The_Hitman
24-02-2007, 08:58 AM
The Manliest Movies of All Time.
No girls allowed
Being a man is brilliant. You get to fight, drive cars through explosions, shag birds, drink beer, and be an arsehole . But what really makes a man a man? Muscles? Sure. Blood, guts, and fisticuffs? It helps. A bit of nationalism? Of course. Wildly improbable baddies, snakes, the Mafia, guns, lots of guns, boxing, and rude words? All are welcome. But manly movies are the real cornerstone of our species – while women are reading Cosmo and buying shoes, us alpha males are out saving the universe with our shirts off. If you’ve started to realise that the music of Coldplay is beautiful and you’re thinking twice about buying that patchouli oil, then pin open your eyeballs and consume the movies on this list: It’ll guarantee any rogue homosomes in your DNA will be swiftly eradicated. However, women should be warned: the films on this list could kill you stone dead if viewed in a single sitting.
20. EDDIE MURPHY RAW (1987)
Okay, so it’s 83 minutes of a man in an obscene purple outfit telling jokes. No guns, no explosions, nothing like that. Swearing, however, is big, clever and very, very manly: Eddie Murphy Raw held the record for the most ‘****s’ for three long years. That’s 223 ****s, or a ****-Per-Minute Count of 2.48FPM’s (it was eventually dethroned by Goodfellas, a film that could only manage a paltry FPM of 1.6). Raw also contains, in no particular order; fire-shooting dicks; casual racism; misogyny; fighting; a bitter, pissed-off Eddie Murphy ranting about gold-diggers; Jamaicans with huge schlongs; and, as Eddie’s Dad in a pre-credits sequence, the man’s mother****ing man, Samuel. L. Jackson. Dave Chappelle only wishes he was this manly.
Manliest moment: Taking off that awkward-looking purple vest to a chorus of female screams.
19. HENRY PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1986)
The bleakest entry in our catalogue of testosterone, Henry proves that being a man isn’t all fun and games - sometimes it’s murder. This aimless, formless, 90-minute exposition on execution sees Michael Rooker (you know the face but not the name) dispense with absolutely everyone he’s ever met pointlessly and with great aplomb. His best friend, his sisters, the guy who sold him a dodgy TV and random strangers are chopped to pieces, raped, strangled and are hacked up with a buzzsaw before being stuffed in bags and dropped by the side of the road. It’s all in a days work for the monosyllabic personality-vacuum that is Henry. This kind of utterly bleak, pointless, hopeless murder-as-masturbation is the existentialist man’s feast. And Henry films it all with a stolen video camera.
Manliest moment: “Yeah. I killed my mama. I shot her. I shot her dead.”
18. DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE (1995)
Like any man, sometimes you get a hangover. It’s inevitable. Naturally, when John McClane gets a hangover, it’s also the day he gets targeted by a European nutjob intent on blowing up New York City. Before long, poor old John is Simple Simon’s puppet on a string, defusing bombs in litter bins and walking around Harlem with ‘I hate niggers’ written on his sandwich board. There’s a reason McClane is so brow-beaten, and it’s not just the terrorist attack – he’s about to divorce his lady wife. Doesn’t she know this guy is a hero? Die Hard With A Vengeance has all the mangredients needed for a filling meal: car chases, gold bullion, dead Germans, hangovers, bombs, quipping, and Samuel L Jackson shouting very loudly. It’s 100% a man’s movie.
Manliest moment: Bruce, sweaty and in a grubby vest, fights a henchman with a big chain.
17. RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD. Part 2 (1982)
Stallone makes his second appearance in this list, this time cast as an oiled, stripped-to-the-waist human rocket launcher. What most people call Hell, he calls home. If Nietsche had seen this film, he would have changed his ethos to “I blow things up, therefore I am.” With the highest body count in cinema (for at least a year), Rambo made front pages as the most violent film ever made, with faceless baddies dispatched in a manner of ways that rivalled Darwin and Da Vinci combined for their inventiveness. If Death were a science, writer James Cameron would be awarded a Nobel Prize. Stallone ventures behind enemy lines to blow up Russian whirlybirds, kill Steven Berkoff, dispense with ‘gooks’ by explosive-tipped rocket, and bring the boys back home. “Do We Get To Win?” Of course, Sly. Men NEVER Lose.
Manliest moment: Leaping through the jungle with a bow and arrow, blowing up ethnic people.
16. THE THING (1982)
How manly is a film that has no women in it? VERY. This 1982 sci-fi classic, set on an isolated scientific outpost in the Antarctic, sees the cast of eight males slowly decimated one by one by an unknown alien creature. Bleak, nihilist, awash with blood and guts and swimming in paranoia, The Thing is a hopeless battle against impossible odds that will, eventually, destroy the whole of mankind. The violence that bubbles under every second of the film make The Thing decidedly male. Despite being bafflingly short on deaths (with just ten), explosions (there are only two) and a complete absence of double-handed gunfights and car chases, The Thing is extraordinarily manly. Man is the warmest place to hide, not woman.
Manliest moment: “You gotta be ****ing kidding!”
15. HARD TARGET (1993)
With a cast that includes Jean-Claude Van Damme, Denise Richards and Lance Henriksen, it doesn’t exactly scream quality, rather violently proclaim its presence using a booby trapped venomous snake, whilst standing on top of a speeding motorbike, shooting at the bad guys with a pistol in each hand and blowing up their oil tank. Bad guys carry A-Team regulation AK-47’s, drive motorbikes dressed as if they were acting in a Poundland version of Streethawk and couldn’t hit a target if it was a mile high, orange and 10ft away from them. But let’s not forget Van Damme, a man so ****ing badass that, instead of kissing Denise Richards, he’d grab a furious snake, punch it unconscious, and then – using his bad ass Ninja teeth – rip off the rattle on the end of its tail and spit it out as if it were a ring pull. Grrrr!
Manliest moment: JCVD makes the name ‘Chance Bordeaux’ sound totally not gay.
14. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)
You could argue that the sheer, mindless ultraviolence of A Clockwork Orange could only be the product of a male imagination. Then again, the scene in which Alex – our anti-hero, dressed in a white boiler suit and bowler hat – murders a defenceless woman with a gigantic ceramic penis does kind of spell it out for you. Alex and his Droogs do all the things that young boys want, albeit in a kind of weird 70’s way, namely loitering, a bit of the old in-out and beating up tramps with sticks to the music of Beethoven. Okay, maybe not all young boys dream of such violence, but the primal behaviour dished out by Kubrick’s disillusioned youngsters is engrained in the male psyche, so much so that it takes a very unique type of therapy to dilute it. Viddy well, my brother.
Manliest moment: Alex has a sordid threesome in fast-forward.
13. GLADIATOR (2000)
"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance." Take cover girls, there’s a ****-storm a-brewing. Russell Crowe’s sweaty man-hero is a true screen legend, and not just because he makes the ladies go weak at the knees. Fighting tigers, beheading giant warriors, chucking swords at random people… Maximus has such an abundance of Y-chromosomes, he should bottle them and go into business. Although he’s technically crusading for the honour of his dead family (and despite the fact he goes out like a ***** to the hair-lipped Commodus), you suspect that the reason Crowe’s buff gladiator continues to fight is because, well, he likes it. As do we. Go away lady, this is a man’s world.
Manliest moment: “Are you not entertained?” We’re damn near damp, Russell.
12. CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982)
The first appearance from the ‘condom full of walnuts’ that is the Governator. According to this film, your philosophy should be “to crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women.” Sound advice. There’s James Earl Jones as a giant phallic snake, the worship of a bloodthirsty God called Crom, swordfights, chain mail, a serious neglect of the laws of Health & Safety in the battlefield and some excellent slavery. All fronted, of course, by a man with arms the size of entire puny humans. Who said being a man was all blood and guts? Being a man is about swords, and fighting, and non-gay magic. And killer snakes. Okay, and blood and guts. Hell yeah - CoMAN The Barbarian.
Manliest moment: Conan is so macho, someone else cries for him.
11. MIAMI VICE (2006)
Michael Mann’s Miami Vice is more a re-tooling than a remake, seeing as he’s populated the movie primarily with tools: Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx are the new stars, actors both well-known for dipping their wicks and wiping it on the curtains. Although they barely exchange a word to each other, Crockett and Tubbs are both fine male specimens and proceed to spread their seed through Miami and beyond; Foxx slips it to his girlfriend (joking about premature ejaculation as he does) while Farrell gets intimate with Gong Li’s gangster’s moll. The gunfights and macho horseplay are manly enough, but when Crockett treats his new lady to a speedboat ride, the subtext couldn’t be clearer – they’re darting across the ocean in a giant metal penis. Warning: watching may cause one’s balls to explode.
Manliest moment: The boys both have shower scenes (not together).
10. ROCKY IV (1985)
Rocky sequels are rubbish. Idiotic, brain dead, boxing popcorn. If Raging Bull is art, then Rocky IV is **** . But it’s taken bigger steps for mankind than any moon landing ever could. Flags. Punching. Dolph Lundgren as an oiled commie Terminator. By the final fight, both men are almost swimming in testosterone. There’s more of course. Who can forget Stallone bumbling through the Russian mountains, punching air and chopping wood? Or James Brown going "HUH!" and singing Living In America? Or Paulie’s robot? Make no mistake, Rocky IV was moronic nonsense – it was nominated for nine Razzies and ‘won’ five – but it may very possibly have toppled communism and brought down the Berlin Wall. The underdog defeating the goliath against suicidal odds? That’s mandom, baby!
Manliest moment: “If he dies, he dies.”
9. UNDER SIEGE (1992)
Oh, how we’ve all wished we were Steven Seagal circa 1992. That poker-face, those badass karate moves and that ponytail hanging off the shoulders of one lean, mean, killing machine. Of course, these days, Steven is more likely to be found in the fridge than in the cinema, but in Under Siege, he was an Alpha Male that took **** from no one and had hands like ******* butcher’s knives. Labouring under the unlikely cover of a ship’s chef, he still managed to foil a terrorist attack and kick Tommy Lee Jones’ arse (which doesn’t sound too impressive these days, granted) while exuding manliness from every pore. It was all Erika Eleniak could to do to jump topless out of a giant cake, but us men were too busy watching Casey Ryback - our new hero - go to work.
Manliest moment: Seagal’s knife fight with TLJ – eat steel, terrorism!
8. HARD BOILED (1992)
The film that invented the double-handed shootout. The film with the highest body count of any film thus far. With car chases, bike chases, shoot outs, doves and one of the most elaborate climatic set-pieces ever seen, Hard Boiled is John Woo’s defining masterpiece. From the beginning, which sees more blood spilt than World War II, this hard driving, relentless cop-versus-the-Yazuka-Triad classic just keeps on and on and on and on. Woo’s women, however, serve to act as hostages and noisy inconveniences. If you were Paul Ross, you’d write, “Hard Boiled is adrenaline-fuelled action rollercoaster blockbuster!” Since I’m not, all I have to say is that Hard Boiled is, without doubt, a transmission from a parallel universe; a better world known only as Manland, where Men Only isn’t a porno mag, but a way of life.
Manliest moment: Unleashing hell while protecting a baby, like the Athena poster man with bigger guns.
7. WALL STREET (1987)
Oliver Stone’s second appearance in the list is this strangely existential economic thriller. Here the violence isn’t physical, it isn’t punches to the throat or a witty quip after decapitating an obvious cliché. Here, the violence is financial: takeovers, contracts and dirty deeds done dirt-cheap are all in a day’s work. Michael Douglas gave the greatest speech in movie history (“Greed is good”) and summed up an entire decade, while Charlie Sheen has never, and will never, be better. On Wall Street, everything can be bought and sold, and everything has its price. This hard edged, capitalist masterpiece shows that war isn’t just fought with planes and tanks. As Gecko's house of cards collapses in a set-piece that rivals the end of Titanic for drama, it shows clearly that being a man involves brains as well as brawns.
Manliest moment: “How many yachts is enough?”
6. THE GODFATHER (1972)
Epic and huge, The Godfather is manly, not because it is violent and awash with gore, but precisely because it is not just these things alone. Being a man isn’t just about killing and mayhem. It’s about ambition, betrayal and power - kissing the ring, chopping off a horse’s head, that sort of thing. In this world, it’s kill or be killed, while women are more dangerous than shotguns. The vast ambition, the sheer scope of the film and the scale of Don Corleone’s vast criminal empire dwarves all other gangster films. Make no mistake, The Godfather is a boy’s-own adventure and it has Marlon Brando – a real man’s man, back in his prime - to boot. Here, murder isn’t just a way of life but a career move, and the mafia is a strictly man-only company.
Manliest moment: Sonny Corleone delivers a thumping beat-down to his sister’s abusive husband.
5. COMMANDO (1985)
With the highest onscreen body count of any film ever made upon release, this curt, 86 minute blood fest has the ultimate plot: revenge. The McGuffin is the Governator’s daughter, with nary a sign of a mother figure. Gasp as Arnie punches his way across the world! Grit your teeth as he jumps out of planes without a parachute into crocodile infested waters with nary a scratch! High five as he puns his away across a series of ever gorier death scenes! And finally, camp it up as John Matrix faces off against Vernon Wells’ Bennett, the campest bad guy in cinema history. It’s none-too-subtle face-off – raging hetero versus raging homo, but breeder was always going to beat bummer. A bad episode of 80’s action TV writ large it may be, but it’s got balls the size of ******* Sherman tanks.
Manliest moment: Matrix impales Bennett on a large pipe – heterosexuals for the win!
4. GOLDFINGER (1964)
“Do you expect me to talk?” “No Mr Bond, I expect you to die!” Bond’s only appearance on the list comes in the form of this, widely acknowledged as his greatest moment. A daft and compelling spy thriller, Goldfinger walks the tightrope between dumb and deft with the plot to rob Fort Knox of its contents. What appears almost credible soon becomes the work of deranged imagination: women are painted to death, golf becomes a lethal duel and Sean Connery – the male archetype and still the best Bond by a mile – heroically ploughs through a mountain of muff. James Bond is the man everyone in possession of a penis wishes he was, and Goldfinger sees him at his most manly, none more so when his jaffas are threatened by a laser beam and he’s lusted after by a woman called Pussy Galore. You know you’ve done the opening gun thing in the mirror.
Manliest moment: “Run along now… man talk!” James Bond slaps the arse of passing female.
3. JAWS (1975)
Part of being a man is knowing that life is finite and ultimately pointless, but staring it straight in the eye nonetheless. Jaws’ slender plot explores this theme to its ultimate conclusion: a shark, nothing more than rows of teeth and a digestive system, tries to eat an entire town. Presumably driven into a blood frenzy by menstruating women, this nameless blue-finned abyss of carnage merrily chomps its way through anything and everything. It’s up to just three men to stop it, and all they’ve got is a wooden boat and balls of steel. By the film’s explosive climax, it’s just Man and Shark in a battle of wits on a sinking boat, as an unstoppable force meets the immovable object – and there can be only one survivor. So manly, the testosterone stings the nostrils.
Manliest moment: Comparing scars on the ocean waves, a quintessentially male pastime.
2. PREDATOR (1987)
Here we have a film so manly, it’s been reported that women who’ve watched it have seen their breasts shrink and their vagina close up as a result. If paintballing in the woods is a natural male hobby (women can’t shoot guns, it’s been proved in labs) then Predator takes the concept and injects it with pure man-juice – there can be no manlier activity than half a dozen muscle-bound hunks running around the jungle with their weapons out. The enemy they face is from another world, but Dutch and his compadres know that if they fire guns big enough for long enough, it can’t stand up to their sheer man-power. Arnie comes out on top (it’s sheer coincidence that he had to strip to the waist to do so) and the movie climaxes with an explosion so big, it’d make Don Simpson pop a boner from six-feet under.
Manliest moment: “I ain’t got time to bleed.” Women take note.
1. FIGHT CLUB (1999)
The ubermensch film for ubermen, David Fincher’s Fight Club is everything a man could ever want from a movie. Paranoid, violent, anarchic and so hip it’s practically an athelete, Fight Club was a wake-up call for man at the end of the century. “You are not the contents of your wallet… you are not your ******’ Khakis,” rants an aggressive Brad Pitt, directly addressing all the wet blanket males in the audience who think Jude Law is an aspirational figure. The narrator, an unnamed, existentially-challenged wimp transforms into a primal beast at the hands of his mentor Tyler Durden, with the two aiming to reclaim humanity and free the corporate slaves from their IKEA-induced stupor. Immense in stylistic and anarchic ambition, unstoppable in its violent vision and awash with soap, Fight Club is THE manliest film of all time. Anyone who disagrees? I’ll meet you at… well… we’re not supposed to talk about it.
Manliest moment: Jarod Leto gets a face full of fist and is pounded into a pulpy, bloody mess.
Source: shiznit.com
No girls allowed
Being a man is brilliant. You get to fight, drive cars through explosions, shag birds, drink beer, and be an arsehole . But what really makes a man a man? Muscles? Sure. Blood, guts, and fisticuffs? It helps. A bit of nationalism? Of course. Wildly improbable baddies, snakes, the Mafia, guns, lots of guns, boxing, and rude words? All are welcome. But manly movies are the real cornerstone of our species – while women are reading Cosmo and buying shoes, us alpha males are out saving the universe with our shirts off. If you’ve started to realise that the music of Coldplay is beautiful and you’re thinking twice about buying that patchouli oil, then pin open your eyeballs and consume the movies on this list: It’ll guarantee any rogue homosomes in your DNA will be swiftly eradicated. However, women should be warned: the films on this list could kill you stone dead if viewed in a single sitting.
20. EDDIE MURPHY RAW (1987)
Okay, so it’s 83 minutes of a man in an obscene purple outfit telling jokes. No guns, no explosions, nothing like that. Swearing, however, is big, clever and very, very manly: Eddie Murphy Raw held the record for the most ‘****s’ for three long years. That’s 223 ****s, or a ****-Per-Minute Count of 2.48FPM’s (it was eventually dethroned by Goodfellas, a film that could only manage a paltry FPM of 1.6). Raw also contains, in no particular order; fire-shooting dicks; casual racism; misogyny; fighting; a bitter, pissed-off Eddie Murphy ranting about gold-diggers; Jamaicans with huge schlongs; and, as Eddie’s Dad in a pre-credits sequence, the man’s mother****ing man, Samuel. L. Jackson. Dave Chappelle only wishes he was this manly.
Manliest moment: Taking off that awkward-looking purple vest to a chorus of female screams.
19. HENRY PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1986)
The bleakest entry in our catalogue of testosterone, Henry proves that being a man isn’t all fun and games - sometimes it’s murder. This aimless, formless, 90-minute exposition on execution sees Michael Rooker (you know the face but not the name) dispense with absolutely everyone he’s ever met pointlessly and with great aplomb. His best friend, his sisters, the guy who sold him a dodgy TV and random strangers are chopped to pieces, raped, strangled and are hacked up with a buzzsaw before being stuffed in bags and dropped by the side of the road. It’s all in a days work for the monosyllabic personality-vacuum that is Henry. This kind of utterly bleak, pointless, hopeless murder-as-masturbation is the existentialist man’s feast. And Henry films it all with a stolen video camera.
Manliest moment: “Yeah. I killed my mama. I shot her. I shot her dead.”
18. DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE (1995)
Like any man, sometimes you get a hangover. It’s inevitable. Naturally, when John McClane gets a hangover, it’s also the day he gets targeted by a European nutjob intent on blowing up New York City. Before long, poor old John is Simple Simon’s puppet on a string, defusing bombs in litter bins and walking around Harlem with ‘I hate niggers’ written on his sandwich board. There’s a reason McClane is so brow-beaten, and it’s not just the terrorist attack – he’s about to divorce his lady wife. Doesn’t she know this guy is a hero? Die Hard With A Vengeance has all the mangredients needed for a filling meal: car chases, gold bullion, dead Germans, hangovers, bombs, quipping, and Samuel L Jackson shouting very loudly. It’s 100% a man’s movie.
Manliest moment: Bruce, sweaty and in a grubby vest, fights a henchman with a big chain.
17. RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD. Part 2 (1982)
Stallone makes his second appearance in this list, this time cast as an oiled, stripped-to-the-waist human rocket launcher. What most people call Hell, he calls home. If Nietsche had seen this film, he would have changed his ethos to “I blow things up, therefore I am.” With the highest body count in cinema (for at least a year), Rambo made front pages as the most violent film ever made, with faceless baddies dispatched in a manner of ways that rivalled Darwin and Da Vinci combined for their inventiveness. If Death were a science, writer James Cameron would be awarded a Nobel Prize. Stallone ventures behind enemy lines to blow up Russian whirlybirds, kill Steven Berkoff, dispense with ‘gooks’ by explosive-tipped rocket, and bring the boys back home. “Do We Get To Win?” Of course, Sly. Men NEVER Lose.
Manliest moment: Leaping through the jungle with a bow and arrow, blowing up ethnic people.
16. THE THING (1982)
How manly is a film that has no women in it? VERY. This 1982 sci-fi classic, set on an isolated scientific outpost in the Antarctic, sees the cast of eight males slowly decimated one by one by an unknown alien creature. Bleak, nihilist, awash with blood and guts and swimming in paranoia, The Thing is a hopeless battle against impossible odds that will, eventually, destroy the whole of mankind. The violence that bubbles under every second of the film make The Thing decidedly male. Despite being bafflingly short on deaths (with just ten), explosions (there are only two) and a complete absence of double-handed gunfights and car chases, The Thing is extraordinarily manly. Man is the warmest place to hide, not woman.
Manliest moment: “You gotta be ****ing kidding!”
15. HARD TARGET (1993)
With a cast that includes Jean-Claude Van Damme, Denise Richards and Lance Henriksen, it doesn’t exactly scream quality, rather violently proclaim its presence using a booby trapped venomous snake, whilst standing on top of a speeding motorbike, shooting at the bad guys with a pistol in each hand and blowing up their oil tank. Bad guys carry A-Team regulation AK-47’s, drive motorbikes dressed as if they were acting in a Poundland version of Streethawk and couldn’t hit a target if it was a mile high, orange and 10ft away from them. But let’s not forget Van Damme, a man so ****ing badass that, instead of kissing Denise Richards, he’d grab a furious snake, punch it unconscious, and then – using his bad ass Ninja teeth – rip off the rattle on the end of its tail and spit it out as if it were a ring pull. Grrrr!
Manliest moment: JCVD makes the name ‘Chance Bordeaux’ sound totally not gay.
14. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)
You could argue that the sheer, mindless ultraviolence of A Clockwork Orange could only be the product of a male imagination. Then again, the scene in which Alex – our anti-hero, dressed in a white boiler suit and bowler hat – murders a defenceless woman with a gigantic ceramic penis does kind of spell it out for you. Alex and his Droogs do all the things that young boys want, albeit in a kind of weird 70’s way, namely loitering, a bit of the old in-out and beating up tramps with sticks to the music of Beethoven. Okay, maybe not all young boys dream of such violence, but the primal behaviour dished out by Kubrick’s disillusioned youngsters is engrained in the male psyche, so much so that it takes a very unique type of therapy to dilute it. Viddy well, my brother.
Manliest moment: Alex has a sordid threesome in fast-forward.
13. GLADIATOR (2000)
"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance." Take cover girls, there’s a ****-storm a-brewing. Russell Crowe’s sweaty man-hero is a true screen legend, and not just because he makes the ladies go weak at the knees. Fighting tigers, beheading giant warriors, chucking swords at random people… Maximus has such an abundance of Y-chromosomes, he should bottle them and go into business. Although he’s technically crusading for the honour of his dead family (and despite the fact he goes out like a ***** to the hair-lipped Commodus), you suspect that the reason Crowe’s buff gladiator continues to fight is because, well, he likes it. As do we. Go away lady, this is a man’s world.
Manliest moment: “Are you not entertained?” We’re damn near damp, Russell.
12. CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982)
The first appearance from the ‘condom full of walnuts’ that is the Governator. According to this film, your philosophy should be “to crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women.” Sound advice. There’s James Earl Jones as a giant phallic snake, the worship of a bloodthirsty God called Crom, swordfights, chain mail, a serious neglect of the laws of Health & Safety in the battlefield and some excellent slavery. All fronted, of course, by a man with arms the size of entire puny humans. Who said being a man was all blood and guts? Being a man is about swords, and fighting, and non-gay magic. And killer snakes. Okay, and blood and guts. Hell yeah - CoMAN The Barbarian.
Manliest moment: Conan is so macho, someone else cries for him.
11. MIAMI VICE (2006)
Michael Mann’s Miami Vice is more a re-tooling than a remake, seeing as he’s populated the movie primarily with tools: Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx are the new stars, actors both well-known for dipping their wicks and wiping it on the curtains. Although they barely exchange a word to each other, Crockett and Tubbs are both fine male specimens and proceed to spread their seed through Miami and beyond; Foxx slips it to his girlfriend (joking about premature ejaculation as he does) while Farrell gets intimate with Gong Li’s gangster’s moll. The gunfights and macho horseplay are manly enough, but when Crockett treats his new lady to a speedboat ride, the subtext couldn’t be clearer – they’re darting across the ocean in a giant metal penis. Warning: watching may cause one’s balls to explode.
Manliest moment: The boys both have shower scenes (not together).
10. ROCKY IV (1985)
Rocky sequels are rubbish. Idiotic, brain dead, boxing popcorn. If Raging Bull is art, then Rocky IV is **** . But it’s taken bigger steps for mankind than any moon landing ever could. Flags. Punching. Dolph Lundgren as an oiled commie Terminator. By the final fight, both men are almost swimming in testosterone. There’s more of course. Who can forget Stallone bumbling through the Russian mountains, punching air and chopping wood? Or James Brown going "HUH!" and singing Living In America? Or Paulie’s robot? Make no mistake, Rocky IV was moronic nonsense – it was nominated for nine Razzies and ‘won’ five – but it may very possibly have toppled communism and brought down the Berlin Wall. The underdog defeating the goliath against suicidal odds? That’s mandom, baby!
Manliest moment: “If he dies, he dies.”
9. UNDER SIEGE (1992)
Oh, how we’ve all wished we were Steven Seagal circa 1992. That poker-face, those badass karate moves and that ponytail hanging off the shoulders of one lean, mean, killing machine. Of course, these days, Steven is more likely to be found in the fridge than in the cinema, but in Under Siege, he was an Alpha Male that took **** from no one and had hands like ******* butcher’s knives. Labouring under the unlikely cover of a ship’s chef, he still managed to foil a terrorist attack and kick Tommy Lee Jones’ arse (which doesn’t sound too impressive these days, granted) while exuding manliness from every pore. It was all Erika Eleniak could to do to jump topless out of a giant cake, but us men were too busy watching Casey Ryback - our new hero - go to work.
Manliest moment: Seagal’s knife fight with TLJ – eat steel, terrorism!
8. HARD BOILED (1992)
The film that invented the double-handed shootout. The film with the highest body count of any film thus far. With car chases, bike chases, shoot outs, doves and one of the most elaborate climatic set-pieces ever seen, Hard Boiled is John Woo’s defining masterpiece. From the beginning, which sees more blood spilt than World War II, this hard driving, relentless cop-versus-the-Yazuka-Triad classic just keeps on and on and on and on. Woo’s women, however, serve to act as hostages and noisy inconveniences. If you were Paul Ross, you’d write, “Hard Boiled is adrenaline-fuelled action rollercoaster blockbuster!” Since I’m not, all I have to say is that Hard Boiled is, without doubt, a transmission from a parallel universe; a better world known only as Manland, where Men Only isn’t a porno mag, but a way of life.
Manliest moment: Unleashing hell while protecting a baby, like the Athena poster man with bigger guns.
7. WALL STREET (1987)
Oliver Stone’s second appearance in the list is this strangely existential economic thriller. Here the violence isn’t physical, it isn’t punches to the throat or a witty quip after decapitating an obvious cliché. Here, the violence is financial: takeovers, contracts and dirty deeds done dirt-cheap are all in a day’s work. Michael Douglas gave the greatest speech in movie history (“Greed is good”) and summed up an entire decade, while Charlie Sheen has never, and will never, be better. On Wall Street, everything can be bought and sold, and everything has its price. This hard edged, capitalist masterpiece shows that war isn’t just fought with planes and tanks. As Gecko's house of cards collapses in a set-piece that rivals the end of Titanic for drama, it shows clearly that being a man involves brains as well as brawns.
Manliest moment: “How many yachts is enough?”
6. THE GODFATHER (1972)
Epic and huge, The Godfather is manly, not because it is violent and awash with gore, but precisely because it is not just these things alone. Being a man isn’t just about killing and mayhem. It’s about ambition, betrayal and power - kissing the ring, chopping off a horse’s head, that sort of thing. In this world, it’s kill or be killed, while women are more dangerous than shotguns. The vast ambition, the sheer scope of the film and the scale of Don Corleone’s vast criminal empire dwarves all other gangster films. Make no mistake, The Godfather is a boy’s-own adventure and it has Marlon Brando – a real man’s man, back in his prime - to boot. Here, murder isn’t just a way of life but a career move, and the mafia is a strictly man-only company.
Manliest moment: Sonny Corleone delivers a thumping beat-down to his sister’s abusive husband.
5. COMMANDO (1985)
With the highest onscreen body count of any film ever made upon release, this curt, 86 minute blood fest has the ultimate plot: revenge. The McGuffin is the Governator’s daughter, with nary a sign of a mother figure. Gasp as Arnie punches his way across the world! Grit your teeth as he jumps out of planes without a parachute into crocodile infested waters with nary a scratch! High five as he puns his away across a series of ever gorier death scenes! And finally, camp it up as John Matrix faces off against Vernon Wells’ Bennett, the campest bad guy in cinema history. It’s none-too-subtle face-off – raging hetero versus raging homo, but breeder was always going to beat bummer. A bad episode of 80’s action TV writ large it may be, but it’s got balls the size of ******* Sherman tanks.
Manliest moment: Matrix impales Bennett on a large pipe – heterosexuals for the win!
4. GOLDFINGER (1964)
“Do you expect me to talk?” “No Mr Bond, I expect you to die!” Bond’s only appearance on the list comes in the form of this, widely acknowledged as his greatest moment. A daft and compelling spy thriller, Goldfinger walks the tightrope between dumb and deft with the plot to rob Fort Knox of its contents. What appears almost credible soon becomes the work of deranged imagination: women are painted to death, golf becomes a lethal duel and Sean Connery – the male archetype and still the best Bond by a mile – heroically ploughs through a mountain of muff. James Bond is the man everyone in possession of a penis wishes he was, and Goldfinger sees him at his most manly, none more so when his jaffas are threatened by a laser beam and he’s lusted after by a woman called Pussy Galore. You know you’ve done the opening gun thing in the mirror.
Manliest moment: “Run along now… man talk!” James Bond slaps the arse of passing female.
3. JAWS (1975)
Part of being a man is knowing that life is finite and ultimately pointless, but staring it straight in the eye nonetheless. Jaws’ slender plot explores this theme to its ultimate conclusion: a shark, nothing more than rows of teeth and a digestive system, tries to eat an entire town. Presumably driven into a blood frenzy by menstruating women, this nameless blue-finned abyss of carnage merrily chomps its way through anything and everything. It’s up to just three men to stop it, and all they’ve got is a wooden boat and balls of steel. By the film’s explosive climax, it’s just Man and Shark in a battle of wits on a sinking boat, as an unstoppable force meets the immovable object – and there can be only one survivor. So manly, the testosterone stings the nostrils.
Manliest moment: Comparing scars on the ocean waves, a quintessentially male pastime.
2. PREDATOR (1987)
Here we have a film so manly, it’s been reported that women who’ve watched it have seen their breasts shrink and their vagina close up as a result. If paintballing in the woods is a natural male hobby (women can’t shoot guns, it’s been proved in labs) then Predator takes the concept and injects it with pure man-juice – there can be no manlier activity than half a dozen muscle-bound hunks running around the jungle with their weapons out. The enemy they face is from another world, but Dutch and his compadres know that if they fire guns big enough for long enough, it can’t stand up to their sheer man-power. Arnie comes out on top (it’s sheer coincidence that he had to strip to the waist to do so) and the movie climaxes with an explosion so big, it’d make Don Simpson pop a boner from six-feet under.
Manliest moment: “I ain’t got time to bleed.” Women take note.
1. FIGHT CLUB (1999)
The ubermensch film for ubermen, David Fincher’s Fight Club is everything a man could ever want from a movie. Paranoid, violent, anarchic and so hip it’s practically an athelete, Fight Club was a wake-up call for man at the end of the century. “You are not the contents of your wallet… you are not your ******’ Khakis,” rants an aggressive Brad Pitt, directly addressing all the wet blanket males in the audience who think Jude Law is an aspirational figure. The narrator, an unnamed, existentially-challenged wimp transforms into a primal beast at the hands of his mentor Tyler Durden, with the two aiming to reclaim humanity and free the corporate slaves from their IKEA-induced stupor. Immense in stylistic and anarchic ambition, unstoppable in its violent vision and awash with soap, Fight Club is THE manliest film of all time. Anyone who disagrees? I’ll meet you at… well… we’re not supposed to talk about it.
Manliest moment: Jarod Leto gets a face full of fist and is pounded into a pulpy, bloody mess.
Source: shiznit.com