John Armstrong's Top Ten Movies

My deciding question was, "What movies would I most want to watch on a Friday after work (if I worked) and wanted to be entertained?"  So here is my list.  I think going first means I will miss a bunch of movies that should be on my list, but like all things, if I wait until it's perfect, it will never get done.  I feel bad that I couldn't include The Sting, or Groundhog Day  or Ghostbusters, or the original Twelve Angry Men.  I even had to leave out Army Of Darkness, the Thunderstick edition.  Oh well, enjoy and welcome back to Marshmallow Fight. I love movies because they are quotable, so I included a quote for each movie. Each title is linked to a trailer or cover page from IMDB or YouTube.

10.  Matinee (1993)

General (watching half-man, half-ant climb up building): What do you call that thing?
Creature's former girlfriend:  Bill. 


9.  Big Fish (2003)


Ed Bloom: Having a kid changes everything. There's burping, the midnight feeding, and changing.
Will Bloom (his son): You do any of that?
Ed: No. But I hear it's terrible. Then you spend years trying to corrupt and mislead this child, fill his head with nonsense and still it turns out perfectly fine.
Will: You think I'm up for it?
Ed: You learned from the best.


8.  O Brother Where Art Thou? (2000)


General Store Owner:I can get the part from a Ford dealer in Bristol.  It'll take two weeks.  Here's your pomade.
Ulysses Everett McGill:  Two weeks! That don't do me no good. Hold on. I don't want this pomade. I want Dapper Dan.
Owner: I can order it. Take two weeks.
McGill: Well, ain't this place a geographical oddity. Two weeks from everywhere.


7.  Star Wars (1977)

Darth Vader: I find your lack of faith disturbing.

6. Sneakers (1992)


Cosmo:  There I was in prison. And one day I help a couple of older gentlemen make  some free telephone calls.  They turn out to be, let us say, good family men.
Martin Bishop: Organized crime?
Cosmo: Don't kid yourself. It's not that organized.


5.  Roxanne (1987)


Mayor: I would rather be with the people of this town than with the finest people in the world.


4.  My Favorite Year (1982)


Alan Swann: Damn you, I'm not an actor. I'm a movie star. 


3.  Running Scared (1986)


Captain Logan:  I hear you two watched them mop up the pancake today. You two weren't, uh, interrogating a suspect up on the roof, were you?
Ray Hughes: We got an alibi, Captain. Snake, tell him where we were or we'll kill you, too.


2.  Field of Dreams (1989)


Terrence Mann:  The one constant through the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game it's a part of our past, Ray.  It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again. 


1.  Princess Bride ( 1987)


Vizzini has just cut the rope the Dread Pirate Roberts is climbing.

Vizzini:  He didn't fall? Inconceivable.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.




Looking back on my list, I notice that seven of the ten movies fall during a roughly 10 year span of my (almost) 60 year life. Weird.

Please use the comment button below to let me know what you think of my list.

Please don't make me wait too long to see your list. You can e-mail them to me. You can pick a different format (you don't have to include quotes). You may want to explain why some of them are on your list.  It's up to you.  I will put in the links when I get your list. It will help if you put a year with each one, since some movie titles are reused.  Happy hunting!