Henry Sturman

Films

A film is a great surrogate for life. Everything you miss in regular life becomes part of your experience through film. Movies create an ideal image of real life. All people are beautiful, love is total, perfect and completely loyal. The action is heroic. Everything people say is interesting. All boring moments have been removed. A film is good if you are no longer aware of sitting in a chair watching a movie.

These are my 10 favorite films:

Title Director Actors Comment

1.Titanic (1997) James Cameron Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet This movie is everything that a film can and should be. Interesting subject. Drama. Life and death romance. Beautiful historical perspective. Action which feels like you are there yourself. Tremendous beauty of Titanic. At the time it was made this was the most expensive film of all time. And it doesn't show in the form of blunt spectacle. But it did result in perfect images. This film was made with such expertise that you can feel the overwhelming machines of Titanic while sitting in your chair.

2.The English Patient (1996) Anthony Minghella Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe For me the most emotionally overwhelming film ever made. Overdramatized? Of course - that's what great movies are all about.

3.Once Upon a Time in the West (1969) Sergio Leone Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards Great story. Beautifully slow and still every second is interesting. Beautifully cut, beautiful music, beautiful dialog. Best western ever made.

4.Brazil (1985) Terry Gilliam Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Michael Palin, Kim Greist Terry Gilliam's master work. Similar theme as 1984, but good and funny. Tremendously powerful image of a society ruled by bureaucracy.

5.Blade Runner (1982) Ridley Scott Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young It rains throughout the film. The film is expertly made in a very intriguing style. The movie is about man-made-machines who acquire emotions. Philosophically challenging.

6.Total Recall (1990) Paul Verhoeven Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone Universal human struggle for freedom in the setting of planet Mars. Contains high quality action, humor, dialogue and originality.

7.Doctor Zhivago (1965) David Lean Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Alec Guinness, Klaus Kinski Beautifully gripping drama with excellent critical view of communism.

8.De Jurk (1996) Alex van Warmerdam Alex van Warmerdam, Annet Malherbe, Olga Zuiderhoek, Henri Garcin How can you describe a film like this? Such a film can only be made in Holland. Strong refreshing style. Very funny and professional.

9.Basic Instinct (1992) Paul Verhoeven Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, Jeanne Tripplehorn This is real high quality suspense. Already the classic thriller. Sharon Stone is very special (and desirable!) here in her best role ever.

10.Life of Brian (1979) Terry Jones Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin A beautiful, funny, original defense of freedom and individuality. A strong parody of Christianity in a historical perspective.

160 other very good films:

06/05 (with Tara Elders, Thijs Römer, Cahit Ölmez and Jack Wouterse)
Alien movies (with Sigourney Weaver)
Absolute Power (with Clint Eastwood)
Abel (with Alex van Warmerdam)
A Fish Called Wanda (with John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin)
After Hours (with Griffin Dunne and Rosanna Arquette)
Amadeus (with Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge and F. Murray Abraham)
American Beauty (with Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening)
A Perfect Murder (with Michael Douglas)
Apollo 13 (with Tom Hanks, Ed Harris and Kevin Bacon)
Arlington Road (with Jeff Bridges, Joan Cusack and Tim Robbins)
As Good as It Gets (with Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt)
A Simple Plan (with Bill Paxton, Bridget Fonda and Billy Bob Thornton)
Apocalypse now (with Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando)
At Play in the Fields of the Lord (with Tom Berenger, John Lithgow, Daryl Hannah and Kathy Bates)
Black Hawk Down (with Josh Hartnett, Eric Bana, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore and Sam Shepard)
Blast from the Past (with Brendan Fraser, Alicia Silverstone, Christopher Walken and Sissy Spacek)
Blow Out (with John Travolta, Nancy Allen, Dennis Franz, Deborah Everton and John Lithgow)
Body Double (with Melanie Griffith and Craig Wasson)
Born on the fourth of July (with Tom Cruise)
Braveheart (with Mel Gibson)
Breaking Point (with Corbin Bernsen and Joanna Pacula)
Carlito's Way (with Al Pacino, Sean Penn and Penelope Ann Miller)
Casablanca (with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman)
Catch Me If You Can (with Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks and Christopher Walken)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (with Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman)
Chinatown (with Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, Roman Polanski, Diane Ladd and John Huston)
Citizen Kane (with Orson Welles)
Cliffhanger (with Sylvester Stallone, Michael Rooker and John Lithgow)
Cold Mountain (with Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger, Donald Sutherland and Ray Winstone)
Contact (with Jodie Foster, Jena Malone, Geoffrey Blake, Matthew McConaughey, David Morse and John Hurt)
Dangerous Liaisons (with John Malkovich, Glenn Close and Michelle Pfeiffer)
Dances with Wolves (with Kevin Costner and Graham Greene)
Das Boot (with Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer and Klaus Wennemann)
Deliverance (with Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox)
De lift (with Huub Stapel, Willeke van Ammelrooy, Josine van Dalsum and Piet Römer)
Die Hard (with Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman and Bonnie Bedelia)
Dirty Dancing (with Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey)
Dirty Harry movies (with Clint Eastwood)
Dr. Strangelove (with Peter Sellers)
Elizabeth (with Cate Blanchett)
Enemy of the State (with Gene Hackman and Will Smith)
Enigma (with Dougray Scott, Saffron Burrows, Kate Winslet and Jeremy Northam)
Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind (with Jim Carrey en Kate Winslet)
Eyes Wide Shut (with Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Sydney Pollack)
Fargo (with Frances McDormen and William H. Macy)
Fatal Attraction (with Michael Douglas, Glenn Close and Anne Archer)
Flying High (Also known as Airplane! with Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen and Lloyd Bridges)
Four Weddings and a Funeral (with Andie MacDowell and Hugh Grant)
Freejack (with Emilio Estevez, Rene Russo, Mick Jagger and Anthony Hopkins)
Full Metal Jacket (with Matthew Modine, Vincent D'Onofrio and R. Lee Ermey)
Gladiator (with Russell Crowe, Richard Harris, Joaquin Phoenix and Oliver Reed)
Gaslight (with Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer and Angela Lansbury)
Gattaca (with Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Jude Law and Gore Vidal)
Gone with the Wind (with Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh)
Groundhog Day (with Bill Murray)
Harrison Bergeron (with Sean Astin, Mirena DePencier and Christopher Plummer)
History of the World: Part I (with Mel Brooks, Madeline Kahn, Gregory Hines and Dom DeLuise)
House of Games (with Lindsay Crouse and Joe Mantegna)
Jackie Brown (with Pam Grier, Robert Forster, Samuel L. Jackson and Robert De Niro)
Joe Versus the Volcano (with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan)
Karakter (with Fedja van Huet, Tamar van den Dop and Jan Decleir)
Kleine Teun (with Alex van Warmerdam and Annet Malherbe)
LA Confidential (with Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger and Danny DeVito)
Léon (with Jean Reno and Natalie Portman)
Lolita (with James Mason, Sue Lyon and Peter Sellers)
Magnolia (with Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Melora Walters, Philip Baker Hall, Pat Healy and Jason Robards)
Marie Antoinette (with Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman)*
Master and Commander (with Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany)
Memento (with Guy Pearce, Joe Pantoliano and Carrie-Anne Moss)
Memoirs of an Invisible Man (with Chevy Chase, Daryl Hannah and Sam Neill)
Midnight Express (with Brad Davis and Irene Miracle)
Minority Report (with Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton and Max von Sydow)
Moon over Parador (with Richard Dreyfuss and Raul Julia)
Moonstruck (with Cher, Nicolas Cage and Olympia Dukakis)
Mutiny on the Bounty (with Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard)
Noi Vivi / Addio, Kira (with Alida Valli, Rossano Brazzi and Fosco Giachetti)
Notting Hill (with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant)
Once Upon a Time in America (with Robert De Niro and James Wood)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (with Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd)
Out of Africa (with Meryl Streep, Robert Redford and Klaus Maria Brandauer)
Panic Room (with Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart)
Papillon (with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman)
Paris, Texas (with Nastassja Kinski and Harry Dean Stanton)
Pearl Harbor (with Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, Jon Voight and Alec Baldwin)
Pink Panther movies (with Peter Sellers)
Platoon (with Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe and Johnny Depp)
Primal Fear (with Edward Norton, Richard Gere and Frances McDormand)
Primary Colors (with John Travolta, Emma Thompson, Kathy Bates and Larry Hagman)
Proof of Life (with Meg Ryan, Russell Crowe and David Morse)
Psycho (with Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, Martin Balsam and Janet Leigh)
Pulp Fiction (with John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman and Harvey Keitel)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (with Harrison Ford and Karen Allen)
Reservoir Dogs (with Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel, Quentin Tarantino and Chris Penn)
Ripley's Game (with John Malkovich, Dougray Scott, Ray Winstone, Lena Headey and Chiara Caselli)
Rounders (with Matt Damon, Edward Norton, Gretchen Mol and Famke Janssen)
Ruthless People (with Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater)
Sense and Sensibility (with Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant)
Shakespeare in Love (with Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow and Geoffrey Rush)
Signs (with Mel Gibson and M. Night Shyamalan)
Sleuth (with Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier)
Sniper (with Tom Berenger and Billy Zane)
Soldaat van Oranje (with Rutger Hauer, Belinda Meuldijk and Jeroen Krabbé)
Spaceballs (with Mel Brooks, John Candy, Daphne Zuniga and Rick Moranis)
Spartacus (with Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons and Peter Ustinov)
Star Wars films
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton)
The 6th day (with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tony Goldwyn and Robert Duvall)
The Bedroom Window (with Steve Guttenberg, Elizabeth McGovern and Isabelle Huppert)
The Bonfire of the Vanities (with Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Kim Cattrall and Morgan Freeman)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (with Alec Guinness, William Holden, Jack Hawkins and Sessue Hayakawa)
The Client (with Susan Sarandon, Brad Renfro and Tommy Lee Jones)
The Crying Game (with Forest Whitaker, Miranda Richardson and Stephen Rea)
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (with Woody Allen and Helen Hunt)
The Deer Hunter (with Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep)
The Edge (with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin)
The Eiger Sanction (with Clint Eastwood, George Kennedy, Vonetta McGee and Jack Cassidy)
The Firm (with Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Gene Hackman)
The Fountainhead (with Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal and Raymond Massey)
The Fugitive (met Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones en Jeroen Krabbé)
The Game (with Michael Douglas)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (with Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef)
The Interpreter (with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn)
The Last of the Mohicans (with Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe and Russell Means)
The Last Samurai (with Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe)
The Longest Day (with John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Richard Burton, Rod Steiger, Sean Connery, Robert Wagner and Robert Ryan)
The Lost City (with Andy Garcia, Inés Sastre, Nestor Carbonell, Enrique Murciano, Jsu Garcia, Gonzalo Menendez, Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray)*
The Man Who Knew Too Little (with Bill Murray)
The Naked Gun films (with Leslie Nielsen)
The Matrix (with Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss and Laurence Fishburne)
The Pelican Brief (with Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington)
The Philadelphia Experiment (with Michael Paré, Nancy Allen and Eric Christmas)
The Quick and the Dead (with Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe)
The River Wild (with Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon)
The Sentinel (with Kiefer Sutherland, Michael Douglas and Kim Basinger)*
The Shining (with Jack Nicholson)
The Talented Mr. Ripley (with Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Cate Blanchett)
The Terminator (with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton)
The Thing (with Kurt Russell)
The Thomas Crown Affair (with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo)
The Truman Show (with Jim Carrey)
The Usual Suspects (with Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri and Pete Postlethwaite)
The Year of Living Dangerously (with Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver)
The Wicker Man (with Nicolas Cage and Kate Beahan)*
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (with Cillian Murphy, Padraic Delaney and Orla Fitzgerald)*
The 6th Sense (with Bruce Willis)
Three Days of the Condor (with Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway and Max von Sydow)
To Forget Palermo (with James Belushi, Mimi Rogers and Philippe Noiret)
True Romance (with Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken and Samuel L. Jackson)
Turks Fruit (with Rutger Hauer and Monique van de Ven)
Twelve Monkeys (with Bruce Willis and Madeleine Stowe)
Vanilla Sky (with Tom Cruise, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz and Kurt Russell)
Vertical Limit (with Chris O'Donnell, Robin Tunney and Scott Glenn)
V for Vendetta (with Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry and John Hurt)
Wall Street (with Charlie Sheen, Michael Douglas, Martin Sheen, Sean Young and Daryl Hannah)
What Planet Are You From? (with Garry Shandling, Annette Bening and John Goodman)
Witness (with Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis)
Zero Effect (with Bill Pullman, Ben Stiller and Kim Dickens)
Zwartboek (with Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Halina Reijn, Thom Hoffman, Derek de Lint, Waldemar Kobus and Dolf de Vries)*

* These are six films which I saw in a row in the cinema (during 4 days in 2006) and all six were very good films.

Films which I haven't seen yet, but plan to:

Return to Paradise
The Mouse That Roared
The Prisoner of Zenda (1979, with Peter Sellers)
1900 (Novecento)
Rear Window (with Grace Kelly)
Notorious (with Ingrid Bergman)
More Hitchcock films
The Thirteenth Floor
Lolita (1997)
Syriana
Hamlet (with Mel Gibson)
Night of January 16th
Scipio Africanus: The Defeat of Hannibal (1939)
Various Woody Allen films (e.g. Take the Money and Run)
Cold Lazarus
A History of Violence (2005)
An Ungentlemanly Act
Waking Life
Two for the Money
Casino Royale (with Peter Sellers)
Hard Candy
Death Proof
Things To Come

If I forgot a film, or if I mistakenly think a film is good which isn't, then please email me.

Home

Title	Director	Actors	Comment
1.Titanic (1997)	James Cameron	Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet	This movie is everything that a film can and should be. Interesting subject. Drama. Life and death romance. Beautiful historical perspective. Action which feels like you are there yourself. Tremendous beauty of Titanic. At the time it was made this was the most expensive film of all time. And it doesn't show in the form of blunt spectacle. But it did result in perfect images. This film was made with such expertise that you can feel the overwhelming machines of Titanic while sitting in your chair.
2.The English Patient (1996)	Anthony Minghella	Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe	For me the most emotionally overwhelming film ever made. Overdramatized? Of course - that's what great movies are all about.
3.Once Upon a Time in the West (1969)	Sergio Leone	Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards	Great story. Beautifully slow and still every second is interesting. Beautifully cut, beautiful music, beautiful dialog. Best western ever made.
4.Brazil (1985)	Terry Gilliam	Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Michael Palin, Kim Greist	Terry Gilliam's master work. Similar theme as 1984, but good and funny. Tremendously powerful image of a society ruled by bureaucracy.
5.Blade Runner (1982)	Ridley Scott	Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young	It rains throughout the film. The film is expertly made in a very intriguing style. The movie is about man-made-machines who acquire emotions. Philosophically challenging.
6.Total Recall (1990)	Paul Verhoeven	Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone	Universal human struggle for freedom in the setting of planet Mars. Contains high quality action, humor, dialogue and originality.
7.Doctor Zhivago (1965)	David Lean	Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Alec Guinness, Klaus Kinski	Beautifully gripping drama with excellent critical view of communism.
8.De Jurk (1996)	Alex van Warmerdam	Alex van Warmerdam, Annet Malherbe, Olga Zuiderhoek, Henri Garcin	How can you describe a film like this? Such a film can only be made in Holland. Strong refreshing style. Very funny and professional.
9.Basic Instinct (1992)	Paul Verhoeven	Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, Jeanne Tripplehorn	This is real high quality suspense. Already the classic thriller. Sharon Stone is very special (and desirable!) here in her best role ever.
10.Life of Brian (1979)	Terry Jones	Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin	A beautiful, funny, original defense of freedom and individuality. A strong parody of Christianity in a historical perspective.