The Top 376 Films Of All Time So Far, Mostly Ten By Ten

[OdoWanKenobi]

Ok, despite some choices earlier in the list that I would consider quite odd, your list has been getting fairly solid as we get closer to the end.

And since you invited other people's top tens, I'll do one. Though I have to cheat. I can't do a top ten. There's far too many movies that I love to be able to exclude them:

15. Terminator 2: Judgement Day
14. Fargo
13. Wall-E
12: This is Spinal Tap
11. Star Wars Episode VI: The Empire Strikes Back
10. Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb
9. The Shawshank Redemption
8. The Princess Bride
7. Ghostbusters
6. The Godfather/The Godfather Part II
5. Aliens
4. Inception
3. Casablanca
2. Memento
1. Raiders of the Lost Ark

The way I judge the movie is not by how "deep" or depressing it is. The way I judge a movie is by how likely I am to watch it again and again. How engaged by it I was, or how entertained I was, or how exhilarated I was by it. So yeah, there's quite a few comedies and action movies among my list. But then again, that's the kind of movie that I go to the movie for. The movies have always, for me at least, been about escaping from life for a couple of hours and having a great time.

 

[Starkers]

I love Blair Witch, and it scares the crap out of me...of course I don't know how much of my enjoyment is down to the extended universe stuff as I read several books that came out alongside it. I appreciate you should be able to enjoy a film on its own merits. For me though what I love about it is the overwhelming wrongness of their situation. A creeping unease. I remember a lot of people at the time moaning that they'd be all right if they just had mobile phones, completing missing the point that effectively they've been lifted out of time (the house they find was demolished years ago) and like you say, supernatural forces are effectively ensuring there's no escape.

As for the Mad Max trilogy I recently bought the box set so watched them all for the first time in ages. The second is still clearly the best, but I found I liked the first more than I remembered. The third is pretty bad though.

I honestly don't know if I could come up with a top ten, I fear everytime I got a list togeather I'd remember something else! Will give it some thought though...

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

Most American thrillers seem to have an unwritten commandment: ''Thou shalt not have more than two major female roles, and usually no more than one.'' I'll give the INFERNAL AFFAIRS trilogy credit for breaking that rule. (Those films are on my to-do backlog, purchased long ago but still unseen yet.)

I'm amazed after all the multiple nominations Jack Nicholson's received over the decades, the Academy could only nominate Wahlberg for THE DEPARTED and not Nicholson. And while it might be heretical to say so, I maintain when Scorsese is good, he's very good.....but when he's remaking material (CAPE FEAR and INFERNAL), he's fricking great.

OdoWanKenobi's list has overlap with mine, at least with my posted choices thus far.

THIS IS SPINAL TAP was two sides of the same coin for me. There are only two movies I remember seeing which started hilariously then totally ran out of steam in their second halves. One was CHEECH AND CHONG'S NEXT MOVIE. Two was SPINAL TAP. CHONG ran out because he didn't have Cheech's main character to play off of. I'm actually confused why TAP ran out. Part two just seemed to lack the humor of the first. Either I'm not enough of a rock-and-roller, or maybe it'd be more ideal as a short. In the end, it became for me an 82-minute eternity.

I'm glad others besides me thought there was a supernatural messing-with-the-heads of the BLAIR WITCH group. It's implied, but never stated outright.

25. Bataan (1943)
24. Marathon Man (1976)
23. Apocalypse Now (1979)
22. West Side Story (1961)
21. The Dirty Dozen (1967)

 

[Harvey]

Most American thrillers seem to have an unwritten commandment: ''Thou shalt not have more than two major female roles, and usually no more than one.'' I'll give the INFERNAL AFFAIRS trilogy credit for breaking that rule. (Those films are on my to-do backlog, purchased long ago but still unseen yet.)

To be fair, Infernal Affairs is still a male-dominated movie (although both sequels have more prominent female characters). But The Departed took two major female characters and a minor one from that movie, and put them all together into one for the sake of melodrama.

I'm amazed after all the multiple nominations Jack Nicholson's received over the decades, the Academy could only nominate Wahlberg for THE DEPARTED and not Nicholson. And while it might be heretical to say so, I maintain when Scorsese is good, he's very good.....but when he's remaking material (CAPE FEAR and INFERNAL), he's fricking great.

I haven't seen either version of Cape Fear, but I think it's awfully hard to get better than Taxi Driver, an original work. Of course, many of his other great films are adaptations of books (Raging Bull and Goodfellas being most prominent, but there are many others), so you might have a point.

25. Bataan (1943)
24. Marathon Man (1976)
23. Apocalypse Now (1979)
22. West Side Story (1961)
21. The Dirty Dozen (1967)

I'm not sure I'd rank anything but Apocalypse Now in my top 25, but there's not a bad film among the bunch here (and I've actually seen all of four of them, and parts of Bataan).

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

For the next-to-last free-for-all, switching to two-by-two cover formation. Also for the record: number 20 below was once in a group of six ''co-bests.'' The other five from that group are currently in 1st, 2nd, 6th, 7th and 14th place now.

20. Ordinary People (1980)
19. The Dark Knight (2008)

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

17. Star Wars (1977)
16. Die Hard (1988)

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

You skipped #18

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

D'OH!!!!!

18. Star Wars (1977)
17. Die Hard (1988)

 

[Saga]

Barbie was right, math is hard.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

I wish it were only the math. Yesterday the numbers were off.....and now, having re-checked the top of the list, I just discovered one posted movie was in fact too high. DOUBLE-D'OH!!!!!

The numbers and titles below are the final official correct ranking. My only explantion for the previous gaffes are sylsdexia and refusal to drink any alcohol. Praetor, if you have a top ten...?

18. A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
17. Star Wars (1977)
16. Die Hard (1988)
15. Jaws (1975)

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

Some fine films there. A Fish Called Wanda and Die Hard would have been #16 and 17 on my list had I continued it.

 

[Saga]

Praetor, if you have a top ten...?

my list of favorite films fluctuates from time to time. i'm not sure what i'd even list.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

14. Aliens (1986)
13. Battle Royale (2000)

ALIENS was also on of my earlier six ''co-bests'' until others slowly moved up in rank. BATTLE ROYALE only officially was released to mainstream American DVD three weeks ago, nine years after it captured my attention. Who else has seen it?

 

[OsmiumJohnnycake]

I've seen it, although it has been quite a few years now (I have a Region 2 DVD somewhere around here). Good movie, enjoyed it a lot. Not in the same ballpark as Aliens for me though.

 

[Shaytan]

BATTLE ROYALE only officially was released to mainstream American DVD three weeks ago, nine years after it captured my attention. Who else has seen it?

I saw it when it was released in cinema in 2001. Actually, I saw it 1.5 times at the cinema because the 1st time we had to evacuate because of a bomb alert in the middle of the movie. That was in the mood of the film

I must have the DVD somewhere but I haven't watched it since...pfff, don't remember.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

BATTLE ROYALE for me did an amazing job of taking close to 45 characters and not causing any confusion about the principal ones OR the supporting group.

The next two are the final ones to be posted together. As stated at the beginning, it's done this way for maximum cruelty and sadism. I'm beginning to wonder whether I might post several clues what people or genres WON'T be directing, starring or appearing in the final ten. But maybe it's better if I don't. But as for the final Number One, there might be more amusement and/or frustration in doing just that. Especially if you all want to guess the top ten, five, or final one on the basis of what's been posted thus far.

12. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Cinema's purest poem.

11. Reservoir Dogs (1992)......the title almost certainly indicates dirty damn sons of b!tches. Since there's no reservoir in sight, after all.

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

Maybe I'm weird, but I absolutely hate 2001. It's slow, it's dull, it makes no sense. I can think of no film that works as a better cure for insomnia.

 

[Gepard]

Maybe I'm weird, but I absolutely hate 2001. It's slow, it's dull, it makes no sense. I can think of no film that works as a better cure for insomnia.

You may be weird, but you're not alone. I hate it, my first post-college roommate hated it, ST-One hated it (whatever happened to him?) and I was just having a conversation a week ago with a coworker about how he and his wife both hated it. So there is definite 2001 hate out there, and generally for the same reasons you list. It's great series of images but a terrible movie.

 

[Saga]

i don't hate 2001 but i will say that i enjoy the book more than the film.

 

[Mojochi]

Maybe I'm weird, but I absolutely hate 2001. It's slow, it's dull, it makes no sense. I can think of no film that works as a better cure for insomnia.

You may be weird, but you're not alone. I hate it, my first post-college roommate hated it, ST-One hated it (whatever happened to him?) and I was just having a conversation a week ago with a coworker about how he and his wife both hated it. So there is definite 2001 hate out there, and generally for the same reasons you list. It's great series of images but a terrible movie.

It's not a movie. It's an art film, & it was such a good one for its time, that it completely revolutionized how films were made. Almost every classic film made before 1970 would be considered boring by modern audiences, because there was a different sensibility then. There was a subtlety in that film which was so incredible, that it made space feel vast, lifeless, & more real than anyone had ever managed before, & it made a red light feel utterly horrific. There was a purposeful intent toward making the people seem lacking in Humanity for their technological dependency. It was never meant to be a movie that glorifies the space age of man, but one that forewarned of it

The problem with modern audiences is that they lack objectivity when viewing something from generations past, as though they were looking at an original Gatling Gun & thinking "What a lame machine gun" never realizing that it was so ahead of it's time that in some ways they forget it's not comparable to our time, & take for granted that it should just be as cool as something in our own modern world

It's because it didn't have cardboard sets & goofy makeup, like TOS did, that it suffers such a lack of respect