Ranking the best movies of all time is almost impossible, and there's a lot of disagreements in our office about how to pull it off. Our website has one way, our video operation has another -- and the video side's true north is mostly just defending "Highlander."
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00:00What's up everybody, Griffey here. Now let me start by saying, ranking movies is
00:05about as thankless and hard-to-win game as you could ever play. I have very
00:09serious respect for my friends at Looper when they made their list the 98 best
00:14movies of all time. That said, huge fail. You googled a couple film school and
00:19European critic classics, you put Toy Story at number 18 best movie of all
00:24time for the love of God. I would like to talk about one glaring omission in
00:29particular. My favorite movie of all time, Highlander. Looper wishes to clarify
00:34that we do not endorse, support, or even comprehend some of the viewpoints
00:38expressed here. Griffey's love for this piece of crap is endearing and we
00:41wanted to get it on video. Enjoy. You cannot die McCloud. Accept it. Every
00:50single year on my birthday, the first thing I do is I wake up and I have
00:53coffee and I watch Highlander. And every single time my kids say this movie
00:58stinks, I throw them out of the house and I cry by myself. I love the mixture
01:03of genres. And then the time-travel aspects, the fantasy sword fighting
01:08aspects, there's magic involved. I think Highlander is that perfect chemistry set.
01:14Now this is a story about a species of immortal people that live amongst us.
01:19They look exactly like us. The problem is they can't die unless you separate their
01:23head from their shoulders. The movie follows Connor McCloud in modern-day
01:28New York, which is really 80s New York, at the time of the gathering. The gathering
01:33is a mythical time when all of the immortals left on earth are called, nay
01:37compelled, to come to New York City. They can't not show up. And all of them must
01:42fight to the death by beheading for what is known as the prize. And at the end of
01:48the movie we learn that the prize is essentially the ability to grow old and
01:51die like a normal person, father children, and be able to hear every
01:56single living thing at earth at the same time.
01:59I'm just like you. I can love and have children, live and grow old. You never
02:05prepared me for that, you Spanish peacock. It seems like the worst prize in the
02:09history. I can't think, like if Neo just found out, hey you just have a wife who
02:15works second shift as a welder and you're gonna have four kids that don't
02:19respect you, the Matrix isn't as good of a movie. But somehow for Highlander it
02:23feels like a really earned and awesome prize. He falls in love with a reporter,
02:29he gets caught up in a possible murder under Madison Square Garden as a
02:33wrestling match ensues and we watch him face down his greatest enemy, the Kurgan,
02:38right? Played by the great Clancy Brown, a giant leather-clad monstrosity, one of
02:44the greatest movie villains of all time in my opinion.
02:49I love when the prostitute comes into Kurgan's room and he's just putting his
02:53sword together and she goes, hey baby I'm candy. And he goes, of course you are.
02:59It's like this is the best movie ever. Of course you are. I could just do Clancy
03:05Brown as Kurgan. That should just be my whole persona. Not this leftover Aquaman.
03:09So all of these things are happening at once to the absolute ripping score of
03:14Queen. I mean if you have an entire soundtrack for your movie that's scored
03:18by Queen, you are already off to the races as far as making an absolute
03:23classic of a film, right? I know there's a lot of debate between movie fans
03:26whether Flash Gordon or Highlander has the better Queen score. It's not close. As
03:32they say in the movie, there can be only one. Highlander is so much better than
03:36the Flash Gordon score. Meet me in the comments. I don't even care.
03:39People are asking about you. What am I supposed to say? Tell them I'm immortal.
03:46Highlander has the greatest transition game of all time. From an aquarium in New
03:51York City to underneath the water in a in a lock in Scotland, right? As we
03:56transition from scene to scene, the whipping back and forth between times
04:00and era in this movie is so smooth. It's so crisp. It's unbelievable how many
04:06movies you watch that have great scenes that do not stop and think about how
04:11those scenes transition and play together. You really can't undersell the
04:16kind of vibrance and energy that this movie finds between the sword fights, the
04:21taking of one's power, the Queen, and the transition game. This movie is an
04:25absolute missile of a narrative. Once this movie starts, it never slows down
04:32till the very end, and it's one of the most fun rides you can ever take.
04:37You talk funny, Nash. Where are you from? Lots of different places.
04:40Christopher Lambert is not a great actor. Christopher Lambert was a pretty
04:45handsome actor, and he had a giant caveman brow that made it look like he
04:49was always confused by the modern-day times and yearning for the days of old
04:54when he grew up near Lock Shield, right, where he was born and raised.
04:58Christopher Lambert brings an absolute authentic befuddlement to Connor
05:02McLeod that becomes the cornerstone of the movie. This man who looks like he's
05:07had enough, that after hundreds of years, he just wants all of this to be over
05:11with. He's dressed like a flasher, wearing mom jeans and dad shoes, and somehow it
05:17just all works, right? Christopher Lambert has some of the funniest line
05:21deliveries of all time in this movie. His French trying to do English accent,
05:27even though he's a Scotsman. For instance, when he tells the cops that he thinks
05:31the man went to the garage and cut his own head off because he hates the
05:34wrestling. He went down to the garage, and in a fit of depression, cut off his own
05:38head. I don't know what the hell that is. I just know I love it, and I say it to my
05:42wife and kids all the time, and they get very mad at me. Happy Halloween, ladies.
05:49If we move on to Clancy Brown. Clancy Brown, now known today to kids as Mr.
05:54Krabs, which is one of the wildest career right turns of all time. He rides into
05:59the movie. The first thing we see is him atop a giant horse wearing skeleton
06:03armor as he goes in for the kill on Connor McCloud in an ancient sword
06:07wielding battle, right? The best part of Clancy Brown's performances, it's really
06:12fun as we watch him realize that after all of these years of training and
06:17blood-soaked misery, he's about to win the prize. We watch Clancy Brown become
06:22an actual cartoon man. When he shaves his head and goes into the church and says
06:28Happy Halloween, ladies, right? It's great, but the Kurgan starting as this
06:34scary, physical, imposing, dark monster and turning into this absolute kind of the
06:40judge from Roger Rabbit is one of the most fun times you will have with a bad
06:44guy in an 80s movie. If your head comes away from your neck, it's over.
06:49Finally, we get to Sean Connery, who's just full swaggering Spanish peacock, as we
06:54find out later in the film. There's just so many scenes where Sean Connery is
06:57just on full charm offensive, right? Teaching Connor McCloud how to fight
07:02with swords, teaching him how to be a better lover. They have a very erotic
07:06scene where they learn to run on the beach and watch a deer's heartbeat, right?
07:09They learn how to run with the speed of a deer, I guess. He's the one real movie
07:14star that this movie has, and they get every last ounce of that out of him. His
07:19final battle with the Kurgan is one of the favorite moments I've ever
07:23experienced in any movie ever.
07:26I know! I know everything!
07:29Highlander, to me, is the cinema of cool. It's when you put a bunch of weird
07:34things in a blender, spin it around, and somehow you get this absolutely amazing
07:39ripping journey through hundreds of years of fun and game. Him holding
07:44Buttercup could make me cry standing right here. If you ever find me in a bar,
07:49ten drinks in, there's a chance I might cry on your Hootie in the Blowfish style
07:53shoulder telling you how much Buttercup meant to me.
07:57Because I love you as much now as the first day we met.
08:01So anyone who loves movies, has tried to write a movie, has ever wanted to make a
08:05movie or act in a movie, Highlander is that amazing example of something that
08:09becomes so much greater than its parts. There are certain movies you're watching
08:13and halfway through you realize there is a dark crackling energy in this, right? I
08:18have stumbled onto something that is more than art. I've stumbled onto
08:22something that is more than a movie. That's what the Highlander does.
08:27In the end, there can be only one.
08:30I think we can all agree, as much as most of us like The Beatles,
08:34A Hard Day's Night is barely a film, right? If you want The Beatles, go to the
08:39record store. What I want is to kick that movie off the list and drop Highlander
08:43directly on to number 36. I think it's a place of honor amongst the greatest
08:48movies of all time, which it absolutely deserves. We also can just Google a lot
08:52of these other kind of film student choices and kick them out. How is Robocop
08:56not on this list? How is Terminator 2 Judgment Day not on this list? This
09:01might have to become a whole series because I got a lot of beef to settle
09:04with this one. So here at Looper there can be only one top 98 movies of all
09:10time list. I'm just doing my part to try to help make it the best version of
09:14itself it can be. And like every other thing in life, that means adding more
09:19Highlander.