In the second half of the second millennium, literature became the primary source of entertainment, knowledge and the means of humanizing ourselves.  Many scholars have chosen to label Miguel de Cervantes as "the Father of the Modern Novel" with his great opus Don Quijote but this is quite incorrect.  Desiderus Erasmus wrote the first modern novel: The Praise of Folly, first published in 1509.  Don Quijote did not appear until 1605.  Both authors had previously written tracts to expound upon the qualities of Christian knights and the similarities in wit, sarcasm, irony and humanist thinking between the two masters is too great to ignore.    Folly was to inspire many other of the world’s most perceptive authors including Jonathan Swift, Laurence Sterne, Miguel de Cervantes and perhaps even Mark Twain.  (Mr. Clemens was not one to acknowledge literary debts to anyone else.)  Many persons spent thousands of hours immersed in the delightful pages of the world’s great novelists.

But with the development of the television, movie cameras, the silver screen, video tapes and DVDs an entirely new kind of entertainment arose.  Those of us who were literary snobs hardly deigned to admit that we ever watched movies.  Yet, movies were always a delight to watch but video tapes and DVDs gave us a chance to analyze and absorb movies in depth at home whereas the silver screen was a far more limited method of achieving a thorough understanding of what the directors, actors, cameramen  and artists are doing with a great movie.  Click to hear Tony Curtis's speech on the invention of the VCR. (Real Player required: available at this site.)

What follows is a list of my own 200 favorite movies but anyone is free to set his own preferences.  The first 20 on this list are my personal favorites…but after the first 20, it is really impossible to say which are the greatest.

Anyone who wishes to learn how to make a great movie, must examine the films of Tennessee Williams (numbers 41 to 49 below).  They will not teach you producing, directing, nor photography...but they will teach you how to ACT and how to write DIALOGUE.

 1. The Sound of Music

101. All That Jazz

 2. The Searchers

102. Ship of Fools

 3. Lawrence of Arabia

103. Red River

 4. Shane

104. The Day of the Jackal

 5. The Good the Bad & the Ugly               

105. The Bear w/ Robert Duval

 6. The Godfather I

106. City of Women

 7. Raging Bull

107. A Clockwork Orange

 8. The Big Trail

108. On the Waterfront

 9. The Longest Day

109. Will Penny

10. Lonesome Dove

110. The Grapes of Wrath

11. Coal Miner's Daughter

111. Insomnia

12. Cabaret

112. Tom Jones

13. Battleship Potemkin

113. Night of the Generals

14. Hud

114. Chato's Land

15. The Godfather II

115. As Good As It Gets