[SCLlama]

Just wondering what your top epic films are, and which ones you keep going back to, over and over? Here's mine in no particular order...


-Gladiator

-Star Wars

-Last Samurai

-Lord of the Rings

-The Patriot

-Braveheart

-Lawrence of Arabia


It seems like i could take any one of these out at any time and watch them no matter how many times i have in the past. How about you?


-Ryan

 

[Sergei Esenin]

 Doctor Zhivago is definitely a favorite epic.


To quote Clarence in True Romance (who was using it as code for drugs, but let's ignore that): "...I want to open 'Doctor Zhivago' in L.A. And I want you to distribute it... The biggest. The biggest movie you've ever dealt with, Lee. We're talkin' a lot of film. A man'd have ta be an idiot not to be a little cautious about a movie like that. And Lee, you're no idiot... Every time you buy one of those little movies it's a risk. I'm not sellin' you something that's gonna play two weeks, six weeks, then go straight to cable. This is 'Doctor Zhivago'. This'll be packin' 'em in for a year and a half. Two years! That's two years you don't have to work with anybody's movie but mine."


A few other favorite epics:

Dune
Empire of the Sun
Seven Samurai
Barry Lyndon
The Searchers


Of course, what makes a film "an epic" is somewhat open to interpretation... Here's a question for you: what are *your* criteria for making a film, an epic? Just the scope of the story? Heroics? Themes? Tone? Universality of characters?

 

[Frank_KRS]

The Godfather..

 

[ckolchak]

in addition to what has already been mentioned, i still regularly enjoy

The Sand Pebbles

Bridge On The River Kwai

Spartacus

Gone With The Wind

The Great Escape

The Towering Inferno

The Ten Commandments

 

[Frank J Manrique]

You want Epics named? Well, try these for size...


Ben-Hur (1959)

The Ten Commandments

The Robe

Spartacus

Around the World in 80 Days

Bridge Over The River Kwai

The Guns Of Navarone

El Cid

Lawrence of Arabia

Khartoum

The Fall of the Roman Empire

The Wind and the Lion

55 Days at Peking

King of Kings

2001: An Space Odyssey

Patton

Braveheart

The Passion of the Christ

Dances with Wolves

Wyatt Earp

The Searchers

The Mutiny on the Bounty (Marlon Brando version)

Tombstone

Jaws

Star Wars trilogy

Alien

Dirty Harry

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

How the West was Won

Oklahoma!

West Side Story

The Sound of Music

The Godfather trilogy

Apocalypse Now

The Adventures of Robin Hood

Who Shot Liberty Valance

The Alamo (John Wayne's version)

The Shootist...and

Once Upon in the West......just to name a few...


-THTS

 

[ckolchak]

Quote:

Originally posted by Sergei Esenin Of course, what makes a film "an epic" is somewhat open to interpretation... Here's a question for you: what are *your* criteria for making a film, an epic? Just the scope of the story? Heroics? Themes? Tone? Universality of characters?

for me

Tone, definitely.

although that is not always a good barometer.

Michael Bay, and some of his other hack counterparts, generally seem to try to pump up every little moment or bit of business into importing some grandiose vibe and in the case of Bay, it actually makes his movies feel smaller to me.


a large cast also helps, with attention paid to supporting characters and that plays into the concept of scope where you have situation(s) that don't just affect a group of characters all in the same way, but allow for contrast and nuances.


a sense of time passage or vast location change also helps, but many Bond films showcase the latter while not coming across as particularly epic to me, so it is also a lot more than that

 

[Dean Roddey]

I'd probably have these on my list. To me, epic means great scope of time or space or both and/or social or political movements of great import.


1. Lord of the Rings

2. The Joy Luck Club

3. Farewell, My Concubine

4. The Red Violin

5. The Godfather

6. Apocalypse Now

7. Platoon

8. Ghandi

9. Contact


Maybe even something like JFK or Nixon, which whatever you think of their veracity are pretty epic flicks.


I'm sure that some others are slipping my mind, and I don't mean that others mentioned above (e.g. Ben Hur) aren't epics, it's just that these are the ones that I like the most.

 

[ChrisMcCarthy]

Add Last of the Mohicans to above.


Chris.

 

[Art Sonneborn]

Ben Hur

The Great Escape

The Bridge on the River Kwai

The Ten Commandments

Jason and the Argonauts

 

[KOA]

Heavens Gate and The Blues Brothers

 

[parmenides]

Conan the Barbarian

Mad Max/The Road Warrior/Beyond Thunderdome

Band of Brothers

LoTR trilogy