Originals

[Continued] Page 2

28. Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001)

Here.  I’m gonna say it..  Fellowship is the best Lord of the Rings film.  Two Towers and Return of the King may have all of the crazy huge battle sequences, but by playing out on a smaller (although still huge) scale, Fellowship is more affecting.  Like, when Gandalf falls in the Mines of Moria, we feel it.  When Boromir has his big moment at the battle by the river, it’s totally earned, and it affects every single character in the film.  The story in Fellowship is smaller, but more streamlined, and as a result the big moments just feel bigger, because they aren’t surrounded by other huge moments.

27. Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton, 2003)

This chunk of the list has a lot of Pixar films on it, because as I mentioned before, they are quite simply some of the best storytellers in Hollywood.  Finding Nemo is an underwater adventure built around a father’s deep love and concern for his son, which means that even though it’s a film about talking fish, it is utterly grounded in reality.  It also doesn’t hurt that it’s really, really funny, due in large part to Ellen DeGeneres’s great work as Dory, the memory-impaired fish.  Finding Nemo hits perfect beat after perfect beat, exploring the craziness of the ocean floor in a way that no one ever has.

Tags: Top 100, Movies