Alumni share: What was your favorite movie in college?
Surprise: “Star Wars” didn’t take the top spot. Find out what the most popular movie was, and other films Buckeyes loved during their days on campus.
My pick: 1999’s “The Matrix.” The special effects, the character Trinity, Keanu Reeves—they all wowed me. A few of the 407 alumni who answered this question agreed. But the No. 1 answer? A tie between 1978’s “Animal House” (“How could it be anything else?” asks Robert Nielson ’80 MD) and 1967’s “The Graduate” (“After a rough first couple of semesters, it was a bit of a wake-up call to get focused,” says Philip Helal ’86, who saw the film for the first time in the old Ohio Union).
Here are more movies Buckeyes enjoyed.
“‘Love Story,’ hands down! My fiancé and I saw it right after we got engaged. To this day, I cannot listen to its theme without remembering the night Mark proposed. Happily, our love story lasted longer than Jenny and Oliver’s—36 glorious years of marriage, until I lost my husband to cancer.”
Dorie-Ellen Eisenman ’72
“My most memorable movie, perhaps not my favorite, was ‘Psycho.’ It came out while we were in summer school, and it frightened one of my friends so much, she was afraid to go into the shower on our floor by herself. In fact, she ended up quitting summer school and didn’t return until fall. It was certainly a frightening movie by any stretch of the imagination!”
Janet Angiulli ’61
“‘Set It Off’ (right)
‘Love Jones’
‘Soul Food’
‘Love & Basketball’”
Jenn Coates ’00
“‘Young Frankenstein.’ One of Mel Brooks’ all-time classics.”
Jeffrey Franklin ’73
“While Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen and the Beatles hit the theaters between 1962 and ’65, and the ‘blockbuster’ hit ‘Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine’ was hard to beat, my favorite film was ‘The Music Man.’ My mother got me hooked on musicals when I was young. This movie has songs that get stuck in your head for hours … some for days.”
Larry Rummell ’65
“A group of guys and girls (about 20) went to ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ every weekend on North High Street. This is an interactive movie, where the viewers memorize the lines and make comments throughout the movie. There is a time warp dance, newspapers to hold over your head in the rain (‘The Lantern’). So much fun.”
Randy Motter ’86
“‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ (the book was better)”
Anita Gangidine ’77
“One of my very first memories as a Freshman was piling into our third-floor RA’s dorm room in Houck House to watch ‘Pitch Perfect’ when it released on DVD in 2012. It was the best way to bond with my new friends as I navigated being away from home for the first time.”
Michaela Wells ’15
“‘E.T.’”
Dorene Theil ’83
“‘To Kill a Mockingbird’”
Mary Jo Weisenburger ’63
“‘Dead Poets Society.’ I don’t know how many times my roommate and I watched it, but we were both English majors and that movie still resonates!”
Becky Shrader ’92
“‘The Bodyguard’ with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. While it may not be a cinematic masterpiece, my roommates and I saw it together and were obsessed with the soundtrack. Lots of great memories surrounding that movie.”
Annette Perry ’97
“‘Pulp Fiction.’ Quotes abound in this movie.”
Akeek Bhatt ’98
“‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’”
Holly Conner ’06
“‘An Officer and a Gentleman’ was released just before my senior year. Seeing Richard Gere in dress whites was a small influence on my decision to accept a commission in the U.S. Navy upon graduation.”
Christian Stallsmith ’83
“‘Dirty Dancing’ and ‘Footloose,’ I can’t decide between those two.”
Marla Gross ’91 M
“When I was in college on north campus, oftentimes in the spring they would show a movie outdoors. My favorites were the old Westerns, the so-called spaghetti Westerns with Clint Eastwood and other Westerns with John Wayne and so on. I had never seen any of them at home.”
Michael T. Fleming ’73
“That’s easy—‘Star Wars’ in 1977. No one had seen anything like it at the time and what came afterwards became iconic.”
Michael O’Connell ’81, ’85 MD
