The CineFix Top 100

Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin's first foray into global destruction cinema brought us some truly Brilliant Moments and Clint, Cal, and Alex dig into the practical and miniature effects that allow the movie to hold up all these years later, where it ranks among Will Smith movies, whether or not it's peak Jeff Goldblum, Things You Didn't Know about the film's casting and behind the scenes and, finally, Cal reveals his utter disdain for one of the characters, before we found out how high this epic disaster masterpiece ranks in the CineFix Top 100.

For episode 2, Clint, Cal, and Alex muddle through their feelings about Michel Gondry's all-timer, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Written by Charlie Kaufman and starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Mark Ruffalo at the front of a cast of soon-to-be heavy hitters, the film takes a low tech sci-fi approach to romance and the fallout of a relationship.

Sunset Boulevard is a classic genre-blending, film noir, dark comedy that skewered the state of the film industry in 1950. Maybe the most incredible thing about it is that it's as relevant right now as it was nominated for 11 Academy Awards. But where, oh where, does it end up on our algorithmically confusing Top 100 list? Clint, Cal, and Alex are about to find out!

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a movie that never gets older. The live-action/animated hybrid was a trailblazing piece of film when it dropped in 1988. The Robert Zemeckis follow up to Back to the Future took an IP-wrangling miracle to get made in the first place, and a whole other miracle on top of that which the filmmakers and animators were able to pull it off so seamlessly. So this week, Clint, Cal, and Alex discuss "bumping the lamp", how sometimes the only way to do a thing is the hard way and, on top of finding out where the film ranks on the Top 100, ask the important question: On a scale of John Cleese to Tim Curry, how scary is Sting?

In 2002, City of God came charging out of a Brazillian favela to take over seemingly every critic's top ten list. The decades-spanning crime drama from Fernando Meirelles and co-director Kátia Lund is a fast-paced epic fueled by violence. It's a great film led by an unlikely cast of non-actors recruited from the actual favela and Clint, Cal, and Alex dig into the most stressful movie list, the strange Academy Awards directorial oversight, and Cal's favorite kind of movie (Scorsese clones) on their way to discovering where the film ranks on the CineFix Top 100.

In 2019, Bong Joon-ho dropped an amazing piece of darkly comedic satire on us with Parasite. The film is a twisted, funny thriller that's impossible to limit to one genre, theme, or trope. There is A LOT going on in this film, and as a result, it not only became the first non-English language film to win best picture, but earned a spot on the CineFix Top 100! Clint, Cal, and Alex break down the healthy recent vein of eat-the-rich movies, how the film was edited on Final Cut Pro 7, and why one of the greatest twists of all time is actually in the middle of the movie.

In 1993, the late, great Harold Ramis teamed with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, to do the same thing over and over and over again. In the 30 years since, Groundhog Day has become a genre unto itself. Blending elements of time travel, magical realism, spirituality, and good old fashioned romantic comedy, it doesn't feel right to call it a cult classic—but that's not far off from describing the legacy of the film. Clint, Cal, and Alex, dive into the expert craftsmanship of repetitive comedy, just how many days Phil repeated, and just how long you can watch a human being be despicable before a comeuppance occurs.

There are few who do sequels like James Cameron. In 1991, Terminator 2: Judgment Day blew the socks off everybody on its way to becoming—what we here at CineFix are happy to proclaim—the most perfect action movie of all time. Groundbreaking visual effects mixed with ingenious in-camera tricks and one of the greatest cinema face turns from Arnold Schwarzenegger, T2 is one helluva film. Clint, Cal, and Alex try to discover just where it ranks on the CineFix Top 100, discussing Robert Patrick in his underwear, a Best Editing Oscar snub, and how papier-mâché can look like meat particles on camera.

The late '60s marked the beginning of a new era in Hollywood, and Midnight Cowboy was right in the middle of it. The 1969 film from John Schesinger follows a swaggering small town Texas stud trying to make it as a hustler in Manhattan, and the unlikely relationship he discovers with a con-man. Jon Voigt and Dustin Hoffman turn in amazing performances, but the most incredible thing about the film is how perfectly and inextricably it fits into its place and time. With Alex a bit under the weather, Clint and Cal break down the Oscar nominated editing, relentless gum-chewing, and the concept of the horny grandma that's peppered throughout this Best Picture winner.

David Cronenberg has made some incredible movies that are also incredibly gross. This episode of the CineFix Top 100 dives into one of his best, The Fly. Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis star in the story of inventor Seth Brundle and his attempt to master teleportation, only to end up becoming a fly for his trouble! Clint and Cal spend another week waiting for Alex to rejoin them, but in the meantime they dig into the amazing work of professional face-melter Chris Walas, just how much Mel Brooks campaigned for the movie, and lament the unfortunate missed opportunity to "collude for Croney" to get more of the Canadian body horror maestro's work on the Top 100.

For anyone that got to see Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity in the theater, it's a breathless, palm-sweating, white-knuckled experience that is hard to describe. Essentially Castaway in space, Sandra Bullock is by herself for most of a tight 90-minute adrenaline rush, just trying to survive. In this episode of CineFix Top 100, Clint, Cal, and Alex celebrate this harrowing film's 10th Anniversary, with its Academy Award winning Visual Effects Supervisor, Tim Webber. Tim walks us through all the little details, and tries to describe how necessity really is the mother of invention when making a movie where only the faces are real. Buckle up.

Carol Reed's ‘The Third Man’ is a gorgeously photographed bit of post-war film noir that gave us one of the greatest grins in the history of cinema. It also gave us a ton of zither! Clint, Cal, and Alex dive into the classic detective yarn that's not really about a detective at all. They discuss the dutch angles that kept Joseph Cotton on his heels for most of the film, just how bad a guy Orson Welles as Harry Lime really is, and just how bad a guy Orson Welles was on set, as legends have it. It got booted off of AFI's Top 100 movies list, but find out where it ranks on the CineFix Top 100!

The year… vaguely near future. The setting… Old Detroit. The hero… a robotic cop, resurrected by corporate greed, fighting to regain some of his humanity. RoboCop, in a word, is awesome. The Paul Verhoeven masterpiece has everything you'd want from the '80s: goopy squibs, stop-motion animated robots, and a literal shootout in a cocaine factory. Clint, Cal, and Alex dig into the incredible staying power this movie has, thanks to its brilliant satire, why the extreme violence also has good comedic timing, and why the campiness in Verhoeven's career is not a bug—it's a feature.

The Exorcist had audiences' heads spinning in 1973, and hasn't really stopped since. William Friedkin had just won an Oscar for The French Connection, and William Peter Blatty's novel was a best seller, but the filmmakers still had a long way to go to make a classic. Clint, Alex, and Cal are chock full of pea soup and ready to dive into the incredible makeup effects, the behind-the-scenes wizardry of the grip department, and how the director's cut of the film was actually kind of the writer's cut.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is an unimpeachably great movie that gave us the second iconic Harrison Ford role of the era with Indiana Jones. It's hard to imagine a world without our most famous archeologist—or to understate the franchise's influence on the adventure genre—but at the time, there was a weird amount of pressure to succeed. Steven Spielberg was coming off a string of movies that had gone over budget, the most recent of which was an outright flop. Clint, Cal, and Alex dig into the budget-minded approach Spielberg, George Lucas and crew took to the production, the incredible accidents responsible for some of the coolest imagery in the film, and just how many people were violently ill during production. So buckle up, this is almost 2 hours worth of Raiders talk to find out where it ranks on the CineFix Top 100!

Welcome to another NOT Top 100 in between seasons! This week, Clint's not around, so Cal and Alex are digging into one of their favorites that didn't quite make the cut. This week they explore In Bruges, and discuss its status as a Bro-core movie, its choice to focus on the words of its playwright script instead of the visuals of the romantic city it's shot in, and just how many f-words are said in its 107 minute runtime.

In today’s CineFix Not 100, Alex and Calabro are talking about Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino's 1997 follow-up to Pulp Fiction. In the 25+ years since Tarantino adapted the Elmore Leonard novel, Rum Punch, Jackie Brown has managed to age like Pam Grier herself—which is to say, incredibly. Cal and Alex wax on about how this is Quentin's most traditional film (but not in a bad way), how Alex's cool flight attendant grandma introduced her to this film, and how Pam Grier, Robert De Nero, Samuel L. Jackson, and Robert Forrester turned in some truly excellent performances.