The Not Quite Official BOF Must Watch Movies Before You Die. (and competition inside)

Phil in the Blank · January 31, 2015

Welcome to the not quite official BOF must watch movies before you die list. I'm hoping we can create it together over the next month or so but we shall see how we go! Read on to find out how you can make this reality, as well as enter yourself into a draw for a Copper Level Subscriber Account for 6 months. Valued at $30 of your U.S Dollars.

Basically I wanted to do a list where I didn't have to rank Casablanca above or below Die Hard but both could stand together as great films that people should absolutely watch. Then I thought, why limit it to just me, lets see if I can workout someway to get BOF to help create a big 'ole list with me. After all I'm sure we all have movies that we feel others should see in there lifetime and this is your chance to get them into a official looking list thingy.

So here is how I'm running this thing, and hopefully this works because the last time something like this was tried on this forum it sadly fell apart. It may look complicated but hopefully in reality it gives us a pretty cool list!

1. Round One

Round One is for absolutely everybody! If you want to be involved in Round One, create a list of up to 25 movies that you feel that everybody should see before they die.

They can be ordered in any order however there are a few important things to note here.

Any movie that places on 6 or more lists will automatically be placed on the final list.
Any movie that places between 3 and 6 lists will require more votes in round 2 (see below) to be removed from the final list.
Any movie that rates below a 7.0 on IMDB skips round 2 and goes directly to round 3 (see below)

If you want to help plead your case for a particular movie you can if you wish add a few sentences as to why that movie should make it to the list. This is particularly recommended for movies that may not make it to 7 on IMDB. For the record 7 is an arbitrary number that I decided on to help maintain some kind of quality control, as flawed as it may be. Movies that rate below 7 can STILL make it, but its harder for them too. Also please note that the exact number of lists a movie must appear on for it to make the final list automatically may change depending on how many entries I receive from you people.

If you want to post your lists in this topic that is absolutely fine. It may even help other people decide what movies they should add to their own lists. However it would be appreciated if you also pm your lists to me directly.

At this point in time the Deadline for getting your entries in is the 14th of February 2015.

I'll just briefly add that remember these are films that you think everybody should see. They are not necessarily your personal favourites. For example you may think everybody should see Alien because it kicked off a huge horror franchise although you may personally prefer Aliens.

2. Round Two

If you want to be involved in Round Two, please request to join 'The Committee'. Be warned there may be some time commitment required depending on how many films we receive in the lists. You know you want too. I don't want to be the only Committee member! But please, only commit if you know you have the time to do so.

In Round Two the complete list of films received, minus the ones that are under 7 on IMDB and the movies that appeared on 6 or more lists are looked at by whoever joins the committee. The Committee members then PM me the films on the list that they feel DO NOT deserve to make the list. If a film gets multiple rejections it gets pushed to Round Three. Any movies that were not selected, or selected by only one committee member makes it onto the list of films BOF must watch before you die.

3. Round Three

Once again Round Three is just for Committee members. If you want to join the Committee, please just ask.

In Round Three Committee members are given a list of the films that were under 7 on IMDB as well as the movies that didn't make the cut in round two. This time Committee members PM me the films on the list that they feel DO deserve to make the list. If a film gets multiple votes it goes onto the final list.

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Once all three rounds are complete with any luck I'll have a rather big list of movies in which to make a rather large forum thread on the films that BOF thinks everybody should watch before they die. *Phew* hopefully that makes sense to you. Any questions please ask.

Competition

To help get some participation in this list I have decided to run a little competition. If you submit your list of 25 movies before the deadline you are automatically entered into the prize draw. Then through the uses of a random number generator I will award the prize to one lucky person. The prize in question is 6 months of a forum Copper Account paid for by me. which gives you access to a custom signature, custom Avatar, a daily post like increase AND an ad-free viewing experience. If you already have a higher ranking tier than Copper and you happen to win, PM me and we will work something out.

grey ghost · January 31, 2015

1) Pan's Labyrinth

2) Groundhog Day

3) Truman Show

4) Schindler's List

5) Pulp Fiction

6) Die Hard

7) Robocop

8) The Matrix

9) Back to the Future

10) Raiders of the Lost Ark

11) Star Wars: A New Hope

12) Shawshank Redemption

13) Goodfellas

14) Se7en

15) Braveheart

16) City of God

17) The Godfather

18) Ben-hur

19) Good Will Hunting

20) Trainspotting

21) Fight Club

22) Breakfast Club

23) Rain Man

24) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

25) The Terminator

Edited February 1, 2015 by grey ghost

Jake Gittes · January 31, 2015

Cool. How do we go about trilogies like say LOTR?

luna · February 1, 2015

okay, so i would like to be on the committee, and i promise i won't be an elitist dick about it and be genuine in which films i believe need to be seen.

also, do movies that made only one or two lists go to round three?

Ethan Hunt · February 1, 2015

I was going to ask to be on the committee, but them I realized that there is going to be a bunch films that I myself haven't seen therefore I don't feel qualified

luna · February 1, 2015

okay, so here's my list. i limited myself to 1) only films that i consider to be great, 2) only films that have at least 1000 votes on criticker, and 3) one film per director.

i have at least one film per decade since the 1920s.

i have tried to get in as many major countries as possible, including the US, germany, france, the UK, sweden, japan, italy, denmark, iran and the soviet union.

i have included something from nearly every genre i could think of, including noir, screwball, war, silent, documentary, musical, sci-fi, horror, etc.

so here it is:

2001: a space odyssey (stanley kubrick, 1968, USA)

aguirre: the wrath of god (werner herzog, 1972, GERMANY)

all quiet on the western front (lewis milestone, 1930, USA)

brazil (terry gilliam, 1985, UK)

contempt (jean-luc godard, 1963, FRANCE)

dancer in the dark (lars von trier, 2000, DENMARK)

his girl friday (howard hawks, 1940, USA)

koyaanisqatsi (godfrey reggio, 1982, USA)

last year at marienbad (alain resnais, 1961, FRANCE)

metropolis (fritz lang, 1927, GERMANY)

mulholland drive (david lynch, 2001, USA)

naked (mike leigh, 1993, UK)

passion of joan of arc, the (carl theodor dreyer, 1928, DENMARK)

persona (ingmar bergman, 1966, SWEDEN)

raging bull (martin scorsese, 1980, USA)

ran (akira kurosawa, 1985, JAPAN)

rosemary's baby (roman polanski, 1968, USA)

samouraï, le (jean-pierre melville, 1967, FRANCE)

separation, a (asghar farhadi, 2011, IRAN)

solaris (andrei tarkovsky, 1972, SOVIET UNION)

strada, la (federico fellini, 1954, ITALY)

there will be blood (paul thomas anderson, 2007, USA)

tokyo story (yasujiro ozu, 1953, JAPAN)

underground (emir kusturica, 1995, YUGOSLAVIA)

vertigo (alfred hitchcock, 1958, USA)

Plain Old Tele · February 1, 2015

That's actually an excellent list.

mahnamahna · February 1, 2015

Tried to include a mix of "should be on theres" with some oddball choices

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
Toy Story
Grave of the Fireflies
Citizen Kane
Apocalypse Now
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
Spirited Away
Back to the Future
The Dark Knight
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
The Shawshank Redemption
Fight Club
Blazing Saddles
Rosemary's Baby
Some Like it Hot
Toy Story 2
Toy Story 3
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Bicycle Thief
City Lights
Battleship Potemkin
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Dead Poets Society
Forrest Gump

DAR · February 1, 2015

PM'ed my list but here were some of my choices

Goodfellas

12 Angry Men

Sunset Boulevard

Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Network

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

The Thin Man

All the Presidents Men

The Conversation

The Breakfast Club

Singing in the Rain

On the Waterfront

Bridge on the River Kwai

Rear Window

Fantasia

Duck Soup

The Usual Suspects

5000 Fingers of Dr. T

Double Indemnity

Bonnie and Clyde

Paths of Glory

The Outlaw Josey Wales

Chinatown

A Matter of Life and Death

Harold and Maude

Jake Gittes · February 1, 2015

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans - F.W. Murnau, 1927

Man with a Movie Camera - Dziga Vertov, 1929

M - Fritz Lang, 1931

Citizen Kane - Orson Welles, 1941

Rashomon - Akira Kurosawa, 1950

Vertigo - Alfred Hitchcock, 1958

Last Year at Marienbad - Alain Resnais, 1961

Lawrence of Arabia - David Lean, 1962

Vivre sa vie (My Life to Live) - Jean-Luc Godard, 1962

Persona - Ingmar Bergman, 1966

Once Upon a Time in the West - Sergio Leone, 1968

Wake in Fright - Ted Kotcheff, 1971

Chinatown - Roman Polanski, 1974

The Mirror - Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975

Days of Heaven - Terrence Malick, 1978

Apocalypse Now - Francis Ford Coppola, 1979

The Shining - Stanley Kubrick, 1980

The Dead - John Huston, 1987

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover - Peter Greenaway, 1989

Goodfellas - Martin Scorsese, 1990

Pulp Fiction - Quentin Tarantino, 1994

Underground - Emir Kusturica, 1995

Breaking the Waves - Lars von Trier, 1996

Mulholland Drive - David Lynch, 2001

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - Peter Jackson, 2001

And I'd like to be on the committee of course

Phil in the Blank · February 1, 2015

Thank-you for everyone who has either submitted a list or said they would join the committee so far!

As for trilogies....LOTR has always been a bit of an enigma to me. It was originally written as one big book that was later split into 3 parts by the publishers. Peter Jackson and co, scripted and filmed all three films at the same time. Its probably just as accurate to say that it is one long ten hour film then to say its three distinct movies. With that said I think its best to treat each film as its own separate thing for the purposes of this list because 99% of trilogies are not like that in the slightest.

Plain Old Tele · February 1, 2015

I'll submit a list at some point. And sure, The Committee(™) sounds fun.

BadAtGender · February 1, 2015

This is going to take some work.

chasmmi · February 1, 2015

A list will get posted soon but Committee membership will be applied for now.

chasmmi · February 1, 2015

And just to clarify this is a 'must watch because the swesomest of the awesome' or potentially because of other reasons like CGI is ground-breaking (ala Avatar) or even its so bad we must see it to know how not to make a film (maybe something driected by Ed Wood for instance)

Phil in the Blank · February 1, 2015

And just to clarify this is a 'must watch because the swesomest of the awesome' or potentially because of other reasons like CGI is ground-breaking (ala Avatar) or even its so bad we must see it to know how not to make a film (maybe something driected by Ed Wood for instance)

Ultimately you can use whatever criteria you want as there is nothing I can do to stop you. Personally speaking from me there will be a mix of movies that are just plain amazing in my eyes as well as movies that helped change the course of cinema history. I think Jurassic Park for example is a fine film, but not in the same class as say The Godfather, but it could very well be getting a spot in my 25 because of its groundbreaking CGI use. Likewise I'm tempted to throw in a movie I really didn't like, like The Blair Witch Project, because it really kickstarted the whole 'found footage' thing that continues to this day. If you want to put in say, Plan 9 from Out of Space than that is a perfectly valid choice as well just be aware that as it has a low IMDB score, it will have to be voted in by the committee members, rather than being voted out so it may well be harder to get a spot on the list.

Hope that helps.

Phil in the Blank · February 1, 2015

okay, so i would like to be on the committee, and i promise i won't be an elitist dick about it and be genuine in which films i believe need to be seen.

also, do movies that made only one or two lists go to round three?

Hah, you can be as much as an elitist dick as you please Lisa. Indeed if I was to play favourites you would be one of the few I'ld let submit more to the list and have more say in the shape of it. Simply because you have far more experience with foreign films and you don't fit the typical profile of person who visits this site so your opinions are more unique. So feel free to be you, just remember that it will take multiple people to shape the outcome of the list so alone you are not getting Empire Strikes Back Kicked off

As for the different rounds....All movies go through to Round 2 except.

Movies that appeared on 6 lists or more. They are guaranteed a spot on the final list. They can't be eliminated. Note 6 lists is just a rough guess from me, I may change the number a movie needs to appear on depending on the number of lists submitted to me.
Movies that score less than 7 on IMDB (this is also open to change depending on the films submitted), they go directly to Round 3, the last chance to make the final list.

So if a movie only appears on 1 list in Round 1, it goes through to Round 2 unless it has an IMDB score under 7. Hope that clears things up a bit.

Edited February 1, 2015 by Spottswoode

Phil in the Blank · February 1, 2015

I was going to ask to be on the committee, but them I realized that there is going to be a bunch films that I myself haven't seen therefore I don't feel qualified

You don't need to know every movie on the list to have your voice heard. I sure as heck won't have watched them all.