Bernie's Top 10 Lists
Listing favorites in no particular order
Although I’ll never pick a #1 book, movie, etc., I do find it exciting and entertaining to list my favorites. I also have fun not staying within the definition of what a top 10 list should be.
Top 10 Overall Movies
1. Close Encounters - Steven Spielberg
2. Pulp Fiction - Quentin Tarantino
3. Shawshank Redemption - Frank Darabont
4. Inside Out - Pete Docter
5. Almost Famous - Cameron Crowe
6. O Brother Where Art Thou? - Coen Brothers
7. Blade Runner/Blade Runner 2049 - Ridley Scott/Denis Villeneuve (yes, I often break the rules and add more than a top 10 list would hold, but I think this one is fair, as I’m really not sure which is better).
8. Interstellar - Christopher Nolan
9. Goodfellas/The Godfather - Frances Ford Copolla (same comments as #7 above)
10. Jaws - Steven Spielberg (this movie is perfection and possibly #1 out of all of these, though I would never commit to such an absolute statement)
Honorable Menion:
11. High Fidelity - Stephen Frears
12. The Dark Knight - Christopher Nolan
Top 10 Overall Books
1. Harold and the Purple Crayon - Crockett Johnson
2. Big Magic - Elizabeth Gilbert
3. Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer
4. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
5. Cash: The Autobiography - Johnny Cash
6. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
7. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
8. The Stand - Stephen King
9. My Friends - Fredrik Backman
10. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
Top 10 Scariest Movies
1. Oppenheimer - Christopher Nolan
2. Silence of the Lambs - Jonathan Demme
3. Alien - Ridley Scott
4. Jaws - Stephen Spielberg
5. Rosemary’s Baby - Roman Polanski
6. The Cell - Tarsem Singh
7. Pan’s Labyrinth - Guillermo del Toro
8. Wizard of Oz - Victor Fleming (as a kid, I was terrified of that green witch)
9. Memento - Christopher Nolan
10. Joker - Todd Phillips
Top 10 Sci-fi Movies
1. Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Stephen Spielberg
2. Arrival - Denis Villeneuve
3. Alien - Ridley Scott
4. ET - Stephen Spielburg
5. Bladerunner 2049 - Denis Villeneuve (ok, I like the sequel best)
6. Contact - Robert Zemeckis
7. The Fifth Element - Luc Besson
8. Annihilation - Alex Garland
9. Empire Strikes Back - Irvin Kershner
10. Interstellar - Christopher Nolan
Top 10 Stephen King Books
1. Pet Sematary
2. The Stand
3. IT
4. 11/22/63
5. The Dead Zone
6. The Shining/Doctor Sleep (yes, I think the sequel is quite excellent)
7. Misery
8. The Life of Chuck (novella from the book If It Bleeds)
9. Fairy Tale (very underrated, and I think it’s because it’s super weird, which I loved)
10. Different Seasons (a collection of novellas, including Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Body, which is a novella that inspired the movie Stand By Me)
Top 10 Christmas Movies
1. Scrooged
2. Christmas Vacation
3. Christmas Story
4. Elf
5. Die Hard (yup, I went there)
6. Love Actually (this may reveal that I’m a bit of a softy)
7. Grinch (the original TV special, which I know isn’t a movie, but whatever)
8. It’s a Wonderful Life
9. A Nightmare Before Christmas
10. In Bruges
Top 10 Albums
1. Wildflowers - Tom Petty
2. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco
3. Zenyatta Mondatta - The Police
4. The Joshua Tree - U2
5. The Bends - Radiohead
6. Nirvana Unplugged
7. Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd
8. Abbey Road - The Beatles
9. Ten - Pearl Jam
10. Dire Straits/Communique - Dire Straits
More lists may be added in the future. Please comment on any you’d like to see, too. I also encourage you to come up with your own—it’s an arduous task, especially when it comes to the last one. So much so, I’m going to list a ton of honorable mentions below:
Ghost in the Forest - Trey Anastasio
Z - My Morning Jacket
Yoshimi and the Pink Robots - The Flaming Lips
No doy - moe.
Lonerism - Tame Impala
Middle Brother - Middle Brother
Pink Moon - Nick Drake
Time (The Revelator) - Gillian Welch
BlackRoc - BlackRoc
Sky Blue Sky - Wilco
Beggars Banquet - The Rolling Stones
Sea Change - Beck
The Autobiography of Reinhold Messner - Ben Folds Five
Before the Frost---Until the Freeze - The Black Crowes
Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan
Exodus - Bob Marley
Into The Wild - Eddie Vedder
The Fruitful Darkness - Trevor Hall
Lonesome Dreams - Lord Huron
Circles - Mac Miller
Jaime - Brittney Howard
Jade Bird - Jade Bird
Complicated Game - James McMurtry
Domestic Blues - Bap Kennedy
Lastly, Top Live Albums
Live on Mars/Both Sides of the Gun - Ben Harper
Live at Carnegie Hall - Bill Withers
Live at Carnegie Hall - Stevie Ray Vaughan
As I read I realized there are so many titles you named , I have never heard of.
... I know, right 🤷♀️
Some on my list though would be.
Book:
A Boy Called It - broke me apart and such an inspiration of spirit- cried from cover to cover.
Movie:
A River Runs Through - thinking that's its complete title
Pay It Forward - tear jerker and great message
Poltergeist- King Kong- Children of the Corn
Those gave me nightmares
I haven't watched scary movies in years. I don't need the cardio workout, 😆
Great lists, you've got me curious to check out a few titles, and reminiscent of what my lists would contain.