Movie Must Haves

There are a few things that a movie must have in order to be great movie.  A great movie must first have a story that can suck the viewer in early.  Without a story worth telling a movie can not be great.  Movies like Goodfellas, Trainspotting, and A Clockwork Orange all have stories that would be interesting and worth viewing if they were being told through a puppet show.  Almost as important as the story, though, are the actors in the movie.  A great story is a great story no matter what, but the impact that the story has on the viewer in a movie is usually tied to the emotions the actors can accurately portray to the audience.  Personally, the story and the actors are what make a great movie.  The wrong actors can hurt a great story, and vice versa.  The combination of a great story and the right cast to tell it are practically unbeatable.  In the movie Goodfellas, we are supposed to believe that Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci are 21 year old men when in real life they were probably closer to 35 than 21.  But at the point in the movie when we are asked to take that leap of faith the story and the characters have us so intrigued that we go along with it, gladly.  There are other things that go into making a wow movie, but there are no two things that are more important than story and actors.