Thanks for this prompt.  I have added a number of movies to my list as a result of it, and I second the favorites of many of the members who have posted their lists.

You do know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and blow.

I have several reasons for watching a movie more than once,  The first is to try to understand what was going on in the movie the first time I watched it.  The best example of that would be “Apocalypse Now”.  I love the opening scenes, with Martin Sheen trashing his hotel room while “The End” plays in the background.  But I’m not sure what was happening at the end of the movie.  I bought the enhanced version of the movie on DVD, and the added scenes didn’t make any more sense to me.  And I have now read “Heart of Darkness” three times, and still don’t know what was going on at the end of that book, either.

Another example was “Chinatown”, but I finally understood the second time that it was about the water system in San Francisco.

Another reason to watch a film again is that is simply a great story with great acting.  Of course, Casablanca fits that description perfectly.  How could anyone not love Ilsa?  And I will watch almost any Bogart film, except for “The African Queen”, in which Bogart plays such a weak character.  Of course, his portrayal of a role that is so out of touch with his customary characters may be why he won an Oscar for that one.

And then there are the Bogart movies with Lauren Bacall.  The chemistry between them is so obvious that it is clear they weren’t really acting.  (As an aside, check out the two episodes of “Kung Fu” in which Barbara Hershey plays the love interest of David Carradine – smoking hot in the episodes, and in real life as well.)

Other movies are just visually stunning:  “Out of Africa”, “A River Runs Through It”, “Tous Les Matins du Monde”, “The Red Violin” are examples.

Sometimes there are lines or individual scenes that will keep me coming back:

• “You do know how to whistle, don’t you?  You just put your lips together and blow.”  That one sends me to take a cold shower.
• “You aren’t very bright are you?  I like that in a man.”
• “Why did you come to Casablanca?  I came for the waters.  But there are no waters in Casablanca.  I was misinformed.”
• “And the restaurant scene in “When Harry Met Sally”, of course.

Finally, I would recommend two documentaries of only limited interest to most of the people in this group:

“Harvard Beats Yale 29-29” is a great movie about a football game that at least some of us attended in the fall of 1968.  It intersperses film of The Game (capitals intended and deserved) with interviews with a number of the people who were on the field, including two who were instrumental in convincing me to choose Harvard over MIT.

“Wilmington on Fire” is not a great film, but an important one, in that it describes the only successful coup d’etat in the history of the United States, when a band of Democrats (they were the bad guys then) attacked the Black citizens of Wilmington, North Carolina after the election of 1898, killing as many as 100 of them and throwing the bodies into the Cape Fear River.  The governor of the state had to escape by hiding in a boxcar on a train that was leaving town.

I live across the river from Wilmington now, and did not know anything about that insurrection until a few years ago.  But the Black people in Wilmington all know the history, and it has affected relations here for more than 120 years.