20. The Birds
What can be said about Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds that hasn't already been said? It's a classic, and not just some stodgy old "looks good on the shelf" classic, either--it still holds up on its own merits. This time around I was struck by how much the last third of this movie surely influenced the original 1968 "Night of the Living Dead", a masterpiece in its own right, with the apocalyptic siege aspects, the juxtaposition of normal American life against the violence of the normal, the tension of the modern age facing something that just doesn't fit into the plan. And while one might question how much actual damage the beaks of a few thousand birds can do to a human body, there are still gory scenes that are undeniably shocking. What's great about the film is that it's not just a disaster film--Hitchcock gives us great characters with backstories that we're interested in, and we almost forget we're watching a horror movie until it all starts to come down. This isn't the first time I've seen The Birds, but it was the first time I've seen it on Blu Ray on the large screen, and it looked and sounded absolutely amazing.
5 out of 5 stars.