100 Girls
American Beauty
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Dances with Wolves
Do the Right Thing
The Great India Railway (National Geographic)
The Matrix
Mojave Phone Booth
Network
Paris, Je T'aime
Pump Up the Volume
Saving Private Ryan
Shawshank Redemption
Thunderheart
Winged Migration (Documentary)
Z

Movies to Drink Scotch to
Because they invoke a certain notion of the void.

Dirty Pretty Things
Mojave Phone Booth
Sin City
Waltz with Bashir

Aeragon
Clueless
Crazy Heart
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
The Darjeeling LImited
The Dish
Desperately Seeking Susan
Diner
Gloomy Sunday
The Grey Fox
Hereafter
10 Things I Hate about you
Kinky Boots
Jackie Brown (1997)
The King's Speech
The Last Picture Show
Le Femme Nikia (the 1990 French one)
Mediterraneo
Moonstruck
Office Space
Il Postino
The Purple Rose of Cairo
Ronin
Shall We Dance? (the 1996 Japanese one)
Sideways
Sliding Doors
Up in the Air

Just Good

Amadeus
Bye Bye Brazil
Groundhog Day
Invictus
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
Rain Man
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Last Picture Show

Movies with no villain

(A tip of the hat to Jeremy Rose)

Crazy Heart
The Dish (2000)
World's Fastest Indian

About Greece

[ are listed here ]

Spy Movies

Arabesque
Casablanca
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
True Lies

Action Adventure / Crime

Braveheart
The Day of the Jackal
Desert Heat
Double Indemnity
Glory
The Great Escape
L. A. Confidential
Le Femme Nikia (the 1990 French one)
The Narrow Margin
Romancing the Stone
Ronin
Run, Lola, Run
Sin City
Sneakers (1992)
Terminator 2
The Train
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Thelma & Louise
Tightrope

Erotic

100 Girls
Body Heat
Closely Watched Trains
En la cama
The Girlfriend Experience
Kama Sutra (A Tale of Love)
Nathalie (French, 2004)
Sex, Lies and Videotape
Sin City
White Palace

Coming of Age

The Breakfast Club (1985)
Clueless
Easy A
Pump up the Volume

Science Fiction

2001 A Space Odyssey
Back to the Future
Blade Runner
Children of Men
Colossus: The Forbin Project
District 9
Galaxy Quest
Ghostbusters (1984)
The Matrix
Men in Black
My Stepmother Is an Alien
Pan's Labyrinth
Serenity
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Total Recall
WarGames (1983)

Western

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The Grey Fox (1983)
Heartland (1980)
Hannie Caulder (1971)
Pale Rider
The Magnificent Seven
Unforgiven

Comedy

10 Things I Hate About You
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
The Gods Must be Crazy
Men in Black
Galaxy Quest
Ghostbusters (1984)
Monty Python's Life of Brian
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
My Stepmother Is an Alien
Office Space
Ruthless People
Sneakers (1992)
Soapdish (1991)
This is Spinal Tap
The Valet

Railroad

Closely Watched Trains
The Narrow Margin
A Railway in the Cloud (2007)
The Train
The Great India Railway (National Geographic)

Music

Crazy Heart
Rock Around the Clock (1956)

The World of Men

(Because, contrary to popular belief, this is rarely done well.)

The Best Years of our Lives
Das Boot
The Full Monty
Shall We Dance? (the Japanese one)

Political

All the King's Men (the 1949 one)
An Inconvenient Truth (Documentary)
The Battle of Algiers
The Breakfast Club
Children of Men (2006)
The China Syndrome
Control Room (Documentary)
Gandhi
Invictus
A Man for All Seasons
Missing
Network
Never Cry Wolf
Pump Up the Volume
Silkwood
Thunderheart
Wag the Dog
Z

Religion

A Man for all Seasons
Life of Brian
Shoes of the Fisherman

Sports

Should probably be a subdivision of Guilty Pleasures

A League of their Own
Breaking Away
Bull Durham
Hoosiers
Major League
Million Dollar Baby
Invictus
The Replacements
Tin Cup

Guilty Pleasures

While normal standards of quality are omitted for this category, the movie still has to have some redeeming feature.

The American (Yea, a lot of cliches in this one. But the villages... and the use of tension rather than bullets.)

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) (Roger Ebert wrote it, for crying out loud. Also, the Strawberry Alarm Clock doing a song that isn't the one you know).

Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989) (For the title, mostly. Shannon Tweed as Feminist Studies Prof & Bill Maher as hopeless)

Desert Heat (Jean-Claude Van Damme as spiritual seeker.)

Major League (1989) (For its realistic depiction of underdogs, but not for its sexual or tribal politics.)

Psycho Beach Party
Sin City

Starship Troopers (The politics are fascist; the uniforms Nazi, but just good clean fun. And Denise Richards before we knew what a dolt she is.)

Tremors (1990)
White Christmas (1954)