Poll of the Day > American Film Institute says these are 100 best movies. How many have you seen?

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.afi.com/100years/movies10.aspx ... the best of all time, mind you.

Its a silly list. Its a mixture of the most influential movies and the best old movies. They need to pick one lane and stick with it

I think any list is going to be confusingly political, even if you're going for one or the other. Every film has a constituency that usually doesn't back down. Which is why something as awful as Ben-Hur has any presence on the list at all.

The problem I have with this stuff is that you can't weigh new things against ones only held aloft by nostalgia. They're incompatible.
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I mean it's only American films, and yeah definitely important to consider who the list is coming from, the AFI, so its basically just a safe pick of the 100 most important American films of all time according to them.

I've seen 90/100

The ones I havent seen are The Grapes of Wrath, King Kong, Shane, Intolerance, Cabaret, The Wild Bunch, A Night at the Opera, Swing Time, Sophie's Choice, Yankee Doodle Dandy.
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TheCyborgNinja posted...

The problem I have with this stuff is that you can't weigh new things against ones only held aloft by nostalgia. They're incompatible.

Eh, to be fair, for the most part its not nostalgia but rather the lasting influence and cultural impact.

I vastly prefer either the aggregate top 1000 list over at They Shoot Pictures Don't They, which tallies 9,800+ lists of the best films of all time from critics, directors, and historians.

http://theyshootpictures.com/gf1000.htm

Or the Sight and Sound list's where they poll critics and directors separately every 10 years

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/50-greatest-films-all-time
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For example, the top 10 from:

Sight and Sound Critic's Poll:
1. Vertigo
2. Citizen Kane
3. Tokyo Story
4. The Rules of the Game
5. Sunrise
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey
7. The Searchers
8. Man With a Movie Camera
9. The Passion of Joan of Arc
10. 8 1/2

and the top 10 from the Sight and Sound Director's Poll
1. Tokyo Story
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey
3. Citizen Kane
4. 8 1/2
5. Taxi Driver
6. Apocalypse Now
7. The Godfather
8. Vertigo
9. Mirror
10. Bicycle Thieves

so Vertigo, Tokyo Story, Citizen Kane, 2001, and 8 1/2 each are considered top 10 films based on the hundreds of critics and directors polled.

Meanwhile the top 10 over at TSPDT, which looked at a much bigger sample, including Sight and Sound lists but also thousands of others:
1. Citizen Kane
2. Vertigo
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. The Rules of the Game
5. Tokyo Story
6. The Godfather
7. 8 1/2
8. Sunrise
9. The Searchers
10. The Seven Samurai

and to anyone complaining the list primarily features old films, they also have an aggregate top 1,000 films of the 21st century, where the top 10 is:
1. IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (Wong Kar-wai)
2. MULHOLLAND DR. (David Lynch)
3. YI YI (Edward Yang)
4. THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Paul Thomas Anderson)
5. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (Michel Gondry)
6. CACH (Michael Haneke)
7. THE TREE OF LIFE (Terrence Malick)
8. SPIRITED AWAY (Hayao Miyazaki)
9. TROPICAL MALADY (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
10. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (Ang Lee)
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56

A good portion of what I haven't seen, I have no interest in doing so any time soon.

madadude posted...

and to anyone complaining the list primarily features old films, they also have an aggregate top 1,000 films of the 21st century, where the top 10 is:
1. IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (Wong Kar-wai)
2. MULHOLLAND DR. (David Lynch)
3. YI YI (Edward Yang)
4. THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Paul Thomas Anderson)
5. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (Michel Gondry)
6. CACH (Michael Haneke)
7. THE TREE OF LIFE (Terrence Malick)
8. SPIRITED AWAY (Hayao Miyazaki)
9. TROPICAL MALADY (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
10. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (Ang Lee)

Now wait for the complaints about no superhero movies.
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12
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Seen 26, seen part of at least 10 more.

MICHALECOLE posted...

Its a silly list. Its a mixture of the most influential movies and the best old movies. They need to pick one lane and stick with it

Some titles on there don't really qualify as either =p Actually, a bunch of the newer ones aren't particularly influential films.

TheCyborgNinja posted...

The problem I have with this stuff is that you can't weigh new things against ones only held aloft by nostalgia. They're incompatible.

It's a helluva lot more than just nostalgia. Even the ones which don't necessarily hold up by modern standards were highly influential, like King Kong.

madadude posted...

Eh, to be fair, for the most part its not nostalgia but rather the lasting influence and cultural impact.

To warn you, "to be fair" are Mead's and RC's trigger words =p
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16 most of those weren't that great
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22. It's a pretty crap list in my opinion, but then again maybe those are all phenomenal movies that I havent watched.

Zeus posted...

To warn you, "to be fair" are Mead's and RC's trigger words =p

What was the point of this? Neither of them have even posted in this topic.
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I've seen sixteen of them.

I kind of feel like that list was heavily tilted towards old movies. I'm not saying that the old ones are bad, just... that it feels like there was almost nothing newer than the 90's aside from one or two entries.
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Crappy list. And MichaelCole is right, it's all just old movies.

And I hate pretty much anything from before the 1950's.

Atleast, anything American from before the 1950's.
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FrozenBananas posted...

Crappy list. And MichaelCole is right, it's all just old movies.

And I hate pretty much anything from before the 1950's.

Atleast, anything American from before the 1950's.

There were some incredible American films pre-1950. You're off your rocker.
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I dont have the time to look at that list but I have seen over thirty films
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Thirteen.

I find it hard to watch most things before 1980, really. Jaws and Star Wars are a couple exceptions.

TheCyborgNinja posted...

The problem I have with this stuff is that you can't weigh new things against ones only held aloft by nostalgia. They're incompatible.

Nostalgia for who, though? Anyone in their twenties or thirties in the 1950s is almost dead now.
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BlueScum posted...

FrozenBananas posted...

Crappy list. And MichaelCole is right, it's all just old movies.

And I hate pretty much anything from before the 1950's.

Atleast, anything American from before the 1950's.

There were some incredible American films pre-1950. You're off your rocker.

I dunno. Yankee Doodle Dandy?

madadude posted...

For example, the top 10 from:

Sight and Sound Critic's Poll:
1. Vertigo
2. Citizen Kane
3. Tokyo Story
4. The Rules of the Game
5. Sunrise
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey
7. The Searchers
8. Man With a Movie Camera
9. The Passion of Joan of Arc
10. 8 1/2

and the top 10 from the Sight and Sound Director's Poll
1. Tokyo Story
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey
3. Citizen Kane
4. 8 1/2
5. Taxi Driver
6. Apocalypse Now
7. The Godfather
8. Vertigo
9. Mirror
10. Bicycle Thieves

so Vertigo, Tokyo Story, Citizen Kane, 2001, and 8 1/2 each are considered top 10 films based on the hundreds of critics and directors polled.

Meanwhile the top 10 over at TSPDT, which looked at a much bigger sample, including Sight and Sound lists but also thousands of others:
1. Citizen Kane
2. Vertigo
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. The Rules of the Game
5. Tokyo Story
6. The Godfather
7. 8 1/2
8. Sunrise
9. The Searchers
10. The Seven Samurai

and to anyone complaining the list primarily features old films, they also have an aggregate top 1,000 films of the 21st century, where the top 10 is:
1. IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (Wong Kar-wai)
2. MULHOLLAND DR. (David Lynch)
3. YI YI (Edward Yang)
4. THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Paul Thomas Anderson)
5. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (Michel Gondry)
6. CACH (Michael Haneke)
7. THE TREE OF LIFE (Terrence Malick)
8. SPIRITED AWAY (Hayao Miyazaki)
9. TROPICAL MALADY (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
10. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (Ang Lee)

You can really feel the influence of Roger Ebert on both of these lists, until you get to 21st century (but Ebert really pushes for Tree of Life)

wah_wah_wah posted...

BlueScum posted...

FrozenBananas posted...

Crappy list. And MichaelCole is right, it's all just old movies.

And I hate pretty much anything from before the 1950's.

Atleast, anything American from before the 1950's.

There were some incredible American films pre-1950. You're off your rocker.

I dunno. Yankee Doodle Dandy?

I don't necessarily mean on this list. The Von Sternberg/Dietrich films, the work of Howard Hawks, early Anthony Mann, classics by Ford, Welles, Walsh, Borzage, Cukor, etc., Renoir's Hollywood period (The Southerner is outstanding), groundbreaking shorts by Maya Deren and Joseph Cornell... And that's not delving into the silent era, which produced one of the all time great movie geniuses in Buster Keaton.

wah_wah_wah posted...

madadude posted...

For example, the top 10 from:

Sight and Sound Critic's Poll:
1. Vertigo
2. Citizen Kane
3. Tokyo Story
4. The Rules of the Game
5. Sunrise
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey
7. The Searchers
8. Man With a Movie Camera
9. The Passion of Joan of Arc
10. 8 1/2

and the top 10 from the Sight and Sound Director's Poll
1. Tokyo Story
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey
3. Citizen Kane
4. 8 1/2
5. Taxi Driver
6. Apocalypse Now
7. The Godfather
8. Vertigo
9. Mirror
10. Bicycle Thieves

so Vertigo, Tokyo Story, Citizen Kane, 2001, and 8 1/2 each are considered top 10 films based on the hundreds of critics and directors polled.

Meanwhile the top 10 over at TSPDT, which looked at a much bigger sample, including Sight and Sound lists but also thousands of others:
1. Citizen Kane
2. Vertigo
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. The Rules of the Game
5. Tokyo Story
6. The Godfather
7. 8 1/2
8. Sunrise
9. The Searchers
10. The Seven Samurai

and to anyone complaining the list primarily features old films, they also have an aggregate top 1,000 films of the 21st century, where the top 10 is:
1. IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (Wong Kar-wai)
2. MULHOLLAND DR. (David Lynch)
3. YI YI (Edward Yang)
4. THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Paul Thomas Anderson)
5. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (Michel Gondry)
6. CACH (Michael Haneke)
7. THE TREE OF LIFE (Terrence Malick)
8. SPIRITED AWAY (Hayao Miyazaki)
9. TROPICAL MALADY (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
10. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (Ang Lee)

You can really feel the influence of Roger Ebert on both of these lists, until you get to 21st century (but Ebert really pushes for Tree of Life)

I seriously doubt Roger Ebert was in the back of everyone's mind when compiling these lists. The reason you might see so much overlap is because these are widely loved classics of cinema and Ebert, like every individual who participated in these polls, recognized that.
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I'm pretty sure I've seen the entirety of 16 of them (counting TV edits). Several of the others I tried but couldn't sit through, most notably Gone with the Wind.
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30something
I don't know the names of all the movies I have seen
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Where's Gymkata?
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BlueScum posted...

I seriously doubt Roger Ebert was in the back of everyone's mind when compiling these lists. The reason you might see so much overlap is because these are widely loved classics of cinema and Ebert, like every individual who participated in these polls, recognized that.

Perhaps. But Citizen Kane at #1, I think of all critics, Ebert leads the way in making this happen. He has literally taught classes going scene by scene analyzing every second of the film. His commentary is on the Criterion. He's probably the biggest expert of all the critics.

I will copy over the ones I've seen:

THE GODFATHER
SCHINDLER'S LIST
STAR WARS
E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING
JAWS
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
TITANIC
THE SIXTH SENSE
TOY STORY

12 total

Of that list, I've watched 18. I've enjoyed 13 of them.
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Looks like 65. It's a really odd list though.
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21 of them. I'm not much of a movie watcher.

wah_wah_wah posted...

BlueScum posted...

I seriously doubt Roger Ebert was in the back of everyone's mind when compiling these lists. The reason you might see so much overlap is because these are widely loved classics of cinema and Ebert, like every individual who participated in these polls, recognized that.

Perhaps. But Citizen Kane at #1, I think of all critics, Ebert leads the way in making this happen. He has literally taught classes going scene by scene analyzing every second of the film. His commentary is on the Criterion. He's probably the biggest expert of all the critics.

Citizen Kane first topped Sight and Sound's poll in 1962, five years before Ebert began work as a critic. If anyone is responsible for people taking serious note of the film it's Andre Bazin and Cahiers du cinema.
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BlueScum posted...

wah_wah_wah posted...

BlueScum posted...

I seriously doubt Roger Ebert was in the back of everyone's mind when compiling these lists. The reason you might see so much overlap is because these are widely loved classics of cinema and Ebert, like every individual who participated in these polls, recognized that.

Perhaps. But Citizen Kane at #1, I think of all critics, Ebert leads the way in making this happen. He has literally taught classes going scene by scene analyzing every second of the film. His commentary is on the Criterion. He's probably the biggest expert of all the critics.

Citizen Kane first topped Sight and Sound's poll in 1962, five years before Ebert began work as a critic. If anyone is responsible for people taking serious note of the film it's Andre Bazin and Cahiers du cinema.

Just because he wasn't around when it first started topping the polls doesn't mean he wasn't a major reason why the flame was carried. No one knows who Andre Bazin is. Ebert is on mass market talk shows and interviews constantly giving Citizen Kane as the best film of all time. I'm not even saying this as if Citizen Kane can't be talked about as one of the best films ever made, but that number 1 status was heavily pushed by Ebert and when you have that big of a megaphone like he had, then it matters.

There's always been pushback on Kane but I think since Ebert died, Kane has lacked a major critic to defend its status as number one of all time. It is still hovering at the top, but I think a lot of why it stayed there for so long is getting irrelevant as the conversation on film changes from technical achievement back to story achievement. And Kane, for all its technical wizardry, tells a thoroughly mediocre story.

8. I've seen 8.

Couldn't have been that good of a list.

I've seen probably a third of the movies on the list and intend to see about another third. Of the ones I have seen, I really don't think some of them deserve to be any where near a top 100. Even 100 is probably too high for Ben-Hur.
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wah_wah_wah posted...

Just because he wasn't around when it first started topping the polls doesn't mean he wasn't a major reason why the flame was carried. No one knows who Andre Bazin is. Ebert is on mass market talk shows and interviews constantly giving Citizen Kane as the best film of all time. I'm not even saying this as if Citizen Kane can't be talked about as one of the best films ever made, but that number 1 status was heavily pushed by Ebert and when you have that big of a megaphone like he had, then it matters.

There's always been pushback on Kane but I think since Ebert died, Kane has lacked a major critic to defend its status as number one of all time. It is still hovering at the top, but I think a lot of why it stayed there for so long is getting irrelevant as the conversation on film changes from technical achievement back to story achievement. And Kane, for all its technical wizardry, tells a thoroughly mediocre story.

I'm not saying Ebert didn't have a hand in championing the film, but I find it baffling why you'd think he had any more influence on these polls than other similarly lauded scholars.

I'm sorry, but the statement "No one knows who Andre Bazin is" displays sheer ignorance on your part. If you walked up to Joe Everyman and asked if he'd heard of Bazin he'd most likely say no, but we're talking about polls where the participants are critics and filmmakers. Tell them "No one knows who Andre Bazin is" and they'd laugh in your face.

I'm going to chalk up your remark about the mediocrity of Kane's story to a matter of opinion, but I disagree. I think Citizen Kane's story is timeless and more relevant than ever in the Trump era.
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I've managed to sit through 3 of the first 30. Not gonna bother looking through the rest, just seems like a mostly dull list of favorites for the nostalgia-driven middle-aged and elderly.
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BlueScum posted...

I'm not saying Ebert didn't have a hand in championing the film, but I find it baffling why you'd think he had any more influence on these polls than other similarly lauded scholars.

I'm sorry, but the statement "No one knows who Andre Bazin is" displays sheer ignorance on your part. If you walked up to Joe Everyman and asked if he'd heard of Bazin he'd most likely say no, but we're talking about polls where the participants are critics and filmmakers. Tell them "No one knows who Andre Bazin is" and they'd laugh in your face.

Are you really going to pretend that an obscure French critic had more influence than Roger Ebert? This critic might have been the first to re-discover Kane and promote it, but like I said earlier, Ebert was probably the best at articulating how great the film was, out of all the critics that championed it (even Bogdanovich). If you haven't heard the Criterion commentary that Ebert does for Kane, it is encyclopedic in its knowledge. I really don't think you can find anyone that knows more about the film, or has greater insights into it, than Ebert.

BlueScum posted...

I'm going to chalk up your remark about the mediocrity of Kane's story to a matter of opinion, but I disagree. I think Citizen Kane's story is timeless and more relevant than ever in the Trump era.

Citizen Kane was also a proto Shawkshank Redemption, in that its status was also lifted by several who thought it was never shown its proper due either in the awards ceremonies or the box office. But now thats gone, with it being rated as the best of all time. No one is overlooking it anymore. And about the story being mediocre, I guess a better description of the story would be, flagrant. No one can mistake its meaning. It is as subtle as a Transformers movie. With a shitty sled gimmick tied to it. And Im only so angry about it because Orson Welles had serious talent, and yet he wasted it all on a drunk screenwriters weird and pointless grudge with a major newspaper publisher.

69 out of 100 according to that list.

I've watched allot of TCM over the years from their start.
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PrettyBoyFloyd posted...

ve watched allot of TCM over the years from their start.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre? =p
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I've only seen 2 of them. The Wizard of Oz and Toy Story.
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I've seen 17 of the top 100 movies from that list.

Oddly enough, I've also seen 17 of the WORST movies according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_considered_the_worst

Seems like Badlands was overlooked.

I rather enjoyed that movie.
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wah_wah_wah posted...

Are you really going to pretend that an obscure French critic had more influence than Roger Ebert? This critic might have been the first to re-discover Kane and promote it, but like I said earlier, Ebert was probably the best at articulating how great the film was, out of all the critics that championed it (even Bogdanovich). If you haven't heard the Criterion commentary that Ebert does for Kane, it is encyclopedic in its knowledge. I really don't think you can find anyone that knows more about the film, or has greater insights into it, than Ebert.

Andre Bazin co-founded one of the most important film publications in the world, was a mentor to Godard and Truffaut, and wrote texts that are still required reading for film students. He wasn't some "obscure French critic," and he was a huge influence on Ebert himself.

Criterion never released Citizen Kane, but I get what you meant. No, I haven't heard it but I'll definitely check it out.
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23
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BlueScum posted...

Andre Bazin co-founded one of the most important film publications in the world, was a mentor to Godard and Truffaut, and wrote texts that are still required reading for film students. He wasn't some "obscure French critic," and he was a huge influence on Ebert himself.

My point is relative to Ebert, who undeniably had resources like a major American newspaper and a television show, the dude is obscure. I get that within critical circles, they are a known name and also that's important since we're talking about critics. But I think even within critics, they are obscure compared to Ebert. I'll never really have proof that Ebert's influence is causing so many of these films to reach the top, but I do think a lot of these choices can't entirely be explained by groupthink. I think on the commercial side of film criticism, Ebert was probably the most influential and could make or break films.

I have watched a few of the movies on the list a few times over. Citizen Kane was, in its time, controversial as far as subject matter (Orson Welles had an agreement signed before he even started to film that the studio wouldn't touch his picture for any reason) since it was an allegorical film about William Randolph Hearst, the newsman at the beginning of the 20th century that defined the words "yellow journalism", which is still employed by some today in order to get people to give them power (#45 as an example). Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

18 of them.
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23
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25. I need to watch more movies.
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30

24, and about half of these I found to be not that great.
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GastroFan posted...

I have watched a few of the movies on the list a few times over. Citizen Kane was, in its time, controversial as far as subject matter (Orson Welles had an agreement signed before he even started to film that the studio wouldn't touch his picture for any reason) since it was an allegorical film about William Randolph Hearst, the newsman at the beginning of the 20th century that defined the words "yellow journalism", which is still employed by some today in order to get people to give them power (#45 as an example). Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

I don't even think of it as warning of Trump at all. Kane abandoned principles for power. Trump never had principles.