Ten Favorite Movies

1. The Revenant
2. Titanic
3. Shutter Island
4. Inception
5. The Wolf of Wall Street
6. Blood Diamond
7. The Great Gatsby
8. Revolutionary Road
9. Gangs of New York
10. Catch Me If you Can

Other Reviewed Movies

• Once Upon in Hollywood
• The Quick and the Dead
• Don't Look Up

Ten Favorite Movies

1. Crimson Tide
2. Antwone Fisher
3. Man on Fire
4. Training Day
5. He Got Game
6. Philadelphia
7. The Book of Eli
8. Flight
9. Fences
10. The Hurricane

Other Reviewed Movies

• John Q
• Roman J. Israel Esq.
• The Magnificent Seven
• The Equalizer
• 2 Guns

Before there was DiCaprio, Bale, Pitt, or Cooper, there were the Toms. Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks. For the first 25 years of my life, either one or the other was my favorite actor. Cruise fell off the list, mostly due to his lack of unique roles over the last 20 years, but Hanks never did. Ironically, Cruise is on the verge of reentering this list. He's probably #11 and closing quickly. He's the greatest action star of the last 30 years. What I

Ten Favorite Movies

1. Saving Private Ryan
2. Road to Perdition
3. Big
4. The Green Mile
5. Forrest Gump
6. Sully
7. Philadelphia
8. News of the World
9. Saving Mr. Banks
10. Cast Away

Other Reviewed Movies

• Captain Phillips
• Bridge of Spies
• A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
• The Post

Outside of possibly Blanchett or Theron, no one on this list commands the screen quite like Jessica Chastain.  On the verge of her first Academy Award (The Eyes of Tammy Faye) win,  Chastain burst into the Hollywood limelight in 2011 with three powerful performances (The Tree of Life, Take Shelter, The Help) starring opposite the likes of Brad Pit, Michael Shannon, and Viola Davis. As an aspiring cosmopolitan in The Help, Chastain earned her first Oscar nomination, paving the way for top-notch billing in such films as Zero Dark Thirty and Mama. Supporting roles in films like A Most Violent Year, Interstellar, The Martian, and Crimson Peak cemented her place as one of the most respected actors of her generation.

Chastain has since showcased her dramatic prowess as a formidable political lobbyist (Miss Sloane), the organizer of the most exclusive high-stakes poker game (Molly's Game), a high-profile assassin who, after breaking protocol, is hunted by her own black ops organization. In The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Chastain disappears completely into the rise and fall of the televangelist lead character.  While most Oscar-contending movies wait for a December release to stay fresh in the minds of the voting Academy, The Eyes of Tammy Faye debuted in September. It was difficult to imagine a second performance coming close to measuring up without knowing what the other acting performances would even bring.

While known mostly for her work in dramatic films, Chastain has proven to be equally adept in thrillers. Recently she dipped into television, starring opposite Oscar Isaac in HBO's Scenes From a Marriage. This haunting five-part miniseries could make for quite a bit of uncomfortably if viewed with a romantic partner.

Ten Favorite Movies

1. Take Shelter
2. Interstellar
3. A Most Violent Year
4. Miss Sloane
5. The Good Nurse
6. Lawless
7. The Martian
8. Molly's Game
9. The Eyes of Tammy Faye
10. The Help

Other Reviewed Movies

• The Debt
• Zero Dark Thirty
• Mama
• Woman Walks Ahead
• Crimson Peak
• Ava

Michelle Williams would likely be #1 on this list if she had a deeper filmography.  With a dozen or so acting credits either before or during her Dawson's Creek career,  I became acquainted with Williams' dramatic prowess was during her knockout performance in 2005's Brokeback Mountain. Her nonverbal reaction from her bedroom window after seeing her husband Enis and Jack kiss told me that she was something special. She earned her first Oscar for this movie.

Since my introduction to Williams, no other female actor has made me feel the sadness or the hopelessness of a character in the way that she did. Though she had less than ten minutes of screentime in the incredible Manchester By the Sea, her final encounter with Casey Affleck is one of the most affective-feeling scenes that I've ever seen. That scene alone earned her a fourth Academy Award nomination. Ironically, the superb performance by Affleck earned him the Oscar that year for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role. However, as excellent as Affleck was in the film, Williams blew him out of the water in that particular scene. It was almost felt like a varsity team playing a JV team.

With back-to-back performances in movies that have been missed by the majority, Williams gave us two uniquely different characters of unhappy wives stuck in their marriages for different reasons. Opposite Ryan Gosling (in a career-defining performance of his own) in Blue Valentine, Williams' Cindy conveys so many of the feelings involved with both falling in and falling out of love.  In Take This Waltz, Williams' portrayal of 2011 exemplifies the feelings associated with a marriage that has lost its passion, wondering if leaving the one we've committed ourselves to experience those initial butterflies associated with the intense feelings of a new relationship is worth it. In each film, is she a character worth rooting for or not? Williams evokes so much audience emotion from her performances.

In My Week With Marilyn, the way that she showcased the inner turmoil of Marilyn Monroe made me think that the icon herself had been coaching her.

Ten Favorite Movies

1. Blue Valentine
2. Manchester by the Sea
3. Shutter Island
4. Take This Waltz
5. My Week With Marilyn
6. Brokeback Mountain
7. The Fablemans
8. After the Wedding
9. The Greatest Showman
10. Incendiary

Other Movies Reviewed

• All the Money in the World
• Deception

Having worked as a supporting actor for the first decade of her career, Theron secured her first significant lead role in 2003 when, in an Oscar-winning performance, she portrayed real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a 1980s prostitute, blurring men before killing them. In one of the most physically-transforming roles in movie history, Theron immersed herself in her character. We were so used to seeing this externally gorgeous person suddenly 30 pounds heavier, with fried, thin, greasy hair, partially shaved and bleached eyebrows, protruding, prosthetic dentures to extend her mouth and show rotting, yellow teeth, and blotchy, textured skin. This foil from the likable, sweet characters from That Thing You Do, The Cider House Rules, Sweet November, and The Legend of Bagger Vance, or the seductive sultress in films such as The Italian Job or The Devil's Advocate with such raw intensity, that many compare the mesmerizing shift to Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull, while others called it the best acting performance of all-time.

Theron followed up Monster with the lead role in North Country, a 2005 dramatized version of the 1984 Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines court case, the first major successful sexual harassment lawsuit in the United States. This earned Theron her second Best Performance by an Actress in a Lead Role Oscar nomination. She has since added a third Oscar nomination in 2020 for Bombshell. In this film, she depicted Megyn Kelly, the biggest star of FOX News, who came forward to corroborate a brave, younger co-worker's claim of sexual harassment by coming forward as a victim herself.

Perhaps her most recognizable performance is her biggest box office earner Mad Max: Fury Road, where she plays a rogue warrior who wreaks some serious havoc and kicks some serious butt against the bad guys in one of the most successful sequels ever made.

Ten Favorite Movies

1. Prometheus
2. The Road
3. Tully
4. Young Adult
5. Bombshell
6. Mad Max: Fury Road
7. The Cider House Rules
8. Men of Honor
9. North Country
10. The Long Shot

The female movie star that I felt like I grew up with the most is Julia Roberts. Eight years older than me, Roberts was the most marketable female star from when I became a teenager to when I graduated from college. Suffice to say that she was my favorite for those years. Then, during my junior year of college, I saw Titanic. It was the first time I had heard of Kate Winslet. Opposite Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack, Winslet's Rose won me over. I've been a fan since. Although she'll likely never reach the top spot, mainly because every other movie she makes seems to be one I have no interest in seeing, I use her in the same paragraph as Roberts. This is because Winslet is the first female actor that is the same age as me (she's four months older) to arrive in my top ten. Ironically, at four months older than me.

Winslet doesn't have the depth of movies that I like that many others on this list, but it's hard to do better than my top five listed below. With seven Oscar nominations and one win (the fabulous The Reader) and, likely, an Emmy win (Mare of Easttown), Winslet won't be exiting the spotlight anytime soon. What I like most about her is that she knows her niche. She's a dramatic actor and brings a certain somberness to so many of her characters that allow us to empathize with her direness.

Like with many (most?) actors, Winslet has attached herself to at least one blockbuster franchise, in her case the Divergent) series. While this is frustrating, as it takes her away from other projects, it is also understandable. The money she receives on these high-revenue movies might allow her to accept future independent roles that likely have smaller budgets.

Ten Favorite Movies

1. Titanic
2. Little Children
3. The Reader
4. Revolutionary Road
5. Finding Neverland
6. Steve Jobs
7. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
8. Ammonite
9. Labor Day
10. Contagion

Other Reviewed Movies

• Blackbird
• Triple 9 (great movie, but her role was too minor to consider this as a movie for the list above)
• Divergent
• Insurgent
• Carnage 

My first experience with a Noami Watts movie was unlike any other. There are certain movies you see in the theater that you'll never forget when and where you saw them and who you were with. Some movies that fall into that category are ET, Legends of the Fall, Seven, Signs, The Passionate of the Christ, and Watt's The Ring. The Ring was the scariest movie I've ever seen in the movie theater and possibly the scariest movie I've ever seen.

Ten Favorite Movies

1. The Ring
2. The Painted Veil
3. The Impossible
4. King Kong
5. Eastern Promises
6. Ned Kelly
7. Infinite Storm
8. The Glass Castle
9. The Assassination of Richard Nixon
10. Birdman

Other Reviewed Movies

• Insurgent
• St. Vincent

Blanchett (born in 1969)  is probably my generation's most talented female actor. I define my generation as 30 years (15 years older to 15 years younger). I was born in 1976 to anyone born between 1961 and 1991, I will use to define as my generation. The other actress I had considered was Winslet. She likely would have been my answer if I had created a list before 2015. Winslet has produced some duds since then, and her association with the first two films in the Divergent series (Divergent, Insurgent) has soured me a little. Blanchett dipping into the Marvel Universe (Thor 2: Ragnarok), I didn't love either. I hope it's a one-off. However, I don't fault either of them for their choices. The Divergent franchise and anything Marvel is guaranteed to bring a huge payday, and I can't fault a person for that. I always try to operate this with an optimistic approach, believing that a hefty salary for starring in these big blockbusters will allow these talented actors the comfort to then take on some smaller, more independent roles, which are typically the type of films that I am drawn to.

Blanchett is on the verge of her eighth Oscar nomination for acting with 2022's TÁR. She already has two wins (The Aviator- 1998, Blue Jasmine - 2013). She's starred opposite Brad Pitt twice (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Babel). Both movies are in my Top 150 all-time. She could have earned an Oscar nomination for either. Pitt, deservedly so, received a nomination for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (one that he likely would have earned regardless). However, for as much as that film centered around Pitt's character aging backward, Blanchett's Daisy was a magnetic presence, making a film that could have gone awry into the best love story of 2008.

In Notes on a Scandal (2006), Blanchett became a paranoid, anxious puppet that veteran teacher Judi Dench blackmailed to her benefit after learning that this much younger teacher was having an improper affair with a student. The terse exchanges and nonverbal tension between the two heavyweights were instantaneous, each landing earning an Oscar nomination.

In what many consider Woody Allen's last great film, Blanchett plays Jasmine in Blue Jasmine, a boozing and Xanax-popping socialite whose existence of seeing herself as better than everyone around her comes to a halt after her husband is caught in a Ponzi Scheme. Displaying feelings of rage, fear, disgrace, snarkiness, pride, jealousy, insecurity, mania, and depression, Blanchett fields an array of emotions in two hours. By the film's end, we feel like we've known her our entire lives.

Ten Favorite Movies

1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2. Babel
3. Blue Jasmine
4. The Aviator
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
6. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
7. Carol
8. TÁR
9. Nightmare Alley
10. The Gift

Other Reviewed Movies

• Don't Look Up

Once thought to be the next Julia Roberts for her cute, simple, and unassuming roles in enjoyable family-friendly movies such as The Princess Diaries and its sequel, The Other Side of Heaven, Ella Enchanted, The Devil Wears Prada, and Becoming Jane (all released between 2001 - 20007), Hathaway has received her fair share of criticism over the years, a lot of which stemmed from her Best Supporting Actress Academy Award acceptance speech for her role as Fantine in Les Miserables (2012). She came across to many as phony and pretentious, something that, if even true or intentional, was by no means a reason to be blackballed (in a way) from the leading roles she had received before this awards ceremony.

Hathaway has yet to carry a film on her own since winning her 2012 Oscar, and the roles that she has received (Dark Waters, Interstellar, Oceans 11), while fine films, had little to do with her presence. The Intern was probably her best role, both from a commercial standpoint and for the amount of screen time she had, but that movie also had Robert DeNiro in one of his most memorable roles of the past two dozen years.

All of these films paled in comparison to her work from her work between 2007 and 2012, where she showed versatility while captivating audiences.

In 2008, Hathaway starred in Rachel Getting Married as a recovering drug addict batting a borderline personality disorder, who is expected to keep it all together for the 48 hours she is allowed to leave rehab to attend (and try not to ruin) her sister's wedding. Hathaway's only other role earned her an Oscar, this one as Best Lead Actress. It's one of my all-time favorite movies and her career-defining role.

In 2010, Hathaway starred opposite pharmaceutical salesman Jake Gyllenhaal in Love & Other Drugs as a lively, uninhibited, sexual-driven woman named Maggie who seems to have it all, only to learn that she is in the early stages of battling Parkinson's Disease. The highs and lows that Hathaway takes Maggie have us jealous of her life in one scene to crying for his misfortune in the next. Gyllenhaal, whose co-stars rarely outperformed, held his own, though it was Hathaway's performance in this underappreciated and underseen movie.

In 2019, Amazon Prime released two seasons of a television show called Modern Love, based on a New York Times column that explores relationships, love, and human connection. Each season had eight episodes and none of the episodes were related. It was similar to the more popular Black Mirror. Hathaway's episode, in which she portrays the highs and lows of someone suffering from Bipolar Disorder, but seeking love and acceptance, like the rest of us, was the show's best.

Ten Favorite Movies

1. The Dark Knight Rises
2. Love & Other Drugs
3. Rachel Getting Married
4. Dark Waters
5. Interstellar
6. Les Miserables
7. The Intern
8. Armageddon Time
9. Alice in Wonderland
10. Get Smart

She Came To Me

Quite possibly the most intelligent director of his generation, Christopher Nolan (as of 2023), maintains a relatively universal reputation of having not directed a bad movie. Love him or not, no living director receives blank checks to create films as effortlessly as Nolan does.

The Dark Knight is seen by many as the best superhero movie of all time. Some will argue it doesn't hold well on a rewatch 15 years after its release. I will both say that it does and that, if it didn't, it doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't revolutionary for its time. Nolan's Batman trilogy is my favorite trilogy ever. There are several reasons, and Nolan's direction might be number one. It's dark in setting, tone, dialogue, themes, color palette, and more. The advancement of Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne/Batman over the three movies is my favorite of any superhero. Nolan's trilogy has a defined beginning, middle, and conclusion that are the envy of other superhero franchises.

However, while almost always technically sound, his films are far from perfect. He's a mastermind who has the sort of grand vision that his contemporaries lack. Unfortunately, he knows this. He adds layers and complexities to his films that some might find awe-inspiring, but others may feel frustrating and unenjoyable. After my recent rewatch of Memento, I have found myself in the latter group. When I first watched the film, I enjoyed it but was confused. I understood the premise, but I wanted to understand more. The rewatch was frustrating and not at all enjoyable.

Many critics and moviegoers will agree that his films lack human emotion with his characters. This is something I agree with. I want to feel his various characters' ups and downs. Nolan isn't able to evoke that. However, Interstellar might be the exception to the rule. But, even with that, it felt like Nolan pumped the brakes.

Dunkirk has aged well. Nolan might have been a victim of his success with this film. This was a straightforward film in which he didn't try to outsmart audiences. Unfortunately, I think audiences were expecting more than this linear approach, resulting in a bit of a backfire for some. Sadly, as much as this film achieved technically, it also lacked the human connection associated with many of his other films.

Ten Favorite Movies

1. The Dark Knight
2. Interstellar
3. Inception
4. The Dark Knight Rises
5. Dunkirk
6. Batman Begins
7. The Prestige
8. Oppenheimer
9. Memento
10. Insomnia