ONE? Not possible. The Wizard of Oz is my all-time favorite, and contains the most potent statement about empowerment and reclaiming ourselves: "You have always had the power…but you had to learn it for yourself."

Other movies have stayed with me weeks after I saw them. The Lion in Winter gave me and my siblings a life-long fascination with history, especially with Eleanor of Aquitaine. Madame Rosa with Simone Signoret left audiences sitting in stunned silence every time I saw it. La Vie en Rose likewise took my breath away. 9 to 5 cheers me up. So does Fried Green Tomatoes. Wonderful performances, and so many layers of self-discovery and empowerment in both. Spirit Bear touches me spiritually. Another multi-layered story of empowerment, all the more uplifting because it’s true. 

One movie truly did change my life. At age 11, I emerged from Gay Purr-ee totally transformed, transmuted (and possessed, so my parents thought) by the Garland thunderbolt that struck me in the middle of the movie. Being such a Garland fan so shaped my life I’d literally be a different person had I not seen that movie at that particular time.

Such is the power of the movies — to take us out of our troubles for a little while, or to connect us to ourselves and our world. 

Most recently, Little Miss Sunshine.   Hillary Swank in Million Dollar Baby was the performance of a lifetime.  Incredible!

Yesteryear… at that time, when Moses parted the Red Sea in the Ten Commandments, it was the best thing since sliced bread.   Ditto for the burning of Atlanta scene in Gone With the Wind.  All the drama involved with the filming of that movie has been revealed in several documentaries.

Sounds boring, but it was Gone With the Wind. They had rereleased it in 68. I was in the 8th grade and studying the Civil War so they took us to see it for a field trip. This was "back in the day" when there was only 1 movie theater not 18 like now. Seeing Clark Gable standing at the bottom of the stairs watching Scarlett, I was off and running at the movies and haven’t looked back.

Of course, since then there are plenty more that have changed my life….The Heiress, Now Voyager, Random Harvest, Sunset Boulevard, Ghost and Mrs Muir..my new favorite 84 Charing Cross Road

The list goes on and on

Another one?  WOW am I allowed?

Ben Hur was a big turning point for me.  I had probably seen the movie about a zillion times (required Easter viewing at my house), and always thought it was only about a bunch of sweaty guys on boats or on horses  (yes, nanchan can be shallow, especially when arguing with four brothers over what to watch, always having to settle for football.. seeing sweaty guys hadn’t yet the same allure it currently does!).

One Saturday, I was at my brother’s home in LA and he had just bought a VCR (this was back in the day!) and had a bunch of movies.  He made me watch the movie, start to finish (no commercials). 

It was amazing.  To this day, I cry every time at the ending, and the message of forgiveness and faith is one I go to in times of need.

Thanks, big brother… oh, and by the way, Charleton Heston sweaty on a boat, it aint too bad either!

Gone With The Wind. I saw it when it came out in 1939 when I was four years old.  It wasn’t memorable because of Rhett and Scarlet or the Civil War.  I sat in that dark theater and learned two things: I wasn’t the only Bonnie in the world, and that four-year-old girls named Bonnie could die! And they put you in a box and buried you under the dirt forever!  It  was my first understanding of death, its universal application and its finality. Pretty heavy beans for a four-year-old.

I saw GWTW every two or three years for the next three decades of my life, and it was a different film every time I saw it because I was seeing it with maturing eyes.  Lots to learn from this really great film.

I’ll start with The Wizard of Oz. Given that color movies were new when it came out, their use of B/W and color was genius. But the real reason it made such an impression in my life was that it was aired every year, just after Thanksgiving. At first, my brothers and I would watch it while our mom decorated the Christmas Tree next to us. Later, we helped with the tree - but watching this particular movie at that particular time of the year had become a tradition. When they stopped airing it, the whole tradition died.

Sixteen Candles showed me that someone else understood what it was like to be invisible in your own home.

Something for Joey Was a penetrating lesson in quiet courage.

To Sir, With Love Was a life lesson in caring and understanding.

While I liked Star Wars, it was the moviemaking and business aspects that made the biggest impression. The advances in sound (THX) and special effects (Industrial Light and Magic) revolutionized filmmaking and raised science fiction from niche status to a first-tier genre. I am not sure if it started the movie/game relationship, but it was a definite turning point in movie marketing. It also started my interest in how movies are made.

South Pacific touched my life because we performed it as a high school play. After 35 years, I still remember…and still love it.

The Thin Man movies are not just a trip back in time for me, but the banter between Nick and Nora made me look at them (the actors) as real people and not just characters in a movie - which got me to look more at the real life of the times and not just the celluloid circus. Now when I watch an old movie, I look for the subtle things that would not have needed explanation then, but has no context today. Marx Brothers movies are particularly rich with signs of those times.

Patton/Midway/Saving Private Ryan/Windtalkers/The Majestic
I was born after WWII, but all the war movies that came out created a fascination for what had happened. Even though they were sanitized and romanticized, they at least provided a framework to build on.

"The first movie I ever saw: "Alice in Wonderland"…The Disney animated films…. The Tea party where the request for half a cup of tea comes: cut down the middle, the tea suspended, intact….. Alice falling down the hole, Alice Huge, Alice tiny……The white rabbit" I’m late, I’m late for a very important date!"… Gotta go, bye

Singing in the rain, An American in Paris…..anything with Gene Kelly, I was madly in love with Gene!

Gone with the wind is a classic that I could watch forever, and if it bothered anyone ‘frankly my dear I don’t give a damn’

I can remember cuddling with my Mom and watching Nelson Eddie & Jeanette McDonald movies……..ahhhh, romance, and being a canadian I have a thing for mounties! =)