Assignment: 30 movies to watch by age 30

My name is Elaine. I'm 29 years old and will be turning 30 in November. I guess I never watched a ton of movies, but I never realized how completely inadequate my knowledge of popular movie culture was. Of course I've heard comments like "I can't believe you haven't seen that!" or "Where have you been?" or "You haven't seen anything!". However, it was recently brought to my attention by my super awesome friends Cindy and Sara that in fact my movie education is woefully incomplete. I think their precise words were something along the line of: "You've got to be kidding me, you haven't even seen Steel Magnolias?!?!? Desperate times call for desperate measures. The goal: watch 30 movies before I turn 30 that represent popular movie culture for my generation. That way when someone quotes the "new classics" I can proudly say... "I've seen that, it was a great movie!".

With the help of Cindy and Sara, close friends, and my co-workers I compiled a list of movies that I should watch. The list was about 130 movies long. I sent out the list for closer scrutiny... I asked people to vote which 30 movies they would choose as absolute must-sees. The movies with the highest number of votes made the top 30 list (of course I excluded movies that I'd already seen). The final 30 by 30 list is below! The objective was to watch 1 movie per week starting April 1st. Well, it's already the end of April and I've only just watched the first one... so I'll have to double up. In addition, apparently you can't just watch one of the Star Wars films, and seeing as there are 6, I have an additional 5 movies to squeeze in before November.

I'm excited! I've signed up for Netflix and I have all the movies on my 30 by 30 list in my queue. I've already watched the first movie! This blog will be about my opinion on each of the movies in my list and why I think they were recommended as must-see movies for my generation.

The List:

Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Braveheart (1995)

Good Will Hunting (1997)

Schindler's List (1993)

American Beauty (1999)

Groundhog Day (1993)

Star Wars (1977, 1980, 1983, 1999, 2002, 2005)

Breakfast Club (1985)

Sixteen Candles (1984)

The Godfather (1972)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

West Side Story (1961)

Crash (2004)

Rain Man (1988)

The Hangover (2009)

Back to the Future (1985)

St. Elmo's Fire (1985)

Pretty in Pink (1986)

Animal House (1978)

City Slickers (1991)

The Shining (1980)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Cold Mountain (2003)

Good Morning Vietnam (1987)

Napolean Dynamite (2004)

Fight Club (1999)

Terminator (1984)

Monty Python Holy Grail (1975)

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

ANNIE HALL (1977)