Recently I bought a poster: 250 Top Movies Bucket List. I had it hung on my wall and was accordingly asked by some course participants what it was they were seeing. The single movie titles were too small for them to identify over my camera, but they were interested and some wanted to find out how many they actually knew.

I found a page that shows them all. And below I put some quiz questions together. Each sentence hints to one of the films. But before you guess the films: do you know the origin of the term bucket list?

Guess the Movie from the Clue

1. Guy in wheelchair spies on people.
2. Gentle giant heals people in confinement.
3. Necromancer kills naked young woman.
4. Alien in a bicycle basket.
5. A comment on which film:

This film is a testament to the hypnotic powers all great classics possess. Every time I watch this I want to call my mum to tell her I love her, call my mate I haven’t seen for far too long to grab a beer and it makes me want to go outside to hand out smiles to everyone I meet.

It turns me into the biggest optimistic sap you’ll ever see and I love it for that!

6. Great for biblical vocabulary practice.
7. Telling his life, eating candies on a park bench.
8. Rebellion in a state mental hospital.
9. Movie with the lowest number of female actors ever.
10. A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village’s theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater’s projectionist. From: ‎TOP 250 Movie Bucket List (GOODS+GADGETS)
11. A tramp struggling to survive in modern industrial society with the help of a young homeless woman.
12. The metaverse before Zuckerberg bought it.
13. No privacy whatsoever.
14. Released convict tries to save his younger brother from going down the same violent path as he did.
15. Bad case of short-term memory loss.
16. Quote: “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here. This is the war room!”
17. Billionaire fights corruption.
18. A young prince must decide if he will remain an outcast or face his demons and become what he needs to be?
19. Bad guys trying to recover the power of eternal life to be stopped by good guy whose father is more into Parcival of King Arthur legend.
20. Two lost Americans in Tokyo.

‎TOP 250 Movie Bucket List (GOODS+GADGETS), a list of films by Adrián Collantes • Letterboxd

Teachers’ note: participants could come up with their own clues, or give brief summaries of films for the others to guess.

Answers: 1. Rear Window, 2. The Green Mile, 3. Psycho, 4. E.T., 5. It’s a Wonderful Life, 6. Seven, 7. Forest Gump, 8. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, 9. Star Wars, 10. Cinema Paradiso, 11. Modern Times, 12. Matrix, 13. Truman Story, 14. American History, 15. Memento, 16. Dr Strangelove…17. Batman, 18. The Lion King, 19. Indiana Jones (3.), 20. Lost in Translation

Some wanted to check the whole list to find out how many of the movies they knew. For this task, I put all film titles into a table to check. However, I have 251. Somewhere I made a mistake. But, as I have no idea (yet) how to have the rows numbered automatically by word press, I will have to number them all manually. Maybe I will find the one-too-many. You can copy/paste the table, and have your word program add the numbers.

Update: I numbered them all, and now I am one short.

Another Update (June 2022): We found a page that counts for you! Though the selection is not quite the same as the one below (or above).

1. The Shawshank Redemption
2. The Godfather Parts I, II, III
3. Schindler’s List
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring The Two Towers The Return of the King
5. Pulp Fiction
6. Fight Club
7. Forrest Gump
8. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
9. Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back The Return of the Jedi
10. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
11. GoodFellas
12. The Matrix Matrix Reloaded The Matrix Revolutions
13. Seven Samurai
14. Batman Begins The Dark Knight The Dark Knight Rises
15. Se7en
16. City of God
17. The Silence of the Lambs
18. It’s a Wonderful Life
19. 12 Angry Men; 12 Angry Men (Remake)
20. Saving Private Ryan
21. The Usual Suspects
22. Léon: The Professional
23. The Green Mile
24. Interstellar
25. Psycho
26. American History X
27. City Lights
28. Inception
29. Once Upon a Time in the West
30. The Pianist
31. Modern Times
32. The Departed
33. Back to the Future Part I, II, III
34. The Intouchables
35. The Terminator The Terminator 2: Judgement Day
36. The Lion King
37. Whiplash
38. Rear Window
39. Gladiator
40. Raiders of the Lost Ark Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
41. The Prestige
42. Apocalypse Now
43. Memento
44. Alien, Aliens, Alien 3
45. Grave of the Fireflies
46. Cinema Paradiso
47. The Great Dictator
48. Sunset Boulevard
49. The Lives of Others
50. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
51. Paths of Glory
52. Django Unchained
53. The Shining
54. WALL•E
55. Princess Mononoke
56. Witness for the Prosecution
57. Oldboy
58. Casablanca
59. American Beauty
60. Once Upon a Time in America
61. Coco
62. Das Boot
63. Lost in Translation
64. Braveheart
65. Vertigo
66. Your Name.
67. Spirited Away
68. Reservoir Dogs
69. Amadeus
70. M
71. Requiem for a Dream
72. A Clockwork Orange
73. Elling
74. Citizen Kane
75. 2001: A Space Odyssey
76. Dog Days
77. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
78. Lawrence of Arabia
79. Toy Story 1, 2, 3
80. Singin’ in the Rain
81. Inglourious Basterds
82. Amélie
83. Double Indemnity
84. Taxi Driver
85. Full Metal Jacket
86. Good Will Hunting
87. Bicycle Thieves
88. To Kill a Mockingbird
89. The Kid
90. Joker
91. The Hunt
92. Snatch
93. Scarface
94. For a Few Dollars More
95. The Apartment
96. Metropolis
97. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
98. L.A. Confidential
99. 1917
100. Dances with Wolves
101. Up
102. Rashomon
103. Incendies
104. Traffic
105. The Road
106. Yojimbo
107. Downfall
108. Unforgiven
109. Die Hard Die Hard 2 Die Hard: With a Vengeance
110. Heat
111. Silver Linings Playbook
112. Ikiru
113. Green Book
114. Raging Bull
115. The Irishman
116. Children of Heaven
117. Pan’s Labyrinth
118. Chinatown
119. My Neighbor Totoro
120. Howl’s Moving Castle
121. Ran
122. The Third Man
123. Judgment at Nuremberg
124. My Father and My Son
125. Secret in Their Eyes
126. North by Northwest
127. The Gold Rush
128. A Beautiful Mind
129. The Bridge on the River Kwai
130. Casino
131. Amour
132. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
133. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
134. The Seventh Seal
135. Let the Right One In
136. The Wrestler
137. On the Waterfront
138. The Wolf of Wall Street
139. The Elephant Man
140. Inside Out
141. V for Vendetta
142. Slumdog Millionaire
143. The Leopard
144. There Will Be Blood
145. Warrior
146. No Country for Old Men
147. Blade Runner
148. Room
149. Dial M for Murder
150. The Sixth Sense
151. Avengers: Infinity War               Avengers: Endgame
152. Trainspotting
153. The General
154. Gone with the Wind
155. The Thing
156. Fargo
157. Come and See
158. The Negotiator
159. Finding Nemo
160. Gran Torino
161. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
162. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
163. The Deer Hunter
164. Shutter Island
165. The Big Lebowski
166. Kill Bill: Vol. 1               Kill Bill: Vol. 2
167. Annie Hall
168. Cool Hand Luke
169. Mary and Max
170. Hacksaw Ridge
171. Tokyo Story
172. Tampopo
173. Jurassic Park               The Lost World: Jurassic Park               Jurassic Park III
174. The Invitation
175. How to Train Your Dragon               How to Train Your Dragon 2               How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
176. Gone Girl
177. Wild Tales
178. The Truman Show
179. Stalker
180. The Grand Budapest Hotel
181. In the Name of the Father
182. Stand by Me
183. Hotel Rwanda
184. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
185. Black Panther
186. Platoon
187. Into the Wild
188. Network
189. Persona
190. Ben-Hur
191. Life of Brian
192. 12 Years a Slave
193. Million Dollar Baby
194. Before Sunrise
195. The Untouchables
196. Prisoners
197. Mad Max: Fury Road
198. Logan
199. Hachi: A Dog’s Tale
200. The Farewell
201. Don’t Look Now
202. The Wages of Fear
203. Catch Me If You Can
204. Fantastic Mr. Fox
205. The White Ribbon
206. BlacKkKlansman
207. La Dolce Vita
208. Spotlight
209. Amores Perros
210. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1               Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
211. Dead Poets Society
212. The Invisible Man
213. A History of Violence
214. Barry Lyndon
215. Solaris
216. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
217. Toni Erdmann
218. Rocky
219. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
220. Manhattan
221. Monsters, Inc.
222. The Grapes of Wrath
223. The Vanishing
224. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
225. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
226. The Maltese Falcon
227. La Haine
228. Gandhi
229. In the Mood for Love
230. Donnie Darko
231. Groundhog Day
232. The Help
233. The Wizard of Oz
234. Guardians of the Galaxy
235. Jaws
236. Before Sunset
237. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl               Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest               Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
238. The Exorcist
239. Dog Day Afternoon
240. The Sting
241. The Great Escape
242. Pinocchio
243. King Kong
244. Glengarry Glen Ross
245. Memories of Murder
246. A Separation
247. Rush
248. The Princess Bride
249. Funny Games