What is it with "It's a Wonderful Life"? In the USA it seems to have become as much a staple of Crhistmas as the Queen's Speech is in the UK - maybe more so.
I remember spending one Christmas just outside Chicago, and I swear you could have watched the film 24 hours a day by hopping rom channel to channel. It is a wonderful tearjerker though.
But, good grief, only one "Citizen Kane" and no "Casablanca" so far?
Shame on you all! For a film that I can (and do) watch a couple of times a year, "Casablanca" has to be the one. It's simple, corny and always moves me to tears - but that's maybe because Ingrid Bergman has to be the most beautiful woman to have graced the screen (until maybe Juliette Binoche and Beatrice Dalle...), and thus Rick's selflessness is so much the more poignant. Particularly as I always thought Victor Laszlo was a bit of a drip. Pah, women!!
In terms of cult films that you tend to remember vast chunks of dialogue, there's the Python epics from my schooldays, the wonderful "Withnail and I" and - beloved of every English schoolboy in the Seventies - If.
But, for sheer take-your-breath away impact, the best film I ever saw was years ago when they re-edited the Abel Gance "Napoleon". That is some film!