The Top Five Modern Film Geek Movies

What about Pulp Fiction? No modern American film, including the original Matrix installment, has come close to competing with PF in terms of generating discussion. Also, no other modern film has led critics to advocate making its screenplay required reading for film students.

I think that's pretty spot on, except maybe for Donnie Darko, which like Napolean Dynamite has become a movie that every douchbag kid in college loves and talk about ad nauseum.

can't argue with your list, bob. but memento, oldboy, kill bill, and the big lebowski should probably find their way on there as well.

edit: in fact throw the LOTR trilogy in there and you've got yourself a nice geek top ten

A Geek list without...

Kevin Smith?!?! That is absurd. You need to have Clerks if you want that list to hold water

Excuse me! There are some non-college "douchbags" who quite like Napoelon Dynamite. I think it's a fine piece of work.

How about top ten film geek directors?

1. George Lucas
2. Peter Jackson
3. Quentin Tarantino
4. Steven Spielberg
5. Kevin Smith
6. The Washowski Brothers
7. David Fincher
8. Ridley Scott
9. The Coen Brothers (By popular demand)
10. Paul Verhoven

man, I didn't know geeks were so bad at math.

What about the Coens?

In the UK, the true geekdom test is whether or not Bubba Ho-Tep is on the DVD shelf. Since it had ZERO publicity here, only geeks know of its existence.

A top five featuring 9 people and labelled 1-10? Amazing!
Seriously though, it's hard to judge the geekiness of directors sometimes, but Quentin should definitly be numero uno on that list, the man is an uber movie geek. I don't really feel Fincher and Scott seem like movie geeks either, they're more like, well, artists(not to say the others aren't).
Everyone who makes films is a bit of a movie geek, but what decides what makes them a geek director? Someone who wears their influences on their sleeve, or someone who's seen virtually every movie made, and has the toys, t-shirts and posters to show their love?

I mean I feel "Shaun of the Dead" is one of the ultimate geek films, and "Kill Bill" as well. It's tough to call this.

Personally, I think THE MATRIX, DONNIE DARKO and PULP FICTION all have the mainstream bug, where even casual filmgoers are big fans. I remember the amount of people who were nowhere near movie geeks, but kept talking about DD's theories and stuff.

Oh no! They cooked my 9's!

well, I suppose everyone's got their own criteria-- but I just don't see how mainstream success effects it all that much. if you're talking seminal geek films- the ones that are most revered, quoted, etc... I mean, the LOTR films had about as much mainstream success as a film could have, short of riding the immense popularity of Billy Zane to 1.8 billion worldwide. and yet no films since SW have had that kind of geek cred. it's just a matter of separating one from the other. besides, if your goal is more obscure non mainstream stuff (which I would describe as more film nerd than film geek) you would have to jettison the matrix... and there would have to be, for example, at the very least a wong kar wai film on the list.

as for lebowski, I suppose you could put fargo in its place, but honestly I think TBL is the more loved film by geeks (and I actually think it's better than fargo.)

Besides, when it comes to either "I don't roll on Shabbus!" or "I brought Arby's hun!", there's no contest. I love Bill Macy as much as the next guy, but Lebowski was hands down a better movie in my opinion.

Yes to Donnie Darko, Fight Club, Rushmore (although I'd also add Royal Tenebaums), Battle Royale and The Big Lebowski.

Also: Requiem for a Dream, and from what I saw at NYU, Evil Dead II's making a comeback.

I don't know if EVIL DEAD II ever really left. I think OLDBOY has a case, but out of those in the initial list, I think only BATTLE ROYALE, FIGHT CLUB and RUSHMORE are really still "up there," and maybe RUSHMORE has even been overtaken by THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS.

Hey! Nobody puts Evil Dead II in the corner!

Spielberg is too mainstream for geek status. Don't get me wrong; he's shaped modern filmmaking and popular culture in innumerable ways, and his early films, say Duel through E.T., are obviously a huge influence on people like the Andersons. But his approach is too conservative and straightforward for "geek" status. It's hard to imagine him tackling something as complex as LotR or as convoluted as Darko or Memento.

I think that's a fairly accurate list, possibly "The Matrix" excluded. And yes, the mainstream following of a film would affect this list because if there's one thing that defines a lot of internet film geeks, it's hating movies that everyone likes while praising the ones the mainstream either (preferably) hasn't heard of or doesn't understand/like. I don't really like this type of film geek, but you see them all over the place.

For my money I can't stand "Donnie Darko", and I like "Fight Club" because I think its a big joke at the expense of people laboring over it's "philosophy". "Rushmore" is great, but probably only considered "better" than "The Royal Tenebaums" to film geeks because its been seen by less people. "The Matrix" is wonderful, but should in all reality probably be replaced by "Reloaded" since its the underappreciated, more philosophical of the two. And I'm excluded from said definition because I haven't even seen "Battle Royale".

And when it comes to QT for film geeks, "Jackie Brown" is his best film.

Hence my aversion to a lot of "film geeks" who are opposed to anything remotely mainstream, even if its far superior on every level. Let's forget that Spielberg has directed some of the greatest films of all time in every conceivable genre. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is pretty out there IMO, "A.I." as well.

Also, you can't hold up LOTR, three of the highest grossing films of all time, complete with Burger King tie-ins, toys, and Academy Awards as some niche geek thing. And you certainly can't say its "un-Spielberg". "Donnie Darko"? Sure, but I can't remember when "convoluted" was ever a positive.

my bad, i like the movie also, but a movie sort of loses something for a while when ever douche is talking about it, like when everyone was saying "I'm Rick James bitch!"

maybe you should increase the list to a top ten, since leaving out The Big Lebowski is just wrong.

Reasons Why "The Big Lebowski" Doesn't Make the Pretentious Film Geek Love List:

1) It was made in America.

2) It features actors we have seen before like Sam Elliot and Jeff Bridges, who are of course not as cool as Jason Schwartzman and Jake Gyllenhaal.

3) It came out way back in 1998, and we know that all the really awesome cutting age cinema started in the "Great Year of 1999".

4) The Coens are sell outs because they made "Intolerable Cruelty", therefore negating their earlier work.

Also, it's not a hugely good film.

Hey! No-one puts The Big Lebowski in the corner either.

But Stew, please don't start on the pretentious film geek rant. The Big Lebowski lives only on a very particular sense of humour that some poeple simply don't respond to. It's a film that revels in it's pointlessness and that can rub people the wrong way. I've never heard those reasons you gave given as reasons to dislike the movie, and i've heard plenty of anti-lebowski ranting. Where on earth did you get them from?

Um, even a partially functioning sarcasm meter should have gone off while reading my post. I love "The Big Lebowski". Its one of my favorite comedies ever. This thread is about the tiny, obscure little list of films that the modern self-proclaimed film geeks seem to love. I don't consider myself in that category, nor 90% of the people on CHUD. But there's plenty of the annoying sort around, the ones same ones always ranting about sellouts, hating everything mainstream, and hyping either films no one else has ever seen as the best films ever.

I don't think the top 5 Bob listed would be anyone's on CHUD, but it is sort of close to the kneejerk, "cool" lists that a lot of posers might throw out there.

"The Big Lebowski" is great, but given such narrow guidelines, I don't expect the "Donnie Darko"/"Battle Royale" crowd to adore it quite like people on CHUD do. Hence my point, hence my silly reasoning for why it doesn't make the cut, hence the sarcasm you missed.

Oh. You have the right to call me a fucking idiot Stew.

I love the Big Lebowski too.

I still haven't heard anyone use those sorts of reasons though. I mean maybe a talkbacker would, but i'm pretty sure they don't really mean what they say - they just come up with any old crap just so they can shout and hate on something. I still think you are generalising about what a 'movie snob' is. You seem to be attacking a straw man.

But, hey, if you ever hear someone using those sorts of reasons, feel free to kick them.

Is it? As far as I can make out, it's just about the most popular films amongst general film geeks. Which I think most of CHUD, myself included, fit into.

stew your reasoning is overly simplistic and your generalizations probably aren't as accurate as you imagine. besides, lebowski contains all of the coen's requisite technical mastery, their brilliantly absurdist sensibility, as well as a send up of the plot of the big sleep. in short, it's plenty geeky enough for the film geek. what I don't get about people who don't like tbl is it's such an amiable film-- with so many great performances. unless, of course, you're just not a fan of the entire coen's oeuvre.

LOTR and Star Wars flicks would have to be on the list then.

If this is a list of films that geeks love, but that aren't huge mainstream hits then I second (or fifteenth as it were) Big Lebowski and Evil Dead II. Those two have to be on the list.

Of the Coen Bros. films, I would've expected Miller's Crossing to be getting more geek support. From what I've seen, it's at least as un-mainstream as Big Lebowski. Oh yeah and it's pretty damn good. It has great performances all around, and personally the thing I dig the most is the dialogue.

I have nothing to add here, aside from I still think that's probably the greatest SN I've ever seen.

I guess for me there's two types of film geek. Those that love lots of different stuff, and those that hate almost everything. I think CHUD, for the most part, has the first category. I think "Memento" is a masterpiece, I track down a healthy number of foreign films, and "Sideways" was my favorite movie of last year. But I also have undying love "The Rocketeer", think watching "Street Fighter" is a blast, and can't wait to see ROTS.

I like CHUD because people here like what they like, and with few exceptions, don't judge others to be film retarded because they like Dolph Lundgren flicks along with Merchant Ivory.

No question, that is a pretty accurate list of what has been most debated and celebrated within the general film geek community. But I wouldn't hold any of them up as a favorite, and I was sort of attempting to expand this topic by saying that even what the film geek contingent props up to worship, isn't always good.

Watching movies and being a film buff should be about a love of movies, and you can't let your taste be dictated by what is "cool" at the moment. That is the type of film geek I don't like.

And yes, my Lebowski list was meant to sound like an AICN talkbacker.

I love Spielberg, but only up to a point. After E.T., I don't think he was ever fully in control of his filmmaking instincts again. Almost all of his movies after 1982, with the possible exception of Schindler's List, suggest a filmmaker trying to second-guess what his audience wants or thinks, as opposed to a director willing to take risks.


I don't think LotR has been a "niche geek thing" since the '50s, when only a handful of people knew about it (read Peter S. Beagle's essay "Tolkien's Magic Ring" to get an idea of how truly obscure it was). But I can't imagine Spielberg ever wanting to adapt Tolkien; he prefers more intimate stories, with smaller casts of characters. Also, he'd probably insert more overt and unnecessary father-son relationships between, say, Frodo and Gandalf or Gandalf and Aragorn. I also get the feeling he might try to dilute the fantasy atmosphere by introducing inappropriate references to other movies or goofy action sequences (think of the car factory chase in the otherwise sober Minority Report). I think that Lucas and Spielberg relate on an emotional level to science fiction and fantasy, but not on an intellectual level. I could never see either filmmaker do a faithful or even particularly good adaptation of something like Dune or Neuromancer. In interviews Jackson, Walsh, and Boyens always made it clear that they understood that if Middle Earth wasn't fully realized and believable as a "secondary world," the movies would fail utterly and completely for everybody, not just for hardcore Tolkienistas.

In a lot of ways, Jackson's LotR is a big end-run around the Lucas/Spielberg aesthetic. Jackson isn't evoking either filmmaker so much as their major influences, like David Lean or Kurosawa. (Just as Howard Shore's score sounds more like John Barry or Elmer Bernstein, as opposed to post-'77 John Williams.) I'm not suggesting that Jackson doesn't admire Lucas or Spielberg, just that he had to seek inspiration in larger cinematic canvasses than Star Wars or Close Encounters.

Home video played a larger role long before the Internet did. And I don't know that "destroyed" is the appropriate word. "Changed" is more like it.

Saints' following is probably about as phony as Troy Duffy's street rep.

I read all three Cult Movies books obsessively as a teenager, and was always sad that Peary never got around to writing more installments. But I'm not even sure if those movie titles could ever be considered "cult" in the sense of, say Repo Man or Forbidden Zone. The list looks more like the kinds of movies college students would book for their film societies back in the '60s and '70s.

That's an interesting point. And is that a good or a bad thing?

I mean, on one hand, I think more good movies are getting seen by more people. I hear about movies and see them discussed online, and I hunt them down. Thus the "cult" gets bigger until its not really a cult. DVD makes it so you can get pretty much any title you want at Best Buy. I mean, I guess there's enjoyment to be found in being one of a few people who has seen and appreciates a movie, but if its of good quality, shouldn't more people get a chance to see it?

I don't really think any of the first 5 films you listed could qualify as a cult film.

Oh, and if you don't realize and acknowledge the following "Boondock Saints" has then you're either crazy or have just stuck your head in the sand. Everyone under the age of 25 has seen that movie. People that don't care about movies have seen the movie. It's like the cult classic of people with no taste, and I think its ridiculous, but there is definitely a following.

Some good choices above. How about the following:

- Bottle Rocket
- Sling Blade
- Swingers
- American Psycho
- Raising Arizona
- Big Trouble in Little China

I don't think Troy Duffy has the backing to do a sequel, does he ? There's a strong rumour that all the guff about All Saints Day comes from no one but the Overnight star's camp (of one). Overnight, now there's a cult picture in the making. Essential viewing, by the by.

I think maybe The Matrix and Memento are also in the cross over camp with Pulp Fiction. Fight Club is name checked at every single mention of a new, visceral "man's" picture (cf: Oldboy) so that's obviously a hot button picture for even the casual movie enthusiast.

Rushmore perhaps.

My offerings (totally incidentally only one of which would make this geek's personal Top 50):

Blade Runner: The Director's Cut
Dawn Of The Dead
Akira (or Ghost In The Shell depending on level of posturing)
The Princess Bride
Say Anything

Reserve Team:

Heathers
Grosse Point Blank
Almost Famous
Suspiria
The MST3K-ing of Star Wars Holiday Special

Yeah, it is the better picture. But I see the point.

The ironic thing being, stereotypical geeks are rarely the most potent or knowledgable cineastes. Which kind of bears ot why I'd include it, and why Bob's list is still very correct.

I guess I feel "geeks" deliniate themselves by straddling specific - importantly niche - genres as well as championing bone fide "niche" cult films like Lebowski or Rushmore. Hence horror and sci fi become huge cornerstones of identity.

And the very dividing up one's favourites and placing prime genre picks is part of that obssessive listing as well. So you'll get a comedy, sci fi, "serious piece of cinema", horror and relative oldie on most geek's "Top 5 Films That Define You", in an attempt to cover all bases, prove their love of the obscure and maintain cred/points amongst like philes.

So I guess I'd say a Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Suspiria, Re-Animator and Dawn Of The Dead are tentpole geek pictures in that respect. Vital in the construction of that kind of persona.*


* I'd probably including myself (at one time and maybe still though I've certainly evolved in the last ten years) in this bracket in the interests of full disclosure.

Twitch Of The Death Nerve even more so (even those who might not have seen it).

And perhaps Bride Of Frankstein as a real throwback.

There's a whole worrying "Ex" subgenre that would have that, Erotic Nights Of The Living Dead, August Underground, Sweet Movie and Salo (again, regardless of whether they've seen PPP's picture, merely that they've heard is has cool deaths) as de riguer I'm sure.

But since they're 15 and about on par with someone ranking bad taste comedies, it's probably nothing to get concerned over.

I meant that in that particular subgenre - which exists to egg on the most graphic things imaginable as some kind of shallow thrill - those pictures get sadly caught up. The two you mention are far more interesting and layered than August Underground certainly.

In A Glass Cage isn't particularly graphic, or "faux"-shocking, merely troubling in its subject matter, so it's probably, like Salo and ISOYG, the better of those kinds of pictures.