Movies That Changed Us
New Book Lists 20 Films That Influenced Our Lives
The Movies That Changed Us book cover.
The Great Dictator movie poster.
Morning Edition, December 4, 2002 · From Stagecoach to The Graduate, movies have helped to shape our world. Nick Clooney, former host of cable's American Movie Classics, joins NPR's Bob Edwards to talk about his new book, The Movies That Changed Us: Reflections on the Screen.
Clooney -- brother of the late singer/actress Rosemary Clooney and father of television and movie star George Clooney -- tells Edwards that movies and other forms of art can indeed change people.
"Isn't that something that we have to re-learn not only every generation but maybe every year? It affects us in a way that I never really understood myself. I spent 30 years in (the news business)... and I really never understood how important a reflection and a catalyst pop culture was and could be."
The List
Twenty movies that Clooney says did the most to change our lives:
1. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
2. Star Wars (1977)
3. Taxi Driver (1976)
4. The Graduate (1967)
5. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
6. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
7. Marty (1955)
8. On the Waterfront (1954)
9. The Snake Pit (1948)
10. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
11. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)
12. The Great Dictator (1940)
13. Stagecoach (1939)
14. Boys Town (1938)
15. Triumph of the Will (1935)
16. Love Me Tonight (1932)
17. Morocco (1930)
18. The Jazz Singer (1927)
19. The Big Parade (1925)
20. The Birth of a Nation (1915)
