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What do you consider to be the best films ever made?

Taking into consideration some of the following:

1. Great production and direction
2. Great cinematic execution, good photography, sets, costumes, etc.
3. Good and meaningful plot
4. Meaningful thematic development
5. Great acting
6. The stories ability to draw the viewer in
7. The main characters transformation during the process (which is fundamental, I think)
8. The timeless and universally enduring quality of the film
9. Whatever else you might consider

What then do you think are some of the best movies ever made?

Using the above criteria, my top two choices would be To Kill a Mockingbird with Gregory Peck, and Apocalypse Now Redux with Martin Sheen.

Personally, on these kinds of lists that you see floating around, Citizen Kane is always at the top. Yet I fail to see how that could be. I hated Citizen Kane, and I can't help but feel that its classification as The Best Film Ever Made is one of those self-perpetuating lies or mistakes that just keeps being retold and retold because someone sees that list, thinks there must be something in it, and then repeats what they read.

What do you think?

Tags: Cinema, Film, Movies

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on January 21, 2010 at 12:49pm

I wasn't that wild about Wild Strawberries. I liked The Seventh Seal, Shame, and Through a Glass Darkly much better.

Permalink Reply by Edward Teach on January 21, 2010 at 1:47pm

I loved the Seventh Seal... I'll have to check out the others.

I like Wild Strawberries, because the conclusion was so danmed ambiguous... just like life

Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on January 21, 2010 at 1:53pm

It's been too long for me. I'm not sure I remember the ending. I recall not liking it as much though, and I do recall a few scenes, namely the dream sequence.

I just did a reivew of Shame on here just a few days ago, with some video clips.

You can probably find some clips of Through a Glass Darkly on YouTube.

Permalink Reply by Tom Thompson on February 3, 2010 at 12:23pm

A memorable film that I watched recently was Welcome to Dongmakgol (2005).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475783/

This Korean film has a startling contrast moving between grim wartime events and bright colorful happy moods that the viewer cannot help but be drawn in. It isn't just another depressing war movie but still manages to be sobering.

Permalink Reply by shiloh shambaugh on March 4, 2010 at 7:56am

Godfather I & II those are my best films.

Permalink Reply by Randy Rose on March 8, 2010 at 12:40pm

IMHO, one of the best social dramas ever made: Far From Heaven

It has something for everyone and really does a great job at exploring social issues such as racism, homophobia, misogyny, and even classism, to an extent. The artwork is phenomenal and Julianne Moore is one of my favorite atheist actresses.

Permalink Reply by TNT666 on November 16, 2010 at 8:47am

As a poster mentioned on the very first page, best lists are inherently faulty. But I do like to reminisce on the beauty and impact film has had on my life, it is my addiction, my boyfriend, my hobbie, my meditation, my insipiration.

I first logged into IMDB (Internet Movie DataBase, UK) in 1993, other than Webcrawler, it was my first regular website on this new thing called the internet. I have spent hours and days and months archiving all my films here and if the website were to disappear someday, a part of me would die.

So when I'm looking back to my favorites, I can just go over my vote list and reminisce. Interestingly, through the years our memories and perceptions change and so my favorites are not all necessarily in the 10/10 section. As is the case with Something about Mary, which is my favorite comedy of all time.

Cyrano de Bergerac and Tampopo remain my very favorite films ever, fittingly the first French, and the second Japanese. Lawrence of Arabia, Black Cat White Cat (Yugoslavia/int'l), and To Kill a Mockingbird, All about my Mother (Spain), would constitute the remainder of my top 7, but there are so many films I have loved.

Oddly, my favorite director, UK's Peter Greenaway, does not have a film in my 10/10 section, and Herzog is creeping up to Greenaway as my all time favorite.

Permalink Reply by Edward Teach on November 29, 2010 at 10:59am

These are in no way the best movies of all times... Just my favorites:

Unforgiven
Resevoir Dogs
Rob Roy
Wild Strawberries
A Few Good Men
Scent of a Woman
Godfather I and II
Cool Hand Luke
A Christmas Carol (1954ish version)
The Breakfast Club

Permalink Reply by ToniDaTyga on November 29, 2010 at 7:41pm

Fight Club...

Permalink Reply by egan thomas penney on April 26, 2011 at 2:19am

ever seen the director's cut of "fearless" with jet li? wow. just wow.

Permalink Reply by egan thomas penney on April 26, 2011 at 9:00pm

i would recommend "the sensei" to anyone. it gets a little bit religious at one point, but in a non-sectarian and non-preachy way. everything else about it is just great.

i recently saw jet li in a film called "ocean heaven". it will make you WEEP

Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on May 9, 2011 at 5:15pm

The question is silly and lacking in logic, assuming as it does that any of us has seen ALL the films ever made for one thing, and that aesthetics are non-synonymous with personal taste for another. If I list here the Best Film, only a few of our readers will agree. Why should they agree with my choices for the next nine? Favorite films, now that is another question, and I would unhesitatingly claim that the best use of film as an art form was Sergei M. Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible, Parts I and II." My ten favorites list would be almost impossible to complete as I have now seen so many good ones, and so many disastrous bores, I do not care to count. Any of the mid- to late Luis Buñuel films would rate highly, especially his send up of Roman Catholicism, his masterpiece, La Voie Lactee. (Every good atheist should make it de rigueur to see "The Milky Way": it treats the Christian gnostic sects without comment, showing how trivially the adherents behaved in relation to the RCC pogroms against, e.g. the Cathars, the Albingenses, &c.) But by Buñuel, there are plenty of good ones. You make your own point when you say you hated Kane knowing that many others think it best. Sigh!...