In honor of facebook's 5 lists that everyone is doing nowadays (5 places you have lived, 5 favorite sports teams, 5 cartoons you grew up on, etc.), I'm putting together a basic list of my own - my top movies.

5. Not a good way to start off a list, but I'm not too sure of the movie I want to put here. Below I have action, comedy, and drama, so maybe I'll mix it up for starters and insert a category: British period pieces, including Pride and Prejudice (A&E version - chick flick really but surprisingly watchable for men), and Lagaan, which is set in colonial era India. The latter also brings the essence of a good sports movie such as The Natural, but is partly a musical since it's a "Bollywood" production (English subtitles).

4. The Bourne Ultimatum

The wife and I haphazardly went to a quiet and empty movie theater one Friday night... and got blown out of the water by how action-packed this movie was. It's by far the best of the Bourne trilogy, which don't follow the Robert Ludlum books in the slightest (there was way too much plot in those to translate to the big screen). Released in 2007, it has a rough style that's become popular, a la the recent Bond movies, which style maybe started with Gladiator back in 2000. Every once in awhile I'll just break out and hum the music from this movie just to ratchet up the tension. Here's the music I'm talking about (you only really need to listen to the first 25 seconds).

3. Groundhog Day

Released in 1993. It's funny. Some are annoyed by it, perhaps by the repetition... or maybe by the repetition. (ha ha.) But I appreciate all the great quotes and lines, and the general message that people can change.

2. Terminator 2

The 1991 sequel has a surprisingly similar plot to the original 1984 Terminator movie, but the special effects are so much more advanced, and the action scenes are really well done. Except for a few mullets and some old looking cars, this movie holds up extremely well even today. What I really appreciate is the do or die pressure on the Connor's backs - they're literally in charge of saving the world. That's cool.

1. The Shawshank Redemption.

This movie draws you in and makes you become emotionally invested, and you let yourself go and actually start to hope the movie never ends. Released in 1994 and Oscar-nominated for best picture, if you haven't already seen this on TV, then you've missed out. It would take a miracle for this movie to drop from my own personal number one ranking... but if you have what you think are some contenders, feel free to suggest!