Some of the experimental, art-house films are in the bucket of "massively influential, but not that many people watch it all the way through" Like Chien Andalou. -And speaking of Luis Buñuel how come only his b&w stuff gets "in" and not "the discrete charm of the bourgoisie" or "that obscure object of desire" or "Belle Du Jour" It's really in the end, about a bunch of prefereneces weighted by "everyone else's eyes are on me"
The more recent and high score films tend to box office. It's also heavily weighted into specific genres and styles. One Indian movie, despite the massive weight of Indian film production.
Genres are all over the place: horror, action, sci-fi, spaghetti western, musical, farce, drama, ... 4 Indian movies. Doesn't look the way people voted is in any way public.
Available here: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-ti...
I care mostly about movies that are incredible to me now in 2023. That informs my definition of “best movies”. I am not interested in Citizen Kane’s innovative use of the deep focus technique. I can appreciate an incredible older movie, but not for obscure film buff reasons. If anyone knows of a good best movie list that is free of this sort of pretentious navel gazing, please link it below.
Also, this is a hot take, but at a certain point older movies become worse precisely because of their datedness rather than “more interesting due to what they achieved within their technological boundaries at the time”. If they’re still good, that’s because they have an absolutely stellar story.
My sub-list:
Film I'm pleasantly surprised to see in the top 10: Mulholland Dr.
Film I'm not going to complain about: 2001. It's impact can't be denied even if the last bit drags
Film I'm happy to see recognized: Yi Yi
Films I found underwhelming:
-- Melancholia
-- Tree of Life
Films I'd forgotten about that I now have to watch again:
-- Dr. Strangelove
-- Playtime
-- Yi Yi
-- 8 1/2
Film I would have ranked higher: The Third Man
Also, heavily biased towards the 20s-50s
Edit: more detail, 35/250 films are from the past 25 years, from 1998 to now. Less than 1/7 of films from over 1/5 of the entire history of film?
And then the consistant bias of impact to the industry vs actual filmic value... this isn't supposed to be a list of the 250 most impactful films... I've seen a few of these older films from the 20s or 30s. For sure, they were developing the language of film and are absolutely key to film history. But are you really going to say they stand up to films made in recent years with a fully mature vocabulary?
This is such a common occurrence on lists like this, they might as well be called "250 films you will probably watch in film studies class"
Another edit: I counted 42 films from the 25 year period from 1920-1945
https://www.imdb.com/chart/top/
There are some common titles, but they remain quite different lists.
It's all subjective, and these lists make for fun discussion.
- Schindler's list
- The Pianist
- La vita è bellaLa vita e bella - i have to rewatch it. My impression (20 years ago) was that tried to see some tragic moments with a comical note.
Pianist is ok.
In any case, that's a handy reference list for things to watch.
Rohmer deserves more than one film, Green Ray is not even his best.
Certainly the best (anti)war film.
Some people might also find these finds incredibly boring, and that's fine. In the end this is nothing more than "films the 1,639 people who voted liked the best". I bet everyone can name some films they feel should be on that list, or has seen films on the list that they disliked; for example I felt Citizen Kane was profoundly boring. That's okay as not everyone's movie taste is the same, just as people's tastes in music or food differ.
Years ago I watched The Childhood of a Leader in the theatre with my then-girlfriend. I thought it was pretty good. I could see her shifting in her seat and sighing heavily, and her dislike of it was palpable even in the dark without any words spoken. She hated it and would have walked out if it wasn't for me. My rating would be 8/10 or so; hers 1/10. Average rating: 4.5, which is not too far off the 54% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Anyhow, my point is: I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss people's tastes.
Sure! I've seen 19 of the 42 films you counted as being made between 1920-1945, and I'd say the overwhelming majority of those 19 definitely still hold up. Are you seriously telling me Double Indemnity (1944), City Lights (1931), Duck Soup (1933), and Casablanca (1942) are only fit for consumption by film students? If so, I'd say "lucky film students!"
To be fair, the industry made about a billion superhero movies and 10 fast and furious and 3 (three!!!) hobbit movies in that time.
In my opinion Mad Max was a master piece of exploitation cinema and the most realistic of the bunch.
The Road Warrior pushed it a bit further and was at least plausible. I think it's the best of the series and one of my favorite movies of all time.
Beyond the Thunderdome is tough. They destroyed the Interceptor early and Miller seems to not understand the importance of a car as a character. I think reusing the actor from The Road Warrior in a different roll was a confusing mistake and some parts were pushed to the edge of silly. On the other hand, the homage to Lord of the Flies was beautifully done and somewhat made up for the other deficiencies.
Fury Road was a completely implausible comic book that delved into the silly to a ridiculous degree. But even worse, it was not a Mad Max movie other than it copied The Road Warrior in much the same way the 7-9 star wars sequels copied Star Wars.
Edit: I will also say that after seeing the film I was shocked it was Miller. I assumed it had been passed off to some hack and was made purely for the benjamins.
I still think this list lacks recent films.
If there were an even spread across the decades, you'd be right to suspect selection by other than aesthetic or innovation criteria.
As for the Mad Max franchise, I think of it (I can’t remember where I first saw this idea) as the same legend retold over multiple generations of oral storytellers. So the world gets less and less detailed and the characters change with each retelling.
That’s why I see it differently than I see Star Wars 7 & 9 (I loved 8 though).
One way to approach film making is to see it as the art of moving objects in 3d space, then using a camera to transpose those objects onto a 2d plane. Take the resultant series of images, and splice / edit them into a feature film. Fury Road is a masterclass in this craft. Every frame a painting and all that. Every edit is perfect.
You might rewatch it with this idea in mind. It is not great storywise but it is greatly done in this regard
I would like it gone.
No Brooks, no Python, it's hard to take those lists seriously...
Seems to be that just because these lists lack the comedy that you personally enjoy, you do a no-true-scotsman to simply deny the presence of comedy on them.
I think Morrowind, Ocarina of Time, and FF7 are GOATed, but I also don’t go out of my way to play older 2D games and certainly would never call them the greatest. On top of that, I have to admit that the games I mentioned are less enjoyable today than they were back then, and are on the same level as other 10/10s that I played in more recent times.
The medium by which books are conveyed hasn’t really changed meaningfully (holding fixed what is being written about). They’re still words. That’s not true of movies and video games.
Movies are still a lot of still images shown fast enough to give the impression of movement. Video games are still interactive electronic entertainment.
'Old' books, movies and video games can have just as much to offer as anything created recently.
In contrast if LOTR (the book series) was released today instead of 1954-1955, it would have a serious chance at being a mega best seller. It’s such a good read independent of its influence on subsequent fantasy novels.