Ten Great Movies

Great movies are the ones that really make an impression on you. Often this impression leads you to watch those movies again and again, each time giving a level of enjoyment that inferior movies cannot.

Whilst I am no couch potato, I do enjoy a good movie and there are a number of movies which I have watched multiple times, for a variety of reasons. Here I will outline ten great movies that I have enjoyed many times.

The first time I saw Saving Private Ryan I was equally transfixed and horrified by the opening battle scene. The sounds, sights and hand-held camera action make this opening battle very realistic and quite terrifying when seen on the big screen, although its impact is lessened on smaller screens.

The movie goes on to document the story of a small group of American soldiers searching for Private Ryan a few days after D-Day. Whilst the story is a little cheesy, the action is first class and the movie culminates in another amazing battle.

One of the really great war movies.

The Tome Bandit is a really silly movie with lots of different visual and verbal humour but probably its most outstanding characteristic is its plain weirdness; this is a surreal movie like no other I know of. With time travelling dwarves, a litany of historical and mythical figures and a fantastically understated supreme being there are loads of really excellent characters to laugh at and a fanciful story to go along with them.

"So that's what an invisible barrier looks like" is one of my favourite quotes from any movie.

This is a really amazing movie which has so many things to see in it that one viewing is not enough.

Having been a Lord of the Rings fan since childhood this was a long-awaited movie and much enjoyed. This is the culmination of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and contains some fantastic battle scenes with some very realistic mythical beasts. I particularly liked the scene when the hordes of Mordor arrive with their legendary battering ram, "Grond" which matched my expectations from reading the scene in the novel many years beforehand.

This is a fantastic movie with some very exciting scenes and real suspense and is worth watching a number of times although the end is a bit dragged out.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a musical movie about an inventor who refurbishes a magical car and takes his children on an adventure to a land where children are banned. This is a colourful movie which is great for the whole family to watch with some really great characters and fun songs.

My favourite character these days is the horrible Child-catcher who is a real super villian. Of course when I was a child I thought he was really scary - he is!

This was one of my favourite movies as a child and it still is, songs such as "The Old Bamboo" and "Choochie Face" are really great and there is some really daft dialogue.

It's brilliant!

Borat is one of the craziest and most hilarious movies I have ever seen. Borat, the creation of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, is a Kazakh news reporter who goes on a cultural mission to USA. His political incorrectness bewliders and ridicules unwitting members of the public who are caught reacting to his antics on camera.

The humour in this movie works on two levels; firstly it is just plain daft what Borat gets up to; secondly it pokes fun at the American public's behaviour, some of which is quite unpleasant.

This is a really funny comedy movie but one that will upset those who are easily offended.

Zulu is a superb movie based on the true story of the Battle of Rourke's Drift. Zulu has some of the best battle scenes of any movie and the massed attacks of the Zulu warriors are really exciting.

The movie also has some great characters played by some great actors; many of the characters are based on real people who were involved in the battle and won Britain's highest honour; the Victoria Cross.

My enthusiasm for the movie Zulu prompted me to visit the museum of The Royal Regiment of Wales in Brecon, South Wales - it's really interesting and there is a special display dedicated to the Zulu wars.

Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a farcical story of over-the-top London gangsters. Several groups of criminals all end up pitted against each other in a really silly coming together of storylines. The complex story and pantomime style acting make for a very memorable movie.

Although there is a lot of violence in this movie it is so over the top as to be almost cartoon violence and at the end almost everyone ends up dead one way or another.

A great movie.

For movie lovers who like grim stories of serial killers Seven is one of the best. Seven victims are killed in horrific ways to represent the seven deadly sins, a case which is investigated by a partnership of an old cop and a new cop.

The suspense of this movie is really good and the plot is very intricate with really grim murders and an excellent performance of a serial killer by Kevin Spacey and a nasty twist at the end.

Horrible by a great movie.

Forrest Gump is an exceptional movie about a guy with learning difiiculties who, somehow, manages to excel at everything he does. From being a college football legend he goes to being a war hero, a table tennis chamion, an international businessman, a trend setter and father. Along the way he meets numerous presidents, Elvis Presley, John Lennon and some really memorable characters - Lieutenant Dan and Bubba.

This is a fantastic movie which has so much in it that it deserves to be watched again and again, I know I have seen it many times and syill enjoy it.

As a Star Wars fan I had to put one of these movies in my list and this is the one that began it all and made a big impression on me when I was a little kid. This is the movie in which we meet Darth Vader, one of the most recognisable movie characters ever, Obi Wan Kenobi, R2D2 and Chewbacca amongst others.

With a lightsaber battle, lots of strange alien creatures, the heavy breathing of Darth Vader and the final showdown at the Death Star this is a movie with lots of memorable scenes and I enjoy it now as much as I did when it was first released; maybe more.