My Top 300 :: 71-75

71. Into the Wild 

One of the most inspiring, heartbreaking and beautiful movies I have ever seen. It speaks to my gypsy soul, my wandering side, and the part of me that keeps thinking there is so much of life I want to experience. Packed with amazing performances and breathtaking views, and so much emotion – an amazing film.

Chris and Tracy

Guaranteed :: Eddie Vedder

Ride :: Eddie Vedder

72. The Runaways

When I was a teenage girl I had a fleeting wish to be in an all-girl rock band, something like a cross-between the Runaways and the Bangles, with a little bit of the Go-Go’s early punk-pop thrown in for good measure. There are days when I still long to go town-to-town, crossing state line after state line, in a tour bus with a bunch of amazing female musicians, playing in bars and small venues, living an on-the-road life where the music never really ends. This movie touches and feels like those teenage dreams, and sometimes adult fantasies.

Joan meets Cherie

Dead End Justice :: Kristen Stewart & Dakota Fanning

Cherry Bomb :: Kristen Stewart & Dakota Fanning

73. A Place in the Sun

More than a thriller, miles away from a love story, and not exactly a murder mystery, but the movie has aspects of all of those genres, and more. Elizabeth Taylor is breathtaking and Montgomery Clift is heartbreaking. There is something about this movie that is affixed to my movie-loving soul forever, and in some weird way, it is almost a “comfort movie” to me.

“Do I make you nervous?”

The Soundtrack Suite from A Place in the Sun :: Franz Waxman

74. Psycho

I remember hearing about the movie Psycho years before ever seeing it, due solely because my Mother swore it was the scariest movie she had ever seen. For me, it is not the scariest horror movie I have seen, but it is one of my favorites, more for the emotions, the complexities and the film-making/acting than the actual “scare-factor”. I have always had a soft spot for Norman.

“We all go a little mad sometimes.”

Psycho Soundtrack :: Bernard Herrmann

75. Chinatown

I have a significant soft spot for movies about Los Angeles, as well as a piqued interest in early Hollywood/Los Angeles mob and police corruption. This is an era of Los Angeles that I would love to visit, if only for a weekend (not necessarily in the midst of corruption, but a visit to the era). This is storytelling at its finest, and damn, Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway are fantastic in this.

Evelyn’s Last Stand

Chinatown Soundtrack :: Jerry Goldsmith