BOT in the Multi-Verse of Madness: Countdown of the DEFINITIVE Top 250 Movies of All-Time (2022 Edition)

[CaptNathanBrittles]

53 minutes ago, IronJimbo said:

I've got to be honest I only really ever seen Psycho in a classroom while it was paused every 5 minutes to explain stuff

 

What an awful teaching method.

[Ipickthiswhiterose]

3 minutes ago, CaptNathanBrittles said:

 

What an awful teaching method.

 

Especially considering it was just a physics lesson.

 

Ba-dum-tish!

 

 

 

 

I'll get my coat.

[JustLurking]

17 minutes ago, Ipickthiswhiterose said:

 

Franchise movies, ironically, looking much sillier in the 101-200 list than they do in the 1-100. I mean, sure, go ahead, think Sith is a better film than Rashomon and Ran, but lol.

 

Those alternating paths for Seven Samurai and Pulp Fiction over the years are very interesting. Really indicates a slowly increasing internationalism and move away from US-Centrism: especially when it comes to some of the more stretched claims of originality that exists within some American media circles when discussing the likes of Tarantino. 

 

And for all it's disappointing for Panda - I'd say that Psycho and Seven Samurai - and even Rear Window - into the 30s in a pop culture-ish forum is pretty positive stuff.

 

As for the not insignificant bunch of us that had The Apartment high, are we going to be disappointed or surprisingly delighted?

I mean, that's not really the right argument though is it? As much as this has a good amount of people who have seen pretty old stuff, I'm sure many more people voting have seen Revenge of the Sith than Rashomon or Ron (I haven't seen them, by the way). Unless you have a poll where you only allow people who have seen, like, every cult movie ever, some stuff's bound to be shafted, and some popular movies are bound to make the list at a higher spot than they deserved (if they even deserved it at all!).

 

And that's ok, really, it's just the nature of votes.

[IronJimbo]

25 minutes ago, CaptNathanBrittles said:

 

What an awful teaching method.

to be fair that class was never more than an hour long so we could never watch it end to end anyway

[baumer]

I know @Plain Old Telewill probably have a cow when he reads this but I actually had endgame on my list as well as one of the best movies ever made.

 

The amount of work that would go into a film like that with that many story lines, that many recognizable actors and characters is just simply mind blowing.

 

Then you factor in that it was an outstanding movie that tied everything together starting with Iron Man in 2008. Marvel has been hit and miss for me, granted there's been more hits than misses but end game is something that kind of blew me away. I saw it in theaters five times and I've watched it twice more on Disney plus.

 

So I believe it absolutely deserves to be on this list. But that's just one man's opinion.

[Tower]

On 8/4/2022 at 4:44 AM, The Panda said:

A few more off the 'misses' to end the day!

 

Number 146

A Clockwork Orange (1972, Stanley Kubrick)

The best film of all time didn't make the top 100, list is now officially garbage.

[cannastop]

On 8/4/2022 at 7:01 PM, The Panda said:

Number 141

The 400 Blows (1959, Fracois Truffaut)

aww damn. couldn't quite get there

[The Panda]

rosebud.

 

 

Number 35

 

 

"Rosebud."

 

About the Film

 

Synopsis

 

"Rosebud."

 

Its Legacy

 

"Rosebud."

 

From the Filmmaker

 

"Rosebud." - Orson Welles

 

 

Why It's Great

 

Critic Opinion

 

"Rosebud."

 

 

Public Opinion

 

"Rosebud."

 

The AI's Poetic Opinion

 

rosebud

"Rosebud."

- Samantha Rosebud

 

 

Factoids

 

Previous Rankings

 

#59 (2020), #83 (2018), #50 (2016), #82 (2014), #64 (2013), #53 (2012)

 

Director Count

 

Stanley Kubrick (3), Brad Bird (2), James Cameron (2), John Carpenter (2), Martin Scorsese (2),  David Fincher (2), Alfred Hitchcock (2), Spike Lee (2), Sergio Leone (2), Hayao Miyazaki (2), Christopher Nolan (2), The Russos (2),  Ridley Scott (2),  Andrew Stanton (2), Peter Weir (2), Roger Allers (1), Paul Thomas Anderson (1), John G. Avildsen (1), Frank Capra (1), Charlie Chaplin (1), Brenda Chapman (1), Joel Coen (1), Wes Craven (1), Jonathan Demme (1), Pete Doctor (1), Stanley Donan (1), Clint Eastwood (1), Victor Fleming (1), William Friedkin (1), Terry Gillam (1), Michel Gondry (1), Steve Hickner (1), Rian Johnson (1), Terry Jones (1), Gene Kelly (1), Akira Kurosawa (1), John Lasseter (1), Richard Linklater (1), Katia Lund (1), David Lynch (1), Richard Marquand (1), Fernando Meirelles (1), Rob Minkoff (1), Katsuhiro Otomo (1), Jan Pinkava (1), Makoto Shinkai (1), Vittorio de Sica (1), Steven Spielberg (1), Isao Takahata (1), Quentin Tarantino (1), Guillermo Del Torro (1), Lee Unkrich (1), Gore Verbinski (1), Orson Welles (1), Simon Wells (1), Billy Wilder (1), Kar-Wai Wong (1), Robert Zemeckis (1)

 

Decade Count

 

1930s (2), 1940s (3), 1950s (4), 1960s (5), 1970s (4), 1980s (9), 1990s (13), 2000s (17), 2010s (7)

 

Country Count

 

Japan (6), Italy (3), Brazil (1), China (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1), UK (1)

 

 

Franchise Count

 

Pixar (6), Ghibli (4), The MCU (2), Star Wars (2), Alien (1), Avatar (1), Before (1), Blade Runner (1), Dollars (1), The Exorcist (1), Finding Nemo (1), Hannibal (1), Halloween (1), Incredibles (1), The Lion King (1), Pirates of the Caribbean (1), Rocky (1), Scream (1), The Shining (1), Thing (1), Toy Story (1), WDAS (1), The Wizard of Oz (1)

 

Re-Weighted Placements

 

#41 Fanboy Ranking, #36 Cinema Ranking

#12 Old Farts Ranking, #48 Damn Kids Ranking

#58 Ambassador Ranking, #35 All-American Ranking

#30 Cartoon Ranking, #35 Damn Boomer Ranking

 

 

[Chaz]

Endgame's third act is great. Everything before it is an absolute bore. 

[The Panda]

People really like their problematic stockholm syndrome romances. I guess it's okay as long as there are talking candlesticks!

 

Number 34

 

 

"If she doesn't eat with *me*, then she doesn't eat at all!"

 

About the Film

 

Synopsis

 

"Follow the adventures of Belle, a bright young woman who finds herself in the castle of a prince who’s been turned into a mysterious beast. With the help of the castle’s enchanted staff, Belle soon learns the most important lesson of all – that true beauty comes from within."

 

Its Legacy

 

"As the Disney Renaissance hit its first peak in the late 1980s, executive Jeffrey Katzenberg had a mantra when it came to the films that Walt Disney Animation Studios would continue to produce throughout the 1990s: "Bigger, better, faster, cheaper." The Little Mermaid had certainly achieved the first two goals of that aim, but making low-budget animated films on a tight schedule was a concern for animators. They were laser-focused on the second word of his mantra: "better".  After the relative failure of The Rescuers Down Under, Disney Animation wasn't going to collectively lick its wounds and mope — they were already moving onto the next project. It was, like The Little Mermaid, an adaptation that had been through development at the studio as far back as the 1930s. It was, like The Little Mermaid, a film that would retell one of the most well-known fairy tales ever written. It wouldn't be cheaper, but Beauty and the Beast was bigger, better, and made on a shockingly fast schedule, to the point where it nearly missed its release date.

 

As noted in an oral history with Entertainment Weekly, Woolverton was aware of the fact that her style, and her commitment that the lead character of Beauty and the Beast shouldn't be the typically passive princess of Disney lore, wasn't making her friends: "I didn't make myself very popular." The film's producer, Don Hahn, said in the same oral history, "The storyboard artists weren't used to having a screenwriter in the room, and Linda, uh...Linda's manner at times could be combative." But even leaving Woolverton's style aside, Beauty and the Beast was going to have to go through major upheavals before it could even truly get off the ground.

 

 

For Ashman, the production of Beauty and the Beast may have served as a way to stave off the disease ravaging his body. He and the other filmmakers holed up in upstate New York did end up following in a few of the footsteps of the Cocteau masterpiece, such as giving Gaston more of a front-and-center antagonistic role. The most notable difference, and one that was a huge key to the film's success, was giving personality to the household objects.  The changes were drastic enough that Katzenberg approved a script in the early part of 1990. A number of Disney animators were tasked not just with storyboarding the script, but going back and forth between Burbank and New York, without fully grasping why. They just knew they had to get to work quickly – though the early 1990s were a far cry from how studios plant a metaphorical flag on certain dates years in advance for untitled films, the end of 1991 was coming up fast and they had to get a film ready for release.

 

Beauty and the Beast, end credits and all, clocks in at just 84 minutes. But a whole life is lived, in the best way possible, in that brief period, starting with "Belle". The seven-minute sequence tells the audience exactly what it needs to know about the conflict that sets Belle off into the world of a mysterious prince and his castle. She seems to be the only well-read young woman in town (or, at least, the only young woman in town interested in reading), and chafes at the confines of the small unnamed town. In spite of this, the town's most handsome man, Gaston (voiced by the booming Richard White) lusts after Belle precisely because it's "only she who is beautiful as me". Within the sung-through scene, we learn that Belle's kindly father Maurice is both an inventor and perceived as being a nutcase, and that Belle loves him dearly.

 

Most important, though, "Belle" is just a brilliant piece of musicianship from both Menken and Ashman. It's as close as you'll get in the Disney discography to the work of Stephen Sondheim. The playful use of the greeting "Bonjour" coupled with the background singing from the townspeople just going about their day fills in so much life in the small town Belle's ready to move on from. Ashman and Menken were reportedly concerned with how the executives would react to "Belle", but it's no surprise they fell for it. Who couldn't?

 

As quickly as the film was coming together, Jeffrey Katzenberg was convinced that the film was going to be extremely special. That March, Disney convened some critics and members of the Academy in New York for a special, in-progress screening of the film. The "Belle" sequence was fully completed in color, but the rest was in black-and-white. It was the studio's first step in a campaign to bring a level of respectability to animation that it hadn't seen since the early days of Disney. Though the film was incomplete, the reaction from the crowd was clear and effusive. The filmmaking team immediately went to St. Vincent's Hospital in New York, as documented in Hahn's Waking Sleeping Beauty. There, they informed Howard Ashman of what occurred; Hahn said the film "would be a great success. Who'd have thought?" Ashman, now so ill that he had lost his sight and was extremely frail, whispered, "I would." 

 

A week later, Howard Ashman died at the age of 40. He never saw even an unfinished print of the film that would cement his legendary status. Ashman's death hit everyone hard, up to and including Jeffrey Katzenberg. According to DisneyWar, he saw in Ashman a kindred spirit with Disney himself. Arguably, there are few other people who have had the same level of influence on animation in the last 40 years as Howard Ashman. (Possibly only John Lasseter could claim such a title.) Beauty and the Beast served as a forceful capper to his influence. Ashman had been right to bring back the world of the musical to Disney; The Little Mermaid proved it was possible, and Beauty and the Beast proved it was necessary."

- Josh Spiegel, SlashFilm

 

From the Filmmaker

 

 

Why It's Great

 

Critic Opinion

 

"When Disney's Beauty and the Beast was released late in 1991, critics hailed the film for its apparently innovative portrayal of the heroine, Belle.1In Newsweek, David Arisen claimed that "from the start, the filmmakers knew they didn't want Belle to be the passive character of the original story or a carbon copy of Ariel in The Little Mermaid, a creation some critics found cloyingly sexist" (75). In MacLean's, Brian Johnson praised Disney for "break[ing] the sexist mould of its fairy-tale heroines. . . . Beauty and the Beast spells out its enlightenment in no uncertain terms" (56). And in The New York Times, Janet Maslin asserted that Belle is "a smart, independent heroine . . . who makes a conspicuously better role model than the marriage-minded Disney heroines of the past" (1). But in spite of this insistence that Belle is a strong female character, that this fairy tale is "different," I saw the same old story, a romance plot that robs female characters of self-determination and individuality. Not at all a feminist movie, Disney's Beauty and the Beast slips easily into the mold of almost all other popular versions of fairy tales; that is, it encourages young viewers to believe that true happiness for women exists only in the arms of a prince and that their most important quest is finding that prince.

 

 

Although it is clear that "Beauty and the Beast" has always been in part a love story, earlier printed versions of the tale offer valuable lessons in addition to emphasizing the love relationship. Disney, on the other hand, strips the traditional fairy tale of anything but the romantic trajectory, throws in a dose of violence, and woos its vast audience into believing it has been educated as well as entertained. Disney's Beauty and the Beast, while initially presenting a more interesting and better developed heroine than those we find in other Disney animated features, undermines the gains it makes by focusing narrative attention on courtship as plot advancement and marriage as dénouement. Certainly, romantic love is an important part of people's lives. But if we want children to develop balanced views of relationships between men and women and of their own identities as active individuals with full access to society, we should question the messages sent by such films.

 

The deleterious effects of concluding fairy tales with marriage have been extensively examined by such critics as Marcia K. Lieberman and Karen Rowe. Lieberman points out that while [End Page 22] such stories end with marriage, the action of the story is concerned with courtship, "which is magnified into the most important and exciting part of a girl's life, brief though courtship is, because it is the part of her life in which she most counts as a person herself. After marriage she ceases to be wooed, her consent is no longer sought, she derives her status from her husband, and her personal identity is thus snuffed out. When fairy tales show courtship as exciting, and conclude with marriage, and the vague statement that "they lived happily ever after," children may develop a deep-seated desire always to be courted, since marriage is literally the end of the story."

 

Rowe argues that the marriages at the ends of these tales are more accessible to and thus more influential on the female reader/viewer than any other aspect of the stories: "Because it is a major social institution, marriage functions not merely as a comic ending, but also as a bridge between the worlds of fantasy and reality. Whereas "once upon a time" draws the reader into a timeless fantasy realm . . . the wedding ceremony catapults her back into contemporary reality. Precisely this close association of romantic fiction with the actuality of marriage as a social institution proves the most influential factorinshaping female expectations."

 

Undeniably, Beauty and the Beast is this kind of fairy tale."

- June Cummins, Children's Literature Association Quarterly

 

 

Public Opinion

 

"Most interestingly, the movie is a subtle but damning musing on masculinity. Gaston, one of Disney's scariest villains, is Narcissus, who uses his looks and physique to rule over the town, despite not have any other qualifications. The Beast is a violent manchild who must learn that he cannot lash out in fits of violence and automatically get his way; and he must learn empathy and kindness, in order to escape his curse and truly be human.

 

Howard Ashman was an immense talent who we lost too soon. "Tale As Old As Time" is so simple yet earnest as sung by Angela Lansbury. His lyrics are top notch throughout, particularly in the unsung hero of the show: “The Mob Song.” What a climax! Panicked! Fast! Crazed Madness! I also love the story that Alan Menken wrote part of the fight scene in like ten minutes as a placeholder, but when he went back to write the “real part” they couldn’t think of anything better. True geniuses.

 

Beauty and the Beast is Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s magnum opus; not only is it one of the best movies (live action or animated) of all time, it is one of the best musicals of all time."

- @Cap

 

The AI's Poetic Opinion

 

beauty and the beast

"Tale as old as time
Ebbs the day to side.
Were toward the royal clouds
Autumn's glowing pride."

- Samantha

 

Factoids

 

Previous Rankings

 

#54 (2020), #40 (2018), #47 (2016), #44 (2014), #68 (2013), #77 (2012)

 

Director Count

 

Stanley Kubrick (3), Brad Bird (2), James Cameron (2), John Carpenter (2), Martin Scorsese (2),  David Fincher (2), Alfred Hitchcock (2), Spike Lee (2), Sergio Leone (2), Hayao Miyazaki (2), Christopher Nolan (2), The Russos (2),  Ridley Scott (2),  Andrew Stanton (2), Peter Weir (2), Roger Allers (1), Paul Thomas Anderson (1), John G. Avildsen (1), Frank Capra (1), Charlie Chaplin (1), Brenda Chapman (1), Joel Coen (1), Wes Craven (1), Jonathan Demme (1), Pete Doctor (1), Stanley Donan (1), Clint Eastwood (1), Victor Fleming (1), William Friedkin (1), Terry Gillam (1), Michel Gondry (1), Steve Hickner (1), Rian Johnson (1), Terry Jones (1), Gene Kelly (1), Akira Kurosawa (1), John Lasseter (1), Richard Linklater (1), Katia Lund (1), David Lynch (1), Richard Marquand (1), Fernando Meirelles (1), Rob Minkoff (1), Katsuhiro Otomo (1), Jan Pinkava (1), Makoto Shinkai (1), Vittorio de Sica (1), Steven Spielberg (1), Isao Takahata (1), Quentin Tarantino (1), Guillermo Del Torro (1), Gary Trousdale (1), Lee Unkrich (1), Gore Verbinski (1), Orson Welles (1), Simon Wells (1), Billy Wilder (1), Kirk Wise (1), Kar-Wai Wong (1), Robert Zemeckis (1)

 

 

Decade Count

 

1930s (2), 1940s (3), 1950s (4), 1960s (5), 1970s (4), 1980s (9), 1990s (14), 2000s (17), 2010s (7)

 

Country Count

 

Japan (6), Italy (3), Brazil (1), China (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1), UK (1)

 

Franchise Count

 

Pixar (6), Ghibli (4), The MCU (2), Star Wars (2), WDAS (2), Alien (1), Avatar (1), Before (1), Blade Runner (1), Dollars (1), The Exorcist (1), Finding Nemo (1), Hannibal (1), Halloween (1), Incredibles (1), The Lion King (1), Pirates of the Caribbean (1), Rocky (1), Scream (1), The Shining (1), Thing (1), Toy Story (1), The Wizard of Oz (1)

 

Re-Weighted Placements

 

#26 Fanboy Ranking, #37 Cinema Ranking

#23 Old Farts Ranking, #35 Damn Kids Ranking

#29 Ambassador Ranking, #33 All-American Ranking

#10 Cartoon Ranking, #34 Damn Boomer Ranking

 

 

[The Panda]

Number 33

 

 

"Micro changes in air density, my ass."

 

About the Film

 

Synopsis

 

"During its return to the earth, commercial spaceship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-member team of the crew discovers a chamber containing thousands of eggs on the planet, a creature inside one of the eggs attacks an explorer. The entire crew is unaware of the impending nightmare set to descend upon them when the alien parasite planted inside its unfortunate host is birthed."

 

Its Legacy

 

"Mr. Scott said that when he first read the “Alien” script, by Dan O’Bannon, “it was frankly what I would call a very well-written B-movie. And we carried it out in an ‘A’ way with a terrific cast and a fantastic monster.” Those B-movie undertones were what emerged in the low-budget “Alien” knockoffs that came after, like “Galaxy of Terror” (from 1981, and perhaps best known for a sexual assault committed by a giant worm) and “Dark Universe” (1993), which features Joe Estevez and a poorly made monster.

 

The horror-in-space premise has also been executed with more creativity and bigger budgets. There were “Event Horizon” (1997), in which the crew, including Laurence Fishburne, was tormented by hallucinations and “Doom” (with Dwayne Johnson), from 2005, in which the crew was done in by mutated Martians. Mars and attacks also factored this year into “Life,” in which crew members like Ryan Reynolds were taken down by an organism they found on the red planet. And the horror-space concept converged in a more outrageous way in “Jason X,” the 2001 entry in the “Friday the 13th” franchise that sent that film’s title killer into space along with androids.

 

 

Horror films thrive on the concept of the “final girl,” the last one left standing to fend off the maniacal killer. But Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in the “Alien” films made the transition from survivor to full-blown sci-fi action hero. She paved the way for other leading women in space, from Jodie Foster in “Contact” to Sandra Bullock in “Gravity.” Within the “Alien” universe, Noomi Rapace took the heroic reins in “Prometheus,” and Katherine Waterston flexes her muscles in “Alien: Covenant.” One of her alien battles bears a striking resemblance to a Ripley encounter.

 

es, these films take place in outer space, so light is minimal. But “Alien” made distinct use of darkness, hiding its monster in the ship’s bowels, down dim corridors and inside caves. The original poster for “Alien” made the darkness a selling point, with a cracked egglike figure oozing green on a black background and the frightening tag line: “In space no one can hear you scream.” Much of “Alien: Covenant” is on the lowlight spectrum, too, with no way to know just where, or how many, threats lurk. Another film with “Alien” DNA referenced the darkness motif outright: “Pitch Black,” from (2000), which starred a rising Vin Diesel. After crashing, the passengers of a ship find themselves stranded on a planet full of E.T.s that attack in the dark. When an eclipse comes, so does terror."

- Mekado Murphy, The New York Times

 

From the Filmmaker

 

 

Why It's Great

 

Critic Opinion

 

"When the film Alien was released in 1979, it was marketed as a haunted house story set in space.  The trailer’s first image is of a barren planet; the first sound is of strong wind and a low hum.  The sound then incorporates a mechanical whir and a heartbeat, connecting the organic with the technological.  Suddenly, the camera zooms over a moon-like landscape, and then, looming in the foreground, an egg-like form appears.  The egg bobs and dips out of the frame while the camera continues to move across the landscape.  Underneath this series of lap dissolves, transitions in which one image appears gradually over a preceding image, one can hear whispers or growls.  As the title appears over the egg, the sound grows more intense.  When the egg finally opens, the interior emits an unnatural bright green light and a chilling non-human scream.  Immediately after, the screen fills with images from the movie: shots of the crew in panic, images of a wrecked spacecraft, a cat hiding in the walls, and brief glimpses of an amorphous, alien form.  The sound of the heartbeat grows louder, more intense.  The final close up of Ellen Ripley, security officer of the Nostromo, is cut, as is the sound, by the image of a planet and a ship in the depths of space.  The ominous tagline is then revealed: “In space, no one can hear you scream.”  The audience ascertains from this trailer that this is a horror film set in space, as it is difficult to determine what the film is about at all from its theatrical trailer alone.  The film, however, demonstrates a deeper complexity than what is offered by its promotional reels. 

 

 

It is important to note that monsters, including aliens, represent the return and revenge of the repressed psyche.  Indeed, the film’s iconic xenomorph facehugger, as argued by Slavoj Žižek, clearly represents the Lacanian “lamella,” the residue left behind once one emerges from the Real into the realm of the Imaginary.  Žižek's discussion of the lamella in his essay "Grimaces of the Real, or When the Phallus Appears" provides a framework for the exploration of the alien xenomorphs as representations of the horrific Other.  In Alien with Kane's exploration of LV-426 and in Aliens with the USCMC's rescue mission of the Hadley's Hope colony, the viewer experiences the mythological archetype of the 'Underworld Journey,' the traveler's descent into a 'hellish' realm of the dead and emergence back into the world of the living 'reborn' as a newly-signified being.  Both situations clearly illustrate one's obliteration when reconnected with the Real.  The descent onto LV-426 and towards the Hadley's Hope colony draws the ill-fated characters to a place of the abject, or the repulsive object placed outside of the symbolic order.  At this descent, the subjects encounter the xenomorphs and come face-to-face with these 'monsters.'  Kane, in particular, emerges from this descent with the 'lamellalike' xenomorph facehugger.  As the crewmembers of the Nostromo and the USCMC move outside the boundaries of the paternal company, the realm of the Symbolic and Imaginary, the audience experiences the breakdown of the characters' symbolic significations and seeks to place the characters into a new, relatable defining order. 

 

 The most horrific and iconic image in the film series begins in Alien with Nostromo crewmember Kane's encounter with the xenomorph facehugger.  The film opens with the crew's emergence from hypersleep.  After the crew emerges from their hypersleep chambers, there is no dialogue for the first six minutes of the film.  Gilbert Kane utters the first words of the film as the crew settle at the galley table for their first meal since their hibernation.  The camera frames Gilbert Kane at the center of the table, where he is seen smoking a cigarette.  This cigarette becomes the phallic bar between signifier and signified; it indicates Kane’s separation from the Real in his hypersleep chamber, symbolically the 'womb' of MU-TH-UR, and his entry into the imaginary and the symbolic realm of language.  The first words Kane speaks are “I feel dead” (Hill and Giler).  At his utterance, Kane becomes the focus of this conflict with the phallic Mother.  Kane's 'birth' from hypersleep at the beginning of the film and his 'birthing' of the xenomorph represent what has "long been appreciated in the study of horror and dances close to Lacan's bifurcation of human development as one from the mute, mysterious feminine to the enlightened order of masculine reason" (Burfoot 67).    These images, of Kane's emergence from hypersleep and of the alien xenomorph attached to his face, "present the possibility of a changed corporeality in terms of the body invaded and colonized by a life-taking force" (67).  Kane is the first to awaken, the first to explore, and ultimately the first obliterated by the alien species the crew of the Nostromo encounter on the planet LV-426.  The cycle of Kane’s separation from the union with the mother, his journey back to the womb-like planet of LV-426, and his confrontation with the alien-lamella represent the impossibility of one to experience the oceanic feeling of the Real without total self-obliteration, which defines Thanatos, or the death drive: one's unconscious desire to return to an inorganic state.  His first lines culminate in the termination of the narrative, his death, and the destruction of the Nostromo.  It also begins Ripley’s new signification from part of the Nostromo team to the lone hero who carries on the story of the fated ship."

 - Terri M. Nicholson, Georgia State University

 

 

Public Opinion

 

"Truly brilliant. The movie looks beautiful. 35mm just looks so great.  Plus this movie has some much tension. A horror sci fi classic "

- @Kvikk Lunsj

 

The AI's Poetic Opinion

 

alien

"alien(s)
Lightning and Jove;
Penn, myrrh, and rings.
Penn, myrrh, and rings."

- Samantha

 

Factoids

 

Previous Rankings

 

#29 (2020), #30 (2018), #45 (2016), #40 (2014), #45 (2013), #50 (2012)

 

Director Count

 

Stanley Kubrick (3), Ridley Scott (3), Brad Bird (2), James Cameron (2), John Carpenter (2), Martin Scorsese (2),  David Fincher (2), Alfred Hitchcock (2), Spike Lee (2), Sergio Leone (2), Hayao Miyazaki (2), Christopher Nolan (2), The Russos (2),  Andrew Stanton (2), Peter Weir (2), Roger Allers (1), Paul Thomas Anderson (1), John G. Avildsen (1), Frank Capra (1), Charlie Chaplin (1), Brenda Chapman (1), Joel Coen (1), Wes Craven (1), Jonathan Demme (1), Pete Doctor (1), Stanley Donan (1), Clint Eastwood (1), Victor Fleming (1), William Friedkin (1), Terry Gillam (1), Michel Gondry (1), Steve Hickner (1), Rian Johnson (1), Terry Jones (1), Gene Kelly (1), Akira Kurosawa (1), John Lasseter (1), Richard Linklater (1), Katia Lund (1), David Lynch (1), Richard Marquand (1), Fernando Meirelles (1), Rob Minkoff (1), Katsuhiro Otomo (1), Jan Pinkava (1), Makoto Shinkai (1), Vittorio de Sica (1), Steven Spielberg (1), Isao Takahata (1), Quentin Tarantino (1), Guillermo Del Torro (1), Gary Trousdale (1), Lee Unkrich (1), Gore Verbinski (1), Orson Welles (1), Simon Wells (1), Billy Wilder (1), Kirk Wise (1), Kar-Wai Wong (1), Robert Zemeckis (1)

 

Decade Count

 

1930s (2), 1940s (3), 1950s (4), 1960s (5), 1970s (5), 1980s (9), 1990s (14), 2000s (17), 2010s (7)

 

Country Count

 

Japan (6), Italy (3), Brazil (1), China (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1), UK (1)

 

 

Franchise Count

 

Pixar (6), Ghibli (4), Alien (2),  The MCU (2), Star Wars (2), WDAS (2), Avatar (1), Before (1), Blade Runner (1), Dollars (1), The Exorcist (1), Finding Nemo (1), Hannibal (1), Halloween (1), Incredibles (1), The Lion King (1), Pirates of the Caribbean (1), Rocky (1), Scream (1), The Shining (1), Thing (1), Toy Story (1), The Wizard of Oz (1)

 

Re-Weighted Placements

 

#30 Fanboy Ranking, #31 Cinema Ranking

#22 Old Farts Ranking, #34 Damn Kids Ranking

#41 Ambassador Ranking, #31 All-American Ranking

#58 Cartoon Ranking, #31 Damn Boomer Ranking

 

 

[interiorgatordecorator]

12 hours ago, The Panda said:

Number 39

 

 

"Intelligence. Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence."

 

 

 

I really have gotta fix my memory, I could have probably presented a top 100 instead of just a top 25 if I tried to remember a bit harder

[The Panda]

A movie which has a making of documentary as good as the movie.

 

 

Number 32

 

 

"The horror... the horror...."

 

About the Film

 

Synopsis

 

"At the height of the Vietnam war, Captain Benjamin Willard is sent on a dangerous mission that, officially, “does not exist, nor will it ever exist.” His goal is to locate - and eliminate - a mysterious Green Beret Colonel named Walter Kurtz, who has been leading his personal army on illegal guerrilla missions into enemy territory."

 

Its Legacy

 

"Whichever movie wins the Palme d’Or at Cannes this week, it is highly unlikely to have the scale and ambition of Francis Ford Coppola’s three-hour opus Apocalypse Now. Awarded the prize (jointly with Volker Schlondorff’s Tin Drum) 40 years ago in May 1979, some four months before a shorter, two-hour version was released in cinemas, it’s widely considered one of the greatest films of all time.

 

But it wasn’t initially. Indeed, Coppola’s trippy transposing of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to the Gotterdammerung of the Vietnam War in which Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard is dispatched up river to execute Marlon Brando’s rogue Green Beret colonel Kurtz – was met with mixed reviews on its US release. So, although Roger Ebert wrote that the film “achieves greatness not by analysing our experience of Vietnam, but by re-creating, in characters and images, something of that experience”, Frank Rich in Time argued that “while much of the footage is breathtaking, Apocalypse Now is emotionally and intellectually empty”, and Vincent Candy called it “an adventure yarn with delusions of grandeur”.

 

Others were enraged by Coppola’s press conference at Cannes, in which the director claimed that “My film is not about Vietnam, it is Vietnam”. But in ways I’ll look at later, Coppola’s claim turned out to be oddly prophetic. First, however, a bit on the history of the production. The best and most immediate account of the logistically mind-boggling five-month shoot in the Philippines during 1976 was written by Coppola’s wife, Eleanor, in her book culled from her diaries and letters, Notes: On the Making of Apocalypse Now. Eleanor Coppola recounts the infamous misfortunes that beset the production, from the typhoon that destroyed the set, Martin Sheen’s heart attack and how Brando turned up overweight and underprepared, as well as her husband’s gradual descent into a nervous breakdown and the near destruction of their marriage. Or as Coppola himself admitted at the Cannes press conference: “Little by little we went insane.”

 

 

Notes begins with a quickfire insight into the casting of Brando (Kurtz was also offered to Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino) and Sheen (Willard was turned down by Steve McQueen, James Caan and Robert Redford, while Harvey Keitel was replaced after three days of filming). One can only wonder what Apocalypse Now would have been like with Nicholson as Kurtz and McQueen as Willard, but then movie history is littered with such casting what-ifs.

 

Coppola has since made the fair point that it’s virtually impossible to make a war movie that’s entirely anti-war, but I think I can see what he was trying to do with this scene. What’s more troubling, and harks back to the director’s contentious statement at Cannes, is how life then imitates art. “The Ride of the Valkyries” was used in the Iraq War to psych up American troops before the battle for Fallujah in 2004, the marines’ Humvees blaring out the music as they prepared for some of the most intense fighting since Vietnam. And then art imitated life imitating art when the use of amplified Wagner in Iraq was replicated in the Sam Mendes’s 2005 movie Jarhead.

 

In the minds of those who were never involved (that’s to say, most of us), Apocalypse Now has come to define our image of the Vietnam War much more vividly than other celebrated movies about the conflict: The Deer Hunter, Platoon or Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, the latter filmed in London’s Docklands and feeling about as Indochinese as a multi-storey car park in Croydon.

 

Earlier this year, Coppola released what would seem to be the definitive version of Apocalypse Now, the so-called Final Cut, still including Redux’s French plantation stopover, a wordy interlude that does slow the action (as well as featuring an opium-infused soft-core sex scene that could have come from the contemporaneous Emmanuelle films of Just Jaekin). The encounter with the French does, however, provide some much-needed political and historical context, the plantation owner claiming that it was the Americans who invented the Viet Minh (the precursors of the Viet Cong) during the Second World War.

 

What is clear from Coppola’s various edits is that Apocalypse Now is not 40 years old, but 40 years in the making. It has its flaws and Coppola could never find a satisfactory ending however many times he re-arranged the footage because perhaps he has never really worked out what he was trying to say (was Kurtz mad or sane? Was he as resigned to his death as the sacrificial caribou?). But taken as a whole, it’s a bold (verging on insane), original and epic piece of movie-making and, in the age of Netflix and CGI, we shall probably never see its like again. Meanwhile, like the America that was still in its imperial pomp when it became embroiled in Vietnam, Coppola was never quite the same again once he returned from the jungle."

- Gerard Gilbert, The Independent

 

From the Filmmaker

 

 

Why It's Great

 

Critic Opinion

 

"Francis Ford Coppola's stated reason for making Apocalypse Now (1978)
was to assist Americans in "putting the Vietnam experience behind them."6
In the context of Lévi-Strauss's and Malinowski's analyses, then, this
statement of authorial intentionality reveals much about almost all the
post-Vietnam War Hollywood films, the film in question, and American
society in general. Only a handful of U.S. films about Vietnam--The Green
Berets (1968), In the Year of the Pig (1969), and Hearts and Minds (1974)
being the most notable--were made during the Indochina conflict. Those that
followed tended to depoliticize the struggle, turning it into a test of manhood,

a rite of passage, or personal trial. Many dealt with the valid issue of
"Vieterans'" return to postwar American civilian life (Rolling Thunder
[1977], Coming Home [1978] The Deer Hunter [1978], First Blood [1982])
but avoided overt commentary on the moral and political questions of the
war itself. Instead, they tended to focus on an individual's personal reaction
to his Vietnam experience and subsequent readjustment.

 

 

Apocalypse Now turned the real-life specificity of U.S. imperialism into an
abstract and philosophical cinematic meditation on good and evil, light and
dark. In the process, American society was treated to a film that represented
not so much Vietnam-era America as America's idealized view of itself
post-Vietnam, that is, from the enlightened perspective of a historical
hindsight that could sublate contradictions. As such, Apocalypse Now might
be categorized as both a pro-war movie and an anti-war movie in that the
film's cinematic and political ambiguity both conceals and reveals a national
ambivalence toward the Vietnam War.

 

This same strategy of "having it both ways" can be seen in
Apocalypse Now. Having been rewarded with an Oscar, financial success,
and increased professional prestige for his articulation of national divisions
in Patton, Francis Coppola seemed to have learned his lesson well when he
came to make the equally ambivalent Apocalypse Now. In the latter project,
however, he enlisted the aid of cowriter John Milius, who is well known for
his right-wing jingoistic predilections (Dirty Harry [1971], Magnum Force
[1973], The Wind and the Lion [1975], Conan the Barbarian [1982], Red
Dawn [1984]). This divided authorship may account for some of the film's
unresolved combinations of dovish and hawkish elements. On the one
hand, Apocalypse Now has been read as an anti-war statement because
many scenes depict the absurdity and outright lunacy of America's Vietnam
policies, as well as the machinations of high-level military commanders.
On the other, certain elements of its content and style work against this
dovish reading. For instance, the title, Apocalypse Now, seems to
emphasize the destructive, pro-war side of the film, derived as it was from
the anti-war slogan "Peace Now!" Yet it is also possible that the title is an
ironic warning of the ultimate dangers of extended conflict."

- Frank P. Tomasulo, The Politics of Ambivalence: Apocalypse Now as a Pro-war and Anti-war film

 

Public Opinion

 

"Monumental cinema. Coppola's greatest achievement and probably one of the four or five greatest films I've ever seen. Was in awe from the first minute to the last. Oh, and Vittorio Storaro is a God among cinematographers." - @Jake Gittes

 

The AI's Poetic Opinion

 

apocalypse now

"I smell napalm
Beamless and grim,—
Mimes in thine eyes,
Dead men and him."

- Samantha

 

 

Factoids

 

Previous Rankings

 

#37 (2020), #56 (2018), #29 (2016), UNRANKED (2014), #44 (2013), #30 (2012)

 

Director Count

 

Stanley Kubrick (3), Ridley Scott (3), Brad Bird (2), James Cameron (2), John Carpenter (2), Martin Scorsese (2),  David Fincher (2), Alfred Hitchcock (2), Spike Lee (2), Sergio Leone (2), Hayao Miyazaki (2), Christopher Nolan (2), The Russos (2),  Andrew Stanton (2), Peter Weir (2), Roger Allers (1), Paul Thomas Anderson (1), John G. Avildsen (1), Frank Capra (1), Charlie Chaplin (1), Brenda Chapman (1), Joel Coen (1), Francis Ford Coppola (1), Wes Craven (1), Jonathan Demme (1), Pete Doctor (1), Stanley Donan (1), Clint Eastwood (1), Victor Fleming (1), William Friedkin (1), Terry Gillam (1), Michel Gondry (1), Steve Hickner (1), Rian Johnson (1), Terry Jones (1), Gene Kelly (1), Akira Kurosawa (1), John Lasseter (1), Richard Linklater (1), Katia Lund (1), David Lynch (1), Richard Marquand (1), Fernando Meirelles (1), Rob Minkoff (1), Katsuhiro Otomo (1), Jan Pinkava (1), Makoto Shinkai (1), Vittorio de Sica (1), Steven Spielberg (1), Isao Takahata (1), Quentin Tarantino (1), Guillermo Del Torro (1), Gary Trousdale (1), Lee Unkrich (1), Gore Verbinski (1), Orson Welles (1), Simon Wells (1), Billy Wilder (1), Kirk Wise (1), Kar-Wai Wong (1), Robert Zemeckis (1)

 

Decade Count

 

1930s (2), 1940s (3), 1950s (4), 1960s (5), 1970s (6), 1980s (9), 1990s (14), 2000s (17), 2010s (7)

 

Country Count

 

Japan (6), Italy (3), Brazil (1), China (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1), UK (1)

 

 

Franchise Count

 

Pixar (6), Ghibli (4), Alien (2),  The MCU (2), Star Wars (2), WDAS (2), Avatar (1), Before (1), Blade Runner (1), Dollars (1), The Exorcist (1), Finding Nemo (1), Hannibal (1), Halloween (1), Incredibles (1), The Lion King (1), Pirates of the Caribbean (1), Rocky (1), Scream (1), The Shining (1), Thing (1), Toy Story (1), The Wizard of Oz (1)

 

Re-Weighted Placements

 

#39 Fanboy Ranking, #27 Cinema Ranking

#41 Old Farts Ranking, #30 Damn Kids Ranking

#26 Ambassador Ranking, #32 All-American Ranking

#22 Cartoon Ranking, #33 Damn Boomer Ranking

 

 

Edited August 6, 2022 by The Panda

[Ozymandias]

the best Alien movie

 

the best Coppola movie

 

[The Panda]

I mean, it's no Dunkirk. It's not fix you.

 

Number 31

 

 

"FUBAR"

 

About the Film

 

Synopsis

 

"As U.S. troops storm the beaches of Normandy, three brothers lie dead on the battlefield, with a fourth trapped behind enemy lines. Ranger captain John Miller and seven men are tasked with penetrating German-held territory and bringing the boy home."

 

Its Legacy

 

"Saving Private Ryan is perhaps the most iconic WWII film ever made. Its depiction of the Normandy landings drew critical acclaim when the film premiered in 1998, leaving many viewers breathless. The film was lauded at the Oscars, winning in five categories, and was honored at many other award ceremonies.  It is seen as a fitting tribute to the American troops who landed in France and thereby opened the second front in Europe, an event which would eventually lead to the final defeat of Nazi Germany.

 

The first 27 minutes of the film offers an incredible insight into the horrors of Omaha Beach landings, which took place on June 6th, 1944, as the main characters battle almost seemingly impossible conditions while being pinned down on the beach. What strikes people the most is the realistic depiction of the landing, as it doesn’t present the soldiers as superheroes, but rather as confused and scared men who are simply doing their best to survive.

 

 

The film definitely provided a glimpse of the hell on earth that was unleashed on D-Day, but it also brought back some painful memories for those who had experienced the event some 54 years before the film was made. In a period of two weeks from when the film was first screened, the Department of Veterans Affairs had to increase staffing on its telephone counseling line, as numerous veterans were disturbed by the film and were compelled to seek professional help. There were more than 100 phone calls during this time, which was more than the department had received in years from WWII vets. According to experts, the reason behind this surge of calls for help is the different perception in the public’s eye of WWII veterans as compared to the veterans of wars that came afterward, such as the Vietnam War or Gulf War.  At home, the men who risked their lives on the beaches of Normandy were perceived as heroes and heroes aren’t allowed to show emotion.

 

Also, the generations that fought in WWII were children of the Great Depression, raised not to complain much and to suppress their feelings, to grin and bear it. Thus, the explosion of emotion that occurred during the initial screenings, which many surviving veterans had been invited to see, was both natural and terrible.  It also meant that audiences across the country had a chance to see first-hand the trauma caused by war."

- Nikola Budanovic, War History Online

 

From the Filmmaker

 

 

Why It's Great

 

Critic Opinion

 

" THE RELEASE IN 1998 OF Saving Private Ryan by Hollywood director Steven Spielberg has revived again the debate over war and remembering. In this case, audiences have flocked to see a story of American troops, led by a dedicated captain, John Miller (Tom Hanks), attempt to rescue a young private from the field of battle just after the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944. Some reviewers have stressed how Spielberg's film is the first to truly show the horror of battle, especially in its opening scenes, which depict the American landing on Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944. Modern technology has allowed the filmmaker to reproduce the frightening sound of German gunfire and the brutal reality of exploding body parts. American soldiers are shattered and maimed on the beachhead, and some fall apart emotionally from the stress of battle. As many reviewers have suggested, the movie counters images of heroic warriors by disclosing the real terror of combat and is in many ways an antiwar story.1

 

Ironically, while the Spielberg film reveals the brutality of war, it preserves the World War II image of American soldiers as inherently averse to bloodshed and cruelty. The war was savage; the average American GI who fought it was not. American men in this story are destroyed by war, and only a few actually enjoy killing Germans. At its rhetorical core, the story's argument would have seemed very familiar to audiences in the 1940s: the common American soldier was fundamentally a good man who loved his country and his family. He went to war out of a sense of duty to both, and he wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. Rather than being a natural-born killer, he was a loving family man who abhorred the use of extreme force but could inflict it when necessary. This point is made well in the figure of John Miller. A high school teacher and part-time baseball coach from Pennsylvania, he disdains brutality and says that every time he kills another man he feels "farther from home." Traumatized himself at times by battle, this common man still has heroic potential and is always up to the task of taking on the German war machine. It is a model found in dozens of wartime films that depicted  average guys from Brooklyn or Texas who loved their everyday life in America or the girl next door. Miller is ultimately a representation of the brand of common man heroism that infused the culture of wartime America. Without a doubt, a platoon of men like him could save Private Ryan and win the war. Norman Corwin's famous radio broadcast of May 8, 1945, on the occasion of Germany's surrender, makes the case for the courageous possibilities of the ordinary person. "Take a bow, GI. Take a bow, little guy," Corwin told his listeners. "The superman of tomorrow lies at the feet of you common men this afternoon."

 

 But, as Spielberg remembers, he also forgets. Forties' calls to patriotic sacrifice were contingent on assurances of a more democratic society and world. Govern ment leaders such as Franklin D. Roosevelt took pains to make democratic promises in pronouncements like "The Four Freedoms." And the Office of War Information (OWI) told Hollywood producers to make films that not only helped win the conflict but reminded audiences that it was "a people's war," which would bring about a future with more social justice and individual freedom. The democracy for which "the people" fought, in fact, was a cultural blend of several key ideas: tolerance, individualism, anti-totalitarianism, and economic justice. The representation of open-mindedness was aimed particularly at reducing ethnic  tensions at home. American individualism was venerated in the call for personal freedoms and even in the rhetoric of military recruiters. They promised that army life would not destroy a man's self-interests but would preserve the same balance between individualism and teamwork that Americans experienced in their sporting endeavors. Frank Capra's series "Why We Fight" (1942-1945) was a vivid example of the use of anti-totalitarian images to encourage support for the war. And slogans like "Freedom from Want" acknowledged the popular desire for economic security after the 1930s.

 

 

 Spielberg's turn to the moral individual in heroism and in pain at the expense of the moral or democratic community, however, suggests just how much this film is a product of the late twentieth century and not of the 1940s. The attainment of democracy rested in the 1940s on a sense of reciprocity between individuals and the institutions that governed their lives. In a totalitarian state, government and institutions dominated individuals; in a democracy, a relationship of mutual respect existed between citizens and institutions. People served the nation because they believed the nation would serve their democratic interests in return. Narratives that endorsed this relationship, such as those found in many wartime films, effectively linked the fate of the individual with the fate of the nation. Today, however, narratives and images about the destiny of individuals command more cultural space than those about the fortunes of nations. As a result, both political speech and commemoration have more to say about victims or people who have met tragic fates. Spielberg's memory narrative of moral men represents very much the late twentieth century's concern with the singular person in the past, present, and future. Cohesive narratives that effectively link personal stories to collective desires for progress are harder to find. Those that exist are disrupted by images of victims. Heroism and patriotism remain, but they must fight for cultural space with the claims of those who have sorrowful tales from the past or those who insist on redress rather than self-denial. Many believe that, since Vietnam, it is harder to commemorate gallantry and victory or to suppress individual subjectivities at the expense of collective ones. Thus delineations of victims-from Vietnam, from the AIDS epidemic, from racism, from child abusers, from rapists, from drugs, even from World War II-now command more cultural space. Statements of what was lost now eclipse expressions of what was gained.

 

 Postwar films tended to treat the American warrior and American society in a more evenhanded way. They shared with Saving Private Ryan a tendency to remember the turmoil and stress. This is not an invention of the 1990s. Postwar films and culture actually went further, however, in exploring the consequences of the war, which is exactly what Bartov argued when he claimed that the acknowl edgment of victims impelled individuals to find reasons for the suffering.21 Because the Spielberg film attempts to preserve the memory of patriotic sacrifice more than it desires to explore the causes of the trauma and violence, however, it is more about restoring a romantic version of common-man heroism in an age of moral ambivalence than about ending the problem of devastating wars. The failure of Saving Private Ryan to evoke the memory of "a people's war," moreover, reveals the film's conservative politics. Past, present, and future are now contingent on standards of individual behavior rather than on democratic ideals such as the quest for equality, a just capitalism, or citizen participation in political life. Spielberg's film about trauma and patriotism suggests why the contemporary turn to memory, anguish, and the testimony of victims is about more than the demise of the cultural power of the nation. It also has a great deal to do with a sense of disenchantment with democratic politics and with turning political life over to "the people." Visions of a democratic community are feeble in this story, which remembers individuals in a more exemplary way than they were understood by their own generation."

- John Bodnar, The American Historical Review , Jun., 2001, Vol. 106, No. 3 (Jun., 2001), pp. 805-817

 

Public Opinion

 

"absolutely lost my shit when Vin Diesel showed up."

- Diamonbold, Letterboxd

 

The AI's Poetic Opinion

 

saving private ryan

"Imagine
To save the life of a man
But give up your own
Drown the wild red feeling with a ray
I'm fucking tired of this poetry
Make up with dA vInci already"

- Samantha

 

 

Factoids

 

Previous Rankings

 

#41 (2020), #22 (2018), #83 (2016), #49 (2014), #67 (2013), #29 (2012)

 

Director Count

 

Stanley Kubrick (3), Ridley Scott (3), Brad Bird (2), James Cameron (2), John Carpenter (2), Martin Scorsese (2),  David Fincher (2), Alfred Hitchcock (2), Spike Lee (2), Sergio Leone (2), Hayao Miyazaki (2), Christopher Nolan (2), The Russos (2),  Steven Spielberg (2), Andrew Stanton (2), Peter Weir (2), Roger Allers (1), Paul Thomas Anderson (1), John G. Avildsen (1), Frank Capra (1), Charlie Chaplin (1), Brenda Chapman (1), Joel Coen (1), Francis Ford Coppola (1),  Wes Craven (1), Jonathan Demme (1), Pete Doctor (1), Stanley Donan (1), Clint Eastwood (1), Victor Fleming (1), William Friedkin (1), Terry Gillam (1), Michel Gondry (1), Steve Hickner (1), Rian Johnson (1), Terry Jones (1), Gene Kelly (1), Akira Kurosawa (1), John Lasseter (1), Richard Linklater (1), Katia Lund (1), David Lynch (1), Richard Marquand (1), Fernando Meirelles (1), Rob Minkoff (1), Katsuhiro Otomo (1), Jan Pinkava (1), Makoto Shinkai (1), Vittorio de Sica (1), Isao Takahata (1), Quentin Tarantino (1), Guillermo Del Torro (1), Gary Trousdale (1), Lee Unkrich (1), Gore Verbinski (1), Orson Welles (1), Simon Wells (1), Billy Wilder (1), Kirk Wise (1), Kar-Wai Wong (1), Robert Zemeckis (1)

 

Decade Count

 

1930s (2), 1940s (3), 1950s (4), 1960s (5), 1970s (6), 1980s (9), 1990s (15), 2000s (17), 2010s (7)

 

 

Country Count

 

Japan (6), Italy (3), Brazil (1), China (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1), UK (1)

 

Franchise Count

 

Pixar (6), Ghibli (4), Alien (2),  The MCU (2), Star Wars (2), WDAS (2), Avatar (1), Before (1), Blade Runner (1), Dollars (1), The Exorcist (1), Finding Nemo (1), Hannibal (1), Halloween (1), Incredibles (1), The Lion King (1), Pirates of the Caribbean (1), Rocky (1), Scream (1), The Shining (1), Thing (1), Toy Story (1), The Wizard of Oz (1)

 

Re-Weighted Placements

 

#28 Fanboy Ranking, #32 Cinema Ranking

#52 Old Farts Ranking, #26 Damn Kids Ranking

#45 Ambassador Ranking, #30 All-American Ranking

#40 Cartoon Ranking, #30 Damn Boomer Ranking

 

 

 

[The Panda]

And 5 more of the just misses!

 

Number 130

Get Out (2017, Jordan Peele)

 

Number 129

Nashville (1975, Robert Altman)

 

Number 128

The Matrix Reloaded (2003, Lilly and Lana Wachowski)

 

Number 127

Ghostbusters (1984, Ivan Reitman)

 

Number 126

The Intouchables (2011, Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano)

 

[WorkingonaName]

who put the Matrix reloaded on their list

[That One Girl]

1 hour ago, WorkingonaName said:

who put the Matrix reloaded on their list

#4 slot

[Ipickthiswhiterose]

I NEED to see Nashville, one I've missed out on for many years.

 

Alien is such a wonderful film, an easier watch than I sometimes remember it as. (Same with Rear Window, actually) It does a great job of mixing the tension of the unnatural uncanny spook environment, THEN body horror parasite story, THEN slasher runaround: three horror movies in one and the audience barely notices the switches. Fantastic audience manipulation.

 

Having loved Heart of Darkness as a young lit geek I never see Apocalypse Now as a war movie - it's just a background for the internal journey and witnessing of abused power and chaos, just as the Belgian Congo is in the original. I was very familiar with the book before I watched the film so my first viewing was a little tainted by that and I was, if anything, disappointed, but multiple re-watches have been really rewarding and valuable in discovering what it has to offer. 

 

Saving Private Ryan on the other hand...It's a great 40 minute docudrama (albeit of ultra-dodgy accuracy given what it's aiming for) followed by some padding and then a very good pilot episode for Band of Brothers. But the stitching between those two things and the idea that the two elements put together represents a complete whole is IMO a good-faith leap of credence given by some just because it's Spielberg. It's not that I think it's a poor film: Mostly, it's just that I don't think its *a film*. And given the thematic and visceral qualities of other war movies in existence despite it's technical excellence I don't think it really *says* all that much either.

 

Genuinely surprised to see Ghostbusters miss out. It seems to be a standard on popular Top 100s. I think it was on my list too, albeit not super high - which I suspect was it's reason for missing out in general, lots of people including it but it being quite low.

[YM!]

2 hours ago, Ipickthiswhiterose said:

Genuinely surprised to see Ghostbusters miss out. It seems to be a standard on popular Top 100s. I think it was on my list too, albeit not super high - which I suspect was it's reason for missing out in general, lots of people including it but it being quite low.

Ghostbusters is kind of mid tbh.