Time Magazine's 100 Greatest Films

[billythrilly7]

http://www.time.com/time/2005/100movies/the_complete_list.html

Just awful. Some of them are jokes, just to make sure we're paying attention, right?

A - C
Aguirre: the Wrath of God (1972)
The Apu Trilogy (1955, 1956, 1959)
The Awful Truth (1937)
Baby Face (1933)
Bande Ã* part (1964)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)
Blade Runner (1982)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Brazil (1985)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Camille (1936)
Casablanca (1942)
Charade (1963)
Children of Paradise (1945)
Chinatown (1974)
Chungking Express (1994)
Citizen Kane (1941)
City Lights (1931)
City of God (2002)
Closely Watched Trains (1966)
The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936)
The Crowd (1928)
D - F
Day for Night (1973)
The Decalogue (1989)
Detour (1945)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)
Dodsworth (1936)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop
Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Drunken Master II (1994)
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
8 1/2 (1963)
The 400 Blows (1959)
Farewell My Concubine (1993)
Finding Nemo (2003)
The Fly (1986)
G - J
The Godfather, Parts I and II (1972, 1974)
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
Goodfellas (1990)
A Hard Day's Night (1964)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Ikiru (1952)
In A Lonely Place (1950)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
It's A Gift (1934)
It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
K - M
Kandahar (2001)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
King Kong (1933)
The Lady Eve (1941)
The Last Command (1928)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Léolo (1992)
The Lord of the Rings (2001-03)
The Man With a Camera (1929)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
Metropolis (1927)
Miller's Crossing (1990)
Mon oncle d'Amérique (1980)
Mouchette (1967)
N - P
Nayakan (1987)
Ninotchka (1939)
Notorious (1946)
Olympia, Parts 1 and 2 (1938)
On the Waterfront (1954)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Out of the Past (1947)
Persona (1966)
Pinocchio (1940)
Psycho (1960)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
Pyaasa (1957)
Q - S
Raging Bull (1980)
Schindler's List (1993)
The Searchers (1956)
Sherlock, Jr. (1924)
The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
The Singing Detective (1986)
Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Star Wars (1977)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Sunrise (1927)
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Swing Time (1936)
T - Z
Talk to Her (2002)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Tokyo Story (1953)
A Touch of Zen (1971)
Ugetsu (1953)
Ulysses' Gaze (1995)
Umberto D (1952)
Unforgiven (1992)
White Heat (1949)
Wings of Desire (1987)
Yojimbo (1961)

[Pen Dragon]

a laughable list to be sure

typical of Time

[vmf]

If you want a real laugh, go read Premiere's Top 50 Hollywood Stars of ALL TIME!

Yes, Will Smith is on it, and no, he's not #50. :rolleyes:

[BottomlessCup]

Methinks "Time" is trying a little too hard to get in the pants of that hot girl who works at Barnes & Noble.

Man Even the guys at Criterion probably haven't seen all these. (well, actually they probbaly have. But still...)

[Pen Dragon]

'Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course' should be in at least the top 20 on that list

[postalpictures]

I actually don't think it's that bad of a list.

I'm just really excited to see Werner Herzog on there with,
Aguirre: the Wrath of God, check this out.

[Erehwon]

the 1986 version of The Fly!?!?

wow.

[postalpictures]

the 1986 version of The Fly!?!?

wow.

They should have used Cronenberg's Videodrome.

[Bad Liver]

Methinks "Time" is trying a little too hard to get in the pants of that hot girl who works at Barnes & Noble.

Man Even the guys at Criterion probably haven't seen all these. (well, actually they probbaly have. But still...)

I hear that girl at Barnes & Noble is ga-ga for guys who say "methinks," too.

[Pencey]

Methinks "Time" is trying a little too hard to get in the pants of that hot girl who works at Barnes & Noble.



News Flash: Hot girls don't work at bookstores.

[Bad Liver]

News Flash: Hot girls don't work at bookstores.


Clearly you're not familiar with the fact-filled TV program "Stacked."

[Hairy Lime]

Dumbf-cks missed All About Eve, The Big Sleep, AND Sunset Blvd.

[BottomlessCup]

News Flash: Hot girls don't work at bookstores.

Absurd.

They're rare. That's what makes them double-super-hot.

I hear that girl at Barnes & Noble is ga-ga for guys who say "methinks," too.

Turns out: no. :(

[Pencey]

Absurd.

They're rare. That's what makes them double-super-hot.

That only strengthens my argument...

[Erehwon]

Harold and Maude isn't even on this list, so it's ****e. Pure and simple. Worthless. Not even good enough to wipe the a$$ of Rupert M.

[Architeuthis Dux]

No Vertigo? No La Strada? No Raiders of the Lost Ark?

This list and the people who wrote it suck sweaty monkey testicles. And even if there were a hot girl working at the Barnes & Noble, whoever wrote it would obviously not be interested in her.

[willwriteforfood]

Hairy Lime... I agree with you. Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve are clearly great films that deserve a spot on this list more so than about 10 or so others. I would also like to nominate... It Happened One Night.

I would also say that The Professional and Run Lola Run should be added. Hey, if the Fly can be tossed on there... just about any film can be on here.

[Loaded for Bear]

They got it only about two-thirds right. Somewhere between 25 and 50 of those listed should go (IMO), and be replaced with the likes of Apocalyse Now, Empire Strikes Back, Fargo, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Rear Window, Sunset Boulevard, Saving Private Ryan, and arguably some of my more personal favorites like Annie Hall and Crimes and Misdemeanors.

[dclary]

How the **** do you put Finding Nemo on any top 100 list that isn't "stupid cartoon movies with fish in it?"

And no Highlander?

Scandalous!

[Hairy Lime]

Clary, be honest, how many of those films had you heard of before you read the list?

[dclary]

I haven't looked at the list. Hang on... get back to you.

[dclary]

I'd heard of 41 of them.

Of that entire list, only 4 of them are on my top 100 list.

[Hairy Lime]

Assuming, you aren't counting LOTR as 3 films (they didn't), I'm guessing your 4 are:

Blade Runner
ET
LOTR
Star Wars

[postalpictures]

Assuming, you aren't counting LOTR as 3 films (they didn't), I'm guessing your 4 are:

Blade Runner
ET
LOTR
Star Wars

The list is far from perfect but I think before everyone trashes it, people like clary, should SEE the movies. God damn, I never thought people who want to make it in the movie business would know next to nothing about movies.

[dclary]

Nope, Blade Runner's not in my top 100. But Unforgiven's in my top 10.

Postal, I'm not trashing the list per-se. I'm just saying that of the 40 I've seen, 36 of them are wrong... and of the other 60, they just don't look that good to begin with.

[Johnny Stacatto]

yeah, i've seen sixty-two of those movies but any list that leaves off most of the movies previously mentioned by others* deserves some question marks.





*except for "highlander". i mean, i like the movie and all but nowhere near a top 100.

[alipali]

:) .

[BottomlessCup]

The more I try to deconstruct this list, the more it pisses me off.

I'm not going to argue that imdb's top 250 is the "end all, be all" of movie quality - the very nature of its construction gives it a number of biases - but it's more reliable, in my opinion, than any panel you can assemble.

Comparing imdb and time's lists, I'll take imdb's in a heart beat, even after lopping off the extra 150. Time drops, among others: The Shawshank Redemption, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Rear Window, Sunset Blvd, North by Northwest, Vertigo, The Seven Samurai, and Tewlve Angry Men. And that's not even getting into more recent films, which have yet to prove their mettle over time. (These lists inevitably skew old, although curiously, the Time list skews hard to the 50's and 60's, not the typical 30's and 40's.)

If I could choose the most egregious mistake on the list, I would choose the inclusion of "The Crowd" at the expense of, say, Shawshank.

Now, I haven't seen "The Crowd." Very few living people have, I would guess. But even just by looking at the related experiences of others, it seems an obviously faulty pick. On imdb, it has less than a thousand votes. That's not a reason to exclude it; many fine films are obscure. However, even those thousand cinephiles have rated it an average of 8.0. Barely scraping onto the imdb Top 250 - or rather, it would be if it had enough votes.

On the other hand, more than 150,000 people have voted for Shawshank, giving it an average of 9.0. By their formula, it's just under Godfather at number two (despite having the same rating and 25,000 more votes.) Its exclusion smacks loudly of "smarter-than-thou" baloney.

Given only a hundred spots to fill, Time ignored classics (old and new). They eschewed widely beloved movies in favor of obscure flicks that fail to elicit as much passion even among those who have seen them.

Therefore, I can come to only one conclusion:

Time's panel are a bunch of pretentious jack-offs and this list is garbage.

[dclary]

Wow. Bottomless's analysis is spot on!

[cluckyburger]

Time's panel are a bunch of pretentious jack-offs and this list is garbage.

i agree that with you that the list is garbage. any 'best of' list is when it comes to art. (more specifically, who gives a crap what a film critic thinks is good or not?)....however, i don't think you do your argument any favors by claiming a film you haven't seen is obscure and irrelevent and then picking an arbitrary film that you have seen to weigh it against. why not see some of these movies that you haven't seen and then judge? i've only seen 61 of them (have not seen the crowd) so i have to get cracking myself

[Salazkin]

Though I really like Shawshank, it's WAY overrated at #2 all time. Put it at #32 or #72 and I'm down with that. IMDb is greatly skewed to the fanboys, just as AFI, TIME, and other lists are greatly skewed to the old codgers. I think we here at Done Deal are a pretty good sampling. We've offered our top 20's before, then had them compiled for a DD Top 50 or whatever. It's fun, once in a while. What was #1 last time? Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[Hairy Lime]

Clary, you've heard of 41 of them and seen 40 of them or are you confused?I've seen 58 of them and had not heard of 24 of them.

Of course, there are 106 films on the list, 3 of which are technically miniseries.

Weird list. I can imagine a film critic, a cinephile, a failed film student, a fanboy, a Martial Arts geek, and an Entertainment Tonight junky sitting around a conference table in the Time Warner Building negotiating that list.

critic: Mouchette is the best film nobody ever saw.

cinephile: Arguable, but I'd say we've got to have Sunrise before anything else.

film student: Fine, you guys take those, but I'm insisting on Bande a part ... and 8 1/2.

fanboy: 8 1/2 what? We gotta have ... Lord of the Rings! All 3!

martial arts: Dude, if you get those, I so get Drunken Master II.

ET Junky: I liked Finding Nemo.

cinephile: The Rings Trilogy should count as a single film.

critic: It was all filmed together.

fanboy: Whatever, but then I get Star Wars!

ET Junky: I like Star Wars ... and ET.

martial arts: We know you watch Entertainment Tonight.

ET: Yeah, but I mean ... you know ... the phone home thing?

critic: If we're going to stoop to Speilberg, it should really be Schindler's List.

cinephile: I must insist if we're going to show Nazism from the Jewish perspective, we should show it from the German perspective too.

critic: Riefenstahl, obviously. Which one? Triumph of the Will?

cinephile: I was thinking Olympiad. Both parts.

film student: I could have directed any of these better than the originals.

fanboy: (to martial arts and ET) You guys want Taco Bell?

ET: Uh ... sure.

martial arts: I'd rather have sushi.

ET: I'm not eating Nemo.

fanboy: Whatever. He's just a cartoon character!

Trio exits conference room. The artistes hash out the rest of the list.

Still can't explain The Fly.

[Salazkin]

:rolling: Outstanding stuff, Hairy.

[Fortean]

Probably someone's fly was down in Hairy's sketch. I'd suspect the Fanboy.

I'm still laughing at FINDING NEMO on a list, that ignores DET SJUNDE INSEGLET (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050976/) and RASHÔMON (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042876/combined).

[BottomlessCup]

however, i don't think you do your argument any favors...

1. Shawshank was meant as an example. Replace it with almost any of the films mentioned in this thread. (but not Highlander. Sorry, dc.) These excluded films' reputation is such that they were undoubtedly left out deliberately, not arbritrarily. They couldn't have "forgotten" about Seven Samurai or Raiders or Shawshank. They chose not to include them

2. No, I haven't seen "The Crowd." Or many other of the films on this list. But obscurity isn't a great defense for it, on a list of "greatest" films. I will track it down. It doesn't even appear to be on DVD, such is its importance in cinema. Since I can't view it, I'm using the resources available to me to guage its import and quality. It is coming up short.

3. Even forgetting the ultra-obscure films, we still have to look at "the Fly", glaring on the list. Popcorn is great. But even for popcorn, find me an actual human being who can make a remotely compelling argument that "the Fly" is better than "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Every "Best" list is flawed. But this is the worst one I've ever seen.

[Pencey]

How can silent films even be compared to talkies? And for that matter, you could even argue that the early talkies with overacting shouldn't be compared to anything post-Brando.

Films have changed so much in the past hundred years. Today's audience judges movies differently than that of 50 years ago. Is Gone With The Wind still that good of a film or is Shawshank better? It's very hard to say. GWTW is very well shot, has some great scenes, and some memorable lines, but it's tedious in some areas; and of course, the actors "overact" because that was the style back then. So how do we judge this then? Do we overlook the acting style and the slow pace of the film so we can compare it to great films nowadays with realistic acting and short scenes that cut right to the point? It's tough to say...

[Pen Dragon]

Gone With the Wind -- Hollywood's greatest example of the Technicolor coffee table film. soap opera on celluloid. The film that convinced half of Hollywood to this day that style over substance makes for lucrative BO. The film that made Cecil B. DeMille want to **** David O. Selznick. THEE most overwrought, overhyped and overrated piece of fluff in cinema history

[Salazkin]

Don't sugarcoat it, Pen. Tell us what you really think. :rolleyes:

[Pen Dragon]

The movie that, had done deal and the internet been around in 1939, Authorized would have plugged and praised in 5 threads a week until Cleopatra came out in 1963

[Fortean]

How can silent films even be compared to talkies?Yeah, remind me that Abel Gance's NAPOLÉON (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018192/combined) isn't on their list.

Just because most of you haven't seen some of the classics of the Silent Era does not make them inferior works due to the lack of spoken dialog, (as well as their limitations with panchromatic film). One might as well criticize the works of William Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, or Charles Dickens, as being inferior to today's "graphic novels," because they didn't include pictures on each page, had strange dialogs, and were much too long to read.

Edited to add a point of clarification in that Pencey has only reminded me of how a great silent film was overlooked in favour to FINDING NEMO or THE FLY. In answer to his question, yes, they can be compared, (with consideration to the need to tell a story visually and the sparing use of dialog in intertitles in the case of the silent films). Turn off the sound of a more recent film, (as well as captions and subtitles), and see how well the story is told visually. Can we compare THE BLACK PIRATE (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0016654/combined) with PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325980/combined)? I say, yes. Which one of those had more realistic acting? My complaint is not with Pencey, but with the film critics at "Time," and with screenwriters who seldom delve beyond the films available at their local video outlet. And, yes, tho I enjoy both Mozart and Led Zeppelin, Mozart's "Jupiter Symphony" is clearly superior to the "Immigrant Song," (tho individual tastes may differ).

[s1eve]

Oh looky here, Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel (TIME's film critics) talk about their criteria for picking their Top 100 list:

http://img.timeinc.net/time/2005/100movies/corschick_final.mp3

[postalpictures]

I feel depressed that it seems like I'm the only one hear who have heard of almost all of these films and have seen tons of them. I also find it odd that people can write off say, 60 movies, or more without ever having seen them. "Oh, if I haven't seen it or heard of it, so it has to be bad. Anyway, my list is better because the movies I picked made more money. Money and mass-appeal is the only thing that should count as greatness!"

[Pen Dragon]

You have to be depressed to sit through about 60 titles on that list

[Pencey]

Yeah, remind me that Abel Gance's NAPOLÉON (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018192/combined) isn't on their list.

Just because most of you haven't seen some of the classics of the Silent Era does not make them inferior works due to the lack of spoken dialog, (as well as their limitations with panchromatic film). One might as well criticize the works of William Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, or Charles Dickens, as being inferior to today's "graphic novels," because they didn't include pictures on each page, had strange dialogs, and were much too long to read.

I'm not sure if you were addressing me or not but I just want to be clear that when I say the pre-talkies shouldn't be compared to today's films, I simply mean that it's like comparing Mozart to Led Zeppelin. Both were great in their own ways but how can somebody compare one to the other...

[Pen Dragon]

hey boy, watch that knife!

I love the Searchers, but it's not in the same league as Shane...which never makes any of these lists because everyone is pulling their puds at crap like Pulp Fiction

[Hairy Lime]

The Searchers was far better than Shane (I own both on DVD). Seems as though having The Searchers and Unforgiven on the same list is redundant. I mean, how many "deconstruction of western mythos" films can one list have?

Postal. Many writers are not film school snobs, therefore, many of these more obscure films simply don't find our radar. Besides, 90%+ of DDers aspire to write Hollywood films, which is all about box office ... so why bother with obscure, inaccessible foreign films that never found an audience stateside? My new goal is to see the 39 films on that list that I haven't seen before, but I'll take my time and I'll have to go the the NYPL's film archives to catch a few on 16mm.

[Pen Dragon]

The Searchers is not as good as Shane. Trust me, Hairy. I'm an expert

[Mad Max]

But Hairy owns both on DVD, Pen. :p (just razzin ya, Hairy).

[Pen Dragon]

I've owned them both on DVD for over three years

[Erehwon]

I love The Big Sleep, but it's not 100 material. That belongs to Key Largo, Maltese Falcom, Casablanca, or even To Have and Have Not, if you're talkin' Bogie movies.

[Hairy Lime]

Was searching "Ikiru" after finally seeing it and discovered this old thread. Fun stuff. Miss some of these posters. But I'm really bringing it back, because I have managed to see a number of the films on the list that I hadn't seen previously and all have been fantastic.

[vmf]

Yet another reminder of our dearly departed DClary... "sadsmiley:

Damn, now I know how Ramirez felt when he was gutted by the Kurgan.

[Architeuthis Dux]

The Crowd . . . Was that the one with George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman in Italy, and he was being a cold, arch bastard to her, and she was all depressed and lonely and sh!t, and then there's some kind of big festival or something, and they both nearly get trampled, and then they fall into each other's arms at the end?

I saw that.

It wasn't that good.

Ikiru . . . Was that that downer Kurosawa pic about the dude who finds out he's dying of cancer or something and realizes that he's been a nobody his whole life but then at the end he dies but because of his efforts there's a tiny park with his name on it somewhere amid the tenement buildings and it was night and raining the whole time?

That was better than The Crowd.

[Hairy Lime]

You're running with the wrong Crowd (http://imdb.com/title/tt0018806/), Dux.