Chasmmi's top 250 films of all time - Because I honestly had this idea at the same time and it's not a Ripoff - :)

[chasmmi]

Yeah, so while I was putting together my best and worst of 2016 list, I decided to hash together my favourites of all time list. As the list hit 200 films, I thought that it would be fun to put it out there as i will certainly have films running all the way through that even the weirdest of filmwathers may not put close to their own top 500s let alone 200s. 

 

Then Panda's list appeared and I felt like how that Italian guy must have felt when Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone.

 

But then I read Panda's list and felt a lot better about still doing this, for Panda had revealed a list of classics. A set of films that would 95% of the time be considered classics by a good percentage of the people that saw them. He also did the writeup in a thorough, engaging and well written way that made the list fun to read through.

 

And so, I saw my opening. Panda had cornered the market in well written, engaging lists of mostly objective classics. But nobody had yet made a list of best films ever that hurt the brains of people who saw them. A list so mindblowingly incomprehensible that frontal lobes around the world explode upon seeing them as the brain was not designed to process such madness.

 

So prepare yourselves as I haphazardly and shoddily run through the 250 greatest films of all time in my opinion.

 

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING CAVEATS:

 

a) 98% of the films I have watched are from the 80's or later so do not expect too much 70s stuff and earlier. 

 

As a child I was bombarded with every musical and Western ever made at a time when I just wanted to see if the baby animated dinosaur could be reunited with his grandparents again. As such, do not expect a lot from these genres (especially if they are live action and 'classics')

 

c) There are a lot of 'must see' films I have not seen (mostly Mafia centred I think), but there are also a vast array of films that everyone else loves that I ... shall we say... do not.  @baumer has already had melt downs over some of these. So as the list progresses, if things are going well, I may throw in little comments on the films that were not even close to this list that maybe many think should be...

 

 

And with that, we commence. I will break you in gently (ish), but be warned, 245-242nd are an awesome block of films  

[chasmmi]

250th - Blade

 

 

So I have never read a comic in my life. Obviously there is stuff such as Batman that I always knew were comic book characters, but my interest in them was more a point of superheroes being a cool thing I liked more than me loving their literature backstories. 

 

Blade hit cinemas when I was 15 and as such I was about the perfect age to think that a cool Wesley Snipes type guy killing vampires was a pretty cool thing to see, and I still think it is a cool thing to see. The action in this was pretty great and it was different from other superhero stuff at the time. There were some CGI issues here and there (the blood at the end especially), but overall this was a film I was happy to rewatch again and again due to really good action, and a group of lead characters I really enjoyed.

[chasmmi]

249th - American Pie

 

 

The film that created (or at least revitalised) a genre, American Pie was a film that I had little intention of seeing. That kind of gross out humour was something that I always considered too base and immature to enjoy. However, when I did end up seeing it, what I got was a film that actually was really charming and had a good heart to it. 

 

With the exception of Stiffler (who I tolerate at best in this), every character is likeable, has an arc that I can get behind and is not just some arsehole doing arsehole things because comedy. You actually route for these characters and the fact that I can tolerate a Stiffler type in this is down to the fact that he is essentially the villain in this story (Who I actually come around to in number 3).

 

This was a film that made me think that this genre could actually contain films that I would actually enjoy. And then Road Trip and Dude Where's my Car came along and reinforced that American Pie was A freak occurence and I was right with my initial opinion. 

[chasmmi]

248th - A Tale of Two Sisters

 

 

And of course there was going to be Korean stuff in this. A Tale of Two Sisters was one of the first Korean horror films I saw, maybe even the first. While it may not be an overtly scary film, it is a really good drama story of a girl trying to protect her younger sister from her crazy stepmother. The story is based on an old Korean folktale and the direction and performances all around here are pretty great. 

 

It was also one of the first Korean films to be adapted into a Hollywood film as the Uninvited, but I never saw the remake to be able to make any comments positive or negative on that front. Overall though, this is a tense, interesting story with an ending that propels this film onto the list. 

[chasmmi]

247th - Jerry Maguire

 

 

The film that launched Cuba Good Jr. into... oh  but seriously, this was the last time that Tom Cruise was great in a dramatic role that I remember (before you say it, Magnolia was shit and you all know it was shit). This film has iconic lines, great performances and a general feelgood theme that just makes this a joy to watch start to finish. 

 

Jerry Maguire is the type of film that I wish was made more often these days, but at the same time to be able to find as much charisma as this cast brought would be pretty damn hard to achieve. Still a great damn film though. 

[chasmmi]

246th - Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

 

 

Robin may have an American accent and save people to the tune of Bryan Adams, but Alan Rickman. That's all I need to say. 

 

Seriously though, how can one not have fun watching this. It's so silly, but in a way that makes everything great fun to watch. Freeman and Rickman are great. Costner is at the height of his powers right here and you end with a cameo of epic proportions. It's a film that makes the list off the back of it being the type of film that I can happily flick through channels and see that it is on, and I will watch it till the end whether I caught it 10 minutes or 50 minutes into the run time. 

[Plain Old Tele]

41 minutes ago, chasmmi said:

246th - Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

 

Seriously though, how can one not have fun watching this.

 

      

[chasmmi]

245th - Gone in 60 Seconds

 

Yeah, even though I am not a car person, I do kind of love this film. Cage is great as a Nicholas Cage type the likes to say and do Nicholas Cage type things. I also enjoy Vinnie Jones in pretty much anything for some reason, even if he's playing essentailly a mute. 

 

The car stuff in this is pretty darn entertaining too as it should be when that is the entire basis of the film. It's a fast paced, action filled film that does brainless fun better than most films try to pull off brainless fun. 

 

 

 

[aabattery]

good lord

[chasmmi]

244th - The Mummy

 

I remember when I saw this in cinemas as it was the first time I saw two films in one day (the other was the Matrix). That was a really good cinematic day. I won't reveal yet whether Matrix came higher or lower, but I will say that The Mummy was one of those dumb fun adventure films that keeps you tided over as you hope that one day another Indiana Jones will come along. 

 

The sequels may have soured the reputation of this franchise a fair amount, but the original is still one of the better late 90s blockbusters had a great, fun lead cast and a really good Mummy too. Yes, I am a big fun of campy adventure fun and this was a big budget B Movie come to life. 

[chasmmi]

243rd - Anaconda

 

Did somebody say good old fashioned B Movie fun? Anaconda does that better than almost anything. This film is a stupid and absurd film that completely knows it is stupid and absurd. It takes the giant animal concept and ramps it up to a thousand is a way that Sci-fi channel stuff wishes it could achieve.

 

There is something enthralling about a major cast doing a film like this and while some of that may be luck that some of the actors here went on to become much bigger, overall this was just the perfect amount of fun for a film like this to be. I won't hear a bad word said against it.    

[chasmmi]

242nd - Dragonheart

 

 

And here is the first of a number of films that make the list on the nostalgia card. This was a damn cool film when it came out, with amazing dragon effects and Sean Connery as a fucking dragon, who can't love that? 

 

This was one of my favourite films as a thirteen year old, partly because the effects were some of the best seen in any film at the time and partly because I really liked the story and the chemistry between Quaid and Connery. Maybe if I were to see this again today, it would drop off the list, but maybe it would still stand up to the greatness that it was in the 90s.  

 

[chasmmi]

241st - Ju-On: The Grudge

 

This was a toss up for me with regards to including it on this list or not. On the one hand, this is one of the scariest films that has ever been made. The ghosts are horrific and the death scenes are some of the best done anywhere from a pure fear point of view. On the other hand, story-wise this is a mess. The plot jumps from character to character and timeline to timeline and it gets tiring trying to keep up with who is having what happen to them when.

 

In fact I almost had the American Grudge replace this on the list, but that missed out pretty much for the opposite reasons that this film made the list. In the end though, this film gets the edge because it is so damn scary and thus does horror filming pretty much as well as anything can horror film. 

 

[chasmmi]

I'll stop there. But as clues are popular, the next five include:

 

240th - A black and White film 

239th - The Dawn of a Genre

238th - An unorthadox teacher with a heart of gold

237th - A lead actor's second foray onto this list

236th - A film people will be okay with seeing on this list, so long as two other films appear on the list later on. 

[chasmmi]

1 hour ago, Tele Came Back said:

 

      

 

It makes sense that you are the one unable to see the fun in a film  

[The Stingray]

Anaconda is a damn fine movie. Aside from the hokey effects (hey, it's the '90s), the movie fires on all cylinders, and Jon Voight is a joy to behold.

 

Gone in 60 Seconds is awful, tho. What were you thinking, chaz? Put Con Air on there instead.
 

[baumer]

I don't think any of these films that you have listed here would make my top 500 but I enjoyed each and every one of them immensely. Cool this so far buddy

[chasmmi]

Well blast few a few more of these in a little bit.

[chasmmi]

240th - Clerks

 

Yeah, so I like a lot of the stuff that Kevin Smith has done (some of you may remember my 90%+ score for Yoga Hosers), but I think my order of his work may be different to some. Hence Clerks making the list, but also making the list early on. 

 

Smith is very much a dialogue driven direct, so I think the liking of his films rests pretty solely on how you feel about the script. Doubly so in this one which only really has one set and about 5 actors. I am a fan though and for me this is a nice start to a mini list of Smith films that will be peppered over this list.  

 

 

 

[chasmmi]

239th - Superman

 

 

One of the oldest films on my list, making this a classic entry . This was the film that made young me get into the idea that Superhero films could be cool and great, even the effects were good enough for 7 or 8 year old me to be okay with in 1991ish (unlike a certain other set of effects films from this time period  )

 

Reeves also was the perfect cast for Superman of this era. He was polite, honourable and able to kick arse. He was everything the role needed to be and only Dean Caine of all people has really got close to replicating that on screen. This is one of those films that will never get old for me.