- Slap Shot (1977)
Why is this the ultimate Guy Movie? Because Paul Newman and the rest
of the Charleston Chiefs live the life every real guy dreams of: They
drink beer, get laid, play sports, gamble, watch TV, avoid relationships,
and successfully put off adulthood. And at the end of the film, their
immaturity is rewarded with a Main Street parade in their honor! Slap
Shot's got it all: sports, humor, male bonding, violence, more sports,
plus some not-strictly-necessary-to-the-plot naked females. What's not
to love?
- The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966)
Doodle-oodle-oo...wanh wanh wanh. Doodle-oodle-oo...wanh wanh wanh.
It was the most memorable theme tune in Guy Movie history (until the
theme from The Godfather), and it carried
Clint Eastwood ("the good," more or less), Eli Wallach ("the
bad"), and Lee Van Cleef ("the ugly") across a dusty,
Civil War-torn America in search of buried gold. The best of the spaghetti
westerns from Italian director Sergio Leone, this classic is not a buddy
film. These guys would just as soon kill each other as share a drink,
and the hero, Clint's cigar-smokin', poncho-wearin', bandito-splatterin'
"Man With No Name" is the ultimate loner. Who needs buddies
when you're packing heat?
- National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
"My advice to you is to start drinking heavily." The boys
from the Delta House are immature, irresponsible, disrespectful, and
not all that bright; in short, the perfect heroes for a Guy Movie. They
know how to party, anyway, and the worse things get (pledge-party mishaps,
double-secret probation, flunking out and getting their chapter thrown
off campus), the better the parties get. And why shouldn't they: After
all, was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Behind the antics
of John Belushi, who shines as the colorful miscreant and future U.S.
senator John "Bluto" Blutarsky, this is cheerful viewing for
anyone who ever threw seven years of college down the drain.
- The Terminator/Terminator
2: Judgment Day (1984; 1991)
"I'll be back." Breathtaking special effects. Shotguns. Motorcycles.
An orgy of relentless robotic power. Plus: A buff, largely bra-free
Linda Hamilton! If it ain't here, you don't need it. Arnold Schwarze-negger,
a wooden actor but a meaty presence, peaks as the Terminator, an unflinching
killing machine that can absorb bullets like so many mosquito bites.
Bonus: As the cyborg with exactly one facial expression, Arnie turns
a so-called male liability--our limited emotional range--into a virtue!
- Die Hard (1988)
"Yippee-kai-yay, motherf----r!" One look at terrorist Hans
Gruber's smarmy European grin and you instinctively want to kick his
ass. And that's precisely what a barefoot, wisecracking Bruce Willis
does for two hours: he kicks Gruber's (actually Alan Rickman's) ass
all over a 40-story building, beating the standard impossible odds with
his usual pluck and determination. The twist? Willis feels pain, and
lots of it, which is a nice shot of reality. For instance, in the bathroom,
he's plucking glass shards out of his mangled feet, and for a minute
you almost think he's going to shed a...nah, just kidding.
- Stripes (1983)
"Chicks dig me because I rarely wear underwear..." Sure, this
is just a remake of Abbott and Costello's Buck Privates. But
Bill Murray, the crowned prince of smart-asses, was at the peak of his
game, and when he was there, no one in Hollywood could touch him. In
Murray's army, discipline is comfortably lax, R&R means mudwrestling,
MPs are gorgeous and randy, and even the common Winnebago is reconfigured
as a fully loaded tactical urban assault vehicle. A hilarious send-up
of all things military.
- Caddyshack (1980)
"You'll get nothing and like it." Bill Murray, country-club
groundskeeper, swatting the heads off innocent carnations. Chevy Chase,
hapless swinger, reinventing the tequila shot. Rodney Dangerfield, entertaining
loudmouth, working straight man Ted Knight into a frenzy. Lacey Underall
(some actress named Cindy Morgan), not trying very hard at all to keep
a bra on her body. This was a movie about golf?
- GoodFellas (1990)
Ain't life in the Mafia grand? Loads of cash, drugs, free time, and
mistresses. Someone mouths off, you kill him. Even a stint in prison
seems more like guy's weekend than a punishment. Joe Pesci is priceless
as Tommy DeVito, a cold-blooded killer who makes Fred Krueger look like
Fred Rogers. One unforgettable scene: A cocaine freak-out that makes
you want to throw up--in a good way, that is.
- Dirty Harry (1971)
"This is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world,
and would blow your head clean off..." Only a drooling, jibbering,
complete and utter imbecile would dream of f-----g with Harry Callahan,
the original lawless cop. Movies like The Good, the Bad, and the
Ugly had already secured Clint Eastwood's guy movie credentials;
this role made him a legend. Highlights: The scene where the bad guy
hires a lug to smash in his face so Callahan will be blamed. The gunpoint
showdown in which our man makes a poor dirtbag guess whether there's
another bullet in the chamber or not...and the reprise at the end. The
torture scene on the football field, where Callahan stands on a bad
guy's wounded leg until he gets what he's after. You actually feel sorry
for any criminal with the dumb luck to get in the way of cinema's most
relentlessly bad-assed motherfucker.
- The Godfather/The
Godfather: Part II (1972; 1974)
"It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes." In the Corleone
world, the men rule the families. There's plenty of dough to throw around;
everybody's got nice suits and classy black cars. The womenfolk make
big Italian meals. Letting aggravation explode into violence is accepted,
even encouraged.
 Pulp Fiction (1994)
"Zed's dead, baby." Black humor, heady violence, and inspired
casting make this one for the ages. But it almost gets ugly again and
again. Just when you're about to witness a horrible Deliverance-style
anal rape, the victims triumph and get medieval on the perps! Just when
drug-addled mob moll Uma Thurman is about to OD and plunge the theater
into gloom, John Travolta saves her beautiful ass! Hallelujah; pass
the Whoppers.
- The Blues Brothers (1980)
"We're on a mission from God." It's hard to remember today,
but there was a time when stretching Saturday Night Live skits
into movies actually worked. Filmed in a simpler era when John Belushi
was still alive, and Dan Aykroyd was still funny, this story of Jake
and Elwood Blues serves up car chases, honky-tonk bars, and alcohol
galore. A bizarrely gymnastic Belushi does backflips and Aretha Franklin,
Ray Charles, and James Brown supply soulful cameos. These guys were
so cool that the fact that they knew they were cool did nothing to diminish
their coolness.
- The Longest Yard (1974)
"I think you broke his f-----' neck." This film combines two
Guy Film staples: prison and football. Stars Burt Reynolds (back when
he was the studliest guy in the world) and Richard Kiel, who played
Jaws in two James Bond movies. The film focuses so tightly on one guards-vs.-inmates
football game that it's like watching sports and a movie at the same
time: an eerily gratifying experience.
- Rocky (1976)
"Yo, Adrian!" Rocky Balboa (Sly Stallone) is a regular Joe
with a dream. (Maybe he's a lobe shy of being a regular Joe, but you
get the idea.) And in just two hours, as he takes on slabs of beef,
jogs up those famous steps in Philly, and gets ready for the Apollo
Creed bout, he comes to represent the idea of willpower-conquering -
all that's at the heart of every guy's hero dream. If Rocky had only
won that fight, we might have been spared 500 sequels.
- Diner (1982)
"I'll hit you so hard, I'll kill your whole family." Guys
find this a feel-good film because director Barry Levinson suggests
that going to a strip club, getting into fist-fights with old rivals,
tricking girls into touching your unit, and requiring a prospective
wife to pass a sports quiz is perfectly acceptable behavior. Bonus:
Seeing Kevin Bacon and Paul Reiser before they sold us out and went
sensitive.
- Scarface (1983)
"F--k 'em all! I bury those cock-a-roaches!" As Cuban tough
guy Tony Montana, Al Pacino lives one version of the American Dream:
he sleeps with Michelle Pfeiffer, heads a mighty empire, and snorts
more cocaine than Michael Irvin on a Super Bowl bender. But life isn't
all fun and games. Tony gets caught in a U.S. government sting operation,
mistakenly murders his brother-in-law, and, in one of the most intense
scenes ever filmed, is forced to watch as his buddy is butchered with
a chainsaw. A chick flick this ain't.
-
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Critics may argue that Sam Peckinpah's film is about society's reaction
to violence, but in our book it's really about six guys on a great Mexican
road trip where they ride horses, drink, whore around, shoot unfaithful
girlfriends, play practical jokes with dynamite, and take one hot-as-hell
sauna. Make sure to wake the kids for the last scene, in which the bandits
of the title happily gun down two thirds of the Mexican population.
- Every Bond Movie except Never Say
Never Again (1962-1997)
Amazing, willing women with a license to thrill. Cool gadgets that would
put the real CIA in a full ball-sweat. Evil villains with diabolical
plans and the cash flow to make them happen. Never was such a formula
played to such perfection. The sad exception, Never Say Never Again
(featuring a geriatric Sean Connery, already playing lawyers and scientists
elsewhere) does nothing to diminish this greatest Guy series of all
time.
- The Deer Hunter (1978)
"It's gonna be all right, Nickie. Shoot...shoot, Nickie."
What's a guy to do when he's trapped in a Vietcong prison where the
captors love to play Russian roulette? If you're DeNiro, you grab the
guns, shoot the enemy, escape, and try to save your buddy (psycho-actor
Christopher Walken).
- Swingers (1996)
"You're so money and you don't even know it." A combat movie
about the war between the sexes, Swingers unabashedly takes the Guy
road: Even the most awkward guy looks sincere, strong, and Sinatra-cool,
while nearly every chick looks selfish, unsympathetic, and cold. The
painful late-night phone-call scene alone will forever make you think
twice about leaving a message on a woman's answering machine. And they
wonder why we don't call?
- Reservoir Dogs (1992)
"All you can do is pray for a quick death, which you aren't going
to get." A perfectly planned heist by six color-coordinated strangers
gets washed out when one turns out to be a cop; a drawn-out bloodbath
ensues. Whether you love Quentin Tarantino's movie for its stark reality,
or loathe it for its unapologetic brutality, most guys agree they'd
never want their ear cut off in the unsanitary and infection-causing
method depicted here.
-
Raging Bull (1980)
"You punch like you take it up the ass." Boxing movies are
tough to carry off; biographies are even tougher. But the one-two punch
of Scorsese and De Niro pulls off both in a masterpiece of simmering
anger and exploding violence, based on the life of real-world nose-buster
Jake La Motta. Joe Pesci shows early signs of greatness as Jake's manager/brother,
but it's De Niro's eternally frustrated LaMotta that rivets ya -- and
won the boy a well-deserved Oscar.
- Cool Hand Luke (1967)
"What we've got here is failure to communicate." If you ever
have to do time on a cracker chain gang, this is the one you want. Sure,
the warden's a sadistic bastard--but aren't they all? At least you'd
be entertained by Paul Newman as the feisty con who, like Nicholson
in Cuckoo's Nest, refuses to let the
corrupt system break his spirit. (Bonus: With this troublemaker around
to draw their fire, nobody would bother kicking the crap out of you.)
- The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
Dyin' ain't much of a living for the bounty hunters hot on the trail
of legendary gunslinger Josey Wales. As the ultimate outlaw, Clint Eastwood
defines cool as he spits tobacco juice on his victim's foreheads, refuses
to bury the dead ("buzzards gotta eat, same as worms"), and
kills everyone but the producer and the key grip.
-
Apocalypse Now (1976)
Apocalypse Now is two and a half hours of depression, ennui,
and nihilism, broken up by intermittent scenes of violence and death.
Which doesn't mean it's not great fun. Surfing on the beach! The smell
of napalm in the morning! Martin Sheen's eyes opening as he rises from
the mud! Marlon Brando, bloated and incomprehensible!
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Introduction to 100 Greatest Guy Movies Ever Made: