Live Poll: IMDb Poll Board Movies That Awoke Your Passion For Cinema

Joe,

For your consideration:
Fantasia (1940)

Wow, that will be a hard one, to be honest. One one hand I'm a film fan with almost no boundaries as to what that means (big budget, low budget, no budget, b movies, cult favorites, oddities, commercials and music videos - I value everything). On the other hand, it's really hard to pick just one movie. Although... One of my earliest memories about films is from when I was two years old. I can trace quite a few movies as seen approximately in 1993-1994, but only one has a more or less concrete date: my parents taped The Terminator (1984) from a TV showing which was on 3rd or 4th of May of 1994 and the next day I first saw it when my parents were re-watching it and cutting away the commercials. It positively blew me away then and it still amazes me now. I never get bored of it even after spending like half-a-year accounting the most accurate bodycount of the movie and titular antagonist's screentime (I've pretty much seen this movie frame-by-frame a few times). Which turned out to be 26 minutes and 8 seconds, of which only 16 minutes are of first-billed Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's some movie magic for you: one of cinema's most memorable characters is only there for less then 20 minutes but you feel his presence throughout the movie constantly, as well as a really unexpected and stylish kind of existential dread.  

I really can't answer this question. But I'll throw out El Mariachi (1992) into the mix which was (most likely) the first subtitled foreign language film I've ever seen. Rented it when I was in the army. 

Always loved going to the movies growing up. But this opened my eyes to other things than mainstream Hollywood and dubbed Japanese monster movies.

Please correct:
All of us here love the cinema. The IMDb Poll Board Members have chosen the film that awoke their passion for cinema. Which of these movies awoke your passion for cinema? 

My choice:
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

One of the first movies that made a deep impression to me was Taxi Driver (1976).

As far back as I can remember, I always loved movies, I would say that IMDb awoke my passion for movies not a movie in particular... maybe there's a film that made me love movies with a little extra something of dedication but right now the only name that springs to my mind is IMDb.

Nice poll idea. This suggestion made me think very hard. When I was young I loved a couple of films very much, but at that time I didn't had passion for movies in general. It's really hard to say when it started. My pick is Mulholland Drive (2001). That movie fascinated me. I loved the style and the mystery and I wanted to understand the movie. After that I started reading about David Lynch, Eraserhead, etc., and I guess since then I never stopped reading, searching and watching movies.

Paths of Glory

I love this idea. I had been thinking about doing something like this for a while but I couldn't quite frame it, which you've done very well. Oh, this makes me think of so many of those first great movies that I saw at the right age to set my enthusiasm on fire, wow. It makes me very nostalgic and renews my appreciation for cinema and some specific films, as well. I'm going to have to deliberate a bit before I choose one but bravo for doing this. 

Titanic.