100 Greatest Films - Your say...

Cafe Society
1

The Uk’s Channel Four presented its viewers choice of the 100 Greatest Films over this weekend and a full list of them can be found here

Top Fifteen:

I must say that while I agreed with many of those selected’s right to appear in such a list (in spite of my own prejudices), I did a double (nay, triple) take when I saw Gladiator in at number 6.

Good movie = Yes
Good special effects = Yes
Epic Scale = Yes
Number six in a list of 100 greatest movies??? Not for me…

Any one else have thoughts and opinions? Not just on Gladiator, but the list as a whole…

Gp

2

Interesting. Although I think it is too heavily weighed on recent movies. I did like the fact that movies that form a series tended to be put together. But, seriously, The Empire Strikes Back as number one ? It’s a good movie, but not THAT good.

3

Where is the Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Citizen Cain, and Casablanca? This list is MUCH too skewed towards recent movies. There is no way The Matrix, or Gladiator should be with 75 places of any of these old greats. This is why public opinion polls are crap. Most people can’t remember what they had for breakfast yesterday morning, let alone how good movies made over 50 years ago were.

4

I’ve bee receiving quite an education using as a video-rental shopping list Jonathan Rosenbaum’s list of 100 best American films, which I will post here in its entirety because the Reader now wants $1.95 to access the archived review it accompanies. (Note to mod: I’m not quoting the article, just the sidebar list, which I imagine is within the bounds of fair use.) [ul]11 x 14
Ace in the Hole/The Big Carnival
An Affair to Remember
Anatomy of a Murder
Avanti!
Bigger Than Life
Bride of Frankenstein
Broken Blossoms
Cat People
Christmas in July
Confessions of an Opium Eater
Dead Man
Do the Right Thing
Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer
Eraserhead
Foolish Wives
Force of Evil
Freaks
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Gilda
Greed
Hallelujah, I’m a Bum
Housekeeping
Intolerance
Johnny Guitar
Judge Priest
Killer of Sheep
Kiss Me Deadly
Last Chants for a Slow Dance
Laughter
Letter From an Unknown Woman
Lonesome
Love Me Tonight
Love Streams
Make Way for Tomorrow
Man’s Castle
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Meet Me in St. Louis
Mikey and Nicky
Monsieur Verdoux
My Son John
Nanook of the North
Panic in the Streets
Park Row
Point Blank
Real Life
Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania
Rio Bravo
Scarface
Scarlet Street
Scenes From Under Childhood
Shadows
Sherlock Jr.
Stars in My Crown
Stranger Than Paradise
Sunrise
Sylvia Scarlett
That’s Entertainment! III
The Barefoot Contessa
The Big Sky
The Black Cat
The Crowd
The Docks of New York
The General
The Great Garrick
The Heartbreak Kid
The Hustler
The Killing
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
The Ladies’ Man
The Lady From Shanghai
The Magnificent Ambersons
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Naked Spur
The Night of the Hunter
The Nutty Professor
The Palm Beach Story
The Phenix City Story
The Scarlet Empress
The Scenic Route
The Seventh Victim
The Shooting
The Shop Around the Corner
The Sound of Fury/Try and Get Me!
The Steel Helmet
The Strawberry Blonde
The Tarnished Angels
The Wrong Man
This Land Is Mine
Thunderbolt
To Sleep With Anger
Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son
Track of the Cat
Trouble in Paradise
Vinyl
Wanda
While the City Sleeps
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
Woodstock
Zabriskie Point[/ul]

5

Hmm, definitely reflects a British sensitivity. Worthy as they are, Kes and The Italian Job wouldn’t have a chance in hell of making a public top 100 list in the US.

I put no weight on the relative rankings in a list such as this anyway, as the results are subject to being heavily skewed by casual viewers who have seen relatively few films. Of course I have no way to back this up, but I question whether persons who have seen 3000 films are as likely to vote Star Wars Number 1 of All Time™ as those who have seen only 300.

Another thing I have noticed is that casual voters are relatively unforgiving of the technical compromises necessary with the less-sophisticated equipment used to make older films. Thus Gladiator is deemed to be “better” than Casablanca in this poll, even though I would argue that the triumph of a great script and performances over a small budget and the confines of a soundstage make the latter a far greater achievement.

At least it appears that despite critics’ constant complaints that special effects have destroyed story in films, audiences clearly will not accept as “good” a film that relies on effects at the expense of a coherent and interesting, if sometimes distressingly conventional (see Gladiator) story.

While I’m on my high horse, of the films I’ve seen on this list here are the ones that I could never consider for any personal top 100:

Shawshank Redemption
Galdiator (ah, but you guessed that, didn’t you)
ET
Fitzcarraldo
The Exorcist
The Jungle Book(!?)
Enter the Dragon

I won’t go into the ones I’d add, that’d take waaaay too long.

6

Take a look at the following list:

http://www.dcfilmsociety.org/rv_wendell200.htm

7

Here are my favorites. Many others are listed in this thread.
Drama:

Citizen Kane
Lawrence of Arabia
Ben Hur
The Misfits
Of Human Bondage
Educating Rita
Cool Hand Luke
Easy Rider
Born Free
Casablanca
To Have and Have Not
Gone With the Wind
The Grapes of Wrath
On the Waterfront
A Hatfull of Rain
Inherit the Wind
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The African Queen
Marty
To Kill a Mockingbird
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
A Streetcar Named Desire
Lolita
Comedy:

Some Like It Hot
The Road To Rio
The Road To Bali
Airplane!
Tom Jones
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
The Pink Panther
Duck Soup
Dark Star
Young Frankenstein
Blazing Saddles
Father Goose
Out West
You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man
The Bank Dick
My Little Chickadee
Adventure:

King Kong
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Dr. No
Thunderball
Diamonds Are Forever
Goldfinger
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Science Fiction:

2001
Alien
Aliens
Solaris
The Illustrated Man
The Fifth Element
Star Wars (IV, V & VI)
From the Earth to the Moon
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Terminator
Bladerunner
Things to Come
Metropolis
1984
Farce:

The Producers
Cat Ballou
Dr. Strangelove

Western:

Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Giant
The Magnificent Seven
Hang 'em High
Thriller / Suspense:

Psycho
Sabotuer
The 39 Steps
The Man Who Knew Too Much
North by Northwest
Rear Window
Notorious
Vertigo
Shadow of a Doubt
Dial M for Murder
Gaslight
The Nightstalker
The Manchurian Candidate
The Conversation
Mystery:

The Big Sleep
The Maltese Falcon
Fantasy:

The Wizard of Oz
Animation:

Snow White
Sleeping Beauty
Fantasia (Original)
The Last Unicorn
Yellow Submarine
The Wrong Trousers
A Close Shave
Pinocchio
What’s Opera Doc
Porky In Wackyland
War:

Apocalypse Now
The Deerhunter
The Bridge On the River Kwai
King Rat
The Great Escape
Night and Fog
From Here To Eternity
Where Eagles Dare
Crime:

The Usual Suspects
House of Games
Godfather I, II & III
Bullit
Dirty Harry
Horror / Occult:

Dracula (Bela Lugosi)
Dracula (Frank Langella)
Frankenstein
Rosemary’s Baby
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Nosferatu
Silent:

The Little Tramp
City Lights
The General
Foreign:

Steppenwolf
Doctor Redbeard
Throne of Blood
Satyricon

8

Dear Fans,

What about the 100 most over-rated ones?
You know, the one’s that the critics gush over but are long pretentious bores?
Such as John Huston’s “Wise Blood”?

BD

9

Did anyone else notice the fine print on the Channel 4 poll?

Sort of gives new meaning to the cliche “it was a honor just to be nominated.”

10

Any list of “great films” that does not include The Third Man, Chinatown, and either My Darling Clementine or Red River is fatally flawed, IMHO.

11

I’d have to agree with Psycho, The Matrix is up there, gotta love Office Space… There’s a bunch of them… those are some…

12

I don’t think **Gladiator ** deserves to be so high up on the list.

The fact that this list misses **The Lion in the Winter ** tells me the list is utter crap. :slight_smile:

13

I can’t even deal with lists like this, they make my eyes bleed.

A list of “My Favorite Films,” sure. But “The 100 Greatest Films?” There’s something kinda, I dunno, fascist about that . . .

14
  1. Pulp Fiction
  2. Gladiator
  3. Blade Runner
  4. Apocalypse Now
  5. The Matrix
    Personally, the 5 movies above have no place on a list of the greatest movies of all time, let alone so high up on one.
15

On my version of that list, slots 1-50 would be filled by Dead Man.

I don’t trust any Top 100 movies list that either includes The Shawshank Redemption or excludes Miller’s Crossing.