Every so often a film comes along that changes everything. It presents something new and fresh that we haven't really seen before and gets the whole nation talking.
When most films come out they may be mentioned nationally for a day or two. Other films dominate the headlines for a week or two, but some manage to dominate for a long period of time, maybe forever.
Can anyone think of a list of these types of films to watch?
I know two would be Citizen Kane and Gone With the Wind.
Others...?
I haven't seen either of those, so I'm not sure this sort of universally important film exists.
But I would say The Matrix definitely did a lot of Original stuff.
This question would be better asked on a genre by genre basis and even that has subcategories. For example Horror movies:
Halloween - Watershed that basically started the slasher films.
Scream - Watershed, showed that the slasher film had life as long as it was played tongue and cheek with Hollywoods youngest hottest actors.
Dawn of the Dead - Watershed that launched the zombie subgenre. There were earlier zombies movies that came before (Night of the Living Dead for example) but Dawn launched the Italian copy-cat zombie movies that really jump started everything.
28 Days Later - Reenergized the zombie movie genre by introducing fast zombies. Fast zombies had come before (Return of the Living Dead) but it wasn't until 28 Days Later that they really came into their own. We wouldn't have had the Dawn of the Dead Remake with fast Zombies if 28 Days Later hadn't done it first.
Nosfaratu - Watershed in movies in general.
Dracula - Bela Lagosi version. Watershed in that it made Dracula handsome and set the standard for decades as Vampires became more and more attractive.
Of all of these horror movie watersheds none had much impact beyond the horror genre. I also don't think Citizen Cane and other "watersheds" had much impact within the horror genre.
RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA
RJSchwarz
