My Top Ten Films ... Today

All these top ten poll you see just get on my tits. I will be honest my top ten lists be it films, music or anything else changes on a weekly or even daily basis.

I find it difficult to pick my all time to anything expect my favour pie. Today all the below film were in my head for one reason are another, all of which I have watch umpteen of times and never tire of watching them. I could never pick just one it would be impossible.

In no particular order here my ten today do you agree with these films being top films?

Kes …

A beautifully made film about the relationship between 15 year-old Barnsley school boy Billy Casper (David Bradley), bullied and beaten at home, ignored at school and the baby kestrel he nurtures and loves.

His love for the bird can be seen and the only time he lights up in school is talking to the class about Kes. Everyone remembers Brian Glover as the sadistic sports teacher who runs away with a farcical football match, but this is a film full of great performances, especially Bradley as a vulnerable, believable hero.

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning …

Another northern-based film starring Albert Finney about a hard working class man. He is seeing is a work colleagues wife behind is back played by Rachel Roberts (Brenda) and dating Shirley Anne Field’s character Doreen.

He gets Brenda pregnant, which leads to an abortion, and he gets his comeuppance for the affair when his mates army brother turns up with his mate and gives Finney's character a kicking. He and Doreen late go looking at new homes being built and look forward to owning one of them. One of the quotes of the film is "Don't let the bastards grind you down. That's one thing you learn."

If …

Anarchy in a public school starring Malcolm McDowell. McDowell and his cohorts indulge in small acts of rebellion, and when their actions are discovered they are punished with a caning from the head boy. that leads them to plot ultimate revenge after they discover a cache of weapons. Come Founders' Day McDowell and friend take to the roof as below the school gathers, masters, pupils, and parents soon gunfire rings out.

Then a hail of bullets and grenades burst on to the scene below, where the assemble masses massacre.

This is England …

From the opening credits' of Toots & The Maytals' ska classic '54-46 (That's My Number)', blares out of the screen I was hooked. It can be hard viewing at times. It's 1983 12-year-old Shaun (Turgoose), who lives with his mother (Hartley), is struggling to cope with his father's death while fighting in the Falklands.

The other kids tease him mercilessly, but a group of skinhead punks led by Woody (Gilgun) take him in, shaving his head and kitting him out with a Ben Sherman shirt and Doc Martens. Then Combo (Graham) returns from prison and divides the group with his racist nationalism. Shaun is quickly won over but soon see the error of his ways.

On the Waterfront …

Terry Malloy dreams about being a prize fighter, while tending his pigeons and running errands at the docks for Johnny Friendly, the corrupt boss of the dockers union. Terry witnesses a murder by two of Johnny's thugs, and later meets the dead man's sister and feels responsible for his death.

She introduces him to Father Barry, who tries to force him to provide information for the courts that will smash the dock racketeers. The film ends with a brutal fight between Johnny Friendly and Malloy with some of Friendly's friends jumping in to help. Badly beaten Malloy some how gets to a feet to lead the men into work.

Blade Runner …

Set in 2019, five years away for flying cars, interplanetary space travel and sexbots I just don’t think so. Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) as to track down a team of humanoid androids that have escaped from an outer space mining colony and returned to earth to seek out their makers at the Tyrell Corporation.

He tracks them down one by one, killing them but in the end, the leader of the group saves Deckard only for Rutger Hauer character (Ray Batty) to die saying the famous line ‘time to die’. Ford then drives into the sunset with his love interest a sexy android.

Aliens …

Rarely does a sequel float my boat but this beauty hits all the right spots. Sigourney Weaver returned as Ellen Ripley, found adrift in an escape bod returns to earth after 50 years. In the meantime, the planet where the aliens were discovered has now been colonised and out of contact with earth.

Ripley and a detachment of colonial marines along with a company's representative is sent to investigate. Mayhem ensues as the aliens kill off the rescuers and we are left with a final all-female showdown between the alien queen and Ripley.

It’s a Wonderful Life …

This film is always in any film top ten I think about, a constant. I just love this film, a bittersweet comedy/drama starring James Stewart as George Bailey from the small town of Bedford Falls. We see Bailey’s life mostly in flashbacks from the Christmas Eve after is uncle losses some money, which would send him into financial, ruin and arrest so he seriously contemplating suicide.

Bumbling angel Clarence (Henry Travers) is sent to help and shown him what life would have been like if he was not born. Nobody recognizes him family or friends making him realize how many life’s he had touched. Finding he is back in the present he runs home to his family shouting Merry Christmas to one and all where upon the towns people rally around to save him from financial ruin, Merry Christmas.

The Searches …

Big scenery and John Wayne it must be a John Ford directed Western and this is one of the best. Wayne plays Ethan Edwards (one of my favourite film names) a former Confederate soldier. He returns to is brothers farm but is called away to help the Texas Rangers track raiding Indians. It was a trick and the Indians, he returns to find his family killed and his two nieces kidnapped.

Along with Martin Pawley, who was adopted by the Edwards after his own parents were killed by Comanches years earlier, Ethan sets out to find his niece, Debbie after finding the body of his other niece. The movie's title refers to the duo's five year search for the young woman, and their struggle to rescue her once she is adopted by the tribe and married to Chief Scar.

On the Beach …

With virtually all life on earth gone due to radioactive residue of a nuclear holocaust an American submarine docks in Melbourne, Australia. It’s only a matter of time before everyone Down Under succumbs to radiation poisoning and we see how the population reacts in different ways: some go on a nonstop binge of revelry.

The plan is for everyone to take a suicide pill just before the end but there is a possibility that rains have washed the atmosphere clean in the Northern hemisphere, so submarine is despatched to check it out and investigate a faint radio signals come from the San Diego area.