Interesting–not much left of the last 20 years…
If I were going to change the rules right now and pick based on “era”, I think I’d say the final five would be:
Casablanca from pre-1950
Lawrence of Arabia vs. Bridge over the River Kwai to represent the 50s & 60s
The Godfather for the 70s & 80s
and Schindler’s List for the last 20 yrs.
I like some of the others left, but just I don’t see any of them approaching these five.
I’ll bet we end up with like 5 old movies that nobody but lissener has ever seen.
But it was considered quite risque and edgy for its time. Is it fair to cut movies that don’t suit our cultural context anymore?
I was going to nix Around the World in 80 Days, but got beaten to the punch.
I pick My Fair Lady–because Audrey Hepburn, however lovely and talented, couldn’t sing and the part should have gone to Julie Andrews. Also, it’s basically a fluff piece that betrays its own storyline at the end. “Just friendly-like” my ass. :mad:
If rain man is already off the list (typical Oscar bait and though I like Hoffman I bloody hate Cruise, especially when he’s doing “the arrogant good looking bastard who has some setbacks and ends up with the girl” role that he plays in 90% of his movies - though I still kinda like “a few good men”, but that luckily did not get an Oscar),
Kick West Side Story off. It wasn’t original then, and hasn’t aged well. And though I like the music, I got a record of the theatrical version and the songs are performed better there than in the movie.
Totally agree re West Side Story–it is painful to sit through these days (the songs and choreography are still good). And that bad make-up job the “Sharks” had to put up with (stupid director or was it the producer or perhaps even the make-up “artist”? I dunno–but the Puerto Ricans all looked horrid d/t the make-up. Rita Moreno talked about it in an interview a few years ago).
And let’s kill of Gigi, too–creepy old guy/young girl movie.
Don’t worry Maserschmidt - I’ve seen some of the oldies. I just don’t think the ones I’ve seen deserve to go yet! 
Well, if genuine classic like It Happened and No Country are vulnerable, then The Sting has absolutely no business sticking around.
What’s so grand about Grand Hotel?
Time for it to check out.
Here’s where we stand, after I used my second veto to yank the abyssmal Departed:
All Quiet on the Western Front
Mutiny on the Bounty
Gone with the Wind
Rebecca
Casablanca
The Lost Weekend
The Best Years of Our Lives
Hamlet
All the King’s Men
All about Eve
An American in Paris
From Here to Eternity
On the Waterfront
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Ben-Hur
Lawrence of Arabia
A Man for All Seasons
Patton
The French Connection
The Godfather
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Deer Hunter
Gandhi
Terms of Endearment
Platoon
The Silence of the Lambs
Unforgiven
Schindler’s List
Boy, go away for one night and these things just get away from you.
The original intent was that we start with a list of 82 movies. We all discuss and vote and the movie with the most votes gets eliminated. Then we do the same thing all over again with the list of 81 remaining movies. It was not a contest to see how quickly we can find people who dislike 81 different movies.
The President Elimination Game thread was the model I was using. It took them 24 pages of voting to get down to George Washington.
But it’s majority rules on what the rules are. Should we follow the one elimination per round format and go with multiple eliminations?
Please remove “Unforgiven”.
Maybe we could start it that way now that we’ve thrown out the clunkers…?
I think with the present “pot shot” format we’ve actually done pretty well. The only film that may have been unfairly treated was Wings. I looked it up on IMdb & it looks like it was a masterpiece of its time.
Terms of Endearment. Sappy and sentimental, yes. Best movie, I don’t think soooo…
and because Forrest Gump, Crash and Unforgiven were already gone…
This is how I thought it was gonna work.
Terms of Endearment would have been my next vote. A good film but not an all time great
See, this is what happens when you don’t police your thread. 
Your spoiler made me remember more about the film. While I still think it should be gone, I perhaps didn’t give it the small amount of credit it was due.
However, the people didn’t really change. Maximus was still evil, despite his slight regret. It’s not like he had a change of heart or felt guilty at the end of the movie. Maximus suffered a loss, but he didn’t exactly change his pesonality, only his goal. He’s still the noble Roman general he was at the beginning, sans family.
You should have outlined the rules in the OP.
Maybe you could start another thread, only using the IMDB top 50 instead of the best picture winners. More people would be familiar with the films that way.
In any event, I’m voting off The Bridge on the River Kwai. I hate war movies where soldiers behave like gentlemen.