Paul of Aurora Walking Vacation just recently finished listing 100 of his own favorite films, so I thought I’d give my own list of 100 favorite movies, also split into ten parts.

You aren’t likely to agree with all of my selections, and that’s okay. There are some of you who will be shocked that some of your favorite movies aren’t on my list. One example will undoubtedly be The Godfather. I’ve never watched that film; I’m just not into gangster movies. I’m also not into westerns. And as a general rule, I’m not into war pictures, either, although I can think of at least two war movies that are on my list.

It’s important to note that these movies are listed in absolutely no particular order at all. I would be hard-pressed to come up with an actual ranking; it was difficult enough to come up with only 100 movies that top my list. There are probably a good 20 or so that should be here that are hanging out in the wings. These first ten are not necessarily my 10 favorite…they’re just 10 of my 100 favorite.

You are more than welcome to tell me with each set of ten how much you agree or disagree with each selection. And I hope you’ll be motivated to come up with your own list of 100 movies! It would be interesting to see how many pictures we all agree about.

So that’s the setup. Here are the first offerings on my list, and these are not my ten favorite movies…they’re just ten random selections out of my 100 choices:

1. Foul Play (1978) - I’ve probably seen this movie more than most of the others on the list. For some reason, I was fascinated with it by the time it made its way to HBO…and it was one of the first movies featured on that channel when my parents first got cable. Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase made a great team in this comedic murder mystery that borrowed several gimmicks from Hitchcock.

2. On Golden Pond (1981) -If Foul Play is the picture I’ve seen the most times out of the 100, this one probably comes in a close second. Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda were a great pair as the aging Thayers. The fight to repair a broken relationship between father and daughter was especially poignant when we later learned that much of the emotion the characters were feeling were felt by Fonda and his real-life daughter, Jane. This will sound strange coming from someone who was about 12 the first time he saw the picture, but I felt that I could identify with some aspects of Norman Thayer, Jr. And the older I get, the more I seem to feel that way.

3. Fail-Safe (1964) - If Henry Fonda had ever chosen to run for president in the 1960s, between this movie and The Best Man, he probably would have been elected. Fail-Safe, based on the novel of the same name, tells the terrifying story of a country’s machines getting out of control and launching what could be the start of World War III. The stark black and white photography and tight shots add to the tension as the president makes a stunning decision to save the world. If you’ve never seen this one, do yourself a favor and rent it.

4. 12 Angry Men (1957) - The third Henry Fonda title on my list is this fascinating look inside a jury room. A tough kid from the slums is on trial for murder, and what looks like an open-and-shut case becomes a case study in prejudice and discrimination. As the lone juror who votes “not guilty,” Fonda is brilliant. Lee J. Cobb gives a masterful performance as the last holdout whose trouble with his own son leads to the breaking point.

5. Anatomy of a Murder (1959) - This courtroom drama tells the story of an Army lieutenant who stands accused of murder after shooting a man who raped his overly-flirty wife. It is an interesting look at how society dealt with the subject of rape and temporary insanity.

6. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) - It’s hard to believe that I was a sophomore in high school when this movie came out. At the same time, it’s hard to believe that it wasn’t even longer ago than that. Matthew Broderick is the kid all of us wanted to be in school: the guy who could get away with anything. The fact that none of the rest of us could have begun to pull the stunts he did makes his character so easy to root for. That, and the fact that the vice principal, played by Jeffrey Jones, is exactly the kind of guy you want Bueler to beat at all costs. It was fairly mindless, but it’s the kind of mindlessness that still manages to entertain without making you feel like you’ve given an hour and a half of your life you’ll never get back.

7. WarGames (1983) - At the start of the personal computer revolution, when people were actually beginning to realize that computers in the home wasn’t such an outlandish idea, WarGames put the fear of God into parents who were convinced that their kid would be the one to fool NORAD into thinking the Russians were attacking. Thank goodness the Cold War lasted long enough for this one to get made. There’s just one problem that I’ll complain about as long as I live: when David and Jennifer made the reservation for two airline tickets to Paris, they did so in her name. Later, after David is arrested, McKittrick asks him who he (David) is going to Paris with. If the reservation had been in Jennifer’s name, McKittrick wouldn’t have known that David was even going to Paris.

8. Desk Set (1957) - When most people are asked to name their favorite Spencer Tracy-Katherine Hepburn picture, Desk Set is generally not it. But maybe the appeal of this one is that it is set at the headquarters of a television network and it focuses on the battle of man (actually woman) vs. machine that makes it so appealing. Of course, this was the late 1950s, which meant that the computers were of the giant, mainframe variety. Bet you’ll never guess who wins the war!

9. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) - Another Tracy-Hepburn picture on the list, and this time, the happy couple is married with a grown daughter who decides to get engaged. Trouble is, her intended happens to have, as Tracy’s character says in the famous closing speech, “a pigmentation problem.” Through lots of laughter and even some tears by the picture’s close, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner tackles interracial relationships in a way that really makes you think. The real story with this movie, though, was that Tracy was dying when production started, and insurance companies wouldn’t cover the picture because his health made the venture too risky; Hepburn and director Stanley Kramer put their own salaries in escrow so that they could make the picture, and Tracy made it through to the end during which he delivered a touching speech about the love he felt for his wife, emotion that clearly borrows from the real-life feelings the two legendary actors felt for each other. Tracy died just 17 days after filming ended.

10. Titanic (1997) - It was the film expected to sink two major studios, Paramount and 20th Century Fox. That was the rumor after this monster of a budget-breaker would be released six months late. But there’s something about this picture, framed around fictional survivor Rose Dawson’s story, that makes us think about the people on board the ship rather than the ship itself. There’s humor, there’s a love triangle, there’s the chase of the young lovers as they try to escape her destiny, and the ultimate suspense of the iceburg looming somewhere out there. By the time the burg is finally in sight, you’ve managed to convince yourself that somehow, they’ll miss it, after all. The real question is whether or not Rose actually dies in the last scene. I’m still not sure, although I tend to think she did. It doesn’t really matter, though, because either in reality or in spirit, her gesture of dropping the Heart of the Ocean over the wreckage has joined Rose and Jack together in spirit after all those eighty-plus years.

So there are the first ten of 100 movies on my favorites list. I invite you to come up with your own list as well…just leave a link here or at Paul’s blog.