Here is the situation: You are planning for a 10 year trip in space and have an iPad with limited capacity. You can choose only one movie of less than four hours each of the following genres:
Action
Adventure
Animation
Comedy
Drama
Fantasy
Heist <—EDIT, this was added by popular demand!
Horror
Musical
Romance
Sci-Fi
Sport
Thriller
War
Western
The key is that the movie you choose you must be able to watch a thousand times. What do you choose? Only one per category!
Action: True Lies. I’ve seen lots of action films, but they were all bad.
Adventure: Empire Strikes Back
Animation: Toy Story 3
Comedy: Airplane!
Drama: Office Space. There was no category for ‘documentary’.
Fantasy: Amélie and Star Wars fight it out for this spot.
Horror: Evil Dead 2
Musical: Wall-E. Sure, maybe it’s not constant, but I’m almost 100% more likely to sing ‘Hello Dolly’ tunes after watching this than just about any other film.
Romance: Best of Bang Bus
Sci-Fi: Bladerunner
Sport: The Big Lebowski. Bowling’s like, a sport man.
Thriller: Ghostbusters. Hey, it’s got ghosts. It was either this or the actual ‘Thriller’ by M. Jackson.
War: Inglorious Basterds
Western: Star Trek 2009. It’s like Wagon Train to the stars!
Action: Reservoir Dogs
Adventure: Pirates of the Caribbean
Animation: Shrek
Comedy: Clerks
Drama: Pulp Fiction
Fantasy: Return of the King
Horror: The Thing
Musical: The Wall
Romance: You’ve Got Mail
Sci-Fi : Empire Strikes Back
Sport: Caddy Shack
Thriller: Kill Bill
War: Kelly’s Heroes (duh)
Western: Wild Bunch
Action – Iron Man
Adventure – LOTR: Fellowship
Animation – How to Train Your Dragon (Emperor’s New Groove a very very close second)
Comedy – The Princess Bride
Drama – Boondock Saints
Fantasy – Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)
Horror – 28 Days Later (and it would be only once a year or two)
Musical – Phantom of the Opera (2004)
Romance – The Prestige
Sci-Fi – Serenity
Sport – Nacho Libre
Thriller – The Usual Suspects
War – Kingdom of Heaven
Western – eh? Can I take Star Trek 2009 too?
Ok, here is my pass:
Action: Bourne Identity
Adventure: Raiders of the Lost Arc
Animation: Chicken Run
Comedy: A Fish Called Wanda
Drama: A Perfect World
Fantasy: The Dark Crystal
Horror: Shawn of the Dead
Musical: South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut
Romance: Princess Bride
Sci-Fi: Serenity
Sport: The Replacements (Tin Cup close second)
Thriller: Se7en
War: Glory
Western: Unforgiven
Gods damn you, Solai! --except for maybe three of the above, your list is probably the same as mine.
Glory is so great, by the way. I haven’t rewatched that in a long while.
Action - Star Trek First Contact
Adventure - LOTR - The Two Towers
Animation - Toy Story
Comedy - Space Cowboys
Drama
Fantasy - LOTR - Fellowship
Horror - Ugh, don’t watch horror. Ghostbusters, I guess.
Musical - Hunt for Red October (they sing. Jonsey detected it 
)
Romance
Sci-Fi
Sport
Thriller
War - LOTR - Return of the King
Western - Star Trek 2009
Still a work in progress. Need to think about the others some more.
I loathe Apple products, so I switched ipad with portable device. d:
Wow. This thread made me realize how narrow my favorite genres are (action, animation, comedy, fantasy, and sci-fi). And, how broad my favorites within those genres are (frakkin’ huge!).
Action - Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete (Extended Edition)
Adventure - Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition (yes, I’m cheating)
Animation - Evangelion 1.11: You Are (Not) Alone
Comedy - Summer Wars (my second easiest decision, though I didn’t put it into the comedy genre at first)
Drama - The Two Towers Extended Edition (cheating some more)
Fantasy - Return of the King Extended Edition (final cheat)
Horror - Kara no Kyoukai The Garden of Sinners Chapter 5 of 7
Musical - Rent (my easiest decision partly because it’s the only musical I’m crazy about)
Romance - Samurai X: Trust & Betrayal/Rurouni Kenshin - Meiji Kenkaku Romantan - Tsuioku Hen (4 part OAV series watchable as a movie)
Sci-Fi - Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance
Sport - How to Train your Dragon (I’m calling dragon riding a sport! But, the movie has a few competitions versus dragons.)
Thriller - Aliens Extended Edition (never gets old compared to some other favorites)
War - Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: The Last Blitz of Zeon (although, I’d much prefer the 13 episode series)
Western - Samurai X: Reflection/Ruroni Kenshin - Meiji Kenkaku Romantan Seisohen (4 part OAV series watchable as a movie) (Can a Japanese ‘western’ count? Otherwise I’d have to pick Unforgiven or The Last Samurai [or leave blank].)
I’m lucky that each of the LotR extended edition movies are less than 4 hours even if some don’t seem like it. d:
This was a great thought experiment. Took me much longer to finish than I thought it would. I have too many animation, comedy, and sci-fi favorites, and basically no sport favorite. I settled on many of these titles (like the Evangelion movies) only because I’ve already seen my other favorites (Terminator, Star Wars, Star Trek, Transformers, Matrix, etc.,) so many times already. So, my list is a bit skewed towards the more unpopular or underrated titles. d:
I had to juggle the titles a bit to fit within certain genres. I had Summer Wars originally in animation.
I wanted to fit Tokyo Godfathers and Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe into a category, but couldn’t decide which titles to switch with them.
I just spent about 3 hours working on this in Emacs (Notepad equivalent on steroids). I’d be ticked if I hadn’t saved my progress and the PC crashed.
Action – The Matrix
Adventure – The Empire Strikes back
Animation - WallE
Comedy - Ghostbusters
Drama – The Social Network
Fantasy – Return of the King
Horror – Aliens (If you assume scary = horror movie then this counts.)
Musical – Chicago (have not seen a lot of musicals, this is probably my favorite of the few.)
Romance - Stardust
Sci-Fi – Star Trek: First Contact
Sport – Rocky 2
Thriller – The Dark Knight (That’s a thriller, right?)
War – Troy (Jarhead is probably my favorite war movie, but I can’t see myself watching it again and again.)
Western – 3:10 to Yuma (remake) (I don’t watch a lot of westerns either, but I think this is a pretty solid choice.)
Some of these stretch the limits of their genre, but I tend to like a lot of movies that are hard to categorize anyways. Hardest to pick was “Drama” because those movies I tend to remember less and its such a broad category. Would Batman Begins count for example, as a Drama or Thriller, or both? Runner ups for Drama were Boiler Room, A Few Good Men, 21. See, lots of very different movies.
EDIT: I tried to do this without looking at what other people chose. D’oh! So many good films I forgot!
I assumed EE versions for mine too. And don’t worry, none of your cheats were nearly as bad as mine on Hunt For Red October :shifty:
I’m surprised I haven’t gotten dinged on my cheats, some of which were pretty egregious. If anything, it looks like I may have hijacked the Western category in a few other folks’ lists too.
Action: The Warriors
Adventure: Indy: The Last Crusade
Animation: How to Train Your Dragon
Comedy: The Hangover
Drama: Goodfellas
Fantasy: Princess Bride
Horror: In the Mouth of Madness
Musical: Mulan Rouge
Romance: Shaun of the Dead
Sci-Fi: A New Hope
Sport: The Miracle
Thriller: Brick
War: Inglorious Basterds
Western: 3:10 to Yuma (the new one)
For the record i had a really hard time narrowing down some of the choices ie. Sci fi, Western, War, Comedy…well everything except Musical really.
You are surprised? Really?
I struggled with my war choice. Black Hawk Down. Saving Private Ryan…but Glory is the one I can imagine watching over and over again.
That quote right there is what I was interested in. There are some movies that are fantastic that don’t hold up to multiple viewings for several reasons. The ones that do totally interest me.
You know you could switch Serenity and Star Trek 2009 and it would be legit…also surprised you left of Bros. Bloom
I think the 4 hour limit just excludes Kevin Costner movies. d: Maybe some in the Godfather series.
I did have trouble picking some anime titles because a lot of great stuff are released in parts (not even episodes because their direct to video market is solid). Many titles would be less than 4 hours if strung together. I only picked Kenshin. But, I would have liked to have added more Kara no Kyoukai The Garden of Sinners or Gundam Unicorn or Black Lagoon: Roberta’s Blood Trail.
I’m not vetoing your choice or anything (especially after my cheats), but could you explain how Shaun of the Dead is a romance? (:
Best. Pick Ever. Favorite Romance? Sure, Shaun of the Dead. 
I hadn’t taken too close a look until you drew attention to yourself, but oh my Crom at your romance pick!! Lol!
But, I totally buy Star Trek as a western. d:
That’s how I made many of my choices. I’ve seen the big favorites so often that I can no longer watch them as repeatedly as I used to. The only exception is LotR. I’m not sure what that says though.
I’m semi-surprised no one picked Avatar yet.