Just to be clear, I’m assuming Notorious is the Hitchcock version not the one about the rapper.
A word on the matchups - I seeded all of the entries randomly because I wanted to ensure that my personal tastes didn’t interfere with any of the matchups. As a result, some are very difficult, some are no-brainers, and some are painful because I know a few of my favorites will lose. But that is how I wanted it to be so I had no influence on the outcomes.
I assumed that too and was unaware of another film with the same title. It should be the 1946 Hitchcock film.
A few of the matchups have a nice synergy.
#6: A Good Year vs. The Endless Summer. nice. Though I chose to vote for neither.
I’m happy Star Trek IV is slightly ahead. I’m the one that nominated it and I was probably in it, but at least my fellow crewmates on the USS Ranger were. I love that movie as I love the Star Treks with a lot of humor.
That one was tough for me. I was probably in it too (in the aquarium) but I had to vote for Master & Commander (which I nominated).
I also like #67, The Godfather vs My Cousin Vinnie, but not as much synergy.
#71: Goldfinger vs The Incredibles, as The Incredibles was somewhat inspired by those early James Bond movies.
#73: The Blues Brothers vs. All that Jazz, Blues vs Jazz indeed.
#79: Breakfast Club vs. Naked Lunch.
I think there’s a lot of synergy in #128 as well - Airplane! vs Galaxy Quest - both parodies of popular movies.
True.
Stinks that Galaxy Quest is going down in round 1.
Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels are two of my favorite movies of all time, but they got paired against movies higher on the list… oof.
Wraith of Khan vs Last Crusade? Do you need me to pick between my kids as well?
Unfortunately, I think the random seeding fatally damages the whole exercise. Maybe you could have used some objective criteria for seeding instead?
For example, I got lots of matchups where I either hated both movies or they were just completely obscure for me. But the nail in the coffin—for me, anyway—was pitting some of favorite movies of all time against each other in the very first round (at least six separate times!):
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan vs. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Back to Future vs. Saving Private Ryan
- Toy Story vs. Fellowship of the Ring (how do you even compare these?)
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail vs. Star Wars
- My Cousin Vinny vs. The Godfather
And by far the most egregious, because these are probably my two most favorite movies of all time:
- The Shawshank Redemption vs. Apollo 13
There is a reason why seeding is not random in the sports world. You don’t put the two top-seeded teams against each other in the first round.
Sorry for that. You are welcome to start your own poll. The whole point of the above was that it is just as painful for me as it is for you and everyone else. Collecting 256 nominations (which is itself an admittedly small number), tracking them, seeding them in a nonbiased manner and typing up 128 polls was a lot more work than I thought it would be. If I had tried to do 256 matchups I’d have bailed on the whole idea.
And how would you equate that to a favorite movie poll? Box office numbers? Rotten Tomatoes scores? Have fun with that. You’d be looking at about a week of research before posting the polls, and I’d bet most folks would give up before then. Favorite movies are purely and essentially subjective and do not equate to the sports world where performance is the primary metric.
No one is forcing you to participate.
Fair enough…not to trying to denigrate your hard work. Thanks for putting this together.
Depending on how this shakes out, and the amount of work it ends up being, I am considering a follow up tournament (or perhaps even a concurrent one if I have the time available) for the 128 films that get eliminated in round 1. I’d need to generate some new brackets, but maybe it would be fairer if the winners and losers in Round 1 were seeded into Round 3 or Round 4. I’ll give this some more thought as we progress.
I apologize for my sharp response. From your word choice, it felt like you were.
Ditto. My impassioned comments likely came out sharper than I intended. 
My Dinner with Andre beats ‘em both! 
Thinking out loud on how to structure this without eliminating losers in Round 1:
Round 2A - Group of 64 matchups between Round 1 winners
Round 2B - Group of 64 matchups between Round 1 losers
Round 3A - Group of 32 matchups between 2A winners
Round 3B - Group of 32 matchups between 2B winners
Round 4 - Group of 32 matchups between top 16 from 3A and 3B
Round 5 - Round of 16 from Round 4 winners
Round 6 - Quarterfinals
Round 7 - Semifinals
Round 8A - Finals
Round 8B - 3rd place match
I think the key would be determining the top 16 from Round 3A & B. It could work I think. Feedback welcome.
So does Breakfast at Tiffany’s
I think a single elimination tournament of all 256 is fine. If a big beast goes out in round 1 to an even bigger beast, thems the breaks.
A suggestion if you want to go another way: pit the winners against winners and the losers against losers, giving 3 groups: 64 who are now through, 64 who are now out, and 128 who now face each other randomly. After this the 128 that have now won 2 matchups go into a round of 128, single elimination from then on.