To understand me: Get together with some friends and watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Mission, Emma, and Apocalypse Now on the same night. You pick the order. Throw in Lawrence of Arabia, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Aliens, Schindler's List, Return of the Jedi, Explorers and Big if you have the time. Remember, on the same night.

Getting to know Los Angeles: Falling Down, followed by Swingers, L.A. Confidential, Bladerunner, Magnolia, Chinatown, Colors, and American History X,

Tom Hanks and/or Meg Ryan: Awesome duo; see them both in Joe Versus the Volcano, Sleepless in Seattle, and You've Got Mail. Tom Hanks is one of my favorite actors! See him in Big, Saving Private Ryan, Castaway.

Twisted vision of the future: A Clockwork Orange, Bladerunner, Brazil, Matrix, Twelve Monkeys. Should see Dark City.

Heartwarming: It's a Wonderful Life, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Big, Vice Versa, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Liar Liar!.

Childhood fantasy fueling imagination: Explorers, Cloak and Dagger, Goonies, Flight of the Navigator, Big, The Neverending Story.

Crime: Natural Born Killers, The Silence of the Lambs, Seven, The French Connection.

War is hell: Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Casualties of War, All Quiet on the Western Front, Gallipoli, Glory, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, Johnny Got His Gun, Empire of the Sun, The Patriot, The Manchurian Candidate, Full Metal Jacket, and I'd like to see The Killing Fields, The Deer Hunter.

Space: The Right Stuff, Star Wars Trilogy, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Apollo 13, Explorers.

Scared me when I first saw it: The Elephant Man, Aliens, The Wall.

Unusual: Dr. Strangelove, The Gift, Decalogue, Pi, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Edward Scissorhands, Mulholland Dr..

Drugs!: Let's meet the junkies! Trainspotting, Basketball Diaries.

Adventure: Lord of the Rings, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars Trilogy, anything Rambo; Lawrence of Arabia, Far and Away.

Conspicuous metaphor: Matrix, Titanic.

Dustin Hoffman: Rainman, The Graduate.

Mel Gibson: Hamlet, Braveheart, the Lethal Weapon movies, The Patriot, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Roadwarrior.

Victorian: Emma, Sense and Sensibility, A Room with a View, Pride and Prejudice.

What's the big deal?: The English Patient, Citizen Kane, Rebel Without a Cause.

Good: Inherit the Wind, Fight Club, The Grapes of Wrath, Splendor in the Grass, and I want to see the The Godfather movies, Woody Allen movies, Taxi Driver, Easy Rider, Shane, Pulp Fiction, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Tough Guys, Squares, and Dames: Casablanca, The Hudsucker Proxy, North by Northwest.

Coen Brothers: The Hudsucker Proxy, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Fargo, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski.

Other: Significant for some reason: Heathers. Just wanna see em for some reason: Network, All the President's Men, The Player.

Even better lists: ; American and British Film Institutes' Top 100 of the 20th century. Also check out Hollywood Jesus, intepreting pop culture (eg, movies) from a spiritual point of view.