Every Friday night my friend, Tina, invites a few women to her home to watch a move she’s chosen, on her large screen TV, while her small white Shih Tzu, Tashi, sits at our feet.

Last Friday it was Annie Hall with Diane Keaton and Woody Allen, who directed it, almost fifty years ago—1979. Was it really that long ago?  The movie was as fresh and funny last Friday as it was in the 1970’s.

“La dee da,” says Keaton, looking charming, wearing a men’s vest and tie.

Woody, of course, is as humorously neurotic as we’ve remembered, and when the film ended, we all were smiling.

There are few rituals in most of our lives, and for me, the week seems to pass more quickly and happily when I know we have the movie coming Friday. Tina has a unique sense of humor and charm, and so far, she hasn’t picked a single movie we haven’t enjoyed, if not loved.

Tina’s been going to the Telluride, CO, film festival held over Labor Day for more than three decades, along with her two sons and their partners. They rent a condo, watch movie screenings, and listen to panel discussions by directors and actors for three days and nights. “It’s a ritual trip that none of us ever want to miss,” she says.

Many of the films they see are forgettable, but when she sees one she finds outstanding, she adds it to the list she’s been keeping for more than thirty years. And it’s from that list that she selects our Friday night films.

“Personally, I feel a movie has the potential to be a perfect gem—like a painting, a sculpture or piece of music,” Tina says.  “A great movie has something more to give you than thrills, explosions and gunshots for an hour and a half.”

She says that some films on her list “I haven’t seen for twenty or thirty years, like Gone with the Wind, and it’s compelling to see how they impact us in our current lives.” She adds that they’re not all Academy Award Winners. “Often the Academy doesn’t value the films I do.”

The film critic Judith Crist once told me you can make a great movie from a mediocre book, but you can’t make a great film from a great book. Because the power of the book is in its voice, and the power of the film is in its images. If you know of an exception, I’d like to hear it.

Here’s a list of what we’ve seen, in case you’d like to start a movie group or watch on your own. (All films available online, some for a small fee) And we’d love to hear suggestions of films we might add to the list. I especially loved A Chorus Line for the spectacular dancing. And, The Painted Veil filled me with awe. As Tina put it, “Every single frame in that film is like a painting. It’s well cast, heartrending, and inspirational.”

1    Beaches                                    32  Legends of the Fall

2   Longshot                                   33  The Reader

3    Broadcast News                     34  The Ides of March

4    The Painted Veil                     35  World According Garp

5  The Long Hot Summer           36  Reds

6    Notes on a Scandal                37  The Sting

7    Postcards from the Edge       38  Harold and Maud

8    Body Heat                                39  A Chorus Line

9   The Big Chill                             40  Gone with the Wind

10  Midnight in Paris                    41  Chinatown

11  Network                                     42  Out of Africa

12  The Way We Were                  43  Almost Famous

13  All about Eve                            44  Dr. Zhivago

14  The Graduate                           45  A Real Pain

15  Rust & Bone                              46  Annie Hall

16  Trainwreck                               47  Manhattan

17  The Cider House Rules           48  The Pawnbroker

18  The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie  49  Memoirs of a Geisha

19  Rain Man                                 50  The Last Picture Show

20 Hereafter (Matt Damon)       51  Julia

21  Water (Widows in India in 1940’s)

22  Splendor in the Grass (Warren Beatty ‘s first film)

23  The Lives of Others (E German)

24  Starting Out in the Evening.     52 Heartburn

25  The Stories we Tell                      53 Steetcar Namd Desire

26  McCabe & Mrs. Miller                54 The Children’s Hour

27  Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid

28  Watermarks (Jewish women swim champions defy Hitler)

29    Devil Wears Prada                    55 All the President’s Men

30    Monsters’ Ball                   

31    Terms of Endearment

If you have any suggestions of other films to watch, please respond to this blog. Maybe start a movie group of your own?

Tina’s planning to put her movie list on Substack with opportunities for discussion, if you’re interested, let us know.

Happy watching!

AND DO LEAVE A COMMENT: What was the last film you loved and why?  Or, what’s on your mind today?