Your picks by alphabet: top 10 films starting with [T]

The Tenant
Three Colors: Red
Touchez Pas Au Grisbi
The Third Man
Taxi Driver

Tess
Time Stood Still (1959)
The Thing/ from Another World
To Sleep With Anger
Twister

Taxi Driver
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
There Will Be Blood
The Thing
Three Ages
To Be or Not to Be
A Touch of Sin
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
True Grit (2010)

I'm thinking of reading the novel first... I couldn't follow a thing with the 2011 film   though I could admire it's production value... What is your stance on that one? 

The Tree of Life
2001: A Space Odyssey
There Will Be Blood
12 Angry Men
Taxi Driver
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Toy Story
This Is Spinal Tap
The Third Man
Terminator 2: Judgment Day

My order of experience was

2011
1979
Book

I felt that the movie was okay. It is very confusing, but it does a decent job of condensing a very complex novel, IIRC. I didn't think it was anything especially worthwhile. I doubt I'd like it at all after the miniseries and book - the key to the story is the lamentation of it all (the final book in the trilogy - Smiley's People - sums up the sad pointlessness of it all in its final page), and by trying to cram so much plot into a single movie, you lose that futility that permeates the original story. It is much more of a strict, plot-driven whodunit, IIRC, while the book and miniseries are about George Smiley and what this betrayal means to him on a personal level.

A clip of my favorite one-scene wonder of all time, that gives a pretty good idea of what the show is like:



If you do like the minseries or book (you can experience either one first - although if you watch the show, you *will* picture a career best Alec Guinness as Smiley forever after), make sure to read Smiley's People as well. I'd venture to say that it is perhaps even better than TTSS. There is a second book in the trilogy - The Honourable Schoolboy - and it isn't bad, but isn't really necessary either (Smiley is hardly in it, and its importance in the whole story is pretty nonexistent). SP was also turned into a miniseries starring Guinness, and it is also very, very good.

But the director Simon Langton drops the ball a bit: The A-to-B mechanics of the plot are hard to follow (which is, admittedly, true of the book as well), most of the actors are struggling with exposition heavy dialogue and accents that are not native to them, and the photography of Pierce-Roberts is sorely missed (despite a higher budget and more locations, the whole production looks cheaper). That said, it is still an excellent story because the book is so damn good, and the returning cast members are all magnificent.

bro any version of Smiley I'll get would be an improvement over the one who shows up in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold! brilliant film (and book), but that actor looks just like the guy who runs a supermarket down our street... 

To be fair, that's pretty much how he's described in the books, isn't it? Just a dumpy, normal guy.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
There Will Be Blood (2007)
The Thing (1982)
Through a Glass Darkly (1961)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Touch of Evil (1958)
Traffic (2000)
True Grit (2010)
The Truman Show (1998)