In a similar note, I will point out that there is no movie titled The Seven Samurai. There is, however, an Akira Kurosawa film from 1954 titled Seven Samurai (well, strictly speaking the title is Shichinin no Samurai but at most that should be parenthetical)
Fixed.
Swap The Two Towers for Deer Hunter
(Feels like I’m choosing between my children which I like best)
Swapped the Two Towers for The Deer Hunter
Now you’re talkin’ Sophie’s Choice.
mmm
Another shocking absence from the list.
256 is actually a small number for favorite movies or songs. When I participated in one on another board we had 1024 entries. I suspect 512 might be the magic number. But 256 is much more workable.
I see your point. I am somewhat daunted by bracketing 256, but it feels doable. 512 sounds like a full time job for the next couple months. Perhaps if this works well we can add to it as time goes on (sorta like the Rock and Roll HOF thread).
I think that movie poll took 6+ months to run and had 3 or 4 people running it at various times.
I checked, it took over 8 months. But again, 1024 is too many.
Out of boredom I checked the list here against the AFI top 100 list (not a perfect list of course) and here are the movies from their top 20 that aren’t on the list:
Raging Bull - clearly a great movie, but I get why it might not have come up as someone’s favorite.
Singin’ in the Rain - this one is a surprise omission IMO.
Gone with the Wind - good riddance in my opinion, but a surprise
City Lights and The General - both very old movies that I’m not surprised weren’t nominated.
Psycho
Sunset Boulevard
The Graduate - this would have made my top ten and I guess I’m surprised no one nominated it
On the Waterfront - on of my top two favorite movies but not everyone’s cup of tea.
None of this is meant as a criticism of the list that did get nominated (well except Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is objectively the worst movie ever made 
), I was just curious what kind of movies generally thought to be the best didn’t make the list.
I spent some time doing similar activities. There are a lot of films I was surprised didn’t get nominated, but that may be mostly a function of the cutoff at 256. 512 would probably be better, but as I said - probably more than I can handle.
Also, I used the word “Favorite” instead of “Best” intentionally.
of those you listed, this is the one that gives me heartburn.
Now that we’re within 2 hours of the deadline for swaps, I’m going to swap out For Whom the Bell Tolls for Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Here are the remaining 10 late entries eligible for swapping in the next 90 minutes:
Arrival
District 9
Mildred Pierce
Safety Last!
Shin Godzilla
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Heiress
The Train
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The AFI list is of top (best) films. This one is specified in the title as “favorite” films. My lists of best and favorite films would look completely different.
ETA: Reminder to self to read whole thread before replying.
Understood - I was just curious about the movies that didn’t cross over.
Thumper668: no swaps are suggested in this post. (And I do apologize for having added the release-year to each of my ten: the first one, Animal Crackers, DOES have a title confusable with a feature film of the same name from 2017, so once I started giving the year, I just continued.)
Both featuring Humphrey Bogart from about the same time, of course, and both classics. I gave my vote to TMF mainly due to my love of the screenplay, where John Huston transcribed Dashiell Hammett quite faithfully.
Not really a big deal - it didn’t change the sorting after I pasted them into my master list. Thanks for noticing
Yay!
Groundhog Day
Ok, the swap deadline has passed. Here is a list of the late entries removed and the swaps made:
Yojimbo (swapped for 2001)
Arrival
District 9
Pink Floyd - The Wall (swapped for Jaws)
The Girl Can’t Help It (swapped for Kill Bill)
Mildred Pierce
For Whom the Bell Tolls (swapped for Planes, Trains and Automobiles)
Safety Last!
Shin Godzilla
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Two Towers (swapped for The Deer Hunter)
The Heiress
The Train
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?