Top Ten Midlife Crisis Movies

Inspired by Wesley’s recent “Top Ten Road Trip Movies,” I thought it was time somebody nailed down the “Top Ten Midlife Crisis Movies.” Here it is. Feel free to agree or disagree. Create your inferior own list, if you like. The best thing about this list: it’s mine.

10. CITY SLICKERS - How great would this world be if more wives told their husbands to “go find your smile” instead of “go clean the garage”? Not many guys would use that free pass to go on a cattle drive, but the wide-open West makes the perfect tableau for this rousing tale of middle-aged angst. Favorite Dialogue: Curly (Jack Palance): “You all come up here at about the same age with the same problems. You spend about fifty weeks a year getting knots in your rope, and you think two weeks up here will untie them for you.”

9. GROUNDHOG DAY - Mired in the mother of all middle-aged ruts, cranky weatherman Phil Connors (Bill Murray) asks, “What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?” Phil burns through the MLC playbook: Depression – check, Drinking – check, Stealing rodents – check, Suicide – check, check and check. For Phil, redemption comes once he realizes that, while he can’t change the world, he can become a better person. Favorite Dialogue: Rita (Andie MacDowell): “I like to see a man of advancing years throwing caution to the wind. It's inspiring in a way.” Phil: “My years are not advancing as fast as you might think.”

8. BULL DURHAM – It’s more than a baseball movie. It’s Kevin Costner, as Crash Davis, gamely portraying a man watching the dreams of his youth slip forever away. Davis is an aging minor league catcher sent down to the Single-A Durham Bulls to mentor Nuke LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) a kid with no brains but all of the brawn to make it to “The Show.” Favorite Dialogue: Crash (to Nuke): “Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You'll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy, you'll be classy. If you win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back and the press will think you're colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, however, it means you are a slob.”

7. THE MISFITS – With the Grim Reaper breathing down their necks, Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe dug deep for the best and final performances of their careers. Gable plays the maverick that most men dream of being, except he is on life’s downswing, clinging to independence against a tidal wave of demanding conformity. Favorite Dialogue: Roslyn (Monroe): “How does anyone "just live"?” Gay (Gable): “Well, you start by going to sleep. You get up when you feel like it. You scratch yourself. You fry yourself some eggs. You see what kind of a day it is; throw stones at a can, whistle.”

6. BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY – A fact seldom acknowledged by Hollywood is that men do not have a monopoly on the midlife crisis. In lesser hands, Bridges might have been a mopey-dopey chick-flick, but director Clint Eastwood infused the film with textured characters and prickly atmosphere. Meryl Streep is quietly brilliant as Francesca, the Italian women who became a Midwest housewife. Favorite Dialogue: Robert (Eastwood): “Things change. They always do, it's one of the things of nature. Most people are afraid of change, but if you look at it as something you can always count on, then it can be a comfort.”

5. WONDER BOYS – Michael Douglas and Frances McDormand do great work here. But you know what would have been really great - If Robert Downey Jr. and Katie Holmes had hooked up during this movie. They’d be the hippest couple in Hollywood, and Katie Holmes would still be Katie Holmes - a cool actress with tremendous upside – instead of the sequestered wife of a muppet. Favorite Dialogue: Grady (Douglas): “Okay, James, I wish you hadn't shot my girlfriend's dog. Even though Poe and I weren't exactly what you'd call simpatico, that's no reason he should've taken two in the chest.”

4. BREAD AND TULIPS (Pane e Tulipani) – We love Italy. We love Italian films. And we love middle-aged Italian women. Licia Maglietta is endearing as Rosalba, the housewife who has her Home Alone moment at a tourist rest stop, where her family inadvertently leaves her behind. When her husband calls her cell and barks at her, she realizes she is ready to vacation solo and she hitchhikes to a city she always wanted to see: Venice. Favorite Dialogue: Me: “Boun viaggio!”

3. HANNAH AND HER SISTERS – One of Woody’s films was destined to crack this list given that Mr. Allen’s MLC began around puberty. Hannah gets the nod on the strength of Michael Caine’s performance as a man who falls in love with his wife’s sister. Caine captures the moral demise of all those middle-aged men who let their sense of entitlement overwhelm their sense of responsibility. Favorite Dialogue: Krishna Leader: “What makes you interested in becoming a Hare Krishna?” Mickey (Allen): “Well, I’m not saying that I want to join or anything, but I know you guys believe in reincarnation, you know, so it interests me.”

2. AMERICAN BEAUTY – Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is a loser at work, unloved at home and hot for his daughter’s best friend, in other words, a typical Orange County husband. While it’s a simple set-up, nothing else about this Sam Mendes masterpiece is simple - or ordinary or predictable or boring. Favorite Dialogue: No, it’s not the line that ends with, “your majesty.” Grow up. Instead - Carolyn (Benning): “Uh, whose car is that out front?” Lester: “Mine. 1970 Pontiac Firebird. The car I've always wanted and now I have it. I rule!”

1. SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS – Joel McCrea stars as John L. Sullivan, the top director of Hollywood comedies. His MLC begins once he judges his life’s work as mere frivolity. The world, with all of its problems, doesn’t need another comedy – he decides it needs the deeply serious “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” To prepare, Sullivan sets out to experience the life of the hobo, falling in early with Veronica Lake (“There's always a girl in the picture. What's the matter, don't you go to the movies?”) Favorite Dialogue: Forced to choose from all the great dialogue, we’ll go with Sullivan’s epiphany, “There's a lot to be said for making people laugh. Did you know that that's all some people have? It isn't much, but it's better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan.”

Rocky Petralia is a student of humanity and the editor of HelloRocky.com, the online answer factory that pummeled AskJeeves.