TOP 100 Movies Countdown 60 - 51 - Page 11
TOP 100 Movies Countdown 60 - 51 - Page 11
No. 51 to 60
51. TOY STORY 2: Quality: * * * * Acceptability: +4
1999 TOY STORY 2 is a great-looking, very entertaining movie that parents and children will want to see. Buzz Lightyear and other toys rescue Woody who has been stolen by a toy collector. Great story elements include love, compassion, forgiveness, and reconciliation. The story builds jeopardy without stressing evil. This is the type of movie you would like to keep for infinity and beyond!
52. METROPOLIS (silent): Quality: * * * * Acceptability: +3
1929 This classic science fiction movie is full of biblical symbolism and allegory. The city represents heaven and earth, as well as the caste distinctions to be found in a mercantilist/socialist state. Maria preaches reconciliation and new life through the intervention of a mediator between the rulers and the people. Rotwang, the priest/scientist, is the Adversary who wants to make the world over in his image. Freder becomes the Christ-like mediator, ready to sacrifice himself to save others. This movie rebukes the mercantilism which was rearing its ugly head as National Socialism in Germany. The film sternly condemns the revolutionary leader, the robot Maria, a counterfeit savior in the tradition of Barabbas, Hitler and Lenin, who leads the people to death and destruction. At the same time, it lifts up the Mediator, who comes to bring peace. METROPOLIS is as popular today as when it was made.
53. SHANE: Quality: * * * * Acceptability: +3
1953 The archetypal classic Western, starring Alan Ladd, Van Heflin, Jack Palance, and the great Jean Arthur, is about courage, goodness and traditional family values.
54. FORBIDDEN PLANET: Quality: * * * * Acceptability: +2
1956 An adaptation of Shakespeare’s THE TEMPEST in a science-fiction setting, FORBIDDEN PLANET stars Leslie Nielsen as a spaceship captain who confronts the troubled leader of an apparent paradise, Morbius, Walter Pidgeon, whose only companions are a beautiful daughter, played by Anne Francis, and Robby the Robot.
55. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES: Quality: * * * * Acceptability: +3
1946 This is a wonderful drama about the difficulties of coming home after a war, specifically, World War II. Three veterans meet unexpected reactions and unwanted rejection. The movie includes a brilliant performance by Harold Russell, who really did lose his hands during the war. Director William Wyler (BEN-HUR). Featuring Fredric March and Dana Andrews.
56. DRIVING MISS DAISY: Quality: * * * * Acceptability: +2
1989 A warm movie about an embittered, elderly Jewish lady, who has known poverty and prejudice, but who finds reconciliation, hope and love through the Christian kindness, mercy and humility of her elderly black chauffeur.
57. WITNESS: Quality: * * * * Acceptability: -1
1984 Harrison Ford plays a modern police detective, betrayed by fellow police officers who are corrupt, who enters the Christian world of the Amish in Pennsylvania and learns something about the power of their faith.
58. CRY IN THE DARK: Quality: * * * * Acceptability: +1
1988 When a dingo (an Australian "coyote") takes the baby of a minister and his wife (played by Sam Neill and Meryl Streep) from their tent on a camping trip at Australia's Big Rock, the anti-Christian media manipulates the facts and testimony of the Bible-quoting couple so that they are accused of murder, and the jury sentences the wife, now seven months pregnant, to prison as the murderer of her baby.
59. AMISTAD Quality: * * * * Acceptability: -2
1997 This movie contains one of the clearest and most powerful presentations of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.
60. THE SEARCHERS: Quality: * * * * Acceptability: +2
1956 One of the strongest statements made in the 1950s against racism also happens to be an exciting, heartbreaking, intelligent movie with great performances by all the main characters, especially John Wayne in one of his five best roles, if not his very best one. Directed magnificently by John Ford, with marvelous work from cinematographer Winton C. Hoch.
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