Top 6: Movies Where the Cut You See Is Important
For Episode 22, our Top 6 list is about movies where it's important which cut you see of it. These days, director's cuts and special editions are getting more and more popular. For many of these, it doesn't matter a whole lot which version you see. One version of a movie might give you more or less than another, but both versions are essentially the same experience. But there are several cases where different cuts of the same movie are vastly different experiences. Here are the six that matter most to each of us.
We missed a couple of high-profile examples, and surely there are others that are not as high-profile but make just as much difference. What are your favorites?
As always, we recommend listening to the episode before reading further.
Stephen
- Touch of Evil (1958) (see the 112-minute, 1998 restored version)
- Blade Runner (1982) (see the director's cut)
- The Big Sleep (1946) (see the theatrical cut, not the preview version)
- Cinema Paradiso (1989) (see the Miramax cut, running about 123 minutes, rather than the longer versions)
- The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (I, II, III) (see the Extended Editions)
- The Star Wars Trilogy (IV, V, VI) (see the Non-Special Editions)
Sam
- Once Upon a Time In America (1984) (see the 229-minute cut)
- The Star Wars Trilogy (IV, V, VI) (see the Non-Special Editions)
- 1776 (1972) (see the 166-minute DVD cut)
- The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (I, II, III) (see the Extended Editions)
- It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) (see one of the 180+ minute versions)
- Frankenstein (1931) (see the 1986 restoration)
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