I’ll grant that it was an ambitious experiment, but I can simultaneously admire a film’s ambition while also recognizing the result of the experiment as a failure.
Meanwhile, some of the films on a list like this (which earned their place on it) are ambitious experiments that worked very well, such as Pan’s Labyrinth.
I just said I liked it - I didn’t say it belonged on the list
I haven’t seen most of them.
The ones I saw and didn’t care much for: Social Network, Her, Black Swan.
Should have been listed: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Green Book.
Indian Films: Jai Bhim, Maharaja
Animated films that are at least as good as Up or The Incredibles: Inside Out, Monsters, Inc, Finding Nemo, Toy Story 3, the other two Spider-Man movies. There should also be at least one Harry Potter movie represented; the last was the best IMO.
A bit too highbrow for my tastes. I’d find room for Shaun of the Dead, Training Day, The Bourne Ultimatum, Collateral and Edge of Tomorrow on that list.
Looking only at the top 10, I haven’t seen Parasite. Mulholland Drive was an overextended Twilight Zone episode senselessly switching character identities to pad it out after it failed to sell as a TV pilot. No Country for Old Men was premised on an act of stupidity. Interstellar (boring and pretentious, but with a cool robot), The Dark Knight (lame) and Max Max: Fury Road (just one long chase) do not belong on such a list, imo. Haven’t seen 8-10.
Though falling a bit short of greatness, There Will be Blood is definitely a worthy inclusion. The Grand Budapest Hotel should be in the top five. Many movies on the list clearly do not belong at all, a bunch of others I have not seen (and/or have successfully avoided) and where are Hero (2002) and Alienoid (2022)?
Off the top of my head, EX MACHINA seems worth a mention.
Strangely, I put Men from the same director in my top 10(probably, anyway). Not Ex Machina.
I Saw The Devil is another movie that should be in the top 10 or 20. Ignore the title; it isn’t a horror or supernatural movie.
Mulholland at #2 is strikingly high, but I understand that some young male cinephiles really love that movie (I mean, better than Inland Empire?).
I’m glad to see The Worst Person in the World landing. I suspect Sentimental Value will surpass it the next time they do a list.
No John Wick (personally, I’d go with 3, but they’re all deserving)? If you don’t include any of them, that’s as good as saying that the entire action genre isn’t worthy of consideration, because there were no better action movies this century.
Also, where’s Moulin Rouge!?
Can’t believe I forgot this one… Hot Fuzz. One of my favourite films ever, and not made the cut.
Not sure if it counts, but Apollo 11 from a few years back was breathtaking. Yes, everyone knows the story, but what’s better than the actual moonlanding? Stunning.
Might get some pushback for this one, but I’ve always loved Minority Report.
Perhaps it was too recent to make the list, but I think Flow is a better film than at least half of the animated films listed.
Sinners is on the list, so recency shouldn’t be a problem.
No Morvern Callar?
It’s a shame that none of the Star Wars movies are on there. Not because they deserve to be on there, which they don’t. But they did deserve to be have been made better, so that they could have been on there in some alternate universe where better versions were made.
I’ve seen about 80% of the list. As such lists go, its not bad. Missing films IMHO are:
Shoplifters (the final scene still haunts me)
Close
Revoir Paris
Ex Machina is another good suggestion from above.
Glad to see Aftersun (2022) on this list. I can’t even think about that film without getting choked up.
Looking at the list, it’s hard to spot any pattern. Usually, you can get some sense of an audience, when you look at ratings across a wide body of people (e.g. IMDB top ratings, Yahoo ratings, Yelp ratings, etc.) From this particular assortment, in this particular order, I feel like it just means that they didn’t have enough respondents to allow some hive mind concurrence to amass and reveal itself. Who knows why Mean Girls is better than Barbie but lower than Get Out. I can’t spot an underlying logic that maps to cinematics, storytelling, fame, wokeness, personal experience, etc.
It’s good to have a sense of the predilections of the hive, so you can translate over to your own inclings. Minus that and I have no real idea of what to do with such a list.
These lists are always subjective, who knows what they based ‘top’ on but Fury Road is way, waaaay too high. In fact, that Into the Furnace isn’t on the list and FR was says a lot about the list.
So, almost all of the people who took the poll probably read the film reviews in the NY Times. I doubt this list strays far from what a handful of NY Times film reviewers think.