"I've never seen Star Wars" - unwatched classic films...

[Honoured Guest]

For me, a "classic" film implies a high degree of personal respect. I also haven't seen The Sound of Music, but I wouldn't call it a classic film because I have no interest in it. Does anyone have a film title which they personally regard as classic, from its reputational aura, but which they haven't seen, maybe because it's unavailable or because it is too violent for them, or because they fear they've outgrown its target audience, or because they're afraid of shattering the illusion, or for any other reason?

Spinal Tap - I know almost nothing of the little world that it's satirising or celebrating.

All Ozu and Mizoguchi - I walked out after a few minutes of my first (can't now remember which) and last in utter bemusement.

In the Company of Men - I find the plot outline too sickening.

[Richard Tarleton]

An article in last Saturday's Guardian on Blade Runner calls it 'one of the most visually stunning films ever made', and one of the greatest ever science fiction films. What do others think who've seen it? - I haven't.

It is indeed.

[kernelbogey]

For me, a "classic" film implies a high degree of personal respect [....] Does anyone have a film title which they personally regard as classic, from its reputational aura, but which they haven't seen, maybe because it's unavailable or because it is too violent for them, or because they fear they've outgrown its target audience, or because they're afraid of shattering the illusion, or for any other reason?[...]

I've missed quite a lot of films in the cinema, for all the usual reasons one fails to see things, but it seems to me the two concepts that I've highighted above are linked but not the same. Films arrive which are highly lauded by critics, and/or friends praise them: but until one sees the film how can one have personal respect?

On reflection, as I write, one answer to my own question is that I respect highly certain directors from the flms of theirs I've seen but haven't seen everything they produce. For example I venerate Ingmaar Bergman but have not yet seen Fanny and Alexander.

I've recently bought a television (first one I've had for over 20 years), mainly to rectify some of these lacunae.

[jayne lee wilson]

An article in last Saturday's Guardian on Blade Runner calls it 'one of the most visually stunning films ever made', and one of the greatest ever science fiction films. What do others think who've seen it? - I haven't.

"Now all those moments will be lost...like..tears...in...rain...."

Replicant Roy Batty's monologue at the end of Bladerunner is the essence of what makes it a great film - not just visually, but emotionally stunning too.

I've spent more time than is healthy watching films...what else'll you do with that after-dinner wine haze? Not a good look for Nielsen Symphonies. With a movie sub at home you really munch your way through the classics... if I start watching Bambi or Frozen again I know I'll have to stay to the end, and cry again probably.. . it just gets harder to find good new ones as you get older!

Pleased to see Far From the Madding Crowd just refurbished and rereleased, looking forward to that... "I've come to take you home, ma'am..." Shot rings out... Terence Stamp, Julie Christie

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

I've managed to avoid The Sound of Music and intend to go to my grave without seeing it. Unfortunately this intention was compromised by being manipulated into going to see the stage version in London a few years ago; fortunately I managed to get into a massive traffic jam and missed the whole of Act I.

have managed to deflect family pressure to attend several stagings of this piece .... just never seen it for more than a few minutes on the box ....


many years ago on a week off in Aldeburgh, stranded by heavy rain, no tv and no hifi we went to the cinema and watched Carry On Cowboy ... that was my first and last Carry On film ... it was worse than a cold wet Sunday in an off season seaside town

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I find "The Sound of Music" is good for my mental health.

My great avoidance is Coronation Street. I've never watched it. (Off-topic, I know, but I'm not a Host on this thread - )

[Richard Tarleton]

"Now all those moments will be lost...like..tears...in...rain...."

Replicant Roy Batty's monologue at the end of Bladerunner is the essence of what makes it a great film - not just visually, but emotionally stunning too.

Don't watch this if you haven't seen the film, but here it is - the monologue starts at 1.48. Wasn't some of the monologue improvised by Rutger Hauer?

[Belgrove]

Never seen the film nor read the book of To Kill a Mockingbird. But I did see recently a theatre production and actively disliked it. Although I have attempted both Oliver Stone's JFK and Warren Beatty' Reds several times, I've always fallen asleep at the same point both in the cinema and at home. Dozing off during the Russian Revolution is some feat...

[Mary Chambers]

I haven't seen many of the films other people seem to have seen. Certainly not Star Wars or anything like that. Never been interested.

I do have one or two favourite films, though. The Railway Children comes top, or perhaps ties with Brief Encounter. I've now seen some children's films like Mary Poppins, The Wizard of Oz and Sound of Music. When I was about ten I was crazy about The Red Shoes, one of the very few films I was allowed to see - now, I'm not impressed. I saw Bambi for the first time very recently when it was on television, and thought it was all right until Bambi grew up and met the female of the species, a typically loathsome Disney eyelash-fluttering 'woman'. Usually, Disney's vulgarisation of literature repels me (think Alice in Wondeland, Peter Pan, Winnie-the Pooh), but I've never read Bambi, so I don't know what he did to it.

Oh, and I liked the film of My Fair Lady.

[Maclintick]

"Now all those moments will be lost...like..tears...in...rain...."

Replicant Roy Batty's monologue at the end of Bladerunner is the essence of what makes it a great film - not just visually, but emotionally stunning too.

Ridley scott's masterpiece, although I've always found the name Roy Batty more suggestive of a character in "Last of the Summer Wine" than the doomed replicant of the film, perhaps the product of a clandestine wartime liaison between Nora and a super-Aryan Nazi parachutist, the affair conducted behind Wally's back while he was diverted by some pigeon-related activity....

"Na orl those moments will be lost...li'..tears...in...reeam....Theur nivva gerr summa' for nowt i' life, Pris" etc.

My 21-year-old daughter & I watched the director's cut of Bladerunner recently -- she was mesmerised but shrieked in disbelief at Daryl Hannah's hairdo..

Films I haven't seen. Too many to mention - "Star Wars" (any of the franchise), "Wizard of Oz" & "Gone With the Wind" for starters, but excluding the Gerald Thomas classic "Raising the Wind", set in a postwar music school & featuring James Robertson Justice as a choleric head of college.

[Pabmusic]

...but excluding the Gerald Thomas classic "Raising the Wind", set in a postwar music school & featuring James Robertson Justice as a choleric head of college.

A film of which there are several devotees in this forum. Story, screenplay, music score (& conducted by) Bruce Montgomery, aka the crime-writer Edmund Crispin. (He has a cameo conducting Messiah.)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A film of which there are several devotees in this forum.

[Richard Tarleton]

Ridley scott's masterpiece

One of his two, IMO - his "The Duellists", his 1977 big-screen debut, a visually stunning masterpiece set in the Napoleonic wars (and Restoration). On a par with Barry Lyndon.

although I've always found the name Roy Batty more suggestive of a character in "Last of the Summer Wine" than the doomed replicant of the film, perhaps the product of a clandestine wartime liaison between Nora and a super-Aryan Nazi parachutist, the affair conducted behind Wally's back while he was diverted by some pigeon-related activity....

"Na orl those moments will be lost...li'..tears...in...reeam....Theur nivva gerr summa' for nowt i' life, Pris" etc.

I saw Ridley Scott in 2008, directing his "Robin Hood" on a Pembrokeshire beach......You could tell he was an important director, when he arrived some weeks earlier to recce the site, he arrived in two helicopters. You could tell him from his entourage, he was the only one not carrying a clipboard and trying to look indispensible.

[MrGongGong]

Boy & Bicycle

[Don Petter]

I suspect my list, were it known, would be longer than any of these.

I have not been to the cinema since leaving ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ partway through in 1967 because I couldn’t tolerate the violence. I gather that films have become worse in this respect since that time.