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

[The Panda]

The last of the just misses

 

 

 

"After a rewatch this went from a "great film" to an all-timer." - @TMP

 

 

 

"The most beloved film of my childhood and it's the type of delightful movie that adults will probably enjoy more than children. Just so many hilarious, classic moments and lines." - @Ariadne

 

 

 

"Best movie of 1997 by a considerable margin." - @redfirebird2008

 

 

 

"It's funny when it wants to be funny and intense when it wants to be intense. Writing, directing, acting and most of the other stuff is top-notch and while it's not as good as Goodfellas, it's pretty damn close." - @darkelf

 

 

 

"Such a classic.  Just watched it again.  It's one of those movies that really is timeless.  This should have been up for best original screenplay in 1993.  It didn't get recognized as a great film when it first came out, but 20 years later it's considered one of the best comedies ever made." - @baumer

[Dementeleus]

Man oh man...

[Cap]

[Eric the Minion]

28 minutes ago, The Panda said:

 

 

 

"The most beloved film of my childhood and it's the type of delightful movie that adults will probably enjoy more than children. Just so many hilarious, classic moments and lines." - @Ariadne

FUCK! I knew I forgot something.

[The Panda]

 

 

"Witness me."

 

About the Movie

 

Synopsis

 

"THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THE MAD"

 

Its Legacy

 

"“Parasite” director Bong Joon Ho said last year that the scale of the movie brought him to tears"

 

 Steven Soderbergh put it more bluntly: “I don’t understand how they’re not still shooting that film,”

 

“It was one of the wildest, most intense experiences of my life,” said the actress Riley Keough

 

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley added, “You could have made another movie on the making of it.” 

 

As for Hardy? “It left me irrevocably changed,” he said.

 

From the Filmmaker

 

 “What if there was a ‘Mad Max’ movie that was one long chase, and the MacGuffin was human?” I was flying back to Australia a month later, ruminating on it, and by the time I landed, I called Doug Mitchell and said, “I think I’ve got an idea.”

 

 

 

 

Why It's the Greatest

 

Critic Opinion

 

"This movie will melt your face off." - Christy Lemire

 

"Happy end of the world." - Allison Willmore, BuzzFeed

 

"my mind was totally blown" - Kelechi Ehnulo, Confessions from a Geek Mind

"a delicious assault on both your visual cortex and auditory system" - Kirsten Acuna, Business Insider

"Championing female life and autonomy into something that could have easily been a popcorn flick for bros." - Debbie Holloway, Narrative Muse

 

""AAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHHHTHISISAMAAAAAAZZZIIINNNG!" -Richard Threnholm, CNET

 

User Opinion

 

"greatest action film ever" - @Plain Old Tele

 

"most holy f- action I've seen on screen" - @antovolk

 

"a fucking beast of a movie." - @Deep Wang

"disappointing" - @Goffe

"A monumental achievement" - @CJohn

"there are enough superlatives in the English language" - @DeeCee

" I called my nephew right when it was over to tell him how amazing it was and I couldn't  speak." - @Kalo

"masterpiece" - @Fancyarcher

"BEAUTIFUL MOVIE." - @#ED

"The strongest of possible As." - @Brilliant Dynamite Neon

"11/10" - @Charism

 

The Panda's Haiku

 

BUM BUM!  Bang Crash

 

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! *Seven Syllables*

 

WHAT A LOVELY DAY!!!!!!!!

 

 

Factoids

 

Placement on Prior Lists

 

2012 - N/a, 2013 - N/A, 2014 - N/a, 2016 - 21, 2018 - 24

 

Director Count

 

Steven Spielberg - 5, Alfred Hitchock - 4, Stanley Kubrick - 4, James Cameron - 3, Richard Linklater - 3, Hayao Miyazaki - 3, The Russo Brothers - 3, Lee Unkrich - 3, Brad Bird - 2, Francis Ford Coppola - 2, Alfonso Cuaron - 2,  David Fincher - 2, Akira Kurosawa - 2, John Lasseter - 2,   David Lean - 2, Sergio Leone - 2, John McTiernan - 2, Christopher Nolan - 2, Martin Scorsese - 2, Andrew Stanton - 2, Quentin Tarantino - 2, Roger Allers - 1, John G. Avildsen - 1, Ash Brannon - 1, Mel Brooks - 1, Frank Capra - 1, John Carpenter - 1, Damien Chazelle - 1, Ron Clements - 1, Michael Curtiz - 1, Frank Darabont - 1, Jonathan Demme - 1, Pete Docter - 1, Stanley Donen - 1, Clint Eastwood - 1, Victor Fleming - 1, Terry Gilliam - 1, Michel Gondry - 1, Peter Jackson - 1, Rian Johnson - 1, Terry Jones - 1, Bong Joon-Ho - 1, Gene Kelly - 1, Spike Lee - 1, David Lynch - 1, George Lucas - 1, Sidney Lumet - 1, Katia Lund - 1, Michael Mann - 1, Fernando Meirelles - 1, George Miller - 1, Rob Minkoff - 1, Adrian Molina - 1, John Musker - 1, Bob Persichetti - 1, Jan Pinkava - 1, Sam Raimi - 1, Peter Ramsey - 1, Rodney Rotham - 1,  Ridley Scott - 1, Guillermo del Toro - 1, Gary Trousdale - 1, Orson Welles - 1, Peter Weir - 1, Billy Wilder - 1, Lana and Lilly Wachowski - 1, Kirk Wise - 1, Kar-Wai Wong - 1, Robert Zemeckis - 1

 

Franchise Count

 

Pixar - 9, Cameron - 3, Marvel Cinematic Universe - 3, Studio Ghibli - 3, Toy Story - 3, WDAS - 3, Alien - 2, Before Trilogy - 2, Nolan - 2, Scorsese -2, Spider-Man - 2, Star Wars - 2, Terminator - 2, Die Hard - 1, The Godfather - 1, Hannibal - 1, Incredibles - 1, Indiana Jones - 1, Jaws - 1, Jurassic Park - 1, The Lord of the Rings - 1, Mad Max - 1, The Matrix - 1, Monty Python - 1, Oz - 1, Predator - 1, Rocky - 1

 

Decade Count

 

1930s - 1, 1940s - 3, 1950s - 7, 1960s - 7, 1970s - 10, 1980s - 11, 1990s - 18, 2000s - 16, 2010s - 16

 

 

 

Edited July 24, 2020 by The Panda

[charlie Jatinder]

10 hours ago, Tower said:

Star Wars not making the top 10 for the first time? I'll take that. But I till hold out hope for the impossible dream of Star Wars (and its sequels) missing the list entirely, hopefully this is a sign that ESB isn't winning.

May be in 20 years Americans realise the obvious.

[charlie Jatinder]

38 minutes ago, The Panda said:

 

 

"After a rewatch this went from a "great film

I was like oh great start to top 10 and wtf.

[lorddemaxus]

Fury Road ended up exactly in the same spot as my list.

Edited July 24, 2020 by lorddemaxus

[Daxtreme]

interestingly enough mad max got no #1 votes

 

 

[Jake Gittes]

WITNESS

[The Panda]

 

 

"As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster."

 

About the Movie

 

Synopsis

 

"Henry Hill might be a small time gangster, who may have taken part in a robbery with Jimmy Conway and Tommy De Vito, two other gangsters who might have set their sights a bit higher. His two partners could kill off everyone else involved in the robbery, and slowly start to think about climbing up through the hierarchy of the Mob. Henry, however, might be badly affected by his partners' success, but will he consider stooping low enough to bring about the downfall of Jimmy and Tommy?" - IMDb

 

Its Legacy

 

"In the mid-1980s, Martin Scorsese was regaining his footing as a director after a brutal few years. His passion project, The Last Temptation of Christ, had fallen apart at Paramount just days before production was scheduled to begin, and The King of Comedy had been a commercial, and largely critical, failure – in spite of the fact that it was, and is, one of the most incisive films ever made about celebrity culture. After years of working on studio movies with substantial budgets and luxurious schedules, Scorsese went back to ground zero for After Hours in 1985, stripping his methods down to the bone in order to prove to himself and everyone else that he still had what it took – like the hero of Raging Bull, you couldn’t keep him down.  Following After Hours, Scorsese returned to traditional studio filmmaking for The Color of Money, a sequel to The Hustler designed to reestablish Scorsese as a commercially viable director (which it did). It was while shooting that picture in Chicago that Scorsese came across Nicholas Pileggi’s Wiseguy, a journalistic account of the rise and fall of New York mobster Henry Hill. A mid-range gangster who never got “made,” Hill went into witness protection after spending decades in the mob and then testifying against his friends to save his own skin; along the way he gave Pileggi hours of interviews that formed the basis for a riveting street-level account of day-to-day life in the world of organized crime.

 

Scorsese, who had documented the lives of low-level criminals in Who’s That Knocking at My Door and Mean Streets, felt an immediate affinity with Pileggi’s characters and knew he wanted to document them on film. As serendipity would have it, his old friend Irwin Winkler (the producer of New York, New York and Raging Bull) held an option on the property, so Scorsese and Pileggi teamed up to write the screenplay, with Winkler on board to produce. It was supposed to be Scorsese’s follow-up to The Color of Money, but when an opportunity arose to finally make The Last Temptation of Christ, Scorsese took it and put Wiseguy (the title would eventually be changed to Goodfellas) on hold. Then, he returned to the project, and got down to the business of making one of the greatest American films of all time.  It was a seminal work for Scorsese as well as for American movies in general, both summing up everything the director had done before and pointing the way toward the ambitious epics to follow. It serves as both the final film in one trilogy (Who’s That Knocking at My Door, Mean Streets, Goodfellas) and as the first film in another (Goodfellas, Casino, The Wolf of Wall Street). It’s the transitional movie in which Scorsese crystallizes several of his obsessions, leaves others behind, and finds his new, great subject that would define all of his best films to come: the corrosive effects of rampant materialism on the soul.

 

The soul, of course, has always been of paramount importance to Scorsese, a director who wears his Roman Catholicism on his sleeve and once entertained the notion of becoming a priest. In Who’s That Knocking and its unofficial sequel Mean Streets, the protagonist played by Harvey Keitel is tormented by the tensions between what he learns in the church and what he lives on the street. He’s a relentless sinner plagued with guilt who desperately seeks redemption, even though he’s often unaware of the contradictions between his actions and his beliefs. He’s trying, though – something that cannot be said of the characters in Goodfellas. By the time Scorsese gets to them, the guilt and redemption are gone — it’s all sin. For nearly 2½ hours, Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) and his friends (Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci) rob, beat, and kill without a moment of contemplation or remorse; one of the movie’s many great ironies is that it has constant voice-over narration by a guy who is not remotely reflective or self-aware. Henry doesn’t even feel bad about ratting out his friends – he just feels bad that after a life of crime he’s demoted to living the kind of middle class suburban life to which millions of Americans aspire.

 

If Goodfellas was a turning point for its director, that goes double for his many disciples, who made it one of the most imitated films of its era. Its impact was immediate; unlike other now iconic pictures such as Blade Runner, De Palma’s Scarface or John Carpenter’s The Thing, Goodfellas’ greatness was acknowledged almost immediately by almost everyone. There were a few naysayers, like one-time Scorsese champion Pauline Kael (who acknowledged the film’s stylistic prowess but found it dramatically flaccid), but a surprising number of critics, starting with the massively popular Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, were willing to go on the record calling it one of the greatest movies ever made. Audiences loved it too, making it Scorsese’s biggest hit to date next to The Color of Money; I was able to see it eleven times during its initial release without breaking a sweat because it stayed around so long.  Before Goodfellas, Scorsese was beloved without necessarily being hugely influential. He certainly had his imitators (like Phil Joanou, whose excellent Irish-American Mean Streets riff State of Grace opened just five days before Goodfellas), but one could imagine the pre-1990 American cinema as a whole not being significantly different if Scorsese had never appeared on the landscape. One could not say the same after 1990. Only two years separated the releases of Goodfellas and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, a film whose attitudes and dialogue are unimaginable without Scorsese and Pileggi’s antecedent. Two years after that, Tarantino would make Pulp Fiction, a self-conscious homage to and commentary on Goodfellas (and a lot of other movies) that was to Scorsese’s film what Godard’s early pictures were to American crime flicks and musicals.

 

That’s what Goodfellas did. Scorsese and his generation were enamored of Godard, Truffaut, and their contemporaries right from the beginning, but it took Goodfellas for the revolutions of the French New Wave to truly infiltrate large-scale studio filmmaking. Throughout the 1990s, the sense of cinematic liberation engendered by Scorsese’s masterpiece would yield experiments of a type unthinkable in a pre-Goodfellas Hollywood – Molotov cocktails like Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers and David Fincher’s Fight Club, and the Hughes Brothers’ heavily Scorsese-influenced Dead Presidents (a scathing critique of American power structures released by Disney – did such a time really exist?). It would also produce a series of pop epics like American Hustle, Blow, Summer of Sam, and Boogie Nights that used Goodfellas as a virtual template. Boogie Nights in particular owes an enormous debt to Scorsese’s film, as director Paul Thomas Anderson begins with a bravura tracking shot that combines two of Goodfellas’ signature long takes: the introduction of all the members of Paulie’s gang in one shot, and the Steadicam journey through the Copa. Anderson then proceeds to tell a story no less elegiac and nostalgic in its depiction of a changing era than Scorsese’s tale, and no less beholden to popular music and unorthodox narrative structure.  While Goodfellas’ influence on contemporary cinema is immense, its effect on television cannot possibly be overstated. The new “golden age” of TV represented by Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and others simply would not exist without Goodfellas. That’s because none of those shows would exist without The Sopranos, a series that broke new ground in television by absorbing Scorsese’s film into every molecule of its DNA. From its casting choices to its production design to its use of music to its anthropological observations to its sense of humor and beyond, David Chase’s landmark program borrowed extensively from the Goodfellas playbook. As played by James Gandolfini, the brutal, racist, and misogynistic Tony Soprano would have fit right in in Scorsese’s world, where those characteristics coexist with a skewed sense of loyalty and family values. Chase’s innovation was to develop these contradictions over the course of six seasons to create a rich tapestry of hypocrisy that infected everyone who came into Tony’s orbit – FBI agents, therapists, even Ben Kingsley playing himself! – and generate a caustic satire on post-9/11 America almost as harrowing as Scorsese’s own The Departed.

 

The only thing more unsettling than the convincing force with which Scorsese drives home this idea is how fun he makes selling your soul look; he’s been criticized for glorifying his gangsters as well as Jordan Belfort, and let’s be honest – their lives look a lot more desirable than that of the noble but exhausted Frank Pierce (Nicholas Cage) in Bringing Out the Dead. But Scorsese’s refusal to pass judgment or direct his audience to do so is his greatest provocation and his greatest achievement. After a decade in which the American cinema was largely characterized by its complacency in the form of movies like Rambo and Top Gun that showed us how great we all were, Goodfellas served as a necessary challenge to conformity (both political and stylistic) and inspired Hollywood movies to grow up again – at least for a while. It didn’t last, but then, as Henry Hill himself knew, the glorious times never do."

- Jim Hemphill, Filmmaker Magazine

 

From the Filmmaker

 

 

 

 

Why It's the Greatest

 

Critic Opinion

 

"Hollywood has long been fascinated with the gangster. But nobody has ever taken quite the fix on the tribal rites and ethos of the American gangster that Martin Scorsese does in Goodfellas.  This film harkens back to such Scorsese examinations of the volatile urban male as Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. Only this time he casts his net wider. In Goodfellas, he picks over an entire male subculture. He explores the gangster as a sociological phenomenon, observing the behavior, language, morality and business practices of these modern-day Robbing Hoods.   How current audiences will react to a film where violence isn’t cartoonish and its characters all lack sympathy is a tough call. One easy prediction, though: This intense, fast-paced, often funny film will be talked about and argued over for years to come. Goodfellas certainly feels like a hit movie. And it certainly should enjoy a long ancillary afterlife.

 

A giddy outlaw exhilaration fuels the film’s first hour. All values are turned on their head: Bad is good and crime is an honorable profession. The Mafia characters Henry meets all have a broad, Runyonesque swagger. They gather in saloons to roar with drunken laughter at their own bravado.   Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino) runs the gang like a sagacious Oriental potentate; a mere nod or gesture sends chills down the spines of tough, street-hardened men.  Henry’s hero is James Conway (Robert De Niro), a legendary wiseguy who, like himself, cannot ascend the heights of family leadership because of his Irish background.  Among pals Henry’s own age is Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci), a fellow soldier and psychopath whose condition goes unnoticed in such company. Henry soon grows up to be a full-fledged family member in the person of Ray Liotta. With this performance, Liotta fulfills the promise of his film debut in Something Wild.   His choir-boy face perfectly masks the character’s dark behavior. As portrayed by Liotta and Scorsese, though, Henry never entirely loses the “good” in the goodfella handle. 

 

Goodfellas leaps through four decades in machine gun-like bursts. A great soundtrack of rock oldies drives the film. And Thelma Schoonmaker’s staccato editing keeps each scene jumping with restless movement.  Scorsese lingers on nothing. So the murderous shifts in behavior happen subtly. Killings go from simple matters of “business” to perverse pleasure, where a wiseguy whacks somebody for insulting him or failing to pay him proper respect.   Michael Ballhaus’ camera prowls the dark alleys and corridors of mob power like a relentless, unseen force. He gives the street life a seamy glamour so we feel the pull of this lifestyle.  Richard Bruno’s period costumes are on the money — always a little behind each era’s fashions. Kristi Zea’s production design goes for a hilarious joke. As the wiseguys’ lifestyles become more suburbanized, the decor grows tackier. The wives take over the interior decorating, so their version of the good life serves as a denial of how their money is earned.

 

The acting is spectacular. The huge ensemble cast (136 actors receive credit) perfectly catches the spirit and flavor of the era and its people.  Complex, volatile, ironic and disquieting, Scorsese's Goodfellas is a masterly achievement in intense observation."

- Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter 1990

 

User Opinion

 

"My pick as the best film ever made. Everything just comes together beautifully here." - @DAR

 

"I'm on a Martin Scorsese' movies marathon, this is the second movies watched after The Departed.It was a great movie, a classic gem in the mob/gangster categories for sure. It has the distinct Scorsese flavor in it, and as often seen in his movies, strong acting performances from everyone. Compelling story, good directing, neat editing, and great music." - @Sam

 

"A movie so good it had to be made two more times as Casino and Wolf of Wall Street." - @cannastop

 

The Panda's Haiku

 

Wiseguys on mean streets

 

Observe a gang in action

 

Scorsese masterwork

 

 

Factoids

 

Placement on Prior Lists

 

2012 - 20, 2013 - 7, 2014 - 21, 2016 - 20, 2018 - 16

 

Director Count

 

Steven Spielberg - 5, Alfred Hitchock - 4, Stanley Kubrick - 4, James Cameron - 3, Richard Linklater - 3, Hayao Miyazaki - 3, The Russo Brothers - 3, Martin Scorsese - 3, Lee Unkrich - 3, Brad Bird - 2, Francis Ford Coppola - 2, Alfonso Cuaron - 2,  David Fincher - 2, Akira Kurosawa - 2, John Lasseter - 2,   David Lean - 2, Sergio Leone - 2, John McTiernan - 2, Christopher Nolan - 2,  Andrew Stanton - 2, Quentin Tarantino - 2, Roger Allers - 1, John G. Avildsen - 1, Ash Brannon - 1, Mel Brooks - 1, Frank Capra - 1, John Carpenter - 1, Damien Chazelle - 1, Ron Clements - 1, Michael Curtiz - 1, Frank Darabont - 1, Jonathan Demme - 1, Pete Docter - 1, Stanley Donen - 1, Clint Eastwood - 1, Victor Fleming - 1, Terry Gilliam - 1, Michel Gondry - 1, Peter Jackson - 1, Rian Johnson - 1, Terry Jones - 1, Bong Joon-Ho - 1, Gene Kelly - 1, Spike Lee - 1, David Lynch - 1, George Lucas - 1, Sidney Lumet - 1, Katia Lund - 1, Michael Mann - 1, Fernando Meirelles - 1, George Miller - 1, Rob Minkoff - 1, Adrian Molina - 1, John Musker - 1, Bob Persichetti - 1, Jan Pinkava - 1, Sam Raimi - 1, Peter Ramsey - 1, Rodney Rotham - 1,  Ridley Scott - 1, Guillermo del Toro - 1, Gary Trousdale - 1, Orson Welles - 1, Peter Weir - 1, Billy Wilder - 1, Lana and Lilly Wachowski - 1, Kirk Wise - 1, Kar-Wai Wong - 1, Robert Zemeckis - 1

 

Franchise Count

 

Pixar - 9, Cameron - 3, Marvel Cinematic Universe - 3, Scorsese - 3, Studio Ghibli - 3, Toy Story - 3, WDAS - 3, Alien - 2, Before Trilogy - 2, Nolan - 2, Spider-Man - 2, Star Wars - 2, Terminator - 2, Die Hard - 1, The Godfather - 1, Hannibal - 1, Incredibles - 1, Indiana Jones - 1, Jaws - 1, Jurassic Park - 1, The Lord of the Rings - 1, Mad Max - 1, The Matrix - 1, Monty Python - 1, Oz - 1, Predator - 1, Rocky - 1

 

Decade Count

 

1930s - 1, 1940s - 3, 1950s - 7, 1960s - 7, 1970s - 10, 1980s - 11, 1990s - 19, 2000s - 16, 2010s - 16

 

 

Edited July 24, 2020 by The Panda

[Jake Gittes]

All downhill from here.

[Fancyarcher]

[DAR]

8 minutes ago, Jake Gittes said:

All downhill from here.

[RealLyre]

23 minutes ago, The Panda said:

 

 

 

 

 

this went from 16th on the 2018 list to 9th this year, maybe I should watch this movie

 

Scorsese must have got more fans on BOT over the past year from the Irishman, Joker & Marvel comments publicity.

 

Edited July 24, 2020 by RealLyre

[DAR]

Scorsese in the top ten.   Suck it MCU

[DAR]

9 minutes ago, RealLyre said:

 

this went from 16th on the 2018 list to 9th this year, maybe I should watch this movie

 

Scorsese must have got more fans on BOT over the past year from the Irishman, Joker & Marvel comments publicity.

 

Yes yes yes yes

[Ethan Hunt]

Did Joker really create more Scorsese fans lmao  

[The Panda]

 

 

"I'm the king of the world!"

 

About the Movie

 

Synopsis

 

"84 years later, a 100 year-old woman named Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story to her granddaughter Lizzy Calvert, Brock Lovett, Lewis Bodine, Bobby Buell and Anatoly Mikailavich on the Keldysh about her life set in April 10th 1912, on a ship called Titanic when young Rose boards the departing ship with the upper-class passengers and her mother, Ruth DeWitt Bukater, and her fiancé, Caledon Hockley. Meanwhile, a drifter and artist named Jack Dawson and his best friend Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets to the ship in a game. And she explains the whole story from departure until the death of Titanic on its first and last voyage April 15th, 1912 at 2:20 in the morning." - IMDb

 

Its Legacy

 

"The story of the world's most famous shipwreck has been filmed more than 10 times, including a 1912 German version slapped together just days after the real tragedy and the British film long accepted as the definitive cinematic take on the incident, A Night to Remember (1958). But none have ever achieved the status of Titanic (1997), James Cameron's version of the incident. It was the most expensive movie made up to that time ($200 million) and remains the #1 box office champ, dropping only a few notches in that category when adjusted for inflation. It is tied with Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) and Ben-Hur (1959) for the most Academy Awards won by a single picture (11) and with only one film, All About Eve (1950), for the most nominations (14). It has received dozens of other awards throughout the world, inspired numerous parodies and imitations, and spawned a Grammy-winning hit theme song ("My Heart Will Go On"). It has also spurred renewed interest in the historical facts and a huge increase in the demand for Titanic memorabilia and souvenirs. Although not universally acclaimed by critics, it is perhaps the perfect example of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking, combining the most successful elements of multiple-genre narrative construction, state-of-the-art technical resources, and effective marketing strategies.

 

The film's tremendous success and popularity lie in its ability to integrate dazzling special effects and large-scale historical epic with a human drama that contemporary audiences could connect with on some level. That was Cameron's stated goal on this picture, "to integrate a very personal, very emotional, and very intimate filmmaking style with spectacle, and to try to make that not be kind of chocolate syrup on a cheeseburger." Cameron has said the movie was conceived as a love story, and that it was only the need to recreate the RMS Titanic and its sad fate that necessitated major visual effects. Whatever one's view of how effectively he achieved this integration, Titanic certainly drew praise for having instilled a sense of freshness and suspense into a story whose conclusion is not only foregone but globally known and for working against a nearly century-old air of tragedy and doom to open the picture with such optimism and excitement.

 

An entire book can be written about the technical aspects of making Titanic (and several have been), so it would be unwise to try to cover more than a few highlights here:

 

- The catastrophic rendezvous of the ship with a North Atlantic iceberg was recreated in real water by ramming a large-scale miniature of it into a miniature of the side of the ship constructed out of relatively easy-to-pierce lead. The underwater dolly carrying the iceberg replica was moved through the tank by a cable connected to a truck in the parking lot outside the studio of the special effects company Light Matters. Because of the speed and force needed to tear into the "ship," the impact was shot at 48 frames per second, allowing it to be projected back at the slower normal speed of the actual incident.

 

- Expert model makers from Vision Crew Unlimited were contracted to create details for the extremely exact 45-foot replica of the ship. The craftsmen made lifeboats, davits (the structures used to lower the lifeboats), cranes, ventilators, and 2,000 portholes with working windows. The 14-person team had to cast many of the pieces entirely out of brass because of scale and stress issues. For example, the davits on the real boat were 20 feet high; the models were 9 feet high and quite thin but still had to be positionable and functional, able to support the weight of a lifeboat with 24 model oars in it (even though, according to the model makers, the boats were covered and the oars not seen).

 

- Production designer Peter Lamont obtained the actual Titanic blueprints from the original shipbuilders. In the process, he discovered that the manufacturer of the ship's carpeting was still in business, so he had the firm recreate the exact patterns and colors used throughout the ship.

 

- James Cameron himself made the first of a dozen 12,378-foot dives to the sunken ship at the start of production in the fall of 1995 to shoot the fictional salvage operation that comprises the contemporary portion of the story. Overall, Cameron said the production, with its numerous challenges, hardships, and risks, had him feeling like he was on the bridge of the actual ship. "I could see the iceberg coming far away, but as hard as I turned that wheel there was just too much mass, too much inertia," he said in an interview put together by the Academy of Achievement in Washington, DC, in 1999. "You're in this situation where you feel quite doomed, and yet you still have to play by your own ethical standards, you know, no matter where that takes you. And ultimately that was the salvation, because I think if I hadn't done that...they might have pulled the plug....We held on. We missed the iceberg by that much."

 

Titanic also turned the spotlight on another performer, giving her first feature film appearance in eleven years and reminding the world that she was once a promising young starlet in the 1930s. As the older Rose, Gloria Stuart had her most noteworthy role since the days when she played in such movies as James Whale's The Old Dark House (1932) and The Invisible Man (1933), Busby Berkeley's Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935), and the Shirley Temple hits Poor Little Rich Girl (1936) and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938). Stuart retired from films in 1946 to concentrate on a successful visual art career. She returned to acting in the mid-1970s when she was in her 60s, playing a number of bits and small supporting parts on television and the big screen until Cameron cast her in a role based in part on the well-known sculptor Beatrice Wood. Stuart's work earned her an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress (at 86, the oldest nominee in Academy history), although she commented in her autobiography that she might have won had not so much of her performance been cut from the final release. Following this project, she appeared as a different character in The Titanic Chronicles (1999), a recreation of the 1912 Senate hearings about the oceanic disaster. All the major actors in that production previously appeared in other movies about the Titanic.

 

The bodies of many of the accident's victims were recovered by ships out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and brought back there for burial. The film's success has brought floods of visitors to the gravesites. One that has caused quite a stir is marked with the name of engine room crew member J. Dawson. Cemetery workers say teenage girls are convinced the headstone marks the grave of Jack Dawson, the fictional character played by DiCaprio."

- Rob Nixon, TCM

 

From the Filmmaker

 

 

 

 

Why It's the Greatest

 

Critic Opinion

 

"Short of climbing aboard a time capsule and peeling back eight and one-half decades, James Cameron's magnificent Titanic is the closest any of us will get to walking the decks of the doomed ocean liner. Meticulous in detail, yet vast in scope and intent, Titanic is the kind of epic motion picture event that has become a rarity. You don't just watch Titanic, you experience it -- from the launch to the sinking, then on a journey two and one-half miles below the surface, into the cold, watery grave where Cameron has shot never-before seen documentary footage specifically for this movie.  In each of his previous outings, Cameron has pushed the special effects envelope. In Aliens, he cloned H.R. Giger's creation dozens of times, fashioning an army of nightmarish monsters. In The Abyss, he took us deep under the sea to greet a band of benevolent space travelers. In T2, he introduced the morphing terminator (perfecting an effects process that was pioneered in The Abyss). And in True Lies, he used digital technology to choreograph an in-air battle. Now, in Titanic, Cameron's flawless re-creation of the legendary ship has blurred the line between reality and illusion to such a degree that we can't be sure what's real and what isn't. To make this movie, it's as if Cameron built an all-new Titanic, let it sail, then sunk it.

 

Of course, special effects alone don't make for a successful film, and Titanic would have been nothing more than an expensive piece of eye candy without a gripping story featuring interesting characters. In his previous outings, Cameron has always placed people above the technological marvels that surround them. Unlike film makers such as Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, Cameron has used visual effects to serve his plot, not the other way around. That hasn't changed with Titanic. The picture's spectacle is the ship's sinking, but its core is the affair between a pair of mismatched, star-crossed lovers.  Titanic is a romance, an adventure, and a thriller all rolled into one. It contains moments of exuberance, humor, pathos, and tragedy. In their own way, the characters are all larger-than- life, but they're human enough (with all of the attendant frailties) to capture our sympathy. Perhaps the most amazing thing about Titanic is that, even though Cameron carefully recreates the death of the ship in all of its terrible grandeur, the event never eclipses the protagonists. To the end, we never cease caring about Rose (Kate Winslet) and Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio).

 

As important as the characters are, however, it's impossible to deny the power of the visual effects. Especially during the final hour, as Titanic undergoes its death throes, the film functions not only as a rousing adventure with harrowing escapes, but as a testimony to the power of computers to simulate reality in the modern motion picture. The scenes of Titanic going under are some of the most awe-inspiring in any recent film. This is the kind of movie that it's necessary to see more than once just to appreciate the level of detail.  One of the most unique aspects of Titanic is its use of genuine documentary images to set the stage for the flashback story. Not satisfied with the reels of currently-existing footage of the sunken ship, Cameron took a crew to the site of the wreck to do his own filming. As a result, some of the underwater shots in the framing sequences are of the actual liner lying on the ocean floor. Their importance and impact should not be underestimated, since they further heighten the production's sense of verisimilitude.

 

For the leading romantic roles of Jack and Rose, Cameron has chosen two of today's finest young actors. Leonardo DiCaprio (Romeo + Juliet), who has rarely done better work, has shed his cocky image. Instead, he's likable and energetic in this part -- two characteristics vital to establishing Jack as a hero. Meanwhile, Kate Winslet, whose impressive resume includes Sense and Sensibility, Hamlet, and Jude, dons a flawless American accent along with her 1912 garb, and essays an appealing, vulnerable Rose. Billy Zane comes across as the perfect villain -- callous, arrogant, yet displaying true affection for his prized fiancé. The supporting cast, which includes Kathy Bates, Bill Paxton, Frances Fisher, Bernard Hill (as Titanic's captain), and David Warner (as Cal's no-nonsense manservant), is flawless.  While Titanic is easily the most subdued and dramatic of Cameron's films, fans of more frantic pictures like Aliens and The Abyss will not be disappointed. Titanic has all of the thrills and intensity that movie-goers have come to expect from the director. A dazzling mix of style and substance, of the sublime and the spectacular, Titanic represents Cameron's most accomplished work to date. It's important not to let the running time hold you back -- these three-plus hour pass very quickly. Although this telling of the Titanic story is far from the first, it is the most memorable, and is deserving of Oscar nominations not only in the technical categories, but in the more substantive ones of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress."

- James Berardinelli, ReelViews

 

User Opinion

 

"Ive seen this film at least a 100( Iwatch it a few times every few weeks from the 1997 debut)..And its true, never has a movie moved me so much..(Though I give props to Lion king and Avatar sequences) .... Just an incredible work indeed.. And like Sigourney said when a fellow asks you to do more than just do your nails and come to work when your cues and out works everyone putting sequences together, how can you not aim to do the same.   For those that understand him, james is very much loved and has a huge loyal following baumer.. Dont forget Ahnold as well:D" - @Kalel009Shel

 

" I've watched it three times now in the last week.  Twice with different commentary and then last night, just the film.  The amount of care that went into this, the amount of work and the amount of research, it all paid off.  The film is a wonder.  The Romeo and Juliette script is fantastic but when you listen to the commentary by the two historians who worked on the film, Cameron went to great lengths to make sure he nailed every detail.  The correct breed of dogs were shown in the film, the correct car, every small detail, every nuance was done to perfection.    Titanic is truly, imo, one of the best films of all time.  If you haven't listened to the commentary, you should give it a chance." - @baumer

 

The Panda's Haiku

 

I'm holding on, Jack

 

I will never let you go

 

Nvm, bye bye

 

 

Factoids

 

Placement on Prior Lists

 

2012 - 5, 2013 - 26, 2014 - 59, 2016 - 28, 2018 - 8

 

Director Count

 

Steven Spielberg - 5, James Cameron - 4, Alfred Hitchock - 4, Stanley Kubrick - 4, Richard Linklater - 3, Hayao Miyazaki - 3, The Russo Brothers - 3, Martin Scorsese - 3, Lee Unkrich - 3, Brad Bird - 2, Francis Ford Coppola - 2, Alfonso Cuaron - 2,  David Fincher - 2, Akira Kurosawa - 2, John Lasseter - 2,   David Lean - 2, Sergio Leone - 2, John McTiernan - 2, Christopher Nolan - 2,  Andrew Stanton - 2, Quentin Tarantino - 2, Roger Allers - 1, John G. Avildsen - 1, Ash Brannon - 1, Mel Brooks - 1, Frank Capra - 1, John Carpenter - 1, Damien Chazelle - 1, Ron Clements - 1, Michael Curtiz - 1, Frank Darabont - 1, Jonathan Demme - 1, Pete Docter - 1, Stanley Donen - 1, Clint Eastwood - 1, Victor Fleming - 1, Terry Gilliam - 1, Michel Gondry - 1, Peter Jackson - 1, Rian Johnson - 1, Terry Jones - 1, Bong Joon-Ho - 1, Gene Kelly - 1, Spike Lee - 1, David Lynch - 1, George Lucas - 1, Sidney Lumet - 1, Katia Lund - 1, Michael Mann - 1, Fernando Meirelles - 1, George Miller - 1, Rob Minkoff - 1, Adrian Molina - 1, John Musker - 1, Bob Persichetti - 1, Jan Pinkava - 1, Sam Raimi - 1, Peter Ramsey - 1, Rodney Rotham - 1,  Ridley Scott - 1, Guillermo del Toro - 1, Gary Trousdale - 1, Orson Welles - 1, Peter Weir - 1, Billy Wilder - 1, Lana and Lilly Wachowski - 1, Kirk Wise - 1, Kar-Wai Wong - 1, Robert Zemeckis - 1

 

Franchise Count

 

Pixar - 9, Cameron - 4, Marvel Cinematic Universe - 3, Scorsese - 3, Studio Ghibli - 3, Toy Story - 3, WDAS - 3, Alien - 2, Before Trilogy - 2, Nolan - 2, Spider-Man - 2, Star Wars - 2, Terminator - 2, Die Hard - 1, The Godfather - 1, Hannibal - 1, Incredibles - 1, Indiana Jones - 1, Jaws - 1, Jurassic Park - 1, The Lord of the Rings - 1, Mad Max - 1, The Matrix - 1, Monty Python - 1, Oz - 1, Predator - 1, Rocky - 1

 

Decade Count

 

1930s - 1, 1940s - 3, 1950s - 7, 1960s - 7, 1970s - 10, 1980s - 11, 1990s - 20, 2000s - 16, 2010s - 16

 

 

[MrGamer]

Praise be to Zane