# How many of these 20 best Sight and Sound films have you seen? How many have you heard of? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [January 2, 2024, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-these-20-best-sight-and-sound-films-have-you-seen-how-many-have-you-heard-of/995524 "2024-01-02T21:30:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2024, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-these-20-best-sight-and-sound-films-have-you-seen-how-many-have-you-heard-of/995524/21 "2024-01-04T14:50:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > To give a sense of what this movie is like, here’s [a typical scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C5Az-239uM) It’s even worse than I could imagine. But the comments are priceless! To make a fair criticism, it isn’t necessary to film every boring moment of a day to convey the idea that the character lives a boring life, just like it isn’t necessary to show, say, James Bond paying motorway tolls and standing there gassing his car for five minutes just to let us know superspies deal with the same drudgery as the rest of us. Most people watch film to escape real life, not reinforce it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2024, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-these-20-best-sight-and-sound-films-have-you-seen-how-many-have-you-heard-of/995524/22 "2024-01-04T14:58:00Z")
> [@Dropo](#): > > No _M_ (1931)? No _King Kong_ (1933)? No _Beyond the Valley of the Dolls_ (1970)? No _Arsenic and Old Lace_? No _Blazing Saddles_? No _The Big Lebowski_? I’ve noticed these lists of greatest movies often ignore comedies. The same is true when awards are handed out. ---
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2024, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-these-20-best-sight-and-sound-films-have-you-seen-how-many-have-you-heard-of/995524/23 "2024-01-04T15:00:47Z")
I remember taking a film interpretation class as a freshman in the early 1980s. One of the films we studied in class was _Rules of the Game_. The prof had us spend three entire one hour class periods devoted to analysis and discussion of this film. Mind you, I signed up for this elective with the intent of having an easy and fun couple of credits. I recall seeing it initially and thinking it was an okay, flick, but after three hours of torturing what seemed to me the most contorted and obviously unintended allegory on the film maker’s part, I was content to never see the film again in this lifetime. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2024, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-these-20-best-sight-and-sound-films-have-you-seen-how-many-have-you-heard-of/995524/24 "2024-01-04T15:04:33Z")
I was glad I watched Jeanne Dielman. I found it an immersive experience. I get that it’s not for everyone, but the film was well crafted and made an emotional impact (IMO). ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2024, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-these-20-best-sight-and-sound-films-have-you-seen-how-many-have-you-heard-of/995524/25 "2024-01-04T15:08:03Z")
The critical obsession with “The Searchers” remains a mystery to me. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2024, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-these-20-best-sight-and-sound-films-have-you-seen-how-many-have-you-heard-of/995524/26 "2024-01-04T15:16:29Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > Mind you, I signed up for this elective with the intent of having an easy and fun couple of credits. As an undergrad, I signed up for an English Department elective called “Satire” because the professor was a relatively well known author and I thought it would be fun. He stressed during the first class that it was intended for English majors only, and if anyone wasn’t they should drop the class. I kept quiet, got an A, and had a paper I wrote published in the department’s magazine. The professor approached me after the last class to let me know he’d investigated me and now knew I was a biochemistry major. He laughed about it. The next term I took a Physics & Science Fiction elective that was an upper level physics course. I thought it would be fun. It was the most difficult course I ever took, more work than Organic Chemistry. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2024, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-these-20-best-sight-and-sound-films-have-you-seen-how-many-have-you-heard-of/995524/27 "2024-01-04T15:24:32Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > To give a sense of what this movie is like, here’s [a typical scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C5Az-239uM). > > Three minutes of the lead character peeling potatoes. Now imagine three hours of this. When I was in film school, Harvey Keitel came to speak to us and the film he brought was Theo Angelopoulos’ _Ulysses’ Gaze_. Which is about three hours long and contains probably fewer than a dozen camera setups, pretty much no action, a paucity of diaglogue, and (as it was the mid-ninteies), a long lingering shot of Keitel’s wedding tackle. It was the very definition of interminable torture. Roger Ebert gave it one star and called it “a numbing bore” and “almost unendurable” so I knew it wasn’t just me. My parents made fun of me for years after I rented _Paris, Texas_, which I found enrapturing (honestly, either that one or Wings of Desire should be on the S&S list) but they complained about its pace; that film was practically _Armageddon_ compared to _Ulysses’ Gaze_. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2024, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-these-20-best-sight-and-sound-films-have-you-seen-how-many-have-you-heard-of/995524/28 "2024-01-04T15:37:23Z")
> [@Dropo](#): > > No _M_ (1931)? No _King Kong_ (1933)? No _Beyond the Valley of the Dolls_ (1970)? No _Paddington 2_? ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2024, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-these-20-best-sight-and-sound-films-have-you-seen-how-many-have-you-heard-of/995524/29 "2024-01-04T16:30:50Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The critical obsession with “The Searchers” remains a mystery to me. Just one opinion, but I have to agree. I find the plot offensive, and the “Sven and Lena” interludes are a real WTF? for me. And I _like_ John Wayne movies! I like Mulholland Drive. Mind you, I don’t understand it, but then, I don’t think Lynch does, either. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2024, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-these-20-best-sight-and-sound-films-have-you-seen-how-many-have-you-heard-of/995524/30 "2024-01-04T17:05:08Z")
I’ve seen most of these and I love all manner of film, but this list is pretentious. It dares people to disagree, which is annoying. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2024, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-these-20-best-sight-and-sound-films-have-you-seen-how-many-have-you-heard-of/995524/31 "2024-01-04T17:34:53Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The critical obsession with “The Searchers” remains a mystery to me. That’s the one where I thought to myself, _I think I’ve seen it but…uh…ehhh_ So I left it as a no; but the probability is that I _ **have** _ seen it, and it made zero impression on me. j ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2024, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-these-20-best-sight-and-sound-films-have-you-seen-how-many-have-you-heard-of/995524/32 "2024-01-04T17:50:51Z")
Heard of twelve, seen nine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-these-20-best-sight-and-sound-films-have-you-seen-how-many-have-you-heard-of/995524.md?page=1)