Some movies are eternal; their appeal detached from the burden of time and repeat viewings. They are immensely rewarding experiences that miraculously don’t crumple under the weight of diminishing returns.
I cherish those films. Some films mentioned below are my ‘Happy Place,’ some are intrinsically connected to a time in my life and some are just outright fun. But all of them are insanely rewatchable.
Honourable Mentions: Heat, Ocean’s Eleven, Hot Fuzz, Snatch, Inglourious Basterds, Love Actually, The Curse of the Black Pearl, Guardians of the Galaxy, Arrival, Back to the Future, This Is the End, The Room, Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes, Skyfall, Hot Tub Time Machine
5. Steve Jobs (2015)
Aaron Sorkin’s words have always been music to my ears, irrespective of the medium. Whether it is films such as A Few Good Men, Charlie Wilson’s War and The Social Network, or his television work – The West Wing, The Newsroom and Sports Night.
I enjoyed Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip as well, a project that is considered one of his lesser efforts. But nowhere has that music seemed more mellifluous to my ears than in Steve Jobs, a film that crackles with Sorkin’s hyper-articulate, whirlwind dialogue.
While The Social Network remains his pièce de résistance as a screenwriter, it’s in Steve Jobs where Sorkin the dialogue writer is unleashed, and it is a sight to behold. This is his orchestra. And it is outrageously rewatchable.
4. Goodfellas (1990)
Everything I look for in a movie can be distilled to two words – engagement and entertainment. And there are few movies, if any, that have as potent a combination of those elements as Scorsese’s scintillating crime drama.
Henry Hill’s rise is always euphoric, his fall is always tragic. The ‘Copacabana’ sequence has not once failed to bring a smile to my face. Even after all these years, the ‘Funny How?’ scene still fills me with trepidation.
Goodfellas is The Godfather on cocaine, and it is a delight. Every time. As far back as I can remember, I have always wanted to rewatch Goodfellas.
3. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
115 minutes of unadulterated, unbridled joy; that’s what Raiders is to me. There are a handful of movies I consider being perfect, or as perfect as a film can be, and Raiders is one of them.
The pacing and structure of Steven Spielberg’s globe-trotting adventure is so incredibly precise; not a single frame is out of place, everything coalesces to move the story forward. I consider it to be the quintessential adventure romp and the gold standard for this genre.
Then there’s Harrison Ford, who crafts as satisfactory a ‘leading man’ performance as I’ve ever seen. Almost 40 years later, his work, and Raiders, remains immensely rewatchable. It’s not the years, it’s the mileage.
2. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)
I have made a conscious decision to not seek questions related to The Lord of The Rings on this platform, for a somewhat bizarre reason - If I spend over 10 minutes thinking about them, an invisible, inaudible force compels me to watch the extended editions of all three movies.
These are the first English-language movies I remember watching, and I instantly fell in love. I cannot be even fractionally objective about this series; it is so intrinsically tied to my love for films.
To me, they are more than films. I will love them and watch them until it is my time to journey into the Grey Havens.
1.The Big Lebowski (1998)
To me, this film is several things – one of the funniest of all time; one of the most quotable of all time; one of the most rewatchable of all time; one of the greatest of all time.
And it has several things - two of the finest characters of all time; one of the best performances of all time; the greatest rug of all time.
Perhaps you don’t agree with some of the above. Well, obviously you’re not a golfer.
Or perhaps you’re not into the whole brevity thing; or you’ve never found a stranger in the Alps; or you don’t know what a pederast is; or you're blissfully unaware of the ways of procuring a toe at 3 in the afternoon; you’re out of your element.
Well, I can’t be worried about that shit. Life goes on, man.
Also, this movie really ties the answer together.
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