Shots in the Dark
by conorlknight | created - 14 Oct 2015 | updated - 04 Nov 2015 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Life of an American Fireman (1903)
Not Rated | 6 min | Short, Action
A fireman rushes into a carriage to rescue a woman from a house fire. He breaks the windowpanes and carries the woman to safety; after dangerous and uncertain moments he also saves the woman's son.
Directors: George S. Fleming, Edwin S. Porter | Stars: Edwin S. Porter, Vivian Vaughan, Arthur White, James H. White
Votes: 2,709
Week 1
2. The Great Train Robbery (1903)
TV-G | 11 min | Short, Action, Adventure
A group of bandits stage a brazen train hold-up, only to find a determined posse hot on their heels.
Director: Edwin S. Porter | Stars: Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson, A.C. Abadie, George Barnes, Justus D. Barnes
Votes: 21,010
Week 1
3. Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906)
Not Rated | 7 min | Short, Comedy, Fantasy
The fiend faces the spectacular mind-bending consequences of his free-wheeling rarebit binge.
Directors: Wallace McCutcheon, Edwin S. Porter | Star: Jack Brawn
Votes: 1,993
Week 1
4. The Lonely Villa (1909)
8 min | Short, Crime, Drama
A gang of thieves lure a man out of his home so that they can rob it and threaten his wife and children. The family barricade themselves in an interior room, but the criminals are ... See full summary »
Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: David Miles, Marion Leonard, Mary Pickford, Gladys Egan
Votes: 1,095
Week 1
5. The Passer-by (1912)
Not Rated | 15 min | Short, Drama
A stranger is invited to a bachelor dinner, where he tells the story of his life.
Director: Oscar Apfel | Stars: George Lessey, Miriam Nesbitt, Marc McDermott, Guy Hedlund
Votes: 124
Week 1
6. The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912)
Not Rated | 17 min | Short, Crime, Drama
A tender young woman and her musician husband attempt to eke out a living in the slums of New York City, but find themselves caught in the crossfires of gang violence.
Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: Elmer Booth, Lillian Gish, Clara T. Bracy, Walter Miller
Votes: 2,493
Week 1
7. Bangville Police (1913)
Not Rated | 8 min | Short, Comedy
At a farm near Bangville, the young daughter see strangers in the barn. She quickly rushes to the house and calls the police. The police engage in a haphazard rush across the countryside to get there in time.
Director: Henry Lehrman | Stars: Mabel Normand, Fred Mace, Nick Cogley, Charles Avery
Votes: 844
Week 1
8. The Wild Engine (1915)
14 min | Short, Thriller
A runaway train hurtles toward a passenger train on the same track. A female telegraph operator hired over the objection of the owner is the only person who can stop it. She overcomes impossible odds to save the imperiled passengers.
Director: J.P. McGowan | Stars: Helen Holmes, Leo D. Maloney, Rex Downs, Jack Hoxie
Votes: 88
Week 1
9. Easy Street (1917)
Unrated | 24 min | Short, Comedy
A reformed tramp becomes a police constable who must fight a huge thug who dominates an inner-city street.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell, Albert Austin
Votes: 5,826
Week 1
10. The General (1926)
Passed | 78 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
After being rejected by the Confederate military, not realizing it was due to his crucial civilian role, an engineer must single-handedly recapture his beloved locomotive after it is seized by Union spies and return it through enemy lines.
Directors: Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton | Stars: Buster Keaton, Marion Mack, Glen Cavender, Jim Farley
Votes: 98,222 | Gross: $1.03M
Week 2
11. The Battle of the Century (1927)
Passed | 19 min | Short, Comedy
A scheming fight manager attempts to collect insurance on his puny fighter by causing an accident. Things don't go according to plan, and the situation escalates into a pie-throwing battle of epic proportions.
Directors: Clyde Bruckman, Leo McCarey | Stars: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Jack Adams, Chester A. Bachman
Votes: 1,478
Week 2
12. It (1927)
Passed | 72 min | Comedy, Romance
A salesgirl pursues a handsome playboy.
Directors: Clarence G. Badger, Josef von Sternberg | Stars: Clara Bow, Antonio Moreno, William Austin, Priscilla Bonner
Votes: 3,576 | Gross: $0.41M
Week 2
13. The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (1928)
Not Rated | 11 min | Short, Drama, Horror
A wannabe movie star experiences the surreal horrors of dehumanization at the bottom of Hollywood's social ladder as his hopes for success vanish and his identity is reduced to a number.
Directors: Robert Florey, Slavko Vorkapich | Stars: Jules Raucourt, Voya George, Robert Florey, Adriane Marsh
Votes: 1,426
Week 2 -- Avant-Garde
14. The Public Enemy (1931)
Passed | 83 min | Crime, Drama
An Irish-American street punk tries to make it big in the world of organized crime.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, Joan Blondell
Votes: 23,032 | Gross: $1.01M
Week 3
15. The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk (2007 Video)
85 min | Documentary
The nearly 30-year struggle to bring sound to motion pictures is the backdrop for this insightful documentary. Film historians, and survivors from the era take the audience from the early ... See full summary »
Stars: Mark Hunt, Ron Hutchinson, Scott Eyman, Rudy Behlmer
Votes: 128
Week 3
16. It Happened One Night (1934)
Passed | 105 min | Comedy, Romance
A rogue reporter trailing a runaway heiress for a big story joins her on a bus heading from Florida to New York and they end up stuck with each other when the bus leaves them behind at one of the stops along the way.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns
Votes: 112,355 | Gross: $4.36M
Week 3
17. Cat People (1942)
Not Rated | 73 min | Fantasy, Horror, Thriller
An American man marries a Serbian immigrant who fears that she will turn into the cat person of her homeland's fables if they are intimate together.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Simone Simon, Tom Conway, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph
Votes: 26,016 | Gross: $4.00M
Week 4
18. Double Indemnity (1944)
Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A Los Angeles insurance representative lets an alluring housewife seduce him into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, an insurance investigator.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Byron Barr
Votes: 167,570 | Gross: $5.72M
Week 4
19. Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)
Not Rated | 14 min | Short, Fantasy, Mystery
A woman returning home falls asleep and has vivid dreams that may or may not be happening in reality. Through repetitive images and complete mismatching of the objective view of time and space, her dark inner desires play out on-screen.
Directors: Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid | Stars: Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid
Votes: 15,215
Week 4 -- Avant-Garde
20. Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
PG-13 | 111 min | Drama
A rebellious young man with a troubled past comes to a new town, finding friends and enemies.
Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus
Votes: 98,014
Week 5
21. Imitation of Life (1959)
Not Rated | 125 min | Drama
An aspiring white actress takes in an African American widow whose mixed-race daughter is desperate to be seen as white.
Director: Douglas Sirk | Stars: Lana Turner, John Gavin, Sandra Dee, Susan Kohner
Votes: 18,228 | Gross: $13.99M
Week 5
22. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
R | 111 min | Action, Biography, Crime
Bored waitress Bonnie Parker falls in love with an ex-con named Clyde Barrow and together they start a violent crime spree through the country, stealing cars and robbing banks.
Director: Arthur Penn | Stars: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman
Votes: 120,676
Week 7
23. Scorpio Rising (1963)
28 min | Short, Music
A gang of Nazi bikers prepares for a race as sexual, sadistic, and occult images are cut together.
Director: Kenneth Anger | Stars: Ernie Allo, Bruce Byron, Frank Carifi, Steve Crandell
Votes: 5,712
Week 7
24. Chinatown (1974)
R | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A private detective hired to expose an adulterer in 1930s Los Angeles finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption, and murder.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez
Votes: 350,121
Week 7
25. Jaws (1975)
PG | 124 min | Adventure, Mystery, Thriller
When a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Cape Cod, it's up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary
Votes: 660,046 | Gross: $260.00M
Week 8
26. Annie Hall (1977)
PG | 93 min | Comedy, Romance
Alvy Singer, a divorced Jewish comedian, reflects on his relationship with ex-lover Annie Hall, an aspiring nightclub singer, which ended abruptly just like his previous marriages.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane
Votes: 278,562 | Gross: $39.20M
Week 8
27. Back to the Future (1985)
PG | 116 min | Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi
Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown.
Director: Robert Zemeckis | Stars: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover
Votes: 1,308,017 | Gross: $210.61M
Week 9
28. Do the Right Thing (1989)
R | 120 min | Comedy, Drama
On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.
Director: Spike Lee | Stars: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson
Votes: 112,515 | Gross: $27.55M
Week 9
29. Speed (1994)
R | 116 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
A young police officer must prevent a bomb exploding aboard a city bus by keeping its speed above 50 mph.
Director: Jan de Bont | Stars: Keanu Reeves, Dennis Hopper, Sandra Bullock, Joe Morton
Votes: 392,231 | Gross: $121.25M
Week 10
30. Fargo (1996)
R | 98 min | Crime, Thriller
Minnesota car salesman Jerry Lundegaard's inept crime falls apart due to his and his henchmen's bungling and the persistent police work of the quite pregnant Marge Gunderson.
Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen | Stars: William H. Macy, Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare
Votes: 727,252 | Gross: $24.61M
Week 10
31. Se7en (1995)
R | 127 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Two detectives, a rookie and a veteran, hunt a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as his motives.
Director: David Fincher | Stars: Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey, Andrew Kevin Walker
Votes: 1,800,829 | Gross: $100.13M
Week 11
32. Erin Brockovich (2000)
R | 131 min | Biography, Drama
An unemployed single mother becomes a legal assistant and almost single-handedly brings down a California power company accused of polluting a city's water supply.
Director: Steven Soderbergh | Stars: Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, David Brisbin, Dawn Didawick
Votes: 221,614 | Gross: $125.60M
Week 11
33. Memento (2000)
R | 113 min | Mystery, Thriller
A man with short-term memory loss attempts to track down his wife's murderer.
Director: Christopher Nolan | Stars: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Mark Boone Junior
Votes: 1,323,906 | Gross: $25.54M
Week 12
34. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
R | 108 min | Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi
When their relationship turns sour, a couple undergoes a medical procedure to have each other erased from their memories forever.
Director: Michel Gondry | Stars: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Gerry Robert Byrne
Votes: 1,078,947 | Gross: $34.40M
Week 12
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