It takes a long time to run down a list of 100 films, especially when those films are supposed to the ones you need to see before you die.
But with this column, I complete my list.

This final 10 involves films with characters who find themselves caught in an essential conundrum, not always of their own making.

I call it Living an Illusion.

91, “Dances With Wolves” (1990): Kevin Costner directed and starred in this film about an American soldier, still affected by his service in the Civil War, who comes to think differently about how the Army is treating the Indians of the Great Plains.

92, “Jurassic Park” (1993): All John Hammond wanted to do was to create a place where dinosaurs could roam. What he got, thanks to Steven Spielberg, was a park full of murderous velociraptors and T. Rexes.

93, “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006): Mexican director knows that childhood itself is an illusion. So when a child is witness to a situation as horrific as the Spanish Civil War, it should come as no surprise that she will see it in nightmarish terms.

94, “Midnight Cowboy” (1969): Self-delusion is something we all engage in. In this adaptation of James Leo Herlihy’s novel, director John Schlesinger shows us how Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) try to survive theirs.

95, “The Wizard of Oz” (1939): How many of us have wished to escape a bad situation by clicking the heels on our red-ruby slippers? Victor Fleming’s fantasy shows us the wonder that are on the other side of the rainbow.

96, “Chariots of Fire” (1981): If the unseen restraints of Britain’s class system weren’t at the very heart of this examination of the 1924 Olympics, then Hugh Hudson’s dreamlike style – all slo-mo and Vaangelis score – would be.

97, “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (2007): Even so-called heroes aren’t always the great men we think they are. This is the lesson that, thanks to director Andrew Dominik, Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) learns too late.

98, “Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb” (1964): The notion that we could survive nuclear war has always been a topic for debate. If books by, say, Nevil Shute or Cormac McVarthy don’t make the ridiculousness of that argument well enough, this Stanley Kubrick film certainly does.

99, “Some Like It Hot” (1959): This Billy Wilder film might be take the notion of living an illusion most literally. Other than its essential qualities, though, it belongs here because of Joe E. Brown’s willing refusal to face reality.

100, “The Children of Paradise” (1945): One of the great films of the 20th century, this Marcel Carné study of life in 1830s Paris is famous for how it explores the meaning of love. But its very making, which came during German occupation of World War II, is a testament to the enduring nature of art at all costs.

One of my favorite film genres is the post-apocalypse thriller.

You know the kind of film I mean. It’s where something horrible happens – a plague, maybe, or nuclear war – and then we follow a group of characters as the world struggles to survive.

As the seventh section of my 10-part compilation of 100 Films That You Need to See Before You Die (a subject heading that I borrowed, inadvertantly, from my friend and colleague Bob Glatzer), I’m using that theme as a basis. But in my usual eclectic manner, I’m expanding it to include not just the end of society as we know it but the whole realm of hopes, dreams, desires – even life itself.

I’ve collected everything under the heading The End of Everything:

And onward goes our list of 100 worthy films. This section, 51 through 60, tackles the wild world of the psychopath, which earns it the theme of “Seriously in need of a shrink”:

“The Dark Knight” (2008): Sure, he comes from a cartoon. And there is something fascinating about the way Heath Ledger plays him. But Christopher Nolan’s depiction of The Joker helps make “The Dark Knight” stand out from so many other would-be superhero flicks by the weight of its sheer sickness.

“Psycho” (1960): From the shower scene to the final pull-away, Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates is someone we just can’t stop watching. That’s the problem, though. Because when your attention is on him, Alfred Hitchcock makes sure that Mother Bates is lurking somewhere close by.

“Full Metal Jacket” (1987): In adapting Gus Hasford’s novel “The Short-Timers,” Stanley Kubrick made madness seem ordinary. Except, of course, when Private Pyle (Vincent D’Onofrio) picks up his M-14, inserts a couple of rounds … and says hey to his drill sergeant (R. Lee Ermy).

“Frankenstein” (1931): If only his creator hadn’t rejected him, Dr. Frankenstein’s creature (Boris Karloff) might not have felt it necessary to snap the neck of every human he encounters. James Whale made sure that sense of rejection was epic.

“M” (1931): Long before he became typecast in Hollywood, Peter Lorre played the strange child killer in Fritz Lang’s expressionistic masterpiece. Never before had evil seemed so sadly pathetic.

“Cool Hand Luke” (1967): He began as a pretty boy, but Paul Newman had the talent to break out of that rut. He showed that much by playing the lead role in Stuart Rosenberg’s story of a prison-farm inmate who can eat 50 eggs and inspire his fellow prisoners but just can’t knuckle under to anyone.

“Fargo” (1996): It’s Steve Buscemi who ends up in the woodchipper, but we could debate all day over who is the most messed-up character in this Coen brothers neo-noir. Favorite line (delivered by Frances McDormand): “I’m not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work, there, Lou.”

“There Will Be Blood” (2007): He grimaces instead of smiles, and his inner torment is as vast as the great inland California desert. Truth is, the brutal oilman Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis), brought to big screen by the great Paul Thomas Anderson, couldn’t be fixed by a gaggle of Dr. Phils.

“Taxi Driver” (1976): Picture Robert De Niro standing before a mirror, saying, “You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?” Then imagine spending nearly two hours prowling through the strangeness called Travis Bickle’s mind. Martin Scorsese can – and he made sure that we did, too.

“Blue Velvet” (1986): When Jeffrey does the duckwalk, when Dorothy takes off her clothes, when Sandy twists her mouth into the shape of a pretzel, it’s not clear just how far into his trademark bizarro world that David Lynch is going to take us. The Dennis Hopper dons his mask, begins pounding Pabst Blue Ribbon, and we find out.

Below: Daniel Day Lewis plays the brooding, brutal oilman Daniel Plainview in P.T. Anderson’s masterpiece “There Will Be Blood.”

Photo by Associated Press

So we continue with the third installment of the Top 100 Movies That You Need to See Before You Die – though, yes, that opens up a whole philosophical question regarding exactly what movies will be available after death.

I would hope that would include all of them – except, of course, for “Porky’s II” and most everything made in France. :)

Anyway, I’ve always been drawn to stories featuring the lonely hero, regardless of how that term is defined. Sometimes we’re talking about true loners. Other times we’re talking about representatives of a dying lifestyle. In all ways, though, we’re talking about standing up for something that’s right – even if it takes time for our protagonist to get there.

Let’s start with …

“Alien” (1979) – Ridley Scott’s contribution to this sci-fi-based series introduces us to Ellen Ripley, superbly played by Sigourney Weaver. Although Ripley showed up in three sequels, and her greatest moment is arguably in James Cameron’s 1986 follow-up “Aliens,” she shows here her abilities not only to buck peer pressure but also to, ultimately, survive when all those around her are becoming like individual Cheetos to a race of acid-eating nightmare creatures.

In a class that I took in graduate school at the University of Oregon, I was asked to compile a list of my favorite 10 films. After laboring over for a full evening, I turned in a list of my favorite – at the time – 16 filmmakers, with up to three films following each name.

So paring things down to a Top 10 is pretty difficult. So following on the list of summer reads that I offer below, I thought I offer the following 10 movies that I find particularly intriguing.

I call it Just When You Thought You’d Seen Everything …

“A Clockwork Orange” (1971) – Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ novel brings a bit of the old ultraviolence to the big screen in a way that, for maybe the first time, made violence seem … well, cool. Hum along now, “I’m singin’ in the rain …”

“Irreversible” (2002) – Gaspar Noé, no favorite of critics, takes a look at a single evening, told mostly backward, revolving around the brutal rape of a woman and the even more violent aftermath. Look beyond the most graphic images and you’ll spot a poignant, if fatalistic, message. Can you say sword of Damocles?

“Boogie Nights” (1997) – This is the movie that introduced us to the genius that is Paul Thomas Anderson. It’s an epic look at the human struggle, told through characters who work – irony alert – in the porn industry. And was that really Mark Wahlberg letting it all hang out?

“Raging Bull” (1980) – Only Martin Scorsese (or maybe P.T. Anderson) would tell a story about an irredeemably violent man, the boxer Jake LaMotta, and his tendency to let his more brutal instincts leak out over everyone in his life. And it’s in gorgeous black and white.

“Oldboy” (2003) – Korean filmmaker Chan-Wook Park channels Franz Kafka in telling the story of a man, imprisoned in a cheap hotel room for 15 years without explanation, who gets released only to encounter a deeper horror. This is one twisted cinematic trip into the void.

“Dogville” (2003) – One of the more interesting/confounding/irritating/maddening/blazingly talented filmmakers of his generation, Danish-born Lars von Trier films a stage play about a woman, seeking refuse, who is wronged by everyone and everything. And then the worm turns.

“Celebration” (1998) – Another Dogma director (the school of Lars von Trier), Thomas Vinterberg tells the story of a family reunion that is about as festive as a zombie stomp. Think “Home for the Holidays” meets “Running with Scissors” but with an even more perverted sense of humor.

“Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) – Arthur Penn’s ballad of the 1930s-era bank robbers introduced America to the kind of big-screen violence that has since become commonplace. It’s always good to see where things originated. Make sure to watch all the way through the machine-gun, uh, climax.

“Memento” (2000) – Leonard has short-term memory loss. His wife was murdered, and he wants to find out who did it. He tattoos information on his body that he hopes will … uh, what was I saying? This note on my wrist says, “Leonard has short-term memory …”

“The Vanishing” (1988) – A man, investigating his girlfriend’s disappearance, finds out more than he ever wanted to know. In adapting Tim Krabbé’s novel, George Sluizer came up with one of the most uncompromising, horrific endings ever. Note: Do not rent Sluizer’s 1993 American remake, which is the biggest sell-out in cinematic history.

And that’s it. I’ll come up with other lists as I think of them.

Below: Robert DeNiro stars as Jake LaMotta in Martin Scorsese’s 1980 masterpiece “Raging Bull.”

Associated Press photo