TOP TEN MOVIES TO TAKE TO A DESERT ISLAND

The Desert Island Top Ten

The ship is sinking, there is only so much room in the lifeboat (hope it's not one from Life of Pi), and I have to jettison the 25 honorable mentions and go with the 10 films I would have with me on that infamous desert island. I just hope the Dharma Initiative remembered to leave behind a solar-powered television set and DVD player.

10. Men in Black (1997)

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. Written by Ed Solomon. Produced by Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald. Columbia Pictures/Amblin Entertainment. 98 minutes.

Starring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Vincent D'Onofrio, Rip Torn, Linda Fiorentino.

When Barry Sonnenfeld gets hold of a crackling-good yarn, he can deliver a riotous joy-ride like this one about extraterrestrial immigration enforcement. With his background in cinematography, Sonnenfeld can certainly frame the visuals, but the storyteller in him won't let the still-impressive special effects overwhelm the taut narrative, smartly written by Ed Solomon from Lowell Cunningham's comic book. Indeed, what makes Men in Black so watchable is the inexorable drive to tell the story.

Portraying the two mysterious agents charged with repelling the next extraterrestrial threat, Will Smith plays straight man J to Tommy Lee Jones's wonderfully deadpan K as Vincent D'Onofrio, his yokel farmer expropriated by a giant cockroach from outer space, decomposes hilariously. Rip Torn, the droll Men in Black boss, and Linda Fiorentino, the smart, sexy coroner, lend distinctive support along with Siobhan Fallon and Tony Shalhoub. Men in Black is now a film franchise, with the corresponding diminishing returns, but the first in the series remains a refreshingly brisk, witty, irreverent sci-fi comedy.

9. Jaws (1975)

Directed by Steven Spielberg. Written by Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb. Produced by Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown. Universal Pictures. 124 minutes.

Starring Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw.

Steven Spielberg demonstrated his mastery of horror with this tale of aquatic terror while avoiding his usual suburban over-sentimentality—although that does raise its dorsal fin at the Brody dinner table. With an opening that pays sly homage to The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Spielberg brilliantly keeps the monster under wraps until he needs it to make its stunning formal introduction. (Hint: "You're gonna need a bigger boat.") Then Jaws just keeps paying out the line until it has you fully hooked.

Robert Shaw, salt crusting over his avast-ye-matey delivery as the fisherman Quint, chews as much scenery as the shark does—although his USS Indianapolis monologue is as frightening as any of the attacks—while versatile Roy Scheider, as police chief Martin Brody, and believable Richard Dreyfuss, as shark expert Matt Hooper, ride with him to the white-knuckle climax as John Williams's instantly recognizable score ripples underneath. Shark-attack movies might have become more graphic—and this franchise quickly joined the chum line—but Jaws remains the one fish in the tank that I don't mind watching go around and around.

8. Rashomon (1950)

Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Written by Akira Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto. Produced by Minoru Jingo. Daiei Film Co., Ltd., and RKO Radio Pictures. 88 minutes.

Starring Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori.

Just who is telling the truth here? More to the point, what exactly is "truth," anyway? Director Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon illustrates brilliantly how subjective perceptions color our understanding and interpretation of events. In this case that takes place in feudal Japan, the circumstances involving an assault, rape, and murder are told from different, conflicting points of view. The bandit Tajōmaru (Toshiro Mifune) admits in court to raping a samurai's wife, then killing her husband—but the wife (Machiko Kyō) says that he didn't kill her husband. Meanwhile, the slain husband—through a medium—provides a different account. Then there's the woodcutter (Takashi Shimura), who supplies yet another story, with all of them circling around what actually happened. Or do they?

Just about every subsequent movie that plays with objective reality takes some sort of cue from Rashomon, and it's not just the fascinating narrative that makes it so watchable. Working with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa, Kurosawa's painterly eye frames each shot intimately while dappling the black and white photography to enhance the ambiguity inherent in each account as Fumio Hayasaka's evocative score borrows liberally from Western sources, notably Ravel's Bolero, to provide dramatic underlining. Mifune and Kyō provide different kinds of mania while Mori is enigmatic, impassive, painting further layers of doubt onto an already-muddled portrait. I keep watching to observe all the subtly sophisticated ways we can deceive each other—and ourselves.

7. North by Northwest (1959)

Directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. Written by Ernest Lehman. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. 136 minutes.

Starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Leo G. Carroll.

At some point, it is fair to ask: How many innocent-man-wrongly-accused films could Alfred Hitchcock have made? If they are anywhere near as compelling as North by Northwest, the answer is: As many as he wanted to. Hitchcock's approach to filmmaking was so audience-accessible that he often gets overlooked as a master director. North by Northwest doesn't do him any favors because it is so eminently watchable—it is hard not to be pulled in from the very beginning. Moreover, it might be the quintessential Hitchcock tale of the wronged innocent out to clear his name, as charming Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is plunged into international intrigue when he is mistakenly abducted from a New York hotel, then is later framed for murder, forcing him to lam it on a path that takes him—you guessed it, north by northwest—ultimately to Mount Rushmore, though not without some memorable stops along the way.

As Bernard Hermann's vertiginous score dogs him at every step, Thornhill tangles with cool blonde beauty Eve (Eva Marie Saint), who might not be who he thinks she is, and suave enemy spy Vandamm (James Mason) with the subtly menacing henchman (Martin Landau)—and with the most sinister crop-dusting biplane in cinema history in a scene that has become an iconic Hitchcock image. Leo G. Carroll, as government operative the Professor, and Jessie Royce Landis as Thornhill's flippant mother supply the levity to contrast with the moments of tension and suspense, not the least the literal cliffhanger that brings North by Northwest to a dizzying climax. Grandeur, romance, suspense—and sly wit—enliven this MacGuffin-driven gem. I laugh every time I see the train going into the tunnel during the final shot. Who said Hitch didn't have a sense of humor?

6. Goodfellas (1990)

Directed by Martin Scorsese. Written by Martin Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi. Produced by Irwin Winkler. Warner Bros. 146 minutes.

Starring Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino.

The Three Sociopathic Stooges join the Mafia in this electrifying tale of the savage underbelly of the American Dream. Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather is mythic tragedy, but Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas is a visceral slice-of-life, fueled by Scorsese's and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus's kinetic camera work and a driving classic-rock soundtrack. Based on the true story of New York mobster Henry Hill, Goodfellas presents the criminal flip-side of post-World War Two American affluence in a series of gripping episodes that always threaten to explode in sudden violence—and often does—producing a corresponding series of knife-edge thrills for the viewer, even for those who have seen the film multiple times.

As Hill, Ray Liotta functions as the fulcrum between Robert De Niro's Bobby Conway, cool and calculating, and Joe Pesci's Tommy DeVito, psychotic and impulsive, as they carry out a string of robberies, hijackings, and murders for unassuming gang boss Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino); they become the Mafia's Three Stooges—uncouth, driven by id, they buy whatever they want and simply take what they can't buy. Meanwhile, Henry weathers an often tempestuous marriage to Karen (Lorraine Bracco), an outsider lured by Henry's illicit charisma. Scorsese makes a signature statement with Goodfellas, both on American society and on his own filmmaking prowess, while Pesci is simply terrifying here. Compulsively rewatchable.