Murray's Twelve Greatest Movies - Part Three (1990-present)

Originally posted on Facebook - July 4, 2009

I have seen 46 movies that I have rated 10/10. Here are what I consider the 12 greatest - not of all time, but of those that I've seen. I'm presenting them in order of production.

9. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
This movie is ranked #1 in the IMDb.com user ratings poll. I’m one of over 255,000 people who rated it 10/10. Bottom line: if you haven’t seen it, do it today. Andy Dufresne is the only innocent man in Shawshank Prison, struggling to survive amid the abuse and injustice of institutional life. Gradually, over the span of twenty years from 1947 to the late '60s, he brings the other inmates the gift of hope, while transforming the relationship between the guards and the prisoners. The source of his hope is a secret he keeps from everyone - including the audience - and when the entire truth unfolds it’s both delightful and inspiring. The narrator character, Red, played by Morgan Freeman, delivers some of the most powerful lines in film history, including his description of Andy’s time in Shawshank: “Andy Dufresne - the man who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.”

10. Atanarjuat, aka The Fast Runner (2001)
The first film ever in full Inuktitut, Atanarjuat is based on a traditional Inuit story. The chief screenwriter, the director, and the entire cast are Inuit people. It is unprecedented, and breathtaking, as the landscape and worldview of the north are brought to life on screen. The story is compelling, the characters are rich and well-formed, the performances are excellent, and the cinematography is breathtaking. I’m astonished it wasn’t nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, but it raked in the festival awards and Genies.

11. Ying xiong, aka Hero (2002)
What happens when the greatest dramatic director in Chinese cinema joins forces with the most powerful dramatic and action stars from China and Hong Kong to create an epic action movie about the birth of the nation - and hires China’s greatest kung fu film director to oversee the action scenes? The result is one of the most beautiful, elegant, powerful, and compelling films in recent memory. The Chinese title is ambiguous - it could be “Hero”, or it might be “Heroes”. They had to make a choice when translating it into English. The theme is a meditation on heroism and the responsiblity of leadership as one man (Jet Li as Nameless) guides a would-be Emperor through a moral exercise, influencing him and evaluating him, and finally deciding whether the tyrant will be allowed to live, or die at his hand. This one was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

12. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
A unique narrative concept - an uneducated boy named Jamal explains to police how he knew the answers to a million-dollar quiz show, one at a time - lies beneath one of the grandest and most touching movies in cinema history. In the process of his explanations, we follow him on the journey of his life, from a happy but deprived childhood in the slums of Bombay, to a corrupt orphanage camp run by a Fagin-like charismatic father figure, to the constant flow of tourists at the Taj Mahal, and back to Bombay, now Mumbai, one of the fastest growing cities in the world. The only constants in Jamal’s life are the girl, Latika, whom he loses and then finds several times throughout the tale, and his brother Salim who early on takes a harsh path. How these paths unfold in the wake of Jamal’s appearance on the TV quiz show pulls us toward the conclusion, which is both redemptive and joyful, in accordance with the best traditions of Indian cinema.