10 Great 'Hang Out" Movies

Quentin Tarantino once described Howard Hawks' 1959 western Rio Bravo, starring John Wayne and Dean Martin, as a "hang out movie" because it's a movie you watch, not just because of its artistic qualities, but also so you can spend time with the characters. It's one of those phrases that once you hear it you realize how many of your most beloved films could be labelled as hang out movies, ones in which the characters start to feel like old friends. The more times you watch these films, the more you know these characters, the more a part of you they become. So, with that in mind, we've put together ten films that fit in with Tarantino's casual genre-making comment. Behold, the "hang out" movies...

10. Goodfellas

While the idea of hanging out with violent gangsters may not be everyone's idea of a good time, the genius of Martin Scorsese's 1990 masterpiece is how effectively it seduces you, much like young Henry Hill, and captures the excitement of this kind of lifestyle. We see the money these guys make, the extravagant lifestyle and we understand why Henry "always wanted to be a gangster" from the time he was a boy. The film is also so vividly and richly detailed that its world becomes a place you feel you are inhabiting, you feel are actually part of the "family." Like all great films, Goodfellas places you in to a different world than your own, and makes you understand it, maybe more than you'd like to.