One of my favorite podcast discoveries is Brett Goldstein’s (Roy Kent, from Ted Lasso) “Films to be Buried With,” in which he interviews actors, musicians, celebrities, and others about the films that meant the most (or least) to the guest. Brett Goldstein has a very warm personality and seems genuinely open and curious about why the interviewees respond with the answers they do and I can’t recommend that podcast more highly. Each one I’ve listened to has been funny, fun, surprisingly thoughtful, and a real delight.
The basic premise of the podcast is “you’ve died, so let’s talk about the movies that meant the most to you while you were alive.” It’s a gimmick, sure, but it does provide for a pretty decent framing device through which you can really learn a lot about the interviewee.
There’s a lot of great banter between Brett and his guests that would be hard to replicate in a blog post, but he does begin each podcast by asking the guest to come up with “how they die.” For me? So many options to choose from. How do I die? Choking on a sleeve of Peeps on Easter Sunday… heart attack while jogging… walking into an out-of-service elevator shaft while I’m on my phone… but honestly, the most obvious answer is the most dorky and the most boring; I probably die from sleep apnea. One of those “hey… dude… wake up… you’re not breathing” moments only I don’t wake up and instead go to the great beyond. Wait, I thought we were done with death shit in January. Can’t escape it. On to the questions:
First film that you saw:
In a theater? Let me go check release dates on Wikipedia right quick. This is really hard to say conclusively, but it’s probably either Superman 2 (sometime in 1981) or E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (sometime in 1982). I have extremely vague memories of both. But the first movie I actively remember seeing was Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (sometime in 1983). I know this because my dad took me out of Kindergarten early to go see it with my siblings who were also pulled from school for the same reason. I told y’all in January my dad had a touch of Ferris Bueller in him. I remember it well because a large Houston style thunderstorm rolled through while we were watching the movie and knocked the power out and we had to come back later that week to finish it. It’s impossible to remember the first movie I saw at home but it’s highly likely it was either of the first two Star Wars movies. It was the late 70s and the early 80s and my siblings and I basically existed in a steady state of pretending we were Han, Luke, Leia, and Chewie as the soundtrack played on my sister’s record player. I’m going to make an educated guess that that was partly because I had seen those movies once or twice. My fandom started with my famdom.
Film that scared you the most:
I thought about mixing it up and saying the movie adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, but the movie is only “okay.” If this were about books instead of movies, then yeah, The Road. I read that not long after Chloe was born and it rightly screwed me up in a way that still kind of gets me to this day. But since this is about movies I’ll go with the most obvious answer ever; The Exorcist. Look, I know it’s super cliche to answer with The Exorcist on a “scariest movie” list, but at the end of the day, lots of contenders have tried for the throne and lots of pretenders were unceremoniously pushed down the infamous Georgetown steps featured in the movie. I will say this, though; the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in a movie (Hereditary spoiler alert) is the son’s/brother’s reaction to accidentally killing his sister in Hereditary. He just… goes into instant shock and goes home and goes to bed. That scene felt so freaking relatable and real and is probably how I would have acted in a similar circumstance. What would you do in that situation? How would you even process something so traumatizing and horrific? God, that fucking scene.
But sure, why not, let’s talk about The Exorcist for the 1,000th time. My dad and stepmom got married in January 1989 (making me 11 at the time) and went on their honeymoon almost immediately thereafter. I don’t completely know why no one else took my brother and I (he would have been 9) for the week they were away, but we ended up staying with one of my dad’s coworkers (she ended up stealing a ton of his sales clients while he was gone — true story). Anywho, this coworker had a 15 year old son who ended up being kind of an asshole brat. I was 11 and he was 15, but at those ages, the 4 year age gap might as well have been a 40 year age gap. I honestly don’t know the who, what, when, where, how, or why she let her son do this, but that fucking asshole kid showed me and my brother his VHS copy of The Exorcist. I’ve seen that movie so many times now that the edges have been completely worn down and I find it more funny than scary at this point. And nowadays, 11 year old kids have seen truly horrific stuff on everything from TikTok to the evening-freaking-news. But being 11 years old in 1989 was its own special brand of innocent. The concept of the “Devil” to me was about dudes in red and pitchforks, not a vile beast possessing a girl and making her do all that… stuff. I legitimately thought that that movie was actually evil. Like it had a cloud around it. It’s hard to explain, but it felt cursed. So because I remember what *that* felt like, I can’t not say The Exorcist, even though my atheistic’ish/agnostic self kind of laughs at how silly much of that movie is with 2023 eyes.
Film that made you cry the most: (spoiler alert: 3 future articles promised below)
The answer is E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, full stop – point blank – goodnight – the end – baby goes to sleep. I should just move on and leave it at that, but I have so many thoughts I want to share about E.T. that I’ll save that for a future post down the road sometime. That movie is hella special to me in ways that I wouldn’t be able to adequately express in a paragraph or two. I treat E.T. like fine China plates. I bring them out once a year (tops) and only when I feel like I need to watch it. That movie is equal parts a balm for my soul and an emotional north star by which I can steer my ship.
This question for me is going to be the hardest to answer because (spoiler alert) I’m an extreeeeeeeeeeeeemely easy cryer. I cry in commercials. I cry at YouTube videos where soldiers return home to their dogs. I cry at sad songs. I cry at happy songs. I cry at sad movies and then cry at the happy stuff 5 minutes later. Do I cry at verything? Yes. Yes, I cry at everything. The tears floweth. I’m a mess, what can I say?
But the best cries for me always come from stuff I find inspirational and courageous. I spent about 10 minutes meditating on why that is and ended up kind of spiraling down a weird psychological rabbit hole that I’ll unpack at some point in a future post. …perhaps I’m an emotional coward so I react to scenes of bravery because I recognize something I feel I’m lacking? I should explore this at some point. Have I mentioned I’m kind of a mess?
Anywhooooo… Before I give my final answer(s); there are probably 100+ movies I could list here. I’ll try and keep it brief (too late), but this question did inspire me to want to work on a “movies that make me cry” specific post at some point down the road. There are so many versions of a movie cry that it’d be fun to kind of blow it out a bit.
If I’m going by Costco or Sam’s Club style volume (the most crying and the dynamic of “I return to this movie most often”), the answer is (if I may twist the rules a bit) the entirety of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. If there’s one thing that really gets me going it’s inspirational stuff by way of togetherness and fellowship, which is what those movies are all about. A movie series about defeating evil through the bonds of friendship is practically hardwired to bring the tears. But honestly, the more accurate way of answering this question is “any movie in which Sean Astin gives a motivational speech,” whether that be The Goonies, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, or Rudy. If my conscience had a Jiminy Cricket style voice, it’d probably sound like Sean Astin (or Ted Lasso).
But the movie that kind of just hits everything I’m looking for in a movie that makes me cry is Dead Poets Society, which has great examples of happy stuff (Neil’s play), sad stuff (Neil’s death), a mix of sad-inspirational-happy stuff (Todd’s off-the-cuff Whitman inspired poem), rebellious stuff (“the name is Nuwanda!”), and inspirational stuff (“O Captain! My Captain!” anyone?). Getting a lump in my throat just thinking about that movie. Every kind of cry in one 2 hour movie.
Film that’s critically panned that you love:
I guess to piggyback off the “inspirational movies that made you cry” bit from the previous question; Tomorrowland from 2015. Just a quick bit of context: In 2015 I was knee-deep in reading Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead books, watching the show of the same name, reading and watching the aforementioned The Road, and was a huge fan of Alfonso Cuarón’s dystopian Children of Men (which I still hail as a masterpiece). On top of all the stuff I was reading and watching, I was feeling anxious about the state of everything from our politics to the degradation of the natural world. In short, I was in kind of a dark headspace and was feeling burnt out on… well, on everything. I’m naturally someone who really tries to lean into optimism but can fall just as easily into pessimism and dread if the right conditions hit. Tomorrowland came out in 2015 while I was still reviewing movies for Smells Like Screen Spirit, otherwise I doubt I wonder if I would have seen this movie at all.
For those who haven’t seen it, which seems to be most of you judging by its relatively low box office take and it’s criminally low RottenTomatoes scores (50% on the Tomatometer and a 49% Audience Score — WTFFFFFFF????); in a criminally small nutshell, Tomorrowland is a Disney produced “message” movie about optimism, hopefulness, and feedback loops. Essentially, the optimism and “can do” spirit of the 1950s and 1960s both fed and nurtured a literal Tomorrowland, a land that operates outside of space and time where people could work on any invention that betters humanity. And the more optimism and can-do spirit that was created in Tomorrowland, the more that spirit would (literally) emanate from Tomorrowland to the rest of the world via a large antenna. But then, somewhere along the way, as daily realities set in and as more pessimistic ways of looking at the world took hold, that too ended up being projected back out into the world via that same antenna. In essence, we started feeding ourselves so much negativity and so much pessimism that it started to inform our outlook and our stories, which then created a feedback loop of sorts, where the only future we could see is the bleak one we couldn’t help but create.
There’s a lot of plot stuff that I’m excluding, including how the people of Tomorrowland use a magic button to invite dreamers to the land itself. Look… I get that this movie kind of doesn’t fully work, at least not in the way Damon Lindelof (writer) and Brad Bird (director) intended it to. I’ll also admit that the movie is kind of simplistic and extremely corny in ways that aren’t easy to look beyond. But what can I say, the movie just kind of works on me. If we are going to tackle some of these major issues we’re facing, we’re going to need a little old fashioned “can do” corniness. The ending of this movie is a perfect representation of that very thing.
Film you used to love but doesn’t hold up
Most people answer this in a way of “the themes or subject matter have since become problematic, therefore it doesn’t ‘hold up,’” but I want to take a different approach. I’m not saying it’s not a masterpiece and I’m not saying it’s not a highly thoughtful, heartfelt, and entertaining movie, but the last time I watched Boogie Nights, it felt really… lite. It felt like a whole lot of style and a whole lot of showy shit, but kind of like Diet Scorsese (a criticism he’s faced a lot, admittedly). That movie used to feel so fresh and so vibrant, but now kind of feels a little… hacky? Look, Paul Thomas Anderson is one of my favorite directors ever and I consider him to be a real “master” filmmaker in a way few others are, but I just felt so let down the last time I watched Boogie Nights (in mid-fall 2022). To be fair, I (on occasion) have similar thoughts about Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, although I’m much warmer on those movies for a variety of reasons. Some of those movies really were “of the moment” movies and now that we’re not in those moments, some of the seams show a little more clearly.
Most meaningful film, not because of the movie, but because of the circumstances in which you saw it
OH HEY SPEAK OF THE DEVIL… I was such a movie dork growing up, that “buying a rated R movie ticket” (otherwise known as not having to sneak into a movie you didn’t buy a ticket for) was a legit goal of mine for at least a decade or more. I couldn’t wait to have indepedence at the cinema. I was already a massive Tarantino fan off both Reservoir Dogs and True Romance that I was chomping at the bit to see Pulp Fiction, which was getting ravenous reviews for nearly all of 1994.
That movie came out in early October 1994. I turned 17 in early November 1994. You do the math. I paid for both my ticket and my brother’s ticket (and a few other friends) and then had my brain melted for 2 straight hours. That the movie was truly great and felt made for me and my generation was just a massive layer of icing on an already great cake. Like I said above, Pulp Fiction was a real “of the moment” movie. And if you were alive in that moment, you could almost feel the buzz in the air. It was fun. It felt like something was really going on in the zeitgeist. The first half of the 90s was really something, you know? How I felt watching that movie in that era reminded me of the way my parents used to talk about being alive when the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were ruling the airwaves.
Sexiest film
Where to even begin with this one… All kinds of areas I could go down (TWSS). Okay, in the spirit of the question, it’d be something like Adrian Lyne’s Unfaithful or Alfonso Cuarón’s Y tu mamá también. Could go with Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat. So many to choose from. I also liked Luca Guadagino’s Call Me By Your Name and Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, the last scene at the diner, in particular.
… You know what, fuck it, let’s do this. I was 15yo the year Basic Instinct came out so you put 2 and 2 together. The movies of Sharon Stone, the movies of Demi Moore, and Adrian Lyne’s 9 1/2 Weeks all factored heavily into … yeahhhhh… you do the math. And that’s not even touching on all the bullshit Shannon Tweed and Tanya Roberts movies I’ve sat through. … can we move on?
Follow up to sexiest film: Troublesome boners and worrying wide-ons, films you found sexy but weren’t sure you should
You’re effing killing me here, Brett Goldstein. Okay. No bullshit, I find women action stars to be incredibly hot. I’ve always had a thing for the Linda Hamiltons and Sigourney Weavers of the world. But holy fucking shit I crush hard on Emily Blunt in both Edge of Tomorrow and Sicario. Gimme a woman with guns who’s also literally carrying guns.
But if you want a funny answer that is also 100% true, I’ve always found the hand-touching scene from The Last Jedi to be kind of … hot? Erotic? I don’t know, man, it has that “two kids hiding in a closet touching each other” vibe, right? I mean… RIGHT?????? THEY’RE EVEN DOING THE HEAVY BREATHING THING!!! AM I NUTS HERE???
Film you relate to the most
Everything Everywhere All at Once is a perfect synthesis of what my brain feels like much of the time, the kind of humor I enjoy, and the kind of action I’ve always loved. But beyond all of that, it’s also a movie with “life is chaos, so be kind” as its central thesis. Amen to all of that. I love every frame of that movie and every tangent it so beautifully takes us on.
Objectively the best film
Everyone always says The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2, Casablanca, or Citizen Kane, and yeah, admittedly, all perfect movies, especially the first two Godfather films. They’re 100% deserving of the “American Shakespeare” label everyone throws at it. I thought about going with Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (every frame is perfect and a borderline religious experience for me), but my actual answer is Scorsese’s Goodfellas. I love Goodfellas so freaking much. You know how I know this is my pick? Every time I’m watching it and it gets to the famous “Layla” montage scene, I think to myself “is this the best movie ever made?” And then the screen goes black and you see “Sunday May 11th, 1980 6:55 am” and you remember that the best part of the movie hasn’t even happened yet. It’s a bit like the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” You think you’ve already heard perfection and then the song transforms into something far more miraculous.
Worst film
Going with two answers here:
I love Spike Lee joints a ton, but I can’t stand Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam. It didn’t help that I first saw it with my folks one summer while I was home on leave from the Marines and this is easily an all-time worst movie to watch with your folks. But then I watched it again a few other times and every “this is really bad” suspicion was thoroughly confirmed. I just couldn’t do it. It’s bad. It’s really bad. Patton Oswalt once joked that if he were to make a list of movies that had great trailers but awful movies, he’d put Summer of Sam number one on the list. I’ll post the trailer below so you can see how great the trailer is by itself. You’d think we were getting some 1970s era Scorsese or Coppola instead of whatever it was Spike put out. Love you, Spike.
My second answer is Mrs. Doubtfire. I love Robin Williams. I love Sally Field. I even have a soft spot for Chris Columbus directed movies. Y’all… I loathe that movie. I detest it with every fiber of my being. I can tolerate a lot in movies and enjoy a ton of truly awful movies. But if I were some kind of fascistic dictator, I’d have every copy of that movie removed from existence. Okay… maybe not, but damn… I’m not saying divorce can’t be funny (Kramer vs Kramer is funnier than Airplane! y’all) but this just isn’t it. It’s creepy. It’s weird. It fluctuates between trying to be funny and trying to be serious and it just… he’s in his ex wife’s house while she’s trying to move on with her life. It’s creepy and it’s weird and it’s gross and it’s fucking assault and everyone in my generation can’t get enough of it. GOD DAMN DESTORY THIS MOVIE.
Film you could or have seen the most
It’s gotta be one of the Star Wars movies and it’s likely not even a close count. Gotta be over a hundred times. Watched it a ton growing up with my siblings. Watched it a ton as a nerdy ass Star Wars loving teen. Loved it in the late 90s when the shitty prequels came out. Watched it a ton ever since.
The most times I watched a movie in one sitting (in this case, one summer) would be the first Back to the Future movie. That movie and Goonies were my “escape from my parents’ divorce” movies and I think I must have watched BttF about 40 times over the span of 6 to 8 weeks.
Film you bring to movie night in heaven when it’s your turn
You know what? These lists are always fucking pretentious fart sniffing. Thanks for reading 3000 words on my favorite movies. hahaha
*in mocking voice* “Ohhhh… you think The Godfather is the best movie ever? How original.” *makes jerk off motion with hand* (kidding obviously)
If I’m doing a comedy, I’m doing some Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Christopher Guest’s Best in Show, or Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat. All of those are top tier comedies for me. But 100%, if there’s a Heaven and if there’s a movie night, I’m going to want to watch some shit get blown up in increasingly amazing ways. Give me Terminator 2: Judgement Day and then follow it up with Die Hard. That’s how you do a movie night. Yippee Ki Yay and Hasta la vista, babyyyyyyy.
Honorable mentions and additional notes:
- Didn’t even once mention Richard Linklater but almost did on a few different categories, the “relate to” specifically with like 4 of his movies. He just gets it. …and I love that he’s a Texan.
- No bullshit, if I did this list again two days from now, it’d likely be a whole new group of movies in some of these categories.
- We’ll see what happens with all of these proposed essays I talked about, but I am 1000% going to do the “cry movie” essay and it’s probably going to be 10,000 words long.
- The Conjuring is such a fun scary movie and probably freaks me out more than The Exorcist.
- Found myself kind of pulled off into TV directions a few times and had to bring myself back to talking just about movies. For example, some of the best recent “cry” moments were in several episodes of Ted Lasso.
If you want to do your own, here are the questions for your cut and paste pleasure:
First film that you saw
Film that scared you the most
Film that made you cry the most
Film that’s critically panned that you love
Film you used to love but doesn’t hold up
Most meaningful film, not because of the movie, but because of the circumstances in which you saw it
Sexiest film
Follow up: Troublesom boners and worrying wide-ons, films you found sexy but weren’t sure you should
Film you relate to the most
Objectively the best film
Worst film
Film you could or have seen the most
Film you bring to movie night in heaven when it’s your turn
An open and shut book 
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