Top 100 Films

[Salazkin]

... of all time, as selected by participating members of Done Deal. Refer to http://scriptsales.com/boards/showthread.php?t=9973&page=1&pp=10.

This had been intended to be a top 50, but having accumulated a ranking of more than 550 film selections, a top 100 seemed worthwhile.

I'll have to list them in back to back posts, because the software isn't allowing for a post of over 10,000 characters.

TOP 100 FILMS

1. the godfather
2. raiders of the lost ark
3. star wars
4. jaws
5. casablanca
6. goodfellas
7. empire strikes back
8. schindler's list
9. aliens
10. the good, the bad, and the ugly
11. braveheart
12. chinatown
13. the godfather 2
14. lord of the rings (all three)
15. lawrence of arabia
16. pulp fiction
17. rear window
18. north by northwest
19. one flew over the cuckoo's nest
20. dr. strangelove
21. sunset boulevard
22. L.A. confidential
23. eternal sunshine
24. the princess bride
25. terminator 2
26. the maltese falcon
27. the shawshank redemption
28. saving private ryan
29. vertigo
30. rashomon
31. the shining
32. unforgiven
33. citizen kane
34. die hard
35. alien
36. seven
37. memento
38. rocky
39. 2001: a space odyssey
40. apocalypse now
41. shane
42. outlaw josie wales
43. cool hand luke
44. terminator
45. silence of the lambs
46. brazil
47. field of dreams
48. the usual suspects
49. once upon a time in the west
50. highlander

[Salazkin]

TOP 100 FILMS (cont'd.)


51. requiem for a dream
52. psycho
53. seven samurai
54. back to the future
55. taxi driver
56. animal house
57. the big sleep
58. blade runner
59. the wizard of oz
60. E.T.
61. the french connection
62. the matrix
63. touch of evil
64. american beauty
65. dog day afternoon
66. a christmas story
67. caddyshack
68. ghostbusters
69. the big lebowski
70. the right stuff
71. the adventures of robin hood
72. M
73. gandhi
74. west side story
75. tombstone
76. a few good men
77. the sixth sense
78. all about eve
79. the great escape
80. dumb and dumber
81. leon
82. robocop
83. butch cassidy and the sundance kid
84. forrest gump
85. grapes of wrath
86. midnight run
87. full metal jacket
88. deliverance
89. the exorcist
90. enter the dragon
91. lethal weapon
92. the quiet man
93. halloween
94. miracle on 34th street
95. saturday night fever
96. breaking away
97. amadeus
98. treasure of the sierra madre
99. eyes wide shut
100. wonder boys



Based on the contributions of 29 posters:


BillyThrilly
Pen Dragon
RK Bentley
Loaded for Bear
Ancon Ranger
Noh (erehwon)
Arch Dux
Writerly
Erdnase
Pirhana Monkey
Fortean
Vig
Hairy Lime
Boobsie Malone
Joe Writer
Dclary
Postal Pictures
Bottomless Cup
Randesq
Late4Ttime
SPPeterson
Cluckyburger
Errorhead
Valseven
Whitenavel
MDB
Biohazard
Callingit
Salazkin

Thanks to all.

[English Dave]

Okay I'll be the first ....tHE PRINCESS BRIDE No 24 . ........shurley shome mishtake!

[Salazkin]

Out of 29 voters, the following selected The Princess Bride:


Pen Dragon

Vig

Hairy Lime

Boobsie Malone

Joe Writer

Dclary

Bottomless Cup


That's a pretty solid cross-section.

[English Dave]

Hall of shame - or PMS.

[refriedwhiskey]

Hey, the only movie in the top 50 I haven't seen is Once Upon a Time in the West.

I rock slightly.

[dclary]

Thank the maker for Highlander making the list. There is hope for you all.

[BottomlessCup]

Thanks for taking the time to do this, Sal. :)


And, Dave, what exactly is wrong with Princess Bride?

[refriedwhiskey]

And only one more movie in the second 50 I haven't seen: West Side Story.

Two out of 100 I haven't seen, and they both have West in the title.

Hm.

[Pen Dragon]

Hey, the only movie in the top 50 I haven't seen is Once Upon a Time in the West.

I rock slightly.

you haven't been missing a whole hell of a lot

though knowing you it will be the best movie you've ever seen


where's excalibur, sal

[English Dave]

And, Dave, what exactly is wrong with Princess Bride?

Dunno. Haven't seen it :o

But I can't believe it's the 24th best film of all time. I'll get the DVD out and keep you posted. But if I'm not laughing, crying, changing my view on the world or contemplating suicide inside 30 minutes you owe me five bucks!

[Salazkin]

where's excalibur, sal It came in at #106. You, me, and Loaded were the only ones to vote for it. :(

[BottomlessCup]

Dunno. Haven't seen it :o

But I can't believe it's the 24th best film of all time. I'll get the DVD out and keep you posted. But if I'm not laughing, crying, changing my view on the world or contemplating suicide inside 30 minutes you owe me five bucks!

Hey, I rated it 34th.

[refriedwhiskey]

I have Excalibur on DVD, but I can't see it being in the top 100 films ever.

But then, I didn't vote anyway, so I'll shutupnow.

[dclary]

English Dave... you need to see Princess Bride before you dis it. It is easily the greatest romcom ever put to celluloid, and has one of the most perfect kisses of all time.

Plus pirates!

[vig]

you haven't seen princess bride. you heathen.

vig

[English Dave]

I know. I know. it's just got that Cinderella Man title. Why the &&&& should I get off my arse on a wet Wednesday night and see this? Perfect kiss? You woman!

[refriedwhiskey]

It's also got one of the best sword fights ever commited to film.

And it's hilarious.

[Pen Dragon]

2 of the best swordfights

and an unemployed giant from greenland

[vig]

"i'm looking for a man with six fingers on his right hand."

"my name is indigo montoya... you killed my father. Prepare to die."

vig

[Erehwon]

Thank you for doing that, Sal. Not a bad list. I've seen all of them, I believe.

[Salazkin]

You're welcome, noh (and bottomless). Sorry it took me so damn long.

[refriedwhiskey]

"Anything I want?"

"Yes! Anything!"

"I want my father back, you son of a bitch!"

[Biohazard]

Once Upon A Time In The West is an amazing film.

Now...raiders getting the #2 spot made me almost lose my lunch.
Good? yes. Enjoyable? yes. Deus Ex Machnia? You bet your sweet ass.

[whitenavel]

Nice list. But I'm sad with the exclusion of Close Encounters. That's #1 on my list.

[Fortean]

Well, at least FINDING NEMO was excluded, so it's a damned sight better than Time's Top 100 Films. But, HIGHLANDER in the top 50!?! Too many fanboys!

I'll stand by my list of "eclectic picks," which included different films by Kurosawa and Fritz Lang, (the only directors of foreign language films to make it onto the DD list), and, which included "silent" films, (none on the DD list).

[Pen Dragon]

Once Upon A Time In The West is an amazing film.


zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzz

[randesq]

thanks for putting the list together Sal. I think 5 of my movies made it. While the world continues to drink Budweiser I'll keep going with 120 minute Dog Fish Head . . . remember the wooly mammoth in ice age

[Hairy Lime]

Shoulda stopped at 50, sal. The list gets really spotty after about 70.

Some peculier anomalies on that list, for sure.

Terminator 2 ranked higher than Terminator, Unforgiven, Shawshank Redemption, Citizen Kane, Die Hard, Psycho, Seven Samurai, Taxi Driver, and The Wizard of Oz?

Highlander ranked higher than Seven Samurai, Taxi Driver, and The Wizard of Oz?

I'd only question the inclusion of Animal House among the first 69.

From 70 to 100, I'd question The Right Stuff, Tombstone, A Few Good Men, Dumb and Dumber, Robocop, Midnight Run, Breaking Away, Eyes Wide Shut, and Wonder Boys. None of them are bad movies, but these could easily be replaced with any number of brilliant films.

Consider if you will:

A Clockwork Orange
Do the Right Thing
Easy Rider
The Graduate
Harold and Maude
Lolita
The Philadelphia Story
The Searchers
Singin' in the Rain
The Thin Man
To Kill a Mockingbird

And those are just English language films.

Okay ... this list sucks.

[billythrilly7]

There are a bunch of obvious clunkers on the list, but overall, it's pretty good.

Well done, Sal.

[Salazkin]

Thanks, Rand and Billy.

Hairy: I was thinking exactly the same thing -- that it looks somewhat solid until about 70, then gets kinda wacky. Actually, many of those you mention are in the 100 to 125 range (in the DD list).

Maybe next time we do this I can first ask: "Fanboy or Cinephile (non-fanboy)?" and sort the responses accordingly. Then we could have a Top 50 or Top 100 for each (though we'd need a sufficient number of participants to create results that aren't inordinately skewed to the taste of just a few people).

[AaronB]

I noticed that Shyamalan made the list at number 77 with The Sixth Sense; but I'm not certain that's his best film. It's good, but I think I'd rather see Unbreakable or Signs...especially Signs.

I also thought Casablanca should score higher than number 5.

Then again, my taste is always suspect.

[dclary]

Re: Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Deus Ex Machnia? You bet your sweet ass.

Um, duh. Literally.

[Salazkin]

First, there's no accounting for differences in taste -- so each of us will almost certainly find the list to be lacking in some respect.

But in doing this I think I've uncovered ways to make it better next time. The best way -- and this is beyond my control -- is to increase the sample size. Having had input from 50 or 60 DDers (instead of only 29) would have been considerably better: dampening the "noise" as it were. Also, I can develop a better formula for calculating rank. For this one I used the weighting procedure that I described in the original thread, with a slight modification to account for the number of voters voting for a particular film (to minimize the effect of a single person having the power to single-handedly place a film in the Top 100). Next time I'd be inclined to place yet more weight on the number of voters.

Note to Whitenavel: Close Encounters made the #150 spot, I believe. However, had you ranked your selections (with CE at #1 and hence getting 20 points), Close Encounters would have ended up at #63. A good example of the power of weighting (for better or worse).

[dclary]

How about a multiplier factor based on number of votes, Sal.

For instance, 3 people vote for (out of 20), Close Encounters at 1, 9, and 20.

That would give it 20 + 11 + 1 point, or 32 points.

But since 3 people voted for it, it would get, say (with a sample of 50 people) a multiplier of .02 per vote, so 32 * 1.06 or 34 points. A movie with 50 votes would get twice its actual points value just on the strength of being in everyone's list, regardless of where on those lists it was.

[billythrilly7]

Good theory, David, but what you're forgetting is the variable quotient 5.325.

When compiling facts and weighting data, one must always add the variable quotient 5.325 which will give a better reading because it takes into consideration the possibility of human error corrupting one's findings.

(Us statisticians actually call it "The Moron Quotient" behind people's backs, but I will deny that if repeated.)

Since some people are morons and their answers are wrong, and other people don't take the time to truly give the proper data because they don't really want to be bothered you multiply by 5.325.

For example.

Midnight Run gets 5 #8place votes. Multiply 5x8x 5.325. And then you add up the total points to find out the final standings.

Very simple.

Next year, Sal.

[Salazkin]

Agreed, Dave. Your rationale and approach are the same as mine (I said "voters" whereas you said "votes"; and my formula, thus far, was additive, whereas yours is multiplicative -- probably better, actually).

Ha ha, Billy! Scoring high on the nonsense meter, I see. You and Dave still competing for the position of court jester?

[billythrilly7]

:D