Favorite "Epic" Movies? (3+ Hours)

[elcondor]

What are your favorite "epic" movies? You know the ones--gorgeous panoramic shots that go on for five minutes, a running time of more than three hours, an intermission (!), etc . . . In general, I love these sweeping films. My favorites are Lawrence of Arabia, the Lord of the Ring movies, and West Side Story (although it does squeak in under the alloted time, but who's counting?).

How about you? :-)

[afraid_of_the_dark]

1. I'm a little too ADHD

for the long movies. Plus, sitting for that length of time wreaks havoc on my bad back.

[Jack_Dawson]

2. Titanic - Starring Me

[Limbought]

19. "Titanic"

I have started watching this movie a couple of times, but just can't seem to finish it. I keep falling asleep.

+10 on the 'Zzzzzzzzz Meter.'

[Bluzmann57]

3. "The Godfather"

quite simply one of the best films ever made.

[terrya]

10. I actually preferred Godfather Part II

Regardless, the Godfather films (excluding Part III) are sheer genius. Two of the best films ever made.

Terry

[Limbought]

13. The First two "Godfathers" would be on my list, as well.

Godfather III mega sucked though.

I also like Cecil B. DeMille's epics.

[Kamika]

4. european dances with wolves

Pure masterpiece

[Whitacre D_WI]

5. "Sleep"

n/t

[terrya]

8. Didn't "Sleep" run for 8 hours?

I thought I'd read that...

[thebigidea]

6. Andy Warhol's "The Chelsea Girls"

one of his actually WATCHABLE epics. I'm not even gonna mention EMPIRE or SLEEP.

[Whitacre D_WI]

7. I already did.

What, no love for "Teeth?"

[thebigidea]

18. or his ultimate epic, "****" - the 24 hour movie.

They were reconstructing it at the Whitney, last I heard. It may yet contaminate our children.

[jonnyblitz]

23. Is Edie Sedgewich in that one?n/t

[Whitacre D_WI]

31. Indeed, she is.

Ms. Sedgwick played, curiously enough, "Edie."

[a_random_joel]

9. HELLO!

Braveheart...

[bif]

11. 1900 by Bertolucci

What a great flick. Anyone seen it?

[MSchreader]

47. I have

DeNiro and Depardieu. What a pairing.

"Olmo is a bastard!"

Martin

[Bertha Venation]

12. "Gandhi"

and, although they might run a little short, "Amadeus" and "Saving Private Ryan."

14. Once Upon a Time

in the West (Bertolucci helped with the screenplay, by the way)
Once Upon a Time in America.
anything by Tarkovsky

Until the End of the World.

Not epic (in the sense that it all takes place in one or two rooms, but it is 3 and a half hours long & does have an intermission) is the Mother and the Whore, one of the great, relatively unknown films of the 70's - even though it did win Cannes. It outdoes Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris" in its depth regarding relationships without being at all graphic.

[HuckleB]

15. Das Boot.

[VOX]

16. "Lawrence of Arabia" -- the fastest 228 minutes one can spend...

watching a movie -- not including entrance, intermission and exit music.

:toast:

[northzax]

17. yeah, but you get so damn thirsty

I drink like a gallon of water evrey time I watch that movie. and on the big screen it's even worse.

[VOX]

51. Lawrence, on being why he liked the desert so much:

"Because it's clean."

Next time, I'll have a couple of sports-bottles of H2O ready before I kick in the DVD!

:toast:

[Dees]

20. Sand Pebbles and Dr. Zhivago.....n/t

.

[felonious thunk]

21. 2001

I don't know how long it is exactly, but I love that movie.

[booksenkatz]

22. Nicholas and Alexandra

...sumptuous! I think I'm the only person alive who genuinely loves that film, LOL!

[elperromagico]

25. I think it's a wonderful film.

Beautiful cinematography (by David Lean's favorite cameraman, Freddie Young).

It's interesting too to see Jack Hawkins in a post-throat surgery role. He lost his voice to that surgery, and was usually overdubbed in films, but it sounds like he wasn't overdubbed in this film. He whispers his lines and it's very charming.

[MSchreader]

48. I liked it

Too bad it falsified the political history, though.

Martin

[elperromagico]

24. Lawrence of Arabia, Napoleon.

LOA is my favorite, but I love the French Napoleon by Abel Gance as well. :)

[terryg11]

26. does Apoclolypse Now redux come in at 3+?

truly hypnotic. whoever said Jeb Bush was soft on defense needs to watch this bio. of his secret CIA life in SE Asia. He was a freakin' killer!!

[maveric]

27. Jeb Bush??? Please explain.

Not sure what you are talking about.

[LanternWaste]

28. A few...

Loved the LotR movies, but I'll have to ask my self the question in ten years so I know it's not the hype I'm buying into, but the substance. Beyond that...

Godfather I & II

Once Upon a Time in America (I like it more than GF, but that's a personal opinion)

Dances With Wolves

JFK

Band of Brothers (Does that count?)

Horatio Hornblower (Another recent mini-series, so I'm not sure if it too counts or not)

[EdWesKer]

29. West Side Story

and Gandhi

[fishnfla]

30. Lawrence of Arabia

nt

[ghostsofgiants]

32. ...

Magnolia. Paul Thomas Anderson is a genius.

[lucidmadman]

33. The '50s BEN HUR...

..which you really haven't seen unless you've seen it in a theatre in 70mm. On TV they 'pan and scan' so that the awesomeosity of the chariot race is undercut. In the theatre in 70mm your always see all the heads of horses in every shot of the chariot race. The director of this '50s version was a second unit director on the chariot sequence in the '26 'silent' version; William Wyler.
I was lucky enough to see it in 70mm in the early '90s at a theatre here in Portland. Whole families attended. At the intermission a 8 or 9 year old girl in the seat in front of my wife and I leaned over and asked me 'if I liked the movie'. I said yes. I think a memory was being made. Movies really can be 'magic'. That kid was astounded by what she'd seen.

I also like SPARTACUS, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and I'll always have a place in my heart for EL CID...

[kdmorris]

34. Dances with Wolves

Or Braveheart. I could watch either over and over.

[populistmom]

35. Gone with the Wind

[jpgray]

36. Lawrence or Ben Hur, man. (nt)

[LanternWaste]

37. Oh man, I knew I'd forget one...

Oh man, I knew I'd forget one...

Kenneth Brannagh's 1997 production of Hamlet. Every line, every scene and every character from the original in it's rightful place. (And who knew Billy Crystal could wear Shakespeare so well...?)

[elcondor]

38. Wow, Billy Crystal?

Whoda thunk it? I'll have to check it out . . .

[LanternWaste]

52. And a cast of thousands.....

Billy Crystal played the wise cracking grave digger and played it well. One of the great things about Brannagh's Shakespeare movies is that he he gets a pretty good cross section on Hollywood to play a lot of the parts. Robin Williams, Gérard Depardieu, Julie Christie, Judie Dench, Jack Lemmon, Charleton Heston and John Gielgud also starred. So it's interesting if for no other reason than to watch contemporary actors getting their feet wet in Shakespeare's prose.

In Much Ado About Nothing, he cast Denzel Washington as his boss and Michael Keaton as the bumbling sheriff and both greatly exceeded my expectations (although he also cast Keanu Reeves as John the Bastard, which was horrible... "If you prick me, do I not blow chunks?", or close enough).

Love's Labors Lost was his most recent and a pretty wild ride. He set it in 1939 pre-war France and made it into a musical using the tunes of Cole Porter. I thought it would be a travesty, but it actually turned out to be almost as funny as Much Ado. Alicia Silverstone was cast in it and although she didn't do as well I wished, she was passable.

His Shakespeare interpretations really are good and even if you;ve never liked Shakespeare's works before, these movies are a great primer into it.

[sweetheart]

39. Doctor Zhivago and the seven samurai

got both on DVD for repeat viewings. :)

[DoctorBombay]

40. Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet" 1996

Four and a half hours long, shot in 35mm.
Saw it in the theater, and would have gotten right back in line to watch it again had it not been 12:30am when it ended.

[mitchum]

41. "The Best of Hyapatia Lee: 4 Hours of Her Hottest Scenes!"...

and Bertolucci's "1900"

[elperromagico]

42. Well... umm... you certainly got my attention.

[mykpart]

43. Spartacus

[...Alltogethernow]

44. In honor of tonight's release, I say OPEN RANGE

... been a long time since we had a great western

[Kathy in Cambridge]

54. I thought you were going to say

"The Reagan Miniseries" on Showtime.

;-)

[corporatewhore]

45. Lawrence of Arabia

[Gore1FL]

46. Gettysburg

but the best scene of the movie, the Defense of Little Round Top, was only marginally similar to the events of the afternoon of July 2, 1863.

[MSchreader]

49. Liked the Pickett's Charge scene, though

It's unfortunate they had to keep using the same footage from different angles, though.

Martin

[MSchreader]

50. "Reds" and "The Right Stuff"

Also:

1900
Spartacus (restored version)
JFK (director's cut)
Gettysburg
Gods and Generals (yes, I liked it -- so sue me)
Heaven's Gate
When There Were Giants (about Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt)
Lawrence of Arabia

Martin

[FunBobbyMucha]

53. REDS...and for the Limbaugh Institute flunky reading this

anxious to make "pinko" hay, I refer you to a Rolling Stone interview with Warren Beatty in which he described screening it for Reagan, who loved it and in fact suggested the name.

Great movie, great performances--Nicholson as Eugene O'Neill! Perfect, perfect movie. Never been released on DVD. Hmmm...

[mndemocrat_29]

55. My faves

The English Patient
Lord of the Rings (any installment)
The Godfather (Parts I and II)