Showing posts with label Dr. Strangelove. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dr. Strangelove. Show all posts

Thursday, May 25, 2023

Comedies: Top 25

image from Airplane

Top 25 Comedies

20 lists (resources listed at bottom of page) were aggregated to create this list of the top 25 comedy films of all time.


1. Airplane! (1980)
2. Some Like It Hot (1959)
3. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
4. Duck Soup (1933)
5. Blazing Saddles (1974)

6. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
7. Young Frankenstein (1974)
8. This is Spinal Top (1984)
9. Ghostbusters (1984)
10. Groundhog Day (1993)

11. Annie Hall (1977)
12. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
13. Raising Arizona (1987)
14. National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)
15. The Jerk (1979)

16. The Producers (1967)
17. The Big Lebowski (1998)
18. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
19. Office Space (1999)
20. It Happened One Night (1934)

21. The General (1927)
22. Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)
23. Caddyshack (1980)
24. His Girl Friday (1940)
25. The Princess Bride (1987)


Resources:


Originally posted 8/30/2019; last updated 5/25/2023.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Dr. Strangelove released 50 years ago today

Dr. Strangelove

or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb


Released: January 29, 1964


Studio: Columbia


Genre: black comedy


Box Office (numbers in millions)

Domestic: 9.44 Worldwide: ?


Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 88.00 Worldwide: ?

Directing: Stanley Kubrick


Screenwriting: Peter George, Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern


Starring: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens



Review:

“Perhaps Kubrick’s most perfectly realized film,” T95 Dr. Strangelove is a “classic, cynical Cold War, satirical black comedy.” FS The “sparkling script” T95 by Terry Southern was based on Red Alert, a novel by Peter George. “Blasted and praised when it was released,” TV the movie “remains unchallenged as cinema’s most devastating attack on the military mind.” TV It is “far more effective in its portrait of insanity and call for disarmament than any number of worthy anti-nuke documentaries.” T95

The “scathing humor” FS “is hyperbolic but dead-on accurate about the various species of crazed extremists who handled the Bomb.” ML The movie “contains some of the funniest scenes ever filmed,” VD including “the memorable bucking bronco image of Major Kong (Pickens) riding the fatal bomb,” FS “Sellers’ phone conversation with Soviet premier is classic,” LM and lines like, “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room.” A07

There are “timeless performances” FS helmed by a “brilliant cast…headed by an inspired Peter Sellers playing three roles – the eggheaded U.S. president, a stiff-upper-lip RAF captain and the wheelchair-bound,” TV “twisted, black-gloved German rocket scientist, Dr. Strangelove.” FS Sterling Hayden is “a crazed, psychotic US general Jack D. Ripper [who]…sparks a nuclear crisis with a pre-emptive strike against ‘the Commies’” FS and George C. Scott is “gung ho military brass Gen. Buck Turgidson.” FS

The movie “nearly ended in a pie fight between the Americans and the Russians. That's why there’s a massive food table in The War Room. But…Kubrick felt it ‘too farcical,’ detracting from the satire. The pie scene found its way to a screening at London’s National Film Theatre in 1999. MSN


Sources:

Awards/Honors/Lists:


Dave’s Movie Database Lists:


Dave’s Movie Database Genre Lists:


Awards:


Oscars:

Wins: 0

Nominations: 4 – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Sellers), Best Adapted Screenplay


Other Lists/Honors:


Critics’ Picks:


First posted 8/15/2019; last updated 6/5/2023.

Thursday, January 1, 1970

Top Movies of the 1960s

This page offers lists of the top movies of the decade as determined by two different metrics. The first list is based on box office and the second is based on critics’ picks.

Box Office:

Top 25 of the 1960s

These are the top 25 movies of the decade as determined by worldwide box office gross adjusted for inflation. The first number indicates dollars made in millions. See sources for box office figures here.

1) The Sound of Music (1965)
2) Doctor Zhivago (1965)
3) 101 Dalmatians (1961)
4) The Jungle Book (1967)
5) Mary Poppins (1964)

6) The Graduate (1967)
7) Thunderball (1965)
8) Goldfinger (1964)
9) Cleopatra (1963)
10) How the West Was Won (1962)

11) West Side Story (1961)
12) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
13) The Guns of Navarone (1961)
14) You Only Live Twice (1967)
15) From Russia with Love (1963)

16) My Fair Lady (1964)
17) Dr. No (1962)
18) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
19) The Dirty Dozen (1967)
20) Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

21) It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
22) Swiss Family Robinson (1960)
23) Tom Jones (1963)
24) Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
25) Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

Critics’ Picks:

Top 25 of the 1960s

These are the top 25 movies of the decade as determined by a combination of the movies’ ratings points and awards points.

1) Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
2) West Side Story (1961)
3) The Sound of Music (1965)
4) Psycho (1960)
5) The Apartment (1960)

6) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
7) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
8) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
9) The Graduate (1967)
10) To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

11) My Fair Lady (1964)
12) Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
13) The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
14) Midnight Cowboy (1969)
15) A Man for All Seasons (1966)

16) Mary Poppins (1964)
17) Doctor Zhivago (1965)
18) In the Heat of the Night (1967)
19) The Hustler (1961)
20) The Wild Bunch (1969)

21) 8 ½ (Otto e Mezzo) (1963)
22) Tom Jones (1963)
23) The Sweet Life (La Dolce Vita) (1960)
24) Once Upon a Time in the West (C’era Una Volta il West) (1968)
25) Persona (aka “Masks”) (1966)

Resources:


Originally posted 3/8/2025.