The Panda

My tentative top 100 according a pairwise ranking algorithm I tried out 1 Spirited Away (2001) 2 Ratatouille (2007) 3 My Neighbore Totoro (1988) 4 The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) 5 Princess Mononoke (1997) 6 Watership Down (1978) 7 The Hobbit (1977) 8 The Brave Little Toaster (1987) 9 The Boy and the Heron (2023) 10 Tarzan (1999) 11 The Wind Rises (2013) 12 Coraline (2009) 13 Rango (2011) 14 Grave of the Fireflies (1988) 15 The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) 16 It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966) 17 Lilo & Stitch (2002) 18 Shrek (2001) 19 The Jungle Book (1967) 20 An American Tail (1986) 21 Son of the White Mare (1981) 22 Fantasia (1940) 23 Wall-E (2008) 24 Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) 25 Pinocchio (1940) 26 The Princess and the Frog (2009) 27 The Prince of Egypt (1998) 28 The Iron Giant (1999) 29 Fantasia (2000) 30 Turning Red (2022) 31 Frosty the Snowman (1969) 32 Soul (2020) 33 It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012) 34 Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) 35 Anastasia (1997) 36 How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) 37 Inside Out (2015) 38 Pokemon: The First Movie (1998) 39 Isle of Dogs (2018) 40 Tales from the Earthsea (2006) 41 Akira (1988) 42 Persepolis (2007) 43 Paprika (2006) 44 The Snowman (1982) 45 I Lost My Body (2019) 46 The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) 47 Shrek 2 (2004) 48 The Plague Dogs (1982) 49 Toy Story (1996) 50 The Goofy Movie (1995) 51 Wallace & Grommit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) 52 James and the Giant Peach (1996) 53 Up (2009) 54 The Incredibles (2004) 55 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) 56 Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) 57 Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) 58 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) 59 One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) 60 Chicken Run (2000) 61 Balto (1996) 62 Apollo 10 ½ (2022) 63 Castle in the Sky (1986) 64 Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) 65 Bambi (1942) 66 The Emperor’s New Groove (2001) 67 The Secret World of Arrietty (2010) 68 Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) 69 Mary and Max (2009) 70 Ponyo (2008) 71 Toy Story 2 (1999) 72 Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) 73 Corpse Bride (2005) 74 The Fox and the Hound (1981) 75 Madeline: Lost in Paris (1999) 76 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) 77 Luca (2021) 78 The Super Mario Bros Movie (2023) 79 Beauty and the Beast (1991) 80 Alice in Wonderland (1951) 81 An American Tail: Fieval Goes West (1991) 82 Lady and the Tramp (1955) 83 The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (2012) 84 Tangled (2010) 85 All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989) 86 The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) 87 Hercules (1997) 88 Dumbo (1941) 89 Curious George (2006) 90 Happy Feet (2006) 91 Aladdin (1993) 92 Olive, The Other Reindeer (1999) 93 Coco (2017) 94 Peter Pan (1953) 95 Monsters, Inc. (2001) 96 Song of the Sea (2014) 97 Pokemon Heroes (2002) 98 Treasure Planet (2002) 99 Monster House (2006) 100 The Huncback of Notre Dame (1996)

The final list! 1. Schindler's List (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1993) 2. Titanic (dir. James Cameron, 1997) 3. Spirited Away (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 2001) 4. The Godfather (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) 5. Goodfellas (dir. Martin Scorsese, 1990) 6. Raiders of the Lost Ark (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1981) 7. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (dir. Peter Jackson, 2001) 8. The Empire Strikes Back (dir. Irvin Kershner, 1980) 9. Lawrence of Arabia (dir. David Lean, 1962) 10. 2001: A Space Odyssey (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1968) 11. Jaws (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1975) 12. Apocalypse Now (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) 13. 12 Angry Men (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1957) 14. Back to the Future (dir. Robert Zemeckis, 1985) 15. Star Wars (dir. George Lucas, 1977) 16. The Apartment (dir. Billy Wilder, 1960) 17. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (dir. Peter Jackson, 2003) 18. Pan's Labyrinth (dir. Guillermo Del Torro, 2006) 19. The Godfather: Part II (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1974) 20. The Matrix (dir. Lana and Lilly Wachowski, 1999) 21. The Dark Knight (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2008) 22. Terminator 2: Judgement Day (dir. James Cameron, 1991) 23. Do the Right Thing (dir. Spike Lee, 1989) 24. Mad Max: Fury Road (dir. George Miller, 2015) 25. Mulholland Drive (dir. David Lynch, 2001) 26. Jurassic Park (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1993) 27. Singin' in the Rain (dir. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952) 28. Pulp Fiction (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 1994) 29. Oppenheimer (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2023) 30. Princess Mononoke (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 1997) 31. Heat (dir. Michael Mann, 1995) 32. Taxi Driver (dir. Martin Scorse, 1976) 33. The Incredibles (dir. Brad Bird, 2004) 34. Vertigo (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) 35. Inception (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2010) 36. The Wizard of Oz (dir. Victor Fleming, 1939) 37. Ratatouille (dir. Brad Bird, 2007) 38. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (dir. Rian Johnson, 2017) 39. Wall-E (dir. Andrew Stanton, 2008) 40. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1982) 41. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (dir. Peter Jackson, 2002) 42. The Shawshank Redemption (dir. Frank Darabont, 1994) 43. My Neighbor Totoro (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 1988) 44. The Social Network (dir. David Fincher, 2010) 45. Seven Samurai (dir. Akira Kurosawa, 1953) 46. The Truman Show (dir. Peter Weir, 1998) 47. Citizen Kane (dir. Orson Welles, 1941) 48. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (dir. Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman, 2018) 49. The Shining (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980) 50. Alien (dir. Ridley Scott, 1979) 51. Coco (dir. Lee Unkrich, 2017) 52. The Thing (dir. John Carpenter, 1982) 53. Saving Private Ryan (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1998) 54. Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1964) 55. Parasite (dir. Bong Joon-Ho, 2019) 56. Inside Out (dir. Pete Docter, 2015) 57. Before Sunrise (dir. Richard Linklater, 1995) 58. Casablanca (dir. Michael Curtiz, 1942) 59. Psycho (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) 60. Rear Window (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) 61. It's a Wonderful Life (dir. Frank Capra, 1946) 62. Toy Story 2 (dir. John Lasseter, 1999) 63. Silence (dir. Martin Scorsese, 2016) 64. Before Sunset (dir. Richard Linklater, 2004) 65. Toy Story (dir. John Lasseter, 1995) 66. Sunset Boulevard (dir. Billy Wilder, 1950) 67. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (dir. Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, 1975) 68. Interstellar (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2014) 69. Once Upon a Time in the West (dir. Sergio Leone, 1968) 70. City of God (dir. Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund, 2002) 71. The Silence of the Lambs (dir. Jonathan Demme, 1991) 72. Inglorious Basterds (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2009) 73. In the Mood for Love (dir. Wong Kar-wai, 2000) 74. Fargo (dir. Joel Coen, 1996) 75. Avengers: Endgame (dir. Anthony and Joe Russo, 2019) 76. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (dir. Steven Spielberg, 2001) 77. Spider-Man 2 (dir. Sam Raimi, 2004) 78. There Will Be Blood (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007) 79. Malcolm X (dir. Spike Lee, 1992) 80. Beauty and the Beast (dir. Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise, 1991) 81. Rashomon (dir. Akira Kurosawa) 82. The Elephant Man (dir. David Lynch, 1980) 83. Get Out (dir. Jordan Peele, 2017) 84. Avatar (dir. James Cameron, 2009) 85. Bicycle Thieves (dir. Vittorio De Sica, 1948) 86. Gladiator (dir. Ridley Scott, 2000) 87. Aliens (dir. James Cameron, 1986) 88. The Lion King (dir. Rob Minkoff and Roger Allers, 1994) 89. Blue Velvet (dir. David Lynch, 1986) 90. The Young Girls of Rochefort (dir. Jacques Demy, 1967) 91. Nashville (dir. Robert Altman, 1975) 92. Memento (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2000) 93. The Sixth Sense (dir. M. Night Shyamalan, 1999) 94. The Exorcist (dir. William Friedkin, 1973) 95. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (dir. Sergio Leone, 1966) 96. Duck Soup (dir. Leo McCarey, 1933) 97. Ikiru (dir. Akira Kurosawa) 98. The Passion of Joan of Arc (dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928) 99. Amadeus (dir. Milos Forman, 1984) 100. Harakiri (dir. Masaki Kobayashi, 1962) 101. Whiplash (dir. Damien Chazelle, 2014) 102. Finding Nemo (dir. Andrew Stanton, 2003) 103. Avengers: Infinity War (dir. Anthony and Joe Russo, 2018) 104. The Princess Bride (dir. Rob Reiner, 1987) 105. Return of the Jedi (dir. Richard Marquand, 1983) 106. Akira (dir. Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988) 107. Bambi (dir. David D. Hand et al., 1942) 108. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (dir. Peter Weir, 2003) 109. Forrest Gump (dir. Robert Zemeckis, 1994) 110. North by Northwest (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) 111. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (dir. George Lucas, 2005) 112. Hard Boiled (dir. John Woo, 1992) 113. Dog Day Afternoon (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1975) 114. All That Jazz (dir. Bob Fosse, 1979) 115. Fight Club (dir. David Fincher, 1999) 116. Some Like it Hot (dir. Billy Wilder, 1959) 117. Your Name (dir. Makoto Shinkai, 2016) 118. Life of Brian (dir. Terry Jones, 1979) 119. Chinatown (dir. Roman Polanski, 1974) 120. 8 1/2 (dir. Federico Fellini, 1963) 121. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (dir. Michel Gondry, 2004) 122. Die Hard (dir. John McTiernan, 1988) 123. The Iron Giant (dir. Brad Bird, 1999) 124. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (dir. Robert Zemeckis, 1988) 125. Unforgiven (dir. Clint Eastwood, 1992) 126. The Big Lebowski (dir. Joel Coen, 1998) 127. Mission: Impossible - Fallout (dir. Christopher McQuarrie, 2018) 128. Chungking Express (dir. Wong Kar-wai, 1994) 129. The Grand Budapest Hotel (dir. Wes Anderson, 2014) 130. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (dir. F.W. Murnau, 1927) 131. The Terminator (dir, James Cameron, 1984) 132. Spider-Man (dir. Sam Raimi, 2002) 133. The Departed (dir. Martin Scorsese, 2006) 134. Django Unchained (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2012) 135. Toy Story 3 (dir. Lee Unkrich, 2010) 136. The Avengers (dir. Joss Whedon, 2012) 137. Airplane! (dir. David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams, 1980) 138. Stalker (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979) 139. Blazing Saddles (dir. Mel Brookos, 1974) 140. Come and See (dir. Elem Klimov, 1985) 141. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (dir. Jim Sharman, 1975) 142. Guardians of the Galaxy (dir. James Gunn, 2014) 143. Uncut Gems (dir. Josh and Benny Safdie, 2019) 144. Days of Heaven (dir. Terrence Malick, 1978) 145. Dazed and Confused (dir. Richard Linklater, 1993) 146. The Bridge on the River Kwai (dir. David Lean, 1957) 147. All the President's Men (dir. Alan J. Pakula, 1976) 148. Cabaret (dir. Bob Fosse, 1972) 149. Planet of the Apes (dir.Franklin J. Schaffnfer, 1968) 150. Wild Strawberries (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1957) 151. Everything, Everywhere All at Once (dir. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, 2022) 152. Top Gun: Maverick (dir. Joseph Ksinski, 2022) 153. No Country for Old Men (dir. Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007) 154. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1989) 155. Magnolia (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999) 156. Black Swan (dir. Darren Aronofsky, 2010) 157. Kiki's Delivery Service (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 1989) 158. Scream (dir. Wes Craven, 1996) 159. High and Low (dir. Akira Kurosawa, 1963) 160. Groundhog Day (dir. Harold Ramis, 1993) 161. Children of Men (dir. Alfonso Cuaron, 2006) 162. Boogie Nights (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997) 163. Blade Runner (dir. Ridley Scott, 1982) 164. The Best Years of Our Lives (dir. William Wyler, 1946) 165. When Harry Met Sally… (dir. Rob Reiner, 1989) 166. Barry Lyndon (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1975) 167. The Insider (dir. Michael Mann, 1999) 168. The Wolf of Wall Street (dir. Martin Scorsese, 2013) 169. A Clockwork Orange (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1971) 170. Arrival (dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2016) 171. Fanny and Alexander (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1982) 172. Casino Royale (dir. Martin Campbell, 2006) 173. What We Do in the Shadows (dir. Taika Waititi, 2014) 174. Dune (dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2021) 175. Up (dir. Pete Docter, 2009) 176. Aladdin (dir. John Musker & Ron Clements, 1992) 177. All About Eve (dir. Jospeh Mankiewicz, 1950) 178. Edward Scissorhands (dir. Tim Burton, 1990) 179. The Prestige (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2006) 180. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (dir. Tobe Hooper, 1974) 181. RoboCop (dir. Paul Verhoeven, 1987) 182. Brokeback Mountain (dir. Ang Lee, 2005) 183. City Lights (dir. Charlie Chaplin, 1931) 184. Halloween (dir. John Carpenter, 1978) 185. Arsenic and the Old Lace (dir. Frank Capra, 1944) 186. Fantastic Mr. Fox (dir. Wes Anderson, 2009) 187. Fiddler on the Roof (dir. Norman Jewison, 1971) 188. Big Fish (dir. Tim Burton, 2003) 189. The Matrix Reloaded (dir. Lana and Lilly Wachowski, 1999) 190. Stand By Me (dir. Rob Reiner, 1986) 191. The Royal Tenenbaums (dir. Wes Anderson, 2001) 192. Persona (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1966) 193. Zodiac (dir. David Fincher, 2007) 194. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (dir. Milos Forman, 1975) 195. The Big Short (dir. Adam McKay, 2015) 196. A Star is Born (dir. Goerge Cukor, 1954) 197. Whisper of the Heart (dir. Yoshifumi Kondo, 1995) 198. Face/Off (dir. John Woo, 1997) 199. Dunkirk (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2017) 200. Oldboy (dir. Parkk Chan-wook, 2003) 201. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (dir. Chris Columbus, 2001) 202. The 400 Blows (dir. Francois Truffaut, 1959) 203. Knives Out (dir. Rian Johnson, 2019) 204. The Bridges of Madison County (dir. Clint Eastwood, 1995) 205. Se7en (dir. David Fincher, 1995) 206. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (dir. Alfonso Cuaron, 2004) 207. Margaret (dir. Kenneth Lonergan, 2011) 208. Eraserhead (dir. David Lynch, 1977) 209. Shaun of the Dead (dir. Edgar Wright, 2004) 210. The Searchers (dir. John Ford, 1956) 211. Shrek (dir. Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, 2001) 212. The Third Man (dir. Carol Reed, 1949) 213. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (dir. Gore Verbinski, 2006) 214. The Right Stuff (dir. Dennis Quaid, 1983) 215. The Black Stallion (dir. Carrol Ballard, 1979) 216. Speed Racer (dir. Lana and Lilly Wachowski, 2008) 217. Eyes Wide Shut (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1999) 218. Stop Making Sense (dir. Jonathan Demme, 1984) 219. 3 Idiots (dir. Rajkumar Hirani, 2009) 220. District 9 (dir. Neill Blomkamp, 2009) 221. Touch of Evil (dir. Orson Welles, 1958) 222. Tenet (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2020) 223. The Sound of Music (dir. Robert Wise, 1965) 224. Good Will Hunting (dir. Gus Van Sant, 1997) 225. Castle in the Sky (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 1986) 226. West Side Story (dir. Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, 1961) 227. King Kong (dir. Peter Jackson, 2005) 228. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (dir. James Gunn, 2017) 229. L'Avventura (dir. Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960) 230. Soul (dir. Pete Docter, 2020) 231. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (dir. Paul Schrader, 1985) 232. Memories of Murder (dir. Bong Joon Ho, 2003) 233. The Thin Red Line (dir.Terrence Malick, 1997) 234. Ocean's Eleven (dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2001) 235. The Dark Knight Rises (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2012) 236. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2019) 237. Batman Begins (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2005) 238. Slumdog Millionaire (dir. Danny Boyle, 2008) 239. Monsters, Inc (dir. Pete Docter, 2002) 240. Rocky (dir. John G. Avildsen, 1976) 241. Call Me By Your Name (dir. Luca Guadagnino, 2017) 242. Double Indemnity (dir. Billy Wilder, 1944) 243. Persepolis (dir. Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Parnnaud, 2007) 244. Notorious (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1938) 245. The Night of the Hunter (dir. Charles Laughton, 1955) 246. Little Women (dir. Greta Gerwig, 2019) 247. Punch-Drunk Love (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002) 248. Apollo 13 (dir. Ron Howard, 1995) 249. Moonlight (dir. Barry Jenkins, 2016) 250. Brazil (dir. Terry Gilliam, 1985)

Thank you all so much for participating and making the list a blast to reveal. I always enjoy doing these and am glad the forums are always so lively about them and the results. Probably one of the more fun sets of results to reveal as well, with all of the surprise first timers to start off the list and an entire top 5 which had never topped the list before (each of the movies getting their all-time high placements). A pretty cool fresh set of results! Without further ado, here are your final two! Number 2 "To the stars." Synopsis "Titanic, American romantic adventure film, released in 1997, that centres on the sinking of the RMS Titanic. The film proved immensely popular, holding the all-time box-office gross record for more than a decade after its release. The film begins with the robotic exploration of the Titanic’s wreckage by treasure hunters who hope to locate a fabled massive blue diamond, known as the Heart of the Ocean, that was supposedly lost when the ship sank. They recover a safe that contains some papers, including a drawing of a nude woman wearing a necklace with the gem in it. After the illustration is aired on television, the team is contacted by an old woman (played by Gloria Stuart) who tells them that she is the one depicted in the drawing, Rose DeWitt Bukater, thought to have died in the accident. Hoping that she can help them find the jewel, the treasure hunters bring Rose to their expedition ship. Most of the film’s story is then told in flashbacks as she recounts the Titanic’s fateful 1912 voyage." - Britannica From the Scholar "The great attention that has been paid to the sinking of Titanic, especially in recent years, affords an opportunity to address questions that cannot often be scientifically posed, let alone answered, when it comes to less celebrated historical events. The recent works of Hermann Soldner and Debbie Beavis have provided robust and accurate information about those aboard Titanic. 1 Moreover, these data are especially suitable for statistical investigations. 2 Beavis has sorted out, without absolutely resolving the issue, the question of the individuals who were actually aboard on the evening of 14 April 1912, while Soldner has painstakingly documented the characteristics of each of 1318 passengers, compiling, within a very narrow margin of error given Beavis's findings, the most accurate passenger list currently available. Using the data published by Soldner, we have engaged in a logistic regression analysis of the likelihood of a Titanic passenger surviving the accident based on his or her particular characteristics.' In broad terms, regression analysis comprises a set of statistical methodologies and analytic techniques used extensively in many fields, including economics, finance, political science and history. It enables a researcher, with a quantifiable degree of certainty, to sort out various hypothetical causes of a particular observable effect. Here we are interested in the characteristics of who was able to survive the accident, with the probability of survival being the "dependent" or "criterion" variable. A number of "explanatory variables" are seen in the data: age/gender, class (of the purchased ticket), responsibility for children and nationality. Each has been put forward at one time or another as a significant factor in whether a passenger lived or died. "Significant factor," or statistical significance, means that in the absence of a relationship, the probability of observing what has actually occurred in the data would be very small, e.g., one, five or ten percent. In the analysis that follows, we will reject the hypothesis that there was no significant difference or effect when this probability is less than five percent. A general difficulty is that more than one explanatory variable is likely to have influenced the dependent variable contemporaneously. Logistic regression analysis enables us to quantify the effect on the ability of a passenger to survive based upon, for example, the gender of a particular passenger, controlling for other explanatory variables; i.e., ceteris paribus,' In other words, it tells us within a certain degree of confidence that if we imagine two passengers identical in all respects save one, e.g., one is an adult male and one an adult woman, what would have been the likelihood of one of the passengers surviving relative to the other based on that single difference. Therefore, logistic regression analysis enables us to reach conclusions as to which of the explanatory variables has had a statistically significant effect on the dependent variable and the direction of the effect. In the case of significant explanatory variables it also enables us to calculate "odds ratios" to measure, for instance, how much more likely it would have been for an adult woman passenger to survive compared to an adult man." - Gleicher, David, and Lonnie K. Stevans. "Who survived Titanic? A logistic regression analysis." International Journal of Maritime History 16, no. 2 (2004): 61-94. From the Filmmaker From the Critic "When the film was released, it was a gamble the size of ... well, the metaphors present themselves a bit too easily. It was a wild risk, both for filmmaker James Cameron (who was known for Aliens and his Terminator movies) and for the studios that funded it, Paramount and 20th Century Fox. Cameron’s terrible temper and a runaway production with troubles to spare — one disgruntled crew member laced the chowder at craft services with PCP one night, provoking hallucinations in 50 people, including cast member Bill Paxton — had prompted people to wonder if the legendarily expensive film was doomed for the same fate as its subject. The production budget reportedly ran over $200 million, an enormous sum by any contemporary standards that was much more so in 1997. There was one overarching reason for its massive success: Lots of people began to go see it every weekend. This audience — composed largely of teenage girls, but certainly not limited to that demographic — took in the movie upward of a dozen times, bringing friends along to share in the experience. But on a more basic level, Titanic’s popularity had everything to do with its evolution from “blockbuster movie” to “cultural phenomenon.” It was something you simply had to see, whether you were young or old, adult or teenager. Everyone except me, it felt like. I grew up in an exceptionally conservative slice of evangelical Christianity that eschewed mainstream culture generally and movies specifically. To my memory, the only films I saw in movie theaters growing up were Toy Story (with my grandmother), the Lord of the Rings trilogy (evangelicals love Tolkien), and The Passion of the Christ in 2004. Titanic may have been a historical story, but it was also a teen romance, one that involved sex and nudity and that engaged in what some members of our community would have termed “glorifying teenage rebelliousness.” Seeing it was not an option. Some conservative families, trying to give their kids a way to participate in pop culture, bought edited copies of Titanic on VHS from a Utah company called Sunshine Family Video (and thus kicked off decades of lawsuits over the legality of so-called “clean versions” of movies). But in many communities, the teen romance aspect was still a bridge too far, so I went 20 years without seeing the film. Reevaluations of Titanic are a small cottage industry among film critics, who regularly write essays on how it’s the greatest movie of all time, responsible for hater culture, one of the best movies to ever win Best Picture, or “basically a 3.5 hour Zales commercial, only slightly less emotionally compelling.” In 2002, the legendary film director Robert Altman called the movie “the most dreadful piece of work I’ve seen in my entire life,” while Ebert wrote in 1998 that its enduring power “comes not because it is a love story or a special effects triumph, but because it touches the deepest human feelings about living, dying, and being cherished.” Novelist Lorrie Moore called Rose’s struggle to find and free Jack from the bowels of the sinking ship “an athletic enactment of grace (unanticipated, unearned, as grace always is). It is love that exceeds the deserts of the beloved.” I can’t tell you whether it’s the best or worst movie ever made. What I can tell you, risking puns, is that it swept me off my feet almost from the get-go, a grand epic romance-disaster that reminded me, in the middle of my overstuffed-with-movies life, of what we mean when we talk about the power of cinema." - Alissa Wilkinson, Vox From the Public "A sweeping emotional epic that slowly but surely makes you feel for the intense romance at its core, and then violently rips you away from it so you can't help but feel the same heartbreak. What's also worthy of awe here is how Cameron makes the ship itself a character, a vessel for sheer spectacle merely in existence that you can't help but feel horror as it heads to its slow demise. Thus, when the film makes it even more clear that the Titanic and its decadence are merely things and the true tragedy lies within the loss of life, that perception change is felt deeply and sorrowfully. One of the greatest films ever made, Titanic's intense romance, thrilling spectacle and utterly crushing evocation of what happens when thousands face their deaths is always an achievement well worth revisiting. Cameron's masterpiece." - @Blankments Factoids Previous Year's Rankings 2012 - #5, 2013 - #26, 2014 - #59, 2016 - #28, 2018 - #8, 2020 - #8, 2022 – #10 Director Count S. Spielberg (6), C. Nolan (5), J. Cameron (4), F.F. Coppola (3), A. Hitchcock (3), P. Jackson (3), S. Kubrick (3), A. Kurosawa (3), D. Lynch (3), H. Miyazaki (3), M. Scorsese (3), B. Bird (2), J. Lasseter (2), S. Lee (2), S. Leone (2), R. Linklater (2), Q. Tarantino (2), R. Scott (2), B. Wilder (2), R. Allers (1), R. Altman (1), P.T. Anderson (1), F. Capra (1), J. Carpenter (1), J. Coen (1), M. Curtiz (1), F. Darabont (1), J. Demme (1), J. Demy (1), P. Docter (1), S. Donen (1), C.T. Dreyer (1), D. Fincher (1), Victor Fleming (1), M. Forman (1), W. Friedkin (1), T. Gilliam (1), R. Johnson (1), T. Jones (1), B. Joon-Ho (1), W. Kar-Wai (1), G. Kelly (1), I. Kershner (1), M. Kobayashi (1), M. Mann (1), G. Miller (1), D. Lean (1), G. Lucas (1), K. Lund (1), S. Lumet (1), L. McCarey (1), F. Meirelles (1), R. Minkoff (1), A. Molina (1), J. Peele (1), B. Persichetti (1), S. Raimi (1), P. Ramsey (1), R. Rothman (1), A. Russo (1), J. Russo (1), M.N. Shyamalan (1), A. Stanton (1), V.D. Sica (1), G. D. Torro (1), G. Trousdale (1), L. Unkrich (1), La. Wachowski (1), Li. Wachowski (1), P. Weir (1), O. Welles (1), K. Wise (1), R. Zemeckis (1) Decade Count 1990s (20), 2000s (20), 1980s (12), 2010s (12), 1970s (10), 1960s (9), 1950s (8), 1940s (4), 1930s (2), 1920s (1), 2020s (1) International Film Count Japan (7), France (3), Italy (3), United Kingdom (2), Australia (1), Brazil (1), Hong Kong (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1), South Korea (1), U.K. (1) Franchise Count Pixar (7), Nolanite Cinematic Universe (5), Middle Earth (3), Star Wars (3), Alien (2), Before (2), The Godfather (2), WDAS (2), Spider-Man (2), Toy Story (2), Avatar (1), Back to the Future (1), Batman (1), Exorcist (1), Fargo (1), Gladiator (1), Hannibal Lecter (1), Hawkguy Cinematic Universe (1), Indiana Jones (1), Jaws (1), Jurassic Park (1), Mad Max: Fury Road (1), Man With No Name (1), The Matrix (1), Monty Python (1), Overlook Hotel (1), Oz (1), Terminator (1), The Thing (1) Genre Count Drama (24), Epic (18), Historical Fiction (17), Comedy (16), Fantasy (16), Sci-Fi (16), Adventure (15), Horror (13), Animation (12), Action (11), Crime (9), Black Comedy (7), Romance (7), Thriller (7), Coming of Age (6), Musical (6), Tragedy (6), Monster (5), Mystery (5), Superhero (5), Christmas/Holiday (4), Comic Book (4), Noir (4), Religious (4),War (4), Anime (3), Jidaigeki (3), Post-Apocalyptic (3), Satire (3), Surrealism (3), Western (3), Courtroom Drama (2), Prison Break/Heist (2), Spaghetti Western (2), Disaster (1), Alternative History (1), Neorealism (1), Rom-Com (1) A Recipe First Class Lamb Marinade (Recipe from the Titanic) Ingredients Metric Lamb Marinade 1 rack of Lamb Chops (Frenched, trimmed and cut Individually) 2 Tablespoons Olive oil salt and ground black pepper 2 sprigs of rosemary (stems removed) 2 cloves of garlic Mint Sauce 2 shallots (diced) 1/4 cup white wine 1 cup chicken stock 2 teaspoons cider vinegar 1 teaspoon sugar 1/4 cup chopped mint, plus another tablespoon for garnish 2 tablespoons butter (optional) Number 1 "I didn't do enough!" Synopsis "Until Schindler’s List hit theaters, depictions of history in films were often “essentially set decoration,” TIME’s then-film critic Richard Corliss noted in a feature when the movie was first released in 1993. The Holocaust especially had “been left mostly to documentarians and to Europeans,” but, he explained, that was changing: …Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List is a consequential event. It is a high-profile, big-studio film, produced and directed by the most popular filmmaker of our era, possibly of all time (four of the top 10 grossing movies ever are Spielberg’s, including the biggest of them all, this year’s Jurassic Park. These factors alone would grant it an access to the mainstream public consciousness that no other movie on this subject has enjoyed. The fact that it is a very good movie means it has a chance to lodge there instructively, and perhaps permanently. “The Movie simply needed my clout to get it made,” Spielberg says, and he is not being immodest. Since no filmmaker has a track record like his, none has his power to encourage both a studio and the young mass audience to take a risk on a movie the subject of which is inherently repellent, not to say terrifying. Not all film critics loved it. Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz quoted a historian who called it “Spielberg’s Holocaust park,” while the German newspaper Die Welt described it as “the fantasies of a young boy from California who had never taken an interest in the Holocaust or the Jews before.” Others said Spielberg took on the project only because he thought it could win him his first Academy Award. (Indeed, it won Best Directing and Best Picture.) When Spielberg spoke of his own motivation for making the movie, he pointed to its educational value. Holocaust survivors were getting older, and there was a push to record their accounts to debunk Holocaust denial; Spielberg himself founded what’s now called the USC Shoah Foundation: The Institute for Visual History and Education in 1994 to do just that. Then, as now, levels of knowledge about the Holocaust could be shockingly low. “We’re not making a film, we’re making a document,” Spielberg told the cast." - Olivia B. Waxman, Time Magazine From the Scholar "Four years later, in 1997, Ford Motor Company sponsored an ad-free broadcast of Schindler’s List on NBC. Sixty-five million people tuned in. (Roughly 200 million around the world had watched the film prior to that point.) Per Nielsen, more than a third of households watching TV in the U.S. that Sunday night were tuned in to Schindler’s List. The broadcast proved controversial; Tom Coburn, a Republican representative from Oklahoma and a co-chair of the Congressional Family Caucus, objected on the grounds that children across the nation “were exposed to the violence of multiple gunshot head wounds, vile language, full-frontal nudity and irresponsible sexual activity.” Senator Alfonse D’Amato, a Republican from New York, in turn pointed out that depicting naked prisoners in a concentration camp is not sexual. Ford Motor Company’s founder, Henry Ford, was a notorious antisemite who published various antisemitic screeds, including against Jewish filmmakers, in his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent. Though Ford executive Gerry Donnelly downplayed the industrialist’s history when discussing the sponsorship, he also said the team “felt it was the right thing to do to present this great story of one man’s courage.” Regardless of how intentional the choice of movie was, the fact that a company founded by an antisemite sponsored a film about the Holocaust was something of a turning point—one that hinged on Schindler’s List. The film’s influence extended beyond the U.S. to the wider world, says Michael Berenbaum, a scholar who previously served as the project director tasked with overseeing USHMM’s creation. Back in 1999, he had the opportunity to watch Schindler’s List at the Berlin Film Festival. “I did not look at the movie as much as I looked at the audience looking at the movie,” he says. “You could see the powerful impact on the younger generation in Germany.” In Berenbaum’s mind, the film was “of critical importance in unfolding Holocaust consciousness in the United States and the world.” In 1994, Spielberg founded the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, now known as the USC Shoah Foundation. The nonprofit records, preserves and shares tens of thousands of testimonies from Holocaust survivors across dozens of countries and in many languages; since its founding, it has expanded to include testimony from other 20th- and 21st-century atrocities, including the Armenian genocide, mass violence against the Rohingya, and war and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The foundation also houses a collection on contemporary antisemitism. Spielberg has said that he created the foundation because he was profoundly changed by making Schindler’s List. His goal was to “deny the deniers who had been saying on many, many occasions [that] the Holocaust never happened.” By recording testimony, survivors become educators and can remain so long after their deaths, teaching people about what happened, an atrocity that cannot be undone and should not be forgotten or denied. The movie itself is a work of historical fiction, which has led to, if not critique, then corrective comment from those who want to ensure that the real history of the Schindler story is not lost." - Emily Tamkin, Smithsonian Magazine From the Filmmaker From the Critic "For this film Spielberg has done the best directing of his career. Much of his previous work has been clever and some of it better than that, but Schindler’s List is masterly. He has, with appropriate restraint, shot it in black and white (except for two closing sequences in color). Janusz Kaminski’s superb cinematography uses shadows like prosody—illuminates with shadows. Michael Kahn has edited with intensity and line, never breathless, always fast. (One demurral: the intercutting between a Jewish wedding in a camp, a wild German officers’ party and a German officer’s boudoir romp is heavy.) John Williams has arranged a score, with Itzhak Perlman doing violin solos, that for the most part is quiet: Jewish melodies on woodwinds or a small children’s chorus under scenes of inhumanity. Spielberg has not used one trite shot, one cheap tear-jerking assemblage. Tears are evoked, but honorably; his aim was to make a film that gripped us with authenticity. To this end he often uses newsreel angles and newsreel cutting. Yet he is not band-held-camera nutty: where a panorama is needed--Jews in a long street assembling for deportation, Jews in a (seemingly) mile-wide file coming over a great field toward liberation--he understands how to present it and leave it alone. (Most of this picture was filmed in Poland.) Imagination, talent, commitment shine in every flame. Now come two dreadful words: and yet. Is there a need for another film about the Holocaust? Especially after Shoah? Presumably there are at least some people who have never seen a Holocaust film and may see this one because it’s by Spielberg and will have mainstream promotion. Let’s hope there are many such. But others may be aware of two bothersome connected points. Both of them demonstrate yet again how good work can be victimized by previous work, good or less good, on the same subject. First, the German commander, played by Ralph Fiennes, though based on fact, is by now something of a film cliché—smooth, cultivated, monstrous. Second, the film takes about two hours to reach the event that the tide promises, Schindler’s (not quite predictable) rescue operation. Everything up to then, vigorously done though it is, is—in two senses—terribly familiar. Still, this film is a welcome astonishment from a director who has given us much boyish esprit, much ingenuity, but little seriousness. His stark, intelligent style here, perfectly controlled, suggests that this may be the start of a new period in Spielberg’s prodigious career—Part Two: The Man." - Stanley Kauffman, The New Republic From the Public "The filmmaking on display is so good it transcends the utter blackness of the subject matter. I saw it five times in theaters. The first time, it was still in limited release, and I drove 40 miles to San Francisco to see it by myself (I was 19 and none of my friends were interested). There was this old man seated next to me (honestly, I didn't even really notice him until the end), and when the credits were rolling and everyone in the theater was just sitting there, pole-axed, he turned to me and said, "I was there, in one of those camps."I was so flabbergasted and stunned all I could manage was, "oh wow..." (Surely one of the more idiotic things I could've said), and then he got up and left.The 40-mile drive back home was a thoughtful and powerful one." - @Dementeleus Factoids Previous Year's Rankings 2012 - #21, 2013 - #10, 2014 - #15, 2016 - #10, 2018 - #15, 2020 - #4, 2022 – #16 Director Count S. Spielberg (7), C. Nolan (5), J. Cameron (4), F.F. Coppola (3), A. Hitchcock (3), P. Jackson (3), S. Kubrick (3), A. Kurosawa (3), D. Lynch (3), H. Miyazaki (3), M. Scorsese (3), B. Bird (2), J. Lasseter (2), S. Lee (2), S. Leone (2), R. Linklater (2), Q. Tarantino (2), R. Scott (2), B. Wilder (2), R. Allers (1), R. Altman (1), P.T. Anderson (1), F. Capra (1), J. Carpenter (1), J. Coen (1), M. Curtiz (1), F. Darabont (1), J. Demme (1), J. Demy (1), P. Docter (1), S. Donen (1), C.T. Dreyer (1), D. Fincher (1), Victor Fleming (1), M. Forman (1), W. Friedkin (1), T. Gilliam (1), R. Johnson (1), T. Jones (1), B. Joon-Ho (1), W. Kar-Wai (1), G. Kelly (1), I. Kershner (1), M. Kobayashi (1), M. Mann (1), G. Miller (1), D. Lean (1), G. Lucas (1), K. Lund (1), S. Lumet (1), L. McCarey (1), F. Meirelles (1), R. Minkoff (1), A. Molina (1), J. Peele (1), B. Persichetti (1), S. Raimi (1), P. Ramsey (1), R. Rothman (1), A. Russo (1), J. Russo (1), M.N. Shyamalan (1), A. Stanton (1), V.D. Sica (1), G. D. Torro (1), G. Trousdale (1), L. Unkrich (1), La. Wachowski (1), Li. Wachowski (1), P. Weir (1), O. Welles (1), K. Wise (1), R. Zemeckis (1) Decade Count 1990s (21), 2000s (20), 1980s (12), 2010s (12), 1970s (10), 1960s (9), 1950s (8), 1940s (4), 1930s (2), 1920s (1), 2020s (1) International Film Count Japan (7), France (3), Italy (3), United Kingdom (2), Australia (1), Brazil (1), Hong Kong (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1), South Korea (1), U.K. (1) Franchise Count Pixar (7), Nolanite Cinematic Universe (5), Middle Earth (3), Star Wars (3), Alien (2), Before (2), The Godfather (2), WDAS (2), Spider-Man (2), Toy Story (2), Avatar (1), Back to the Future (1), Batman (1), Exorcist (1), Fargo (1), Gladiator (1), Hannibal Lecter (1), Hawkguy Cinematic Universe (1), Indiana Jones (1), Jaws (1), Jurassic Park (1), Mad Max: Fury Road (1), Man With No Name (1), The Matrix (1), Monty Python (1), Overlook Hotel (1), Oz (1), Terminator (1), The Thing (1) Genre Count Drama (25), Epic (18), Historical Fiction (18), Comedy (16), Fantasy (16), Sci-Fi (16), Adventure (15), Horror (13), Animation (12), Action (11), Crime (9), Black Comedy (7), Romance (7), Thriller (7), Coming of Age (6), Musical (6), Tragedy (6), Monster (5), Mystery (5), Superhero (5), Christmas/Holiday (4), Comic Book (4), Noir (4), Religious (4),War (4), Anime (3), Jidaigeki (3), Post-Apocalyptic (3), Satire (3), Surrealism (3), Western (3), Courtroom Drama (2), Prison Break/Heist (2), Spaghetti Western (2), Alternative History (1), Disaster (1), Neorealism (1), Rom-Com (1) No recipe for this one, as I feel like it'd be a bit tasteless for a write up of a movie about the holocaust.

Number 3 "Welcome the rich man, he's hard for you to miss. His butt keeps getting bigger, so there's plenty there to kiss!" Synopsis "Winner of the Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature,* Hayao Miyazaki's wondrous fantasy adventure is a dazzling masterpiece from one of the most celebrated filmmakers in the history of animation. Chihiro's family is moving to a new house, but when they stop on the way to explore an abandoned village, her parents undergo a mysterious transformation and Chihiro is whisked into a world of fantastic spirits ruled over by the sorceress Yubaba. Put to work in a magical bathhouse for spirits and demons, Chihiro must use all her wits to survive in this strange new place, find a way to free her parents and return to the normal world. Overflowing with imaginative creatures and thrilling storytelling, Spirited Away became a worldwide smash hit, and is one of the most critically-acclaimed films of all time." - The Studio Ghibli Collection From the Scholar "Spirited Away stages a modernizing Japan in the Meiji period (1868-1912) when Western influences overpowered the nation politically and ideologically and one of the most significant influences from the West to Japan was the reorganization of Japanese society into a capitalist one. During the Edo period (1603-1867), the autocratic Samurai class controlled the whole nation and Japan closed its door to most other nations in order to preserve itself. In 1853, Commodore Perry from the United States urged Japan to start trading with other nations. In the following year, Japan opened its door to other nations and the Meiji era, which is considered as the period of restoration, began. In this Meiji restoration, the influx of the Western culture brought to Japan both chaos and growth, represented by the mixing of Japanese identity with Western architecture, philosophy, fashion, and values. Miyazaki takes us back to Meiji Japan by sending the protagonist, who was born in contemporary times, to a modernizing Japan. The story goes as follows: Chihiro, an apathetic ten year-old girl, is moving from the city to a rural area with her family. While they are driving to their new home, they wander into a closed theme park, now called the Yuya. It's actually is a leisure center built in the spiritual world by a greedy witch, Yubaba. This mystical town resembles Meiji Japan in terms of architecture, during which time the style was a mix of Western and Japanese. By the witch’s curse, Chihiro's parents are turned into pigs, and Chihiro must serve as a laborer at the Yuya in order to rescue them. At the Yuya, she encounters a mysterious boy named Haku, and with his help, the meek girl now learns to meet the challenges of the distressing spirit world. By having Chihiro live in the era of a modernizing Japan, Miyazaki invites the audience to experience what we really were losing as a nation and personally during that period. ... In Spirited Away Miyazaki also visually separates the worlds of spirits and humans. Stylistically he depicts the human world as realistically as possible and the world of spirits as fantastic. In the beginning of the film, before Chihiro’s family wanders into the world of spirits, Miyazaki utilizes cinematic moments that are unusual in animation but more often found in live-action films. Only after the family enters into the town of the Yuya does the mise-en scene become more fantastically animated. The shadowy spirits and buildings and everything that is in the amusement park take on life, but now a fantasmic life. Those visual cues that indicate a movement from verisimilitude to the fantasmic indicate the two worlds are now separated or at least that the spirits, neglected in the world of humans, no longer wish to coexist with humans in this highly industrialized world. One of the origins of Shinto may have come in olden times when agriculture sustained human societies; people animated nature and believed that their care and respect for it pleased its spirits who protected the nation and provided prosperity. However, after the coming of Western industrialization, people’s faith was no longer in nature but in a successful economy. Applying this kind of thinking to his own art, once, in an interview, Miyazaki decried contemporary post-industrial society as a system that watered down anime's expressive possibilities. Anime, according to Miyazaki, could well represent love and justice. However, as he put it, "Our old enemy 'poverty' somehow disappeared, and we can no longer find an enemy to fight against" (Miyazaki, 1988). In other words, after Japan's industrial success since the Meiji restoration in 1890s and recovery from WWII cast out poverty from the nation, people still remain possessed by an illusion of gaining a wealthy everyday life and continue living with a gap between their ideal and real life. As a result, an endless and unsatisfying cycle of production and consumption has begun destroying harmony among family and community (Harootunian, 2000). Zizek (1989) points out that people of late capitalism are well aware that money is not magical. To obtain it, it has to be replaced through labor, and after you use it, it will just disappear, as will as any other material. Allison (1996) adds to this point: "They know money is no more than an image and yet engage in its economy where use-value has been increasingly replaced and displaced by images (one of the primary definitions of post-modernism) all the same” (p. xvi). So, as Miyazaki puts it, the concerns of the late-capitalist Japan are now not for love and justice, but for money and pleasure." - Suzuki, Ayumi. "A nightmare of capitalist Japan: Spirited Away." Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media 51 (2009). From the Filmmaker From the Critic "There may be no nobler aim in animation than to provide wonders that could not otherwise be seen; if that is the case, Spirited Away is perhaps the most noble animated film of all time, for it is almost nothing but wonders, though they are never arbitrary and always anchored to the film's emotional honesty. We are never dazzled for the sake of it; we are dazzled because Chihiro is dazzled. We are never delighted, terrified, amazed, or comforted, except as those things happen to our protagonist. And thankfully, her writer and director knew enough of children to make her a guileless innocent without making her stupid, and to allow her the space to feel awe without forcing her into empty spectacle. I think, for example, of the amazing sequence when the spirit world first manifests itself around Chihiro: the environment changes slowly and at times subliminally, while maybe the finest piece of music in Joe Hisaishi's long collaboration with Miyazaki imparts a feeling of simultaneous dread and exotic mystery to the eerie images. It's a perfect sequence, visionary while also making good story sense and further tying our perceptions to Chihiro's emotions. That's the great achievement of this great animated film: it understands that the true meaning of fantastic worlds is not what they show us, but how they make us feel in doing so." - Tim Brayton, Antagony and Ecstasy From the Public An enchanting film of animation and wonder that I have overtime come to realize is, and likely always has been, my favorite in the medium. It pulled me in as child, time and time again, with a feeling of enthrallment I got from nothing else. There's much that could be said, and many have already said in much better words than I have. About its use of yokai and folklore. The deeper reflections Miyazaki draws on human's relation to nature, the spiritual, and the disconnect the industrial state makes of that. How that disconnect of the human and spirit, and fixation on the industrial, causes us to forget our very identity, integrated into the capitalist system as a cog in the machine. All of the hidden meanings though are supplemental to the visual and audible symphonic overtures the film creates. It fully sucks you into a form of experiential enchantment. - @The Panda Factoids Previous Year's Rankings 2012 - #64, 2013 - #38, 2014 - #68, 2016 - #62, 2018 - #28, 2020 - #16, 2022 – #5 Director Count S. Spielberg (6), C. Nolan (5), J. Cameron (3), F.F. Coppola (3), A. Hitchcock (3), P. Jackson (3), S. Kubrick (3), A. Kurosawa (3), D. Lynch (3), H. Miyazaki (3), M. Scorsese (3), B. Bird (2), J. Lasseter (2), S. Lee (2), S. Leone (2), R. Linklater (2), Q. Tarantino (2), R. Scott (2), B. Wilder (2), R. Allers (1), R. Altman (1), P.T. Anderson (1), F. Capra (1), J. Carpenter (1), J. Coen (1), M. Curtiz (1), F. Darabont (1), J. Demme (1), J. Demy (1), P. Docter (1), S. Donen (1), C.T. Dreyer (1), D. Fincher (1), Victor Fleming (1), M. Forman (1), W. Friedkin (1), T. Gilliam (1), R. Johnson (1), T. Jones (1), B. Joon-Ho (1), W. Kar-Wai (1), G. Kelly (1), I. Kershner (1), M. Kobayashi (1), M. Mann (1), G. Miller (1), D. Lean (1), G. Lucas (1), K. Lund (1), S. Lumet (1), L. McCarey (1), F. Meirelles (1), R. Minkoff (1), A. Molina (1), J. Peele (1), B. Persichetti (1), S. Raimi (1), P. Ramsey (1), R. Rothman (1), A. Russo (1), J. Russo (1), M.N. Shyamalan (1), A. Stanton (1), V.D. Sica (1), G. D. Torro (1), G. Trousdale (1), L. Unkrich (1), La. Wachowski (1), Li. Wachowski (1), P. Weir (1), O. Welles (1), K. Wise (1), R. Zemeckis (1) Decade Count 2000s (20), 1990s (19), 1980s (12), 2010s (12), 1970s (10), 1960s (9), 1950s (8), 1940s (4), 1930s (2), 1920s (1), 2020s (1) International Film Count Japan (7), France (3), Italy (3), United Kingdom (2), Australia (1), Brazil (1), Hong Kong (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1), South Korea (1), U.K. (1) Franchise Count Pixar (7), Nolanite Cinematic Universe (5), Middle Earth (3), Star Wars (3), Alien (2), Before (2), The Godfather (2), WDAS (2), Spider-Man (2), Toy Story (2), Avatar (1), Back to the Future (1), Batman (1), Exorcist (1), Fargo (1), Gladiator (1), Hannibal Lecter (1), Hawkguy Cinematic Universe (1), Indiana Jones (1), Jaws (1), Jurassic Park (1), Mad Max: Fury Road (1), Man With No Name (1), The Matrix (1), Monty Python (1), Overlook Hotel (1), Oz (1), Terminator (1), The Thing (1) Genre Count Drama (23), Epic (18), Comedy (16), Historical Fiction (16), Fantasy (16), Sci-Fi (16), Adventure (15), Horror (13), Animation (12), Action (11), Crime (9), Black Comedy (7), Thriller (7), Coming of Age (6), Musical (6), Romance (6), Monster (5), Mystery (5), Superhero (5), Tragedy (5), Christmas/Holiday (4), Comic Book (4), Noir (4), Religious (4),War (4), Anime (3), Jidaigeki (3), Post-Apocalyptic (3), Satire (3), Surrealism (3), Western (3), Courtroom Drama (2), Prison Break/Heist (2), Spaghetti Western (2), Alternative History (1), Neorealism (1), Rom-Com (1) A Recipe

Number 4 "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." Synopsis "Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge." - The Movie Database From the Scholar "Now, 28 years after its release, The Godfather has firmly established itself as the single greatest achievement in the history of film. (Some still argue for Citizen Kane, but they're wrong.) It's the peerless cinematic epic, the story of the destructive power of love and family. Coppola jettisoned the pulpier aspects of Mario Puzo's novel, which wasted countless pages on roman-a-clef renderings of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, to focus in on the tragedy of Michael Corleone. Slowly, magisterially and heartbreakingly, the young hero back from World War II loses his soul because he cannot escape the call of his blood - and it is the particular punishment for his father Vito, who had hoped that Michael would transcend the thievery and thuggery into which Vito had descended as a young man, that he must watch sadly as his son is inexorably transformed into a colder and more ruthless version of himself. It was Puzo's wily conceit that these Mafiosi weren't just criminal bums but Roman emperors and generals in modern garb, fighting over turf and position not for money but for the greater glory of their family names. But it was Coppola who took that conceit and made it into a human drama both amazingly intimate and grandly horrifying. Coppola gives us the same kind of exquisitely careful detail in the sequence when the wounded Vito is presented hand-made get-well cards by his loving grandchildren after he is nearly assassinated as he does in the famous climax when Michael renounces Satan during the baptism of his godchild even as his henchmen are simultaneously wiping out his rivals all over New York City. In Coppola's rendering, even in a new world where men like Michael are free to choose the lives they wish to lead, the demands of family and tradition win out - and are so powerful that they can destroy everything that's good in a man who had greatness in him. The Godfather has, by my reckoning, but a single flaw - the anachronistic exchange between the newly minted Mafia chief Michael and his future wife in 1947 when she protests, "Senators and governors don't have people killed," and he responds, with Nixon-era cynicism, "Now who's being naive, Kay." That's 12 seconds out of 175 minutes, and it's not surprising that the flaw comes when its writerdirector decides to come out from behind the curtain and give the audience a little wave just to remind them that he's there and has a Big Point to make. The facts surrounding the production - that Coppola took it on grudgingly, found the whole experience hellish, and turned in an alarmingly brief first cut little resembling the three-hour epic we all know and love - are testimony to how accidental an art form the movies really are. Movies become works of art - which is to say, coherent and unified creative visions that enlarge our sense of humankind and the world - largely by accident. Films are often astounding works of craftsmanship, as intricate and studied in every detail as a medieval cathedral." - Podhoretz, John. "Father of the Godfather." Policy Review 99 (2000): 83. From the Filmmaker From the Critic "Welcome to the thrilling conclusion of our analysis of the greatest Best Picture winners at the Academy Awards. In this final installment, we unveil the top 25 films that have left an enduring legacy on the world of cinema. From immortal film criterion to esteemed contemporary crafts, these cinematic gems have captivated audiences for generations. Let’s dive right into the grand finale of our 95-year odyssey and celebrate the artistry, storytelling, and enduring impact of these extraordinary films. and Part Three (50-26) here. There is not a single inharmonious note in The Godfather’s nearly three-hour runtime. Always the 1B to the film that I have listed in the top spot, The Godfather is in many ways the greatest movie ever made. The innovative use of shadowy lighting and cinematography by Gordon Willis, a cast that includes multiple Oscar-winners (along with a list as long as my arm of other amazing character actors), a perfect screenplay adaptation, and Nino Rota’s brooding and authoritative score make it hard not to place this film at number one. The Godfather works like a masterfully conducted orchestra, whose immaculate symphony is a meticulously crafted and extraordinarily integral thread in the fabric of cinema history." - Mark Johnson, Awards Daily From the Public "This is one of those films in which everything is simply masterful. Not one single aspect really stands out because everything is simply damn good. No words can truly do justice to transcendent material such as this, but I will do my best to convey the stand-out aspects for me.Perhaps what struck me first and foremost was the way in which the film was shot. The way the shadows mingle with the light here is simply fantastic. The camera work allows the darkness of the Mafia to mix simultaneously the elegance. It makes for a hypnotizing mix. Nothing less than brilliant filmmaking on display here." - @mattmav45 Factoids Previous Year's Rankings 2012 - #4, 2013 - #16, 2014 - #6, 2016 - #4, 2018 - #9, 2020 - #6, 2022 – #4 Director Count S. Spielberg (6), C. Nolan (5), J. Cameron (3), F.F. Coppola (3), A. Hitchcock (3), P. Jackson (3), S. Kubrick (3), A. Kurosawa (3), D. Lynch (3), M. Scorsese (3), B. Bird (2), H. Miyazaki (2), J. Lasseter (2), S. Lee (2), S. Leone (2), R. Linklater (2), Q. Tarantino (2), R. Scott (2), B. Wilder (2), R. Allers (1), R. Altman (1), P.T. Anderson (1), F. Capra (1), J. Carpenter (1), J. Coen (1), M. Curtiz (1), F. Darabont (1), J. Demme (1), J. Demy (1), P. Docter (1), S. Donen (1), C.T. Dreyer (1), D. Fincher (1), Victor Fleming (1), M. Forman (1), W. Friedkin (1), T. Gilliam (1), R. Johnson (1), T. Jones (1), B. Joon-Ho (1), W. Kar-Wai (1), G. Kelly (1), I. Kershner (1), M. Kobayashi (1), M. Mann (1), G. Miller (1), D. Lean (1), G. Lucas (1), K. Lund (1), S. Lumet (1), L. McCarey (1), F. Meirelles (1), R. Minkoff (1), A. Molina (1), J. Peele (1), B. Persichetti (1), S. Raimi (1), P. Ramsey (1), R. Rothman (1), A. Russo (1), J. Russo (1), M.N. Shyamalan (1), A. Stanton (1), V.D. Sica (1), G. D. Torro (1), G. Trousdale (1), L. Unkrich (1), La. Wachowski (1), Li. Wachowski (1), P. Weir (1), O. Welles (1), K. Wise (1), R. Zemeckis (1) Decade Count 1990s (19), 2000s (19), 1980s (12), 2010s (12), 1970s (10), 1960s (9), 1950s (8), 1940s (4), 1930s (2), 1920s (1), 2020s (1) International Film Count Japan (5), France (3), Italy (3), United Kingdom (2), Australia (1), Brazil (1), Hong Kong (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1), South Korea (1), U.K. (1) Franchise Count Pixar (7), Nolanite Cinematic Universe (5), Middle Earth (3), Star Wars (3), Alien (2), Before (2), The Godfather (2), WDAS (2), Spider-Man (2), Toy Story (2), Avatar (1), Back to the Future (1), Batman (1), Exorcist (1), Fargo (1), Gladiator (1), Hannibal Lecter (1), Hawkguy Cinematic Universe (1), Indiana Jones (1), Jaws (1), Jurassic Park (1), Mad Max: Fury Road (1), Man With No Name (1), The Matrix (1), Monty Python (1), Overlook Hotel (1), Oz (1), Terminator (1), The Thing (1) Genre Count Drama (23), Epic (18), Comedy (16), Historical Fiction (16), Sci-Fi (16), Fantasy (15), Adventure (14), Horror (13), Animation (12), Action (11), Crime (9), Black Comedy (7), Thriller (7), Musical (6), Romance (6), Coming of Age (5), Monster (5), Mystery (5), Superhero (5), Tragedy (5), Christmas/Holiday (4), Comic Book (4), Noir (4), Religious (4),War (4), Jidaigeki (3), Post-Apocalyptic (3), Satire (3), Surrealism (3), Western (3), Anime (2), Courtroom Drama (2), Prison Break/Heist (2), Spaghetti Western (2), Alternative History (1), Neorealism (1), Rom-Com (1) A Recipe Homemade Cannoli Ingredients For the Filling: 800 g sheep’s milk ricotta or 3 cups 300 g sugar or 1 ½ cups 250 g mini semi-sweet chocolate chips or ½ cup For the Shells: 250 g 00 flour or 1 ½ cups 20 g sugar or 1 ½ tablespoon 3 g salt 3 or 1/2 teaspoon 2 g cocoa powder or 1 teaspoon 25 g lard or 1 tablespoon 45 g eggs or 1 egg, whisked + 1 more separate 50 g marsala wine or ¼ cup 8 g white wine vinegar or 1 teaspoon Instructions on: https://www.billyparisi.com/homemade-cannoli-recipe/

Sorry forgot to edit the points and vote total in for Goodfellas. It got 108 points and 20 votes!

Number 5 "You're a funny guy." Synopsis "Goodfellas (stylized as GoodFellas) is a 1990 American biographical crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Nicholas Pileggi and Scorsese, and produced by Irwin Winkler. It is a film adaptation of Pileggi's 1985 nonfiction book Wiseguy. Starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, and Paul Sorvino, the film narrates the rise and fall of mob associate Henry Hill and his friends and family from 1955 to 1980. Scorsese initially titled the film Wise Guy and postponed making it; he and Pileggi later changed the title to Goodfellas. To prepare for their roles in the film, De Niro, Pesci and Liotta often spoke with Pileggi, who shared research material left over from writing the book. According to Pesci, improvisation and ad-libbing came out of rehearsals wherein Scorsese gave the actors freedom to do whatever they wanted. The director made transcripts of these sessions, took the lines he liked most and put them into a revised script, which the cast worked from during principal photography." - Wikipedia From the Scholar "GoodFellas is arguably the apex of Scor- sese's most openly ethnic production. Wishing to make a "good commercial picture," Scorsese re- turned to the Italian/American setting which had already inspired his best films (except Taxi Driver).' Scorsese's first feature, Who's That Knocking At My Door? (1969), portrayed and examined sexism and masculinity in the character of J. R. (Harvey Keitel), a young Italian/American in crisis over his Catholic faith. This promising debut revealed Scor- sese's inspirational sources (the American cinema of Ford and Hawks, and the French New Wave) and it also contained the seeds of a cinematic style capable of both accepting and bending narrative conventions. Scorsese again returned to ethic con- cerns with Mean Streets (1973), a film which art- fully blended documentary reality with subjective fiction in the portrayal of four young men on the fringes of society in New York's Little Italy. In 1975, Scorsese turned to documentary with Italian- american, in which he interviewed his own family. Italianamerican also confirmed Scorsese's tendency to use his personal environment for his cinema. This tendency to personalize the set and make it into a family emerges clearly in his long-standing collaboration with such actors as Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel.2 In 1980, Scorsese and De Niro returned to the Italian/American milieu with the highly acclaimed Raging Bull, a film in which vio- lence and masculinity are at once celebrated and ruthlessly exposed. On the subject of irony and masculinity, Scor- sese must be credited with an interesting move. At the time when Henry starts dating Karen-roughly half an hour into the film-GoodFellas surprises us by inserting her voice-over."' She thus challenges Henry's authority as the first-person narrator and provides an alternative point of view. She sees Henry and the Italian/American milieu with the eye of an outsider (she comes from a respectable Jew- ish family). There is even a point at which the nar- rative is totally hers, during the wedding scene. It is fascinating to speculate on how the film might have been reshaped if Scorsese had gone further with the dual voice-over. Instead, GoodFellas bears witness to an old-fashioned, ethnic mode of masculinity. Is GoodFellas just a virtuoso piece with no sub- stance? Is Scorsese indulging in a trip of macho bellafigura? In effect, the film's formal extrava- gance often parallels and enhances the content. For example, to impress Karen on his first date Henry takes her to the Copacabana. They leave the car key to a valet and enter through the back door, thus avoiding the line at the entrance. The camera fol- lows them through a maze of steaming stoves, into the crowded club where two waiters promptly place a table for them where no one had been allowed be- fore, front and center. It is undoubtedly a virtuoso piece, one of the most tortuous tracking shots in the history of cinema. Yet, it has a formal justifi- cation, suggesting the drive towards the center which motivates the search for success. The plea- sure of occupying a central position and of being looked at finds here a spatial and visual translation. GoodFellas is yet another proof of how Scor- sese works within a realist tradition which he modi- fies significantly, thus enabling it to withstand the recent attacks on representation." It is as if Scor- sese knew that reality is never objective because there is always a subject experiencing it. Experi- ence, moreover, is never a passive reception of stimuli but an activity-an activity that Scorsese mirrors in his films. He is adamant about making us see what he sees. There is no Bazinian freedom for the viewer of his films. Spectators cannot sit back and choose from the reality that Scorsese puts on the screen. Scorsese's stylistic ebullience is the mark of an extreme subjectivity which could not be further removed from the objective rendering of reality associated with realism. While offering us his obsessions, however, Scorsese's ethnic films do give us a strong sense of reality; we are certainly more likely to say "this is how it must be" with GoodFellas than with any other mob film. This is partly due to Scorsese's adoption of cinematic con- ventions associated with realism (repulsive material, factual information and seemingly unstructured narrative). But there is something more, something which is hard to define and which I tend to associ- ate with the intensity of expression." - Viano, Maurizio. "GoodFellas." (1991). Film Quarterly: 43-50. From the Filmmaker From the Critic "“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” That early line in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, spoken by its protagonist, Henry Hill, played to fiery perfection by Ray Liotta, begins the ensuing marathon of compartmentalization. It begs the question: Why does Henry want to be a gangster? When he speaks this first line of his almost omnipresent narration, the situation is precarious. He and two fellow wiseguys, Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) and Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro), have pulled off the road to check a noise from the trunk. A made guy, supposedly untouchable, writhes in the back, clinging to life. Tommy delivers a few heated blows with a kitchen knife, and Jimmy finishes the job with four gunshots, putting their victim out of his misery, all of them bathed in hellfire red from the rear lights of the car. Later, they will bury their victim. After six months, they will have to move the decomposing corpse to another location, prompting Henry to vomit violently while his compatriots crack jokes. Given miserable circumstances like these, one should again ask: Why does Henry want to be a gangster? Throughout the film, he remarks on the power and freedoms of the wiseguy lifestyle, and the breakneck filmmaking conveys the associated euphoria. Scorsese conveys Henry’s world through an immersion in his subjectivity, a first-hand testimony rendered with an infectious energy and style. All the while, Henry conveniently ignores or suppresses the grim realities and many contradictions between his métier and how he talks about that world." - Brian Eggert, Deep Focus Review From the Public "I hope there’s more than egg noodles and ketchup in heaven Ray." - @DAR Factoids Previous Year's Rankings 2012 - #20, 2013 - #7, 2014 - #21, 2016 - #20, 2018 - #16, 2020 - #9, 2022 – #9 Director Count S. Spielberg (6), C. Nolan (5), J. Cameron (3), A. Hitchcock (3), P. Jackson (3), S. Kubrick (3), A. Kurosawa (3), D. Lynch (3), M. Scorsese (3), B. Bird (2), F.F. Coppola (2), H. Miyazaki (2), J. Lasseter (2), S. Lee (2), S. Leone (2), R. Linklater (2), Q. Tarantino (2), R. Scott (2), B. Wilder (2), R. Allers (1), R. Altman (1), P.T. Anderson (1), F. Capra (1), J. Carpenter (1), J. Coen (1), M. Curtiz (1), F. Darabont (1), J. Demme (1), J. Demy (1), P. Docter (1), S. Donen (1), C.T. Dreyer (1), D. Fincher (1), Victor Fleming (1), M. Forman (1), W. Friedkin (1), T. Gilliam (1), R. Johnson (1), T. Jones (1), B. Joon-Ho (1), W. Kar-Wai (1), G. Kelly (1), I. Kershner (1), M. Kobayashi (1), M. Mann (1), G. Miller (1), D. Lean (1), G. Lucas (1), K. Lund (1), S. Lumet (1), L. McCarey (1), F. Meirelles (1), R. Minkoff (1), A. Molina (1), J. Peele (1), B. Persichetti (1), S. Raimi (1), P. Ramsey (1), R. Rothman (1), A. Russo (1), J. Russo (1), M.N. Shyamalan (1), A. Stanton (1), V.D. Sica (1), G. D. Torro (1), G. Trousdale (1), L. Unkrich (1), La. Wachowski (1), Li. Wachowski (1), P. Weir (1), O. Welles (1), K. Wise (1), R. Zemeckis (1) Decade Count 1990s (19), 2000s (19), 1980s (12), 2010s (12), 1970s (9), 1960s (9), 1950s (8), 1940s (4), 1930s (2), 1920s (1), 2020s (1) International Film Count Japan (5), France (3), Italy (3), United Kingdom (2), Australia (1), Brazil (1), Hong Kong (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1), South Korea (1), U.K. (1) Franchise Count Pixar (7), Nolanite Cinematic Universe (5), Middle Earth (3), Star Wars (3), Alien (2), Before (2), WDAS (2), Spider-Man (2), Toy Story (2), Avatar (1), Back to the Future (1), Batman (1), Exorcist (1), Fargo (1), Gladiator (1), The Godfather (1), Hannibal Lecter (1), Hawkguy Cinematic Universe (1), Indiana Jones (1), Jaws (1), Jurassic Park (1), Mad Max: Fury Road (1), Man With No Name (1), The Matrix (1), Monty Python (1), Overlook Hotel (1), Oz (1), Terminator (1), The Thing (1) Genre Count Drama (23), Epic (17), Comedy (16), Historical Fiction (16), Sci-Fi (16), Fantasy (15), Adventure (14), Horror (13), Animation (12), Action (11), Crime (8), Black Comedy (7), Thriller (7), Musical (6), Romance (6), Coming of Age (5), Monster (5), Mystery (5), Superhero (5), Tragedy (5), Christmas/Holiday (4), Comic Book (4), Noir (4), Religious (4),War (4), Jidaigeki (3), Post-Apocalyptic (3), Satire (3), Surrealism (3), Western (3), Anime (2), Courtroom Drama (2), Prison Break/Heist (2), Spaghetti Western (2), Alternative History (1), Neorealism (1), Rom-Com (1) A Recipe

Number 6 "It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage." Synopsis "When Dr. Indiana Jones – the tweed-suited professor who just happens to be a celebrated archaeologist – is hired by the government to locate the legendary Ark of the Covenant, he finds himself up against the entire Nazi regime." - The Movie Database From the Scholar "The film Raiders of the Lost Ark was released in 1981 to immediate success. Using a noticeably retrospective style, Raiders appealed to the public's desire to experience once again the same kind of viewing pleasure that Hollywood offered in the classical period. Accordingly, the film's nostalgic recreation of classical Hollywood entails a reliance on type characters, tough dialogue, and stock situations--with an overarching emphasis on maintaining a breakneck pace in its action. The appeal for the viewer, then, involves the satisfaction of a need to return to a superficially "simpler" time when the movies themselves were "simpler"--as they fulfilled the expectation of straightforward entertainment. And yet, on another level, Raiders's debt to Hollywood past often manifests itself with irony and a slightly comic tone. In its reworking of genre conventions, the film tends toward parody. Certainly, the detection of such moments of parody is viewer-specific. As parody plays upon each viewer's distinct viewing history, each viewer may react differently to the film's inversion of the conventional. Whatever the case, Raiders's parodic revisions of genre expectations (for instance, those of the Western) enable the viewer to partake in a sort of game--wherein knowledge and recognition of those instances of parody provide their own reward: the viewer's active role in meaning-making results in the satisfaction of achieving a seemingly "higher level" of interpretation. But Raiders's relationship to Hollywood past is neither "simply nostalgic" nor "simply parodic." Paralleling the strategies of postmodern art, Raiders appropriates existing film images and plots. Accordingly, much of the film is a pastiche of previous Hollywood pictures. But unlike parody, pastiche entails no connotations of humor or derision. The appropriation of the existing image in the new text is effected seemingly without comment by that text. Raiders borrows then from films as diverse as 1941's landmark Citizen Kane and the independent 1955 film noir Kiss Me Deadly. Although the antecedent texts are not actually parodied--that is, ridiculed--in such appropriation, they must be in some way implicated. Understanding the significance of Raiders's appropriation though can be problematic. The effect of pastiche in Raiders is not so easily reconciled with the effects of pastiche in more overtly deconstructionist postmodern art. Part of the problem here is one of definition: the film seems to follow the formal strategies but not the oppositional politics normally associated with postmodernism proper. Ultimately, the key might be to follow the suggestion of Hal Foster and recognize two distinct strains of postmodernism. As Foster suggests, another (non-deconstructive) postmodernism exists: one that serves to uphold and rebuild--rather than resist--both the sociopolitical status quo and the overwhelming cultural influence of representation. Raiders, finally, formulates no real critique of the Hollywood film industry, but rather--and despite its gentle parody of film conventions--seeks to celebrate and affirm the Hollywood product's utility as a palliative." - Deters, Michael F. "Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Hollywood tradition: nostalgia, parody, and postmodernism." (1993). From the Filmmaker From the Critic ""Raiders of the Lost Ark" is an out-of-body experience, a movie of glorious imagination and breakneck speed that grabs you in the first shot, hurtles you through a series of incredible adventures, and deposits you back in reality two hours later -- breathless, dizzy, wrung-out, and with a silly grin on your face. This movie celebrates the stories we spent our adolescence searching for in the pulp adventure magazines, in the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, in comics -- even in the movies. There used to be a magazine named Thrilling Wonder Stories, and every shot in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" looks like one of its covers. It's the kind of movie where the hero gets out of bed wondering what daring exploits and astonishing, cliff-hanging, death-defying threats he will have to survive in the next ten seconds. Two things, however, make "Raiders of the Lost Ark" more than just a technological triumph: its sense of humor and the droll style of its characters. This is often a funny movie, but it doesn't get many of its laughs with dialogue and only a few with obvious gags (although the biggest laugh comes from the oldest and most obvious gag, involving a swordsman and a marksman). We find ourselves laughing in surprise, in relief, in incredulity at the movie's ability to pile one incident upon another in an inexhaustible series of inventions. And the personalities of the central characters are enormously winning. Harrison Ford, as Indy Jones, does not do a reprise of his "Star Wars" work. Instead he creates a taciturn, understated, stubborn character who might be the Humphrey Bogart of "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" with his tongue in his cheek. He survives fires, crushings, shootings, burnings. He really hates snakes. Karen Allen plays the female lead with a resilient toughness that develops its own charm. She can handle herself in any situation. She really hates snakes. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is a swashbuckling adventure epic in the tradition of "Star Wars," "Superman," the James Bond pictures, and all the other multimillion-dollar special-effects extravaganzas. It wants only to entertain. It succeeds. Watch it with someone you know fairly well. There will be times during the film when it will be necessary to grab somebody." - Roger Ebert From the Public "That ending sums up the past few days for me tbh" - Mildly threatening LB review from @WrathOfHan Factoids Previous Year's Rankings 2012 - #13, 2013 - #6, 2014 - #12, 2016 - #2, 2018 - #4, 2020 - #1, 2022 – #6 Director Count S. Spielberg (6), C. Nolan (5), J. Cameron (3), A. Hitchcock (3), P. Jackson (3), S. Kubrick (3), A. Kurosawa (3), D. Lynch (3), B. Bird (2), F.F. Coppola (2), H. Miyazaki (2), J. Lasseter (2), S. Lee (2), S. Leone (2), R. Linklater (2), M. Scorsese (2), Q. Tarantino (2), R. Scott (2), B. Wilder (2), R. Allers (1), R. Altman (1), P.T. Anderson (1), F. Capra (1), J. Carpenter (1), J. Coen (1), M. Curtiz (1), F. Darabont (1), J. Demme (1), J. Demy (1), P. Docter (1), S. Donen (1), C.T. Dreyer (1), D. Fincher (1), Victor Fleming (1), M. Forman (1), W. Friedkin (1), T. Gilliam (1), R. Johnson (1), T. Jones (1), B. Joon-Ho (1), W. Kar-Wai (1), G. Kelly (1), I. Kershner (1), M. Kobayashi (1), M. Mann (1), G. Miller (1), D. Lean (1), G. Lucas (1), K. Lund (1), S. Lumet (1), L. McCarey (1), F. Meirelles (1), R. Minkoff (1), A. Molina (1), J. Peele (1), B. Persichetti (1), S. Raimi (1), P. Ramsey (1), R. Rothman (1), A. Russo (1), J. Russo (1), M.N. Shyamalan (1), A. Stanton (1), V.D. Sica (1), G. D. Torro (1), G. Trousdale (1), L. Unkrich (1), La. Wachowski (1), Li. Wachowski (1), P. Weir (1), O. Welles (1), K. Wise (1), R. Zemeckis (1) Decade Count 2000s (19), 1990s (18), 1980s (12), 2010s (12), 1970s (9), 1960s (9), 1950s (8), 1940s (4), 1930s (2), 1920s (1), 2020s (1) International Film Count Japan (5), France (3), Italy (3), United Kingdom (2), Australia (1), Brazil (1), Hong Kong (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1), South Korea (1), U.K. (1) Franchise Count Pixar (7), Nolanite Cinematic Universe (5), Middle Earth (3), Star Wars (3), Alien (2), Before (2), WDAS (2), Spider-Man (2), Toy Story (2), Avatar (1), Back to the Future (1), Batman (1), Exorcist (1), Fargo (1), Gladiator (1), The Godfather (1), Hannibal Lecter (1), Hawkguy Cinematic Universe (1), Indiana Jones (1), Jaws (1), Jurassic Park (1), Mad Max: Fury Road (1), Man With No Name (1), The Matrix (1), Monty Python (1), Overlook Hotel (1), Oz (1), Terminator (1), The Thing (1) Genre Count Drama (22), Epic (17), Comedy (16), Sci-Fi (16), Fantasy (15), Historical Fiction (15), Adventure (14), Horror (13), Animation (12), Action (11), Black Comedy (7), Crime (7), Thriller (7), Musical (6), Romance (6), Coming of Age (5), Monster (5), Mystery (5), Superhero (5), Christmas/Holiday (4), Comic Book (4), Noir (4), Religious (4),War (4), Jidaigeki (3), Post-Apocalyptic (3), Satire (3), Surrealism (3), Tragedy (3), Western (3), Anime (2), Courtroom Drama (2), Prison Break/Heist (2), Spaghetti Western (2), Alternative History (1), Neorealism (1), Rom-Com (1) A Recipe A Snake Bite & Shots for Marion Ingredients Sake Vodka Lychee Juice Lager Hard Cider Instructions Slowly pour beer into a pint glass tilted at a 45o angle. Stand the glass upright and wait for the beer to settle. Pour the cider slowly over the back of a spoon and into the glass of beer. For the shot, mix equal parts very cold vodka, sake, and juice in a cocktail shaker with ice-- shake until chilled. Pour into as many shot glasses as you want and get the score card ready. From: https://twocrumbsup.co/indiana-jones-raiders-of-the-lost-ark/

Number 7 "One does not simply walk into Mordor." Synopsis "Young hobbit Frodo Baggins, after inheriting a mysterious ring from his uncle Bilbo, must leave his home in order to keep it from falling into the hands of its evil creator. Along the way, a fellowship is formed to protect the ringbearer and make sure that the ring arrives at its final destination: Mt. Doom, the only place where it can be destroyed." - The Movie Database From the Scholar “ One of the most impressive component of MiddleEarth in the original novel byJ.R.R. Tolkien was detailed scenography – creation of world with a full geographical,cultural and artistic description. P. Jackson in his film version re-created this imaginativeworld with great care and precision. It has however constructed another scenography– the added value which could not appear in any novel – musical one.Music in any movie plays very important role. It can emphasise or modify theaction, or in can suggest the movie’s structure. Music also can influence the viewer’ssubconscious with different patterns denotating various cultural spheres or symbols.The excellent example of the latter is music for The Lord of the Rings by Howard Shore.The analysis of composer’s idea opens the new dimension of the movie – besides theaction, scenography, costumes, movie props or sound landscape. The pieces describingvarious parts or heroes of MiddleEarth have been composed with use of deliberatelychosen instruments, motives, scales or styles. Such a combination creates the variousmusical worlds which are subconsciously recognised by viewers – even those musicallyunprepared.One of the most interesting musical cliché created by H. Shore is a musical Arcadiaor Utopia. The composer’s consideration of various musical imaginative worlds accomplishthe action of the movie and the its scenery. It is however important to noticethere is no one way of creation the “musical Utopia”. Composer not only uses differentmusical elements to generate various effects – what is quite obvious – but also selectsseparate elements of music as precisely as possible, to create diverse worlds. It is worthto discuss the method and the music vocabulary of such composer’s activities concerningworlds as dissimilar as Elfish world contrary to the Shire. Such the oppositioncan be seen as the Utopia versus Arcadia. The example of “old human civilization” willbe – within the above construction – Rohirrim musical culture. H. Shore uses not onlythe elements of various musical styles but also creates the subconscious links betweena range ofmusical elements and elements of imaginative world." - Marchwica, Wojciech. "Musical scenery: Utopia vs. Arcadia in The lord of the rings (dir. Peter Jackson)." Musica Iagellonica 9, no. 1 (2018): 127-142. From the Filmmaker From the Critic "The gleaming Ring itself is the ultimate source of power in all of fog-shrouded Middle-earth, contested over for centuries by mortals, hobbits, elves, orcs, the GollumOK, wake up. Actually, Jackson and his team have achieved something close to miraculous navigating the texts density, making it clear and compelling with a minimum of pruning. $300 million helps too, but the human grace notes are key: Ian McKellan makes a towering (if slightly self-amused) Gandalf, and Elijah Woods Frodo Baggins is an uncertain quester. Jackson is working from obvious passion; he knows the most special of effects are expected of him but deploys his technology smartly. Certain life-size actors have been shrunk or heightened by trick sets and computers (McKellans head hovers dangerously close to the chandeliers of a hobbits cozy abode), and only the subtlest tweakings are made to New Zealands already ravishing glens. Fellowship leaves you vaguely exhausted but far less than one might have guessed; its a tribute to Jacksons faith that you exit musing not on the money but the spell of Tolkiens quaint variety of deep thoughts, once so beloved by the counterculture: To bear a ring of power is to be alone. (A note of concern to Jackson, the lonely bearer: Before next winter, you may want to rethink that second books title, The Two Towers.)" - Joshua Rothkopf, In These Times From the Public "Eh, it's alright." - @Eric Ripley Factoids Previous Year's Rankings 2012 - #2, 2013 - #5, 2014 - #7, 2016 - #3, 2018 - #1, 2020 - #5, 2022 – #1 Director Count C. Nolan (5), S. Spielberg (5), J. Cameron (3), A. Hitchcock (3), P. Jackson (3), S. Kubrick (3), A. Kurosawa (3), D. Lynch (3), B. Bird (2), F.F. Coppola (2), H. Miyazaki (2), J. Lasseter (2), S. Lee (2), S. Leone (2), R. Linklater (2), M. Scorsese (2), Q. Tarantino (2), R. Scott (2), B. Wilder (2), R. Allers (1), R. Altman (1), P.T. Anderson (1), F. Capra (1), J. Carpenter (1), J. Coen (1), M. Curtiz (1), F. Darabont (1), J. Demme (1), J. Demy (1), P. Docter (1), S. Donen (1), C.T. Dreyer (1), D. Fincher (1), Victor Fleming (1), M. Forman (1), W. Friedkin (1), T. Gilliam (1), R. Johnson (1), T. Jones (1), B. Joon-Ho (1), W. Kar-Wai (1), G. Kelly (1), I. Kershner (1), M. Kobayashi (1), M. Mann (1), G. Miller (1), D. Lean (1), G. Lucas (1), K. Lund (1), S. Lumet (1), L. McCarey (1), F. Meirelles (1), R. Minkoff (1), A. Molina (1), J. Peele (1), B. Persichetti (1), S. Raimi (1), P. Ramsey (1), R. Rothman (1), A. Russo (1), J. Russo (1), M.N. Shyamalan (1), A. Stanton (1), V.D. Sica (1), G. D. Torro (1), G. Trousdale (1), L. Unkrich (1), La. Wachowski (1), Li. Wachowski (1), P. Weir (1), O. Welles (1), K. Wise (1), R. Zemeckis (1) Decade Count 2000s (19), 1990s (18), 2010s (12), 1980s (11), 1970s (9), 1960s (9), 1950s (8), 1940s (4), 1930s (2), 1920s (1), 2020s (1) International Film Count Japan (5), France (3), Italy (3), United Kingdom (2), Australia (1), Brazil (1), Hong Kong (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1), South Korea (1), U.K. (1) Franchise Count Pixar (7), Nolanite Cinematic Universe (5), Middle Earth (3), Star Wars (3), Alien (2), Before (2), WDAS (2), Spider-Man (2), Toy Story (2), Avatar (1), Back to the Future (1), Batman (1), Exorcist (1), Fargo (1), Gladiator (1), The Godfather (1), Hannibal Lecter (1), Hawkguy Cinematic Universe (1), Jaws (1), Jurassic Park (1), Mad Max: Fury Road (1), Man With No Name (1), The Matrix (1), Monty Python (1), Overlook Hotel (1), Oz (1), Terminator (1), The Thing (1) Genre Count Drama (22), Epic (17), Comedy (16), Sci-Fi (16), Fantasy (15), Historical Fiction (15), Adventure (13), Horror (13), Animation (12), Action (10), Black Comedy (7), Crime (7), Thriller (7), Musical (6), Romance (6), Coming of Age (5), Monster (5), Mystery (5), Superhero (5), Christmas/Holiday (4), Comic Book (4), Noir (4), Religious (4),War (4), Jidaigeki (3), Post-Apocalyptic (3), Satire (3), Surrealism (3), Tragedy (3), Western (3), Anime (2), Courtroom Drama (2), Prison Break/Heist (2), Spaghetti Western (2), Alternative History (1), Neorealism (1), Rom-Com (1) A Recipe Lembas Bread Ingredients For lembas bread (lord of the rings “authentic” elvish 2 1/2 call purpose flour 1 Tbsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 c butter 1/3 c brown sugar 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp honey 2/3 c heavy whipping cream 1/2 tsp vanilla extract Instructions on: https://www.justapinch.com/recipes/bread/bread-sweet-bread/lembas-bread-lord-of-the-rings-authentic.html

101. Whiplash (dir. Damien Chazelle, 2014) 102. Finding Nemo (dir. Andrew Stanton, 2003) 103. Avengers: Infinity War (dir. Anthony and Joe Russo, 2018) 104. The Princess Bride (dir. Rob Reiner, 1987) 105. Return of the Jedi (dir. Richard Marquand, 1983) Also, here is the complete list up until this point! 8. The Empire Strikes Back (dir. Irvin Kershner, 1980) 9. Lawrence of Arabia (dir. David Lean, 1962) 10. 2001: A Space Odyssey (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1968) 11. Jaws (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1975) 12. Apocalypse Now (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) 13. 12 Angry Men (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1957) 14. Back to the Future (dir. Robert Zemeckis, 1985) 15. Star Wars (dir. George Lucas, 1977) 16. The Apartment (dir. Billy Wilder, 1960) 17. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (dir. Peter Jackson, 2003) 18. Pan's Labyrinth (dir. Guillermo Del Torro, 2006) 19. The Godfather: Part II (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1974) 20. The Matrix (dir. Lana and Lilly Wachowski, 1999) 21. The Dark Knight (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2008) 22. Terminator 2: Judgement Day (dir. James Cameron, 1991) 23. Do the Right Thing (dir. Spike Lee, 1989) 24. Mad Max: Fury Road (dir. George Miller, 2015) 25. Mulholland Drive (dir. David Lynch, 2001) 26. Jurassic Park (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1993) 27. Singin' in the Rain (dir. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952) 28. Pulp Fiction (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 1994) 29. Oppenheimer (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2023) 30. Princess Mononoke (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 1997) 31. Heat (dir. Michael Mann, 1995) 32. Taxi Driver (dir. Martin Scorse, 1976) 33. The Incredibles (dir. Brad Bird, 2004) 34. Vertigo (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) 35. Inception (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2010) 36. The Wizard of Oz (dir. Victor Fleming, 1939) 37. Ratatouille (dir. Brad Bird, 2007) 38. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (dir. Rian Johnson, 2017) 39. Wall-E (dir. Andrew Stanton, 2008) 40. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1982) 41. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (dir. Peter Jackson, 2002) 42. The Shawshank Redemption (dir. Frank Darabont, 1994) 43. My Neighbor Totoro (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 1988) 44. The Social Network (dir. David Fincher, 2010) 45. Seven Samurai (dir. Akira Kurosawa, 1953) 46. The Truman Show (dir. Peter Weir, 1998) 47. Citizen Kane (dir. Orson Welles, 1941) 48. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (dir. Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman, 2018) 49. The Shining (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980) 50. Alien (dir. Ridley Scott, 1979) 51. Coco (dir. Lee Unkrich, 2017) 52. The Thing (dir. John Carpenter, 1982) 53. Saving Private Ryan (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1998) 54. Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1964) 55. Parasite (dir. Bong Joon-Ho, 2019) 56. Inside Out (dir. Pete Docter, 2015) 57. Before Sunrise (dir. Richard Linklater, 1995) 58. Casablanca (dir. Michael Curtiz, 1942) 59. Psycho (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) 60. Rear Window (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) 61. It's a Wonderful Life (dir. Frank Capra, 1946) 62. Toy Story 2 (dir. John Lasseter, 1999) 63. Silence (dir. Martin Scorsese, 2016) 64. Before Sunset (dir. Richard Linklater, 2004) 65. Toy Story (dir. John Lasseter, 1995) 66. Sunset Boulevard (dir. Billy Wilder, 1950) 67. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (dir. Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, 1975) 68. Interstellar (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2014) 69. Once Upon a Time in the West (dir. Sergio Leone, 1968) 70. City of God (dir. Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund, 2002) 71. The Silence of the Lambs (dir. Jonathan Demme, 1991) 72. Inglorious Basterds (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2009) 73. In the Mood for Love (dir. Wong Kar-wai, 2000) 74. Fargo (dir. Joel Coen, 1996) 75. Avengers: Endgame (dir. Anthony and Joe Russo, 2019) 76. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (dir. Steven Spielberg, 2001) 77. Spider-Man 2 (dir. Sam Raimi, 2004) 78. There Will Be Blood (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007) 79. Malcolm X (dir. Spike Lee, 1992) 80. Beauty and the Beast (dir. Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise, 1991) 81. Rashomon (dir. Akira Kurosawa) 82. The Elephant Man (dir. David Lynch, 1980) 83. Get Out (dir. Jordan Peele, 2017) 84. Avatar (dir. James Cameron, 2009) 85. Bicycle Thieves (dir. Vittorio De Sica, 1948) 86. Gladiator (dir. Ridley Scott, 2000) 87. Aliens (dir. James Cameron, 1986) 88. The Lion King (dir. Rob Minkoff and Roger Allers, 1994) 89. Blue Velvet (dir. David Lynch, 1986) 90. The Young Girls of Rochefort (dir. Jacques Demy, 1967) 91. Nashville (dir. Robert Altman, 1975) 92. Memento (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2000) 93. The Sixth Sense (dir. M. Night Shyamalan, 1999) 94. The Exorcist (dir. William Friedkin, 1973) 95. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (dir. Sergio Leone, 1966) 96. Duck Soup (dir. Leo McCarey, 1933) 97. Ikiru (dir. Akira Kurosawa) 98. The Passion of Joan of Arc (dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928) 99. Amadeus (dir. Milos Forman, 1984) 100. Harakiri (dir. Masaki Kobayashi, 1962) 101. Whiplash (dir. Damien Chazelle, 2014) 102. Finding Nemo (dir. Andrew Stanton, 2003) 103. Avengers: Infinity War (dir. Anthony and Joe Russo, 2018) 104. The Princess Bride (dir. Rob Reiner, 1987) 105. Return of the Jedi (dir. Richard Marquand, 1983) 106. Akira (dir. Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988) 107. Bambi (dir. David D. Hand et al., 1942) 108. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (dir. Peter Weir, 2003) 109. Forrest Gump (dir. Robert Zemeckis, 1994) 110. North by Northwest (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) 111. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (dir. George Lucas, 2005) 112. Hard Boiled (dir. John Woo, 1992) 113. Dog Day Afternoon (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1975) 114. All That Jazz (dir. Bob Fosse, 1979) 115. Fight Club (dir. David Fincher, 1999) 116. Some Like it Hot (dir. Billy Wilder, 1959) 117. Your Name (dir. Makoto Shinkai, 2016) 118. Life of Brian (dir. Terry Jones, 1979) 119. Chinatown (dir. Roman Polanski, 1974) 120. 8 1/2 (dir. Federico Fellini, 1963) 121. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (dir. Michel Gondry, 2004) 122. Die Hard (dir. John McTiernan, 1988) 123. The Iron Giant (dir. Brad Bird, 1999) 124. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (dir. Robert Zemeckis, 1988) 125. Unforgiven (dir. Clint Eastwood, 1992) 126. The Big Lebowski (dir. Joel Coen, 1998) 127. Mission: Impossible - Fallout (dir. Christopher McQuarrie, 2018) 128. Chungking Express (dir. Wong Kar-wai, 1994) 129. The Grand Budapest Hotel (dir. Wes Anderson, 2014) 130. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (dir. F.W. Murnau, 1927) 131. The Terminator (dir, James Cameron, 1984) 132. Spider-Man (dir. Sam Raimi, 2002) 133. The Departed (dir. Martin Scorsese, 2006) 134. Django Unchained (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2012) 135. Toy Story 3 (dir. Lee Unkrich, 2010) 136. The Avengers (dir. Joss Whedon, 2012) 137. Airplane! (dir. David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams, 1980) 138. Stalker (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979) 139. Blazing Saddles (dir. Mel Brookos, 1974) 140. Come and See (dir. Elem Klimov, 1985) 141. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (dir. Jim Sharman, 1975) 142. Guardians of the Galaxy (dir. James Gunn, 2014) 143. Uncut Gems (dir. Josh and Benny Safdie, 2019) 144. Days of Heaven (dir. Terrence Malick, 1978) 145. Dazed and Confused (dir. Richard Linklater, 1993) 146. The Bridge on the River Kwai (dir. David Lean, 1957) 147. All the President's Men (dir. Alan J. Pakula, 1976) 148. Cabaret (dir. Bob Fosse, 1972) 149. Planet of the Apes (dir.Franklin J. Schaffnfer, 1968) 150. Wild Strawberries (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1957) 151. Everything, Everywhere All at Once (dir. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, 2022) 152. Top Gun: Maverick (dir. Joseph Ksinski, 2022) 153. No Country for Old Men (dir. Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007) 154. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1989) 155. Magnolia (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999) 156. Black Swan (dir. Darren Aronofsky, 2010) 157. Kiki's Delivery Service (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 1989) 158. Scream (dir. Wes Craven, 1996) 159. High and Low (dir. Akira Kurosawa, 1963) 160. Groundhog Day (dir. Harold Ramis, 1993) 161. Children of Men (dir. Alfonso Cuaron, 2006) 162. Boogie Nights (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997) 163. Blade Runner (dir. Ridley Scott, 1982) 164. The Best Years of Our Lives (dir. William Wyler, 1946) 165. When Harry Met Sally… (dir. Rob Reiner, 1989) 166. Barry Lyndon (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1975) 167. The Insider (dir. Michael Mann, 1999) 168. The Wolf of Wall Street (dir. Martin Scorsese, 2013) 169. A Clockwork Orange (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1971) 170. Arrival (dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2016) 171. Fanny and Alexander (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1982) 172. Casino Royale (dir. Martin Campbell, 2006) 173. What We Do in the Shadows (dir. Taika Waititi, 2014) 174. Dune (dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2021) 175. Up (dir. Pete Docter, 2009) 176. Aladdin (dir. John Musker & Ron Clements, 1992) 177. All About Eve (dir. Jospeh Mankiewicz, 1950) 178. Edward Scissorhands (dir. Tim Burton, 1990) 179. The Prestige (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2006) 180. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (dir. Tobe Hooper, 1974) 181. RoboCop (dir. Paul Verhoeven, 1987) 182. Brokeback Mountain (dir. Ang Lee, 2005) 183. City Lights (dir. Charlie Chaplin, 1931) 184. Halloween (dir. John Carpenter, 1978) 185. Arsenic and the Old Lace (dir. Frank Capra, 1944) 186. Fantastic Mr. Fox (dir. Wes Anderson, 2009) 187. Fiddler on the Roof (dir. Norman Jewison, 1971) 188. Big Fish (dir. Tim Burton, 2003) 189. The Matrix Reloaded (dir. Lana and Lilly Wachowski, 1999) 190. Stand By Me (dir. Rob Reiner, 1986) 191. The Royal Tenenbaums (dir. Wes Anderson, 2001) 192. Persona (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1966) 193. Zodiac (dir. David Fincher, 2007) 194. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (dir. Milos Forman, 1975) 195. The Big Short (dir. Adam McKay, 2015) 196. A Star is Born (dir. Goerge Cukor, 1954) 197. Whisper of the Heart (dir. Yoshifumi Kondo, 1995) 198. Face/Off (dir. John Woo, 1997) 199. Dunkirk (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2017) 200. Oldboy (dir. Parkk Chan-wook, 2003) 201. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (dir. Chris Columbus, 2001) 202. The 400 Blows (dir. Francois Truffaut, 1959) 203. Knives Out (dir. Rian Johnson, 2019) 204. The Bridges of Madison County (dir. Clint Eastwood, 1995) 205. Se7en (dir. David Fincher, 1995) 206. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (dir. Alfonso Cuaron, 2004) 207. Margaret (dir. Kenneth Lonergan, 2011) 208. Eraserhead (dir. David Lynch, 1977) 209. Shaun of the Dead (dir. Edgar Wright, 2004) 210. The Searchers (dir. John Ford, 1956) 211. Shrek (dir. Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, 2001) 212. The Third Man (dir. Carol Reed, 1949) 213. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (dir. Gore Verbinski, 2006) 214. The Right Stuff (dir. Dennis Quaid, 1983) 215. The Black Stallion (dir. Carrol Ballard, 1979) 216. Speed Racer (dir. Lana and Lilly Wachowski, 2008) 217. Eyes Wide Shut (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1999) 218. Stop Making Sense (dir. Jonathan Demme, 1984) 219. 3 Idiots (dir. Rajkumar Hirani, 2009) 220. District 9 (dir. Neill Blomkamp, 2009) 221. Touch of Evil (dir. Orson Welles, 1958) 222. Tenet (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2020) 223. The Sound of Music (dir. Robert Wise, 1965) 224. Good Will Hunting (dir. Gus Van Sant, 1997) 225. Castle in the Sky (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 1986) 226. West Side Story (dir. Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, 1961) 227. King Kong (dir. Peter Jackson, 2005) 228. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (dir. James Gunn, 2017) 229. L'Avventura (dir. Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960) 230. Soul (dir. Pete Docter, 2020) 231. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (dir. Paul Schrader, 1985) 232. Memories of Murder (dir. Bong Joon Ho, 2003) 233. The Thin Red Line (dir.Terrence Malick, 1997) 234. Ocean's Eleven (dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2001) 235. The Dark Knight Rises (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2012) 236. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2019) 237. Batman Begins (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2005) 238. Slumdog Millionaire (dir. Danny Boyle, 2008) 239. Monsters, Inc (dir. Pete Docter, 2002) 240. Rocky (dir. John G. Avildsen, 1976) 241. Call Me By Your Name (dir. Luca Guadagnino, 2017) 242. Double Indemnity (dir. Billy Wilder, 1944) 243. Persepolis (dir. Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Parnnaud, 2007) 244. Notorious (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1938) 245. The Night of the Hunter (dir. Charles Laughton, 1955) 246. Little Women (dir. Greta Gerwig, 2019) 247. Punch-Drunk Love (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002) 248. Apollo 13 (dir. Ron Howard, 1995) 249. Moonlight (dir. Barry Jenkins, 2016) 250. Brazil (dir. Terry Gilliam, 1985)

Number 8 "Sir, I've isolated the reverse, power flux coupling." Synopsis From the Scholar From the Filmmaker From the Critic From the Public "I don’t have a review but this is a good A+ movie I’m just putting this here in case Panda sees it and puts it in his user opinion thingy when it inevitably makes the list" - @That One Girl (in 2018) Factoids Previous Year's Rankings 2012 - #3, 2013 - #1, 2014 - #1, 2016 - #1, 2018 - #3, 2020 - #3, 2022 – #2 Director Count C. Nolan (5), S. Spielberg (5), J. Cameron (3), A. Hitchcock (3), S. Kubrick (3), A. Kurosawa (3), D. Lynch (3), B. Bird (2), F.F. Coppola (2), H. Miyazaki (2), P. Jackson (2), J. Lasseter (2), S. Lee (2), S. Leone (2), R. Linklater (2), M. Scorsese (2), Q. Tarantino (2), R. Scott (2), B. Wilder (2), R. Allers (1), R. Altman (1), P.T. Anderson (1), F. Capra (1), J. Carpenter (1), J. Coen (1), M. Curtiz (1), F. Darabont (1), J. Demme (1), J. Demy (1), P. Docter (1), S. Donen (1), C.T. Dreyer (1), D. Fincher (1), Victor Fleming (1), M. Forman (1), W. Friedkin (1), T. Gilliam (1), R. Johnson (1), T. Jones (1), B. Joon-Ho (1), W. Kar-Wai (1), G. Kelly (1), I. Kershner (1), M. Kobayashi (1), M. Mann (1), G. Miller (1), D. Lean (1), G. Lucas (1), K. Lund (1), S. Lumet (1), L. McCarey (1), F. Meirelles (1), R. Minkoff (1), A. Molina (1), J. Peele (1), B. Persichetti (1), S. Raimi (1), P. Ramsey (1), R. Rothman (1), A. Russo (1), J. Russo (1), M.N. Shyamalan (1), A. Stanton (1), V.D. Sica (1), G. D. Torro (1), G. Trousdale (1), L. Unkrich (1), La. Wachowski (1), Li. Wachowski (1), P. Weir (1), O. Welles (1), K. Wise (1), R. Zemeckis (1) Decade Count 1990s (18), 2000s (18), 2010s (12), 1980s (11), 1970s (9), 1960s (9), 1950s (8), 1940s (4), 1930s (2), 1920s (1), 2020s (1) International Film Count Japan (5), France (3), Italy (3), United Kingdom (2), Australia (1), Brazil (1), Hong Kong (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1), South Korea (1), U.K. (1) Franchise Count Pixar (7), Nolanite Cinematic Universe (5), Star Wars (3), Alien (2), Before (2), Middle Earth (2), WDAS (2), Spider-Man (2), Toy Story (2), Avatar (1), Back to the Future (1), Batman (1), Exorcist (1), Fargo (1), Gladiator (1), The Godfather (1), Hannibal Lecter (1), Hawkguy Cinematic Universe (1), Jaws (1), Jurassic Park (1), Mad Max: Fury Road (1), Man With No Name (1), The Matrix (1), Monty Python (1), Overlook Hotel (1), Oz (1), Terminator (1), The Thing (1) Genre Count Drama (22), Comedy (16), Epic (16), Sci-Fi (16), Historical Fiction (15), Fantasy (14), Horror (13), Adventure (12), Animation (12), Action (10), Black Comedy (7), Crime (7), Thriller (7), Musical (6), Romance (6), Coming of Age (5), Monster (5), Mystery (5), Superhero (5), Christmas/Holiday (4), Comic Book (4), Noir (4), Religious (4),War (4), Jidaigeki (3), Post-Apocalyptic (3), Satire (3), Surrealism (3), Tragedy (3), Western (3), Anime (2), Courtroom Drama (2), Prison Break/Heist (2), Spaghetti Western (2), Alternative History (1), Neorealism (1), Rom-Com (1) A Recipe

Number 9 "There may be honor among thieves, but there's none in politicians." Synopsis "“I’m different,” declares Peter O’Toole’s T.E. Lawrence. Director David Lean had worked on something approaching this scale on The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), but his masterstroke with Lawrence of Arabia was to centre this colossal epic about the WWI Arab revolt on a strange and fascinating performance from O’Toole, then enough of an unknown to merit the credit “And Introducing...”. One stunning set piece follows another: the entrance of Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) through a mirage, the capture of the town of Aqaba and the attack on a Turkish train. But for all this epic splendour Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson’s script asks searching questions about identity and loyalty, and the ultimately grim view of British intervention in Arab affairs remains all too relevant." - British Film Institute From the Scholar "The orientalism contained in the Sam Spiegel and David Lean version of theLawrence of Arabia myth appears at first sight evident enough. In Lawrence of ArabiaLawrence is represented as the archetypal “White Man” busy managing—and evenproducing—the Orient (Arabia) on behalf of a Western colonial/imperial power. In theprocess, according to Ella Shohat in “Gender and Culture of Empire” (1991), Lawrenceunveils the mysteries of an unknown space, accomplishing thereby a sort of rite de passagethat allegorizes the Western achievement of virile heroic stature, or as General Murrayputs it in the film, makes a “man” of him. The Oriental (the Arab), by contrast, as Saidremarks in Orientalism, cannot represent himself but must be represented, in this case byLawrence. It is Lawrence who, in the film, as in the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, carries thestoryline, Lawrence who gives shape to the Arab Revolt, and Lawrence who directs itsstrategy. And when a second opinion is called for, it is to Lowell Thomas (played byJackson Bentley) that the film turns and not one of the Arabs; though Emir Feisal andSharif Ali do have one or two pointed things to say from time to time. Nor is it lost onthe Arabs in the film that Lawrence describes them as a little people, a silly people,“greedy, barbarous and cruel”. As for the Turks, they are represented as being cruel andbeastly, murderers and rapists, much in need, no doubt, of European tutelage. Such a characterization of Lawrence of Arabia—as an archetypal orientalist work—is,however, somewhat misleading for, as several students of the subject have pointed out,David Lean’s treatment of the Lawrence of Arabia myth in his film is deeply ambiguous.Steven C. Caton, in Lawrence of Arabia: A Film’s Anthropology (1999), for example, pointsout that Lawrence of Arabia, far from being an archetypal orientalist work, the product ofan imperialist and colonialist consciousness, is actually strongly anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist, concerned more with issues of gender and sexuality than with those of colo-nialism and imperialism (chap. 5). Michael A. Anderegg, in “Lawrence of Arabia: TheMan, the Myth, the Movie” (1982), discovers in the film three “particularly absorbing”contradictions: that between weakness and strength; that between the good and badimperialist; and that between self-promotion and self-abnegation. It is on these para-doxes, in Anderegg’s opinion, much more than on any specific account of Lawrence’slife, that David Lean and Robert Bolt constructed their version of the Lawrence myth(286–88). And Alain Silver and James Ursini, in David Lean and his Films (1974) find inLawrence of Arabia not an historical account of Lawrence’s adventures in Arabia, or evenan orientalist epic, but the story of a man’s discovery of his individual destiny and “itsconsequential almost megalomaniac alienation” (163–81)" - Macfie, Alexander Lyon. "Representations of Lawrence of Arabia: From Said’s Orientalism (1978) to David Lean’s Film (1962)." Journal of Postcolonial Writing 43, no. 1 (2007): 77-87. From the Filmmaker From the Critic "“For, this overwhelming desert, though it exists geographically, and was actually filmed by an actual camera crew, sent there for that purpose, is put to a use which is as far from reality as are most of the people we encounter in it. The least real of these people is Lawrence himself. This is not O’Toole’s fault: but so grave an adventure can scarcely be ascribed to the vagaries and idealism of a single man. Lawrence’s courage and steadfastness are given as admirable, because hard-won — here, the film, unconsciously, rather patronizes Lawrence; his complexities are barely — or, rather, perhaps, endlessly — hinted at, that is to say never illuminated. His rapport with the Arabs is of great use to the British, whose attitude toward him, otherwise, is at best ambivalent. The film takes the view that he was a valiant, maverick, naive and headstrong, brutally broken in battle, and betrayed, less by his country than by his inability to confront — as do his superiors — the hard facts of life, in this case, referring, principally, to the limits and exigencies of power. And it would appear to be true that Lawrence’s concept of power existed almost entirely on a messianic level — indeed, on a level far more complex and painful than that — but it is almost impossible to pursue this speculation within the confines described by the film. The film presents us with an inadvertent martyr to the cause of spreading civilization: the speeding of the light to those in darkness. One of the hazards of this endeavor is that of finding oneself in the hands of the infidels. This is what happens to Lawrence in the film (and in a far more fascinating and terrible way in his book). In the film, he is captured by the Turks, refuses the lustful attentions of a Turkish Bey, and is raped by the soldiers. The precipitates his subsequent slaughter of the fleeing Turkish Army. This slaughter destroys his soul, and, though the desert has now claimed him forever, he no longer has any role in the desert, and so must go home to England, dead, to die. The film begins with the death of Lawrence in order to avoid, whether consciously or not, the deepest and most dangerous implications of this story. We are confronted with a fallen hero, and we trace the steps which lead him to his end. But the zeal which drove Lawrence into the desert does not begin at the point at which we meet him in the film, but farther back than that, in that complex of stratifications called England. Of this, Lawrence himself was most tormentedly aware. The English can be said to exemplify the power of nostalgia to an uncanny degree. Nothing the world holds, from Australia to Africa, to America, India, to China, to Egypt, appears to have made the faintest imprint on the English soul: wherever the English are is — or will resist, out of perversity, or at its peril, becoming — England. (Not, on the other hand, of course, that it can ever truly be England: but it can try.) This is a powerful presumption, but why, then, the ruder recipient cannot but demand, do not the English stay in England? It would appear that this island people need endless corroboration of their worth: and the tragedy of their history has been their compulsion to make the world their mirror, and this to a degree not to be equalled in the history of any other people — and with a success, if that is the word, not to be equalled in the history of any other people. I liked the things beneath me — Lawrence, from Seven Pillars Of Wisdom, is speaking — and took my pleasures and adventures downward. There seemed a certainty in degradation, a final safety. Man could rise to any height, but there was an animal level beneath which he could not fall. It was a satisfaction on which to rest. The necessity, then, of those “lesser breeds without the law” — those wogs, barbarians, n*****s — is this: one must not become more free, nor become more base than they: must not be used as they are used, nor yet use them as their abandonment allows one to use them: therefore, they must be civilized. But, when they are civilized, they may simply “spuriously imitate [the civilizer] back again,” leaving the civilizer with “no satisfaction on which to rest.” Thus, it may be said that the weary melancholy underlying Lawrence of Arabia stems from the stupefying apprehension that, whereas England may have been doomed to civilize the world, no power under heaven can civilize England. I am using England, at the moment, arbitrarily, simply because England is responsible for Lawrence: but the principle illustrates the dilemma of all the civilizing, or colonizing powers, particularly now, as their power begins to be, at once, more tenuous and more brutal, and their vaunted identities revealed as being dubious indeed. The greater the public power, the greater the private, inadmissible despair; the greater the danger to all human life. The camera remains on Lawrence’s face a long time before he finally cries, No prisoners! and leads his men to massacre the Turks. This pause is meant to recall to us the intolerable mortification he has endured, and to make comprehensible the savagery of this English schoolboy." - James Baldwin, The Devil Finds Work From the Public "LOA's script is a masterpiece of subtlety and economy. There's not a wasted word." - @Dementeleus Factoids Previous Year's Rankings 2012 - #66, 2013 - #31, 2014 - #47, 2016 - #21, 2018 - #87, 2020 - #22, 2022 – #17 Director Count C. Nolan (5), S. Spielberg (5), J. Cameron (3), A. Hitchcock (3), S. Kubrick (3), A. Kurosawa (3), D. Lynch (3), B. Bird (2), F.F. Coppola (2), H. Miyazaki (2), P. Jackson (2), J. Lasseter (2), S. Lee (2), S. Leone (2), R. Linklater (2), M. Scorsese (2), Q. Tarantino (2), R. Scott (2), B. Wilder (2), R. Allers (1), R. Altman (1), P.T. Anderson (1), F. Capra (1), J. Carpenter (1), J. Coen (1), M. Curtiz (1), F. Darabont (1), J. Demme (1), J. Demy (1), P. Docter (1), S. Donen (1), C.T. Dreyer (1), D. Fincher (1), Victor Fleming (1), M. Forman (1), W. Friedkin (1), T. Gilliam (1), R. Johnson (1), T. Jones (1), B. Joon-Ho (1), W. Kar-Wai (1), G. Kelly (1), M. Kobayashi (1), M. Mann (1), G. Miller (1), D. Lean (1), G. Lucas (1), K. Lund (1), S. Lumet (1), L. McCarey (1), F. Meirelles (1), R. Minkoff (1), A. Molina (1), J. Peele (1), B. Persichetti (1), S. Raimi (1), P. Ramsey (1), R. Rothman (1), A. Russo (1), J. Russo (1), M.N. Shyamalan (1), A. Stanton (1), V.D. Sica (1), G. D. Torro (1), G. Trousdale (1), L. Unkrich (1), La. Wachowski (1), Li. Wachowski (1), P. Weir (1), O. Welles (1), K. Wise (1), R. Zemeckis (1) Decade Count 1990s (18), 2000s (18), 2010s (12), 1980s (10), 1970s (9), 1960s (9), 1950s (8), 1940s (4), 1930s (2), 1920s (1), 2020s (1) International Film Count Japan (5), France (3), Italy (3), United Kingdom (2), Australia (1), Brazil (1), Hong Kong (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1), South Korea (1), U.K. (1) Franchise Count Pixar (7), Nolanite Cinematic Universe (4), Alien (2), Before (2), Middle Earth (2), WDAS (2), Spider-Man (2), Star Wars (2), Toy Story (2), Avatar (1), Back to the Future (1), Batman (1), Exorcist (1), Fargo (1), Gladiator (1), The Godfather (1), Hannibal Lecter (1), Hawkguy Cinematic Universe (1), Jaws (1), Jurassic Park (1), Mad Max: Fury Road (1), Man With No Name (1), The Matrix (1), Monty Python (1), Overlook Hotel (1), Oz (1), Terminator (1), The Thing (1) Genre Count Drama (22), Comedy (16), Epic (16), Sci-Fi (16), Historical Fiction (15), Fantasy (13), Horror (13), Animation (12), Adventure (11), Action (10), Black Comedy (7), Crime (7), Thriller (7), Musical (6), Romance (6), Coming of Age (5), Monster (5), Mystery (5), Superhero (5), Christmas/Holiday (4), Comic Book (4), Noir (4), Religious (4),War (4), Jidaigeki (3), Post-Apocalyptic (3), Satire (3), Surrealism (3), Tragedy (3), Western (3), Anime (2), Courtroom Drama (2), Prison Break/Heist (2), Spaghetti Western (2), Alternative History (1), Neorealism (1), Rom-Com (1) A Recipe Classic Bedouin Hummus Ingredients 19 oz can chick peas or 3/4 c dried (reserve 1/4 c of the cooking liquid) 1/4 cup (4 T) tahini (sesame seed paste) 3 - 4 T lemon juice, fresh (or juice of 1 good sized lemon) 1/4 t salt Instructions: https://therecipelesscook.blogspot.com/2011/03/hummus-mediterranean-chick-pea-dip.html

Number 10 "Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop Dave? Stop, Dave." Synopsis "With 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, director Stanley Kubrick redefined the limits of filmmaking in this classic science fiction masterpiece. To begin his voyage into the future, Kubrick visits our prehistoric ape-ancestry past, then leaps millennia into colonized space, and ultimately whisks astronaut Bowman into unchartered realms of space, perhaps even into immortality." - American Cinematheque From the Scholar "The rhetorical message of Kubrick's2007 is religious in nature. ArthurClarke, who wrote the book by the sametitle and who collaborated with Kubrickon the movie, said:2001: A Space Odyssey is about man's pastand future life in Space. It's about concernwith man's hierarchy in the universe, whichis probably pretty low. It's about the reac-tions of humanity to the discovery of higherintelligence in the universe. We set out withthe deliberate intention of creating a myth. M-G-M doesn't know it yet, but they'vefooted the bill for the first $10,500,000.00religious film. (Agel, 1970, p. 10)In a Playboy magazine interviewKubrick was asked, "Would you agreewith those critics who call it a pro-foundly religious film?" Kubrick's an-swer: I will say that the God concept is at the heartof 2001—but not any traditional, anthropo-morphic image of God. I don't believe in anyof Earth's monotheistic religions, but I dobelieve that one can construct an intriguingscientific definition of God. . . . It's reason-able to assume that there must be, in fact,countless billions of such planets where bio-logical life has arisen, the odds of someproportion of such life developing intelli-gence are high. It seems likely that there arebillions of planets in the universe . . . whereintelligent life . . . is hundreds of thousandsof millions of years in advance of us. . . .These beings would be gods to the billions ofless advanced races in the universe, just asman would appear a god to an ant thatsomehow comprehended man's existence.. . .In their final evolutionary stage, they mustdevelop into an integrated collective immor-tal consciousness. They would be incompre-hensible to us except as gods; and if thetendrils of their consciousness ever brushedmen's minds, it is only the hand of God wecould grasp as an explanation. ("PlayboyInterview," 1970, p. 330)The central motif of 2007 is notscience technology, but the spiritualfuture of humanity. Kubrick's symbolicthemes include victimage, sacrifice,death and rebirth, and evolutionarytransformation and transcendence, asour analysis will substantiate. Kubrickhas taken basic spiritual concepts oforder and redemption and applied themto the total, cosmic sweep of humanexistence." - Williams, Dale E. "2001: A space odyssey: A warning before its time." Critical Studies in Media Communication 1, no. 3 (1984): 311-322. From the Filmmaker From the Critic "There are, in all, only about 40 minutes of dialogue in this 149-minute film. The structure of 2001 is musical rather than dramatic—a fact that may help explain some of the widespread critical hostility the film received when it was released. There are three movements to 2001, but they are not the conventional three acts that critics and audiences expect to find in big-budget Hollywood movies. The connection of the three movements of 2001 is not immediately apparent, but it is nonetheless logical. The first movement concerns itself with the black monolith, that enigmatic geometric shape placed on both the earth and the moon some four million years ago. The “Dawn of Man” sequence, in which, according to Arthur C. Clarke, incredibly advanced extraterrestrial beings give our anthropoid ancestors the concept of tools, ends with one of the most brilliant matched cuts in film history. ... The paradox of 2001 is that this work, whose story and whose actual making were so dependent upon human technology, itself a concrete manifestation of human logic, should ask us to move beyond logic, beyond concrete realities altogether, that it should take us into the domain hitherto reserved for theology: speculation on human destiny. Like all great films, 2001 takes hold, not merely of the eye and ear, but also of the mind. It is concerned not with the evolution of man’s body, but with the evolution of man’s mind and spirit. It is remarkable not only for its awesome visual effects, which have never been surpassed, but also for the fact that it is, at its core and its conclusion, a sacred drama for a secular society." - Howard Suber, The Criterion Collection From the Public "From the very outset a strong sense of awe is placed directly on the viewer. The magical thing about this is that awe comes from Kubrick himself. It doesn't take long to gather the love and admiration Kubrick holds for the source material, and that love and admiration quickly rubs off on the viewer. I've heard that Kubrick is known for attention to detail, but one does not truly grasp what that means until they experience it first hand. While not going into too many specifics, the most amazing aspect of this film is the fact that, despite it being firmly ingrained in the science realm, it can be a transcendent viewing experience for both scientifically-inclined and religious folk. The story unfolds in such a way that both modes of thought have ample to chew on, and items to interpret. It's open-minded cinema that simultaneously appeals to opposite ends of the spectrum as it pertains to existential themes. In a way, the initial viewing of this film is very much like the monoliths portrayed in the film. Specifically, it opens one up to the material, and entices one to tackle it with a different mindset in subsequent viewings. I feel like I merely dipped my damn toes into what the film ultimately has to offer. Perhaps one day I'll tread lightly into the deep end." - @mattmav45 Factoids Previous Year's Rankings 2012 - #22, 2013 - #17, 2014 - #43, 2016 - #14, 2018 - #60, 2020 - #55, 2022 – #46 Director Count C. Nolan (5), S. Spielberg (5), J. Cameron (3), A. Hitchcock (3), S. Kubrick (3), A. Kurosawa (3), D. Lynch (3), B. Bird (2), F.F. Coppola (2), H. Miyazaki (2), P. Jackson (2), J. Lasseter (2), S. Lee (2), S. Leone (2), R. Linklater (2), M. Scorsese (2), Q. Tarantino (2), R. Scott (2), B. Wilder (2), R. Allers (1), R. Altman (1), P.T. Anderson (1), F. Capra (1), J. Carpenter (1), J. Coen (1), M. Curtiz (1), F. Darabont (1), J. Demme (1), J. Demy (1), P. Docter (1), S. Donen (1), C.T. Dreyer (1), D. Fincher (1), Victor Fleming (1), M. Forman (1), W. Friedkin (1), T. Gilliam (1), R. Johnson (1), T. Jones (1), B. Joon-Ho (1), W. Kar-Wai (1), G. Kelly (1), M. Kobayashi (1), M. Mann (1), G. Miller (1), G. Lucas (1), K. Lund (1), S. Lumet (1), L. McCarey (1), F. Meirelles (1), R. Minkoff (1), A. Molina (1), J. Peele (1), B. Persichetti (1), S. Raimi (1), P. Ramsey (1), R. Rothman (1), A. Russo (1), J. Russo (1), M.N. Shyamalan (1), A. Stanton (1), V.D. Sica (1), G. D. Torro (1), G. Trousdale (1), L. Unkrich (1), La. Wachowski (1), Li. Wachowski (1), P. Weir (1), O. Welles (1), K. Wise (1), R. Zemeckis (1) Decade Count 1990s (18), 2000s (18), 2010s (12), 1980s (10), 1970s (9), 1950s (8), 1960s (8), 1940s (4), 1930s (2), 1920s (1), 2020s (1) International Film Count Japan (5), France (3), Italy (3), United Kingdom (2), Australia (1), Brazil (1), Hong Kong (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1), South Korea (1) Franchise Count Pixar (7), Nolanite Cinematic Universe (4), Alien (2), Before (2), Middle Earth (2), WDAS (2), Spider-Man (2), Star Wars (2), Toy Story (2), Avatar (1), Back to the Future (1), Batman (1), Exorcist (1), Fargo (1), Gladiator (1), The Godfather (1), Hannibal Lecter (1), Hawkguy Cinematic Universe (1), Jaws (1), Jurassic Park (1), Mad Max: Fury Road (1), Man With No Name (1), The Matrix (1), Monty Python (1), Overlook Hotel (1), Oz (1), Terminator (1), The Thing (1) Genre Count Drama (21), Comedy (16), Sci-Fi (16), Epic (15), Historical Fiction (14), Fantasy (13), Horror (13), Animation (12), Action (10), Adventure (10), Black Comedy (7), Crime (7), Thriller (7), Musical (6), Romance (6), Coming of Age (5), Monster (5), Mystery (5), Superhero (5), Christmas/Holiday (4), Comic Book (4), Noir (4), Religious (4), War (4), Jidaigeki (3), Post-Apocalyptic (3), Satire (3), Surrealism (3), Tragedy (3), Western (3), Anime (2), Courtroom Drama (2), Prison Break/Heist (2), Spaghetti Western (2), Alternative History (1), Neorealism (1), Rom-Com (1) A Recipe

A little different than the just misses, here are all of the films deemed good enough by a single person to put it on their list, but still only towards to bottom (ie. all the films which received a single point) The Secret of NIMH (dir. Don Bluth, 1982) Quest for Fire (dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1981) Hero (dir. Zhang Yimou, 2002) Only Yesterday (dir. Isao Takahata, 1991) Searching for Bobby Fischer (dir. Steven Zaillian, 1993) Boys Don't Cry (dir. Kimberly Peirce, 1999) The Wiz (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1978) Adventures in Babysitting (dir. Chris Columbus, 1987) To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julia Newmar (dir. Beeban Kidron, 1995) The Crow (dir. Alex Proyas, 1994) Gia (dir. Michael Cristofer, 1998) Mimic (dir. Guillermo Del Torro, 1997) Dancer in the Dark (dir. Lalrs von Trier, 2001) Nightmare Alley (dir. Guillermo del Torro, 2021) Queen of the Damned (dir. Michael Rymer, 2002) Girl, Interrupted (dir. James Mangold, 1999) Red Eyes (dir. Wes Craven, 2005) The Incredible Shrinking Woman (dir. Joel Schumacher, 1981) Three Thousand Years of Longing (dir. George Miller, 2022) Evil Dead (dir. Fede Alvarez, 2013) Somewhere (dir. Sofia Coppola, 2010) Audition (dir. Takashi Miike, 1999) Spanglish (dir. James L Brooks, 2004) Only Yesterday (dir. John M. Stahl, 1933) Cosmopolis (dir. David Cronenberg, 2012) Ishtar (dir. Elaine May, 1987) Carlito's Way (dir. Brian de Palma, 1993) We Bought a Zoo (dir. Cameron Crowe, 2011) Histoire(s) du cinema (dir. Jean-Luc Godard, 1998) The Big Gundown (dir. Sergio Sollima, 1967) Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (dir. Paul W.S. Anderson, 2016) Pacifiction (dir. Albert Serra, 2022) Right Now, Wrong Then (dir. Hong Sang-soo, 2015) The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1972) Beverly Hills Cop (dir.Martin Brest, 1984) Lion (dir. Garth Davis, 2016) Deadpool (dir. Tim Miller, 2016) Spider-Man: Homecoming (dir. Jon Watts, 2017) Insidious (dir.James Wan, 2011) Furious 7 (dir. James Wan, 2015) Death of a Salesman (dir. Volker Schlondorff, 1985) The Imitation Game (dir. Morten Tyldum, 2014) Because of Winn-Dixie (dir. Wayne Wang, 2005) In the Tall Grass (dir. Vincenzo Natali, 2019) Romeo + Juliet (dir. Baz Luhrmann, 1996) Snakes on a Plane (dir. David R. Ellis, 2006) The Ring (dir. Gore Verbinski, 2002) Touching the Void (dir. Kevin Macdonald, 2003) The Plague Dogs (dir. Martin Rosen, 1982) Gerry (dir. Gus Van Sant, 2002) Apollo 11 (dir. Peter Jackson, 2019) Millenium Actress (dir. Satoshi Kon, 2001) Mandy (dir. Panos Cosmatos, 2018) A Cure for Wellness (dir. Gore Verbinski, 2017) The People Under the Stairs (dir. Wes Craven, 1991) Auto Focus (dir. Paul Schrader, 2002) Donnie Darko (dir. Richard Kelly, 2001) eXistenZ (dir. David Cronenberg, 1999) Thief (dir. Michael Mann, 1981) In the Line of Duty 4 (dir. Yuen Woo-Ping, 1989) Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (dir. John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, 2023) Commando (dir. Mark L. Lester, 1985) Infernal Affairs (dir. Andrew Lau Wai-Keung and Alan Mak, 2002) Iron Angels (dir. Teresa Woo, 1987) Le Femme Nikita (dir. Luc Besson, 1990) Lethal Panther (dir. Godfrey Ho, 1990) Ong-Bak (dir. Bong Joon-ho, 2003) Slap Shot (dir. George Roy Hill, 1977) The Land Before Time (dir. Don Bluth, 1988) Misery (dir. Rob Reiner, 1990) Kubo and the Two Strings (dir. Travis Knight, 2016) Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (dir. Rian Johnson, 2022) Da 5 Bloods (dir. Spike Lee, 2020) The Rider (dir. Chloe Zhao, 2017) Bad Education (dir. Corey Finley, 2019) John Wick: Chapter 2 (dir. Chad Stahelski, 2017) Mulan (dir. Tony Bancroft and Barry Cookk, 1998) Wreck-It Ralph (dir. Rich Moore, 2012) The Road to El Dorado (dir. Bilbo Bergeron and Don Paul, 2000) The Jungle Book (dir. Jon Favreau, 2016) A Goofy Movie (dir. Kevin Lima and Paul Brizzi, 1995) I Saw the Devil (dir. Kim Jae-Woon, 2010) Elemental (dir. Peter Sohn, 2023) Bonnie & Clyde (dir. Arthur Penn, 1967) L'eclisse (dir. Michaelangelo Antonioni, 1962) Ghost World (dir. Terry Zwigorf, 2001) Werckmeister Harmonies (dir. Bela Tarr, 2000) Cries & Whispers (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1971) Melancholia (dir. Lars von Trier, 2011) Far From Heaven (dir. Todd Haynes, 2002) The Great Beauty (dir. Paulo Sorrentino, 2013) Perfect Blue (Dir. Satoshi Kon, 1997) Clerks II (dir. Kevin Smith, 2006) The Jungle Book (dir. Wolfgang Reitherman, 1967) Holy Motors (dir. Leos Carax, 2012) East of Eden (dir. Elia Kazan, 1955) Gold Diggers of 1933 (dir. Busby Berkelly and Mervyn LeRoy, 1933) The Great Indian Kitchen (dir …, …) Incendies (dir. …, …) The Gangs of Wasseypur Part 1 (dir. …, …) The Wrestler (dir. Aronofsky, 2008) Poltergeist (dir. Hooper, 1982) The Jerk (dir. Rob Reiner, 1979) Lethal Weapon (dir. Donner, 1987) Three Amigos (dir. John Landis, 1986) Friday (dir. Gray, 1995) The Warriors (dir. Hill, 1979) Fast Five (dir. Lin, 2011) Zoolander (dir. Ben Stiller, 2001) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (dir. George Roy Hill, 1969) Goldfinger (dir. Guy Hamilton, 1964) Cool Hand Luke (dir. Stuart Rosenberg, 1967) August Rush (dir. .., …) Straight Outta Compton (dir. …, …) Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules (dir. …, …) Room (dir. …, …) The Muppets (dir. …, 2011) Taken (dir. …, …) Spirit: The Stallion of Cimarron (dir. …, …) We're the Millers (dir. …, …) The Squid and the Whale (dir. …, …) Booksmart (dir. …, …) The Big Sick (dir. …, 2017) Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (dir. …, 1974) The Muppet Movie (dir. Jim Henson, 1979) Klute (dir. …, 1971) Broadcast News (dir. …, 1987) Serpico (dir. …, 1973) Sleuth (dir. …, 1972) The Natural (dir. …, 1984) Midsommar (dir. Ari Aster, 2019) Austin Powers: The International Man of Mystery (dir. Jay Roach, 1997) The VVitch (dir. Robert Eggers, 2015) Captain Phillips (dir. Paul Greengrass, 2013) Rain Man (dir. Barry Levinson, 1987) The Ten Commandments (dir. Decil B Demille, 1956) Elvis (dir. Baz Luhrmann, 2022) The Great Gatsby (dir. Baz Luhrmann, 2013) The Hangover (dir. Todd Phillips, 2009) Marriage Italian Style (dir. Vittorio De Sica, 1964) Reds (dir. Warren Beatty, 1981) Everybody Wants Some!!! (dir. Richard Linklater, …) Decision tto Leave (dir. …, …) Y Tu Mama Tambien (dir. Alfonso Cuaron, …) Hustlers (dir. …, …) Finding Dory (dir. Andrew Stanton, 2016) The End of the Tour (dir. …, …) The Virgin Spring (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1960) Le Trou (dir. Jacques Becker, 1997) Le Cercle Rouge (dir. Jean-Pierre Melville, 1993) Sabrina (dir. Billy Wilder, 1954) My Name is Julia Ross (dir. Joseph H. Lewis, 1945) To Have and Have Not (dir. Howard Hanks, 1944) Judas and the Black Messiah (dir. Shaka King, 2021) I Lost My Body (dir. Jeremy Clapin, 2019) I, Tonya (dir. Craig Gillespie, 2018) Superfly (dir. Gordon Parks Jr, 1972) The French Dispatch (dir. Wes Anderson, 2021) 2010: The Year We Made Contact (dir. Peter Hyams, 1984) Assault on the Precinct 13 (dir. John Carpenter, 1976) Sleepy Hollow (dir. Tim Burton, 1999) Game Night t(dir. John Francis Day and Jonathan Goldstein, 2018) Macross: Do You Remember Love? (dir. Noboru Ishigurro and Shoji Kawamori, 1984) Lost Highway (dir. David Lynch, 1997) The Downfall (dir. Oliver Hirshbiegel, 2005) The Omen (dir. Richard Donner, 1976) 3:10 to Yuman (dir. James Mangold, 2007) The Killing (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1956) Long Day's Journey into Night (dir. Bi Gan, 2018) Where the Wild Things Are (dir. Spike Jonze, 2009) Rango (dir. Gore Verbinski, 2011) Anyone But You (dir. Will Gluck, 2023) Society of the Snow (dir. JA Bayona, 2023) El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (dir. Vince Gilligan, 2019) Batman: Gotham by Gaslight (dir. Sami Liu, 2018) Rush (dir. Ron Howard, 2013) Dawn of the Dead (dir. George A. Romero, 1978) OJ Made in America (dir. Ezra Edelman, 2016) The Burbs (dir. Joe Dante, 1989) The Band Wagon (dir. Vincente Minnelli, 1953) Lifeboat (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1944) Dead Ringers (dir. David Cronenberg, 1988) The Cremator (dir. Juraj Herz, 1969) Sparrow (dir. Johnnie To, 2008) O Kadhhail Kanmani (dir. Mani Ratman, 2015) Benediction (dir. Terence Davies, 2021) Public Enemies (dir. Michael Mann, 2009) Close-Up (dir. Abbas Kiarostami, 1999) The Ladies Man (dir. Reginald Hudlin, 2000) Master Gardener (dir. Paul Schrader, 2023) Who Killed Captain Alex? (dir. Nabawana I.G.G., 2010) Aftersun (dir. Charlotte Wells, 2022) American Hustle (dir. David O. Russell, 2013) Sense and Sensibility (dir. Ang Lee, 2005) Time of the Gypsies (dir. Emir Kusturica, 1988) Fail-Safe (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1964) Looper (dir. Rian Johnson, 2012) Eve's Bayou (dir. Kasi Llememons, 1997) Dark City (dir. Alex Proyas, 1998) Odd Man Out (dir. Carol Reed, 1947) White Heat (dir. Raoul Walsh, 1949) 5 Fingers (dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1952) Batman (dir. Leslie H. Masterson, 1966) Juggernaut (dir. Richard Lester, 1974) Something Wild (dir. Jonathan Demme, 1986) The Long Day Closes (dir. Terence Davies, 1992) My Winnipeg (dir. Guy Maddin, 2007) Frances Ha (dir. Noah Baumbach, 2012) The Duke of Burgundy (dir. Peter Strickland, 2014) The Florida Project (dir. Sean Baker, 2017) Anatomy of a Fall (dir. Justine Triet, 2023) Past Lives (dir. Celine Song, 2023) American Movie (dir. Chris Smith, 1999) Point Blank (dir. John Boorman, 1967) The Big Sleep (dir. Howard Hanks, 1946) The Killing Field (dir. Roland Joffe, 1984) Lagaan (dir. Ashutosh Gowariker, 2001) Wild Tales (dir. Damián Szifron, 2013) A Simple Life (dir. Ann Hui, 2011) Shoplifters (dir. Hirokazu Koreeda, 2018) Big Trouble in Little China (dir. John Carpenter, 1986) Ashes of Time (dir. Wong Kar-wai, 1994) Hamlet (dir. Kenneth Branagh, 1996) 2046 (dir. Wong Kar-Wai, 2004)

Number 11 "Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies" Synopsis "Regarded as a watershed moment in motion picture history, Jaws was the prototypical summer blockbuster and won several awards for its music and editing. It was the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of Star Wars two years later; both films were pivotal in establishing the modern Hollywood business model, which pursues high box-office returns from action and adventure films with simple high-concept premises, released during the summer in thousands of theaters and advertised heavily. Jaws was followed by three sequels (none of which involved Spielberg or Benchley) and many imitative thrillers. In 2001, the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the United States National Film Registry." - Wikipedia From the Scholar "JAWS became the biggest and fastest grossing film in the history of the industry on September 5th, only 78 days after release. Three days later it had passed the previous record gross of THE GODFATHER by more than $38 million (Variety, Sept. 10, 1975, p. 3). This enormous popularity means JAWS is an expression of the society’s consciousness, and should be approached critically in terms of that consciousness rather than as the private vision of a director. Spielberg’s film and Benchley’s novel have cashed in on the emotions already attached to people-eating sharks by creating fictional and filmic structures which involve audiences with the shark as an image. But these structures are more than simply a series of individually created narrative events. They are also a series of explanations and interpretations of the shark image in terms of the shared concerns and fears of our society. In JAWS the shark reflects a disguised hatred of women and the preoccupation of our society with sadistic sexuality, a view of business as predatory and irresponsible in human terms, and a fear of retribution for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The film resolves these issues and fears by externalizing them from the protagonists and solving them in a macho fantasy, fear-and-bravery ending which denies any possibility of concerted social action, excludes women as weak and ineffectual, and erases the past and its guilts. The question of whether or not it is reasonable to discuss Hollywood “escapist” films like JAWS in a context of social and historical events and concerns like these has already been raised in JUMP CUT, in Fred Kaplan’s article on disaster movies in No. 6 (“Riches From Ruins” ) and the replies to it by David Rosen (“Drugged Popcorn” ) and Ernest Larsen (“Lemmings and Escapism” ) in No. 8, and Kaplan’s reply in this issue. My own position is closer to that of Rosen and Larsen, although I agree with many of Kaplan’s specific points. I assume that the popularity of a film like JAWS means that the film articulates the current concerns, fears, and desires of the people who see it and recommend it to their friends. I also assume that these people like the film in part because they recognize as true, or familiar, or intelligible the view of reality and the narrative interpretations and causal relationships the film presents. The more widely popular a film, the more confidently we can say that the view of reality and the social and psychological concerns articulated in the film are those of society as a whole. Or at least, that those concerns are held in common by a large proportion of the society’s members, no matter how much they may differ in other ways. A mass market film like JAWS, made to sell as many tickets as possible, is an attempt to articulate in fictional and filmic terms the shared concerns of the society. Box office grosses are the only proof of success. Spielberg has said he wanted to make a movie, not a film (Carl Gottlieb, Java Log, New York: Dell, 1975, p. 42). His distinction is between a work aimed at a mass audience and one aimed at a smaller, elite audience." - Rubey, Dan. "The Jaws in the mirror." Jump Cut 10, no. 11 (1976): 20-23. From the Filmmaker From the Critic From the Public "Which brings us to the shark itself. Some of the footage in the film is of an actual great white shark. The rest uses a mechanical shark patterned on the real thing. The illusion is complete. We see the shark close up, we look in its relentless eye, and it just plain feels like a shark. "Jaws" is a great adventure movie of the kind we don't get very often any more. It's clean-cut adventure, without the gratuitous violence of so many action pictures. It has the necessary amount of blood and guts to work -- but none extra. And it's one hell of a good story, brilliantly told." - @baumer Factoids Previous Year's Rankings 2012 - #36, 2013 - #11, 2014 - #18, 2016 - #17, 2018 - #18, 2020 - #11, 2022 – #7 Director Count C. Nolan (5), S. Spielberg (5), J. Cameron (3), A. Hitchcock (3), A. Kurosawa (3), D. Lynch (3), B. Bird (2), F.F. Coppola (2), H. Miyazaki (2), P. Jackson (2), S. Kubrick (2), J. Lasseter (2), S. Lee (2), S. Leone (2), R. Linklater (2), M. Scorsese (2), Q. Tarantino (2), R. Scott (2), B. Wilder (2), R. Allers (1), R. Altman (1), P.T. Anderson (1), F. Capra (1), J. Carpenter (1), J. Coen (1), M. Curtiz (1), F. Darabont (1), J. Demme (1), J. Demy (1), P. Docter (1), S. Donen (1), C.T. Dreyer (1), D. Fincher (1), Victor Fleming (1), M. Forman (1), W. Friedkin (1), T. Gilliam (1), R. Johnson (1), T. Jones (1), B. Joon-Ho (1), W. Kar-Wai (1), G. Kelly (1), M. Kobayashi (1), M. Mann (1), G. Miller (1), G. Lucas (1), K. Lund (1), S. Lumet (1), L. McCarey (1), F. Meirelles (1), R. Minkoff (1), A. Molina (1), J. Peele (1), B. Persichetti (1), S. Raimi (1), P. Ramsey (1), R. Rothman (1), A. Russo (1), J. Russo (1), M.N. Shyamalan (1), A. Stanton (1), V.D. Sica (1), G. D. Torro (1), G. Trousdale (1), L. Unkrich (1), La. Wachowski (1), Li. Wachowski (1), P. Weir (1), O. Welles (1), K. Wise (1), R. Zemeckis (1) Decade Count 1990s (18), 2000s (18), 2010s (12), 1980s (10), 1970s (9), 1950s (8), 1960s (7), 1940s (4), 1930s (2), 1920s (1), 2020s (1) International Film Count Japan (5), France (3), Italy (3), United Kingdom (2), Australia (1), Brazil (1), Hong Kong (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1), South Korea (1) Franchise Count Pixar (7), Nolanite Cinematic Universe (4), Alien (2), Before (2), Middle Earth (2), WDAS (2), Spider-Man (2), Star Wars (2), Toy Story (2), Avatar (1), Back to the Future (1), Batman (1), Exorcist (1), Fargo (1), Gladiator (1), The Godfather (1), Hannibal Lecter (1), Hawkguy Cinematic Universe (1), Jaws (1), Jurassic Park (1), Mad Max: Fury Road (1), Man With No Name (1), The Matrix (1), Monty Python (1), Overlook Hotel (1), Oz (1), Terminator (1), The Thing (1) Genre Count Drama (21), Comedy (16), Sci-Fi (15), Epic (14), Historical Fiction (14), Fantasy (13), Horror (13), Animation (12), Action (10), Adventure (10), Black Comedy (7), Crime (7), Thriller (7), Musical (6), Romance (6), Coming of Age (5), Monster (5), Mystery (5), Superhero (5), Christmas/Holiday (4), Comic Book (4), Noir (4), War (4), Jidaigeki (3), Post-Apocalyptic (3), Religious (3), Satire (3), Tragedy (3), Western (3), Anime (2), Courtroom Drama (2), Prison Break/Heist (2), Spaghetti Western (2), Surrealism (2), Alternative History (1), Neorealism (1), Rom-Com (1) A Recipe Grilled Gulf Shark Ingredients 2 (8 ounce) shark steaks 2 cups milk 1 tablespoon lemon juice sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste Directions Place the shark steaks in a shallow dish and pour milk over them to cover. Let stand for 2 hours, or refrigerate overnight. Prepare a grill for medium-high heat. Remove the shark steaks from the pan and pat dry. Discard leftover milk. Season the steaks with lemon juice, sea salt and pepper. Grill the steaks until meat is firm, about 15 minutes, turning once. Fish should appear white all the way through. From: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/158421/grilled-gulf-shark/