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

[Lucas]

5 minutes ago, IronJimbo said:

this is what I was thinking when I heard 'The Apartment', literally never heard of that film and I've watched over 20 black and white films

OVER 20???

[IronJimbo]

1 minute ago, Lucas said:

OVER 20???

are you gatekeeping me? I wager that's more than 99.99% of the western populace under the age of 40

[Lucas]

Just now, IronJimbo said:

are you gatekeeping me? I wager that's more than 99.99% of the western populace under the age of 40

What I was implying is it's not exactly crazy not to have heard of The Apartment if you've only seen 20 black and white movies. You made it sound like the list had uncovered the only black and white film you've never seen.

[IronJimbo]

Just now, Lucas said:

What I was implying is it's not exactly crazy not to have heard of The Apartment if you've only seen 20 black and white movies. You made it sound like the list had uncovered the only black and white film you've never seen.

fair enough

 

The thing is I have atleast heard of a bunch of other black and white films i haven't watched, felt weird to be blindsided by a film which appeared so high up in the list. It's just a film no one ever talks about I guess

[Lucas]

2 minutes ago, IronJimbo said:

fair enough

 

The thing is I have atleast heard of a bunch of other black and white films i haven't watched, felt weird to be blindsided by a film which appeared so high up in the list. It's just a film no one ever talks about I guess

Let this be a sign that you should watch The Apartment, would highly highly recommend it. I wanna say it made the top 20 of my list. The best picture winner of the 1960 movies.

[Ozymandias]

9 minutes ago, IronJimbo said:

are you gatekeeping me? I wager that's more than 99.99% of the western populace under the age of 40

 

I don't think you're wrong there, and I'd consider myself much more into cinema than your average normies, which this place is hardly reflective of...I think I racked up like 10 not cools earlier in the thread for saying I don't care for most films made before 1960.

[Ipickthiswhiterose]

1. The Apartment is great and everyone should watch it.

2. Jaws had never been in the Top 10 before? Madness.

3. I forever shunted The Matrix off my Top 100ish lists when I realised how similar it actually is to The Truman Show, which in terms of the same themes, credibility, social critique and existential exploration, IMO, is superior in every way and came out earlier. The Matrix is still a great movie and it's hard to replicate how zeitgeist it felt to people who weren't there at the time. But it has pseud qualities that TTS treated much more accessibly and skilfully IMO.

4. If any franchise series is super high up on these lists that I don't mind, it's LOTR. It was genuinely an all-round remarkable achievement and a generational release. Everything was engineered into place, and the casting (Weinsteining apart) was well thought through will a balance of experience and appropriateness - big celeb casting would have sunk it. 

[IronJimbo]

20 minutes ago, Ozymandias said:

 

I don't think you're wrong there, and I'd consider myself much more into cinema than your average normies, which this place is hardly reflective of...I think I racked up like 10 not cools earlier in the thread for saying I don't care for most films made before 1960.

I would say thats about the year I start getting skeptical about if I'll enjoy the movie, if it's from the early 50s, 40s, 30s etc I will need some convincing that it's actually a good movie to watch today

[krla]

54 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

And no female Director for a live action film? That's not good

The Matrix was just on there.

[4815162342]

Was hoping we could get some great older films into the Top 20, but at least The Dark Knight was finally punted out of the Top 10 (Great movie but lol nowhere near one of the ten best ever)

[The Panda]

4 hours ago, Juby said:

Easily the worst list in BOT forum history. Film at 250-101 are far better than those in the Top100. Awful drops for all my favorites. Don't even care for the rest of this list. I'm out.

Welp, Juby has spoken. I guess I just have to shut things down now and not reveal anything else.

[baumer]

I could wax poetic about Jaws for days on end. I can't stop watching the movie. I think now it's almost become like a security blanket in a way. It's not a technically flawless film, and yet I feel like it's a flawless film. It's got three distinct Acts, oscar-worthy performances from half the cast, it's tense, incredibly gory in some parts and has one of the best scripts ever written in my opinion, which is actually hilarious because they were writing and then rewriting the script sometimes on an hourly basis.

 

As I mentioned in the past, I've seen Jaws over 1,500 times. I've actually lost count how many times I've actually seen it because I still watch it maybe five or six times a year sometimes more.

 

I'm glad it's finally this high on the countdown. 

 

Again, great job panda, Ive really enjoyed reading as much of this countdown as possible.

[Krissykins]

On 7/31/2022 at 11:49 PM, The Panda said:

i've never seen one of these movies, but there yah go. This movie and the next one are also brand new to the countdown!

 

 

Number 85

 

 

"No, please don't kill me, Mr. Ghostface, I wanna be in the sequel!"

 

 

 

About the Film

 

Synopsis

 

"A killer known as Ghostface begins killing off teenagers, and as the body count begins rising, one girl and her friends find themselves contemplating the ‘rules’ of horror films as they find themselves living in a real-life one."

 

Its Legacy

 

"When Wes Craven’s Scream appeared on the scene in 1996, horror was stuck in a rut. The fun, philosophical innovations that characterized the genre in the ’80s had been reduced to derivative, repetitive slasher flicks: stab, wipe, repeat. The cultural ascendence of 1991’s Silence of the Lambs kicked off an era in which stylish cat-and-mouse thrillers with horror elements had dominated mainstream cinema, while more traditional teen slasher fare languished. That all changed when Scream debuted five days before Christmas in 1996. In one single, terrifying opening scene, and with one now-immortal line — “Do you like scary movies?” — Scream transformed ’90s horror and paved the way for generations of smart, genre-savvy filmmaking to come.

 

This might sound like a bland observation from the vantage point of 2021, but in 1996, Scream’s use of other horror movies to navigate its own plot was unique. There’s a well-known idea that horror movies don’t exist in horror movies — that the characters often act as though they’ve never seen one. While the genre is usually extremely self-aware, that self-awareness typically exists offscreen, as a relationship between the filmmaker and the audience. The characters themselves don’t have a clue, and therefore make choices that viewers find to be extremely unwise or naive, because the characters don’t understand the concept of a horror movie. “Scream mainstreamed metatextual storytelling and made that analytical understanding of the genre mainstream in a lot of ways,” says Sam Zimmerman, a curator at the horror streaming service Shudder and former managing editor of Fangoria magazine.

 

 

Prior to Scream, horror movie characters usually didn’t know what story they were in until it was too late — and when they did manage to wake up and seek agency against the narrative, à la Rosemary’s Baby or The Omen, their efforts usually ended badly for them. The notable exceptions to this pattern were the scream queens. These were female characters who fronted long-running franchises: Jamie Lee Curtis’s Laurie in Halloween, Ashley Laurence’s Kirsty in Hellraiser, and Langenkamp’s Nancy in Nightmare on Elm Street, for example. Nearly all of these characters started out vulnerable and helpless but over the course of their franchises, they steadily gained the power to manipulate their stories.

 

Sidney, however, starts her narrative arc at the end of another horror story entirely — she’s been a witness to the murder of her mother. She’s not only self-aware because she’s aware of horror movies; she’s primed to survive this killer because she’s already survived her mother’s killer. Over the course of the Scream franchise’s four films (a fifth film is now slated to arrive in 2022), Sidney’s survival skills ramp up, as does her ability to fight back against the genre she’s in, and by the fourth film, she’s effortlessly turning horror tropes against her would-be killers. And the killings are all inspired by a litany of famous horror villains."  - Aja Romano, Vox

 

From the Filmmaker

 

 

Why It's Great

 

Critic Opinion

 

"The movie was Scream. When it was released in December 1996, the Wes Craven-directed slasher shocked audiences with its graphic violence and delighted horror film fanatics with its witty, trivia-infused dialogue. The story follows high school student Sidney Prescott as she’s stalked and taunted by a movie-obsessed killer in a cheap Halloween mask. Williamson’s smart, layered satire and chilling scares revived American horror movies during a time when most went straight to VHS—and launched a franchise that maintained the original film’s tricky balance of fear and fun. “‘Scream’ was fantastic precisely because it was boldly upfront about its love for and emulation of slasher classics while concurrently discussing and poking fun at them,” wrote critic David Walber in a review praising Scream 4.

 

 

Scream arrived just as a national debate about on-screen violence was boiling over. In February 1996, the New York Times published a dispatch from a Yonkers movie theater where middle schoolers freely bought tickets to R-rated movies. Though MPA ratings had been used since 1968, it was up to individual movie theater employees to enforce them—and Americans were increasingly worried that graphic on-screen sex and violence would lead to a drastic rise in antisocial behavior. “It is an assumption endorsed by a majority of Americans in polls and a theme beloved by politicians from conservative Republicans to President Clinton,” the article noted. 

 

Most members of Scream’s young cast were relatively unknown when filming began in 1996—with the notable exception of Drew Barrymore, who found the script so thrilling that she requested the part of Casey Becker. Barrymore’s onscreen death during the opening scene was both unprecedented and a well-kept secret that shocked audiences. “We didn’t even know if audiences would even forgive us for that,” Craven said. “It was a very risky film, in many ways.” Though Scream had a limited budget of just $14 million, Barrymore and Craven’s involvement drew interest. The cast included Courtney Cox (then Monica Geller on Friends) and David Arquette, who appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair in April 1996 alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Matthew McConaughey and Will Smith (as well as fellow Scream star Skeet Ulrich). Neve Campbell, who played the lead as Sidney Prescott, was unsure of whether she wanted to do another scary movie after The Craft—but ultimately the prospect of working with Craven won her over for the physically and emotionally demanding role." - Michelle Delgado, Smithsonian Magazine

 

 

Public Opinion

 

"It’s been quite a few years since I first saw Scream but recounted it being quite a great horror film but 13 year old me preferred the spoof Scary Movie. Now having giving in some years, I’ve feel more in love with Scream. Craven has delivered a wickedly smart, never-boring slasher chock-full of delightful kills, satisfying thrills and a mystery that never fails to slack. Truly one of the best horror films." - @YM!

 

The AI's Poetic Opinion

 

scream

"A scream so loud
It pierces through the air
Echoing off the walls"

- dA vInci

 

 

Factoids

 

Previous Rankings

 

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

 

Director Count

 

Paul Thomas Anderson (1), John G. Avildsen (1), James Cameron (1), Charlie Chaplin (1), Wes Craven (1), Clint Eastwood (1), William Friedkin (1), Spike Lee (1), Katia Lund (1), Fernando Meirelles (1), Katsuhiro Otomo (1), The Russos (1), Ridley Scott (1), Vittorio de Sica (1), Gore Verbinski (1), Peter Weir (1), Robert Zemeckis (1)

 

Decade Count

 

1930s (1), 1940s (1), 1970s (2), 1980s (2), 1990s (4), 2000s (4), 2010s (1)

 

Franchise Count

 

Avatar (1), Blade Runner (1), The Exorcist (1), The MCU (1), Pirates of the Caribbean (1), Rocky (1), Scream (1)

 

Re-Weighted Placements

 

#87 Fanboy Ranking, #86 Cinema Ranking

#292 Old Farts Ranking, #61 Damn Kids Ranking

#322 Ambassador Ranking, #73 All-American Ranking

#240 Cartoon Ranking, #76 Damn Boomers Ranking

 

 

 

On 8/1/2022 at 12:33 AM, Cap said:

Me at scream:

 

Relieved to see Scream make the top 100. It was obviously, easily my #1. 
 

I didn’t realise the countdown had started until just now, whoops.

 

A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre not making the top 200 gave me the shivers though. 

Edited August 9, 2022 by Krissykins

[baumer]

@Krissykins I was glad to see scream make the list as well. I had it at number 21 on my list. So I guess you and I for sure helped in getting it on there.

[Krissykins]

6 hours ago, charlie Jatinder said:

Wow Toy Story 2 #1. Prestige #2. Infinity War #3.

 

What a great list.

Haha, I panicked for a second and thought Infinity War had actually made the top 100. Phew. 

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

5 hours ago, IronJimbo said:

I watched the 7th seal, it was alright...

It's not like the gender of a director was taken into account, people just voted for the films they like simple as

So then you're saying nobody liked movies made by women

[CaptNathanBrittles]

10 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

So then you're saying nobody liked movies made by women

 

Did you vote for TRIUMPH OF THE WILL?

[Ethan Hunt]

6 hours ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

 

 

And no female Director for a live action film? That's not good

One made the top 10??????

[chasmmi]

9 hours ago, SchumacherFTW said:

How on earth did we never get Jaws in to the top 10 before now?! Bout bloody time! 

because it is terrible. 

[IronJimbo]

51 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

So then you're saying nobody liked movies made by women

oh no I said the following

6 hours ago, IronJimbo said:

It's not like the gender of a director was taken into account, people just voted for the films they like simple as

it's actually on the last page you can go read it