# Is there any movie we ALL would agree is good (if not great)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [January 2, 2026, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271 "2026-01-02T14:18:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 24
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2026, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/461 "2026-01-09T01:40:37Z")
😁 You made me grin. ---
**Author:** ![Gordon\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Gordon\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_G)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/462 "2026-01-12T13:32:19Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Honestly, I think all of the raving over Citizen Kane / Casablanca / all those old classics is mostly because people have heard those movies are great over and over again rather than that those are movies people would actually like to sit down and watch today. So, you’ve never watched _Casablanca_ ? While here, let me veto _It’s a Wonderful Life_. I’m not a Jimmy Stewart fan but this film goes beyond trite and overly sentimental to _sappy_. I don’t object to fantasy: The film would be even more tedious if the hero was saved by a random townsman rather than an angel earning his wings. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/463 "2026-01-12T13:36:48Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > I don’t think I’ve seen _Rear Window_, but I’ve seen 15,000 parodies of it. I’m not crazy about Hitchcock in general. ---
**Author:** ![Gordon\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Gordon\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_G)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/464 "2026-01-12T13:39:57Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > The thing about _2001_ is that it is hard to argue that it is not a _Good Movie_. You might not like it, but it is somewhat of a Masterpiece. Didn’t someone declare this type of movie to be “great but not good”? ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/465 "2026-01-12T13:50:37Z")
> [@Gordon\_G](#): > > Didn’t someone declare this type of movie to be “great but not good”? It’s a gorgeous cinematic masterpiece that spends 40 minutes showing us guys in ape costumes to convey a plot point that could be explained in 40 seconds. ETA: A plot point that could be excluded entirely without impacting the movie’s narrative. ---
**Author:** ![Gordon\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Gordon\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_G)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/466 "2026-01-12T13:59:29Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > You also forgot to quote the other part of my post: > > > [@wolfpup](#): > > > > The movie was nominated for 4 Academy awards, including for “best writing, story, and screenplay”. Arthur C Clarke was a prolific and marvellously imaginative sci-fi writer, and Stanley Kubrick has been described as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. So much for Pauline Kael’s opinion. > > Yeah, I don’t think you get nominated for “best writing” for being “monumentally unimaginative”. Fifty-eight years ago – (wow. time flies!) – I crossed the Bay Bridge to see it with my girl-friend. IIRC we liked it. My brain has aged and so has the movie, which is now unwatchable. Blame my brain if you prefer. ---
**Author:** ![Gordon\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Gordon\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_G)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/467 "2026-01-12T14:19:54Z")
> [@iamatractorboy](#): > > > [@Gordon\_G](#): > > > > t me veto _Singin’ in the Rain._ There are at least a dozen better musicals. > > Wow, they must be amazing because ‘Singin’ in the rain’ is absolutely superb. Not being sarcy, genuinely not a musicals expert by any means so just wondering what films they are. My favorite musicals include _Amadeus, Across the Universe, South Pacific, Flower Drum Song, Mary Poppins._ Some that aren’t top favorites but which I prefer to _Singin’ in the Rain_ are _Fiddler on the Roof, The Wizard of Oz, The Blues Brothers, Cabaret, Bye Bye Birdie, Music Man_. Marilyn Monroe, James Cagney and Rita Hayworth each made some musicals I prefer to _Singin’ in the Rain_. That’s more than a dozen already, and there are others. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/468 "2026-01-12T16:07:57Z")
> [@Gordon\_G](#): > > So, you’ve never watched _Casablanca_ ? Yeah, I said I hadn’t. It may be good, I don’t know. I was just making a general comment that what we think of as “the greats” in any art are heavily socially influenced. People end up repeating them without being critical, it’s just accepted that certain artists and works of arts the greats and everyone who wants to seem like they’re knowledgable about it will then always defer to them as the greats, and teachers of those subjects will say that they’re all the greats because their teachers said they were the greats, etc. Some of them are great, I’m sure. And some were innovative for their time while not holding up at all. But social influence is a huge factor in how people report the quality of something, so I think some things are held in too high regard because, essentially, they’ve always been held in high regard. People view things regarded as classics, influential, or well regarded by experts more favorably even if they have not organically come to that conclusion themselves. I have no problem with people saying “such and such was great for its time”, or that it was massively innovative and defined a genre or introduced a cinematic technique that changed cinema going forward. But a lot of those old movies do not hold up at all compared to modern films, and there are a lot of people who insist they do and still think the greatest films of all time were made before like 1960. Whenever you look at any sort of “hundred greatest films of all time” list that are made by film critics or film societies they are FAR too heavily weighted towards very old movies that have not aged well and aren’t very entertaining. Often they include movies from the 1930s that no one would actually ever want to sit down and watch, and disclude extremely well made movies from recent times. It’s very snobbish. Also, I just noticed that [flashback cinema](https://www.flashbackcinema.net/) theaters will be showing Casablanca later this month. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/469 "2026-01-12T16:31:42Z")
> [@Gordon\_G](#): > > My favorite musicals include _Amadeus_ _Amadeus_ isn’t a musical. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/470 "2026-01-12T16:39:58Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Whenever you look at any sort of “hundred greatest films of all time” list that are made by film critics or film societies they are FAR too heavily weighted towards very old movies that have not aged well and aren’t very entertaining. I’m curious about this, and if it’s true, why. First, what weighting toward old movies would you consider appropriate? Hollywood has been going gangbusters for about a century: if we’re rating the best 100 movies from Hollywood, is it unreasonable for 5% of them to be from the first 10% of the time period? What percentage should be from the current decade? Second, sometimes critics take a “wait and see” approach to movies. Some movies don’t age well, even though they capture attention at first; other movies reveal a depth over time as people think more about them. Is this a legitimate lens through which movies can be seen? Third, I wonder about your own bias. Is there any chance that your own personal list of movies is FAR too heavily weighted toward movies that were released during or after your adolescence? I’m not saying this phenomenon doesn’t exist; but I’ve not seen it, and I’m a little skeptical of it. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/471 "2026-01-12T16:43:45Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > People end up repeating them without being critical, it’s just accepted that certain artists and works of arts the greats and everyone who wants to seem like they’re knowledgable about it will then always defer to them as the greats, and teachers of those subjects will say that they’re all the greats because their teachers said they were the greats, etc. Really? Look at this list below. It was made in 2022. It contains a lot of more recent films that didn’t use to be on top films lists. Well, unless you feel that no film made before 1980 could possibly be any good, so you feel obligated to ignore the list. Film critics are constantly redoing the their choices for best films to include newer films on such a list. The films on the list below are spread over the history of the film industry: > **[The Greatest Films of All Time](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-time#rank-25)** > > =25 | In 1952, the Sight and Sound team had the novel idea of asking critics to name the greatest films of all time. The tradition became decennial, increasing in size and prestige as the decades passed. > The Sight and Sound poll is now a major... ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/472 "2026-01-12T17:04:48Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Third, I wonder about your own bias. I think the use of the word refinement for something else entirely gives his bias away. Right at the beginning of this thread: > [@SenorBeef](#): > > They’re just too slow, they lack a lot of refinement that movies have made over the years. I counterclaim that the only real and significant advancements in movie making in the last 40 years are CGI and fast cuts. And those are interesting, sometimes nice to watch, but they are not a **[refinement](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/refinement)**. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/473 "2026-01-12T17:10:20Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > redoing the their choices for best films I meant: redoing their choices for best films ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/474 "2026-01-12T17:14:40Z")
And SteadyCams. And drones. And plenty of other major developments from recent decades. Nit to mention how CGI - which is used in virtually every aspect of filmmaking - had been as big a revolution as sound or color. I’m not saying that new movies are better than old ones, but the art form has been evolving radically over the past 40 years. It’s not just jump cuts. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/475 "2026-01-12T17:17:41Z")
So I argue that there is mostly fast cuts and CGI and you counter that there is also CGI and steady cams and drones? OK, I am convinced. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/476 "2026-01-12T17:42:44Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > > [@Gordon\_G](#): > > > > So, you’ve never watched _Casablanca_ ? > > Yeah, I said I hadn’t. It may be good, I don’t know. I was just making a general comment that what we think of as “the greats” in any art are heavily socially influenced. I don’t think people say that Casablanca is good because it’s highly rated but because it’s broadly popular. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/477 "2026-01-12T18:13:38Z")
Obviously when I say that modern movies are more refined, I’m not saying that every modern movie is better than every old movie. But good modern movies have a lot more going for them. Because all art tends to evolve and be refined over time. We saw what worked in earlier movies and learned to take the best of it and discard the worst of it. Modern movies far more economical with storytelling. There are so many old movies where you wonder “what is the point of the last 20 seconds” constantly in the film. They just shoot a lot of things that don’t need to be in the film. And no, I’m not talking about needing constant quick jump cuts, that’s generally trash in modern movies, just… they were still figuring out how to tell a story on film and they weren’t as good at distilling it down to the important stuff yet. Modern films tackle more complex and more interesting moral decisions, because the Hayes code and the audiences of the time were squeamish and didn’t like challenging material. They tend to put more art and consideration into the cinematography, there are fewer boringly shot scenes. The technical craft is refined and better - when you think of “CGI” I know you think of bad, and obvious effects, but that’s the toupee fallacy. You’re not noticing when subtle CGI is used to amazing effect because you’re immersed in the moment. Characters can be more realistic now than the sensibilities of the time would allow then. I could go on and on, but you’re probably going to dismiss it as “these days no one knows what good cinema is, they need constant jump cuts and CGI to pay attention” ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/478 "2026-01-12T18:21:46Z")
One interesting difference I find is that almost no one listens popular music from before 1950 or so, or thinks a lot of the best pop songs of all time were written in the 30s and 40s. It seems to me that the reasons are similar to how film developed over the same period, but a lot of people hold old film as great and old music not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/479 "2026-01-12T18:24:38Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > One interesting difference I find is that almost no one listens popular music from before 1950 or so, or thinks a lot of the best pop songs of all time were written in the 30s and 40s. With one major exception: Christmas music. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271/480 "2026-01-12T18:27:13Z")
I actually put that in my post originally, edited it out to put in another part of the comment, and forgot to add it back. That’s true, but it’s more about tradition and vibes rather than listening to the music because it’s actually good. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271.md?page=23) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-movie-we-all-would-agree-is-good-if-not-great/1026271.md?page=25)