CineFix Top 100

“You’re trying to seduce me…” The Graduate dropped in 1969 from Mike Nichols on the cutting edge of New Hollywood. The story of a recent college grad and an affair that shapes the transitional years into his adulthood and his lover’s middle age. As iconic as a movie can be, Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft starred in a movie that’s as relevant now as it was in the aftermath of the Hays Code and on...

“The whole of Texas, huntin’ our shadow…” 2016’s Hell or High Water followed the story of two brothers robbing from the bank that’s foreclosing on the family farm all the way to a Best Picture nomination. From director David Mackenzie and a soon-to-be Yellowstone empire architect Taylor Sheridan, the straightforward film deals with legacy, class and the universal relatability to a very specific pl...

“Another glorious day in the Corps…” 1986’s Aliens blasted its way into theaters and began it’s quick ascent to the top of everybody’s “best sequels ever” lists. But the wild thing is, Aliens almost didn’t happen thanks to Hollywood’s famous accounting skills. Clint, Cal and Nick talk about Sigourney Weaver’s legacy on the cutting edge of mid-80s action stardom, the Pinewood Studios crew’s daily t...

“Funny how?” 1990s Goodfellas set a new high watermark for the gangster movie. The Martin Scorsese classic starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta (along with, like, half the cast of The Sopranos) portrayed a world in which the mafia life itself was the main character. Clint, Cal and Nick talk about the origins of the famous Copacabana shot, the most brilliant insert shots in the history...

“I am your (SPOILERS REDACTED)…” The Empire Strikes Back was the sequel to a movie that helped change the way the film business worked. The continuing adventures of Luke, Leia, Han and the rebellion picked up where Star Wars left off and left it in a much darker place. Clint, Cal and Nick continue the season of family by talking about the one-man-financing approach to following up the biggest movi...

“I’ve got a lot of fond memories of that dog…” Welcome to season 4 of the CineFix Top 100! We’re starting with a fun one and everybody’s favorite globetrotting archeologist’s dad. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade capped the original trilogy of Indy films by producing a cold open origin story that’s worth studying in grad school and getting back to what made the fedora and whip so instantly iconi...

“Fidelio…” We’ve got one more special episode of the CineFix Top 100 before we dive into season 4 proper, and this week we know the password and we’ve got our mask on tight. Eyes Wide Shut is the last film by legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in a film with a truly unique legacy. Clint and Cal welcome special guest and CineFix behind-the-scenes all star Tan...

“He gave himself a name…” The CineFix Top 100 is back… Kinda! It’s not quite season 4, but Clint and Cal couldn’t wait. We wanted to spend a few episodes with the extended CineFix family before diving back into a regular season, and to start, we’ve got ‘My Best Shots’ pioneer, IGN UK’s Simon Cardy. In addition to having a RIDICULOUS Top 250 of his own on Letterboxd, he’s bringing one of his all ti...

Die Hard landed in 1988 among a murderer’s row of great movies and came out of it as perhaps the most iconic of them all. It was a coming out party for Bruce Willis the action star and Alan Rickman the villain and invented a whole new sub-genre of bottle episode action cinema. Clint, Cal and Alex discuss how John McTiernan learned all the right things from Akira Kurosawa action, why the movie does...

Planet of the Apes was a franchise spawning phenomenon in the late 60s. Living in the center of the sci fi spectrum, it wore its b-movie camp on its sleeve right next to relevant social commentary. With Charlton Heston playing opposite some revolutionary make up effects, off a script by Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling and a former HUAC blacklist-er, Planet of the Apes took everyone by surprise....

There was not a faster rising star in the mid 90s than Jim Carrey. After an 18 month window that gave us Ave Ventura: Pet Detective, Dumb and Dumber, The Mask and Batman Forever, it was a little surprising to see him take a more dramatic role in Peter Weir’s The Truman Show. The story of Truman Burbank slowly discovering that he’s the unwitting star of a lifelong reality TV show marked a real turn...

“You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” The Dark Knight landed in the middle of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy like an escaped Arkham inmate with the superpower to create prestige cinema in a world of comic book. The middle act of a three part re-telling of Bruce Wayne’s origins as the caped crusader find him squaring off against the Joker in a battle f...

Toy Story tells the tale of the sentient toys of Andy’s bedroom who come to life when we’re not looking. While an out of context synopsis of the movie sounds like a horror movie, the adventures of Woody and Buzz Lightyear would turn out to be an impossible to understate influence on the entire film industry. Clint, Cal and Alex talk about believing your toys are real, how film history can be split...

Kill Bill, the two part revenge epic from Quentin Tarantino, is a bloody, pulpy, pastiche fueled homage to martial arts and spaghetti westerns. But is the story of The Bride and her quest to take out the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad original? Or is it just a greatest hits mix tape of borrowed tropes? Or does that even matter? Clint, Cal and Alex talk about that, plus the proper deployment of b...

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies is the story of a French spy bumbling his way through an investigation into a Middle East arms deal in 1950s Egypt. Equal parts James Bond and Inspector Clouseau, as much Sean Connery as Peter Sellers, the team that would go on to a big night at the Oscars for The Artist first cut their teeth on the aesthetics of mid-century espionage flicks. Clint, Cal & Alex discuss...

Ridley Scott dropped Alien in 1979 and, just 2 years after Star Wars hit the idea that Sci Fi wasn’t bankable with the Death Star, gave us not only one of the most enduring science fiction classics, but a terrifying haunted house movie to boot. Clint, Cal and Alex discuss Newcomer of the year nominee Sigourney Weaver, how Ripley isn’t the main character of the movie (for most of it) and why the si...

CineFix Top 100's FIRST T-SHIRT IS HERE - https://store.ign.com/products/cinefix-this-is-how-i-win-t-shirt - Get the Ikiru / Uncut Gems mash-up you never knew you needed until right this very moment! “This is OUR hill… and these are OUR beans..” The Naked Gun: From The Files of Police Squad! is on the Mount Rushmore of spoofs. The hard-boiled detective parody follows Lt. Frank Drebin as he unravel...

“I’m giving you a choice. Either put on these glasses or start eating that trash can.” CineFix Top 100's FIRST T-SHIRT IS HERE - https://store.ign.com/products/cinefix-this-is-how-i-win-t-shirt Get the Ikiru / Uncut Gems mash-up you never knew you needed until right this very moment! John Carpenter’s They Live from 1988 was a stiff middle finger to Reagan era consumerism with the swagger of a prof...

In 2004, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay revitalized comedy in the aughts with 90 minutes of pure, goofball nonsense behind the desk of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. The whatever-is-funniest-wins approach to the story of San Diego’s Channel 4 News Team is absurd in all the right ways. Clint and Alex (Cal is still struggling with his case of Fireman’s Elbow) talk about improv in close ups, the...

Ikiru, Akira Kurosawa ‘gem’ from 1952, follows a dying bureaucrat searching for something of value in his life before succumbing to cancer. At times both tremendously sad and undeniably life-affirming, Ikiru is critical of the system of meaningless admin work and the people who populate it. Clint, Cal and Alex sift through mountains of paperwork to discuss subtle camera moves in emotional megamont...

“This is how I win.” Uncut Gems is an Adam Sandler dramatic-turn masterpiece of anxiety from the Safdie Brothers and A24. The film, about a New York diamond merchant and gambling addict, absolutely drips with stress from the cosmos all the way into the protagonist's colon. Clint, Cal and Alex talk about how Kevin Garnett could’ve been an Oscar contender, the use of the steadicam to create chaos, w...

Blade Runner 2049, the long in the works sequel to Ridley Scott’s sci fi classic, was a critical hit whose box office never quite lived up to its ambitious budget. But, here in the season 3 premiere of the CineFix Top 100, Clint, Cal and Alex talk about whether the film ever had a chance to make money, the incredible accident that made the original Blade Runner a classic, how hard Harrison Ford is...

Le Samouraï popped up in the French New Wave and gave us the definitive image of the “cool Hit Man” that endures to this day, and so it only made sense that Clint, Cal and Alex welcome special guest and co-writer and director of Hit Man, Richard Linklater! The Academy Award nominated filmmaker chats about why people think retail hitmen actually exist, how Le Samouraï helped influence that belief a...

“I am a star. I’m a star. I’m a big, bright shining star. That’s right.” (re-zips his pants) Boogie Nights was only Paul Thomas Anderson’s second film, but the story of an up-and-coming star in the waning days of the porn industry on film is exceedingly confident especially for a director in his 20s. Clint, Cal and Alex talk about the stacked cast that might be the best ensemble ever assembled, th...

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Jaws was legitimate phenomenon in the 70s, launching both the career of Steven Spielberg and the concept of the summer blockbuster to the forefront of the Hollywood system. For this story about an island being terrorized by a rogue Great White, Clint, Cal and Alex talk about Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw as maybe the best ever top 3 in a cast, ho...