The_Matrix_Poster.jpg/200px-The_Matrix_Poster.jpg)
The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving. It was first released in the USA on March 31, 1999, and is the first entry in The Matrix series of films, comics, video games, and animation.
The film describes a future in which reality perceived by humans is actually the Matrix: a simulated reality created by sentient machines in order to pacify and subdue the human population while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source. Upon learning this, computer programmer "Neo" is drawn into a rebellion against the machines. The film contains many references to the cyberpunk and hacker subcultures; philosophical and religious ideas; and homages to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Hong Kong action cinema, Spaghetti Westerns, dystopian fiction and Japanese animation.
Computer programmer Thomas A. Anderson leads a secret life as a hacker under the alias "Neo", and wishes to learn the answer to the question, "What is the Matrix?" Cryptic messages appearing on his computer monitor and encounters with three sinister agents lead him to a group led by the mysterious Morpheus, a man who offers him the chance to learn the truth about the Matrix. Neo accepts by swallowing an offered red pill, and subsequently finds himself naked in a liquid-filled pod, his body connected by wires to a vast mechanical tower covered with identical pods. The connections are severed, and he is rescued by Morpheus and taken aboard his hovercraft, the Nebuchadnezzar. Neo's neglected physical body is restored, and Morpheus explains the situation.
Morpheus informs Neo that the year is not 1999, but estimated to be closer to 2199, and that humanity is fighting a war against intelligent machines created in the early 21st century. The sky is covered by thick black clouds created by the humans in an attempt to cut off the machines' supply of solar power. The machines responded by using human beings as their energy source in conjunction with nuclear fusion, later growing countless people in pods and harvesting their bioelectrical energy and body heat. The world which Neo has inhabited since birth is the Matrix, an illusory simulated reality construct of the world as it was in 1999 developed by the machines to keep the human population docile in their captivity. Morpheus and his crew are a group of free humans who "unplug" others from the Matrix and recruit them to their resistance against the machines. Within the Matrix, they are able to use their understanding of its nature to bend the laws of physics within the simulation, giving them superhuman abilities. Morpheus believes that Neo is "the One", a man prophesied to end the war through his limitless control over the Matrix.
Neo is trained to become a member of the group. A socket in the back of Neo's skull, formerly used to connect him to the Matrix, allows knowledge to be uploaded directly into his mind. In this way, he learns numerous martial arts disciplines, and demonstrates his kung fu skills by sparring with Morpheus in a virtual reality "construct" environment similar to the Matrix, impressing the crew with his speed. Further training introduces Neo to the key dangers in the Matrix itself. Injuries suffered there are reflected in the real world; if he is killed in the Matrix, his physical body will also die. He is warned of the presence of Agents, fast and powerful sentient computer programs with the ability to take over the virtual body of anyone still directly connected to the Matrix, whose purpose is to seek out and eliminate any threats to the simulation. Morpheus is confident that once Neo fully understands his own abilities as "the One", they will be no match for him.
The group enters the Matrix and takes Neo to meet the Oracle, the woman who has predicted the eventual emergence of the One. She tells Neo that he has "the gift" of manipulating the Matrix, but that he is waiting for something, possibly his next life. From her comments, Neo deduces that he is not the One. She adds that Morpheus believes in Neo so blindly that he will sacrifice his life to save him. Returning to the hacked telephone line which serves as a safe "exit" from the Matrix, the group is ambushed by Agents and SWAT teams. Agent Smith corners Neo but Morpheus pins him down and gives everyone the order to get out. Morpheus and Smith speak briefly before Smith bats Morpheus off him with a single punch. Morpheus stands up to Smith and fights his hardest, but is eventually defeated. They later learn that they were betrayed by the crew-member Cypher, who preferred his old life in ignorance of the real world's hardships and therefore made a deal with the Agents to give them Morpheus in exchange for a permanent return to the Matrix. Cypher is defeated but not before his betrayal leads to the deaths of all crew-members except Neo, Trinity, Tank, and Morpheus, who is imprisoned in a government building within the Matrix. The Agents attempt to gain information from him regarding access codes to the mainframe of Zion, the unplugged humans’ subterranean refuge in the real world. Neo and Trinity return to the Matrix and storm the building to rescue their leader. Neo becomes more confident and familiar with manipulating the Matrix, ultimately dodging bullets fired at him by an Agent. Morpheus and Trinity use a subway station telephone to exit the Matrix, but before Neo can leave, he is ambushed by Agent Smith. He stands his ground and eventually defeats Smith, but flees when the Agent possesses another body.
As Neo runs through the city toward another telephone exit, he is pursued by the Agents while "Sentinel" machines converge on the Nebuchadnezzar's position in the real world. Neo reaches an exit, but he is ambushed by Agent Smith and shot dead. In the real world, Trinity whispers to Neo that she was told by the Oracle that she would fall in love with "the One", implying that this is Neo. She refuses to accept his death and kisses him. Neo's heart beats again, and within the Matrix, Neo revives; the Agents shoot at him, but he raises his palm and stops their bullets in mid-air. Neo is able to perceive the Matrix as the streaming lines of green code it really is. Agent Smith makes a final attempt to kill him, but his punches are effortlessly blocked, and Neo destroys him. The other two Agents flee, and Neo returns to the real world in time for the ship's EMP weapon to destroy the Sentinels that had already breached the craft's hull. A short epilogue shows Neo back in the Matrix, making a telephone call promising that he will demonstrate to the people imprisoned in the Matrix that "anything is possible". He hangs up the phone and flies into the sky.
The Matrix received Oscars for film editing, sound effects editing, visual effects, and sound.[28][29] Furthermore, this is the first film to win the Academy Award for Visual Effects over a film in the Star Wars series (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace). In 1999, it won Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film and Best Direction.[30] The Matrix also received BAFTA awards for Best Sound and Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects, in addition to nominations in the cinematography, production design and editing categories.[31]
The Matrix has had a strong effect on action film-making in Hollywood. It upped the ante for cinematic fight scenes[51] by hiring acclaimed choreographers (such as Yuen Woo-ping) from the Hong Kong action cinema scene, well-known for its production of martial arts films. The success of The Matrix put those choreographers and their techniques in high demand by other filmmakers who wanted fights of similar sophistication: for example, wire work was employed in X-Men (2000),[51] and Yuen Woo-ping's brother Yuen Cheung-Yan was choreographer on Daredevil (2003).
Following The Matrix, films made abundant use of slow-motion, spinning cameras, and, often, the bullet time effect of a character freezing or slowing down and the camera dollying around them. The ability to slow down time enough to distinguish the motion of bullets was used as a central gameplay mechanic of several video games, including Max Payne, in which the feature was explicitly referred to as "bullet time". The Matrix's signature special effect has also been parodied numerous times, in comedy films such as Scary Movie, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, Shrek, Main hoon na and Kung Pow: Enter the Fist; in TV series such as The Simpsons and Family Guy; in the OVA series FLCL; and in video games such as Conker's Bad Fur Day.