In Summer 2023 I unveiled the list of my 100 favorite films. Since it’s been almost three years, I decided to update the LCJ 100 list, with about a dozen changes. The Top 10 remain the same, but the other 90 include movies I love I’ve seen in the past three years, as well as former “Honorable Mentions” that deserve spots. Here they are, in alphabetical order:
THE TOP 10:
“Beauty and the Beast” (Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, 1991)
“Birdman” (Alejandro G. Inarritu, 2014)
“Cars” (John Lasseter, 2006)
“E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” (Steven Spielberg, 1982)
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” (Wes Anderson, 2009)
“It’s a Wonderful Life” (Frank Capra, 1946)
“La La Land” (Damien Chazelle, 2016)
“Mary Poppins” (Robert Stevenson, 1964)
“The Parent Trap” (Nancy Meyers, 1998)
“The Truman Show” (Peter Weir, 1998)
THE NEXT 90:
“Aline” (Valerie Lemercier, 2021)
“American Sniper” (Clint Eastwood, 2014)
“Argo” (Ben Affleck, 2012)
“Babe” (Chris Noonan, 1995)
“Be Kind Rewind” (Michel Gondry, 2008)
“Bewitched” (Nora Ephron, 2005)
“The Birds” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1962)
“Blackfish” (Gabreila Coperthwaite, 2013)
“The Brady Bunch Movie” (Betty Thomas, 1995)
“Casablanca” (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (Tim Burton, 2005)
“A Christmas Story” (Bob Clark, 1983)
“Christmas Vacation” (Jeremiah S. Chechik, 1989)
“Cinema Paradiso” (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1989)
“The Color of Money” (Martin Scorsese, 1986)
“The Devil Wears Prada” (David Frankel, 2006)
“Double Indemnity” (Billy Wilder, 1944)
“Edward Scissorhands” (Tim Burton, 1991)
“Enchanted” (Kevin Lima, 2007)
“Field of Dreams” (Phil Alden Robinson, 1989)
“Frost/Nixon” (Ron Howard, 2008)
“Frozen” (Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, 2013)
“Ghost” (Jerry Zucker, 1990)
“Grand Canyon” (Lawrence Kasdan, 1991)
“Groundhog Day” (Harold Ramis, 1993)
“The Holdovers” (Alexander Payne, 2023)
“Home Alone” (Chris Columbus, 1990)
“I, Tonya” (Craig Gillespie, 2017)
“The Incredibles” (Brad Bird, 2004)
“Jaws” (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
“Juno” (Jason Reitman, 2007)
“Knives Out” (Rian Johnson, 2019)
“Kramer vs. Kramer” (Robert Benton, 1979)
“Life Itself” (Steve James, 2014)
“Lillies of the Field” (Ralph Nelson, 1963)
“Lincoln” (Steven Spielberg, 2012)
“The Lizzie McGuire Movie” (Jim Fall, 2003)
“Locke” (Steven Knight, 2014)
“Lost in Translation” (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
“The Maltese Falcon” (John Huston, 1941)
“The Man in the Moon” (Robert Mulligan, 1991)
“Man on Wire” (James Marsh, 2008)
“March of the Penguins” (Luc Jacquet, 2005)
“Mary Poppins Returns” (Rob Marshall, 2018)
“Million Dollar Baby” (Clint Eastwood, 2004)
“Monsters, Inc.” (Pete Docter, 2001)
“Moonstruck” (Norman Jewison, 1987)
“Morning Glory” (Roger Michell, 2010)
“Moulin Rouge!” (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)
“Mystic Pizza” (Donald Petrie, 1988)
“Network” (Sidney Lumet, 1976)
“The Nightmare Before Christmas” (Henry Sellick, 1993)
“Nouvelle Vague” (Richard Linklater, 2025)
“Parasite” (Bong Joon-Ho, 2019)
“The Philadelphia Story” (George Cukor, 1940)
“Pompo the Cinephile” (Takayuki Hirao, 2021)
“Psycho” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
“Ratatouille” (Brad Bird, 2007)
“Robot Dreams” (Pablo Berger, 2023)
“Rocky” (John G. Avildsen, 1976)
“Saving Mr. Banks” (John Lee Hancock, 2013)
“Schindler’s List” (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
“Seeking a Friend for the End of the World” (Lorene Scafaria, 2012)
“September 5” (Tim Fehlbaum, 2024)
“Shrek” (Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, 2001)
“The Silence of the Lambs” (Jonathan Demme, 1991)
“Silver Linings Playbook” (David O. Russell, 2012)
“Sing Street” (John Carney, 2016)
“Singin’ in the Rain” (Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, 1952)
“The Simpsons Movie” (David Silverman, 2007)
“The Sixth Sense” (M. Night Shyamalan, 1999)
“Sound of Metal” (Darius Marder, 2020)
“The Sound of Music” (Robert Wise, 1965)
“The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie” (Stephen Hillenburg, 2004)
“The Sweet Hereafter” (Atom Egoyan, 1997)
“TAR” (Todd Field, 2022)
“Tender Mercies” (Bruce Beresford, 1983)
“Thirteen Lives” (Ron Howard, 2022)
“Titanic” (James Cameron, 1997)
“To Kill a Mockingbird” (Robert Mulligan, 1962)
“Toy Story 2” (John Lasseter, 1999)
“Up in the Air” (Jason Reitman, 2009)
“Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” (Nick Park and Steve Box, 2005)
“Wild Rose” (Tom Harper, 2019)
“Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (Mel Stuart, 1971)
“The Wizard of Oz” (Victor Fleming, 1939)
“Wonder” (Stephen Chbosky, 2017)
“Worth” (Sara Colangelo, 2021)
“Young Woman and the Sea” (Joachim Ronning, 2024)
“Youth” (Paolo Sorrentino, 2015)