What movies, TV shows, or books, defined you?
Along with your answers, state your approximate generation. GenZ, Millennial, GenX, Boomer, older, etc.
Discussion
Blade Runner, Happy days, Friends, Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte, I was born in the 70s, I don't know what generation it is..
《Tao Te Ching》,《 Steve Jobs》, 《Lessons from History》
Lyn was amazing on the weekend
Terry Pratchett's Discworld boos shaped pretty much how I see the world now.
Courage the Cowardly Dog & Samurai Jack fundamentally defined evil for me,
& almost all the anime I watch had some impact on me - but the ones that made me cry were Twin Spica & Wolf's Rain. Arjuna was a mind-bender (again on good/evil).
I'm not sure of the year cut-offs but I think I'm a millenial
Art of War ~Sun Tzu
Gen X'er
Godfather ...
Back to the Future,Knight Rider/MacGyver, Charlotte’s Web- Gen X
Band Of Brothers. Millennial.
Everything by Kubrick and The Simpsons. OG millennial.
Millennial: Lord of the Rings. Ren & Stimpy. Lost.
Video games should be included: Final Fantasy 6,7,8,10
Into the Wild, Iron Giant, Red Rising, Anatomy of the State - millennial
Terminator. The Gods Must Be Crazy. Gen X
Movies: Return of the Jedi, Hook & The Matrix
TV Shows: Cosby Show, Married w/Children & Family Matters (closely followed by The Fresh Prince of Belair)
Books: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Vampire Lestat & Heir to the Empire
My year of birth overlaps both Gen X & Millennial, depending on which chart you use. But I ID as Gen X dammit‼️ 😅
I'll go with 2 novels Neuromacer by William Gibson, and Harlot's Ghost by Norman Mailer Gen X
Star Wars & Bladerunner, Firefly (greatest TV show ever) & V (visitors), Atlas Shrugged & The Moon Is Harsh Mistress, and genX
Also genX and I second all of these…especially Firefly. Also more Heinlein like Stranger in a Strange Land and Farnham’s Freehold. And of course, No Treason.
All great choices. Also partial to Starship Troopers (even like the movie for other reasons, don't hate me). And a novel by Michael Z Williamson called Freehold.
And as Lazarus Long would say...
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
TV series: Game of Thrones, Prison Break, Dr House.
Movies: Sicario, Lord of War (Nic Cage)
Books: The God Delusion, The Bitcoin Standard
Gen: Millenial
Mr Bean.
Oh boy and now I remember all the britcoms. Mr Bean excellent, black adder, are you being served, Monty python, faulty towers, and one of Marie's people the Paul Hogan show
Older Millennial.
Naussica of the Valley of the Wind. It was my first ever encounter with science fiction. I was maybe 4 or 5 years old. I was enraptured
Babylon 5. I grew up with Star Trek, and Star Wars, and they were ok. B5's long overarching plot and character development blew me away. G'Kar was always my favorite.
The Wheel of Time. I found the books in the midst of a lot of teenage turmoil and mental health crisis in the late 90's. I took several key traits among my favorite characters and internalized them. Rand's refusal to hurt women, Perrin's methodical approach and integrity, Egwene's grit and work ethic, etc. It helped me consciously and intentionally form the rough basis for my values.
Didn't read the other two but Babylon 5 is a solid choice.
Still gives me chills
“No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once, we will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free.” - G'Kar
Same. I think I need to rewatch the series soon, it's been too long.
Braveheart, Harry Potter, South Park, early Joe Rogan podcasts, all of Bill Mollisons works
Gen Z
Nothings really. But I can relate some to John Wick..😊
Defined me? Hmm. Definitely forgetting some, but here’s a start:
Movies: Star Wars, The Matrix
TV: Saved By The Bell, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Books: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Tao of Pooh
I am an Elder Millennial, if it weren’t obvious by my listing of Saved by the Bell.
Northern Exposure.
Bladerunner.
Rebel Code.
Gen X.
Actually been doing another watch of Northern Exposure recently
Hard to point out any specific, but what defined me the most by giving a comprehensive and deep insight of views shaping today's society was reading ~150 pieces of classical and contemporary literature (1860-1980) in my mid twenties. Gen X
Quoting my post here to give my answers, as an older millennial:
-My defining movies, given the idea that things that define people usually occur as kids, are the top Disney movies like Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, Aladdin, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tangled, and Treasure Planet (even though that one is not as popular). Disney movies were pretty based back then. The Matrix (my all-time favorite), Fight Club (I have critiques for it, but it had to be made), The Dark Knight overall trilogy, Training Day, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle. And then a host of random stuff. Jurassic Park, The Departed, Constantine, a whole host of 1990s and 2000s stuff, etc. Many others. Movies made in the 2010s or thereafter tend to fall flat for me. I watched the Marvel series from Iron man to Endgame and grew tired of superhero movies, but liked the Russo Brothers versions of it that advanced the core plot (Winter Soldier, Infinity War, Endgame, etc, with Infinity War being the high point). Every Marvel movie after Endgame doesn't interest me since I already stuck through it and finished the arc I started with Iron Man in 2008.
-Defining TV shows for me were fewer. Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Fullmetal Alchemist, The Last Airbender, Legend of Kora, and the DC Animated Universe (1992-2006). And then others were later recommended to me at a point where they were no longer defining for me since they were in hindsight, but were interesting. Sopranos was good but nihilistic. Succession was good but nihilistic. Game of Thrones was great but out-ran its material and didn't stick the landing. Scrubs was amazing. Breaking Bad was fucking awesome but I don't know how to relate to anyone there and don't know what I took from the series other than don't cook meth. I plan to finish Attack on Titan in the next couple months, but so far I like that.
For books I like Mistborn series, Stormlight Archives series, Gentleman Bastards series, The Blade Itself series, etc. I might like the Kingkiller series if the author ever finishes it.
I'm very particular about my fiction. I clearly trend toward speculative fiction, either sci-fi or fantasy. Because I spend like 70 hours per week analyzing current financial markets and stuff like that, and so in my fiction I don't want boring pretentious emo dramas in our real world, I want unique stuff. I want things that give me new worlds, new rulesets, and build heroic stories from there. If something happens in our boring real world, it better be top 10% material. Like Michael Clayton or Training Day or something of that drama caliber. Every time someone tries to make a drama that is not as good as those, I couldn't bother to care.
Often someone recommends something that is supposed to be deep but it's just pretentious instead. Most modern deepness is just pretentiousness, imo. I often find myself liking more straightforward plots but with outstanding top-tier execution for their genre, like don't give me bad philosophy and virtue-signaling, but give me some good struggles and a plot that doesn't contradict itself and that is well-acted and well-filmed. The sheriff in a western, but 100% well executed. The hero in a fantasy, but 100% well executed. The hero in a sci-fi, but 100% well executed. The drama that is 100% well-acted and isn't emo. I like the very top-tier of each drama, quality over quantity, especially with a heroic aspect or otherwise some non-emo stuff going on.
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Movie- Blood Diamond - never had or wanted a diamond or gem since then
TV Show - none really but enjoyed Top Boy
Books- The Alchemist, and The Celestine Prophecy
Gen X here
One of my favorite series is from L.E. Modesitt The recluse series, it’s fantasy but the magic is based on manipulating order or chaos. It definitely challenges some stereotypes, and the character growth and development is great.
Not a defining series , being a Gen Xer… But even reading it as I was older, it helped form some of my current perspectives
x
movies: logans run, westworld, body snatchers, omega man, nightmare on elm street, evil dead, jojimbo, hanzo, rear window, north by northwest, vertigo, how to steal a million, terminator, highlander, bloodsport, matrix, fight club, ringu, oldboy
tv: tripods, hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the invaders, berserk, death note, danganronpa
books: it, running man, lord of the rings, channel dreams
games: silent hill, persona
No emo - you must hate Kdrama then 😆
Some Korean movies are good, but they’re usually the grittier ones. Others are unbelievably sappy.
I love Korean culture, lived there, and want to watch more of their movies and shows, but inevitably they get to an absurdly emotional scene and I just can’t take it.
Is this low key KYC?
I have a book for every year I can remember. This question by itself is impossible for me to answer without some type of equation— lol. But I’ll share one from my past that I thought of recently. About a year before I conceived & gave birth to my son in my early 20’s— I read The Alchemist. This novel & The Witch of Portobello are my favorite Paulo Coelho books. I was born in 1977.
Gen X but nearly Boomer! Novels - Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and Slaughterhouse-5. Films - has to be The Matrix.
Old Millennial…
Movies - Rounders, Fight Club, Matrix, Con Air, Brave Heart, Dumb and Dumber, Caddy Shack, What About Bob?
TV - Lost, Seinfeld, The Office, The Wire
Books - Lairs Poker, Chronicles of Narnia, Catcher in the Rye, Killers Angels, Atlas Shrugged, The Plague, Harry Potter Series
Almost included Catcher in the Rye also. I love it. As compelling a character as Holden is, he was always an anti-hero to me. Someone NOT to be.
Books: The Fountainhead, The Road, Broken Money
Movies: The Search for Animal Chin
Tv: Mr Robot, Everything and Nothing
Gen X
Seinfeld, South Park, The X Files, Tarantino movies, hard sci-fi books
TV shows: Twin Peaks, X Files, Twilight Zone, Avengers (British, 1960s, on DVD)
Movies: Blade Runner, Return of the Jedi, Three Colours: Red, In the Mood for Love, Interstellar, The Garden of Words, ET, The Last Unicorn
Books: Snow Crash, Atlas Shrugged, The Vintage Book of Amnesia Fiction, and waves of books on different mystic and spiritual traditions (shamanism, Sufism, and others)
Gen X
Something I'm surprised is not mentioned is the old series The Prisoner.... I've only recently saw it so it wasn't on my list. But I've got to say after watching it I felt like every show dealing with the nature of reality, simulation, or prison is just a take on that show.
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa, Millennial/GenZ
Growing up in Portugal in the eighties and early nineties, the choice wasn’t that big. The Knight Rider and The A-team are obvious choices but I really enjoyed early British series like The Saint and The Avengers (the series not the Marvel one) and Mission Impossible (also the American series)! Good old days of golden tv series
Baby Boomers
Meet John Doe, 2001: A Space Odyssey...
Monty Python, Only Fools and Horses...
Alan Ford...
But, music defined me more than anything.
It started with evergreen from the 50's, Bossa Nova, Classical,... and is still going on (just can't state any music here, it would be a huge list).
Also sports. Basketball, soccer, athletics,...
Movies: Back To The Future, The Karate Kid, Pulp Fiction
TV shows: Frasier, Breaking Bad, Six Feet Under
Books: Bible, Blue Like Jazz, Mere Christianity
Bands: Soundgarden, Pumpkins, +Līve+
Generation, schmeneration.
Star Trek,Star Wars,Blues Brothers,Alf,Rocky,Rambo,Terminator,Dallas,Miami Vice
Boomer
Defined is tricky, since those all came later in life. These all had a major impact at various points, though:
Books: His Dark Materials trilogy, The Fountainhead, Man's Search for Meaning, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, Non-violent Communication: A Language of Life
TV Shows: Firefly, Dragonball Z, The first season of Heroes...not much else comes to mind
Movies: V for Vendetta, The Matrix, Ferriss Bueller, Enemy of the State, Spy Game, Fight Club, A Knight's Tale, Minority Report, Charlie's Angels (the Cameron Diaz one)
given your current profile pic and name I would have expected to find startrek somewhere in your list
1984, Anatomy of the state, The power of now and Siddharta. Millennial
All of them I was exposed to, to various degrees. My generation basically raised itself before social media
GenX - the forgotten generation 🤣
I'm late Gen X. Movies/TV shows: Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, Robocop, Transformers, DBZ, lots of action movies, later Matrix, Donnie Darko and Fight Club.
GenX;
-Godfather, Bonds, Total Recall, Pulp Fiction, Forest Gump
-Knight Rider, MacGyver
-Noble House, Sherlock Holmes
Edge-case boomer. The Drifters (Michener), Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged & Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (Ayn Rand). StarTrek. Tommy by The Who, The Doors, Bob Marley, Cold Fact - Rodrigues.
Gen X here. First book that pops to mind is Robinson Crusoe. The effort he put in to making a life from nothing motivated me to learn how things worked and gathering the skills to do the same thing. I spent many an hour building useful things for my parents home and later my home. Not used much in my current work but the mindset helps me daily.
Late X. Early: Tom Swift, Ender's Game, Dune, Larry Niven. Later, Atlas Shrugged, The Dispossessed, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Hemingway, Harry Potter, Hunger Games. NOT Catcher in the Rye, it's navel-gazing cruft that Joyce did far better.
OG Star Wars trilogy, OG Star Trek movies and TNG/DS9 series, ET, Alien(s). The Big Lebowski, the Shawshank/Pulp/Gump Oscar race, Saving Private Ryan, The Matrix, Old School, Gladiator, Bladerunner, Braveheart. We lived through the 2nd golden age of historical epics and the first of big budget scifi, a well as some truly great soundtracks.
We largely grew up in the great television desert but X Files, Seinfeld, That 70s Show, Friends, and early ER stand out. Band of Brothers is the best thing ever put on a screen of any form imho.
Seinfeld, the big Lebowski, Bravehart. I’m late GenX/early millennial.
Books are awesome. So many perspectives documented and shelved away (pre-digital) to slowly slip into nothingness.
I’ve haphazardly built my collection from (HS &) college reads, hobbies & interests, professional needs, and instant gratifications / guilty pleasures. It’s been my life’s work, and operating my daily fiat-mining from within the stacks satisfies my earliest yearnings to be surrounded by knowledge.
Have I read all these? Hell no. Do I still aspire to? Hah! I know that time is the most limited resource and that most of this material does not make the cut for my attention. Still, they look nice, m’kay?
GenX
This section comes from my bachelors degree in communications and subsequent MFA in filmmaking (wtf was younger me thinking?!) As a lad I was way into McLuhan, Shanks, and a bunch of essays on television’s evolution (c.1985) and the new category of “blockbusters”. Understanding where “new media” came from, what it had become, how to create it, and its power over humankind. 🤯
I’ve kept up only slightly with that fascination in recent decades (alas) and am looking for more contemporary tales on media, starting w mainstream and working to some edges. Who’s got suggestions? 
The Social Network, BoJack Horseman, Great Expectations; GenZ.
Millennial (1988)
I’ve tried to separate “stuff I enjoyed” from “stuff that defined me” but probably both failed at times and also forgotten some things that did help shape me.
Child:
When I was still really young, I asked for a real Bible instead of my children’s Bible “so I could read the rest of it” and read it repeatedly until it literally fell apart. I also read a college textbook about the chemical elements over and over.
Māori, Chinese, Russian, and Western European folktales.
I was already obsessed with self-sufficiency and science fiction. Audubon field guides, several nonfiction books about wilderness survival, Hatchet, My Side of the Mountain, the first Boxcar Children book, The Girl Who Owned a City, Goosebumps, Animorphs, Others See Us, Dragonriders of Pern, choose your own adventure books.
Star Trek TNG, Voyager, and DS9. I particularly loved (still do) sci-fi where a really different kind of world or way of thinking was being explored. The more alien the perspective and the more it stretched my brain, the more I liked it, and I firmly believe this helped grow my ability to consider other points of view or ways of being and question assumptions.
Teen:
Rumi, Bradbury, Vonnegut, A Fire Upon the Deep, C. S. Lewis nonfiction and science fiction, Oliver Sacks’ books and lots of others about neuroscience and cognition.
Because I hated them so much, I Kissed Dating Goodbye and Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus along with similar books radicalized me even further than I already was against fear-based parenting, sexism, and people adding to the Bible.
Adult:
Natural Rights — A New Theory (Fuerle), Heirs Together (Gundry), I Am a Strange Loop, Lesswrong.org, Greg Egan, Neal Stephenson, Solaris, Alice Norton, Daphne DuMaurier, Borges, Mother Earth News magazine.
Nice try, CIA. 😅
Born in 86 so older millennial.
As far as "defining" goes, by far, the answer is The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien created a rich enough world that it fascinated me when I discovered it around the age of 14 and I still get something out of it on rereads today. Listened to the Andy Serkis audiobooks with my son earlier this year.
Also read through all of the Shannara series and The Wheel of Time in my formative years.
I've read and enjoyed all the other fantasy series you listed except Stormlight, but not until I was in my early thirties.
My other favorite series is Dresden Files. Currently working my way through the audiobook versions, having already read the printed books in the past.
Akira.
Battlestar Galactica
Can only a few movies, books, bands, etc., define you? It’s an ongoing, never-ending process. I wouldn’t know where to start and where to finish.
But if someone points a gun at my head, I’d say Metallica, Terry Pratchett, Fight Club, Mr. Robot. Which would translate, I guess, to a 2x fucked up energetic person with an absurd sense of humor.
- Millennial, wannabe X
Gen X. Glengarry Glen Ross, The Mechanic, Once Upon A Time In The West, Fight Club, They Live, Terminator. 1984, Animal Farm, Tuck Everlasting, Anthem. Married With Children, Emergency! Homicide, The Wire.
Boomer.
2001 A Space Odyssey
The Lives of Others
Breaking Bad
1st Blade runner - Boomer.
GenZ
Books: The selfish Gene, The Moral Animal. Only two things have been eye-opening, see through the matrix type concepts for me: Evolutionary Psychology, and Bitcoin.
Music: Radiohead, Pavement
Movies: Kubrick everything
Shows: Seinfeld, Star Trek TNG (lol)
genx. godfather part 2.
Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson by G. I. Gurdjieff. Generation X.
Gen Xer.
Matrix, V for vendetta, 1984, gulag archipelago.
Millennial, most of these were when I was about 16 but:
1. On the road - Keroauc
2. The Plague - Camus
3. Fight club - palahnuik
4. Saved by the bell - Zack morris taught me how to be cool, only to later find out he was a sociopath
(a) Der Fall Maurizius (The Maurizius Case), Jakob Wassermann.
(b) Cro-Magnon.
GenZ, the saylor series by nostr:npub15vzuezfxscdamew8rwakl5u5hdxw5mh47huxgq4jf879e6cvugsqjck4um changed everything & The Bitcoin Standard.
also these books 
Movies: Star Wars, Goonies, Ghostbusters, and later on, Big Lebowski
TV: Transformers, Voltron, and later on, Friends, Seinfeld, Star Trek.
Books: Dragonlance, Good Omens, Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, and later on, Connie Willis
Comics: Far Side, Garfield, Calvin & Hobbes
Generation: Late Gen X
Ferris Buellers Day Off, Family Ties (and all Michael J Fox tv and movies) - lots more but that’s a start - GenX
Hi Lyn, since yiu asked for approx generation etc. I wondered if you analyzed the responses to your question somehow? If so what was the result?
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