Best Hotel/Motel movies

Started by Reel, May 13, 2012, 11:48:42 PM

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Reel

watching Memento for the third time last night got me thinking about my favorite hotel movies. It reminded me that a lot more good movies are set in hotels than I'd realized, and in them the hotels are used to great effect in such different ways. In some cases the hotel is used to bridge the gap between our main characters and the outside world, so they can get out of themselves and have fun, ( Lost in Translation, Cedar Rapids ) in others, its function is to completely isolate them in seclusion ( The Shining, Psycho ). Hotels can serve a variety of purposes in our lives. I haven't stayed in many, but I always look forward to the experience, the best being when my aunt bought me my own room at a Sheraton in Cleveland and I stayed up all night smoking weed and running up the phone bill. The worst, hands down was the one room, no bathroom dive I had to share with my parents and sister on our trip to New York city, complete with bedbugs and tuna stank up and down the hallway. I'm sure you guys have your share of hotel stories, this thread can be for that too. First, I'll share with you my favorite hotel movies, in the order I like them and/or they kick ass the most.

1. The Shining
2. Psycho
3. Memento
4. No Country for Old Men
5. Hard Eight
6. Tape
7. Lost in Translation
8. The Innkeepers
9. Cedar Rapids
10. God Bless America

There ya go, list yours, throw some titles out there, it's your life. I don't know what the criteria for it being a hotel movie are besides the main characters spending a majority of the films running time in them.

My runners up ( because they're not that good ) are:

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Slums of Beverly Hills
Identity

Robyn

The Celebration and Lost in translation is the winners.

Sleepless

This is just off the top of my head so I may have to revise this list later, but my top three would be:

The Shining
Barton Fink
Lost in Translation
He held on. The dolphin and all the rest of its pod turned and swam out to sea, and still he held on. This is it, he thought. Then he remembered that they were air-breathers too. It was going to be all right.

pete

good call on The Celebration. also 2046, but that's more of a motel movie.

"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

Pubrick

What about last year at marienbad? Was that a hotel? Or just a rich people party in a palace..

Man I'm going to rewatch that. And if that counts then Gosford Park and Rules of the Game.

Actually i've just listed the best films from a whole different category: rich people hanging out in an estate.
under the paving stones.

72teeth

Sideways
i like the motel in Stranger than Fiction
Doctor, Always Do the Right Thing.

Yowza Yowza Yowza

ono

Memento wasn't set at a hotel.  A motel.  Big difference.  Totally different vibe, atmosphere, whatever.

Hard Eight featured both.

Tape was a motel, I'm pretty sure.

Maybe you think I'm splitting hairs, but it's really an important distinction to make.

72teeth

No Country is a motel too.

I think I like motel movies better..
i think i like motels better in general...

Pulp Fiction has a cool motel too
Doctor, Always Do the Right Thing.

Yowza Yowza Yowza

Reel

Yeah, I dig the down and dirty motel vibe more, too. If it was just a hotel thread, that'd be boring, so I'll have to include them both. Good to see a couple titles that I missed floating around.. Feel free to include any hotel/MOTEL scenes you find particularly awesome. I love the motel part of From Dusk til Dawn, and the beginning of The Devil's Rejects. Nothing like some good hotel horror. Okay, motel...

BB

A few that haven't been said yet...

Great:

Some Like It Hot
Grand Hotel

Okay:

Hotel Rwanda
Dirty Pretty Things
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

Not so good:

Maid in Manhattan
Dunston Checks In
Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Quote from: Pubrick on May 14, 2012, 01:01:17 PM
rich people hanging out in an estate.

The Exterminating Angel
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
The Remains of the Day (not one of the best, but still...)


Bonus, awesome hotel scenes:

Pillow talk in Punch Drunk Love
Blood in toilet in The Conversation
Drunk Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now

72teeth

Hotel Chevalier

..and KarlJan reminded me of the great motel scenes in Bonnie & Clyde
Doctor, Always Do the Right Thing.

Yowza Yowza Yowza

Reel

I'm staying in a hotel where I just looked up to notice a framed painting of a Magnolia above my bed. Good or bad omen?  :ponder:

socketlevel

not top of the list but i kinda like Bug too
the one last hit that spent you...

MacGuffin

Quote from: Reelist on September 11, 2012, 10:12:07 PM
I'm staying in a hotel where I just looked up to notice a framed painting of a Magnolia above my bed. Good or bad omen?  :ponder:

Bad if you're a blackjack dealer and volunteer firefighter who pilots an air tanker.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

InTylerWeTrust

Quote from: Reelist on September 11, 2012, 10:12:07 PM
I'm staying in a hotel where I just looked up to notice a framed painting of a Magnolia above my bed. Good or bad omen?  :ponder:

Heh... Great Omen, dude. 

Unless you're Kevin Smith.
Fuck this place..... I got a script to write.