My recent post on the updated AFI top 100 American movies was inspired by a visit to a music forum wherein the list was posted and debated. When the actual integrity of this list was brought into question, a fellow forum member mentioned that the AFI at least had a sense of history. To hammer the point home, he linked up the "Total Film" top 100 movies of all-time, as voted on by some 40,000 of that mag's readers.
1 Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
2 Fight Club
3 Pulp Fiction
4 The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
5 The Shawshank Redemption
6 GoodFellas
7 The Godfather
8 The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
9 Jaws
10 Donnie Darko
11 Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
12 The Usual Suspects
13 The Matrix
14 Raiders Of The Lost Ark
15 Se7en
16 The Godfather: Part II
17 Gladiator
18 Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
19 Aliens
20 Sin City
21 The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
22 LA Confidential
23 Taxi Driver
24 Die Hard
25 Batman Begins
26 Back To The Future
27 Schindler’s List
28 Spider-Man 2
29 The Big Lebowski
30 Heat
31 Reservoir Dogs
32 Blade Runner
33 Terminator 2: Judgment Day
34 Alien
35 X-Men 2
36 Annie Hall
37 Léon
38 Casablanca
39 Apocalypse Now
40 Memento
41 Jurassic Park
42 It’s A Wonderful Life
43 One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
44 Monty Python And The Holy Grail
45 The Third Man
46 The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
47 Toy Story 2
48 A Clockwork Orange
49 Moulin Rouge!
50 The Apartment
51 The Wild Bunch
52 ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
53 Trainspotting
54 Raging Bull
55 City Of God
56 Stand By Me
57 The Thing
58 Scarface (1983)
59 Airplane!
60 The Silence Of The Lambs
61 Blue Velvet
62 Seven Samurai
63 Citizen Kane
64 2001: A Space Odyssey
65 Shaun Of The Dead
66 Pirates Of The Caribbean: Curse Of The Black Pearl
67 Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
68 Lawrence Of Arabia
69 Halloween
70 The Searchers
71 Rocky
72 Once Upon A Time In The West
73 Platoon
74 Kill Bill: Vol. 1
75 Magnolia
76 The Deer Hunter
77 The Shining
78 American Beauty
79 Fargo
80 Chinatown
81 Saving Private Ryan
82 Vertigo
83 King Kong (2005)
84 Goldfinger
85 The Wizard Of Oz
86 Dawn Of The Dead
87 Requiem For A Dream
88 The Terminator
89 Psycho
90 Brokeback Mountain
91 Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love the Bomb
92 The Bourne Supremacy
93 The Incredibles
94 Some Like It Hot
95 Spirited Away
96 Rear Window
97 The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
98 This Is Spinal Tap
99 Forrest Gump
100 The Exorcist
A list by "fans" will automatically be stocked with more "commercial" films, as they aren't (generally) ranking their choices with as many points of criteria as the critics use. Also, Total Film's readership is likely of a median age that indicates unless they are hardcore film nuts, their choices will lean towards the last 10-15 years. Thus, to criticize this list for not having any sense of cinematic history is ridiculous. Rather it would be prudent to savage it on the shit tastes of so many thousands.
Peter Jackson is clearly god to Total Film readers; I approve of the Lord of the Rings films (although they are ranked much too high here), but King Kong? Really? That's a travesty on par with Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho. I think Jackson got an Oscar revoked for putting that out.
The sequels at 28, 33, 35, 47...no. Not on a list of best all-time movies. Fight Club at number 2 pretty much speaks for itself. Not unlike putting Choke on a list of 100 all-time best novels.
But there are great choices...Trainspotting, Stand By Me, Airplane, Shaun of the Dead, Goldfinger, LA Confidential. Also, major respect for rating Goodfellas in the top 10 (dear AFI, please grow balls re: Scorsese's greatest film) and for giving a spot to Empire Strikes Back, so clearly the finest of the Star Wars films (and number 2 on my personal favorite movies list).
I guess I should rant again about Willy Wonka not being there, but I'm much more intrigued by the fact that there are, per these rankings, 61 films better than Seven Samurai. Whoever didn't vote for Seven Samurai (or put it in your top 10) please understand: that movie is superior to any of your individual lives. If Seven Samurai were somehow to disappear from circulation (DVDs and tapes disintegrated, digital torrents deleted) the entire film industry would be irreparably decimated, but if any of you fell off the face of the Earth tomorrow, the few people who even had cause to care would lose interest after two weeks.
A fun list, then...maddening, perplexing, pleasing, hilarious. A good list should endeavor to be all those things and even more.
Seven Samurai Top 100 Films Total Film
class, we have a new phrase for you today
ReplyDelete"Short-Attention Span"
today we learn that nobody nowadays has a sense of history
first off you can't honestly do a list of that stature and allow films made in the last 5 years, it takes time to look back and see if they hold up
now the top 4, empire strikes back is the best star wars flick and i rank it quite highly all time, but i wouldn't put it number 1, i personally think Fight Club is a very overrated and it proves it's a fan poll, Pulp Fiction is a masterpiece, again though i wouldn't put it nearly that high, and i agree with AFI's list that the Fellowship of the ring is the best of the 3 LOTR movies
Jenn really laid it out, but putting batman begins is fool hearty and the 2005 version of king kong, the fuck outta here
although some movies are on there that are getting some deserved recognition such as Léon and wow people actually remember Rear Window
now class, this reminds me of when Fox aired the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences presents the 25 funniest moments in TV history, and for picks 3-25 it was actually an inspired list from Bob Newhart drunk and calling up for Chinese food, to Carol Burnett and her Gone With the Wind drape dress, to Homer Simpson falling down the gorge twice and yes "Does Wayne Brady have to choke a bitch?",
all fun and ha-has and Harvey Korman giggles, until they reached number 2: a musical number by Family Guy, first off, the show is created by harvesting leftover shit that comes from the sewer of the Simpsons' offices which they don't use cause it isn't funny, speed up the animation and call it a FOX show, and at the end of the special it says it was not just a fan poll, an ONLINE FAN poll,
you see children people on the internet like the show "Family Guy" and those people are called "Fucktards", and those "Fucktards" pass the time by watching shows that FOX puts on TV to try to replace The Simpsons
now class, i want a 500 word essay on "Short Attention Span" and i want it by Monday
got it? hey you, yeah you the one reading this blog! are you paying attention? stop watching that Wes Anderson film and get to work!