A list to make you mad: The movies I haven’t seen
Until fifth grade, we lived out in the country and had five TV channels. I don’t remember much in the way of watching television, other than Perfect Strangers. I remember that my parents didn’t want me to watch The Simpsons or Married … with Children, though to be honest I’m not sure if it was a rule or just a “come on, pick better shows.”
We moved to a subdivision in fifth grade and got cable, but really cable was just an excuse for my dad to watch baseball, and I joined him in that. Later, we moved back out to the country and got satellite, otherwise known as “dad and Daniel can watch even more baseball.”
That’s a very indirect way of telling you: I didn’t watch a lot of movies for a long time. I liked movies. I valued them. But I didn’t see a lot of them.
And then I got my driver’s license.
My buddy Sam had a girlfriend, and I didn’t. (This was not a situation unique to my friendship with Sam or to that period of time; it was my default state with any of my friends for a long time.) He and his girlfriend were younger than me, so while I’m sure they enjoyed hanging out with their good buddy Daniel, when we hung out on the weekends I was also their chauffeur. We’d pack up in the car in Paris, we’d drive to Lexington, they’d sit in the backseat and canoodle, and we’d go to the movies.
That was 2000, and it started a routine. We didn’t see movies every weekend, but we saw them a lot. Even after Sam got his license, even after he and his girlfriend broke up, even after high school. Movies were the thing. I took a film class in high school, I took multiple film classes in college. When I worked at a newspaper in Georgetown (Ky.) after college, I whined until they let me start reviewing movies, which I continued doing even after I left there for another paper in Kansas. From 2000 until around 2009, I saw a huge percentage of the movies that were released. Like, an obscene number. I went out at midnight to buy the One Hour Photo DVD when it was released. I saw Butterfly Effect three times (!) in theaters even though it was, you know, bad. I once went out on a Tuesday off and saw four movies in theaters and wrote a running diary about it.
But I never really got back to the movies I missed before that.
I mean, I’ve seen a fair number of movies from across the run of history. But the list of movies I haven’t seen would legitimately make you angry. (That’s not hyperbole; my brother, some good friends, and even my wife have rarely been angrier at me than when they’re talking about some obvious movie and I’m like “Nope, haven’t seen it.”)
I remember sitting in Old Chicago one time with my wife (girlfriend at the time) and a couple friend of ours as they rattled off movie after movie, getting progressively angrier with me until finally my friend’s wife burst out with “How could you understand the jokes from Bobby in A Goofy Movie if you haven’t seen Son in Law?!” Which, obviously that’s silly, but after a hundred different Nopes I think she was slap happy.
I have no grander point here than that. I just wanted to write about 500 words’ worth of introduction to the list: The movies I haven’t seen that will make you yell at me.
(I’m also definitely forgetting some timeless classics that I haven’t seen, because constructing a list entirely of negatives is very difficult.)
12 Angry Men
12 Monkeys
2001: A Space Odyssey
48 Hrs.
Airplane!
Ali
Alien
Aliens
Amadeus
Annie Hall
Another 48 Hrs.
Ant-Man
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Any Given Sunday
Avatar
Avengers: Endgame
Avengers: Infinity War
The Bad News Bears
Ben-Hur
Beverly Hills Cop
Beverly Hills Cop II
Beverly Hills Cop III
Big Daddy
Black Panther
Blade Runner
The Blair Witch Project
Blazing Saddles
Boogie Nights
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Cabaret
Caddyshack
Cape Fear
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Captain Marvel
Casino
Cast Away
A Clockwork Orange
Clone Wars
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Clueless
Cocoon
Coming to America
Cool Hand Luke
Creed
Creed 2
Days of Thunder
Dazed and Confused
Diamonds Are Forever
Die Another Day
Doctor Strange
Dr. No
Easy Rider
The Fast and the Furious
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Fast & Furious
Fast & Furious 6
Furious 7
The Fate of the Furious
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
For Your Eyes Only
Friday
Friday the 13th
From Russia with Love
Get Shorty
Godfather 2
Godfather 3
GoldenEye
Goldfinger
Gone with the Wind
Goodfellas
The Goonies
The Great Muppet Caper
Gremlins
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Halloween
He Got Game
Heat
The Help
Hoosiers
Interstellar
Interview with the Vampire
Jackie Brown
John Wick
John Wick: Chapter 2
John Wick: Chapter 3 -- Parabellum
The Karate Kid
Labyrinth
Lawrence of Arabia
Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon 2
Lethal Weapon 3
Lethal Weapon 4
License to Kill
Life Is Beautiful
Little Shop of Horrors
Live and Let Die
The Living Daylights
Mad Max
Malcolm X
Mallrats
The Man with the Golden Gun
Mary Poppins
Million Dollar Baby
Minority Report
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible 2
Mission: Impossible III
Mission: Impossible – Fallout
Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol
Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation
Monty Python's Life of Brian
Moonraker
The Muppet Christmas Carol
The Muppet Movie
The Muppets Take Manhattan
The Muppets Take Manhattan
Muppet Treasure Island
Muppets from Space
Muppets Most Wanted
The Natural
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Octopussy
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
The Pianist
Pocahontas
Poltergeist
Predator
Pretty in Pink
Psycho
Raging Bull
Revenge of the Nerds
Risky Business
Rocky
Rocky II
Rocky III
Rocky V
Rocky Balboa
Rocky Horror Picture Show
St. Elmo’s Fire
Saturday Night Fever
Say Anything
Scarface
School of Rock
Seven Samurai
The Shining
Shutter Island
Sixteen Candles
Skyfall
Sleepless in Seattle
Solo
Spaceballs
Spectre
Spider-Man: Far from Home
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Splash
The Spy Who Loved Me
Steel Magnolias
Swingers
Taxi Driver
This Is Spinal Tap
Thor: Ragnarok
Thor: The Dark World
Thunderball
Tomorrow Never Dies
Tootsie
Top Gun
Trading Places
Tron
Turner & Hooch
Twister
Unforgiven
A View to a Kill
White Men Can't Jump
The Wolf of Wall Street
The World Is Not Enough
You Only Live Twice
Young Frankenstein
You’ve Got Mail