When you own 395 420* movies that you love, it’s hard to narrow that down to a small list of favorites. I buy a lot of movies, but I have a pretty strict policy of only buying movies that I want to see over and over and over and over and over… you get the point. That’s not to say a few have snuck in that I don’t love as much (freebies or lackluster franchise sequels), but by and large, 90 percent of the movies I own I still watch repeatedly.

Basically, I have 400 all-time favorite movies. Some I probably don’t enjoy as much as I used to because I’ve seen them sooooo many times, but I generally still enjoy watching them every few years. All this makes it very hard to pick my favorites. They all are. But I was able to narrow it down to my mostest favoritest.

But before we get to that, lets look at some of my movie stats.

Stoney’s Movie Library Stats

I found categorizing movies somewhat difficult as many fall into multiple categories. Many of the action movies can also be considered sci-fi, though they are not pure sci-fi. Super hero movies are a great example. Technically those are sci-fi but I classified them as action.

• Media
  • Blu-ray: 281
  • DVD: 222
  • Digital only: 24
  • Digital copies: 281
• Oldest movie:1923 (The 10 Commandments – A contest win that was part of the 1956 version box set)
• Movies released before I was born: 4 (Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory is the most watchable.)
• Favorite oldest movie: Gone in 60 Seconds (1973)
• Shortest movie: 24 minutes (A Wish for Wings that Work)
• Longest movie: 6 hours, 22 minutes (Jesus of Nazareth – 1977)
• Most recently purchased: Nobody
• Movie categories
  • Action: 121
  • Sci-Fi: 75
  • Comedy: 57
  • Adventure: 36
  • Animated: 35
  • Drama: 21
  • Horror: 21
  • Thriller: 17
  • Fantasy: 16
  • Romance: 6
  • War: 4
  • Western: 4
  • Heist: 3
  • Musical: 2

Stoney’s Favorite Movies

I have a life rule: I don’t play favorites. I find choosing one thing over another challenging, especially with large amounts of data. But even with small data sets, I find it hard. However… after a quick scan of my movie library, I easily pulled out 50 movies as ones that I currently love the most. But that was way too many, so I grudgingly culled the list down to 25(ish).

These are not ranked. I do not have the ability to do that. I have placed them in alphabetical order.

• The A-Team – Don’t @ me, this movie is just balls-to-the-wall fun.
• Black Hawk Down – Non-stop action. Hard to beat.
• Book of Eli – I love so much about this movie: Concept, execution, twist, soundtrack. So good.
• The Dark Knight – Absolutely one of the best superhero movies of all time. I love the disappearing pencil scene.
• Die Hard – I never get tired of this movie. I never get tired of any Die Hards, but this one is classic. It’s also a holiday movie. Get over it.
• Galaxy Quest – It’s hard to pull off homage and spoof at the same time, but GQ did it off with extreme success. And for the record, I loved this movie before loving it was cool.
• Ghostbusters – One of the few perfectly executed movies. Fires on all cylinders.
• Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 1 & 2 – These are my favorite of all the Marvel movies. They were the first two I owned since Iron Man. I just loves them.
• John Wick – Also comes with a stellar soundtrack!
• King Arthur: Legend of the Sword – Underrated movie that deserves better. Guy Ritchie movies can be hit and miss; this one is a hit. And again, a killer soundtrack.
• A Knight’s Tale – I love period pieces with modern music. This movie is total fun.
• Lego Movie 1 & 2 – I didn’t expect to love the first one, and I did. I like the second even more. And again, with the awesome soundtracks. Everything about these movies is awesome! (See what I did there?)
• Limitless – Aside from starring my man-crush, that’s not (just) why I love this movie. It’s a great what-if scenario with great effects to match.
• Logan – I love all the X-Men movies, but this one tops my list. But I repeat myself.
• The Martian – Does such a great job mixing humor with tragedy. It’s also one of the rare stories without a bad guy.
• Moulin Rouge! – The first 20 minutes of this movie is chaotic sensory overload. One of the few musicals I love. And oh, that soundtrack!!!
• Mystery Men – Another underappreciated movie. With such an all-star cast (at the time), this movie could and should have been better, but I still love it so much.
• The Princess Bride – True love. Need I say more?
• Pitch Black – Fantastic horror/sci-fi movie and one of the best redemption stories told.
• Serenity – Movie follow-up to the Firefly TV series. It follows up on a few threads from the series but stands on its own as great sci-fi.
• Star Trek / Star Trek Into Darkness – These movies are a huge influence on my writing. I love when characters make seemingly great decisions to notoriously bad results. THAT’S a way to move a plot forward.
• Three Kings – I’ve loved this movie since its release. I’m not sure what I love about it other than just a great story that is both fun and real.
• Tommy Boy – The Farley/Spade duo is pure genius. This movie has so many great quotables and, never gets old.
• The Wedding Singer – Romcoms don’t get any better than this. However, 50 First Dates is a very close second.
• Wreck-it Ralph – Lots of game nostalgia here, but a clever story as well. “I’m gonna wreck it!”

There are so many movies I love, I could easily continue with this list. But ain’t nobody got time for that. So now it’s your turn… How many of these do you agree or disagree with?

*I may or may not have purchased a few moves between writing and publishing this post.