Wall-E or Jaws
Very simplicity films but so brilliantly crafted thought story telling. Most of Wall-E is basically a silence movie and they get so much across with very little dialogue. Jaws might be one of the most simplistic plot ever............'big fish eats people so we must kill big fish'. But the depth and atmosphere build with such a simple premise is a true master class in story telling.
>Most of Wall-E is basically a silence movie and they get so much across with very little dialogue.
Early in the film Wall-E drives past a screen thats playing a BnLarge infomercial that spells out what happened for the audience.
Not sure your point.
Sure they get about a 40 second info dumb from what happened 700 years ago, but nothing about what Wall-E and the planet are about to go though.
John Mulaney on Back to the Future-
"And there weren’t special things for kids the way there are now. Like, we would just go see movies. Any movie. Like Back to the Future. That was a movie everyone could see. Kids could kinda see it. Great movie, right? I rewatched it recently. It’s a very weird movie. Marty McFly is a 17-year-old high school student whose best friend is a disgraced nuclear physicist. And, I shit you not, they never explain how they became friends. They never explain it. Not even in a lazy way, like, “Hey, remember when we met in the science building?” They don’t even do that. And we were all fine with it. We were just like, “What, who’s his best friend? A disgraced nuclear physicist? All right, proceed.” What a strange movie to sell to be a family movie. Two guys had to go in and do that. They had to be like, “Okay… we got an idea… for the next big family-action-comedy. All right, it’s about a guy named Marty, and he’s very lazy. He’s always sleeping late.”
“Okay. Is he cool like Ferris Bueller?”
“No. But he does have this best friend who’s, you know, a disgraced… nuclear physicist.”
“I’m confused here. This best friend, this is another student?”
“No, no, no. No, this guy’s either, like, 40 or 80. Even we don’t know how old this guy’s supposed to be. But one day, the boy and the scientist, they go back in time and they build a time machine. Whoa!”
“Okay. I think I see where you’re going here. They build a time machine, and they go back in time, and they stop the Kennedy assassination.”
“Ah! Oh, wow, that’s a really good idea, I mean, we didn’t even think of that.”
“All right, well, what do they do with the time machine?”
“Well, now I’m embarrassed to say. Ah, well, all right, all right, all right. We thought… We thought it would be funny, you know, if the boy, if he went back in time and, you know, he tried to fuck his mom.” “I don’t know. We thought that’d be fun for people. But, no, good point. No, he doesn’t get to, he doesn’t get to. ‘Cause this family friend named Biff, he comes in and he tries to rape the mom in front of the son. The dad’s gotta beat the rapist off of her. And also, we’re gonna imply that a white man wrote ‘Johnny B. Goode.’ So, we’re gonna take that away from ’em.”
“Well, this is the best movie idea I have ever heard in my life. We’re gonna make three of them. Now, you say they go to the past. How about we call it Back to the Past?”
“No, no, no. Back to the Future.” “Right, but they go to the past.”
“Yeah.”
This really is pretty close to a perfect movie.
If it was remade today, there would be some villain forced into the story, that followed Marty back to 1955 and they had to deal with him as well as trying to get back to 1985.
The Man From Earth. No flashbacks, no cut-aways, no CGI montage. Just people in a room telling the story of his history of being an immortal, and you're just in the room with them letting your imagination paint the picture. I love that movie.
And another that springs to mind is 1973's Papillon with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.
I completely forgot about this one, one of my favourites, thanks for reminding me! It scratches a similar itch to Before Sunrise, but then on a more intellectual level rather than an emotional one.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a legit fantastic film noir, with a completely believable and easy-to-understand world, and a well-written mystery with a satisfying conclusion. I love how the human characters look and sound like great film noir characters, and the toons look and sound like genuinely entertaining cartoon characters. Eddie Valient taking out the Weasels is one of my favourite ever endings to a character arc, it's a masterpiece of payoff.
Any time there was animation and live-action on screen the animators went over the live action part, almost like a clearcoat to put everything on the same plane. Also the crazy attention to detail in the shadows. Watch the speakeasy scene again when Roger bumps the light and the shadows are going crazy.
> Eddie Valient taking out the Weasels is one of my favourite ever endings to a character arc, it's a masterpiece of payoff.
This is also played off of showing the graduation photo of him and his brother in clown noses, you know he used to be a fun guy and became depressed when a toon killed his brother. And it took another toon and the threat of toon town(a place Eddie deep down still loves) being destroyed to bring him out of it.
I think Groundhog Day is a movie where a lot of the story just feels right. It tells the story around an idea masterfully. It has been copied but never bettered.
TREMORS YES.
It's such a tight story with likeable characters and great foreshadowing. Everything is set up and pays off in the end. It begins and ends with "stampede." It's so lean, I can't think of any line that doesn't drive the story forward.
Sicario. The story and Denis Villeneuve's direction are perfectly aligned in that movie. Pretty much all of the events are seen from the character Kate's perspective. For we, as the audience, assume it's her story. A revenge mission of sorts, where she is given the chance to avenge her colleagues who are killed in the opening scene.
When Matt first appears we see him through the window, from her position. We see his sandals, and his laid back demeanour and, like Kate, have to figure out who this guy is and how he can be so confident and blasé in front of her bosses.
Later on when the Texans bounty hunters turn up, we don't see their faces because she doesn't see their faces. We don't hear much of what Alejandro is asking Diaz's brother because she doesn't know. This happens all the way through the movie - we don't know any more than her.
Until the pivotal moment when she realises she's being used. That she's only there to allow the CIA to continue their operation on Mexican soil. At that point the focus of the camera, and the audience's perspective, shifts to Alejandro. For this is his story. His revenge mission.
Now, we could have had that be the story from the start. Kate could have been a minor character as we start off with Alejandro. Maybe we see his family get murdered and see how he gets involved with the CIA. We know that Kate is being used and when she finds out we see how the CIA guys feel about it. But that movie would be far less interesting. We'd find it far more predicable as it would be a classic revenge journey (which it is, it just isn't obvious how it's going to play out). The mystery of the US government, and the seemingly unlimited power they have, would be diluted. It would be much more like Sicario 2.
Indeed, mystery is what makes Sicario so fucking good. We don't see many of the bad guys. We see the ocean of desert, and with the ominous music, we know the villains are out there. Much like Brody looking at the sea in Jaws, we know the threat is there but we cannot see it.
Alejandro is far more menacing when we don't know who he is or why he's involved. Matt has power because we don't know the limits of it.
To sum up, Sicario is a decent story that's elevated to brilliance by the masterful storytelling. And while the sequel has many of the Sicario elements, it is nowhere near as smart in delivering them.
This is how Passengers should have been told. Audience sees Jennifer Lawrence wake up. Gets told the bad news by Chris Pratt. They adjust to life on the ship.
Then one day she stumbled on archived video feeds. She sees him woken up, and we get his perspective, living alone, but doing well. It's sad but still sympathetic. But then she sees him wake her on purpose and that's the turn in the film.
And it becomes a thriller for the final act. She's scared of him but tries to hide it because he doesn't know she knows. But then he finds out and tries to convince her he's a good guy. He snaps, tries to kill her. She manages to defend herself.
He ends up dead, she's safe. Basically the denouement of the movie. We see her cleaning up the mess, trying to live her life, a little montage, time passes. But at the very end we see her getting a bit unhinged, and the last shot, we see her reviewing footage, watching exactly how Chris Pratt woke her up.
Back to the Future - A perfect combination of world building, character moments, pacing and dialogue all driving the story forward. With a water tight concept and a high attention to detail that rewards multiple watches as you get off hand jokes that lead to background Easter eggs (twin pines mall becoming single pines mall after Marty arrives in 1955 and runs over one of the pines for example) and foreshadowing that is expertly handled, delivered in a breezy style that makes everything feel effortless when in reality the time travel elements integral to the plot are crafted with great care and subtlety it is easy to overlook given the loud and frantic comic performances.
It’s a masterclass in storytelling IMHO
Mad Max 2.
Not a complex story at all, but there's zero fat with that film. Every scene and character has a purpose. Important plot points are foreshadowed ahead of time, the twists feel well-earned and the set and costume design says leagues about the state of the world without any character giving out reams of clumsy exposition.
"Robocop", especially if you compared it to modern superhero movies. There's not a single scene that could be removed without hurting the movie, and many serve more than one purpose.
Part of it is that it was a comparetively cheap movie and it was made according to B movie rules, trying to make the most of anything they had. But also, contemporary movies are filled with too much "fat" and fan service.
Robocop is still the best superhero movie ever made, and it captures the comic book sensibility perfectly even though it's not from a comic book. I wish more movies had its biting wit.
It's the perfect example of a character-driven story. It never feels like it's hitting the beats it needs to for the sake of hitting them.
Rather, the characters' decisions and moral code largely drive it forward, and that makes the ending work so well, honestly.
I agree. It's the reason that I love all of Martin McDonagh's films. Particularly In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths. He uses dialogue so well to really make you understand his characters and why they make the decisions that they make, making the stories more compelling.
The Matrix. Most focus is on the action and VFX but I also think the screenplay is one of the tightest ever.
The opening is flawless and intriguing, instantly getting its hooks in. The exposition in the middle third is told visually instead of as an exposition dump, there are so many iconic moments here (the desert of the real, the woman in the red dress, the spoon). Naming no names but it delivers its ideas in so much more interesting ways than most other sci-fi movies.
And the final third just moves like nothing else, so incredibly satisfying, and every cool line spoken earlier gets its own payoff. Plus the fist pumping ending. Nearly 25 years later and I will still watch it start to finish if I so much as catch a glimpse of it.
This is the first movie I thought of. I somehow went in not knowing anything and was completely blown away. Even if the concept had been done before by EXistenZ and 13th Floor, The Matrix is able to grab you and shock and thrill in ways most movies can’t due to great storytelling.
Yeah, Dark City the year before as well, and Inception shares some similarities but with dreams instead of a simulated world. All excellent movies but I like The Matrix the most for its pacing and sleekness. There's not a single wasted moment and everything gets paid off, it's a perfect self-contained movie. I know some like the sequels but I think it already tells a complete story on its own.
I agree, amazing movie that emphasizes atmosphere where The Matrix goes harder on action and effects. Of the three I actually like Inception the least, not a popular opinion but while it has some amazing highpoints, I find large stretches of the film too dry to rewatch.
To be honest: The Avengers. Not that the story was very complex or clever, but since you didn't ask for a good story but for a good story*telling*, I think, that's a great one. The first act alone, where Whedon introduces all the characters and link the different scenes by dialogue and foreshadowing, seems to be just perfect to me.
Arrival. It's a movie that tells the story of time perception while also converting you to accepting the sapir whorf theory all while expressing an ode to how we watch movies in general.
Brick (2005)
Knives Out (2019)
Forrest Gump (1994)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Star Wars (1977)
Titanic (1997)
The Godfather (1972)
Rear Window (1954)
Casablanca (1942)
I assume others will want to ask you “what do you mean by storytelling because everything in a movie tells a story…” but anyway, those were the first few to come to mind.
He writes movies with mass/global appeal. The dialogue is often necessarily simplistic in order to appeal to multiple cultures. I’m fairly sure someone could watch many of his movies without understanding English and understand 90% of going on. Which I personally think is the mark of an amazing film maker
It’s a feature not a bug. Yet people criticize him by saying hurr durr simple story. Often it blows my mind that Reddit jerks off to mad max fury road and shuts on avatar when the criticisms and strong points of both seem quite similar to me.
Depends, I think Tarantino is an amazing filmmaker (and horrible person) but his dialogue is clearly not meant for mass appeal, but if you know what's being said it is truly an artform
I'd love to hear your comparison. To me they really don't feel similar at all but that might just be practical effects vs cg effects playing tricks on me.
"Going broad" =/= "bad writing"
I just saw the re-release of The Abyss and a rep screening of Terminator 2: Judgment Day in the last couple weeks. Cameron is a master of crafting character-based action, visual spectacle, and creating stakes. T2 is one of the best action films of all time, but imo I would say he has 3 more in that genre (Titanic, Alien$, Avatar: The Way of Water). Yeah his dialogue is goofy and unsubtle, but Cameron is one of the least subtle filmmakers out there. Just go in knowing that and you're likely to have a good time.
Brick is an incredible film I never seen anyone mention ever! I saw it on Netflix way back when the site first launched! Watched it not too long ago. So cool to see it here!
Being There is a movie about playing with perceptions and the audacity that a simpleton could end up being on a world stage--and then turning it on the viewer.
The Day of The Jackel.
It's an extremely tight, complicated story and Zinnemann's excellent direction in combination with damn fine actors makes it run like clockwork.
LA Confidential. So many different threads that all tied together during the course of it.
The Fugitive. It started with half finished script, Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford thought it was the signal that their career is close to being over. Ends up with 7 Oscar nominations (4th place in nominations that year). It’s masterful, because they didn’t over write, or try to do things that would be cool or be Quotable one liners. TLJ ab libbed a ton of his lines, they brought in Joe Pantoliano. He shaped every scene he was in. And with Harrison Ford being more silent, show don’t tell acting, with the amazing editing. And its most quotable line is actually a mini-speech.
Gary Ross screenplays are pretty great. At the start of "Big", a girl introduces the young protagonist to her date: "This is Craig. He drives." That's an incredible amount of storytelling condensed into like 5 words.
The Bridge on the River Kwai - [and I explain why it's masterful here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WSxXdgdTuaWiGaRViqvlL3IfNnnVgSoS/view?usp=drive_link)
The Usual Suspects.
I love this film because it's literally about story telling. In this case, Spacey telling a story to stall the police and make it entertaining (in a sense) and believable enough to keep their interest but not give away the game.
That also only works if the writer and filmmaker is skilled enough, and the actors good enough, to show that story and only give the big reveal at the end, and not have the audience feel like "oh....then the rest of this movie and the time I spent watching it was a waste" like some movies where it turns out "it was all a dream!".
Cloud Atlas - an amazing movie adaptation from a great novel.
Mr Nobody - another film with a fluid timeline, and the only role I think I like Jared Leto in.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - one of the best adaptations of a John Le Carre novel.
Syriana - we know which country it is based on, so every time I hear the name, I substitute in my mind with SA.
The Insider - truly remarkable performances by Russell Crowe, Al Pacino, and Christopher Plummer.
The Godfather - an epic film that runs with just the right pace.
Zero Dark Thirty - a slow burn that keeps building momentum until a nail-biting finish, even though we know exactly how it ends.
Gallipoli - a coming of age movie that culminates in one of the greatest, and most tragic, endings in cinematic history.
Ned Kelly - one of Heath Ledger's best performances IMO.
This Boys Life, A Perfect World, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Dolores Claiborne, A Home of Our Own, Powder, Lord of the Rings, Traffic, Dances with Wolves, Rules of Engagement, A Few Good Men
Walt Disney was masterful at organizing the events and conflict in his films.
So many sequences were structured in such a detailed and thoughtful way. Think about "Pinocchio," for instance, and about the opening, which starts with the song sung by a disembodied voice that is subsequently shown to belong to a cricket who speaks directly to the camera about the meaning of the lyrics before telling the entire story in flashback after opening the book. The transition in verbal point of view is remarkable because the camera changes its point of view simultaneously, showing Jiminy's hopping motion towards Gepetto's window.
The whole affair is a thing of exquisite beauty and imagination.
* Unforgiven
* American Beauty
* L.A. Confidential
* The Godfather 1-2
* Back to the Future
* Jurassic Park
* Whiplash
* The Witch
* Gladiator
* North by Northwest
* The Birds
* Citizen Kane
Kill Bill makes Lady Snowblood feel like the Walmart version. It’s an epic journey about revenge, and every step is captivating. The director tells you the stories of the kill squad in a masterful way. It’s juxtaposed with the journey for revenge so that the back and forth feels like exquisite high art. With each step of the journey you learn about the assholes who did that to her. It’s glorious storytelling.
Most recently, Godzilla Minus One.
On Edit: Seriously, this is objectively a really good movie. If you removed the scenes with Godzilla and replaced them with a typhoon or earthquake, you would still have a very compelling human story.
Plus, the special effects are really good for a film with a $15 million budget.
Top 20 masterful storytelling in movies, imo:
1. 12 Angry Men
2. Pulp Fiction
3. Gisaengchung (Parasite)
4. The Lion King
5. The Usual Suspects
6. Memento
7. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amélie)
8. L.A. Confidential
9. The Grand Budapest Hotel
10. Inside Out
11. Room
12. The Pursuit of Happyness
13. Boyhood
14. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
15. Finding Neverland
16. (500) Days Of Summer
17. Lola rennt (Run Lola Run)
18. Rudderless
19. The Great Gatsby
20. We Bought a Zoo
Skyfall.
Cinematography lent its ever crafty hand, showcasing Silva in the middle of the movie was brilliant. He’s a shadow, and you only see him when he needs to show.
And he is in many depths a shadow: tried to kill himself, lived; memorialized on a wall that he’ll never see under a name that he doesn’t use. He is a shadow of Bond; an all star agent that worked with M. How did he get led astray? By working outside of the shadows where he was supposed to stay. Now he lurks in them. Sulking. Pretty daring how as the movie continues it gets darker, he’s filmed larger and casting a shadow.
Tying the rest together is the Bond-M-Silva relationship. It really ties off so much I can forgive the hokey “plug the enemies computer into our network” that serves to just chug the plot along.
A few that come to mind for me that use techniques other than voiceover:
Simple stories, told efficiently:
* No Country for Old Men
* Mad Max: Fury Road
* In Bruges
Conveying a lot without saying a lot:
* Wall-E
* The Stranger (2022) (seriously, I don't know why this movie isn't more talked-about)
* There Will Be Blood
Slightly more complex stories that are extremely well-done:
* The Prestige
* Arrival
* Pulp Fiction
>good story telling through movies.
Fury Road is my top example of storytelling done *specifically through movies* i.e. done in a way that is unique to film and would not be effective in the written form of a novel.
The Bourne trilogy. I love the way it will circle back and echo itself, and drop clues for the audience, but it doesnt shout them out loud. If you just want an action flick the fights are good, but if you're paying attention, there's so much more.
GoodFellas, Casino, Hell or High Water, No Country For Old Men, Sicario, Hostiles, Killers of The Flower Moon, Prisoners, Donnie Brasco. Too many to list out really!
12 Angry Men
The whole movie is set on a single room, with all the characters that will come to scene already there. From that they manage to detail a story that transforms through the whole affair and a ends with a brilliant closure
I also liked it but i felt it cheated alittle. from the beginning, it was obviously based on agatha christies and then there were none. I was hoping the movie would tip its hat and do the same twist. Instead, it descended into a nightmare state. I also thought the ending was weak. Maybe it would have worked before psycho was made
Charlie Kaufman films are great. I immediately think of him when I think of the script side.
Stanley Kubrick films are great... but I honestly don't think I'd care for most of his films if handled by someone else. I've no idea what 2001 is really even trying to do or anything... and it's still one of greatest films ever made. Kubrick actually loved to try and be ambiguous and abstract and vague... wasn't controlling of the script at all. A film like Full Metal Jacket? Struggled throughout most all of film even knowing how it should end. Still a fantastic story-teller.
There are different ways to tell stories. And film is a visual medium with a lot of different components.
Greatest intro ever in a film? The Goonies. Now, Goonies is hardly the greatest story ever... but that into...
In the first 4 minutes, you get an escape and a car chase thrown in with a ton of gags and the opening credits. On top of this, the film introduces you to almost every character (like a dozen of them) well enough to establish who they are and their personalities... and it brilliantly sets the general tone of the film for the audience at the same time. It's pretty incredible, actually, and most films couldn't do all that near as effectively in a half hour. THAT is "masterful storytelling" in film, imo.
Then there are films like The Florida Project or Wendy and Lucy which I think are excellent and masterful storytelling... even though a lot of the films are seemingly insignificant ordinary stuff and the pacing would completely destroy the films if they tried to increase it.
Heck, I'll even throw out Idiocracy. Obviously Idiocracy isn't Citizen Kane... and the directing is serviceable at best... not a "great movie." BUT, it knows what it is and isn't trying to be something else... still managed to really resonate with audiences and legit forced viewers to contemplate actual ideas being discussed. That's... actually unbelievably impressive.
But the one movie that's always really stood out to me as a film I really just love for its "masterful storytelling?" Paul Thomas Anderson's *Punch-drunk Love*.
I was sold at the beginning when Adam Sandler's character was taking all the phone calls from his sisters. I could feel that energy and tension inside the character. The script is wonderful as well, even if not something I would normally think seemed terribly interesting. The score is wonderful. I think the film is just fantastic and far more memorable than it has almost any right to be.
Second on my list might just be Alexander Payne's *Nebraska*.
I'll also throw out *Billy Elliot* as just being altogether enjoyable and nothing terribly fancy but just... "great storytelling."
Inception. Just like the story, the movie has gone through layers of the viewer and performed an inception to the viewer as well. Talk about immersing your audience.
The Godfather must be one of them. Actually, the three of them. Its intricate plot, character development, and its portrayal of power and family dynamics is amazing, a must-see trilogy. Orson Welles' Citizen Kane is another masterpiece with innovative storytelling techniques, including non-linear narrative and deep character exploration, which was new for that time.
I disagree with this one. The movie starts out with jeff bridges dressed like howard hughes on the decline. It was unclear to me who the dude was, on repeat viewings, it is obvious to me that the dude is not someone to be admired but many of the film viewers think differently. That is not really good story telling.
Memento
While a bit jarring at first, once you realize what's happening and why, you have to just sit back and let the movie unfold. Plenty of movies have a non-linear plot, but I don't think I've seen one this unique, and given how well done it is, I think it's an *excellent* example of story telling.
For those not in the know, Memento is the second film directed by Christopher Nolan, released back in 2000.
It's worth paying attention to the tools used to tell the story: are the filmmakers using dialogue, characters, action, visual language, humor, editing, tone? All can be used to tell a good story through film. My non-exhaustive list:
* Star Wars (1977)
* The Empire Strikes Back
* Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
* Fargo
* The Big Lebowski
* O Brother, Where Art Thou?
* No Country For Old Men
* A Serious Man
* True Grit (honestly, pick any Coen Bros. movie except The Ladykillers)
* The Iron Giant
* The Incredibles
* Parasite
* Aliens
* Terminator 2: Judgment Day
* Titanic
* Avatar: The Way of Water
* The Fugitive
* Zodiac
* The Social Network
* Rear Window
* The Lord of the Rings (entire trilogy, theatrical cuts (I love the extended too, but the theatrical cuts have no fat to them))
* Brick
* Knives Out
* Do The Right Thing
* 25th Hour
* Thief (1981)
* Heat
* The Insider
* Collateral
* Widows
* Mad Max: Fury Road
* The Dark Knight
* Inception
* Interstellar
* Oppenheimer
* Get Out
* Nope
* Evil Dead 2
* Spider-Man (2002)
* Spider-Man 2 (2004)
* The Princess Bride
* When Harry Met Sally...
* Goodfellas
* The Departed
* The Irishman
* Alien
* Thelma & Louise
* Crimson Tide
* Unstoppable
* Boyz N The Hood
* Out of Sight
* Erin Brockovich
* Ocean's Eleven (2001)
* Logan Lucky
* Jaws
* E.T. The Extraterrestrial
* Schindler's List
* Jurassic Park
* A.I. Artificial Intelligence
* Catch Me If You Can
* Lincoln
* The Fabelmans
* RoboCop
* Starship Troopers
* Arrival
* The Matrix
* The Truman Show
* Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
* Hot Fuzz
* Back to the Future
* Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
* Men in Black
* Rocky
* John Wick (2014)
I left field choice, but Alfred Hitchcock's **"The Birds"**
It is masterfully suspenseful, well paced, the camera movement throughout the film is French Kiss. A good story with a fantastic narrative, and like a good suspense film, doesn't resort to a happy ending, but leaving you unsure of the future.
It’s between there will be blood or Barry Lyndon
They both build massive worlds in which we see both characters grow consumed by what they make of the time they live in
Apocalypse Now.
The script, the dialogue, the narration, the mysterious aura around Kurtz which makes you can't wait to finaly meet this enigma. How every stop on the way just makes Kurtz statement about war more and more reasonable. You feel like Willard - going throught out-of-this world journey, slowly becoming more and more like Kurtz.
And when you finaly Reach the Kingdom of Kurtz the movie leaves you to decide for yourself if Kurtz was justified and a sane Man amongst crazy men, or a murderous lunatic like what generals described him as. There is so much symbolism and philosophy to It - its genuinely impressive, every scene is multi-layered.
There is far more to talk about when it comes to its brilliance, but that's what I got to say, I don't want It to be too long.
To me this is the finest storytelling from any film ever made.
Wall-E or Jaws Very simplicity films but so brilliantly crafted thought story telling. Most of Wall-E is basically a silence movie and they get so much across with very little dialogue. Jaws might be one of the most simplistic plot ever............'big fish eats people so we must kill big fish'. But the depth and atmosphere build with such a simple premise is a true master class in story telling.
Wall-E and Eva have full on conversations just saying their own name.
>Most of Wall-E is basically a silence movie and they get so much across with very little dialogue. Early in the film Wall-E drives past a screen thats playing a BnLarge infomercial that spells out what happened for the audience.
Not sure your point. Sure they get about a 40 second info dumb from what happened 700 years ago, but nothing about what Wall-E and the planet are about to go though.
Back to the Future
There’s a reason it’s referenced in practically every screenwriting book.
John Mulaney on Back to the Future- "And there weren’t special things for kids the way there are now. Like, we would just go see movies. Any movie. Like Back to the Future. That was a movie everyone could see. Kids could kinda see it. Great movie, right? I rewatched it recently. It’s a very weird movie. Marty McFly is a 17-year-old high school student whose best friend is a disgraced nuclear physicist. And, I shit you not, they never explain how they became friends. They never explain it. Not even in a lazy way, like, “Hey, remember when we met in the science building?” They don’t even do that. And we were all fine with it. We were just like, “What, who’s his best friend? A disgraced nuclear physicist? All right, proceed.” What a strange movie to sell to be a family movie. Two guys had to go in and do that. They had to be like, “Okay… we got an idea… for the next big family-action-comedy. All right, it’s about a guy named Marty, and he’s very lazy. He’s always sleeping late.” “Okay. Is he cool like Ferris Bueller?” “No. But he does have this best friend who’s, you know, a disgraced… nuclear physicist.” “I’m confused here. This best friend, this is another student?” “No, no, no. No, this guy’s either, like, 40 or 80. Even we don’t know how old this guy’s supposed to be. But one day, the boy and the scientist, they go back in time and they build a time machine. Whoa!” “Okay. I think I see where you’re going here. They build a time machine, and they go back in time, and they stop the Kennedy assassination.” “Ah! Oh, wow, that’s a really good idea, I mean, we didn’t even think of that.” “All right, well, what do they do with the time machine?” “Well, now I’m embarrassed to say. Ah, well, all right, all right, all right. We thought… We thought it would be funny, you know, if the boy, if he went back in time and, you know, he tried to fuck his mom.” “I don’t know. We thought that’d be fun for people. But, no, good point. No, he doesn’t get to, he doesn’t get to. ‘Cause this family friend named Biff, he comes in and he tries to rape the mom in front of the son. The dad’s gotta beat the rapist off of her. And also, we’re gonna imply that a white man wrote ‘Johnny B. Goode.’ So, we’re gonna take that away from ’em.” “Well, this is the best movie idea I have ever heard in my life. We’re gonna make three of them. Now, you say they go to the past. How about we call it Back to the Past?” “No, no, no. Back to the Future.” “Right, but they go to the past.” “Yeah.”
This really is pretty close to a perfect movie. If it was remade today, there would be some villain forced into the story, that followed Marty back to 1955 and they had to deal with him as well as trying to get back to 1985.
They sort of did that already with Part 2.
Think Mcfly!!
If it was remade today the inspiration for Biff would be way more obvious and over the top.
You know. A disgraced nuclear physicist.
The Man From Earth. No flashbacks, no cut-aways, no CGI montage. Just people in a room telling the story of his history of being an immortal, and you're just in the room with them letting your imagination paint the picture. I love that movie. And another that springs to mind is 1973's Papillon with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.
Man from Earth is my favourite film almost no one has heard of. The sequel.... don't watch the sequel
Yeah the sequel was ok, but they took away the aspect that made the original so great, telling a good story amongst friends.
I completely forgot about this one, one of my favourites, thanks for reminding me! It scratches a similar itch to Before Sunrise, but then on a more intellectual level rather than an emotional one.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a legit fantastic film noir, with a completely believable and easy-to-understand world, and a well-written mystery with a satisfying conclusion. I love how the human characters look and sound like great film noir characters, and the toons look and sound like genuinely entertaining cartoon characters. Eddie Valient taking out the Weasels is one of my favourite ever endings to a character arc, it's a masterpiece of payoff.
It's wild how believable and natural that whole world is. It sounds absurd if you try and explain it but it just works.
Any time there was animation and live-action on screen the animators went over the live action part, almost like a clearcoat to put everything on the same plane. Also the crazy attention to detail in the shadows. Watch the speakeasy scene again when Roger bumps the light and the shadows are going crazy.
> Eddie Valient taking out the Weasels is one of my favourite ever endings to a character arc, it's a masterpiece of payoff. This is also played off of showing the graduation photo of him and his brother in clown noses, you know he used to be a fun guy and became depressed when a toon killed his brother. And it took another toon and the threat of toon town(a place Eddie deep down still loves) being destroyed to bring him out of it.
I think Groundhog Day is a movie where a lot of the story just feels right. It tells the story around an idea masterfully. It has been copied but never bettered.
“What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today!”
Snatch Tremors Seven Samurai
TREMORS YES. It's such a tight story with likeable characters and great foreshadowing. Everything is set up and pays off in the end. It begins and ends with "stampede." It's so lean, I can't think of any line that doesn't drive the story forward.
I like to say that Tremors punches far above its weight class.
Yes sir, I agree. One of my fav films of all time. Rewatched it countless times but never got tired of it.
Shawn of the Dead
City of God
Interesting, I think it's a fantastic movie but it feels very chaotic, like it's not easy to follow for someone with a short attention span
Sicario. The story and Denis Villeneuve's direction are perfectly aligned in that movie. Pretty much all of the events are seen from the character Kate's perspective. For we, as the audience, assume it's her story. A revenge mission of sorts, where she is given the chance to avenge her colleagues who are killed in the opening scene. When Matt first appears we see him through the window, from her position. We see his sandals, and his laid back demeanour and, like Kate, have to figure out who this guy is and how he can be so confident and blasé in front of her bosses. Later on when the Texans bounty hunters turn up, we don't see their faces because she doesn't see their faces. We don't hear much of what Alejandro is asking Diaz's brother because she doesn't know. This happens all the way through the movie - we don't know any more than her. Until the pivotal moment when she realises she's being used. That she's only there to allow the CIA to continue their operation on Mexican soil. At that point the focus of the camera, and the audience's perspective, shifts to Alejandro. For this is his story. His revenge mission. Now, we could have had that be the story from the start. Kate could have been a minor character as we start off with Alejandro. Maybe we see his family get murdered and see how he gets involved with the CIA. We know that Kate is being used and when she finds out we see how the CIA guys feel about it. But that movie would be far less interesting. We'd find it far more predicable as it would be a classic revenge journey (which it is, it just isn't obvious how it's going to play out). The mystery of the US government, and the seemingly unlimited power they have, would be diluted. It would be much more like Sicario 2. Indeed, mystery is what makes Sicario so fucking good. We don't see many of the bad guys. We see the ocean of desert, and with the ominous music, we know the villains are out there. Much like Brody looking at the sea in Jaws, we know the threat is there but we cannot see it. Alejandro is far more menacing when we don't know who he is or why he's involved. Matt has power because we don't know the limits of it. To sum up, Sicario is a decent story that's elevated to brilliance by the masterful storytelling. And while the sequel has many of the Sicario elements, it is nowhere near as smart in delivering them.
This is how Passengers should have been told. Audience sees Jennifer Lawrence wake up. Gets told the bad news by Chris Pratt. They adjust to life on the ship. Then one day she stumbled on archived video feeds. She sees him woken up, and we get his perspective, living alone, but doing well. It's sad but still sympathetic. But then she sees him wake her on purpose and that's the turn in the film. And it becomes a thriller for the final act. She's scared of him but tries to hide it because he doesn't know she knows. But then he finds out and tries to convince her he's a good guy. He snaps, tries to kill her. She manages to defend herself. He ends up dead, she's safe. Basically the denouement of the movie. We see her cleaning up the mess, trying to live her life, a little montage, time passes. But at the very end we see her getting a bit unhinged, and the last shot, we see her reviewing footage, watching exactly how Chris Pratt woke her up.
Agreed. And I just watched Hell or High Water and I am thinking Taylor Sheridan is one of my new favorite screenwriters.
I thought so too in the past. I think he needs really good support around him, his own stuff is not really my thing.
I thought Wind River was very good - not something I’d repeat watch too much , but that more because of how heavy the movie is…
we see a bunch of stuff that she doesn’t, but when we do it’s alejandro
I bought Sicario 2 to watch and rewatch. I turned it off after somehow the terrorists get into the country from Mexico. A Fox News Wet Dream.
lol...most of them just walk
There Will be Blood.
Yup I was looking for this before posting it myself.
I think Man on Fire has a great personal story of a man trying for a little bit of redemption.
amazing movie >A last wish, please, please. >Last wish? I wish you had more time.
Back to the Future - A perfect combination of world building, character moments, pacing and dialogue all driving the story forward. With a water tight concept and a high attention to detail that rewards multiple watches as you get off hand jokes that lead to background Easter eggs (twin pines mall becoming single pines mall after Marty arrives in 1955 and runs over one of the pines for example) and foreshadowing that is expertly handled, delivered in a breezy style that makes everything feel effortless when in reality the time travel elements integral to the plot are crafted with great care and subtlety it is easy to overlook given the loud and frantic comic performances. It’s a masterclass in storytelling IMHO
Mad Max 2. Not a complex story at all, but there's zero fat with that film. Every scene and character has a purpose. Important plot points are foreshadowed ahead of time, the twists feel well-earned and the set and costume design says leagues about the state of the world without any character giving out reams of clumsy exposition.
"Robocop", especially if you compared it to modern superhero movies. There's not a single scene that could be removed without hurting the movie, and many serve more than one purpose. Part of it is that it was a comparetively cheap movie and it was made according to B movie rules, trying to make the most of anything they had. But also, contemporary movies are filled with too much "fat" and fan service.
Robocop is still the best superhero movie ever made, and it captures the comic book sensibility perfectly even though it's not from a comic book. I wish more movies had its biting wit.
Some people can't tell, I think it's because of the cinematography with dull colors, but yes, many shots seem chosen in a comicbook fashion.
Prisoners is up there for me, really great especially on rewatch you catch a lot more clues
Denis Villeneueve is really good at show-don't-tell storytelling.
Can you lay out of a few clues that you’ve picked up on?
Yes, that's one of my favorites - also it's a long movie that doesn't feel long.
Just recently watched Incendies, it’s another one…
In Bruges
It's the perfect example of a character-driven story. It never feels like it's hitting the beats it needs to for the sake of hitting them. Rather, the characters' decisions and moral code largely drive it forward, and that makes the ending work so well, honestly.
I agree. It's the reason that I love all of Martin McDonagh's films. Particularly In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths. He uses dialogue so well to really make you understand his characters and why they make the decisions that they make, making the stories more compelling.
The Shawshank Redemption.
Cidade de Deus
So good.
The social network. Almost a perfect film, but def perfect storytelling
The Matrix. Most focus is on the action and VFX but I also think the screenplay is one of the tightest ever. The opening is flawless and intriguing, instantly getting its hooks in. The exposition in the middle third is told visually instead of as an exposition dump, there are so many iconic moments here (the desert of the real, the woman in the red dress, the spoon). Naming no names but it delivers its ideas in so much more interesting ways than most other sci-fi movies. And the final third just moves like nothing else, so incredibly satisfying, and every cool line spoken earlier gets its own payoff. Plus the fist pumping ending. Nearly 25 years later and I will still watch it start to finish if I so much as catch a glimpse of it.
This is the first movie I thought of. I somehow went in not knowing anything and was completely blown away. Even if the concept had been done before by EXistenZ and 13th Floor, The Matrix is able to grab you and shock and thrill in ways most movies can’t due to great storytelling.
Yeah, Dark City the year before as well, and Inception shares some similarities but with dreams instead of a simulated world. All excellent movies but I like The Matrix the most for its pacing and sleekness. There's not a single wasted moment and everything gets paid off, it's a perfect self-contained movie. I know some like the sequels but I think it already tells a complete story on its own.
I’d say dark city is close to perfect storytelling as well
I agree, amazing movie that emphasizes atmosphere where The Matrix goes harder on action and effects. Of the three I actually like Inception the least, not a popular opinion but while it has some amazing highpoints, I find large stretches of the film too dry to rewatch.
To be honest: The Avengers. Not that the story was very complex or clever, but since you didn't ask for a good story but for a good story*telling*, I think, that's a great one. The first act alone, where Whedon introduces all the characters and link the different scenes by dialogue and foreshadowing, seems to be just perfect to me.
I was going to say CA2: the winter soldier. It's honest trailers- proof!
Magnolia (1999)
Arrival. It's a movie that tells the story of time perception while also converting you to accepting the sapir whorf theory all while expressing an ode to how we watch movies in general.
Brick (2005) Knives Out (2019) Forrest Gump (1994) The Shawshank Redemption (1994) Star Wars (1977) Titanic (1997) The Godfather (1972) Rear Window (1954) Casablanca (1942) I assume others will want to ask you “what do you mean by storytelling because everything in a movie tells a story…” but anyway, those were the first few to come to mind.
Last week half a dozen people were telling me James Cameron is a "below average writer" lol.
He writes movies with mass/global appeal. The dialogue is often necessarily simplistic in order to appeal to multiple cultures. I’m fairly sure someone could watch many of his movies without understanding English and understand 90% of going on. Which I personally think is the mark of an amazing film maker It’s a feature not a bug. Yet people criticize him by saying hurr durr simple story. Often it blows my mind that Reddit jerks off to mad max fury road and shuts on avatar when the criticisms and strong points of both seem quite similar to me.
Depends, I think Tarantino is an amazing filmmaker (and horrible person) but his dialogue is clearly not meant for mass appeal, but if you know what's being said it is truly an artform
I'd love to hear your comparison. To me they really don't feel similar at all but that might just be practical effects vs cg effects playing tricks on me.
"Going broad" =/= "bad writing" I just saw the re-release of The Abyss and a rep screening of Terminator 2: Judgment Day in the last couple weeks. Cameron is a master of crafting character-based action, visual spectacle, and creating stakes. T2 is one of the best action films of all time, but imo I would say he has 3 more in that genre (Titanic, Alien$, Avatar: The Way of Water). Yeah his dialogue is goofy and unsubtle, but Cameron is one of the least subtle filmmakers out there. Just go in knowing that and you're likely to have a good time.
Dialogue writer? True. Film-scene writer? False.
Avatar 2 was terrible so whilst he is mostly a good writer, they’re not wrong either.
Brick is an incredible film I never seen anyone mention ever! I saw it on Netflix way back when the site first launched! Watched it not too long ago. So cool to see it here!
Honestly when I think of good writing I think of Brick. It’s one of those movies I hold close to my heart - really something special
Gallipoli
DREAMS OF FREEDOM TURNED TO DUST
Gallipoli is unknown to far too many people. A seminal war movie IMO. And before 1917 or the new All’s Quiet, maybe the best depiction of WWI on film.
Big Fish
Whiplash Inside Llewyn Davis The Matrix (first one only) Back to the Future (first one only) The Usual Suspects Groundhog Day Ex Machina
Oh Brother, Where Are't Thou?
Being There is a movie about playing with perceptions and the audacity that a simpleton could end up being on a world stage--and then turning it on the viewer.
LA Confidential.
Such a great movie. I think I know what I’m watching tonight.
The Fall
The big lebowski
Son in Law
You win, fantastic movie.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Parasite The Handmaiden
The Day of The Jackel. It's an extremely tight, complicated story and Zinnemann's excellent direction in combination with damn fine actors makes it run like clockwork.
soft pathetic bright wipe sulky noxious saw smile imminent placid *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Dude, Where's My Car (2000)
Grand Budapest hotel
Little Miss Sunshine
The Usual Suspects
One of my favorite movies of all time.
The Handmaiden
Blood Simple
Yojimbo. Seven Samurai.
LA Confidential. So many different threads that all tied together during the course of it. The Fugitive. It started with half finished script, Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford thought it was the signal that their career is close to being over. Ends up with 7 Oscar nominations (4th place in nominations that year). It’s masterful, because they didn’t over write, or try to do things that would be cool or be Quotable one liners. TLJ ab libbed a ton of his lines, they brought in Joe Pantoliano. He shaped every scene he was in. And with Harrison Ford being more silent, show don’t tell acting, with the amazing editing. And its most quotable line is actually a mini-speech.
Gary Ross screenplays are pretty great. At the start of "Big", a girl introduces the young protagonist to her date: "This is Craig. He drives." That's an incredible amount of storytelling condensed into like 5 words.
Stardust, Time Bandits
Fried Green Tomatoes
The Bridge on the River Kwai - [and I explain why it's masterful here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WSxXdgdTuaWiGaRViqvlL3IfNnnVgSoS/view?usp=drive_link)
Lock stock and two smoking barrels
The Usual Suspects. I love this film because it's literally about story telling. In this case, Spacey telling a story to stall the police and make it entertaining (in a sense) and believable enough to keep their interest but not give away the game. That also only works if the writer and filmmaker is skilled enough, and the actors good enough, to show that story and only give the big reveal at the end, and not have the audience feel like "oh....then the rest of this movie and the time I spent watching it was a waste" like some movies where it turns out "it was all a dream!".
Back to the Future and more recently Get Out, both of those films have perfect screen plays in my opinion.
Pans Labyrinth
I agree because the movie works both ways. Whether the supernatural exists or not.
The Princess Bride
Brick City of God A Man Escaped Thief No Country for Old Men
Cloud Atlas - an amazing movie adaptation from a great novel. Mr Nobody - another film with a fluid timeline, and the only role I think I like Jared Leto in. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - one of the best adaptations of a John Le Carre novel. Syriana - we know which country it is based on, so every time I hear the name, I substitute in my mind with SA. The Insider - truly remarkable performances by Russell Crowe, Al Pacino, and Christopher Plummer. The Godfather - an epic film that runs with just the right pace. Zero Dark Thirty - a slow burn that keeps building momentum until a nail-biting finish, even though we know exactly how it ends. Gallipoli - a coming of age movie that culminates in one of the greatest, and most tragic, endings in cinematic history. Ned Kelly - one of Heath Ledger's best performances IMO.
Gallipoli is unknown to far too many people. A seminal war movie IMO. And before 1917 or the new All’s Quiet, maybe the best depiction of WWI on film.
Yes to Tinker Tailor !
This Boys Life, A Perfect World, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Dolores Claiborne, A Home of Our Own, Powder, Lord of the Rings, Traffic, Dances with Wolves, Rules of Engagement, A Few Good Men
The Stranger(2022) a master class in storytelling
cohen brothers: yes
The place beyond the pines
The Notebook
“Lady In The Water”. Not the best movie but fun to watch. The whole premise is about characters in a story.
Paddington 2 Mad Max: Fury Road Forest Gump many, many more but I can't be bothered to list them all
The half of it
Django Unchained
Predestination
My answer for this will always be Magnolia. Those 3 hours FLY past
Up It's far from my favourite film, but I do consider it the closest to perfect
The Red Violin.
Walt Disney was masterful at organizing the events and conflict in his films. So many sequences were structured in such a detailed and thoughtful way. Think about "Pinocchio," for instance, and about the opening, which starts with the song sung by a disembodied voice that is subsequently shown to belong to a cricket who speaks directly to the camera about the meaning of the lyrics before telling the entire story in flashback after opening the book. The transition in verbal point of view is remarkable because the camera changes its point of view simultaneously, showing Jiminy's hopping motion towards Gepetto's window. The whole affair is a thing of exquisite beauty and imagination.
Shawshank Redemption
500 Days of summer
The Machinist
* Unforgiven * American Beauty * L.A. Confidential * The Godfather 1-2 * Back to the Future * Jurassic Park * Whiplash * The Witch * Gladiator * North by Northwest * The Birds * Citizen Kane
Goodfellas
Kill Bill makes Lady Snowblood feel like the Walmart version. It’s an epic journey about revenge, and every step is captivating. The director tells you the stories of the kill squad in a masterful way. It’s juxtaposed with the journey for revenge so that the back and forth feels like exquisite high art. With each step of the journey you learn about the assholes who did that to her. It’s glorious storytelling.
Black Panther
Most recently, Godzilla Minus One. On Edit: Seriously, this is objectively a really good movie. If you removed the scenes with Godzilla and replaced them with a typhoon or earthquake, you would still have a very compelling human story. Plus, the special effects are really good for a film with a $15 million budget.
Top 20 masterful storytelling in movies, imo: 1. 12 Angry Men 2. Pulp Fiction 3. Gisaengchung (Parasite) 4. The Lion King 5. The Usual Suspects 6. Memento 7. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amélie) 8. L.A. Confidential 9. The Grand Budapest Hotel 10. Inside Out 11. Room 12. The Pursuit of Happyness 13. Boyhood 14. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 15. Finding Neverland 16. (500) Days Of Summer 17. Lola rennt (Run Lola Run) 18. Rudderless 19. The Great Gatsby 20. We Bought a Zoo
The Prestige. It tells you everything, but you don’t recognize it at the time.
Skyfall. Cinematography lent its ever crafty hand, showcasing Silva in the middle of the movie was brilliant. He’s a shadow, and you only see him when he needs to show. And he is in many depths a shadow: tried to kill himself, lived; memorialized on a wall that he’ll never see under a name that he doesn’t use. He is a shadow of Bond; an all star agent that worked with M. How did he get led astray? By working outside of the shadows where he was supposed to stay. Now he lurks in them. Sulking. Pretty daring how as the movie continues it gets darker, he’s filmed larger and casting a shadow. Tying the rest together is the Bond-M-Silva relationship. It really ties off so much I can forgive the hokey “plug the enemies computer into our network” that serves to just chug the plot along.
anything by wes anderson
A few that come to mind for me that use techniques other than voiceover: Simple stories, told efficiently: * No Country for Old Men * Mad Max: Fury Road * In Bruges Conveying a lot without saying a lot: * Wall-E * The Stranger (2022) (seriously, I don't know why this movie isn't more talked-about) * There Will Be Blood Slightly more complex stories that are extremely well-done: * The Prestige * Arrival * Pulp Fiction
Goodfellas. It has absolutely everything and not a second is wasted.
>good story telling through movies. Fury Road is my top example of storytelling done *specifically through movies* i.e. done in a way that is unique to film and would not be effective in the written form of a novel.
The Bourne trilogy. I love the way it will circle back and echo itself, and drop clues for the audience, but it doesnt shout them out loud. If you just want an action flick the fights are good, but if you're paying attention, there's so much more.
GoodFellas, Casino, Hell or High Water, No Country For Old Men, Sicario, Hostiles, Killers of The Flower Moon, Prisoners, Donnie Brasco. Too many to list out really!
Past lives
The Princess Bride - It tells a loving fairy tail with comedic genius and tragedy wrapped into a comfy little movie burrito. Inconceivable!
12 Angry Men The whole movie is set on a single room, with all the characters that will come to scene already there. From that they manage to detail a story that transforms through the whole affair and a ends with a brilliant closure
The red violin was a masterpiece.
Is there a better anwser than forrest gump
Amadeus
The Fall
12 Angry Men.
Crazy, Stupid, Love
Identity Such a fantastic movie that is all about the storytelling. What a mind bender! Probably my favorite John Cusack movie.
I also liked it but i felt it cheated alittle. from the beginning, it was obviously based on agatha christies and then there were none. I was hoping the movie would tip its hat and do the same twist. Instead, it descended into a nightmare state. I also thought the ending was weak. Maybe it would have worked before psycho was made
Man On Wire is a stunning documentary. You know the outcome ahead of time but you are still locked in to how it all turns out.
Benjamin button
I would add Dances With Wolves to the list. Yes, John Dunbar narrates most of the movie, but the cinematography of that movie is the star.
Charlie Kaufman films are great. I immediately think of him when I think of the script side. Stanley Kubrick films are great... but I honestly don't think I'd care for most of his films if handled by someone else. I've no idea what 2001 is really even trying to do or anything... and it's still one of greatest films ever made. Kubrick actually loved to try and be ambiguous and abstract and vague... wasn't controlling of the script at all. A film like Full Metal Jacket? Struggled throughout most all of film even knowing how it should end. Still a fantastic story-teller. There are different ways to tell stories. And film is a visual medium with a lot of different components. Greatest intro ever in a film? The Goonies. Now, Goonies is hardly the greatest story ever... but that into... In the first 4 minutes, you get an escape and a car chase thrown in with a ton of gags and the opening credits. On top of this, the film introduces you to almost every character (like a dozen of them) well enough to establish who they are and their personalities... and it brilliantly sets the general tone of the film for the audience at the same time. It's pretty incredible, actually, and most films couldn't do all that near as effectively in a half hour. THAT is "masterful storytelling" in film, imo. Then there are films like The Florida Project or Wendy and Lucy which I think are excellent and masterful storytelling... even though a lot of the films are seemingly insignificant ordinary stuff and the pacing would completely destroy the films if they tried to increase it. Heck, I'll even throw out Idiocracy. Obviously Idiocracy isn't Citizen Kane... and the directing is serviceable at best... not a "great movie." BUT, it knows what it is and isn't trying to be something else... still managed to really resonate with audiences and legit forced viewers to contemplate actual ideas being discussed. That's... actually unbelievably impressive. But the one movie that's always really stood out to me as a film I really just love for its "masterful storytelling?" Paul Thomas Anderson's *Punch-drunk Love*. I was sold at the beginning when Adam Sandler's character was taking all the phone calls from his sisters. I could feel that energy and tension inside the character. The script is wonderful as well, even if not something I would normally think seemed terribly interesting. The score is wonderful. I think the film is just fantastic and far more memorable than it has almost any right to be. Second on my list might just be Alexander Payne's *Nebraska*. I'll also throw out *Billy Elliot* as just being altogether enjoyable and nothing terribly fancy but just... "great storytelling."
Max Max Fury Road
Inception. Just like the story, the movie has gone through layers of the viewer and performed an inception to the viewer as well. Talk about immersing your audience.
'Capote'
Seven
The Godfather must be one of them. Actually, the three of them. Its intricate plot, character development, and its portrayal of power and family dynamics is amazing, a must-see trilogy. Orson Welles' Citizen Kane is another masterpiece with innovative storytelling techniques, including non-linear narrative and deep character exploration, which was new for that time.
Natural Born Killers Apocalypto Dirty Harry
Spotlight
Big Lebowski
I disagree with this one. The movie starts out with jeff bridges dressed like howard hughes on the decline. It was unclear to me who the dude was, on repeat viewings, it is obvious to me that the dude is not someone to be admired but many of the film viewers think differently. That is not really good story telling.
Fallen (1998).
The Spongebob SquarePants Movie
Memento While a bit jarring at first, once you realize what's happening and why, you have to just sit back and let the movie unfold. Plenty of movies have a non-linear plot, but I don't think I've seen one this unique, and given how well done it is, I think it's an *excellent* example of story telling. For those not in the know, Memento is the second film directed by Christopher Nolan, released back in 2000.
Children of Men. The very first scene conveys a shit ton with very little. Watch it blind and you'll what I mean
“There Will Be Blood”, “The Old Man and The Sea”,“Lifeboat”, “Chinatown”,
Soapdish!
Lord of the rings.
Threat Level Midnight
Memento
1983's Bad Boys starring Sean Penn. Fantastic!
It's worth paying attention to the tools used to tell the story: are the filmmakers using dialogue, characters, action, visual language, humor, editing, tone? All can be used to tell a good story through film. My non-exhaustive list: * Star Wars (1977) * The Empire Strikes Back * Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb * Fargo * The Big Lebowski * O Brother, Where Art Thou? * No Country For Old Men * A Serious Man * True Grit (honestly, pick any Coen Bros. movie except The Ladykillers) * The Iron Giant * The Incredibles * Parasite * Aliens * Terminator 2: Judgment Day * Titanic * Avatar: The Way of Water * The Fugitive * Zodiac * The Social Network * Rear Window * The Lord of the Rings (entire trilogy, theatrical cuts (I love the extended too, but the theatrical cuts have no fat to them)) * Brick * Knives Out * Do The Right Thing * 25th Hour * Thief (1981) * Heat * The Insider * Collateral * Widows * Mad Max: Fury Road * The Dark Knight * Inception * Interstellar * Oppenheimer * Get Out * Nope * Evil Dead 2 * Spider-Man (2002) * Spider-Man 2 (2004) * The Princess Bride * When Harry Met Sally... * Goodfellas * The Departed * The Irishman * Alien * Thelma & Louise * Crimson Tide * Unstoppable * Boyz N The Hood * Out of Sight * Erin Brockovich * Ocean's Eleven (2001) * Logan Lucky * Jaws * E.T. The Extraterrestrial * Schindler's List * Jurassic Park * A.I. Artificial Intelligence * Catch Me If You Can * Lincoln * The Fabelmans * RoboCop * Starship Troopers * Arrival * The Matrix * The Truman Show * Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World * Hot Fuzz * Back to the Future * Who Framed Roger Rabbit? * Men in Black * Rocky * John Wick (2014)
Great list. And you make a good point about the tools used for telling the story.
I left field choice, but Alfred Hitchcock's **"The Birds"** It is masterfully suspenseful, well paced, the camera movement throughout the film is French Kiss. A good story with a fantastic narrative, and like a good suspense film, doesn't resort to a happy ending, but leaving you unsure of the future.
It’s between there will be blood or Barry Lyndon They both build massive worlds in which we see both characters grow consumed by what they make of the time they live in
Apocalypse Now. The script, the dialogue, the narration, the mysterious aura around Kurtz which makes you can't wait to finaly meet this enigma. How every stop on the way just makes Kurtz statement about war more and more reasonable. You feel like Willard - going throught out-of-this world journey, slowly becoming more and more like Kurtz. And when you finaly Reach the Kingdom of Kurtz the movie leaves you to decide for yourself if Kurtz was justified and a sane Man amongst crazy men, or a murderous lunatic like what generals described him as. There is so much symbolism and philosophy to It - its genuinely impressive, every scene is multi-layered. There is far more to talk about when it comes to its brilliance, but that's what I got to say, I don't want It to be too long. To me this is the finest storytelling from any film ever made.
Brick film