Buoyed by your letters telling us how much you enjoyed last year's roundup of the films that 52 celebrities said had changed their lives, we've once again asked 52 famous folk to tell all. Next time you're stymied at the video store, pick up one of these life-changing flicks.
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1. Arnold Schwarzenegger
(actor, Last Action Hero, Total Recall)
"I remember watching John Wayne movies made me really want to come to America because he represented America so well in those films. Especially those war movies that he made. I was, at that time, a kid, so I think that had a real impact on me and really gave me the drive to come to the United States."
2. Winona Ryder
(actress, The Age of Innocence, Bram Stoker's Dracula)
"I really loved The Stripper with Joanne Woodward. The story was about a stripper who goes to a small town, and Joanne Woodward was so good in it. I had seen her in a lot of other movies and I was used to Joanne Woodward as Joanne Woodward. When I saw her in this, I did not even recognize her, and I realized how a human being was capable of changing every movement and every thought, just creating a character. I was so amazed that somebody could do that. It was really motivating. I wanted to go out there and do that."
3. George Lucas
(writer/director, Star Wars; executive producer, "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles")
"The kinds of movies that impressed me when I was a kid were films like Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai. As a young person, those were really impressive movies, and I remember them to this day. Actually, it wasn't until I got to college that I discovered Godard and Kurosawa and Fellini--filmmakers that impressed and motivated me."
4. Michelle Akers-Stahl
(1991's leading scorer, U.S. Women's National Soccer Team)
"A movie that definitely influenced me was Platoon. I had just gotten a knee brace after having suffered a knee injury that I thought would end my career as an athlete. Later that day I saw Platoon and I realized what these young men went through to save other people and themselves. I felt sorry for myself when I saw the film, and left feeling fortunate that I was alive. Whenever I'm depressed, I think of Platoon and count my blessings."
5. Arsenio Hall
(television talk-show host)
"My mother took me to the Miles Drive-In Theater in Cleveland, Ohio, and the movie playing was Lilies of the Field. I'd seen many movies--like The Great Escape and 101 Dalmatians--but after the credits rolled at the end of Lilies of the Field, I finally had a black show-biz hero to admire, Sidney Poitier. That was great, because I was sick of 'Batman.'"
6. Pat Riley
(coach, New York Knicks)
"The Deer Hunter, because it was the first movie to come out that let me know what it was like to be in Vietnam during the war. I also know it inspired Jan Scruggs, who was the driving force behind getting the Vietnam Memorial built. The Deer Hunter is one of the few films that can be used as an example to show anyone who's still stupid enough to think that was a war we needed to fight."
7. Billy Crystal
(actor, City Slickers, When Harry MetSally...)
"Shane. It's right at my finger-tips. It was that kid, Brandon de Wilde. I looked like him when I was a little kid. We had the same haircut. There was something about that movie that I just loved. It must have been because the little boy was, basically, to me, the lead in that film. It's just a fabulous movie, and I think that film really makes me feel great about doing movies now. I always think of that kid. 'Comeback, Shane!'"
8. LL Cool J
(rap singer; actor, Toys)
"The movie that made the biggest impression on me was The Wizard of Oz. It was a fantasy and very optimistic and showed me you can get whatever you wished for. It gave me the balls to feel everything was within my grasp."
9. Bob Hoskins
(actor, Super Mario Bros., Who Framed Roger Rabbit)
"Once, I gave up smoking for three months, and then I went to see Casablanca. Have you ever seen Humphrey Bogart smoke a cigarette? Well, I ran straight out and bought a pack of cigarettes and I was back on it. So Casablanca's lasting impact was perhaps terrible, but it had a big effect on me."
10. Tom Candiotti
(Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher)
"When I was growing up, I was inspired by The Pride of the Yankees. It was a real tearjerker film about baseball and an authentic baseball hero, Lou Gehrig. Both of these things helped me decide what I wanted to be in my life."
11. Theresa Russell
(actress, Insignificance, Whore)
"I guess one of my favorites was a film called Sabrina with Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. She was the chauffeur's daughter and a bit of a tomboy, and I was a tomboy, too, growing up. I remember this one scene where she climbed a tree, looking over the wall at this wonderful, grand party, and she was wishing that she was there. Then she goes off to Paris and comes back, and the next time they have a party she's actually at the party. Something about that movie always stayed with me--that sometimes your dreams can come true."
12. Mary Lou Retton
(Olympic gold medal champion)
"Seeing Rocky beat the odds inspired me to believe that a little girl from Fairmont, West Virginia could become an Olympic champion. When we were young, my sister and I liked to watch Rocky to get us pumped up for a gymnastics competition."
13. Kathleen Kennedy
(co-producer, Jurassic Park, Hook)
"David Lean's Doctor Zhivago was my obsession long before I ever thought of pursuing filmmaking as a career. Once I did decide to get into the film business, seeing Close Encounters of the Third Kind changed me forever. It motivated me to actively pursue Steven [Spielberg] as someone I wanted to work with."
14. Steven Seagal
(actor, Out For Justice, Under Siege)
"When I saw A Tree Grows in Brooklyn I realized that's the kind of film I really want to make. It's my favorite film. It says so much about growing up and the strength of the American family, which are themes that are important to me. Nobody believes me, but someday I'm going to make a movie like that and show my sensitive side."
15. Jerry West
(general manager, Los Angeles Lakers)
"Even though my life was personally affected because of the death of my brother during the Korean War, I hadn't realized the terrible destruction and personal sacrifices that many young men must endure during these military actions until I saw Apocalypse Now. That film made me realize what might have been my fate if I were to have served our country. I have a much greater appreciation for the military, and the terrible destruction inflicted upon innocent people. Because of the different political ideas in Apocalypse Now, the film made me understand just how important world peace really is."
16. Ron Howard
(director, Far and Away, Splash)
"The Graduate was a very important movie for me. I loved the movie and it made me laugh. It also really made me feel something. It was the first movie that I really broke down and analyzed. This was before videocassettes and movies playing on cable, so I had to pay each time. I must have seen it 15 or 20 times! I studied the montage sequences, the way the camera was used, and the editing. I learned so much from that film."
17. John Hurt
(actor, Scandal, The Elephant Man)
"David Lean's Oliver Twist was one that affected me immensely when I was very young. Then, later, I think when I was at drama school, Truffaut's Jules and Jim was an enormous influence on me in terms of appreciation and enthusiasm for filmmaking. As an actor, I thought, 'Oooh! Wonderful! If they are doing that in France, they must be doing it in England next year.' But it was not to be--there was no Truffaut at that time in England. Too bad."
18. Bruce McNall
(owner, Los Angeles Kings)
"I used to finance films, so the two movies that changed my life were WarGames and The Sicilian--the former because it made me a lot of money, and the latter because it lost $20 million and caused me to get out of the film industry."
19. Bruce Willis
(actor, Striking Distance, Death Becomes Her)
"It would be difficult to limit it to one film, because I am really a child of television and films, but I do remember a picture that was done when I was young called To Kill a Mockingbird. It is a very small story that really culminates in a much larger issue. The film dealt with racism, and what is said--and what is not said--about racism."
20. Terry Gilliam
(director, Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen)
"The movie that gave me my first nightmare was The Thief of Bagdad. The hero in the spider web was a great nightmare of mine-- it stuck with me for years. I used to think I would love to make that kind of film. But the film that really changed me, led me away from the childhood films and the adventure things was Paths of Glory, Stanley Kubrick's film. Suddenly, I saw that film can be quite different: it can be powerful and dramatic and tragic and political. And so I went off and did some of that stuff. Then I came back to the children's films that I grew up with."
21. Danny Sullivan
(race-car driver, ex-Indy 500 winner)
"When I saw the movie Grand Prix I decided being a professional race-car driver was something I wanted to pursue. I was seduced by the speed, glamour and intensity of the sport that the movie made seem exciting."
22. Glenn Close
(actress, The House of the Spirits, Fatal Attraction)
"When I was little, the golden age of Walt Disney made a huge impression on me. Movies like The Littlest Outlaw, Old Yeller, The Vanishing Prairie and The Living Desert were vivid stories for a child. They were wonderful, wonderful movies, and they had a lot to do with my fantasy life of wanting to be an actor. I wanted to be in movies like that, not just watching them."
23. Ben Kingsley
(actor, Maurice, Gandhi)
"The test, for me, is not what film do I recall for the longest period of time, but which film leaves those flickering images inside the head the strongest? It's been many years since I saw The Tin Drum, but I can still see it. It's a remarkable film, not only in its use of color and tone and rhythm, but also its brilliant acting. It offers a terrifying and exciting period of history seen through a pair of very bizarre eyes. I can still see those images in my head."
24. Carrie Fisher
(actress, When Harry Met Sally..., Under the Rainbow)
"I think it was always weird for me to see my mom [Debbie Reynolds] in movies. I remember she did a movie called Susan Slept Here and it was on TV when I was about six. See, the guy kisses her on the forehead, and I was so humiliated for my mother. [Laughing] I looked around to see if anyone else had seen this guy make a fool of my mother.''
25. Eric Karros
(National League's Rookie of the Year)
"Bull Durham enlightened me and prepared me for the minor leagues--especially about how exciting or dangerous life can be away from the field!"
26. Maurice Jarre
(Oscar-winning composer, Doctor Zhivago)
"Lawrence of Arabia was the movie that changed my life, because it gave me the first opportunity to work with director David Lean, who became my lifelong friend. Originally [producer] Sam Spiegel informed me that he had commissioned Richard Rodgers to write 90 percent of the music, and I was to do the remaining 10 percent. Rodgers, however, chose not to view the film at all, and submitted themes that sounded like a Broadway score. Happily, for me, they were completely rejected--and I got to do the whole film."
27. James Woods
(actor, The Getaway, Citizen Cohn)
"I did very much like On the Waterfront, as we all did in our youth. To a young man on the verge of becoming an actor, the raw intensity and the realistic flavor, combined with a real genuine movie star charisma that Brando and many of the other actors exhibited in that movie, had a great effect on me. I thought, 'Oh God, movies can really make you stand up and cheer!' I always look for something on the one hand that's real and the other hand that's moving and powerful. You put the two together and you have an unbeatable combination."
28. Mims Rogers
(actress, The Rapture, Desperate Hours)
"Born Free. I don't remember how old I was but the movie devastated me. I was in love with it and was just so heartbroken about everything that happened. Ever since that time I've been desperate to go to Kenya, to actually see that place, go on a photographic safari, and play with the lions."
29. Morgan Freeman
(actor, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Unforgiven)
"One of the first films that changed the way I viewed movies was King Kong. From an acting standpoint, I don't think I was that profoundly moved by it, but strictly from a child's standpoint, seeing this big-ass gorilla take on the entire world made me aware of the way films can make you believe while you're watching them. I wanted to be part of that.''
30. Paul Westphal
(coach, Phoenix Suns)
"When I was a kid, I saw The Robe and that changed my life. The resurrection scene is pretty hard to top when you think of motivating concepts."
31. Charles Barkley
(starting forward, Phoenix Suns, U.S. Olympic "Dream Team")
"A recent film, Malcolm X, affected me profoundly--it inspired me to study black history a little more intensely, and with more respect."
32. Sean Young
(actress, Fatal Instinct, No Way Out)
"It was Singin' in the Rain. I saw that and just said, 'I've gotta dance!' I just really wanted to be in musical movies and I hope they start making musical movies soon. I think people would really like to see them."
33. Greg Norman
(former British Open champ, one of the PGA's top 20 moneymakers for 1992)
"I really loved the book The Hunt for Red October and went to a mall to see the movie, which I rarely do. But the movie changed how I feel about films forever. I was heartbroken when they built up one of the star roles at the expense of a character that I had loved in the book. I was truly disappointed by them doing that, so I just decided never to watch a movie again which is based on a book I have read."
34. Michael Caine
(actor, Hannah and Her Sisters, California Suite)
"The Treasure of the Sierra Madre had a great theme, which is some ordinary guys going after the great prize. I remember sitting there thinking that my great prize would be to be in a movie like that. Years later, John Huston--who directed Sierra Madre--cast me in The Man Who Would Be King, which is the story of some ordinary guys setting out for the impossible dream. And there I was replaying my impossible dream, from watching a picture about an impossible dream, to being in a picture about an impossible dream. Great business, the picture business."
35. Mike Piazza
(catcher, Los Angeles Dodgers)
"Patton was the best war movie ever, and very, very inspirational to me. It showed how obsessed and emotional Patton was about his cause, which is what every leader should be--and it helped me move forward in my life and goals with clarity and strength."
36. Rob Lowe
(actor, Wayne's World, Great Performances' Suddenly Last Summer)
"The first one that ever made an impression on me was The Wizard of Oz, and it's still one of my all-time favorites. That's the first movie that I remember having a huge impact on me. The second one was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I saw it seven times when I was 11 years old. That was the first time I recall that a performer just reached out and threw that hook right in your mouth and just reeled ya in. I don't think I'd really ever been cognizant of what acting could do to an audience until I saw Jack Nicholson in that movie."
37. Kelly McGillis
(actress, The Accused, Witness)
"The Day of the Locust is still one of my favorite movies. I must have seen that movie about 10 times, and I have to say that movie took me through the emotional spectrum from laughter to tears in two hours, not to mention awe and disgust. Few films put one through every emotion a person could possibly go through."
38. Richard Pryor
(actor, Stir Crazy, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling)
"I remember that I loved to go see Laurel & Hardy, in anything. Going to see them, you knew you were going to laugh. You knew somebody would say, 'Whatever you do, don't touch the lamp on that table.' But you knew, as soon as that person left and they were in that room alone that something was going to happen, and they were going to get that lamp. .. and the table. They were funny, funny men who inspired me."
39. John Lucas
(coach, San Antonio Spurs)
"Malcolm X changed my life because it shows how misleading what people say about other people is. An Officer and a Gentleman influenced me tremendously because I was overwhelmed by the determination and inner strength the Richard Gere character had to succeed."
40. Rachel Ward
(actress, After Dark, My Sweet, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid)
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I remember I really wanted to be Katharine Ross. That was a role that definitely appealed to my sense of romance."
41. Tom Selleck
(actor, Quigley Down Under, Mr. Baseball)
"When I was just a young man I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey, and that was the first glimpse I saw of what epic possibilities a motion picture really holds. I've now seen it 22 times, and that's not counting videotape because, you know, this is Kubrick and it requires a big room. There was just something about that movie that clicked with me--it helped me to see the artistic possibilities of the human condition."
42. Gene Wilder
(actor, The Woman in Red, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)
"Arsenic and Old Lace made a big impression on me because I was so scared I got up and left the theater. I got scared when he came out with that scar on his face--I couldn't take it. And that was a comedy, but it was scary!"
43. John A. Alonzo
(cinematographer, Chinatown, The Meteor Man)
"I was a poor Mexican in my teens, living in Dallas, who had only seen serials and black-and-white Spanish films. One day the movie I wanted to see was full, so I went up the street and saw The Benny Goodman Story. This turned my entire life around because I had never seen a musical, or a movie in color. I came away thinking someday I have to get involved in that world. From that moment on I realized there's something wonderful and glamorous and magical in the world of movies."
44. Rod Carew
(California Angels Hall-of-Fame coach)
"I think the film was called No Blade of Grass--it was a film that made me aware of pollution worldwide, and how we're destroying the planet. Before seeing that film, I was under the misguided impression that the problem of pollution wasn't so bad and would somehow work itself out."
45. Dina Merrill
(actress, The Player, The Courtship of Eddie's Father)
"I remember seeing Gone With the Wind as a child and the whole scope of it--the size, the romanticism, the beauty--was just absolutely overwhelming. I'd never seen anything like the chemistry between Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, and I knew then that acting was a rich, dignified contribution to the arts. I just never forgot seeing Gone With the Wind--what a glorious film!"
46. Vin Scully
(Los Angeles Dodgers Hall-of-Fame broadcaster)
"Going My Way and The Quiet Man changed my life for very simple reasons--they touched me because I was Irish and a Catholic. Seeing them, I felt I was looking at an important part of my life in a different way."
47. Joe Piscopo
(actor, Sidekicks, Dead Heat)
"I can still remember the night my dad took me to see Jerry Lewis's The Nutty Professor down in Beach Haven, New Jersey. I remember it distinctly. I remember the theater. I remember the seat. I just thought that movie was the greatest movie ever made, and it very well might have been--it's a terrific little film. Even now, I watch it on videotape and it's a great film. I remember me and my dad and my brother watching Jerry go into his Julius Kelp character, which I'm sure influenced me, later, in my comedy."
48. Dan Majerle
(All-Star forward, Phoenix Suns):
"Vision Quest affected my life tremendously. Though the main character in the movie was a wrestler, the film motivated me as a basketball player to work hard and chase my dreams. It taught me not to be afraid to put everything on the line for one moment or one game."
49. Jack Lemmon
(actor, Glengarry Glen Ross, Some Like It Hot):
"There was a film called Les Enfants du Paradis in which there is a great deal of mime work. It was only 10 cents then on 42nd Street when I got down there right after college. I must have seen it a dozen times at least. I just marveled at what the actor did--it made me aware of how much we convey not just with lines and the face, but with the body."
50. Bud Cort
(actor, Harold and Maude; director, Ted and Venus):
"Seeing The Grapes of Wrath changed my life. I had never seen such rare human emotions on the screen so I went out and read the book, which was great also. This made me realize how powerful movies are--because they can even enhance a magnificent work of art."
51. Jim Gott
(relief pitcher, Los Angeles Dodgers):
"I'm a big fan of underdog-type movies so I'd have to say Hoosiers and Chariots of Fire. They were inspirational movies that showcased the human element of sports, which is the most important side of sports that's often misunderstood."
52. Christian Slater
(actor, True Romance, Kuffs):
"It's a Wonderful Life showed me how grateful I should be. I love old movies, and I love Jimmy Stewart."
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Tom Roberts, Craig Modderno and Brian Hirsch are freelance writers and men-about-town.