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

[Eric Furiosa]

8 minutes ago, Rorschach said:

You’re a real one yourself, Jake.

Are you and Jake beautiful though? Remember only beautiful people think it’s the best Spielberg

[Plain Old Tele]

Best Spielberg is mean Spielberg. 

[Ronin46]

Jaws then Raiders then tricky after that.

[Ozymandias]

24 minutes ago, Plain Old Tele said:

Best Spielberg is mean Spielberg. 

 

 

[Rorschach]

1 hour ago, Eric the Tank Engine said:

Are you and Jake beautiful though? Remember only beautiful people think it’s the best Spielberg

Yes, it is his best.

[Eric Furiosa]

2 minutes ago, Rorschach said:

Yes, it is his best.

 

[Ethan Hunt]

4 hours ago, Plain Old Tele said:

Best Spielberg is mean Spielberg. 

Big Temple of Doom fan here 

Edited August 7, 2022 by Ethan Hunt

[The Panda]

I am facing my judgement

 

Number 27

 

 

"Hasta la vista, baby."

 

About the Film

 

Synopsis

 

"Nearly 10 years have passed since Sarah Connor was targeted for termination by a cyborg from the future. Now her son, John, the future leader of the resistance, is the target for a newer, more deadly terminator. Once again, the resistance has managed to send a protector back to attempt to save John and his mother Sarah."

 

Its Legacy

 

"Today it’s easy to forget how risky it was to turn the Terminator, an iconic villain, an unstoppable, merciless death machine from an apocalyptic future, into a good guy who doesn’t kill anyone, stands on one leg when ordered, and looks like a horse when he attempts to smile. But Kassar didn’t balk, granting Cameron a budget ten times what he had had for the original, while stipulating that the film had to be in cinemas just 14 months later.

 

Even with some expensive sequences cut – including John Connor sending Kyle Reese back through time in the heart of Skynet HQ, a scene that would ultimately materialise in Terminator Genisys – the script was lengthy and extremely ambitious. Beginning on October 8th, 1990, the shooting schedule was front-loaded with effects shots to give the maximum time for CGI pioneers Industrial Light and Magic to realise the liquid metal T-1000 (Robert Patrick).

 

 

To further ease ILM’s burden, every trick in the book was employed to get T-1000 shots in camera wherever possible: quick shots of the villain’s fight with the T-800 (Schwarzenegger) in the steel mill finale were done with a stuntman in a foil suit; a chrome bust of Patrick was hand-raised into frame for a helicopter pilot’s reaction shot; the reforming of the shattered T-1000 was achieved by blowing mercury around with a hair dryer; bullet hits on the character’s torso were represented by spring-loaded silver “flowers” that burst out of a pre-scored shirt on cue.

 

Stan Winston Studio also constructed a number of cable-controlled puppets to show more extensive damage to the morphing menace. These included “Splash Head”, a bust of Patrick with the head split in two by a shotgun blast, and “Pretzel Man”, the nightmarish result of a grenade hit moments before the T-1000 falls to its doom in the molten steel.

 

The film’s legacy in visual effects – for which it won the 1992 Oscar – cannot be understated. A straight line can be drawn from the water tendril in Cameron’s The Abyss, through T2 to Jurassic Park and all the way on to Avatar, with which Cameron again broke the record for the highest-grossing film of all time. The Avatar sequels will undoubtedly push the technology even further, but for many Cameron fans his greatest achievement will always be Terminator 2: Judgment Day, with its perfect blend of huge stunts, traditional effects and groundbreaking CGI."

- Neil Oseman, Red Shark News

 

From the Filmmaker

 

 

Why It's Great

 

Critic Opinion

 

" Ninety years ago, when the United States was caught in the grip of an economic and political crisis fueled by the rapid changes in industrial and agrarian relations, L. Frank Baum wrote The Wonderful Wizard ofOz, a work with a strong allegorical undercurrent that reflected the economic and political conflicts of his day.1 As the twenty-first century approaches, the United States again faces economic dislocations, and different anxi eties permeate the country. Post-modern faiiy-tales are not found in books, but rather in the popular culture of the movies. Today's fairy-tale is Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Arnold Schwarzenegger's megahit, an escapist action flick that features sensational special effects and lots of violence. Costing nearly $ 100 million to produce—more than any previous motion picture—Terminator 2 has proven itself well worth this massive initial investment, grossing more than $200 million at the American box office with even larger returns predicted from overseas distribution and video rentals. By all accounts, this movie has set both new records and new standards for an industry that has stagnated in recent years. Yet Terminator 2 is more than just an escapist action flick—it is an unwitting allegoiy and judgment on the United States in the closing years of the twentieth century. Once the premise that the characters and events in the Terminator movies have symbolic meaning is accepted, a viewer can see that a sophisticated political, economic, and social commentary about the future of the United States runs unconsciously throughout the entire film. While these subliminal themes have less to do with the film's immense box office appeal than Schwarzenegger, they do exercise a certain unseen pull on the audience by pandering to their anxieties and fears about the future. Indeed, a careful analysis of the movie reveals much about what concerns Americans today.

 

 A quick perusal of any major newspaper will soon turn up an article about a new plant closing, a domestic industry that is threatened by foreign competition, or increased calls for protectionism in the Congress. This economic turmoil was not always the case. In the wake of the Second World War, the American economy surpassed all the other economies in the world. Two-thirds of the world's gold supplies were in American posses sion, more than half the items manufactured in the world came from American factories, half the world's merchant tonnage was American, and nearly one-half of all world trade involved the United States either as exporter or importer.2 This artificial economic dominance gradually fell away in the years after World War II. With European and Japanese rivals no longer digging themselves out from beneath the rubble of their bombed out cities, our industries have increasingly had to face competitors from abroad. In the past decade, whole sectors of the American economy have fallen into economic crisis. The United States' once dominant economic position in steel and automobiles has come under great threat from abroad. The newly developing industries based on computer and information technologies are increasingly becoming the domain of America's economic competitors in Japan. These present-day realities are reflected in Termi nator 2.

 

 

 A look at Terminator 2's allegorical content shows that it represents a struggle between declining industries in the United States and the rising high-technology ones of an economically vibrant Japan. In the first Terminator movie, the Terminator represents American industrial capi talism during its worst stage—man mechanized to the point of complete exhaustion and dehumanization. A disastrous wedding of old with new occurs in the body of the Terminator. The old technology of the manufac turing industry is merged with high-technology computer chips and biotechnology as the Terminator's metal skeleton is covered with living tissue. This marriage of "Steel and Flesh" is just as dysfunctional and violence-prone as Bismarck's marriage of "Iron and Rye" was more than a century earlier.3 The Terminator lacks both the morality of humans and the productivity of other machines. Rather, it is a conscienceless cyborg assassin programmed to kill and destroy. It is the worst of both worlds."

- Mark Duckenfield, Terminator 2: A Call to Economic Arms?

Studies in Popular Culture

 

Public Opinion

 

"By acclamation, the best film of the franchise (or of all time, depending on who you ask). I'll always love its predecessor more though. It's more ruthless, more atmospheric. T2's got a lot going for it, but there's this undercurrent of awareness it has that's always bothered me; it starts early, with the opening riff of "Bad To The Bone", and it continues from there. Some of it is tedious (we have to set the rules of cybernetic behavior and regularly refine them, we have to reuse certain lines of dialogue), and some of it rules (we have to have an even bigger finale, we have to continually dunk on the cops) - but there's a recognition that's being wanted from me that I could do without.

 

Regardless of all this, the movie still rules. The effects hold up very well, Sarah Connor delightfully takes zero shit, and the feels at the end are genuine in a way that's pretty unique for a blockbuster."

- Adam, Letterboxd

 

The Poetic Opinion

 

terminator too

"Poetry, Wordsworth
wrote, will have no
easy time of it when
the discriminating

 

powers of the mind
are so blunted that
all voluntary
exertion dies, and

 

the general
public is reduced
to a state of near
savage torpor, morose,

 

stuporous, with
no attention span
whatsoever; nor will
the tranquil rustling

 

of the lyric, drowned out
by the heavy, dull
coagulation
of persons in cities,

 

where a uniformity
of occupations breeds
cravings for sensation
which hourly visual

 

communication of
instant intelligence
gratifies like crazy,
likely survive this age."

- Tom Clark

 

 

Factoids

 

Previous Rankings

 

#13 (2020), #14 (2018), #25 (2016), #33 (2014), #12 (2013), #16 (2012)

 

Director Count

 

James Cameron (3), Stanley Kubrick (3), Christopher Nolan (3),  Martin Scorsese (3),  Ridley Scott (3), Steven Spielberg (3), Brad Bird (2), John Carpenter (2), David Fincher (2), Alfred Hitchcock (2), Spike Lee (2), Sergio Leone (2), Hayao Miyazaki (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), 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 (7), 1980s (10), 1990s (16), 2000s (17), 2010s (8)

 

Country Count

 

Japan (6), Italy (3), UK (2), Brazil (1), China (1), Mexico (1), Spain (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), E.T. (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), Terminator (1), Thing (1), Toy Story (1), The Wizard of Oz (1)

 

Re-Weighted Placements

 

#18 Fanboy Ranking, #33 Cinema Ranking

#47 Old Farts Ranking, #18 Damn Kids Ranking

#28 Ambassador Ranking, #28 All-American Ranking

#43 Cartoon Ranking, #27 Damn Boomer Ranking

 

 

[The Panda]

Well, at least we didn't copycat IMDb.

 

Number 26

 

 

"Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'"

 

About the Film

 

Synopsis

 

"Framed in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates – including an older prisoner named Red – for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope."

 

 

Its Legacy

 

 

From the Filmmaker

 

 

Why It's Great

 

Critic Opinion

 

"It  is  neither  possible  nor  desirable  to  provide  a  comprehensive  account  of all the films that might qualify for consideration under the above heading. Rather  four  significant  ‘prison  films’  of  the  1990s  will  be  discussed.  The chosen  films  are:  The  Shawshank  Redemption  (1994),  d.  Frank  Darabont,American  History  X(1998),  d.  Tony  Kaye,  Convict  Cowboy(1995),  d.  Rod Holcomb,  Con Air(1997), d. Simon West.The  Shawshank  Redemption  (1994)  starred  Morgan  Freeman  and  Tim Robbins. Although not hugely successful on its initial cinema release it wenton to achieve enormous success through video rental and sales.4This incred-ibly  popular  film  is  set  almost  entirely  within  a  prison  and  yet  is  often referred to in review and comment as being ‘not really a prison film’. It both ‘fits’  and  does  not  ‘fit’  the  suggested  conventions  of  the  prison  film  genre and the arguments of the authors reviewed above. American History X (1998)is in some ways almost a mirror image of, or answer-film to, The ShawshankRedemption. Set in contemporary Los Angeles the story of the film concerns the drift of its main character (Derek Vinyard/Ed Norton) into right wingextremist  violence  and  his  redemption/rehabilitation  whilst  in  prison  for the murder of two young black men. The film attempts to be a hard-edged look at one aspect of life in contemporary urban America. The film is widely used as a basis for discussion across a variety of courses in American univer-sities and in other educational settings.

 

 

Set  initially  in  the  1940s,  The  Shawshank  Redemptionis  the  story  of  a  Mainebanker,  Andy  Dufresne  (Tim  Robbins),  who  is  (wrongly)  convicted  of  the murder  of  his  wife  and  her  lover  and  sentenced  to  life  imprisonment  in Shawshank Penitentiary. For the first three years of his sentence, Andy has a tough time surviving, particularly as he becomes the object of attention of a

gang of prison ‘gays’ known as the sisters.8  However, when the captain of the prison  guards  and  then  the  prison  warden  come  to  discover  and  benefit from  Andy’s  financial  acumen  his  star  in  the  prison  begins  to  rise.  Andy becomes responsible for laundering the money generated by the warden’scorrupt scams and in return is allowed to expand the prison library and start a  prisoner  education  scheme.  However,  when  the  warden  denies  Andy  an opportunity to prove his innocence (by murdering another inmate) Andy is left with no option but to escape Shawshank and to blow the whistle on the warden’s corrupt schemes.

 

But The Shawshank Redemptionhas quite a different feel to the prison filmscomplained  about  by  Wilson  (1993).  Rather  than  being  shown  as  beingbeyond  redemption  the  prisoners  organise  their  own  rehabilitation.  Andyexpands the library and provides an opportunity for prison education, buthis fellow inmates assist, participate in, and support these activities. The pris-oners in Shawshank are shown as being supportative of one another, with theactivities  of  ‘the  sisters’  being  the  only  real  significant  example  of  institu-tionalised  inmate  violence.  The  prison  population,  particularly  the  friend-ship  group  associated  with  Andy  and  Red,  are  a  long  way  from  being  acinematic equivalent of the popular conception of ‘the worst of the worst’.This is significant.Stylistically Shawshank is an interesting film to analyse. The film is set inthe past, although the action unfolds chronologically, approaching but notreaching the present day. The visual action takes place in the present tense,whilst  the  wistful  voice-over,  supplied  by  the  narrator  (Red/MorganFreeman),  is  given  in  the  past  tense.  The  voice-over  serves  to  establishbeyond doubt that Andy was/is someone special. There is no ‘frame story’provided  within  which  to  locate  the  past  events.  Despite  the  past  tense  ofthe voice-over the story does not unfold as if told in flash back. In additionto  the  use  of  these  devices,  the  lighting,  choice  of  camera  shots,  use  ofmusic,  and  the  emotional  pull  of  the  viewer  to  identify  with  the  heroicnature of Andy’s struggle, all serve to give the film its fabular quality whichis invariably recognised in discussions of the film. Shawshank does not in any way pretend to be a ‘realist’ examination of the US prison system. It is ‘just’a story.

 

It  would  seem  then  that,  as  Rafter  (2000)  suggests,  The  ShawshankRedemptionis  an  ideal  candidate  for  the  category  of  feel-good  escapist fantasy. It is relatively easy to generate an unfavourable reading of the filmwhich could be accused of being hypocritical on two counts. Firstly, that itputs a formulaic and superficial critique of prison which is in no way seri-ously  critical  of  any  actually  existing  experience  of  incarceration.Secondly, that through the casting of Morgan Freeman as co-lead, the filmis given an appearance of racial equality which it in fact does not live upto.  On  closer  examination  the  film  reproduces  a  predominantly  white main  cast  and  only  a  weakly  multi-racial  mise  en  scene.  However,  theresearch  undertaken  for  this  article  might  suggest  that  a  revision  of  this assessment  is  appropriate.  Shawshank  was  produced  against  the  back-ground of a growth of action-adventure movies set in prisons. These oftenfeature  a  mise  en  sceneof  racially  divided  prisons  controlled  by  warring factions of ‘hard-core gang members’ and characterized by high levels institutionalized  inmate  violence.  This  representation  of  prison,  it  couldbe  argued,  resonated  with  the  popular  conception  promoted  by  some sections of the US prison system that some prisons were becoming unmanageable and required a new generation of supermax institutions to housethe ‘worst of the worst’ of the inmate population (King 1999). But, it couldbe  argued,  both  the  notion  of  ‘the  worst  of  the  worst’,  and  its  cinematic equivalent,  are  a  misrepresentation  of  the  actual  composition  of  the  USprison population and its characteristics, and could be regarded as one ofthe ‘prison myths’ that underpinned the substantial increase in the rate of incarceration witnessed in the US in the 1990s. The Shawshank Redemptionclearly sets itself against this trend and attempts to circulate an alternative representation of prisoners as being worthy and capable of rehabilitation.In this respect the film might be welcomed by anyone wishing to transformprisons away from their role as ‘holding pens’ and towards them becom-ing a more therapeutic environment (Wilson and Reuss 2000). The Shaw-shank  Redemption could  be  regarded  as  an  attempt  at  ‘doing  good  by stealth’."

- Sean O'Sullivan, The Howard Journal

 

 

Public Opinion

 

"If you ever feel down,
If you ever feel like giving up,
If you ever feel like nothing is gonna workout,
If you ever feel hopeless,
If you ever feel like dying,

 

Watch this film. It is a miraculous medicine. It is a wonderful movie."

- Peaceful Stoner, Letterboxd

 

The Poetic Opinion

 

letter to red

"Dear Red,
If you're reading this, you've gotten out
And if you've come this far, maybe you're
willing to come a little further.
You remember the name of the town,
don't you? I could use a good man to
help me get my project on wheels.
I'll keep an eye out for you and the
chessboard ready.
Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing,
maybe the best of things, and no good
thing ever dies. I will be hoping that
this letter finds you, and finds you well.

Your friend

Andy"

- Shaun Cronick

 

Factoids

 

Previous Rankings

 

#25 (2020), #25 (2018), #18 (2016), #14 (2014), #22 (2013), #24 (2012)

 

Director Count

 

James Cameron (3), Stanley Kubrick (3), Christopher Nolan (3),  Martin Scorsese (3),  Ridley Scott (3), Steven Spielberg (3), Brad Bird (2), John Carpenter (2), David Fincher (2), Alfred Hitchcock (2), Spike Lee (2), Sergio Leone (2), Hayao Miyazaki (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), Frank Darabont (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 (7), 1980s (10), 1990s (17), 2000s (17), 2010s (8)

 

 

Country Count

 

Japan (6), Italy (3), UK (2), Brazil (1), China (1), Mexico (1), Spain (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), E.T. (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), Terminator (1), Thing (1), Toy Story (1), The Wizard of Oz (1)

 

Re-Weighted Placements

 

#24 Fanboy Ranking, #22 Cinema Ranking

#35 Old Farts Ranking, #21 Damn Kids Ranking

#40 Ambassador Ranking, #23 All-American Ranking

#55 Cartoon Ranking, #24 Damn Boomer Ranking

 

 

Edited August 7, 2022 by The Panda

[The Panda]

heat.

 

Number 25

 

 

"I'm angry. I'm very angry, Ralph. You know, you can ball my wife if she wants you to."

 

About the Film

 

Synopsis

 

It's heat.

 

 

Its Legacy

 

"heat." - @aabattery, in telegram

 

"the thing about Heat is it's Heat." - @TOG, in telegram

 

"Heat." - @cannastop, in telegram

 

"heat." - @tribefan69501 in telegram

 

"Heat." - @Ethan Hunt, in telegram

 

"Heat." - @Jake Gittes, in telegram

 

"Red Heat." - @DAR, in telegram

 

"Bathroom, heat, shitty blinds." - @SchumacherFTW, in telegram

 

"Heat" - @MCKillswitch123, in telegram

 

"heat." - @MrPink, in telegram

 

"Yay the heat rash healed." - @YM!, in telegram

 

"Heat" - @WrathOfHan, in telegram

 

"In the Heat of the Heights" - @Rorschach, in telegram

 

"see, here's the problem, that type of water exists in the tropics

 

but tropical summer not quite for you, you're found of dry heat." - @Jason to @Plain Old Tele in the telegram

 

From the Filmmaker

 

 

Why It's Great

 

Critic Opinion

 

"In Heat, all the meticulous authenticity and coolly portrayed characters inherent to a Michael Mann picture fulfill a crime epic of incredible scale and ambition. Over the course of twenty years, Mann developed and accumulated detail for his script, and in 1995 he set out to broaden the limitations of an otherwise formal genre structure. Lending an atypical approach to a basic “cops and robbers” scenario, Mann achieved a film less about crime genre exploits and more about the failing machismo of two uncompromising men. As a professional thief heading an expert crew and the unrelenting detective pursuing them, icons Robert De Niro and Al Pacino make their first onscreen appearance together in the film. Through their magnificent performances and Mann’s operatic script, Heat becomes a crime-infused melodrama beyond compare. More than basic genre thrills, which this film has in abundance, Mann’s moody character piece explores the inner lives of his subjects, how their work affects their relationships, and how their ongoing existential and personal dilemmas derive from their professional lives. Unique to the film is Mann’s daring balance of human tragedy and genre excitement; even while he considers weighty themes of identity and troubled masculinity, his treatment of the action operates in a hyper-real mode that grounds the film’s theatricality into a stirring, convincing drama.

 

Mann’s career as a feature filmmaker consists of projects infused with a single unchanging contradiction: his are films marked by their realism yet brimming with style. By definition, style is an ornamentation of reality, and this aesthetic conflict has never been ideologically resolved by Mann yet it is the balance of these components that makes many of his films great. Amid Mann’s occasional failures, the normally incongruous pairing of style and realism delivers the kind of motion picture to which the director is best attributed. After growing up in a tough Chicago neighborhood where he filmed some of the Chicago riots as a student, Mann attended the London International Film School in the mid-1960s and studied documentary film-making. His footage of the 1968 Paris riots earned him some notoriety, and after several years he broke into television by writing and producing TV movies and cop shows (such as Starsky and Hutch, Police Story, Vega$, Miami Vice, and Crime Story). Strong notices for his ABC movie-of-the-week, The Jericho Mile (1979), about prison life shot entirely within Folsom State Penitentiary, earned Mann and his severe realism attention from Hollywood. Mann’s reputation would be forever solidified by his immersive, stunningly detailed environments that are at once loaded with the capacity for narrative drama, but his work was also inhabited with a remarkable level of pure information. Mann’s authenticity is then counteracted and sometimes balanced by his visual style, which includes a rich use of colors and visual metaphors to enhance his realism with superbly melodramatic flourishes.

 

 

Heat remains an enduring classic for a number of reasons, not the least of which are De Niro, Pacino, and a number of strong supporting performances. The actors benefit from Mann’s script, as he fleshes out nearly every character in this crime epic, ingraining a level of seriousness and dramatic heft to heighten not only his film’s realism but its emotional impact. This quality sets the film apart from prototypical “cops and robbers” stories. Not one character feels one-dimensional, unnecessary, or unauthentic within the story. Every subplot adds to the complexity of his characters and the film’s dramatic gravitas. Lauren’s shocking suicide attempt is one example among many. Consider also Shiherlis’ wife Charlene (Ashley Judd) and her affair with scummy criminal Alan Marciano (Hank Azaria), a reluctant snitch who gives Charlene up to Hanna. Charlene, who must contend with her gambling addict husband and the risks he takes as a professional thief, while also trying to ensure a future for their young child, resolves to help Hanna capture her husband. But Shiherlis doesn’t follow McCauley’s strict professional code; he says he will forever remain devoted to Charlene, but his fluidity in this respect allows him to eventually evade capture by abandoning his family to escape. Another subplot involves Breeden (Dennis Haysbert), an ex-con just out of Folsom and struggling to reform for his loving wife Lillian (Kim Staunton) in a shoddy-but-legitimate diner post. When McCauley needs to replace his getaway driver on the morning of the bank robbery, he spots Breeden flipping burgers and asks him to join. Breeden agrees and the decision gets him killed. In the aftermath of the robbery, a news report announces Breeden’s death. Mann cuts to Lillian for a wordless expression of utter heartbreak.

 

Mann’s affinity for tragedy throughout Heat might reach too far if he did not counterbalance his melodrama with astounding realism and subtle style. The director demonstrates efficiency, self-control, and simplicity worthy of comparison to Jean-Pierre Melville’s similarly themed Le cercle rouge (1970), whose penchant for cool style and scrupulous details were clearly an influence on Mann. Note the Melvillian stroke in Mann’s robbers and how they dress; McCauley’s crew does not look like crooks or even very masculine. They look stylish, if not chic in their designer suits; clean cut and organized. As McCauley notes, “Do you see me doin’ thrill-seeker liquor store hold-ups with a ‘Born To Lose’ tattoo on my chest?” Of course not. McCauley’s crew is professional, and therefore not subject to the stupid mistakes made by robbers in Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing (1956) or Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992). Mann has elevated these professionals with melodrama and tragedy. Another clear influence is Raoul Walsh’s gangster classic White Heat (1949), an equally tragic tale starring James Cagney as a criminal made insane by his inner conflicts and his chosen line of work. Mann’s film is distinct in that he resolves to conceal his drama within the reality of his setting, the sprawling concrete wasteland of Los Angeles. Shooting at 85 locations around LA, Mann depicts a mythic asphalt jungle where the muted street scenery provides a contrast to his dramatic characters. Cinematographer Dante Spinotti’s lensing is blue-hued and dark, conveying characters that appear pale in their surroundings, yet their lives are filled with hugely dramatic events. The look of Heat is textured and gloriously cinematic, just as much as Mann’s choice of music that alternates between classic orchestral strings to the booming sounds of Moby’s “New Dawn Fades”. Always, the director is juxtaposing realism and style."

- Brian Egert, Deep Cut Review

 

Public Opinion

 

"It's cool when a bunch of geniuses at the height of their powers all converge on one single perfect project."

- Patrick Williams, Letterboxd

 

 

The Poetic Opinion

 

heat

"O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.

 

Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air—
fruit cannot fall into heat
that presses up and blunts
the points of pears
and rounds the grapes.

 

Cut the heat—
plough through it,
turning it on either side
of your path."

- H. D.

 

Factoids

 

Previous Rankings

 

#35 (2020), #75 (2018), #77 (2016), UNRANKED (2014), #89 (2013), UNRANKED (2012)

 

Director Count

 

James Cameron (3), Stanley Kubrick (3), Christopher Nolan (3),  Martin Scorsese (3),  Ridley Scott (3), Steven Spielberg (3), Brad Bird (2), John Carpenter (2), David Fincher (2), Alfred Hitchcock (2), Spike Lee (2), Sergio Leone (2), Hayao Miyazaki (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), Frank Darabont (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), Michael Mann (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 (7), 1980s (10), 1990s (18), 2000s (17), 2010s (8)

 

Country Count

 

Japan (6), Italy (3), UK (2), Brazil (1), China (1), Mexico (1), Spain (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), E.T. (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), Terminator (1), Thing (1), Toy Story (1), The Wizard of Oz (1)

 

Re-Weighted Placements

 

#37 Fanboy Ranking, #18 Cinema Ranking

#30 Old Farts Ranking, #22 Damn Kids Ranking

#24 Ambassador Ranking, #26 All-American Ranking

#71 Cartoon Ranking, #20 Damn Boomer Ranking

 

 

[The Panda]

Number 24

 

 

"Gentlemen, that's a very sad thing... to be nothing."

 

About the Film

 

Synopsis

 

"The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors’ prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other."

 

Its Legacy

 

"12 Angry Men (1957), the first feature film directed by the legendary Sidney Lumet, is a Hollywood classic that, ironically, helped to define an era of filmmaking grounded in the gritty realism and frenetic energy of urban New York. A simple story of a jury’s deliberations in a murder case, where tensions boil over during a hot summer day in the city, it launched Lumet’s career as a filmmaker with a special gift for capturing ordinary lives tossed into difficult situations of moral choice. 12 Angry Men has become a cultural touchstone, a time capsule of American justice before the civil rights era and the expansion of civil liberties in the 1960s. Its influence has been vast, and it established Lumet’s reputation as an artist at the forefront of social change.

 

 

Without anyone’s necessarily realizing it at the time, 12 Angry Men was among the first films to signal a shift away from the influence and sensibility of the Hollywood studio system. The movie was shot in New York and, with the exception of its star, Henry Fonda, was cast with actors, the eleven other jurors—an all-star roster of character actors, including E. G. Marshall, Ed Begley, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Klugman, and Jack Warden—known, if at all, for their New York stage and television work. This was typical of the so-called New York School of filmmaking—with its focus on social issues, urban settings, and moral decay—which came to define an era of social consciousness and realism in cinema, stretching from On the Waterfront (1954) to Midnight Cowboy (1969) and into the 1970s.

 

The movie also foreshadowed America’s cultural obsession with the law as both moral object lesson and entertainment. If not for the enduring legacy of 12 Angry Men, there may never have been an audience for television’s Law & Order or The Practice, or even the novels of John Grisham and Scott Turow. Interestingly, the small screen’s first iconic lawyer, Perry Mason, began pacing courtrooms and breaking down witnesses in 1957 as well, three years after Twelve Angry Men, the teleplay, made its debut during American television’s golden era.

 

Lumet, who died in 2011 at the age of eighty-six, would, of course, go on to direct many other classics in a career that spanned six decades, around two hundred teleplays, and more than forty feature films. He was nominated for five Oscars before receiving one for lifetime achievement in 2005. And yet in the minds of many, 12 Angry Men is the film that defined his career, one that so memorably, if not obsessively, focused on social justice and moral inquiry. It is not surprising that Lumet, whose lifetime coincided with so many of the injustices of the twentieth century—from the Holocaust to the Hollywood blacklist—would choose as the subject of his first feature a story painted in the gray brushstrokes of prejudice."

- Thane Rosenbaum, The Criterion Collection

 

From the Filmmaker

 

Why It's Great

 

Critic Opinion

 

"Sidney Lumet's 1957 film "12 Angry Men" is required viewing for any Americans old enough to sit on a jury. More than just an intense character drama (although it is exemplary in that regard), "12 Angry Men" depicts a criminal justice system wherein thoughtful deliberation, context, crime, and class are all carefully discussed and considered during a murder trial. It's essentially a version of jury deliberation wherein everything seems to be working the way it ought to be — that means disagreements, that means confronting biases and prejudices, and that means considering the implications of how brutal and unjust it may be to sentence a young man to death.

 

And while it may be an idealized version of the criminal justice system, "12 Angry Men" is also very critical of it. The jury deliberation process, the film points out, is vulnerable to the lazy, disinterested caprices of ordinary people who would rather be anywhere else, and who accept that the death penalty is just sort of a natural, unquestioned part of all this. At the start of the film, most of the jurors think their murder case is so cut-and-dry, they have no problems with killing the defendant in the electric chair (the preferred form of execution used by the state of New York in 1957). It takes a full day of heated deliberation for some of them to realize that the death penalty may not be the best idea to mix into a criminal case.

 

 

Lumet, as far as I have been able to discover, never spoke out directly against the death penalty, but all throughout his career, his films were about how institutions are prone to corruption and lackadaisical expressions of banal evil, and how individuals who listen and understand one another can break that cycle. This was true in "Dog Day Afternoon," it was true with "The Verdict," it was certainly true with Lumet's corrupt cop dramas "Serpico" and "Prince of the City," and it's especially true of "12 Angry Men."

 

The history of the death penalty in the United States is checkered at best, often leaving the choice of whether or not to execute its citizens left in the hands of state legislatures. Michigan abolished the death penalty as long ago as the 1840s. In 1897, Congress ruled that it could be used to punish those convicted of federal crimes. Despite this, in 1911, Minnesota abolished the practice. After 1957, when "12 Angry Men" came out, six additional states were to abolish it as well. In the landmark 1972 case Furman v. Georgia, the death penalty was considered to be rife with racist leanings — Black people were executed far more than white people — and it was banned outright. Several states, however, re-worded their laws to gain access to capital punishment again, and by 1977, it was back on the table. 

 

In 2022, 24 states still use the death penalty."

- Witney Seibold, SlashFilm

 

Public Opinion

 

""Jury Duty For Dummies." You had 12 characters you had to balance, but their personalities were all clear. Even with the 12 characters and back and forth banter, it was easy to follow." - @Jandrew

 

The Poetic Opinion

 

twelve angry men

"It was on Playhouse 90

That Twelve Angry Men began

The story of a jury's judgment

Of an innocent man.

 

Eleven men on the jury

Said the defendant had done wrong

But one juror said to them

I do not go along.

 

The lone holdout stated patiently

You've all made a snap judgment

One by one he convinces them

That the man is innocent.

 

Robert Cummings was the star

When it was presented on TV

Henry Fonda is most remembered

As the star of the movie."

- RobertLust, AllPoetry

 

 

Factoids

 

Previous Rankings

 

#14 (2020), #5 (2018), #7 (2016), #8 (2014), #28 (2013), #35 (2012)

 

Director Count

 

James Cameron (3), Stanley Kubrick (3), Christopher Nolan (3),  Martin Scorsese (3),  Ridley Scott (3), Steven Spielberg (3), Brad Bird (2), John Carpenter (2), David Fincher (2), Alfred Hitchcock (2), Spike Lee (2), Sergio Leone (2), Hayao Miyazaki (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), Frank Darabont (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), Sydney Lumet (1), Katia Lund (1), David Lynch (1), Michael Mann (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 (5), 1960s (5), 1970s (7), 1980s (10), 1990s (18), 2000s (17), 2010s (8)

 

 

Country Count

 

Japan (6), Italy (3), UK (2), Brazil (1), China (1), Mexico (1), Spain (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), E.T. (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), Terminator (1), Thing (1), Toy Story (1), The Wizard of Oz (1)

 

Re-Weighted Placements

 

#31 Fanboy Ranking, #19 Cinema Ranking

#14 Old Farts Ranking, #29 Damn Kidis Ranking

#33 Ambassador Ranking, #22 All-American Ranking

#51 Cartoon Ranking, #22 Damn Boomer Ranking

 

 

[The Panda]

Number 23

 

 

"That's the way it crumbles... cookie-wise."

 

Synopsis

 

"Bud Baxter is a minor clerk in a huge New York insurance company, until he discovers a quick way to climb the corporate ladder. He lends out his apartment to the executives as a place to take their mistresses. Although he often has to deal with the aftermath of their visits, one night he’s left with a major problem to solve."

 

 

Its Legacy

 

"It’s not a walk in the park to make a truly wonderful film and then do an equally entrancing follow-up. The pressure is sometimes hard to handle, with the audience’s expectations soaring and studio ambitions, in financial terms, just as demanding. It’s definitely not a walk in the park, at least unless you’re Billy Wilder. After the great success of Some Like It Hot, the legendary director once again joined forces with Jack Lemmon in The Apartment, the 1960 comedy-drama that earned the impressive number of ten Academy Award nominations, five of which turned to gold.

 

Written by Wilder and favourite collaborator I.A.L. Diamond, The Apartment is a niftily crafted comedy full of smart humor and not the least dishonest, unconvincing romance, elevated by beautiful performances by Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray and a memorable score by Adolph Deutsch, with an especially successful main theme by renowned British composer Charles Williams. The imaginative work of art director Alexandre Trauner shouldn’t be overlooked as well, for his way of staging the interier of the huge insurance company office is very original and refreshing. But most of all, it is the talented cast, a brilliant man behind the camera and one of the best comedic screenplays of the past century that make the film work so well. The Apartment meant a lot for the careers of Lemmon, who proved his diversity by demonstrating the ability to play both tragic and light-hearted roles, and MacLaine, who built a name for herself in the following years founded on the success of this film.

 

The Apartment is quite frankly a masterfully shot picture based on exquisite writing, a film whose value hasn’t diminished one single bit in over a half of a century, a film which continues to hold a special place in our hearts and minds. Billy Wilder was certainly one of a kind. The Apartment is quite frankly a masterfully shot picture based on exquisite writing, a film whose value hasn’t diminished one single bit in over a half of a century."

- Sven Mikulec

 

From the Filmmaker

 

 

Why It's Great

 

Critic Opinion

 

" Billy Wilder credited Berlin as the inspiration for his filmmaking career (Au rich and Jacobsen 50) and twice used the city to conjure the shadow of Na zism and indicate German culpability, but Vienna has mostly remained a subtext, a source of ideas, attitudes, and intertexts that nevertheless seasoned much of his oeuvre. In these too often discounted or disregarded memory jolts is a tacit expression that provides valuable nuance to the knowledge about the man and the artist. Wilder was born into a German-speaking and Austria-identifying Jewish bourgeois family in Sucha, a Polish town in what was Austria-Hungary, but many biographies, even after his death in 2002, have falsely identified his birthplace as Vienna (Hutter). The most surprising such work was the remembrance written by the author of a popular inter view book on Wilder, filmmaker Cameron Crowe (Crowe, "Beyond Sunset Boulevard"). Wilder was indeed educated in Vienna, gaining his first tastes of social hierarchy and identity creation/destruction there, topics that would figure prominently in his cinema. But already in Vienna he was the "other"; the fledgling First Republic rejected his family's application for Austrian citi zenship even though they had been German-speaking subjects of the mon archy and had relocated to Vienna before the end of the War, in 1916. Wilder thus held Polish citizenship during his time in Vienna and Berlin (Krenn 7 8). Ironically, it was perhaps because of this awareness of being (officially) transcultural, he stood out more as an Austrian in Berlin than the other 

 

 

The Apartment's masses also embrace the other sub-rosa sexual contract that Schnitzler displays in Liebelei, Reigen, and particularly Leutnant Gustl— that of the mature married woman and the young gentleman. But even here, modern America has clouded an already questionable moral issue with a banal sense of both independence and conformity. When Baxter ultimately rejects the desires of a married woman he picks up in a bar whose husband is "in Cuba," (suggesting geopolitical tensions and potential America  fense), she loudly threatens to complain about his negative attitude directly to her husband. With the exception of Baxter's neighbors, Dr. and Mrs. Dreyfuss (jack Kruschen and Naomi Stevens), an obviously Central European Jewish cou ple, many of the characters in the film bear German and Slavic surnames such as Eichelberger, Dobisch, and Matuschka but like Fran Kubelik are not typed as foreigners. Instead, these first- or second-generation "other"

 

Americans blend in with the traditionally American nativist Anglo-Saxons, Scottish, and Dutch like Sheldrake, Baxter, MacDougall, and Vanderhoff, and their aspira tions to crawl up the corporate/class ladder are more than a nod to Americas socially unequal melting pot. It provides a biting reflection of Wilder's own experiences in late imperial Vienna, where non-ethnic German subjects from the monarchy's crownlands would conform and vie for social advancement. Dr. Dreyfuss's name suggests the notorious Dreyfus Affair and the difficulty of assimilation (either in Old Austria or New America) given anti-Semitism, class structures, and racism. Yet the Dreyfuss couple is the most assimilat ed of all in the healthiest understanding of the concept. They are concerned about their community and their neighbors, and they respect the dignity that America has promised them in an egalitarian democracy. Dr. Dreyfuss saves the life of the suicidal Fran, and he and his wife convey the concept of humanism-as-morality to Baxter—as Dreyfuss puts it, to be a "Mensch." It is this Menschlichkeit or humanism that functions as a most important reference to Wilder's own mourning regarding the Holocaust. The suggestion of its loss flashes back to an Austria-Hungary as a duality of mythic soul and corrupt body, or of the once Jewish haven and the future hell."

- Robert Dassanowsky, Journal of Austrian Studies

 

Public Opinion

 

"I’ll fully admit that it was really hard to pay attention to the second half because I learned about the loss of Betty by then, and it really clouded my head and put me in a bad mood. I’m only giving this 5 stars because I know it’ll rock my socks when I’m actually in a good mood, because Billy Wilder is a king and can do no wrong."

 - @Eric the Tank Engine

 

 

The Poetic Opinion

 

look who's inside again

"Trying to be funny and stuck in a room
There isn't much more to say about it
Can one be funny when stuck in a room?

 

I took a big f*cking breath

 

Trying to be funny and stuck in a room
There isn't much more to say about it
Can one be funny when stuck in a room?
Being in, trying to get something out of it
Try making faces
Try telling jokes, making little sounds"

- Bo Burnham

 

Factoids

 

Previous Rankings

 

#78 (2020), UNRANKED (2018, 2016, 2014, 2013, 2012)

 

Director Count

 

James Cameron (3), Stanley Kubrick (3), Christopher Nolan (3),  Martin Scorsese (3),  Ridley Scott (3), Steven Spielberg (3), Brad Bird (2), John Carpenter (2), David Fincher (2), Alfred Hitchcock (2), Spike Lee (2), Sergio Leone (2), Hayao Miyazaki (2), The Russos (2),  Andrew Stanton (2), Peter Weir (2), Billy Wilder (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), Frank Darabont (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), Sydney Lumet (1), Katia Lund (1), David Lynch (1), Michael Mann (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), Kirk Wise (1), Kar-Wai Wong (1), Robert Zemeckis (1)

 

Decade Count

 

1930s (2), 1940s (3), 1950s (5), 1960s (6), 1970s (7), 1980s (10), 1990s (18), 2000s (17), 2010s (8)

 

 

Country Count

 

Japan (6), Italy (3), UK (2), Brazil (1), China (1), Mexico (1), Spain (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), E.T. (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), Terminator (1), Thing (1), Toy Story (1), The Wizard of Oz (1)

 

Re-Weighted Placements

 

#43 Fanboy Ranking, #16 Cinema Ranking

#2 Old Farts Ranking, #41 Damn Kids Ranking

#18 Ambassador Ranking, #24 All-American Ranking

#68 Cartoon Ranking, #18 Damn Boomer Ranking

 

 

[The Panda]

 

Number 22

 

 

"You shouldn't keep souvenirs of a killing. You shouldn't have been that sentimental."

 

 

About the Film

 

Synopsis

 

"A retired San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend’s wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her."

 

Its Legacy

 

"Alfred Hitchcock was a director whose films are recognisable as his own, even without the use of odd or striking techniques, and even without creating his own plotlines or scripts. Hitchcock drew his ideas from other sources, such as novels, and seldom wrote his own screenplays, yet most movie buffs know the look and tone of a Hitchcock film almost instantaneously. Vertigo, released in 1958, famously showcases his style of directing exceptionally well. While, of course, it is another of the horror films he is known for, the film is a more profound, more psychological thriller than much of his work.

 

Vertigo may or may not be Hitchcock’s favourite creation, as some movie historians claim, but it is certainly one he put an excessive amount of effort into. The idea of obsession fascinated him, and he was immediately drawn to the obsession-themed novel, which is the basis for the film D’entre Les Morts. He had also expressed great interest in the horror potential of a confusion of fantasy with reality, which Vertigo also provides. He contributed to the script, which took over a year to write and was closely involved with every aspect of the movie’s production, including the set design, costume design, and soundtrack. Every aspect of Vertigo expresses Hitchcock’s vision for the film.

 

The horror in Vertigo is subtle, based not on outward menace but on the dangers of self-deception, obsession, treachery and misplaced trust. In the second half of the movie, much of the tension derives from Ferguson’s compulsion to remake Judy Barton in his dead lover’s image. A scene in which he chooses clothing for Judy which resembles what Madeleine used to wear is not conventionally frightening, but his intensity, and Judy’s losing battle to be accepted as more than another woman’s ghost, have a chilling quality which Hitchcock exploits beautifully. Their relationship is clearly doomed, but how it might end, what the hidden truth is about Judy Barton, and how far the emotionally unbalanced Ferguson might go in the process provides suspense until the grim and ironic conclusion.

 

 

Hitchcock uses every detail in Vertigo to establish a mood and further the story. He made a point of using a new type of film, which provided more explicit images and allowed for more subtlety of shade and colour than was previously available. He chose Kim Novak’s wardrobe himself, dressing Madeleine elegantly in muted colours of white and pale grey in a bid to portray her as withdrawn and elusive. Novak as Judy Barton, meanwhile, wears bright colours, and her clothing is attractive, even voluptuous, but commonplace. Madeleine really does appear to be the idealised ghost of the more honest and ordinary Judy.

 

Hitchcock helped design the sets and had to have some sets custom-built, as no studio set or real-life setting provided precisely the look and mood he wanted. He also chose the music, which was typical of 1950s films but effective. Hitchcock was open to new and unusual uses of music to set the tone in a film – his distinctive use of a single violin in the murder scene in Psycho may be the best-known example – and he specifically sought out composer Bernard Hermann, who wrote the score for Citizen Kane, to provide music for Vertigo, in addition to carefully chosen classical music for certain scenes.

 

Even the cinematography was innovative for the time. The film made use of unusual zoom-in techniques, apparently explicitly invented for the film, which helped to establish the feeling of actual vertigo during some of Ferguson’s worst moments. Some of the problematic interior shots of the famous bell tower cost inordinate amounts of money for brief images, which contributed to the suspense of the scene."

- Monica Reid, Far Out Magazine

 

From the Filmmaker

 

 

Why It's Great

 

Critic Opinion

 

" For more than a decade, since the publication, in 1975, of Laura Mulvey's essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," Hitch cock's 1958 film Vertigo has been at the vortex of critical debates about the fundamental structures of classical narrative cinema.1 Psychoanalytic, formalist, feminist, post-structuralist, and Marxist readings of the film have multiplied, making it one of the most frequently analyzed films in the Hitchcock canon, if not in cinema history in general. I will not attempt to explain why Vertigo has been thus honored by critics, though I hope that the intrinsic interest of the film will become obvious in what follows. This is, rather, a critical review of the essays on Vertigo that seem to me most relevant to feminist theory. My aim is to identify certain fundamental prob lems in some of the most interesting of these readings: to point to, for example, a nostalgia for an empirically-based history, the es sence of which is an unproblematized set of references, upon which  the "truth" of the film or the ultimate reading of that film would rely. In my confrontation with Hitchcock critics including Mulvey, Rothman, Cavell, Wexman, Modleski, and Jameson, such issues as maternity, bisexuality, the place of the "real" woman in a materi alist reading of the film, and the meaning of allegory from a for malist perspective on Vertigo will be considered. I will offer, finally, a reading that speaks of critical failure even as it gives itself as yet another ultimate, in this case allegorical reading of the film. I will add that, of course, my own presentation of these critics' work is itself "allegorical," in De Man's sense of the word, in that they are figures for me: my allusions to these critics' theories about the film no doubt fail to capture any referential "truth" about their argu ments.

 

 

 Tania Modleski also describes the mother-daughter relationship as an occulted but extraordinarily powerful model for structures of identification in Hitchcock's films. Vertigo is what Modleski calls a "limit text" (p. 87) in its treatment of the problematics of identifi cation first introduced in Rebecca, in that both Vertigo and Rebecca tell the tale of a dead woman's grip on a living "daughter" figure. Hitchcock's ambivalent fascination and Scottie's identification with this mother-daughter dyad, in which the mother constitutes the ghostly, unknown figure the daughter risks becoming, seems to Modleski to deconstruct the very notion of masculine identity. In deed, this is a powerful reading. Unlike Keane, Modleski empha sizes the violence with which the threatened male spectator or di rector seeks to reassert the control destablized in Vertigo by, among other things, the spectacle of female bisexuality, as evidenced in the daughter's continued investment in the ghostly mother.

 

Why is this bisexuality so threatening? Modleski tells us that this is because the woman's bisexuality reminds the man of his own (menacing and alluring) bisexual nature. Just as the Stewart char acter in Rear Window is immobilized and in that way can be iden tified with the victimized female invalid whose murder he is inves tigating, Vertigo's Stewart is in a position of enforced passivity-he suffers from his painful identification with femininity, his own po tential, even actual femininity. At the beginning of the film, while he watches Midge draw a brassiere designed on the principle of the cantilever bridge (a double gesture of demystifying the woman's constructed body and alluding to the mystery of Madeleine, who will jump into the Bay near the bridge), Scottie, too, is wearing female undergarments-a corset. By the mid-point in the film, Scottie has become completely identified not just with Madeleine, but with the sad Carlotta: like her he wanders the streets looking  for a lost loved one. Scottie is the deprived mother, just as, for Rothman, Hitchcock is the "unknown" and victimized woman (p. 79). I would add to Modleski's argument about the threatening nature of female bisexuality that, as I have implied above, it is the woman's seeming epistemological privilege with respect to the mother and to the fact of maternity that also renders her bisexu ality both suspect and enviable-and finally eminently co-optable by the desiring man who is watching her, though not without risks. (He risks, among other things, the catatonia, the immobilization, and the symbolic castration undergone by Scottie during the course of the film. He also risks death, but does not die. It is the woman, the "feminine" part of the man, his more vulnerable other, the part of him that is umbilically linked to the mother, who dies or is cast off at the end of the film.) In his essay on the unknown woman, Cavell reminds us that for Freud the repudiation of the feminine is "the bedrock beyond which psychoanalysis cannot go."8 In Vertigo the male subject investigates, adores, abhors, bonds with, and fi nally abjects (in the Kristevian sense) the feminine.9 The fascination with the mother may indeed only be invoked in order to permit a more decisive casting off than was earlier, only partially accom plished."

- Susan Write, MLN, Dec., 1991, Vol. 106, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1991), pp. 91093

 

Public Opinion

 

"Watching a Hitchcock film is rather like going to a play: you're constantly reminded that everything is just pretend. Even if the experience is great, it never quite makes you realize that the same things can happen to you, that people like these can plausibly exist in real life. But Vertigo feels startlingly true, almost confessional, because it's clear that it's Hitchcock's most personal film, the one that came closest to revealing his inner turmoil.

 

Vertigo has a plot so convoluted that it's fully apparent that it's a mere set-up to get to the heart of the film: a chronicle of the protagonist Scottie's obsession. The film is also considerably sympathetic toward the two slighted women in Scottie's life: his friend Midge, and Judy, the woman he tries to mold into Madeline, the woman he has grown obsessed with.

 

Judy is looked upon with sympathy throughout the film. She is not an object of desire, and therefore she is allowed to show emotion. She loves Scottie, and all she wants is for him to love her back. "If I change, will you love me?" she asks him, when she realizes that he will never love her for who she is. It's a heartbreaking moment, one that any girl can identify with. It's also a brilliant demonstration of the changes that women, particularly actresses, go through in order to allow others to consider them desirable.

 

 

Scottie cannot love any of these women. He only loves an untouchable image, a fantasy that even Madeline would have been unable to fulfill. Scottie isn't the victim here; he is in fact something like a villain, someone who cannot understand the pain he is inflicting upon the people around him.

 

Scottie is Hitchcock, and Vertigo is a piece of Hitchcock's soul put up for endless scrutiny. It was a brave move, and one that revealed him to be a slightly better human being than Scottie, because his protagonist never realized the harm he caused women, while Hitchcock was fully aware of what he was doing, as the film illustrates. Of course he continued to ignore his wife and lust after a fantasy anyway. Vertigo never tries to present solutions. It simply illustrates a situation, and asks us to care."

- Judy, Letterboxd

 

The Poetic Opinion

 

vertigo

"Last time I fell in a shower room
I bled like a tumbril dandy
and the hotel longed to be rid of me.
Taken to the town clinic, I
described how I tripped on a steel rim
and found my head in the wardrobe.
Scalp-sewn and knotted and flagged
I thanked the Frau Doktor and fled,
wishing the grab-bar of age might
be bolted to all civilization
and thinking of Rome’s eighth hill
heaped up out of broken amphorae.

 

When, anytime after sixty,
or anytime before, you stumble
over two stairs and club your forehead
on rake or hoe, bricks or fuel-drums,
that’s the time to call the purveyor
of steel pipe and indoor railings,
and soon you’ll be grasping up landings
having left your balance in the car
from which please God you’ll never
see the launchway of tires off a brink.
Later comes the sunny day when
street detail whitens blindly to mauve

 

and people hurry you, or wait, quiet."

- Les Murray

 

 

Factoids

 

Previous Rankings

 

#52 (2020), #50 (2018), #61 (2016), UNRANKED (2014, 2013), #79 (2012)

 

Director Count

 

James Cameron (3), Alfred Hitchcock (3), Stanley Kubrick (3), Christopher Nolan (3),  Martin Scorsese (3),  Ridley Scott (3), Steven Spielberg (3), Brad Bird (2), John Carpenter (2), David Fincher (2), Spike Lee (2), Sergio Leone (2), Hayao Miyazaki (2), The Russos (2),  Andrew Stanton (2), Peter Weir (2), Billy Wilder (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), Frank Darabont (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), Sydney Lumet (1), Katia Lund (1), David Lynch (1), Michael Mann (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), Kirk Wise (1), Kar-Wai Wong (1), Robert Zemeckis (1)

 

Decade Count

 

1930s (2), 1940s (3), 1950s (6), 1960s (6), 1970s (7), 1980s (10), 1990s (18), 2000s (17), 2010s (8)

 

Country Count

 

Japan (6), Italy (3), UK (2), Brazil (1), China (1), Mexico (1), Spain (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), E.T. (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), Terminator (1), Thing (1), Toy Story (1), The Wizard of Oz (1)

 

Re-Weighted Placements

 

#32 Fanboy Ranking, #17 Cinema Ranking

#15 Old Farts Ranking, #25 Damn Kids Ranking

#9 Ambassador Ranking, #25 All-American Ranking

#14 Cartoon Ranking, #25 Damn Boomer Ranking

 

 

 

[Blankments]

Vertigo is one of the only three movies I've walked out of at the theater (the other two were West Side Story (2021) and Vincente Minelli's The Clock)

[The Panda]

UGH IT POSTED WITHOUT MY PERMISSION WILL REPOST

 

 

Edited August 7, 2022 by The Panda

[Cap]

The Apartment jumping from 78 to 23 is proof we need to NOT go to the old scoring system.

 

[That One Girl]

Heat

[The Panda]

Number 21

 

 

"Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads."

 

About the Film

 

Synopsis

 

"Eighties teenager Marty McFly is accidentally sent back in time to 1955, inadvertently disrupting his parents’ first meeting and attracting his mother’s romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by rekindling his parents’ romance and - with the help of his eccentric inventor friend Doc Brown - return to 1985."

 

Its Legacy

 

"The Power of Love

With Huey Lewis and the News coming fresh off their chart-topping 1983 album Sports, the band was a no-brainer choice to contribute Back To the Future’s soundtrack. Along with the lesser known “Back in Time,” “The Power of Love” appears in all three of the series’ films, most notably when Marty is skateboarding to school in Part I. A hard-rock version is also featured when his band the Pinheads auditions for the school’s Battle of the Bands competition, with Lewis himself making a cameo to tell the kids they’re “just too darn loud.” The song’s ties to the film carried over to the song’s music video, which features Doc Brown accidentally losing the DeLorean while watching a performance from the group.

 

 

Reviving the Phrase "Great Scott"

Aside from time travel, we can thank Doc Brown for bringing the phrase “Great Scott!” back into the American lexicon. The phrase was widely used in literature throughout the late 1800s, but had basically been phased out well before the film’s release. With it being Doc’s catch-phrase throughout the series, it was revived and eventually immortalized in memes across the internet.

 

Elijah Wood's Film Career

Even though Elijah Wood was well on his way to becoming a child star after appearing in a David Fincher-directed Paula Abdul video, his brief appearance in Part II was his first major film role. Wood is “Video Game Boy #2” and meets Marty in the diner while playing a light gun arcade game. Marty shows him how to play the “primitive” game with Wood replying, “You mean you have to use your hands?” Admittedly, Wood most likely still would’ve marched into Mordor and voiced a tap-dancing penguin without this credit on his résumé, but as we learn in BTTF, whatever changes in the past affects the future, so let’s not take any chances by leaving out this role on his road to stardom."

- Paste Magazine

 

From the Filmmaker

 

 

Why It's Great

 

Critic Opinion

 

"It could all have been so different. In fact, it could all have been a disaster. At the end of 1984 director Robert Zemekis, who had been shooting his second movie, Back To The Future, for over a month was not a happy man. He was saddled with a lead actor who just didn't cut it as a happy-go-lucky, wisecracking teen. He was more like an angst-ridden 40-year-old struggling to make sense of existence in a godless universe.

 

To make matters worse he'd seen a young actor perfect for the role. Michael J. Fox, then the star of TV sitcom Family Ties radiated youthful joie de vivre and frankly, for a movie with a solid teen base, was just gosh-darned cuter. Something had to be done. Eric Stoltz was out. Fox was in. And they started all over again. But if Back To The Future was the product of a fractured shoot, what emerged was well worth the agony. An almost perfectly wrought slice of old fashioned escapist fantasy, it not only announced the celluloid arrival of the finest light-comedy actor of his generation, but was one of the very few films made in the avaricious, style-challenged 80s that transcended and survived the ugly extremes of its era (skintight stonewashed jeans which, one unkind critic remarked, "look like they've been masturbated over by a troupe of boy scouts" excepted) and which remains an utterly beguiling little gem.

 

 

There's Alan Silvestri's Williamsesque score; a plethora of memorable set-pieces — Marty's premature invention of the skateboard as he rips the top of a young kid's box-cart; his introduction of rock 'n' roll which develops into an anachronistic, Hendrix-style guitar solo ("Maybe you're not ready for that," McFly admits, "but trust me, your kids are going to love it.") as well as nods to other sci-fi movies — an innovation in the mid-80s when Tarantino was still re-racking the late-returns. When Marty has to convince his not-yet-dad to ask his not-yet-mom out he poses as Darth Vader (a variation on the joke appears in Part III when he calls himself Clint Eastwood) and claims to have come from the planet Vulcan.

 

And then there's the tastefully-handled Oedipal riff which, in less talented hands, might have been uncomfortable, if not downright nauseating. But at the heart of Back To The Future is the towering talent of the diminutive (his least favourite word, "Why can't they just call me short?") Michael J. Fox. Thrust into the spotlight in recent times due to illness, Fox established himself here as quite simply the most charming screen presence of the 80s.

 

Zemekis seems to be accusing the 80s of betraying the American Post War dream; Marty's frumpy, nervous, bullied family are not the way things were meant to turn out (next to them at the dinner table you wonder if Marty ever inquired whether he was adopted) in the same way that the grasping 80s are not the legitimate offspring of the "innocent" 50s. Of course this is all a bit speculative. But if Back To The Future doesn't hold big ideas well, it remains like its star — small, but perfectly formed."

- Adam Smith, Empire

 

Public Opinion

 

"This is easily one of the greatest movies of all-time! Not only that, but one of my favorites!

 

Such a great story and it is full of great performances. I think it is one of the few perfect movies!"

- @Empire

 

 

The Poetic Opinion

 

back to the future

"I walk into the cafe
The jukebox is on loud
It's the latest Bill Haley record
My head is in the clouds

I can see Elise sitting in a booth
I want so much to have a chat
She is the girl of my dreams
Life without her is awfully flat

I have my new sneakers on my feet
Maybe at last our orbits will collide
I walk right past her and nod as I do
No response, I really want to hide

The date is November 5 1955
This date is going to go down in history
Just another day, snakes alive!
This is the day I ask Elise to marry me

I sidle over with a piece of paper
On it is written my poem:
"Roses are red, violets are blue
S*d the rest, it's just me and you"

Elise looked at me stunned for a while
Then she said hello and gave me a wry smile!"

- Cignlargo

 

Factoids

 

Previous Rankings

 

#7 (2020), #13 (2018), #19 (2016), #16 (2014), #13 (2013), #19 (2012)

 

Director Count

 

James Cameron (3), Alfred Hitchcock (3), Stanley Kubrick (3), Christopher Nolan (3),  Martin Scorsese (3),  Ridley Scott (3), Steven Spielberg (3), Brad Bird (2), John Carpenter (2), David Fincher (2), Spike Lee (2), Sergio Leone (2), Hayao Miyazaki (2), The Russos (2), Robert Zemeckis (2), Andrew Stanton (2), Peter Weir (2), Billy Wilder (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), Frank Darabont (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), Sydney Lumet (1), Katia Lund (1), David Lynch (1), Michael Mann (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), Kirk Wise (1), Kar-Wai Wong (1)

 

Decade Count

 

1930s (2), 1940s (3), 1950s (6), 1960s (6), 1970s (7), 1980s (11), 1990s (18), 2000s (17), 2010s (8)

 

Country Count

 

Japan (6), Italy (3), UK (2), Brazil (1), China (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1)

 

 

Franchise Count

 

Pixar (6), Ghibli (4), Alien (2),  The MCU (2), Star Wars (2), WDAS (2), Avatar (1), Back to the Future (1), Before (1), Blade Runner (1), Dollars (1), E.T. (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), Terminator (1), Thing (1), Toy Story (1), The Wizard of Oz (1)

 

Re-Weighted Placements

 

#16 Fanboy Ranking, #23 Cinema Ranking

#21 Old Farts Ranking, #24 Damn Kids Ranking

#35 Ambassador Ranking, #20 All-American Ranking

#19 Cartoon Ranking, #23 Damn Boomer Ranking

 

 

[SchumacherFTW]

21st?! NOT HIGH ENOUGH! 

[Eevin]

20 left, i can guess 19 of them fairly confidently in no particular order- 

1. Empire Strikes Back
2. Star Wars
3. Fellowship of the Ring
4. Two Towers
5. Return of the King
6. Schindler’s List
7. Titanic
8. Goodfellas
9. Mad Max: Fury Road
10. Parasite
11. Jaws
12. Lawrence of Arabia
13. Spirited Away
14. Jurassic Park
15. Casablanca
16. The Godfather
17. The Godfather Part 2
18. Raiders of the Lost Ark
19. The Dark Knight

what’s the 20th? uncle drew? something random from 2020/2021?