What makes a great movie? Why do some stand the test of time while others lose their value gradually (or rather quickly)? It’s the feeling which the story invokes for some films. The performance of an actor is so unforgettable at times, that it captures our attention. Sometimes a film is so visually stunning that it can’t be forgotten.

I’ve put together a list of the 10 iconic Hollywood movies of all-time. This isn’t the typical film snob collection of black and white classics and foreign films meant to show my understanding of classical cinema, to warn you in advance. These are the best Hollywood movies we enjoy because we want to watch, not because they tell us to.

1. Titanic (1997)

Story:

84 years later, a woman named Rose DeWitt Bukater of age 100 tells the story to her granddaughter about her life set in 10^th April 1912, on a ship named Titanic. When she is young, she boards in the departing ship with her mother Ruth DeWitt, and her fiancé Caledon Hockley. Temporarily a traveler and illustrator named Jack Dawson and his friend Fabrizio De Rossi win a third-class ticket to the ship in a game. So, she tells the complete story from departure to the death of Titanic on its first and last journey 15^th April 1912 at 2:20 in the morning.

Director:James Cameron

Release Date:23^rd January 1998

Budget: $200,000,000

World-Wide Collection: $2,187,463,944

2. Pulp Fiction (1994)

Story:

There are two hit men Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega, who are out to regain a valise stolen from their employer, mob boss Marsellus Wallance. Wallance also told Vincent to bring his wife Mia out a few days later when Wallance himself will be not in the town. Butch Coolidge is an old boxer who is waged by Wallace to lose the fight. The lives of these apparently dissimilar people are interlaced together comprising of a series of humorous, strange, and undeserved incidents.

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Release Date: 21^st October 1994

Budget:$8,000,000

World-Wide Collection: $214,179,088

3. The Dark Knight (2008)

Story:

Set inside a year after the events of Batman Starts, Batman, Lieutenant James Gordon, and new District Advocate Harvey Dent successfully start to assemble the criminals that outbreak Gotham City, till a secretive and aggressive criminal mastermind known only as” The Joker” comes in Gotham, making a new wave of disorder.  The fight of Batman against The Joker turns intensely personal, compelling him to challenge everything he believes and expand his technology to stop him.

Director: Christopher Nolan

Release Date: 24^th July 2008

Budget: $185,000,000

World-Wide Collection: $1,004,934,033

4. Life is Beautiful (1997)

Story:

In Italy in 1930s, a relaxed Jewish book keeper named Guido begins a fairy tale life by dating and marrying a beautiful woman from a near city. Guido with his wife and son lives happily together until the capture of Italy by German forces. In the effort to hold his family composed. Guido visualizes that the Holocaust is a game and the prize for winning is a tank.

Director: Roberto Benigni

Release Date: 12^th February 1999

Budget:$20,000,000
World-Wide Collection: $230,098,753

5. The Godfather (1972)

Story:

Vito Corleone is the head of the Corleone gang in New York and he is also known as The Godfather. Michael, Vito’s youngest son is not interested in being a part of the family professional. Vito is highly influential man and he is sympathetic to those who gives him respect but very cruel against those who do not. But when a powerful enemy wants to vend drugs and wants the Don’s influence for the same, Vito declines to do it. So, there is a clatter between them which origin Michael to do the things he was most unwilling in doing and remuneration a mass war against all the other gang.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Release Date: 24^th August 1972

Budget:$6,000,000

World-Wide Collection: $246,120,974

6. Pirates of the Caribbean (2003)

Story:

This swash-buckling story trails the mission of Captain Jack Sparrow, a savvy adventurer, and Will Turner, an ingenious blacksmith, as they quest for Elizabeth Swann, the daughter of the ruler and the dear of Will’s life, has been snatched by the dreaded Captain Barbossa. Little do they know, but the violent and ingenious Barbossa has been annoying. He along with his big squad are under an ancient expletive, fated for infinity to neither live, nor die.

Director: Gore Verbinski

Release Date:8^th August 2003

Budget:$140,000,000

World-Wide Collection:$654,264,015

7. Avatar (2009)

Story:

When the brother of Marine Jake Sully is murdered in a stealing, he chooses to take his place in an assignment on the reserved world of Pandora. There he acquires of greedy commercial figurehead Parker Selfridge’s intensions of driving off the innate human “Na’vi” in order to mine for the valuable material distributed through their rich forest. In returns of this backoperation that will fix his legs, Jake gathers information of the Native Contest and their ethos, for the collaborating armed unit led by gung-ho Colonel Quaritch, while concurrently trying to penetrate the Na’vi people with the use of an “avatar” character.

Director: James Cameron

Release Date: 17th December 2009

Budget:$237,000,000

World-Wide Collection: $2,789,958,507

8. Jurassic Park (1993)

Story:

Massive developments in scientific knowledge have empowered a tycoon to generate an island full of alive dinosaurs. John Hammond has requested four persons, along with his two grandchildren, to join him at Jurassic Park. A park worker effort to steal dinosaur seeds, dangerous safety systems are closed and it now becomes a competition of survival with dinosaur roaming easily over the island.

Director: Steve Spielberg

Release Date:16^th July 1993

Budget:$63,000,000

World-Wide Collection:$1,030,314,141

9. Inception (2010)

Story:

Dom Cobb is anaccomplishedrobber, the complete best in the risky art of extraction, thievingvalued secrets from deep within the unconscious during the dream state, when the attention is at its most helpless. Now Cobb is being presented a chance of recovery. This last work could give him his life back but only if he can complete the impossible inception. Instead of the flawless robbery, Cobb and his team of experts have to pull off the converse; their task is not to steal an idea, but to plant new one.

Director: Christopher Nolan

Release Date: 16^th July 2010

Budget: $160,000,000

World-Wide Collection: $829,895,144

10.Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Story:

More than 10 year passed since the first robot called the terminator tried to destroy Sarah Connor and her son, John. The man who will become the upcoming spearhead of the human confrontation against the Machines is now strong young boy. However, another terminator called the T-1000 is sent back through time by the processer Skynet. This new terminator is more progressive and controlling than its precursor and its task is to kill John Connor when he is still child.

Director: James Cameron

Release Date: 16^th August 1991

Budget:$102,000,000

World-Wide collection: $520,884,847

 

Conclusion:

There are various other movies of Hollywood that might achieve more success than these, but these movies are those which you can regularly watch without any boredom. These movies always remain in the top of the Hollywood bucket list and always remains in the mind of the audience.