BOT's Top 100 Movies of All Time - Hindsight is 2020 Edition

[cannastop]

39 minutes ago, Plain Old Tele said:

BATB is probably the best of the “Renaissance” Disney movies. I think it’s the only one worth including on a list like this. 

I just don't get why she loves the beast. Maybe I'll get it if I watch it again or something.

[The Panda]

 

 

"Eva!"

 

About the Movie

 

Synopsis

 

"WALL-E, short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class, is the last robot left on Earth. He spends his days tidying up the planet, one piece of garbage at a time. But during 700 years, WALL-E has developed a personality, and he's more than a little lonely. Then he spots EVE, a sleek and shapely probe sent back to Earth on a scanning mission. Smitten WALL-E embarks on his greatest adventure yet when he follows EVE across the galaxy." - IMDb

 

Its Legacy

 

"WALL-E depicts an Earth in squalor, completely covered in trash left behind by its former human inhabitants.  Director Andrew Stanton may have denied the movie’s environmentalist message at the time, but the film on its own arguably showcased our planet’s growing problems with pollution and waste.  “There is a worldwide awareness of climate change and of environmental collapse, and that was also true in 2008,” Robinson said.  But despite the degraded conditions WALL-E found himself in, the movie still showed viewers there was potential for reform.  “There’s still one little sprig of a plant that WALL-E finds and realizes is different, as does Eve. So there’s the possibility of regeneration and of restoration that where there’s life, there’s hope,” Robinson noted.  Robinson points to the creation of the Paris Agreement — a worldwide pact to reduce carbon emissions — as evidence that society has pushed for change on this issue. 

 

The concept of convenience very much takes the front seat throughout the latter half of “WALL-E” when it is revealed that humanity is still alive and kicking, though restricted to self-driving chairs.   As Robinson explains, humans in the film “are essentially like infants.”   “They can’t even move. They have to be fed. They’re being fed too much,” Robinson said. “They’ve got a ton of baby fat, and so adulthood has been taken away.”   That struck a nerve when Robinson watched the film for the first time.  “It was middle America on a summer vacation … in a theater where you got to eat pizza while you watch the movie … and we were sitting back in recliners,” he said. “It’s one of the very few satires that I think pokes a needle right into the heart of our lifestyle.” 

 

The film also arguably commented on the menial work that employees have to deal with.    “WALL-E looks like Sisyphus. He’s a worker bee,” Robinson said. “He has a stupid job to package trash into giant skyscraper like columns. It’s pointless in a way, and he’s just beavering away at it.”  Authors like David Graeber (writer of the book “Bullshit Jobs: A Theory”) have started to point how many of our jobs are meaningless. In the U.K., nearly 40 percent of workers said they were quite sure that their jobs made no significant contribution to the world at all.  However, like many of the other themes in the film, “WALL-E” shows how the characters can upend the circumstances they’ve been placed in.  “[WALL-E] begins to make all kinds of mature adult decisions. He falls in love, does radical things, joins a revolution and overthrows the social order that already exists,” Robinson said. "

- Molly Wood, Danielle Chiriguayo, and Janet Nguyen
MarketPlace Tech Blogs

 

From the Filmmaker

 

"Were you looking at your trash compactor one day and just thought that it would make a good movie?
 

There was this lunch we had during Toy Story around ’94 and we were batting around any idea we could think of to come up with what the next movie could be. One of the half brained sentences was that we could do a sci-fi thing where we had the last robot on earth. Everybody has left and this machine didn’t know it could stop and it keeps doing it forever. That’s really where it started. All the details weren’t there. There wasn’t a name for the character. We didn’t know what it would look like. It was just the loneliest scenario I’d ever heard and I just loved it. I think that’s why it stayed in the ether for so long.

 

There was another animation movie about robots but they were humanoid and spoke English. You actually had robots that had to communicate in non-human ways. Do you think it’s cheating to make robots seem overly humanistic?

 

Being a sci-fi geek myself and going to movies all my life, I came to the conclusion that there were really two camps of how robots have been designed. It’s either the tin man, which is a human with metal skin, or it’s an R2D2. It’s a machine that has a function and it’s designed based on that and you read a character into it. I was very interested in going with the machine side because to me that was what was fascinating.  John had made Luxo Jr., this little short about this little lamp hops around. It’s just an appliance; it’s not even made to look like a character. It’s just happens to be an appliance that you could easily, by it’s own design, throw a character on to it. That short is powerful. I’ve had to watch that thing about 1,000 times. Every time, just before we put it on I think, “Geez I have to watch this again.” And I get caught up every time. There is some unique power to bringing that type of machine to life than other kinds of machines that are designed to look like a character. I started to put it into the category of why we’re so attracted to pets and infants. I think there’s something already appealing about a machine that’s charming but it can’t communicate fully. You almost can’t stop yourself from saying, “I think it likes me. I think it’s hungry. I think it wants to go for a walk.” I think what is does – and I’m getting really geeky here – I think you pull from your own emotional experiences. It becomes twice as powerful. I think that’s why love at first sight works in movies. Nobody says anything. The guy or the girl stares at the other person. That other person walks across the room and you go racing back to when it happened to you. You’re using that personal emotional experience to fuel that moment in the movie. What if you could get a character to do that through the whole movie, just like Luxo does for about a minute in the short? That’s what made us from day one think that it would make a great movie. We didn’t know how hard it would be to achieve, but we knew that if we achieved it that it would be very powerful."

- CinemaBlend Interview with Andrew Stanton

 

 

Why It's the Greatest

 

Critic Opinion

 

"The first 40 minutes or so of “Wall-E”  in which barely any dialogue is spoken, and almost no human figures appear on screen is a cinematic poem of such wit and beauty that its darker implications may take a while to sink in. The scene is an intricately rendered city, bristling with skyscrapers but bereft of any inhabitants apart from a battered, industrious robot and his loyal cockroach sidekick. Hazy, dust-filtered sunlight illuminates a landscape of eerie, post-apocalyptic silence. This is a world without people, you might say without animation, though it teems with evidence of past life.  We’ve grown accustomed to expecting surprises from Pixar, but “Wall-E” surely breaks new ground. It gives us a G-rated, computer-generated cartoon vision of our own potential extinction. It’s not the only film lately to engage this somber theme. As the earth heats up, the vanishing of humanity has become something of a hot topic, a preoccupation shared by directors like Steven Spielberg (“A.I.”), Francis Lawrence (“I Am Legend”), M. Night Shyamalan (“The Happening”) and Werner Herzog. In his recent documentary “Encounters at the End of the World” Mr. Herzog muses that “the human presence on this planet is not really sustainable,” a sentiment that is voiced, almost verbatim, in the second half of “Wall-E.” When the whimsical techies at Pixar and a moody German auteur are sending out the same message, it may be time to pay attention.

 

Not that “Wall-E” is all gloom and doom. It is, undoubtedly, an earnest (though far from simplistic) ecological parable, but it is also a disarmingly sweet and simple love story, Chaplinesque in its emotional purity. On another level entirely it’s a bit of a sci-fi geek-fest, alluding to everything from “2001” and the “Alien” pictures (via a Sigourney Weaver voice cameo) to “Wallace and Gromit: A Grand Day Out.” But the movie it refers to most insistently and overtly is, of all things, “Hello, Dolly!,” a worn videotape that serves as the title character’s instruction manual in matters of choreography and romance.

 

Rather than turn a tale of environmental cataclysm into a scolding, self-satisfied lecture, Mr. Stanton shows his awareness of the contradictions inherent in using the medium of popular cinema to advance a critique of corporate consumer culture. The residents of the space station, accustomed to being tended by industrious robots, have grown to resemble giant babies, with soft faces, rounded torsos and stubby, weak limbs. Consumer capitalism, anticipating every possible need and swaddling its subjects in convenience, is an infantilizing force. But as they cruise around on reclining chairs, eyes fixed on video screens, taking in calories from straws sticking out of giant cups, these overgrown space babies also look like moviegoers at a multiplex.  They’re us, in other words. And like us, they’re not all bad. The paradox at the heart of “Wall-E” is that the drive to invent new things and improve the old ones � to buy and sell and make and collect creates the potential for disaster and also the possible path away from it. Or, put another way, some of the same impulses that fill the world of “Wall-E” our world with junk can also fill it with art."

- A. O. Scott, The New York Times

 

User Opinion

 

"Perfection." - @CoolioD1

 

The Panda's Haiku

 

Up on the trash heap

 

Ev-A, Sunday clothes are on!

 

Let's ride shopping carts

 

 

Factoids

 

Placement on Prior Lists

 

2012 - 47, 2013 - 19, 2014 - 20, 2016 - 31, 2018 - 62

 

Director Count

 

Stanley Kubrick - 3, Richard Linklater - 3, The Russo Brothers - 3, Lee Unkrich - 3, Alfonso Cuaron - 2, John McTiernan - 2, Andrew Stanton - 2, Roger Allers - 1, John G. Avildsen - 1, Brad Bird - 1, Ash Brannon - 1, Mel Brooks - 1, Frank Capra - 1, James Cameron - 1, John Carpenter - 1, Damien Chazelle - 1, Ron Clements - 1, Clint Eastwood - 1, David Fincher - 1, Terry Gilliam - 1, Michel Gondry - 1, Alfred Hitchock - 1, Rian Johnson - 1, Terry Jones - 1, David Lean - 1, David Lynch - 1, Katia Lund - 1, Akira Kurosawa - 1, John Lasseter - 1, Fernando Meirelles - 1, Rob Minkoff - 1, Hayao Miyazaki - 1, Adrian Molina - 1, John Musker - 1, Christopher Nolan - 1, Bob Persichetti - 1, Jan Pinkava - 1, Sam Raimi - 1, Peter Ramsey - 1, Rodney Rotham - 1,   Martin Scorsese - 1, Steven Spielberg - 1, Quentin Tarantino - 1, Gary Trousdale - 1, Orson Welles - 1, Billy Wilder - 1, Kirk Wise - 1, Kar-Wai Wong - 1

 

Franchise Count

 

Pixar - 6, Marvel Cinematic Universe - 3, WDAS - 3, Before Trilogy - 2, Spider-Man - 2,  Toy Story - 2, Cameron - 1, Die Hard - 1, Indiana Jones - 1, Monty Python - 1, Nolan - 1, Predator - 1, Rocky - 1, Scorsese -1, Star Wars - 1, Studio Ghibli - 1, Terminator - 1

 

Decade Count

 

1940s - 2, 1950s - 2, 1960s - 3, 1970s - 4, 1980s - 7, 1990s - 6, 2000s - 12, 2010s - 11

 

 

Edited July 19, 2020 by The Panda

[Cap]

4 minutes ago, cannastop said:

I just don't get why she loves the beast. Maybe I'll get it if I watch it again or something.

Maybe because it’s a metaphor for seeing a person’s true self?

 

Or maybe because he actively tries to change his toxic behaviors and become a better person!!

 

 

[cannastop]

3 minutes ago, Cap said:

Maybe because it’s a metaphor for seeing a person’s true self?

 

Or maybe because he actively tries to change his toxic behaviors and become a better person!!

 

 

Yeah sure he changes but being decent doesn't mean you have to love someone. But sometimes there's no explaining it, I guess.

[lorddemaxus]

There was a time I used to think that Cars 2 was Pixar's best film and Ratatoullie was their worst film. I cringe about it everytime I remember that. Kid me was so fucking dumb lol. 

[The Panda]

 

 

"He did nothing. The law has little to say on things left undone."

 

 

About the Movie

 

Synopsis

 

"John "Scottie" Ferguson is a retired San Francisco police detective who suffers from acrophobia, and Madeleine is the lady who leads him to high places. A wealthy shipbuilder who is an acquaintance from college days approaches Scottie and asks him to follow his beautiful wife, Madeleine. He fears she is going insane, maybe even contemplating suicide, as he believes she has been possessed by a dead ancestor who committed suicide. Scottie is skeptical, but agrees to the assignment after he sees the beautiful Madeleine." - IMDb

 

Its Legacy

 

"The Hitchcock Shot (technically the Dolly Zoom), originated in Vertigo. It was the culmination of smoother zoom lens technology and the creativity of Hitchcock and his second unit DP Irmin Roberts. It’s tricky to pull off, even with the right equipment, but the visual and psychological effect are well worth the effort.  So how does this shot work, and what makes it so powerful?  The Hitchcock Shot is simultaneously zooming in while dollying out — or the other way around, while focusing on a single point in space. Imagine you’re looking through an archway. The further from the archway you are, the less of the world beyond it you can see. If you were to look through a telescope, the archway would look closer in your eye, but you would still see the same amount of the world beyond it as before. However, if you physically move yourself towards the archway you are able to progressively see more of the outside world.

 

 

Take note of the image above. The final position of both the zoom-out and dolly-out are the same. However, the zoom-in merely magnifies the images whereas the dolly-in creates perspective distortion, allowing us to see more of the world beyond the archway. We see this illustrated by the different number of pool chairs you can see between the two shots.  The Hitchcock Shot opposes these two principles. If we make the archway our focus and dolly in as we zoom out we create an effect that leaves the archway the same size in the frame (the opposing techniques nullify the focal point’s visual movement), but the outside appears as if it’s moving closer because of the change in perspective, thus creating the visual illusion (look between the zoom-in and dolly-in images).  To pull this effect off, you need a smooth dolly track (a slider can work, but it limits your range of movement as the slider is likely to appear in the shot) and a fast zoom lens (you don’t want the F-stop moving up or down as you zoom in or out). The zoom lens is best accompanied by servo zoom gear for precise and consistent control and a follow focus to keep your subject crisp and clear. Gear aside, it requires practicing your movement and timing.

 

You can pull this technique off on a low budget, but it can be quite tricky. At minimum, you need at least a decent zoom lens and some stable gear to move the camera. You can even pull off a simple version of it with your smartphone, but it won’t really be Hollywood quality.  Practice the technique, and see if you can incorporate it into your next project to emphasize the character’s sense of paranoia or isolation — or any other emotion you think you can use it to convey. The beauty of Hitchcock’s Dolly Zoom is that it will definitely catch your audience’s eye."

- John Francis McCullagh, The Zoom

 

From the Filmmaker

 

 

 

(Yes, Scorsese obviously did not create Vertigo, but good listen anyways)

 

 

Why It's the Greatest

 

Critic Opinion

 

"The mark of a classic is that it is an inexhaustible experience, a refutation of Einstein’s definition of madness: seeing a great movie or listening to a great piece of music over and over, one has reason to expect different results and one gets them. That’s one of the things that makes it a privilege and a delight to write about movies appearing in revival. So it is with Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” which played two weekends ago at IFC Center in its ongoing retrospective of his films. On the occasion of this new screening, we ran my my capsule review of it in the magazine again, and I’m grateful to the editors of New York magazine’s Approval Matrix for taking note of the piece in their current issue: “Brody boldly but delusionally states that Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’ has a happy ending.”

 

“Vertigo” is built on three parentheses that open at the start of the movie and close at its end:

 

The suspicion of crime: The first shot of the movie is of a man being pursued by the police and chased over the rooftops of San Francisco by an officer and by a plainclothes detective (James Stewart), who misses his leap and is hanging onto a gutter for dear life. (The officer, attempting to help, falls to his death.)

Mental illness: As the detective, John (Scotty) Ferguson, tells his erstwhile fiancé and good friend Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes), “I have acrophobia, which gives me vertigo, and I get dizzy.”

Sexual desire: Scotty’s rescue entailed physical trauma, which leaves him using a cane and bound in a corset that comes off just as he’s asked by a college friend, Gavin Elster, to do some detective work, which, of course, is a plot—the plot that sets the movie’s plot in motion. Scotty is asked to keep an eye on Elster’s wife—actually, of course, his mistress, who is dolled up to resemble his wife, and who impersonates someone in the grips of a mental illness that plays out like a family curse; her act (including her seduction of Scotty) is a part of Elster’s plan to murder his actual wife.

All three of these parentheses close at the end of the movie, with its crude and partial justice (a woman who is an accomplice to murder, albeit not its master plotter, ends up dead) and its psychological cure (Scotty loses his acrophobia and his vertigo). As for desire, the woman who dies is Scotty’s beloved, and with her death, his sexual desire—which made him an accomplice, albeit an unwitting one, to the same murder—vanishes into memory. As happy endings go, it’s an ironic one (and I’m surprised that my own shadow of irony went unnoticed), with its tragic contrast—one of an utterly classical pedigree—between the points of view of man and of God.

 

Lately I’ve written about filmmakers who consider that love and friendship are different things and who give priority to sexual desire as the basis for a relationship, and my prime example is Hitchcock (as in a scene from “Rear Window”). “Vertigo” provides an even sadder view of the same idea, in Scottie’s thwarted connection to Midge, a smart and capable woman who has everything Scotty needs but doesn’t turn him on. So, when Scotty is in the process of transforming the shopgirl Judy into the object of his desire and she implores him, “Couldn’t you like me, just me, the way I am?,” Scotty’s unspoken thought is, “I don’t like you; I like Midge, but I might love you.” The way she is isn’t anything special, not in Scotty’s world of accomplishments and interests. Judy doesn’t seem to have a better mind or more distinctive abilities or talents than the average young woman—she is the average young woman, but one who radiates a powerful, iridescent allure when she’s dressed the right way and made up the right way and when the light and Scotty’s eye (or the camera-eye) catch her the right way. That’s the strange truth about movie actors: the skill takes a back seat to grace, to a metaphysical gift. “Vertigo” is one of the great movies about movies, and about Hitchcock’s own way with them."

- Richard Brody, The New Yorker

 

User Opinion

 

"masterpiece" - @A Marvel Fanboy

 

The Panda's Haiku

 

My head keeps turning

 

What is this madness I feel?

 

Vertigo, again.

 

 

Factoids

 

Placement on Prior Lists

 

2012 - 79, 2013 - Unranked, 2014 - Unranked, 2016 - 69, 2018 - 50

 

Director Count

 

Stanley Kubrick - 3, Richard Linklater - 3, The Russo Brothers - 3, Lee Unkrich - 3, Alfonso Cuaron - 2, Alfred Hitchock - 2, John McTiernan - 2, Andrew Stanton - 2, Roger Allers - 1, John G. Avildsen - 1, Brad Bird - 1, Ash Brannon - 1, Mel Brooks - 1, Frank Capra - 1, James Cameron - 1, John Carpenter - 1, Damien Chazelle - 1, Ron Clements - 1, Clint Eastwood - 1, David Fincher - 1, Terry Gilliam - 1, Michel Gondry - 1, Rian Johnson - 1, Terry Jones - 1, David Lean - 1, David Lynch - 1, Katia Lund - 1, Akira Kurosawa - 1, John Lasseter - 1, Fernando Meirelles - 1, Rob Minkoff - 1, Hayao Miyazaki - 1, Adrian Molina - 1, John Musker - 1, Christopher Nolan - 1, Bob Persichetti - 1, Jan Pinkava - 1, Sam Raimi - 1, Peter Ramsey - 1, Rodney Rotham - 1,   Martin Scorsese - 1, Steven Spielberg - 1, Quentin Tarantino - 1, Gary Trousdale - 1, Orson Welles - 1, Billy Wilder - 1, Kirk Wise - 1, Kar-Wai Wong - 1

 

Franchise Count

 

Pixar - 6, Marvel Cinematic Universe - 3, WDAS - 3, Before Trilogy - 2, Spider-Man - 2,  Toy Story - 2, Cameron - 1, Die Hard - 1, Indiana Jones - 1, Monty Python - 1, Nolan - 1, Predator - 1, Rocky - 1, Scorsese -1, Star Wars - 1, Studio Ghibli - 1, Terminator - 1

 

Decade Count

 

1940s - 2, 1950s - 3, 1960s - 3, 1970s - 4, 1980s - 7, 1990s - 6, 2000s - 12, 2010s - 11

 

 

 

Edited July 19, 2020 by The Panda

[YM!]

15 minutes ago, lorddemaxus said:

There was a time I used to think that Cars 2 was Pixar's best film and Ratatoullie was their worst film. I cringe about it everytime I remember that. Kid me was so fucking dumb lol. 

7 year old me’s favorite movie was Ratatouille, and it got me into the film world.

[YM!]

Why is Wall-E so high?

[cannastop]

Just now, YourMother the Edgelord said:

Why is Wall-E so high?

It's the sophisticated Pixar film.

[Eric Duncan]

9 minutes ago, YourMother the Edgelord said:

Why is Wall-E so high?

because people liked it

[The Panda]

Criminally low guys for the second greatest movie of all time!

 

 

 

"By the way, you know anything about a man going around playing the harmonica? He's somebody you'd remember. Instead of talking, he plays. And when he better play, he talks."

 

About the Movie

 

Synopsis

 

"Jill McBain travels to the wild frontier; Utah - where she and her new husband planned to settle down. Upon arrival, she finds him and his children dead. There's a lot of land, and potential, but there's those who want to take it - at any cost. Even if it means killing a man and his kids."

 

Its Legacy

 

"The Italian take on the classic Western, these films often dealt with more sophisticated themes, were more gritty in nature, and had enhanced roles for women and people of color. Bad people were sometimes the heroes, and good people sometimes did unspeakable acts; their vision of the American West was often more realistic than what most Americans had provided before this.  At the very peak of the genre, you have the films of Sergio Leone, perhaps most known to the general public for his The Man With No Name trilogy starring Clint Eastwood, including The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. But, to many, his peak artistic accomplishment is Once Upon a Time in the West. It provides every prominent aspect that you associate with Spaghetti Westerns, while also acting as a homage to the many films which preceded it. In the last 50 years, you can see just how far its influence has spread, across directors and even across genres.  

 

What immediately distinguishes Once Upon a Time in the West from the start is just how stylized it is, even more so than the way that Leone had done in his prior films. Its opening scene, for example, is an 8-minute, nearly dialogue-less segment concerning three characters at a train station. Clearly up to no good through their piercing glares alone, they quickly take command of the station, including overthrowing the bumbling old man taking tickets. With no score throughout, the only sounds heard are those of the station itself: the humming of a windmill, the buzzing of a fly, the opening of doors, the dripping of water. It is tensely-driven, slow-burning perfection, followed by the first glimpse of one of the film’s heroes, playing upon his signature instrument: Harmonica (Charles Bronson).  Throughout, Morricone extensively uses leitmotifs to introduce his characters. While we are still accompanying Jill on her journey to the McBain farm, she stops at a roadhouse, where we are soon introduced to my personal favorite, both character-wise and the theme that accompanies him. After a series of gunshots, the fiery Cheyenne (Jason Robards) soon enters, and his theme follows, which consists of a series of clanks, guitar strums, thuds, and whistles. Later, in this same scene, we are introduced once again to Harmonica. This time, he plays the same few notes, but now his theme is on full display, suddenly bursting into an explosive guitar riff when he meets face-to-face with Cheyenne, and the two size each other up.  It’s this clever, unconventional way of introducing and displaying connections between characters that Leone triumphs with throughout Once Upon a Time in the West. Whereas many movies prefer extensive dialogue, Leone simply lets sound, or lack thereof, do the talking.

 

A significant way that Leone subverts expectations with Once Upon a Time in the West is with the characters portrayed. As mentioned earlier, many Spaghetti Westerns refused to place their heroes and villains into easily definable categories, resulting in depictions that are more true to life. In Once Upon a Time in the West, this can be seen through its four central roles and even through casting itself. Henry Fonda, for example, was mostly known before this for his classic Western heroes, many of which were in John Ford films, yet here he is cast as the clear villain of the story. His face still appears amicable and kind-looking, yet his actions speak otherwise. Even with this in mind, though, it’s hard not to feel at least some empathy for the character at moments, both through his arc and through Fonda‘s sensible portrayal.

 

Despite being known as an action film, Once Upon a Time in the West is actually not filled to the brim with action sequences. That’s not to say that it doesn’t have its share of memorable moments. There are those that are recognizable within Westerns, such as an impressively choreographed gunfight taking place on a train. Others, such as the opening sequence and the final duel, are more filled with tension through their buildup than the actual fights themselves. Still others seemingly come out of nowhere, such as one taking place as the character Frank walks out of a saloon into a formidable town. Throughout, Leone takes you through a loop, playing around with the tropes you would typically expect to see from an action scene in a Western.  Even more impressive than the action, though, is the way Leone uses space and visuals to capture a scene. At one point early on in the film, for example, you see the closeup of a young boy’s haunted face as he emerges from a barn, and as the camera zooms out, you see his expression change as he observes the surrounding incident that he has just heard. Then, from his perspective, you witness the following: one by one, several men wearing long-draped coats start to emerge from behind the brush, forming a small army as they slowly approach the boy. It’s the subtle use of this point-of-view perspective, coupled once again by Morricone‘s powerful score, that makes the scene all the more effective. Editing, sound, and visuals combine to place you right in the young boy’s terrified shoes.

 

It’s not hard to see the influence that has spread since Once Upon a Time in the West hit the screens 50 years ago. One need look no further than Quentin Tarantino, who clearly idolizes the film, and Spaghetti Westerns in general, in his own Westerns Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight, with The Hateful Eight even being scored by Ennio Moriconne. Clint Eastwood not too long after began to direct his own films, including his own masterful revisionist Western Unforgiven in 1992.  The film’s influence can even be seen outside of the Western genre, such as in Vince Gilligan‘s Breaking Bad and its prequel Better Call Saul, two shows whose recognizable attributes include their quiet, meditative natures, prominent use of music, and intense focus on characters’ expressions. Morricone‘s score has since become iconic and is often celebrated as one of his best, with his themes having been sampled in titles as diverse as The Sopranos, Phantom Thread, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest."

- David Fontana, Film Inquiry

 

From the Filmmaker

 

 

 

Why It's the Greatest

 

Critic Opinion

 

"Once Upon a Time in the West was also a farewell of sorts from Leone to the genre by which he made his name (though he made one more western, Duck, You Sucker in 1971). By including numerous direct pastiches of classics from High Noon (the slow burning introduction sees three men waiting for a train) to The Last Sunset (the final duel), Leone suggests that the western has reached its apex. Like its characters, the genre, with its reliance on hyper-masculine characters, well-trodden conventions and histrionic levels of tension, didn’t have a place in the future of cinema in its current format.  But what better eulogy for the western could one imagine? Leone may have indulged the odd cliche – the spooked crickets foreshadowing danger, the creaking weather vane – but few can rival his mastery of the interplay of sound and silence, of inertia and crescendos of action, of humour and dread, of sweeping vistas and claustrophobic close-ups, all present in the astonishing opening scene alone. He also brings out some career-best performances from his all-star cast, especially from Henry Fonda, who despite having been one of Hollywood’s bankable heroes, is transformed so convincingly into one of cinema’s most truly malevolent figures. Elsewhere, Ennio Morricone’s haunting harmonica and guitar led score is a piece of art of its own accord.

 

Leone may have foreseen the end of the appeal of the western, but 50 years on, Once Upon a Time in the West still feels relevant. Maybe that’s because the world hasn’t really moved on from where it was in 1968. Despite obvious technological advancements we’re still in an age where we’re trying to enact real social progress and break down outdated practices, policies and beliefs. Watching Leone’s film today galvanises our belief that we’re on the cusp of change, but it also reminds us that we’ve been here for half a century."

- Dan Einav, Little White Lies

 

User Opinion

 

"Perhaps my favorite movie ever . Everything is beyond perfection. First of all it has the best soundtrack ever in a movie by the best movie composer ever (and yeah ennio moricone destroys John Williams even though most of you haven't seen most of the movies he has made music for , John Williams wrote mostly catchy and memorable themes, moricone wrote musical masterpieces ) . The soundtrack here is not just a movie score, it is the true protagonist of the film . It is so hunting , so eerie ...The direction is of course perfect with some scenes being hair raising and one in particular, when the Irish family is killed and the camera zooms sloooooowly on Fonda's face before he kills a child.....now that is a movie with balls . All the actors are phenomenal in their roles , you really can't tell who is the best in there from Charles Bronson to Gabrielle ferzetti , everyone is on top form and Sergio leone did a phenomenal casting, once again . The bad guys are actually the cool looking ones here . Some of the dialog is so rough , for its age, that makes the movie age extremely well .Too bad that this was a flop in the U.S ,it was huge in Europe, and deprived us of many more leone masterpieces . Leone made the movies Tarantino wished he could make ." - @Thrylos 7

 

The Panda's Haiku

 

Can anything match,

 

A harmonica played on?

 

I am enraptured

 

 

Factoids

 

Placement on Prior Lists

 

2012 - Unranked, 2013 - 92, 2014 - 97, 2016 - 74, 2018 - 57

 

Director Count

 

Stanley Kubrick - 3, Richard Linklater - 3, The Russo Brothers - 3, Lee Unkrich - 3, Alfonso Cuaron - 2, Alfred Hitchock - 2, John McTiernan - 2, Andrew Stanton - 2, Roger Allers - 1, John G. Avildsen - 1, Brad Bird - 1, Ash Brannon - 1, Mel Brooks - 1, Frank Capra - 1, James Cameron - 1, John Carpenter - 1, Damien Chazelle - 1, Ron Clements - 1, Clint Eastwood - 1, David Fincher - 1, Terry Gilliam - 1, Michel Gondry - 1, Rian Johnson - 1, Terry Jones - 1, David Lean - 1, Sergio Leone - 1, David Lynch - 1, Katia Lund - 1, Akira Kurosawa - 1, John Lasseter - 1, Fernando Meirelles - 1, Rob Minkoff - 1, Hayao Miyazaki - 1, Adrian Molina - 1, John Musker - 1, Christopher Nolan - 1, Bob Persichetti - 1, Jan Pinkava - 1, Sam Raimi - 1, Peter Ramsey - 1, Rodney Rotham - 1,   Martin Scorsese - 1, Steven Spielberg - 1, Quentin Tarantino - 1, Gary Trousdale - 1, Orson Welles - 1, Billy Wilder - 1, Kirk Wise - 1, Kar-Wai Wong - 1

 

Franchise Count

 

Pixar - 6, Marvel Cinematic Universe - 3, WDAS - 3, Before Trilogy - 2, Spider-Man - 2,  Toy Story - 2, Cameron - 1, Die Hard - 1, Indiana Jones - 1, Monty Python - 1, Nolan - 1, Predator - 1, Rocky - 1, Scorsese -1, Star Wars - 1, Studio Ghibli - 1, Terminator - 1

 

Decade Count

 

1940s - 2, 1950s - 3, 1960s - 4, 1970s - 4, 1980s - 7, 1990s - 6, 2000s - 12, 2010s - 11

 

 

Edited July 19, 2020 by The Panda

[WrathOfHan]

Hold up, Vertigo has been unranked so much? Damn.

[lorddemaxus]

23 minutes ago, YourMother the Edgelord said:

7 year old me’s favorite movie was Ratatouille, and it got me into the film world.

Ratatoullie's definitely my favourite now. I don't think I hated the movie as a kid (because I remember rewatching it a lot) but I just didn't understand it. 

[The Panda]

Here's a few more of the movies just outside the top 100!

 

 

 

"Great film and even though going in you knew the outcome it was still a thrilling film. And when they Mission Control tries to contact Apollo13 at the end it gets very dusty." - @DAR

 

 

 

"First time I saw the giant marshmallow man I lost it." - @BoxOfficeZ

 

 

 

"The day I have children, I will show them this. I think it is the perfect movie for them. It is nice, funny and tender. IMO, it is nearly impossible to make a better child movie." - @peludo

 

 

 

"a commentary on human lust. the entire sequence in the mansion, including the orgy scene, was totally fucked up, and really needs to be seen uncensored (not the R-rated cinematic cut demanded by the MPAA). nicole kidman is totally mesmerising and almost hallucinatory in this, but tom cruise felt a bit stoic to me. fascinating movie, probably not on the top of my kubrick list but still excellent." - @luna

 

 

 

"Nobody's Perfect - but this movie is close." - @TalismanRing

[Cap]

6 minutes ago, The Panda said:

 

 

 

"The day I have children, I will show them this. I think it is the perfect movie for them. It is nice, funny and tender. IMO, it is nearly impossible to make a better child movie." - @peludo

 

 

 

"Nobody's Perfect - but this movie is close." - @TalismanRing

[Cap]

 But, I am glad it’s Poppins, cause I saw that umbrella, and thought it was Singin’, and then we were gonna have A TALK. 

[Fancyarcher]

5 minutes ago, Cap said:

 But, I am glad it’s Poppins, cause I saw that umbrella, and thought it was Singin’, and then we were gonna have A TALK. 

Lol. If Singin in The Rain wasn't in the top 100, then I'd legit go full on ballistic. That is one movie that needs to be on every 100 greatest movie list till the end of time. 

[The Panda]

On 7/14/2020 at 8:03 PM, The Panda said:

 

We're over halfway through one hell of a year, there's so many questions and concerns, and one of them is surely, "What really is the definitive best 100 movies ever made?".  Well we're all about to find out! 

 

*Gulp*

 

We received 36 lists from members, lower turnout than in the 2018 edition, but that was also fresh off of Infinity War's release and we currently still in the era of Bloodshot being the reigning Box Office champ, so overall decent turnout given everything else that is going on.  

 

A few factoids about the movies that made the list:

 

- No more than 10 funny book films made the list (potentially less).

 

- No more than 15 cartoons made the list (potentially less).

 

- Some fan favorite directors made the list, and some did not at all.

 

- Not all of the movies that made the list are in the English language.

 

- The list was highly competitive, every list caused quite a bit of changes to the ordering and what made it through.

 

- I'll reveal numbers 250-101 as well over the course of the list, that way we'll be able to show IMDb what's really the top 250 movies.  Hahahaha... *help*

 

- There are some newcomers to the list, some returners, some movies that made past lists and didn't even crack the top 250 here.  

 

- While most movies did need at least 10 or more votes to make it onto the list (and even more the higher up you go), there were a few movies that managed to make it through from a smaller but very passionate base.  One movie made the list with only 4 votes!

 

Here are the first 25 movies that did not make the list for you to chew on while I prepare the first write up!

 

 

51.    Once Upon a Time in the West
52.    Vertigo
53.    Wall-E
54.    Beauty and the Beast (1991)
55.    2001: A Space Odyssey
56.    City of God
57.    Toy Story 2
58.    Memento
59.    Citizen Kane
60.    The Lion King (1994)
61.    Ratatouille
62.   Finding Nemo
63.   A Clockwork Orange
64.    The Thing
65.    Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
66.    Rocky
67.    Inglourious Basterds
68.    Mulholland Drive
69.    Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
70.    Monty Python and the Holy Grail
71.    It’s a Wonderful Life
72.    Before Sunrise
73.   Spider-Man 2
74.    North by Northwest
75.    Joker Avengers: Endgame
76.    Aladdin (1992)
77.   Captain America: The Winter Soldier
78.   The Apartment
79.   The Terminator
80.   Die Hard
81.    Unforgiven
82.    Whiplash
83.    Gravity
84.    Toy Story 3
85.   Boyhood
86.    Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
87.    The Wolf of Wall Street
88.   Fight Club
89.    Children of Men
90.    Predator
91.    The Bridge on the River Kwai
92.    Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
93.   Avengers: Infinity War
94.    Coco
95.    In the Mood For Love
96.    My Neighbor Totoro
97.   Blazing Saddles
98.    Ran
99.   Star Wars: The Last Jedi
100.   Before Sunset
 

141.    Some Like it Hot
142.    Eyes Wide Shut
143.    Mary Poppins
144.    Ghostbusters
145.   Apollo 13

146.    The Deer Hunter
147.    Life of Pi
148.    Nashville
149.    Oldboy (2003)
150.   The Handmaiden

151.    Call Me By Your Name
152.    The Bourne Ultimatum
153.    Come and See
154.    Days of Heaven
155.    The Sound of Music
156.    Batman Begins
157.    Lady Bird
158.    Return of the Jedi
159.    The Avengers (2012)
160.    The Searchers
161.    Reservoir Dogs
162.    The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
163.    Office Space
164.    Akira
165.    The Intouchables
166.    Django Unchained
167.    The Jungle Book (1967)
168.    Good Will Hunting
169.    A Separation
170.    The Iron Giant
171.    The Best Years of Our Lives
172.    Cinema Paradiso
173.    Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
174.    Creed
175.    Life of Brian

176.    The Third Man
177.    Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
178.    Ben-Hur (1950)
179.    Shrek 2
180.    Young Frankenstein
181.    The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
182.    Black Panther
183.    Arsenic and the Old Lace
184.    The Elephant Man
185.    The Raid (2011)
186.    The LEGO Movie
187.    Hot Fuzz
188.    American Beauty
189.    Modern Times
190.    RoboCop (1980)
191.    Gone With the Wind
192.    Zootopia
193.    Captain America: Civil War
194.    Up (2009)
195.    City Lights
196.    Zodiac
197.    Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2
198.    All the President’s Men
199.    Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
200.    No Country for Old Men

201.    Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey
202.    Notorious
203.    Margaret
204.    When Harry Met Sally
205.    Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
206.    Ocean’s Eleven
207.    Frozen (2011)
208.    To Kill a Mockingbird
209.    Close Encounters of the Third Kind
210.    1917
211.    8 ½
212.    Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
213.    Police Story
214.    Black Swan
215.    Fantasia
216.    A Night at the Opera
217.    Paths of Glory
218.    X-Men: Days of Future Past
219.    Planes, Trains and Automobiles
220.    West Side Story
221.    The Conjuring
222.    The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
223.    Malcolm X
224.    Minority Report
225.    Sicario

226.    Casino Royale
227.    Thor: Ragnarok
228.    Back to the Future Part 2
229.    The Young Girls of Rochefort
230.    The Music Man
231.    American Honey
232.    Barry Lyndon
233.    Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
234.    The Maltese Falcon
235.    Andaz Apna Apna
236.    Fiddler on the Roof
237.    (500) Days of Summer
238.    Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
239.    Roma
240.    The 400 Blows
241.    Tropic Thunder
242.    Ida
243.    Iron Man
244.    The Quiet Man
245.    Dangal
246.    The Sting
247.    The Battle of Algiers
248.    Dunkirk
249.    Before Midnight
250.    Once Upon a Time in America
 

For your convenience, the OP is now edited with hyperlinks to each film's specific write-up from the first half of the countdown (including the Joker write up).

Edited July 19, 2020 by The Panda

[DAR]

22 minutes ago, The Panda said:

Here's a few more of the movies just outside the top 100!

 

 

 

"Great film and even though going in you knew the outcome it was still a thrilling film. And when they Mission Control tries to contact Apollo13 at the end it gets very dusty." - @DAR

 

 

 

Man that is some poor grammar 

[TalismanRing]

1 hour ago, cannastop said:

I just don't get why she loves the beast. Maybe I'll get it if I watch it again or something.

 

 

Orgasmic