comfort movies

First Wives Club, My Best Friends Wedding and The Hours

mystery science theater: the movie

valley girl

Actually one more for me: cast away.

That's two zemeckis movies!

It changes, a few years ago it was certain Carry On movies, especially Camping and Up The Khyber. Woody Allen's Sleeper was a favourite, along with Diamonds Are Forever - bizarrely the only "proper" Bond in this list - and also the David Niven version of Casino Royale. At the moment it's Withnail & I, especially when it's cold and raining, and also the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Dazed & Confused, Jackass

and Wonder Boys

Dazed & Confused, Trading Places, nearly any b&w

i love having comfort movies. they kinda tend to be a bit on the super escapist side for me tho. first ones that come to mind and have held up for many years:

empire strikes back
indiana jones & the raiders of the lost ark
die hard
aliens
bourne identity

used to watch 'purple rose of cairo' and 'annie hall' as comfort movies in my early 20s but when i attempted to watch again a few years ago they did not comfort :/ there are a few go-to jane austen adaptations that i shamelessly go for when needing that kind of comfort. ah and 'shadowlands'

and for some reason, this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=kPSSviWMg34

Clueless
Groundhog Day
Beverly Hills Cop
Any Harry Potter film

unnecessary rudeness from milo upthread

spinal tap
gremlins
alien/aliens of course

ELF

my neighbour totoro

goonies
better off dead

empire strikes back
indiana jones & the raiders of the lost ark
die hard
aliens
bourne identity

Except for Bourne Identity (which is great, but I haven't seen enough) this is pretty much my exact list.

Pulp Fiction
Heathers

anything by Almodovar with Carmen Maura

virgin suicides for the yellow color throughout - sunshining through blonde hair etc

Big Lebowski, Temple of Doom, Empire Strikes Back, Spinal Tap, Life of Brian, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, The Iron Giant.

Better off Dead
Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Breakfast Club
Say Anything
Steel Magnolias
Kicking and Screaming (the Noah Baumbach one, not the Will Ferell one)
Fletch
Vacation, European Vacation, Christmas Vacation
RHPS
So I Married an Axe Murderer
Big Lebowski

my neighbour totoro

oh totally word on this, could watch x 5mil

Also:

Buckaroo Banzai
Big Trouble in Little China

Any Miyazaki from Castle In the Sky on will do for me.

rushmore, starship troopers, tons of HK action shit, film noir stuff, totoro

I don't do this anymore

how come?

Dazed & Confused, Rushmore, A Woman Is A Woman

Can't Hardly Wait
Dazed and Confused
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Sixteen Candles
Empire Records

OK I have to add Can't Hardly Wair, Rushmore, and Empire Records now too.

SHALLOW HAL

Too long a list. I tend to put them on as background.

Sliding Doors

A lot of Altman stuff (esp. California Split and The Long Goodbye), The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper, Head, Rock N' Roll High School, Eraserhead (strangely enough), Running on Empty.

The Big Lebowski
Anchorman
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Trainspotting

oh, and High Fidelity!

ENBB, yes to Empire Records!!

trainspotting is a big one too

repo man

god of cookery, shaolin soccer, kung fu hustle

ENBB, yes to Empire Records!!

I haven't seen it in so long! I should rectify that.

I was at a club once in LA and realized that the guy DJing was the long haired musician guy from ER and I was drunk enough that I totally went up to him and asked if it was him. It was and he gave me a CD. /boring story.

Mishima, M, Kikujiro, Spartacus, Zéro de conduite, lots and lots of others. Movies in general are comforting I think.

x-post Also I love Ethan Embry in that movie. Sadly he has not aged well.

Kung Fu Hustle - yes!

Kicking and Screaming (the Noah Baumbach one, not the Will Ferell one)

yes!

also: metropolitan, some kind of wonderful, kitty foyle, withnail and i, sixteen candles, parenthood, the secret life of walter mitty, la jetee

casino royale (2007)

miller's crossing

bullitt

ENBB did you know that in some countries Empire Records was called "Rock and Fun"?

AH - how could I have forgotten some kind of wonderful? I should count withnail too I think.

It turns out that I have a lot of comfort movies.

Sunny I did not know that but from now on that's what I'm going to call it. That's great - ha!

well i think movies are just kind of comforting. i mean unless you're watching like The Piano Teacher or something.

The Great Escape, even though it's shown every Christmas anyway. I suppose that it's a comfort because the plot is so familiar, also so many great lines ("I can see... really I can!" trips over James Garner). And while on a Pleasence tip, Fantastic Voyage, and also You Only Live Twice (OK then, that's two - and a half - Bond movies in my list).

Ok - I can't believe I didn't think of this until now but Waiting for Guffman.

The Italian Job (original version), which I'd forgotten about despite it being here on the shelf next to me. And it may not exactly be a movie, more of a documentary, but I used to watch ABBA: The Movie over and over.

I just recently realized that whenever I feel really down I feel like watching "The Thin Red Line" oddly enough. Not for the plot but the general sound, look, and ambience of it.

-- ryan, Monday, July 7, 2008 12:58 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

malick in general make sense - theres something v calming abt the contemplative qualities of his movies

i dont have any comfort movies that ill go so far as to put on but def if i stumble across them on tv i can get into it. awsome 80s comedies back to the future ferris bueller fletch and all sorts of spy/thriller type shit. i have a feeling in a few years time i will have seen the bourne movies 1mx

North By Northwest

Joy Luck Club, Muriel's Wedding, Ryan's Daughter - weepy shit like dat

Usually, this is what I use DVDs of TV shows for... Simpsons, Joy of Painting, et al.

But Wet Hot American Summer is one I can always put in and half watch.

It'll always be a new film. I really dislike rewatching films - when there is so much potential greatness (or rubbish) out there. I was in a bit of a funk a few weeks ago, went to see Mongol, and it cheered me up more than any rewatching of Zoolander would.

Cool Hand Luke

less than zero

Dude, Where's My Car?. I got it as a birthday present when I was 21 or 22, and I've watched it at least 10 times ever since. That movie has whole microcosm in it.

As for older movies, I guess this kind of a cliche, but It's a Wonderful World. They show it on Finnish telly every Christmas, and I've tried to watch it every year since I was 15, though I have missed a few times. I still cry every time I see it. This is basically the most Christmassy thing I do every year, because I don't have family Christmas or anything.

Oh, and Totoro, yes, absolutely! One of the most calm and soothing movies ever, it's bound to put you in a more peaceful state of mind.

you mean Its a Wonderful Life, right?

Yeah, that one, sorry about the typo.

this has been an interesting thread for me, how readily I can scan thru these lists and quickly identify those movies that tend to have a pleasant narcotic effect, and others that I disqualify because for one reason or another they induce/recall some sort of anxiety for me. Not sure why for many of them, though.

but

Clueless
Groundhog Day
Beverly Hills Cop
Any Harry Potter film

-- musically, Monday, 7 July 2008 17:21 (1 hour ago) Link

OTM

oh yeah, Less Than Zero, too!

Less than zero is so bad it's good but is actually so bad that I really kind of wish they would remake it and I don't say that about many movies. Sorry if that didn't make any sense. Too much caffeine. Argh.

miller's crossing

-- omar little, Monday, July 7, 2008 2:29 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yesss

Wow, nobody else's are even in the same genre, or same half of the last century, as mine. The only films I find endlessly rewatchable and comforting are musicals: Fred and Ginger, Gene Kelly and Judy Garland in "Summer Stock," and all the Busby Berkeley stuff, esp. "The Gang's All Here." Chorines waving bananas = comfort!

it is b/c you are special

Solaris

ohwhoa i can't believe i forgot to say, and no one else has said:

Bladerunner

Stand By Me

if i didn't, i should have said When Harry Met Sally (all time)

and still my best friend's wedding. it's like a vacation every time

hannah & her sisters

the great escape

any classic "up all night" movie like dazed & confused (noticed a lot of ppl chose that one)

definitely empire strikes back.
beneath the planet of the apes.
i think 28 days later is becoming this kind of movie for me.

Zorro (1975)

okay you know what, i don't think it was zorro 1975. i think it was the 1940 movie.
the one that was on the disney channel "late" (that is, later than my normal bedtime as a 3-5 year old).

Behind Enemy Lines

basically any of the bond movies except OHMSS and CR

most of the dirty harries

i'm more of a tv show person when i feel like this. Arrested Development, sometimes Chappelle.

movies: Bourne, Casino Royale (2007), Oldboy, Big Lebowski, Do the Right Thing ('til near the end if i'm too bummed), Fellowship of the Ring (up 'til they leave Rivendell), Bladerunner, 40 Year Old Virgin can be good, but sometimes strike the wrong chord.

Spielberg (CE3K, Raiders). And the first Star Wars (1977).

tommy boy

Fame
Quiz Show
Together

the station agent

DIE HARD

and Wonder Boys

― milo z, Monday, July 7, 2008 1:13 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^ and out of sight

Empire Records
Withnail & I
Grosse Pointe Blank

... I'm more a TV show person to though, so I'll more readily get out the Simpsons or Goodies box set or something.

Igby Goes Down
Any film of Jane Austen novel
Chariots of Fire

Depends what I want... uplifting, romantic happy ending, or just to have a bloody good bawl.

Local Hero
The Princess Bride
The Maltese Falcon

Almost Famous, Mean Girls, Clueless

mean girls OTm i might put it on now

I think a comfort movie has to be a movie that you don't get bored of in the middle so....

An American Tale
A Brave Little Toaster

I wanted to say The Big Blue (le grand bleu) but I've only seen it once and I probably would get bored in the middle.
I'm gonna watch Life Aquatic for a second time this weekend and hopefully it wont put me to sleep, because at one time it was my favorite movie (even then I watched it in halves).

and my little sister watches Empire Records over and over with different friends. I blame myself for suggesting it to her.

!!!

Now I really want to watch Brave Little Toaster. It's been years...

Truth About Cats And Dogs
Miracle
Withnail and I
Pretty In Pink
The Notebook

wow: Toaster and Cats and Dogs right on

get bored in the middle

This is probably my biggest problem with comfort movies, finding one that doesn't flag in the middle. There are plenty of movies that I can watch the first half of over and over, and very few that I'll watch all the way through, but somehow it seems "wrong" not to watch a movie until the end.

Also, not a movie, but the "Moog" documentary.

The Philadelphia Story
In The Mood For Love
Dazed and Confused

Manhattan
Double Indemnity
High Fidelity
The Searchers
Reservoir Dogs
Live Free or Die Hard
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Annie Hall
Tommy Boy
Almost Famous

When Harry Met Sally
Groundhog Day

Both films I've seen an inordinate number of times.
I rather imagine The Apartment and Gilda are films I could do this with as well.

Oh, I meant to say Annie Hall too.

Maid in Manhattan. Admitting this has produced catharsis of such power you could use it to blow up the moon. Also, in an attempt to retrieve the little scraps of shame and pride on the floor - The Man Who Would Be King and Dead of Night.

Can't Stop the Music

Gotta be Tenebre, Deep Red, Videodrome and Assault on Precinct 13.

Brick.

lots of laurel & hardy
midnight run
picnic at hanging rock

any of Verhoeven's sci-fi flicks: Robocop, Total Recall, Starship Troopers.

Predator

starship troopers OTM

laurel and hardy rules!

when harry met sally
beverly hills cop (can't believe other people said this one!)
together
roxanne
the royal tenenbaums
manhattan
hannah and her sisters
big

Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Breakfast Club

Yes yes yes. I also have Point Break on my list. Such a great movie. And Fast Times @ RH.

Also, up to a point I could enjoy The Proposal but god damn Reynolds has such a putty (?) face. And of course the plot. God damn.

kung fu hustle
a mighty wind
super troopers
glengarry glen ross
maltese falcon

oh and rio bravo

more buffy dvds than movies at this point, but cold comfort farm and hedwig and the angry inch

Clueless
Mean Girls
Edward Scissorhands

October Sky
Pleasantville
Kinsey

I guess I like movies where people in the '50s fight intellectual repression.

The Big Lebowski
Lord of the Rings trilogy
Fireworks
Michael Clayton
Blade Runner
Ratatouille
2046
Anchorman

In The Mood For Love and X files

bill and teds, zoolander, bring it on, rushmore

Lebowski
Election
Ed Wood
LOTR
The Third Man

there's some movies my sister recorded on vhs off the tv as kids that we watched OVER AND OVER AND OVEr that I still think of as comfort movies, though I haven't seen them in a while..

Big Business
Robin Hood (Disney - roger miller ftw)
Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory
An American Tail
Goonies
Steel Magnolias (but only if I am in the mood to cry, talk about waterworks)
Breakfast Club

Any Pixar, Cars excepted. The Iron Giant.

Pixar movies tend to get me all amped up! They are like calculated to tweak my emotions.

Lawrence of Arabia

Movies I can watch any time:

Quiz Show
The Lady Eve
Husbands and Wives
Naked Lunch
The Player
Reversal of Fortune
Touch of Evil
Notorious

the apartment (wilder)

Yeah, that's a good'un!

A few of mine:

Cool Hand Luke
Miller's Crossing
The Big Lebowski
Woodstock
Plan 9 From Outer Space
The Player
The Right Stuff

Little Shop of Horrors

Groundhog Day
Nine to Five
The Women
Female on the Beach
Rebecca
The Magnificent Ambersons
Xanadu
Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
The Color of Pomegranates
Women of the Night (2000)
The Apple (1980)

Gregory's Girl
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
The Princess Bride
Chicago
Moulin Rouge
any Hugh Grant/Richard Curtis thing

I'm thinking Groundhog Day would be a good addition as well.

bottle rocket

Cherry 2000
Black Mask
Spinal Tap
Dawn of the Dead
Dude Where's My Car
Idiocracy
Episodes of Metalocalypse or the IT Crowd

ADVENTURELAND

Strictly Ballroom

episodes of MST3K have basically become my comfort movies

The Mother and the Whore
The Last Days of Disco
"The Thin Man" films, or just about anything 30s/40s with Myrna Loy
Wonder Boys
The Paper Chase
Amelie
Walking and Talking
The Dreamlife of Angels

episodes of MST3K have basically become my comfort movies

― queen frostine (Eric H.), Sunday, 17 January 2010 08:41 (32 minutes ago)

lately my brother & i have been getting high & watching bbc's planet earth

His Girl Friday
The Monolith Monsters
Rodan
Real Genius
Buckaroo Banzai
The Thing
Tron
The Fabulous Baker Boys
O Lucky Man
most Bond movies, but especially From Russia With Love and You Only Live Twice
Where Eagles Dare
For A Few Dollars More
Dirty Harry

I've been watching Planet Earth, too (got for x-mas), and it will definitely be comfort viewing.

i can see Up In The Air fitting the bill in years to come.

Tootsie! What is it with me and New York movies i wonder.

Tron
Wargames
Dawn of the Dead
Raiders lost ark
star wars trilogy (has to be all three)
back to future trilogy (again all three, yes even #3)
Real Genius
Romancing the stone

E.T.

blade runner.

Silver Streak

http://www.rvgfanatic.com/mediac/400_0/media/DIR_687915/Tremors.JPG

wonder boys

Wonder Boys proving very popular on this thread as the years have rolled by. wonder if it's just 'an ILX thing' or if this is evidence of a worldwide cult?

Beautiful Girls

i pull out my Zodiac blu ray quite a lot.

also the commentary track on the Criterion L'avventura, for some reason i can't figure out.

http://images.starpulse.com/Photos/Previews/Showgirls-movie-04.jpg

rebecca

laura

wild reeds

warhol screen tests (no, really, best "ambient cinema" ever)

My wife went through a phase in early summer where she put on The Men Who Stare At Goats every night to go to sleep.

Big Trouble in Little China

"warhol screen tests (no, really, best "ambient cinema" ever)"

and some of the best stuff he did

The Fabulous Baker Boys

Rushmore's the king of this isn't it really

What About Bob?
Mulholland Dr.
Manhattan Murder Mystery--Woody and Diane Keaton re-united...surprised how little love this little jewel gets!

Ed Wood
Fellowship of the Ring
Big Lebowski

Truth About Cats And Dogs
Beetlejuice
Flashdance

LOTR trilogy def comfort movies

I've had so many over the years--I tend to comfort-watch them right off the list every couple of years. Right now, Zodiac, No Country for Old Men, Nixon, Fargo.

I don't do this.

Pauline Kael has rained on our Andrew Sarris parade.

The Paper Chase

― nicky lo-fi, Sunday, January 17, 2010 4:02 AM (3 years ago)

A few from earlier in the thread that I would have once listed; this one's the most surprising/gratifying.

Zodiac is a great one. i think i once watched it four times over two days when stuck at home with the flu.

i think a lot of these for me tend to overlap with movies that TNT or Comedy Central tend to show over and over--but just the ones i like.

can totally relate to Zodiac.

yep good call on Zodiac, totally agree

Any woody allen movie, even the awful ones, and the royal tenenbaums

Zodiac really does impart a sense of a lot of time passing in a way that's accomplished by more than just sheer length. there's something really satisfying about that.

also it's a movie that's content to meet you at just about any level of engagement you want.

Yes--there's something about the way it unfolds that make it fit the definition perfectly. For a movie so dense with procedural stuff, there's also something very contemplative about it.

Zodiac has the best opening (the original 70s logos, the fireworks, the car, the Three Dog Night song.. ) i can remember from recent years.
not to derail the thread but AV Club did a good piece in their New Cult Canon section http://www.avclub.com/articles/zodiac,59576/

i also love the atmosphere of unique intimacy between men working together for long periods of time.

secret heartbreak of the film is when anthony edwards retires

That's such a good scene. The parts of the film where Zodiac ceases to be a story for anyone except Graysmith (overtly; obviously he remains at the forefront of Toschi's thoughts too, even though he won't admit as much to Graysmith) are beautifully done; like with the Edwards scene ("I haven't left you holding the bag on anything, have I?"), everything's unspoken.

(Same--don't mean to derail the thread...)

i only just started rewatching stuff, absentmindedly while i scan photographs, but i used to watch basquiat a lot. i am dying to rewatch 35 rhums.

these movies kind of fall under 'comfort' for me:

light sleeper (i think the rhythms and mood are good for late night viewing)
beau travail
a christmas carol (1951 version)
sonatine

blade runner
three colors white
late spring
sans soleil
akira

re: woody allen i was watching vicky cristina barcelona earlier today and thinking that it wasn't very good but it was very comforting to watch, weird that this thread got bumped

Pretty much any Miyazaki

can think of a bunch of allen movies that fit the bill (& kinda with the caveat that they don't have to just be the best); deconstructing harry & bullets over broadway would be really enjoyable to dip back into.

thought i was being p high brow throwing a denis flick into the mix but i am outclassed & undone by a pleasure viewing of beau trevail

http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/12600000/Milla-in-Dazed-and-Confused-milla-jovovich-12603300-853-480.jpg

ilx comfort special:

http://ruthlessculture.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/mrx.jpg

for hangovers:

http://www.furiouscinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/rio-bravo.jpg

talking to Alfred:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3eyISCTG5Y

The Wicker Man is my go-to hangover film

(like a thousand people already said dazed because it's the perfect this, but none of them posted milla pics so i fixed the thread)

xxp lol. more like part 2 of 4000.

p hilar how this thread started as YAY MARTY MCFLY and now is about kieslowski

I've been thinking about how to answer this one. I've known smart people who claim that like watching dumb movies (or television) because they've worked hard all day and by the time they get home they don't want to think. I get it, but I just can't function that way. If I'm watching something dumb, I'm going to be constantly thinking about how dumb it is, and that's just not relaxing. I guess I kind of agree with Roger Ebert: "no good movie is depressing, but all bad movies are depressing."

A comfort movie, for me, isn't one that doesn't demand thought, exactly, but rather something that is so purely entertaining that I'm not compelled to think about anything else while watching it. Things like Raiders of the Lost Ark, North by Northwest, Casablanca, Back to the Future and, yes, Die Hard with a Vengeance--these aren't necessarily unsophisticated films (though "sophistication" is not a word generally associated with the latter) rather ones that I've seen enough times to know that they're never getting old for me.

Sigh of relief--I thought your first paragraph was setting up Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles or something. (Which I like fine!)

first three Bournes
Dazed & Confused
Wonder Boys

xpost

Heh. Still never seen that one, though I have watched La Chambre, which I assume is something like Jeanne Dielman at like 1/20 the length. One day...

Don't really have many of these, but La Dolce Vita is sort of endlessly warm and inviting. Seem to return to Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, Chocolat (the Claire Denis one) and Kusturica's Underground a lot too.

denis's chocolat otm

The Station Agent, because it was shot just down the street from my childhood home, which is a place that I am extremely attached to.

that is a lovely movie, I like the Station Agent a lot

collateral
dead man
blade runner
l'avventura
casino
russian ark
fear and loathing in las vegas
eureka (aoyama)
heat
andrei rublev
chinatown

i know where i'm going!

Last night I needed a few beers and 90 minutes of comfort. Looked on my VHS shelf and discovered I had taped Coney Island (Betty Grable, 1943) off AMC years ago, even labelled it, and then never watched it. My night was made.

i think i do associate t.v. with comfort more. from when i was little and i would watch i love lucy every day for what seemed like years. so many shows like that. gilmore girls would be a more modern example. kinda perfect for me and i can re-watch anytime. and when me and the kids watched avatar all the way through cyrus became a little obsessed and would watch episodes over and over and i liked having them on. the kids were/are like that with futurama and now i kinda just like hearing it in the house. but obviously there were movies i watched over and over and never got tired of. they always made me feel okay. blade runner, over the edge (my fave movie ever), king of new york, housekeeping, ruby in paradise, safe (i know, but it soothed me), days of heaven. lots more. i've probably seen days of heaven 100 times. i've seen the movie BUG a hundred times! i was obsessed with that movie. i would watch it every day for a while back in the old days.

i don't watch them much anymore though. the ones i've seen so many times. i want to see too many other things that i haven't seen yet. i know those movies by heart. Five Corners! i've seen that movie so many times. neflix t.v. thing has kinda become my perfect outlet. gotta say. as far as comfort goes. its just too easy and addictive. can't wait for the new prison series! still probably should finish watching breaking bad. comforting in its itchy way.

I know ILX hates The Ice Storm but it's like a handful of Vicodin to me

snowy movies are TOTAL comfort for me. i just bought a kate beckinsale snow movie simply for the snow.

forgot about the snow...

groundhog day
black narcissus

Stealing Beauty is an annual late spring viewing for me. Anything with Peter Falk is good for dulling creeping anxiety, especially The Brinks Job.

Columbo is prime comfort viewing for me, yes.

started watching Emergency! on netflix with Cyrus. really brings me back. i loved that show. again, probably seen every episode 5 times. i kinda want to watch all the episodes of all creatures great & small on netflix. feel like that would be comforting.

Ice Storm for me too, especially a couple of years ago when I watched it a number of times.

eureka would be cool to have playing in the kitchen while you slow-cooked a side of ham or something

wayne's world
my neighbor totoro
wrath of khan

Tootsie
Husbands and Wives
The Lady Eve
The Discreet Charm...

damn u Brits listing films that aren't on DVD here

i remember Andrew Sarris saying regretfully about Casablanca in an interview, "I've seen it too much." An outdated concept I guess.

New Additions:

the Whit Stillman quartet (If I watch one, the others will soon follow)

I was in the hospital late last year, and upon my release, I weaned myself back into the habit of watching dvds by looking at music stuff like "The Old Grey Whistle Test" and Urgh! A Music War. If that's not comfort, I don't know what is.

Watched The Ice Storm tonight--very comforting.

repo man
excalibur
the thin man (etc.)
spirited away
princess mononoke
groundhog day
kung-fu hustle
red desert
rosencrantz & guildenstern are dead
dune
hellboy 2
lost highway
my man godfrey
9 to 5
the philadelphia story
blade runner
eyes wide shut
the thing
duck soup
zelig
rushmore
finding nemo
chungking express
playtime
phenomena
strangers on a train
o brother where art thou
barbarella
star wars
night of the hunter
three crowns of the sailor
where the wild things are
the red shoes
crouching tiger hidden dragon
48 hours
harry potter 3
raiders of the lost ark
key largo

fantastic planet
scott pilgrim
an american werewolf in london

[sound of list-spieling maniac forcefully dragged offstage)

andrew sarris is dead, that concept is literally outdated xps

you know who else is dead? pauline kael.

just ctrl+f'd a league of their own and space balls and wtf

Star Trek 6, so much

rio bravo otm for hangovers, though as i've gotten older & hangovers more brutal i've moved onto stronger stuff, like donovan's reef

yeah rio bravo awesome

league of their own otm

Dirty Harry movies
Manhattan
Bullitt
The French connection
Serpico
Hannah and her sisters
Le rayon vert
Lawrence of Arabia

I like **locations**

Oh yeah sunset boulevard and pulp fiction for LA

Eh I'm thinking of so much more now: hitchcocks, John carpenter stuff, probably blade runner to some extent. This can't be interesting to anyone besides me to list though.

yeah i think the idea is it's a small, personal list of something you've watched over & over (& over & over) (when wistful or drunk etc)

not a list of like 30 movies you've seen a couple times each & remember fondly or whatever

sorry for comfort policing, carry on

Forgot the ultimate for me:
Tombstone

i used to watch "in the mood for love" specifically to put me to sleep when i was having trouble sleeping. what's up with that? i even like wong kar-wai. but for whatever reason that one just did it for me.

i think once i actually finished it, but i can hardly remember what happens in it. i guess i was pretty groggy.

I will never tire of Dana Delany, Wyatt Earp fucking with chubby bearded Billy Bob Thornton and Val Kilmer's finest hour.

i remember Andrew Sarris saying regretfully about Casablanca in an interview, "I've seen it too much." An outdated concept I guess.

tbh there are certain favorite movies i resist visiting too often, just because i'm afraid of getting sick of them and i enjoy having them feel fresh again when i do watch them. but there are plenty more that i can throw on any time -- i can't imagine burning out on 'his girl friday' unless i was watching it every week or something.

fallen angels 4 me

yeah i think the idea is it's a small, personal list of something you've watched over & over ... not a list of like 30 movies you've seen a couple times each & remember fondly or whatever

― discreet, Thursday, July 11, 2013 10:39 PM (Yesterday)

i know, but it was midnight, i'd been working since 4am, more than a little loopy

back to metroplitan as we speak.
ahh didn't list that above, but I watch it so much!!

fallen angels otm

french connection
trading places
midnight run
dawn of the dead
clockwise
stan brakhage anthology vol 1 disc 2
persona
the brood
its a mad mad mad world
celine and julie go boating

Whatever is good that is repeated endlessly on ITV2/4.

Unfortunately its not Andrei Rublev but I'll settle for Escape from New York. More than good enough.

how can french connection be a comfort movie to anyone, it's so grim & noisy

It looks cool and beautiful and I like to watch it a lot when I have nothing better to do. comfort movies can be loud.

jackie brown 4ever

def jackie brown. i've seen the third man like 25 times and would probably put it on immediately if something catastrophically bad happened to me today, so that.

yeah i mean there's loads of these but really jackie brown is the pinnacle of comfort imo

maybe i'll have american psycho on the side though

joe vs the volcano

lone star

serpico as comfort film is srsly twisting my melon

i get stressed out just thinking about that shit

ebert on jackie brown is maybe relevant to comfort movies in general: I wanted these characters to live, talk, deceive and scheme for hours and hours.

the last boy scout

after seeing Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy I thought it had a good chance to become a comfort movie.

Film is so-so. The TV series is comfort-y material tho'.

le samouraï

Moonstruck. not an ILX fave i'd imagine but there it is.

oh definite comfort movie for me

League of their Own
Little Women
Reality Bites
Clueless
Inside Llewyn Davis
Zodiac

Love Serenade
The Castle
Muriel's Wedding
Romy & Michele's High School Reunion
Empire Records
Dazed & Confused
Together
Manhattan
Annie Hall
Stand By Me
Neverending Story
ET
Willow
Killing of a Chinese Bookie
Return of the Secausus Seven
Truly, Madly, Deeply
Career Girls
Weekend at Bernie's
Sister Act

hausu

bourne identity

first name: carmen, for some reason.

9 To 5
Ghostbusters
Dazed and Confused
Being There
Nashville
Big Lebowski
Groundhog Day
The Jerk
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
Superman 3
any of the old Peanuts movies

There was a stretch of time when I was putting on Eraserhead every night when I went to bed because I found it really soothing. I think there might've been something wrong with my brain then because I don't think that would work now.

Love Serenade

This is quite possibly the *least* comfortable film I think Ive seen!

i fkn love that movie

For whatever reason, mine tend to be movies about childhood and summer--The Bad News Bears, Meatballs. I expect the recent The Way Way Back to join the list once I've seen it more than once.

Lol @ veg listing zodiac. I feel the same way, altho my wife doesnt understand why i find something w some real disturbing shit in it so comforting

I mean a lot of it has to do with personal + regional history, but that lake berryessa scene... yikes

Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Maybe the Bourne Movies. If I'm off sick that's what I do.

Lol shakey re: Zodiac

There's jst something about the weird relaxed tone of the movie, it contradicts all those high-tension hunt the killer movies. It's scary as shit, but it's oddly calm

Yes def. Also i find all the attention to historical detail really absorbing

yep me too

Thirded, Zodiac is definitely in my comfort canon as well

Jumping Jack Flash
Splash
Silver Streak
Sweet Smell of Success
Foreign Affair
Wonder Boys
Indy & The Last Crusade
A New Leaf
Shop Around the Corner
Stakeout
The Paper
High Anxiety
Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country

Oh, duh, and Soapdish

Beautiful Girls

Basically any movie I saw at the cinema or rented on VHS from 1984-92 is a comfort film, except maybe Santa Claus: The Movie (lame) and Regarding Henry (I thought it was an action movie)

Beautiful Girls

Definitely this one! Also:

Funky Forest: First Contact
I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK
The Life Aquatic
LOTR

I've watched High Fidelity and Superbad just about all the way through every time I see them on TV, so perhaps they now qualify for me.

May have already said this on the zodiac thread, but that movie is almost the platonic ideal of a comfort movie for me. Slow paced procedural, strong ensemble cast, a film which is long and is itself about the passing of time...once you're past the berryessa scene the movie just settles into an almost dream like rythym, in which details of the case are discovered, then forgotten, and then return again.

Trayce ikwym about Love Serenade but it's weirdly comforting somehow

The Browning Version remake is another go to

every powell & pressburger film

re Zodiac; a whole bunch of us also picked that upthread!

Gremlins 2
Threads

The classic Leone westerns

she wore a yellow ribbon
defending your life
wonder boys
f for fake
tank girl
vivre sa vie (all those long takes)
california split
the wrath of khan
dr strangelove or how i learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

what a beautiful curve that list almost had. a lesson against parenthesis.

oh i see everyone including me already said wonder boys.

I've had so many over the years--I tend to comfort-watch them right off the list every couple of years. Right now, Zodiac, No Country for Old Men, Nixon, Fargo.

― clemenza, Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Basically the same three years later; would now add All the President's Men and Advise and Consent.

the third man
the 39 steps (or most pre-hollywood hitchcock for that matter)

wow, did not know about this: Crabbin was a single character in the novella. The screenplay's original draft replaced him with two characters, played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne.

Raiders Of the Lost Ark
The Quiet Man
The Empire Strikes Back
Do The Right Thing

90s jackie chan films

god yeah. i must have seen the HK import VHS of Drunken Master II about twenty times.

loads of HK stuff for me, tbh:

The Mission
Full Contact
God of Cookery
The Killer
Hard Boiled

also:

Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Right Stuff
Die Hard
Rushmore
Black Narcissus
Repo Man
Alien
Aliens
Blade Runner

may as well add Mad Max: Fury Road to this list at this point

All the President's Men

― clemenza, Tuesday, 1 March 2016 00:45 (20 hours ago)

Just logged in to post the very same!

For me at least I think the comforting effect is mainly down to a combination of the truth-triumphs-over-power narrative with the 'procedural' aspects of watching people adsorbed in a skilled task.

And now I want to go and watch it, of course.

swingers
the wedding singer
the Daniel Craig Bond movies
barcelona

Tootsie
The Lady Eve
JFK
Touch of Evil
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Add Double Indemnity to my list--I watch that a couple of times a year.

Two 80s movies that are soothing to me (I think its mostly due to the awful/amazing very-80s look of the films) - Working Girl and Wallstreet.

Key largo

^^^ Key Largo, Double Indemnity for sure. Pretty much anything they used to show in the afternoon on the TV when I was sleeping on my mother's sofa, any noir stuff or screwball. Any of the Falcon films, any of the Thin Man films. These aren't the films I have seen most in my life, just the ones I can watch when I cannot function to any extent beyond the remote control and the bottle.

The Lost Weekend. Anything I know beat-for-beat really. Also any of the Scottish Ken Loach ones, cos they were no doubt cue'd up at my mothers. Gregory's Girl and Local Hero too. These days in my house I just watch absolute trash that I've never seen before for comfort, or less comfort than something in front of my eyes

Just finished re-watching Sorcerer, which I think I've seen a dozen times since buying the Blu-Ray last year.

Sorcerer I could see working this way, just for the pacing and the framing. I suppose I don't have any Comfort Films (as opposed to comfort music), or Comfort Books, I just turn to whatever can occupy my mind without a lot of thought

I remember watching Donnie Darko every day for a week, but that was not comfort, that was mental illness. I mean, I was fighting demons in the street with sticks that whole period. But yeah, as I understand this concept I'd go for fast-talking black and white stuff, that'd be closest to a warm place for me.

The late 80s setting and overall vibe of Donnie Darko made it a big one for me in the couple of years after its release. No one else was really tapping into that at the time, and the lack of smirkiness re: the setting (see, The Wedding Singer, Wet Hot American Summer for counterexamples) made it ideal for wallowing in comfortable childhood nostalgia.

Chef

Carol.

Watched Rounders again last night for something close to the tenth time. This can be added to my list. Found an old David Edelstein review--good paragraph on Malkovich.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/1998/09/place_your_bets.html

fast times / dazed + confused

Shaolin vs. Lama these days.

I guess stuff that I've come to think of as "Thanksgiving movies" counts. The big epic movie series (LOTR, Harry Potter, Star Wars) that I don't have a huge amount of investment in but that are pleasant to have playing in the background while other shit is going on.

Enter the Dragon

it showed up on tv the other day, makes me feel like a little kid whenever I see it

vivid memories of it being on Sat night tv, staying up late while my parents & their friends played cards in the kitchen

oh totally

I second 90s Jackie Chan films. That stuff is pure joy.

Nothing makes me happy faster than Buster Keaton.

not much Merchant Ivory (or that ilk) in this thread. the trailer for a 25th anniversary revival of Howards End reminded me of its
comfort factor.

Bowfinger

Mistress America

My Bodyguard

My Bodyguard was the secret gay love story of my late teens.

Yeah Mistress America is a great one. Baumbach in general too I guess.

xpost

I vastly prefer it to most non-secret gay love stories.

Coming To America

First Blood. Mainly because ITV show it once a week and I've thus become quite attached to it.

Raising Arizona

was stressed out yesterday so I put on The Shining. Sounds counter-intuitive but it worked

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Quick Change, in between Groundhog Day rewatches

Michael Clayton

That Thing You Do

Flying out for thanksgiving tomorrow AM, guess what I just put on

Your deadline was 20 minutes ago

Raiders of the Lost Ark

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, November 20, 2017 7:47 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes! i bought a VHS of it this year and watched it and loved every minute of it. it really is an incredible movie. the whole plot is amazing, the actors are amazing, the soundtrack is so iconic and dynamic (yay Indy theme but also the spooky ark temple theme). it has dumb yet clever screwball humor like Marion accidentally smacking Indy with the mirror as he looks over his previous injuries. that shot of the ark of the covenant burning a hole through the swastika deep in a nazi submarine base. holy shit. literally, holy shit. this movie is the near perfect action film with the ultimately villains. the movie ends with God literally blowing up nazis melting faces and shooting lightning to gloriously smite the third reich. this is a very comforting victory.

ending ofc the x-files style huge warehouse that was a giant matte painting that stayed up on the screen a long, long time and it never broke immersion cos everyone at that time was working at the peak of creativity and technical proficiency. <3 this movie forever. even though it may have contributed to me being afraid of snakes (again the OT implications) the snake pit, the snakes slithering through skeletons and out of mouths, the dark, dark fantasy of it all. it is a light cartoony family movie yet somehow it has this crazy heavy edge to it. the pacing, cinematography, stuntwork, set design, etc. everything is perfectly in harmony with every other element. it is a finely tuned film.

Empire Strikes Back

this movie always reminds me of a certain day, i was a little kid, my mom was cooking soup and me and my brorther were in the kitchen waiting for lunch and the tv had Empire on and it was just the foggy kind of magical and warm and silly experience of hanging out with Yoda and R2-D2 playing around in the swamp. it is weird, kind of hard to explain the feeling, but it was sort of comforting and familiar, like R2 and Yoda were just hanging out while mom makes lunch and we draw monsters. it was very warm and comforting to be in that moment, it is a memory i will treasure forever.

later on i learned about the puppetry involved and Hamill's commitment to working on a set for weeks as the only actor working with two puppets and a bunch of real lizards, snakes, swamp animals, etc., Frank Oz was working on the floor underneath him, delivering line and acting Yoda, and the two communicated via earpiece. it must have been a strange, disorienting experience (love Hamill's story about one day acting out a Luke-Yoda scene and picking up the Rolling Stones on the radio), and i think there is some really strong acting both from Luke and Yoda in these scenes. learning about how this stuff was made doesn't really detract from the magic, it makes it even more magical imo.

National Velvet

^^^^ DING DING DING

god yes

love that one

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Alfredson)

been comfort binging on some oldies on YouTube lately.

Bear Island (great Maclean adventure with Donald Sutherland)
Skyriders (James Coburn in a hostage type rescue adventure)
Puppet on a Chain (classic, and amazing boat chase scene)
Flashpoint (Kris Kristofferson in a compelling conspiracy type mystery)
Sleuth (Caine and Olivier face off)
Where have all the people gone (interesting end of the world stuff)
Stone Cold (ridiculous biker movie starring some quarterback guy)

ridiculous QB = brian bosworth
I’ve not seen the movie but havd heard tell of its ridiculousness

Withnail & I works for me, oddly enough

xp yeah that's him.

Withnail & I is a great Sunday morning hangover cure movie, for me.

haha brian bosworth forces me to mention

most if not all "30 for 30s", if they count

Slums of Beverly Hills

Hobson's Choice

Bow finger

Dude, Where's My Car?

Conan: The Barbarian

Bad Santa

star trek the motion picture

The Shop Around the Corner

Films I've returned to for solace, chronological:

8½
Time Bandits
Paris, Texas
Wings of Desire
Delicatessen
Orlando
Serial Mom
Underground
Ridicule
Black Cat, White Cat
The Girl on the Bridge
Herod's Law
Tuvalu
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Amélie
Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... Spring
Mary and Max
Holy Motors
Wrong
Her

Only Jeunet & Kusturica have multiple entries, so far.

are we talking solace comfort or like, flu comfort?

terminator 2

xp flappy: I've put them on during lonely evenings, and they've cheered me.

Lost In Translation

otm

Heat
Rocky

There are certain movies which, if you stumble across them while channel surfing, you are powerless not to watch the rest of it.

One of mine is "All the President's Men," which would be su-u-u-uch a comfort movie right now.

I think Bill Simmons nicked this idea for his "Rewatchables" podcast.

2001

The most recent addition to my comfort canon: Giant Little Ones. I watched the last fifteen minutes again over lunch yesterday.

First Wives Club, My Best Friends Wedding and The Hours

― Surmounter, Monday, July 7, 2008 10:00 AM (eleven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

is the second post in this thread intentionally horrible

The Hours lulls you comfortably to sleep.

First Wives Club > Star Trek: The Motion Picture

White Sun of the Desert
The Emperor's New Groove

I haven't watched any of these in almost 20 years, but Evil Dead 2, Yojimbo, and Sanjuro used to be like this for me too

Rogue One.

Ace Attorney movie (by Takashi Miike!) and Closer. Have watched both tons of times. Ace Attorney because of the sheer absurdity and a pretty gorgeous cast, Closer for how nostalgic it makes me and how much I like the structure and how horrible everyone is.

Pretty much any Studio Ghibli apart from Grave of the Fireflies

Shane

Beautiful Girls

― Vision Kreayshawn Newsun (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, September 12, 2011 7:05 PM (eight years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Said this eight years ago and saw it at least once every year since then.

Beautiful Girls is a good shout, might have to bring my DVD back from home next time I’m there. Haven’t seen it in years but still know tons of it by heart.

1996 was one of the first years I was seriously invested in the Oscar race, and I remember looking at the cast of Beautiful Girls and thinking it had a best picture nomination in the bag.

Portman, Thurman and Hutton are all fantastic.

Kiki's Delivery Service
Happy Go Lucky

Metropolitan

In Bruges

xp Good call!

doom (2005), dir: andrzej bartkowiak

xps Metropolitan otm

the Bill Murray version of The Razor's Edge was at one time. For some reason watched over and over on vhs, but haven't seen it in years.

Dr. Zhivago, first movie I can remember seeing, at the drive-in in the back seat of our VW Bug. Brother and I played the soundtrack endlessly as kids.

Mentioned before, but any Powell and Pressburger, especially I Know Where I'm Going.

Jules and Jim

Any of Jørgen Leth's cycling films: A Sunday in Hell, Stars and Water Carriers and The Impossible Hour.

I've only seen it once, but I bet Céline and Julie Go Boating would make a good comfort movie

any of the first eight friday the 13th movies
sleepy hollow (idk why)

Clue
Throw Mama from the Train
Amicus horror anthology movies
The Car
Dead of Night (1945)

Also some Universal and Hammer horror

Clue!!!

We should poll the endings of Clue one of these days.

no day like today

brad otm re sleepy hollow

i should rig it up so that the odd couple is just constantly playing in the background if im not actively watching something maybe

I don't remember if I've seen the movies all the way through and I've never read the books, but I love putting on any of the LOTR trilogy when I'm falling asleep. They've got two of them on Netflix right now. I never know what's going on but it always seems like a comfortable place to be.

All About Eve
JFK
Tootsie
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Yeah Metropolitan for sure, it has that 'staying up all night' thing going on.

Tootise is another one, for sure.

I’ll put the Clue poll together on a day when I’m at home, unless someone else wants to go ahead with it.

Repo Man
Chinatown
episodes of The Wire

repo man is a great choice

Ronin

The Long Goodbye

Also will 3rd or 4th Metropolitan.

Repo Man thirded
This Is Spinal Tap
probably Tetsuo: The Iron Man tbh

Train movies are great for this. I own:

Emperor Of The North (Lee Marvin vs. Ernest Borgnine)
Unstoppable (Denzel Washington and Chris Pine)
Runaway Train (Jon Voight and Eric Roberts)
The Train (Burt Lancaster)
The General (Buster Keaton)

Chef

― ... (Eazy), Wednesday, 2 March 2016 06:40 (three years ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

Couple weeks ago I was sick and bedridden and randomly put on Predator (which I never really enjoyed previously tbh) and found it was kind of perfect for this... Just a bunch of cartoonish looking guys busting each other’s chops, beautiful nature shots, and every once in a while someone’s head explodes.

Trees Lounge is my go-to for this.It's the closest film in feel (and cast, outside of Goodfellas) to The Sopranos, which is my comfort TV show.

20th Century Women has emerged as a big one for me.

I need to give that one another shot.

it fits a lot of requirements of this genre for me: a uniform mood and pace, ensemble cast giving great performances across the board, a pleasing setting along with a strong sense of place and time (santa barbara 1979), melancholy.

I think that'll be one of mine eventually. I always watch my comfort movies over and over again until I kill them, so I'm keeping some distance from that one for now (two or three times so far).

one that hasn't been mentioned yet:

bridesmaids

Confirmed last night: Cluny Brown.

a uniform mood and pace, ensemble cast giving great performances across the board, a pleasing setting along with a strong sense of place and time

Yes I was coming to this thread to say, IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD

Documentaries work great for me. They usually have that passage-of-time element some mentioned needing as a comfort movie staple. American Movie is one that immediately comes to mind.

ryan otm w what makes a comfort movie.

mine is slacker, a movie i wish went on forever

I like this thread

showgirls
speed racer
the crow

ok maybe not ALL of showgirls but most of it

probably Tetsuo: The Iron Man tbh

― Stockhausen Serves Empirical Jism (Matt #2), Thursday, October 3, 2019 1:07 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I was disturbed by that, it was not a comfort film for me

I like ryan's description of 20th Century Women

also:
The most recent addition to my comfort canon: Giant Little Ones

― Maria Edgelord (cryptosicko), Tuesday, October 1, 2019

enjoyed this film

second viewing of Martin Eden confirmed that it will live forever in the personal comfort movie pantheon

movies I could rewatch / put on anytime and get absorbed all over again:
Robocop
Miracle Mile
Jacob's Ladder
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Near Dark
Days of Heaven
Shattered Glass

Winter's Bone, for some reason.

Ace Attorney movie (by Takashi Miike!) and Closer. Have watched both tons of times. Ace Attorney because of the sheer absurdity and a pretty gorgeous cast, Closer for how nostalgic it makes me and how much I like the structure and how horrible everyone is.

Cheech and Chong movies

Die Hard movies

Fifth Element

The China Syndrome, in addition to others I've mentioned here. Proof that the content of a comfort movie is kind of irrelevant.

Not a movie, but The Beiderbecke Affair, though I haven't watched it for a few years now I've probably been through the trilogy maybe 10 times.

The Fugitive
Not sure how/why it survives so many rewatchings at my house but it's always like checking in on an old friend.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this elsewhere but Michael Clayton is right up there for me. I think Logan Lucky might be creeping up the ranks.

This Is Spinal Tap
Road Warrior
any of the War Stars flicks

Logan Lucky held up well on second viewing and my folks loved it.

If I were available I’d definitely try to get a date with Hilary Swank’s hardass FBI agent that appears at the end. pvmic

Most of the classic comfort movies are already covered. Will add:

McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Young Guns I/II
Grisham movies, in particular The Firm, Pelican Brief and The Rainmaker

La Bamba
Karate Kid
High Society
Philadelphia Story

Good Time
Uncut Gems

lol uncut gems def the opposite for me, what with all the crazy shouting

Lol yeah, my gf finds this position insane but I didn't even notice it was 90% shouting when I first saw it. For me the chaos and noisiness of these movies is so overwhelming that it just becomes a soothing din, kinda like how some noise records can tip into ambient territory. Also the protagonists' continual fuck ups make my own problems seem manageable and negligible.

Logan Lucky is a good pick. It almost seems like a conscious attempt to create a comfort movie

my list:

pretty much every horror movie that's sort of boring

Michael Clayton is right up there for me

Not on my own list, but very much the kind of comfort movie I gravitate towards: big, somber procedurals (Zodiac and All the President's Men the two most obvious examples, but there are others) you can lose yourself in.

I can't believe I overlooked one of my favorites:

Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World

Oh good one

hunt for red october
silverado

M&C a bit bloody/noisy for comfort, but also on the proto-Darwin 19th century tip: Angels & Insects.

Coming to America

hunt for red october otm

inherent vice

Almost any Bruce Willis movie, good or bad. (Exceptions being The Sixth Sense and those talking baby movies.)

The Philadelphia Story, mentioned upthread

Witness

While You Were Sleeping

Think I find TV shows inherently more comforting than movies, though. Something about the continuity & reassurance that I can just keep watching.

Exactly where I've been the past few months (pre-dating the pandemic). My comfort go-to is rewatching a series I love.

inherent vice otm

Seems too obvious but Casablanca.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Everybody Wants Some!!

the sting

Hard Target, which I am watching right now

oh man i should watch hard target

It’s comforting

The Fugitive, already mentioned, is my classic die this. North by Northwest, too. Why do I find wrong man on the run films so comforting??

heist and/or scam movies seem to be another big trend here

I generally will space out rewatches over at least a couple years, but it's not unusual for me to watch The Fugitive several times in any given year (I think I've watched it at least twice in 2020).

I'm scrambling harder than ever for comfort movies as my resting panic rate continues to rise. Depression-era fare is really hitting the spot of late (designed, as it so often was, as a balm for the panic-stricken). The Berkeley and Astaire/Rogers musicals have been cinematic Xanax.

Also shitty (aka amazing) '80s/'90s coke-fueled action flicks (Cobra and Stone Cold make a swell double bill, I find).

Also, Tango & Cash was way more entertaining than I would've expected from a movie I enjoyed as a dumb kid! Never realized back then how badly those two wanted to make sex with each other.

momentarily got tango & cash confused with turner & hooch there

tango & hooch sounds like a decent beveridge.

Never realized back then how badly those two wanted to make sex with each other.

Now go back and re-watch Point Break and Road House. (The latter contains the line "I used to fuck guys like you in prison," and I'm only half convinced it's meant as a threat in context.)

Watched Ocean’s 13 last night and it hit the spot.

Okay, not a movie but old episodes of the Kung Fu series with David Carradine are incredibly soothing... the flute music, just drifting around the west... I used to watch reruns after school, before my parents got home and started fighting.

How could I forget «Diner»?

"American Graffiti"

My sister and her husband will watch "Fargo" whenever they come across it on the cable system, but I don't like it like that.

A Serious Man is my Coens comfort movie

especially now that I have a back porch that looks over a parking lot

oh yes thats a good one

Coming to Blu Ray for the first time next month, an ILX comfort movies classic..

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/714bL6CQEwL._SL1500_.jpg

i’m a little worried, james.

I don't do this.

― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, July 9, 2013 7:22 AM bookmarkflaglink

lol <3

ooh
The 'Burbs

The Vast of Night

resident evil

Dogfight

aw

Somewhere; the Sofia Coppola film.

A Sominex kind of comfort, sure

The Holdovers is going to be one of these for a lot of folks I feel.

Seems built to be mostly, if not only, just that

Weirdly, when I was in college, The Big Chill was a comfort movie for me.

I don't think I've watched it for more than 30 years.

Just the other day I was wishing a streaming service had a “movies to take a nap to” category

Respectable genre imo

At the worst of my drinking, I slept through Inglorious Basterds and Hot Tub Time Machine . . . in the theater. I suppose that doesn't count as napping.

Clue took this spot for me this year. A perfect cozy movie to fall asleep to or put on in the background while I do chores, but I can still watch it any time and feel joy.

Happy Death Day and Happy Death Day 2 U have also been making their way into my regular rotation.

Roadhouse is a big one for me

The Shop Around the Corner is one I go back to like a wooly blanket every sad drunken Christmas

i've been trying to hold off watching Sion Sono's Love and Peace until it's actually December but this might be the evening i crack

last posted to this thread 13 years ago, jesus

Since then, Rogue One and Zodiac. also Someone Great, a Netflix not-quite-rom-com I love but no one else seems to have watched.

Ohhhh, you know what completely out of left field thing I watched somewhat recently and kind of loved and that will never get a mention anywhere else? The 1989 Jackée Harry television movie The Reluctant Agent (aka Double Your Pleasure, which sounds like something that has like 400% more anal than this movie). Prime cinematic alpha waves.

Better off Dead
Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Breakfast Club
Say Anything
Steel Magnolias
Kicking and Screaming (the Noah Baumbach one, not the Will Ferell one)
Fletch
Vacation, European Vacation, Christmas Vacation
RHPS
So I Married an Axe Murderer
Big Lebowski

― ENBB, Monday, July 7, 2008 1:33 PM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflagl

I haven't watched any of these in years but I will say that I've been fuming all week because I really want to watch Better Off Dead and it's not available streaming.

Scenes from a Marriage

the third man and picnic at hanging rock. both of them lull me into a nice place

The Big Lebowski is both my favorite comfort movie and my favorite movie, period.

It's the best.

The best way I can describe my connection to this movie is by relating a story my daughter told me. She is a tow truck driver who does a lot of impound work. The police recovered this guy's car. He seemed really put out and asked them if they were going to dust it for prints.

We both laughed hysterically when she told me this story, without ever mentioning Lebowski.

Mike Leigh's Another Year

All Peter Hyams’ films, but especially Running Scared (1986) w/ Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal

School of Rock. First time I saw it was on a flight to Australia. I watched it four times.

otm love that one, good feels!

yeah School of Rock holds up so well, it's my kid's fave too

Ancient show biz wisdom says never work with kids or dogs because they'll always upstage you, but Jack Black needed all of that kind of help he could get.

This is kind of an alien concept for me, maybe because most of my favourite films are more entertaining to think about than to watch.

My ideal for "comfort viewing" is a TV show that ran every night in the late 80s, chronicling a real-time drive into downtown Toronto, to the tune of laidback jazz; but anything like unedited aquarium or outdoor camera footage conveys the same pleasant atmosphere (I don't like watching fireplace footage though).

Lol I love the yuke log channel. We had a fireplace in the den and I'd still put that on TV growing up.

I think now I have comfort TV shows rather than movies and the biggest of those is, without question, The Golden Girls.

xpost Along those same lines, I have been known to watch (at least parts of) those ridiculously long real-time YT videos of train trips through foreign locales. Super soothing and satisfying (but also intersting to see all the off the beaten path scenery).

Oh, yes, train videos. I can watch them for hours, particularly if it's a video of a really long trip. There is one about the train that goes between north and south Australia that is like video therapy.

My comfort show is MASH, probably because I used to watch it with my mother and brother.

This is Spinal Tap!

The first Paw Patrol movie, I must've seen it a dozen times now with the small one, but it's pretty good! I look forward to watching it. Encanto too.

for fans of slow tv this is an all time classic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dHETOyiE6U

OMG, yes. My first thought was 'please tell me they didn't tack music or dopey narration onto this work of beauty' and they thankfully listened to my unspoken prayers.

Donald Sutherland scene in JFK

The Dave's Walks channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goFD-F8RrgA

No talking, no music, just an hour or so roaming the villages and countryside of England. He's got about 170 videos at this point.

The best way I can describe my connection to this movie is by relating a story my daughter told me. She is a tow truck driver who does a lot of impound work. The police recovered this guy's car. He seemed really put out and asked them if they were going to dust it for prints.

Even better: he also asked if they were going to get DNA evidence, since apparently the kids who boosted it left it in the parking lot of a McDonald's.

Bad News mfing Bears

could watch this damn movie a thousand times and never love it any less

so great

Englebert

There's chocolate all over this ball

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011). Fits all the hallmarks: consistent low key vibe, killer ensemble cast, a little bit melancholy, strong sense of time and place.

Started watching Dario Argento's Inferno but it was moving slower than a Robert Wilson opera, so I re-watched Abel Ferrara's King of New York instead.

The Martian, round our way

Wonder Boys

Frances Ha

Everybody Wants Some

Hopscotch
Let It Ride (Richard Dreyfuss horse movie)
To Be or Not to Be

hopscotch is so good

Moneyball

is every baseball movie a comfort movie? we just got bad news bears, everybody wants some! and moneyball

His Girl Friday
The Maltese Falcon
Cluny Brown
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeosie
Tootsie
Manhattan Murder Mystery
Frances Ha

xp baseball is definitely the "comfort movie" of sports

Just started Todd Haynes' Mildred Pierce for probably the fifth time; now a comfort film, especially because of Carter Burwell's score.

yeah thats a good one

Room 237 is a great "i'm up in the middle of the night for no reason" insomnia-daze watch.

That clippng sdtk always lulls me into a trance.

Saw Chef last night for the first time in a few years, and if you want some pre-2016 comfort, here it is: pre-toxic social media, pre-toxic kitchen culture, pre-toxic Austin Texas, and so on. We had it so good. And Oliver Platt bridging the gap between this and The Bear.

surely post-toxuc kitchen culture

anyway the star director producer of that movie sure did think the character should be irresistible to the best looking women on the planet, id say youd have to go back to joe dirt to find an equal on that score oh and i also nominate joe dirt as a comfort movie

^^That's like every Favreau joint, even back to Swingers.

Was at a rep screening of a comfort film tonight: Jaws. (Probably going to retire it now.) 50th anniversary, with a intro from Spielberg, who most definitely looks younger than 75.

"Michael, listen to your father--GET OUT OF THE WATER NOW!"

the star director producer of that movie sure did think the character should be irresistible to the best looking women on the planet

I've known conventionally really unattractive chefs who could attract the same. Have you ever cooked a really good dinner for a date?

It's not a chef problem, it's a Favreau problem.

gonna write myself a role as a young comedy writer who has to manage jon favreau through the ups and downs of his various on screen fantasy relationships while my character in fact enjoys dalliances with each of the actresses it shall be called my favreau tier

Silver Streak
Go
Nobody’s Fool
Desperately Seeking Susan
Monkey Business (1931)
39 Steps
Shop Around the Corner
Big Sleep
Only Angels Have Wings
Frozen 2 (with kid)

Im not saying its a great movie or anything but RTE seem compelled to show Brewsters Millions on a Sunday evening about twice a year and its like putting your feet into some cosy slippers anytime I watch it.

I don't think I'd watch any of the movies on my list in this thread anymore. I've ruined Withnail by watching it too much, and Empire Records has kinda aged badly.

I can't think of any replacements though!

I keep rewatching every comfort film of mine till I ruin them.