Well Met, Everyone!

Found this list on boardgamegeek.com and wished to share--Someone compiled a list of "Must See" films if a person wished to consider themselves a "Geek." According to the source, you had to have seen 15 out of these 20 to qualify for Geekdom. Not a perfect list by any means ("Repo Man"?) but it might kickstart some great debate.



20. Pirates of Silicon Valley 1999, Martyn Burke

19. Short Circuit 1986, John Badham

18. Hackers 1995, Iain Softley

17. Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan 1982, Nicholas Meyer*

16. WarGames 1983, John Badham

15. Repo Man 1984, Alex Cox

14. Planet of the Apes 1968, Franklin J. Schaffner

13. Alien 1979, Ridley Scott*

12. Akira 1988, Katsuhiro Ôtomo

11. Pi 1998, Darren Aronofsky

10. Office Space 1999, Mike Judge

9. The Original Star Wars 1977, George Lucas*

8. The Matrix 1999, Larry and Andy Wachowski*

7. Metropolis 1927, Fritz Lang

6. Brazil 1985, Terry Gilliam

5. Serenity 2005, Joss Whedon

4. Lord of the Rings 2001, Peter Jackson*

3. Spaceballs 1987, Mel Brooks

2. Bladerunner 1982, Ridley Scott

1. 2001 1968, Stanley Kubrick*


Bonus: TRON 1982, Steven Lisberger



Thus far, I can check off all but 20, 11 and 6. Thirteen of these I own on DVD. There are some glaring omissions, like Dark Star, Silent Running, Freaks, and others. What's your take?

I've only seen 4 so does that mean I'm officially not a geek?

9. The Original Star Wars 1977, George Lucas
8. The Matrix 1999, Larry and Andy Wachowski
6. Brazil 1985, Terry Gilliam
4. Lord of the Rings 2001, Peter Jackson

Although I have seen all of the Star Wars films (preferring the original trilogy), all The Matrix films and all the Lord of the Rings films as well as reading the book and reading The Hobbit AND once owning an extensive collection of LotR plastic and die-cast figures.

Nah, Loki--all it really means is--you've seen four on this unscientific and subjective list. Is there a film on this list you don't believe qualifies and with what movie would you replace it?

Though our society is quickly becoming a visual media society I subscribe to the belief that Geekdom isn't so much in the movies seen as the books read. Sure there are a few foundation movies like StarWars almost every geek world wide has seen, but I always thought Geekdom was a mark of intelligence and so went more with literate pursuits.

Lord of the Rings--Trilogy
Starwars: The New Hope
The Day the Earth Stood Still--Original
The Russian are Coming, the Russians are Coming
and now my mind is blank I will thinks of more later.

Why isn't the last star fighter in there? lol

Labyrinth

The Dark Crystal

Gremlins

Any of the comic based movies might as well be on the list.

The Hobbit (The classic animated rendition was great in my humble geekly opinion)

The Princess Bride

Donnie Darko

Back to the Future

While not quite as good or mainstream as the LotR movies, there have been a couple DnD movies.

and while they are not technically movies, the Sci-Fi channel mini-series Tin-Man and Alice are great!

If I think of anything else I'll add on

The 13th Floor. The original take on what the Matrix was going to try before they realized it had already been done lol. If you haven't seen it, go see it and you'll know what you missed out on with the Matrix lol

Armitage

Ghost in the Shell

Blade Runner

Just about anything by Kevin Smith



My personal opinion on the matter is that it is impossible to define a cultural mass like geekdom with a simple list of 20 movies, there are several sub-cultures within geekdom that many of us belong to. You have your gamer geeks, comic geeks, Ren-Faire geeks, Otaku to a certain extent, and the list could go on and on. You can't make a list and say that you have to like the majority of the list to be a geek, because there are other things that may make you more of a geek than someone else who liked the entire list. A comic geek isn't going to like some of the things a gamer likes, and vice versa. Geekdom, like humanity itself, is far to diverse to cram into a tiny list and say "Like this or GTFO!" It just doesn't work that way...

I haven't seen numbers 11, 7, or 6... yet. I might just have to had those to my queue of movies to see

EDIT: I haven't seen number 7 but I have seen the anime version of the same name by director Rintaro, does that count lol. And though I haven't seen Brazil, I did see the director's Time Bandits, which was the first installation in the trilogy of: Time Bandits, Brazil and then Adventures of Baron Munchausen. I also am surprised that none of his Monty Python works were listed in the "Official" list or by anyone else until now. I think Holy Grail should at least be counted in the list lol.

i haven't seen 20,15, or 11 from the first list. I have the last starfighter on blu ray. The only one from shield wolf's list i haven't seen is donnie darko. Or armitage from his second list.

What about Dr. strangeglove? or this that considered just classic for normal people?

There are a lot of us that are Heroic Adventure Geeks.

Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The Mummy

And don't forget the gadget geeks from the Bond movies. Gotta love the Bond cars.

Seen 9 of them. Whoopee! Seriously though, if nothing else MP, where is MP and the Holy Grail?

that should be first on the list.

what about The Cube?

and the Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Time Bandits along with Ice Pirates should be on a list too

Good call. I may have only been a year old when it came out, but I've seen it and it is pure geekdom. Come on, a movie about aliens drafting a human to fight in their war because he got a high score on an arcade game can't be anything but geeky.

*that's in regards to The Last Starfighter