August 1, 2002: Film critics review a countless number of motion pictures, but for many there is a certain title which stands out as having the most profound effect imaginable on the course of their life. An informal survey of the Online Film Critics Society asked the question: Which film had the most profound effect on your life and why? The resulting answers finds a wide and diverse variety of films and experiences from some of the Internet's leading critics:

Ross Anthony, Hollywood Report Card:
There were so many movies that affected me profoundly. I used to be so awed by them, pulled in like oxygen, breathed by them. The beauty of it all is, that even after hundreds of movies, I can still be lured in, played with and taught something. Let me list a few in no special order: "Harold and Maude," "Kung Fu," "Close Encounters," "Rocky (something)." "Fail Safe." I'm sure there's more... just not coming to mind, though ironically their effect has endured despite. No doubt the profundity of any work of art depends greatly on the timing of its release upon the stage of life of the "moved" viewer.

Gregory Avery, Nitrate Online:
"2001" (1968), because it showed me a completely new way to look at, think about, and experience (and make) films. I have had similar experiences with other films, but none quite the same. The other film, of course, "Bambi" (1942). I have never partaken of venison since.

Luca Bandarali, reVision:
Several movies changed my life as a critic: "Aleksandr Nevskij" showed me how to see, "Aurora" how to recognize styles, "The Shining" taught me how to (over)look, "Taxi Driver" not to take prisoners - this way I could draw up a long list of movies. A few of them had a profound effect on my life as a man: can't tell the most... I was astonished staring at the sad and slow walk of Lee Marvin with the dead child on his shoulders at the end of "The Big Red One"...and Buster Keaton jumping out of the window in "The Cameraman" made me laugh until I cried...

Now I know what to tell you: the first movie I saw in my life ("Big Wednesday", summer of '78 in Rome with my parents) had the most profound effect; but the next movie I'm going to see is a promise of that same, profound effect.

Eric Campos, Film Threat:
Hmmmm....I'd have to say "Captain Ron" because it simply gave me the will to die.

Larry Carroll, Counting Down:
I think the film that had the most profound effect on my life was "Reservoir Dogs." I first saw the film knowing nothing about it, not even having heard that it was particularly good - and it absolutely blew me away. It was reminiscent of so many other cool movies, yet startlingly original. The dialogue was brilliantly hip and unforced, the way that most people only wish they could talk. There was no doubt from the opening scene that whoever was behind that camera was a real talent. In the months that followed I saw it numerous times and recommended it to anyone I came into contact with. Soon, my little secret had been discovered by most of the world, and "Pulp Fiction" made Quentin Tarantino a household name. But it was "Reservoir Dogs" that kicked open the door on the independent movie scene of the early nineties, showing that a movie's budget doesn't have to dictate it's ability to entertain. I think as the years go by, we will come to realize how many careers in film (or film criticism) were launched by Quentin Tarantino's first two films. Mine definitely was.

Shay Casey, Film Written Magazine:
I would go with "A Clockwork Orange," because of a perfect combination of right-place-right-time: I saw it as a freshman in college, and it permanently opened my eyes to how many things a film could do at once. It could be both funny and repulsive; it could entertain and still promote thoughtful discussion on matters of ethics, politics, and religion. It blew me away, and I could never again watch a film without also thinking critically about it.

Bill Chambers, Film Freak Central:
I'll try my best to answer this but there are a few films that have impacted me equally. For the record: "The Muppet Movie"; "Back to the Future"; "Blue Velvet"; "Miller's Crossing"; "Taxi Driver"; "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"; "Jude"; "Ghost World"; and maybe "Grand Illusion."

Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central:
I'd have to say Francis Coppola and Walter Murch's 1974 masterpiece "The Conversation." I saw this film in college after years of casual (if dedicated) movie-going and realized that some of the critical strategies employed in the examination of poetry and literature could be applied to film. That film as a medium was worth saving if the purity of that emulsion could articulate essential truths about the primacy of archetype in the human condition. It gave me hope for a career in criticism and hope, too, in the medium to inspire, educate, and affect in equal measure. It saved me from teaching Keats to engineering undergraduates and trying to publish something new about Wordsworth periodically to keep tenure.

Erik Childress, eFilmCritic:
When I was 7 years old I was already a pretty experienced veteran of the cinema. My parents went to movies all the time and had no choice but to bring me. Whole movies were a blur, but I do remember scenes from "Jaws," "Animal House," "Excalibur," "The Blues Brothers" and especially "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "The Empire Strikes Back." But in 1982, my parents took me to see this movie called "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" and what an earth-shatteringly wondrous experience it was. Never before did I realize that something could make me laugh hysterically, frighten me into every corner of my seat and then finally make me cry uncontrollably by the end. Every possible emotion, even ones I didn't know existed, came out of me at the end of that film. I wrote letters to Steven Spielberg in my best second grade handwriting telling him how much I loved his movie and how I now understood that I was going to dedicate my life to the movies, hopefully one day to create them myself in order to share the same experience I had with everyone in the world.

Shaun de Waal, Mail & Guardian Online:
I suppose that would have to be "Lawrence of Arabia," which I saw when I was about 13. It appealed to something dramatic and emotional in my history-obsessed teenage soul (I pretty much wanted to BE Peter O'Toole, especially if that involved running around in lovely white robes with gold trim), and in the process enthralled me as a movie. This meant that I saw it again and again, and I think in many ways it has become my template for what a good movie can or should be, for what the experience of movie-going should provide.

Mark Dujsik, Mark Reviews Movies:
I can think of two that have had major influences on the person I am today. "Dead Man Walking," in its staunch objectivity, made me reevaluate my position on the death penalty, and I think I'm a better person for it. "Trainspotting" (yes, "Trainspotting") and particularly Ewan McGregor's performance helped me to seriously consider my dad's suggestion of taking my first acting class. Now that's what I'm hoping to do with my career.

Matt Easterbrook, Matt's Movie Reviews:
I would have to say that the film that had the most profound impact on my life is "A League of Their Own." In 1992, I was 15 years old, and a huge baseball fan (still am, to tell the truth) -- but not much of a movie fan. In fact, at that point I had seen maybe 15 or 20 movies on the big screen my entire life (and not too many more on video, either). But that was soon to change!!! I remember it was late June, and my first year of high school had just ended. It was a difficult year, as I had tried to get adjusted to a new school system, a new social hierarchy -- a new life, pretty much. My grades had plummeted to a C average (horrible for an erstwhile A student), and I hadn't really made any close friends. So I pretty much kept to myself and watched baseball games whenever I could ... which is how I found out about "A League of Their Own." It was a baseball movie -- with girls!!! (Hey, I was 15!) And when I found out a local theatre was previewing it as part of a two-for-one sneak preview, I was completely psyched! Only problem was, none of my few friends wanted to see it, and my parents wouldn't stay for the two movies ... so I went by myself (the first time I'd ever done so). I was completely enraptured by that movie!!! Perhaps it's because I had no distractions like friends, perhaps it was the subject matter, but that movie started my now-passionate love affair with the movies (which equals my passion for America's pastime). It was unlike any movie I'd ever seen before. It took me back to a place and time I imagined as a terribly nostalgic era and drew me into its world. I ran the gamut of every conceivable emotion; I laughed (a lot), I cried (quite a bit), but I was always entertained. It was the first time I consciously remember leaving the theatre still thinking about the movie. It stayed with me through the whole summer, and has remained with me ever since.

Michael Elliott, Christian Critic:
In the fall of 1998, I was watching the video of "The Man In The Iron Mask" starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Gabriel Byrne, and Gerard Depardeau . While watching, I was struck by the film's numerous parallels to spiritual truths that I happened to be teaching in my home-based Bible fellowship. I decided to write a review of that film, inserting a mini-sermon into the text. That was the first review I wrote and it led to the syndicated column (Movie Parables) and web site (christiancritic.com) that I currently operate.

Glenn Martin Erickson, DVD Savant:
I'd have to say "The Wild Bunch." I've probably paid more attention to it, analyzed it, thought about its meaning and found more in it than any other movie.

Eddie Feng, DVD Town:
Put me down for "Schindler's List" because it was the first movie that I saw that made me realize that cinema can be ART, not just entertainment.

Robert Firsching, The Amazing World of Cult Movies:
I don't know that any single film has profoundly affected my personal life, but I think the film that influenced me most in becoming a critic was probably "Jaws," which I first saw at age nine. Although my childhood was almost exclusively devoted to watching monster movies, "Jaws" was the first film which really scared me. I lived half a block from the beach in a very similar resort community, and it played at the local theater for some ridiculous engagement of nearly two years. I went back to see it several times, and I think this was the point when I first started to notice camera techniques, editing, the use of music, and all of those elements which I started to think about when I saw subsequent films...the things which made a film work (or not work). Eventually, I started to distinguish those elements across multiple films, and then I started writing about them, but it was "Jaws" that stayed around long enough for me to use it as elementary film school.

Rachel Gordon, FilmCritic.com & Culture Dose:
"Brazil" is one of the best satires on human nature's self-defeating need to improve that ever was. By placing such a fantastic story around a "normal" character (beautifully played by Jonathan Pryce) the humor of the dysfunctional, technology-based reality compliments the protagonist's journey with perfectly written precision.

Susan Granger, SSG Syndicate:
My father, director/producer S. Sylvan Simon, was v-p of production at Columbia Pictures, under the notorious Harry Cohn, when he acquired the rights to the best-seller "From Here to Eternity." Writer James Jones came to stay with us in California while he worked with my father on the screenplay. Although I was very young and, in fact, had been a child actress, this was the first time that I was aware of the process by which an idea - a story - becomes a film. I remember discussions about casting around the dinner table - when Frank Sinatra was pleading for a pivotal part, when Donna Reed was eager to change her "nice girl" image by playing a shady lady. And then the shooting began... My father died suddenly - and unexpectedly - at the age of 39 during the making of this film - and Buddy Adler finished it. But - without doubt - "From Here to Eternity" has the most profound influence on me.

Phil Hall, Film Threat:
"Yellow Submarine." I saw the film on a TV broadcast when I was 10 years old, and prior to seeing it my concept of animation was having Bugs Bunny shove a stick of dynamite into Yosemite Sam's mouth. But "Yellow Submarine" introduced me to a very different approach for how an animated film can look and sound and play...which, in turn, cued me into learning more about the art and history of motion pictures. My learning process has yet to cease...

Robert Horton, Film.com:
Hard to pick just one for the "most profound" crown, but I will say "North by Northwest." Viewed on late-night TV during my adolescence, the movie taught me a couple of things (aside from providing blissful entertainment). One, it left no doubt that someONE had made this movie--not a team, not a collaboration (although all movies are certainly that), but one man, in the same way an author writes a novel. I had seen a few other Hitchcocks by that time and recognized the signature. That was a key revelation. Also, it established a benchmark for what a movie can be, in creating a kind of suspended state of magic; a magic that seemed to be located not as much in the story itself but in the way it was told. Every movie should have that feeling of getting on the train with Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint and not wanting the ride to stop.

Gil Jawetz, DVD Talk:
That would be "Do the Right Thing." I was 14 and in Connecticut for the summer. When the choice to see either "Batman" or "Do the Right Thing" came up, I saw "DTRT" since I'd already seen "Batman." First, I was floored by the style of the film: bold, colorful, loud, intense. Then, I found the energy totally alive, funny and exciting. Finally, I was totally moved by the story and characters. I left the theater feeling like I had just seen the first real movie of my young life. On the way out of the theater, however, I overheard lots of wealthy Connecticutians talking about how "those people are always complaining about how bad they have it" and "What a bunch of crap." Had they seen the same movie as me? Growing up in New York in the 70's and 80's I'd witnessed a good deal of urban strife and figured that everyone knew about how tough the world can be. The fact that a movie could polarize people so strongly left a big impression on me and made me start to understand the power of cinema.

JoBlo, JoBlo.com:
I would have to say that it's a tie between "Clerks" and "Reservoir Dogs," because they both opened my eyes to an industry which I always thought was closed off to anyone without a major film education or something. Smith and Tarantino proved that as long as you have the talent, creativity and mucho ambition...you can make it happen. I've been writing ever since and hope that JoBlo.com is just a stepping stone to a finer career in the business of show.

David Keyes, Cinema 2000:
The film that really had the most profound affect on me is definitely "Schindler's List." It was the first film I saw in a theater that greatly altered my perception of the business--before, I was a passive moviegoer who thought a film's sole purpose was to entertain. Afterwards, I realized that motion pictures could also be powerful social commentaries as well.

James Laczkowski, eFilmCritic:
"Fearless" by Peter Weir is not only my favorite film, but it still to this day after several viewings has had the most profound effect on my life. It was a movie that my dad rented for me back in 1996, after having a near-death experience and being in a hospital for months. The subject matter was so intense and heavy that it was not JUST about near-death, but confronting the loss of someone close and I just lost my dad recently. But more importantly, Jeff Bridges' character went through a transformation that I experienced over the years and that is, not being afraid of life. It's just a monumentally moving experience to watch the film, and the final five minutes makes me cry harder than any film ever.

Anthony Leong, Media Circus:
Wong Kar-wai's "Chungking Express" because for the first time, I saw film as an artform, and not merely as entertainment.

Dan Lybarger, Nitrate Online:
If "Star Wars" made me fall in love with the movies, Agnieszka Holland's "Europa Europa" turned a teenage crush into a lifetime obsession. While it's easy to follow and moves at an agreeable pace, this 1990 look at the Holocaust is head spinning. Any sense of normality or even sanity vanishes as the film progresses. By examining World War II from the perspective of a unique Jewish German man named Solomon Perel (sympathetically played by Marco Hofschneider), Holland presents what may be the most engrossingly disturbing picture of humanity I have ever seen in a movie. If you haven't noticed by my Anglicized surname, my ancestry is German. My ancestors came to America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By the dawn of the American Civil War, all of my ancestors had settled in this country, so my family was free of the taint of Nazism. Some of my ancestors were even Dunkards, or Old German Baptists. This Christian sect refuses to go to war and shuns many modern conveniences (they're similar to the Mennonites). Had my family stayed in Germany, we would have been murdered along with Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and anyone else the Nazis blindly hated. When I was a child, I was actually horrified to find out that I was half-German but later took comfort in the fact that I was not descended from the genocidal maniacs I read about in history books or saw on television. "Europa Europa" demolished my comfort zone. The Germans in this movie seemed like people I knew and made me realize that we all must be on constant guard not to allow our preconceptions to make us fools or far worse. Many times people tell me a movie has made them think when what they are really trying to say is that the film stated an obvious premise forcefully or persuaded them of its own logic. "Europa Europa" doesn't offer any utopian promises, spout clichés or simply condemn the worst that human beings can do. It really does leave viewers to look at depths and complexities behind evil and to reach their own conclusions. Rather than answering why people continue to let blind hatred govern their lives, "Europa Europa," more than any other movie I've seen on the subject, demonstrates why this sort of insanity can continue. About 15 years ago, I met a Holocaust survivor named Ben Edelbaum, and as we started talking about new outrages that were occurring in El Salvador, he looked at me sadly and said, "Mankind hasn't learned from the Holocaust."

Brian Matherly, Daily-Reviews.com:
Running the risk of sounding as redundant as most people from my generation, I would have to say "Star Wars" (1977) had the most profound effect on my life. It was one of the first films I remember seeing as a child and started my love of both science-fiction AND cinema. Although I really can't comment on the state of the world at the time and the desperate need for fantasy following Vietnam (since I was only four), I can certainly say that the magic of the film helped, in some small way, to shape the person I am now. Despite my love for the cynical (my favorite film of all time is "Dellamorte Dellamore," for example), there is still a little bit of the positive instilled in me thanks to Lucas' fantastical take on the "hero's journey".

Nell Minow, The Movie Mom:
Easy to answer. Lots of films have had profound influences on my life, but the one that gave me the message I most needed at the time I most needed it was "Sullivan's Travels." I was a different person at the end of the movie than I was at the beginning. I saw it when I was a freshman in college, in a year of great turbulence inside me and throughout the world. I had come to believe that it showed disrespect to the profound tragedy I saw all around me to be anything other than serious and depressed. But I learned from "Sullivan's Travels" that, as I would later read in W.H. Auden, sometimes "laughter is less heartless than tears." Great film -- just saw it again a couple of months ago.

Karina Montgomery, Cinerina:
The film that had the most profound effect on my life is "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Even now in 2002 my home town of Austin, TX has the longest continual running showing of the film since it opened, every Friday and Saturday at midnight my entire life, so it's been a part of my landscape for 27 of my years. In 1977, my dad took me (he had already seen it). I was terrified, because it had the word "horror" in it. Keep in mind, the movie's camp is not as evident to a 7 year old and when it is still the height of the funky disco 1970's; that, coupled with a child's innate ability to suspend disbelief, made the movie's costumes and music a very matter-of-fact thing. When "Asshole" and "Slut" stumbled upon the dark and spooky castle with the creepy hunchback, I (already a "Young Frankenstein" fan) wasn't too nervous. After the Time Warp, however, the mood of the film changed. The funny Transylvanians appeared to be dead on the floor. Stalwart heroes Brad and Janet appeared nervous and agitated. The music was thumping in an expectant rhythm, and a mysterious figure was descending in the elevator. Even the formerly confident and fun/scary Magenta and Riff-Raff were ceding their status to the new arrival. Then "The Vampire" turned around, with his blood red lips, confident sneer, and guitar-charged entrance. "You said it wasn't going to be scary!" I squealed into my father's arm. "It's not, shhh, just watch!" And I did. Once the cape was off and Frank N. Furter's sparkly merry widow revealed, I knew this was going to be the greatest movie ever. How could I know how it would become a revered cult favorite as the decades dragged by? How could I know that Tim Curry would later delight the socks off me in such diverse films as "Oscar" and "Clue"? How would I know I would grow up with Susan Sarandon as a role model? And at that time in my life, I did not have the confidence to know I would one day be in musical theatre myself. All I know is that I never thought transvestism was weird, nor was bursting into song or having consensual sexual relations with either gender. Tolerance, sex, fun, music, science-fiction, swimming pools. It was all good, so don't dream it, be it. I never joined a local cast or even got to be in the stage play version, but I was never remotely goth enough anyway. It was enough to love it for having molded my world view at an impressionable age. Later movies may have shaped my tastes or inspired me to write or to do movie reviews, but it was "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" that made me who I am today.

Christopher Null, FilmCritic.com:
The cynic in me wants to say no movie has ever had a "profound" effect on my life -- it's a movie, for God's sake! But the realist who plays along will say "The Empire Strikes Back," which is what got me started in creative endeavors as a filmmaker and eventually a writer, which eventually would become my full time job. (Note, I don't mean this is the best movie I've ever seen...)

Jonathan Perry, Tyler Morning Telegraph:
Although I may not consider it the greatest film of all time, Steven Spielberg's "Jaws" has been the indelible page maker in my life. It was the first theatrical film of which I have any conscious memory -- I saw it with my family when I was barely 2, and naturally it scared the bejeesus out of me on an elemental childhood level. Since then, I've grown to appreciate its nuances and visceral brilliance, finding a new dimension every time I see it (at least twice a year). When I revisited the film around age 12, Robert Shaw's sublimely chilling U.S.S. Indianapolis monologue showed this budding cineaste what truly powerful filmmaking could be -- and that's when I decided I wanted to be a film critic.

Jon Popick, Planet Sick-Boy:
It's not my favorite film, but I'd say "sex, lies and videotape." Not just for its importance in the history of American independent film, though. When I first saw it, I realized my cinematic tastes were much different than everybody else I knew, because they all wanted to beat my ass when I dragged them to see it.

Dustin Putman, The Movie Boy:
I would have to say "American Beauty." That is one of the very few films whose themes and meanings resonated so strongly for me that it made me consider the way I was living my own life, and the way the people around me were being treated.

Alex Ramirez, Cinenganos:
I must say that I will always recall the fact of watching "Blue" (from the 3 Colours Trilogy by Kiesloswki) and leaving the theater in such a mixed and great mood that I just couldnt sleep that night.... The use of colour, the awesome score, the abstraction of "freedom" (as the blue color of the French flag) in such a sad environment, the hope, the powerful musical tones in the duet composition, the whole knowledge it showed about the world, about love and about couples... I just loved it, and since then, I cannot watch a good film without trying to find the same kinds of relations and feelings.

Craig Roush, Kinnopio's Movie Reviews:
The film with the most profound impact on my life is "Field of Dreams," because aside from movies (and during the summer, even more than movies) I live, eat, sleep, and breathe baseball. The movie is all about the romanticism of baseball, and how we yearn to measure up to the greats of old (even though the present is sometimes just as good). And, for the love of Ken Burns, how baseball is inseparable from Americana. But most importantly, how for countless souls, baseball has served as the defining link between generations. When fathers and sons had nothing else to talk about, they could always turn to baseball.

Elias Savada, Nitrate Online:
Easy. "Freaks." I was a meandering Arts & Sciences student taking the proverbial Flicks For Kicks course back at Cornell in the late 1960s. The film sent me on a 25 year path that eventually resulted in my co-authoring a biography of the film's director. In the early course of my research on Tod Browning, I often travelled to the George Eastman House in Rochester and was lucky enough to befriend the late George C. Pratt, one of the preeminent silent film scholars. On one of those visits I met an editor with the AFI Catalog project, who offered me a job after graduation. That led to a 30-year stay in Washington, DC, where I met my wife in a carpool. The domino effect.

Chuck Schwartz, Cranky Critic:
As on-the-surface-dumb as it sounds, "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." Not for anything to do with the so-called Holy Grail but for the presentation and resolution of classic father-son conflict that any man can relate to. And cry about, and not feel emasculated doing so in front of a date. OK, now we sound shallow but when Sean Connery reaches out and calls his son "Indiana," is a crystalline moment and we lose it every time.

Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews:
That's a tough one to answer with certainty (there have been so many films), but for some reason "The Dybbuk," a Yiddish film from Poland in 1937, by director Michal Waszywski, comes most readily to mind. Probably because of the film's mystical and sublime theme and that it came out just before the Holocaust, and that we don't think most of the actors and film crew survived the tragedy that was soon to follow. The film touched me deeply as if it were a piece of great literature that was played out as a later truth. I honestly don't think the world has gotten better since, or that the relevancy of the timeless folk lore of that film, that few still tune into, is still not essential to know.

Alan Simpson, Sex Gore Mutants:
The movie that affected me a lot was when I first seen Romero's 'Dawn of the Dead'. You see my young horror buff life was spent purely on watching (via late night BBC TV) the old Universal Monster movies and Hammer/Amicus/Tigon movies but when I saw 'Dawn of the Dead' that was my first ever experience of the 'modern' horror film. Up till then it was all vampires and old castles or movie spins on the Tales of the Crypt comic books, but 'Dawn' was set in modern society, in a shopping mall and I really could relate with the scenario - something no previous movie had done before. Sure zombies had been seen before but they had never tore into folks flesh like this, and importantly I was blown away by what I read as a commentary in the plot suggesting consumers were zombies also - being a young punk at the time and feeling like a teen outcast I could really relate to this.

Eric D. Snider, The Land of Eric & eFilmCritic:
"Mary Poppins." It's one of the few movies I can remember watching over and over again as a child. (Even now, I'm the sort who watches a movie once and is done with it, twice if I REALLY like it, and more than twice if it's one of my top favorites of all time.) It was a fun movie, and it has so many different set pieces -- the chalk drawings, the tea party on the ceiling, the rooftop dancing -- that it always felt like it was several different movies. It had enough variety to keep an attention-deficit kid happy. Then I didn't see it for many years, until for some reason a friend and I rented it one night in college. We were struck by how funny it is, even to grown-ups, and how long it is (2 1/2 hours), and how it really has some pretty deep themes in it. Then I didn't see it for many years, until September 11, 2001. I work for a newspaper, so I was surrounded by the awful news all day long, both in print and visual forms (we had the TV on in the newsroom). After 12 solid hours of watching news coverage, I finally went home, where I watched some more. With the pressures of work gone, I was able to fully grasp what was going on and finally to react to it. It was soul-crushing. I forced myself to turn off the TV and do something brighter. I drove to a local media store and bought the "Mary Poppins" DVD. This time, I was struck by a few more things. First, how much of a full-blown musical it is. The animated Disney "musicals" of the 1990s tended to have about six songs, which is not nearly what a Broadway show would have. "Mary Poppins" has 17 songs, as well as character-based musical themes, and songs that tell the story (i.e., that you couldn't cut out of the show without losing some plot). Except for being on film, it is no different from a traditional, classic Broadway musical. Further, I was struck by the beauty of the film's outlook. After all, it's a movie about finding joy in life. No matter how all-consuming our job at the bank may be, we have to take a break now and then to go fly a kite. If someone tells us a joke, we need to laugh at it, long and loud and clear. Sometimes we need to have crazy hallucinations about jumping into chalk drawings and fraternizing with waiter-penguins. We need to cherish our children while they're still young, and we need to cherish our parents while they're still tolerable. Watching the film, I was finally overcome by the grief of the day. It was all too sad to comprehend. But at the same time, the movie was a reminder that joy and happiness still exist, and always will. There had been a lot of sadness, but there were still some very sweet things in life, too. The spoonfuls of sugar, as it were.

Joshua Vasquez, Matinee Magazine:
I would have to say Andrei Tarkovsky's "Stalker." I saw it quite a few years ago and at that time I had never seen a film which so quietly yet powerfully demonstrated the poetic force of cinema. I was profoundly moved by its strangeness and beauty, and it seemed to me that film was capable of far more than just a distant, flickering entertainment; it could seem so terribly personal while being epic and removed.

Rob Vaux, Flipside Movie Emporium:
The film is "Aliens" and there's a story included explaining why. I grew up in a college town, and the opening night premiere was full of students... who were there to hate it. They loved the first film and has come to witness the temerity and hubris of trying to top it. You could feel the angry buzz in the line befforehand: "Who does this Jim Cameron punk think he is?" "Why would they destroy such a masterpiece by making a sequel?" "Shame on Sigourney Weaver for selling out!" and so on. I was fourteen, so I was there solely to watch shit blow up real good, but be that as it may. So anyhow, we all trundle in and the movie starts and for the first hour and forty-five minutes, I'm oblivious to the audience. Then we reach the point where Ripley goes after the little girl. She drops down the elevaotr shaft and through the tunnels and fights off the bugs, and then finds the girl and stumlbles into the Queen's lair and fights her off as well. They escape with the Queen in pursuit and make it back to the elevator by the skin of their teeth and rise up to the platform... and find that the ship is gone. Then this audience - this angry, cynical audience that had come to the film to despise it - wilted like daisies in the sun. You could feel the energy being sucked out of the theater, the resignation as we realized they weren't going to get away. And then the ship rises up beside them, with Bishop at the helm. And everybody in the audience stood up - STOOD UP - and started screaming like a crowd at a football game. The noise was defeaning and it didn't die down until several minutes after the big explosion. I actually missed Ripley and Bishop's post-exlosion exchange because the crowd was cheering so loudly. And in the middle of all of this, I remember thinking "Wow. The director's got us in the palm of his hand."

Pablo Villaca, Cinema em Cena:
I guess it was "Field of Dreams". I have watched this movie more than ten times, and it always gets me, always makes me cry. Why? Well, because it's about a man searching his past, his redemption, his father. My father died when I was 5 years old. And that makes all the difference in the world regarding this particular movie. So, that's it. "Field of Dreams."

Ian Waldron-Mantgani, UK Critic:
I can't think of a particular film that had the most profound effect on me. I've gone through periods of obsession with various stuff, from "Chariots of Fire" to the "Back to the Future" trilogy, but no one film turned my life around. It's more a case of movie love changing my outlook in subconscious ways. Catching stuff on TV as a kid, getting drawn in, learning instinctively how movies could transport us into their worlds and absorb us with dramatic behaviour... that was the ticket. Among others, I remember seeing "Fitzcarraldo" and Satyajit Ray's "Apu" trilogy when I was real young, before I knew they were classics or anything like that. Those are images that stay with you.

Brian Webster, Apollo Guide:
"2001: A Space Odyssey" had the most profound effect on me, because I was young (about 10) and it showed me that the movies could take me to places I'd never been before that were full of meaning.

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon Magazine:
I think that would be the first movie I ever saw, "The Three Lives of Thomasina." I would have been 3, maybe 4. I walked out of the theater and immediately demanded a cat as a pet (which I did get, although it was a few months later). But I also remember this sense of amazement at the -sheer size- of what I had just seen. I think my feelings, though I couldn't exactly articulate them at the time, were, "What are these things called movies, and why have you been keeping them from me for 3 whole years???"