The Best 500 Films of All-Time

I love days of the future past. I used to watch it every day. I don’t think it is near the same visual experience as kubrick or hitchcock. But it is personal for myself, and has great acting.

Ok I always change up my top 10 list because I just love so many films so I decided I’ll do it this way, put films together that I feel tie with each other, are equal, for example raging bull and taxi driver, i have a bunch of films in these ties and im still missing films i love like fistful of dollars and sixth sense. and of course the whole first six star wars films would be up there.

1. The Wizard Of Oz- Fleming/ Breaking Bad (television series)- Gilligan
2. Raging Bull/ Taxi Driver- Scorsese
3. Searchers- Ford/ Star Wars (1977)- Lucas/ Annie Hall- Allen/ Revenge Of The Sith- Lucas
4. Once Upon A Time In America- Leone/ Schindler’s List- Spielberg/ The Kid- Chaplin/ Where To Invade Next- Moore/ Citizen Kane- Welles/Godfather- Coppola/ Gone With The Wind-Fleming
5. Pulp Fiction- Tarantino/ Raiders Of The Lost Ark- Spielberg/ Grave Of The Fireflies- Takahata/ Joker- Phillips/ Terminator- Cameron
6. Vanilla Sky- Crowe/ O Brother Where Art Thou- Coen Brothers/ Do The Right Thing- Lee/ Apocylypse Now- Coppola
7. Cloud Atlas- Wachowski/ Return Of The King- Jackson/ Carrie- DePalma/ The Stand- Garris (TV Miniseries)
8. Clockwork Orange- Kubrick/ Blue Velvet-Lynch/ Chinatown- Polanski/ 2001- Kubrick/ Ad Astra- Grey/ Up- Docter/ Dr. Strangelove- Kubrick/ metropolis-lang
9. Meyerowitz Adventures- Baumbach/ Punch-Drunk Love/ Passion Of Joan Of Arc- Dreyer/ Roma- Cuaron/ Silence Of The Lambs
10.Broken Blossoms- Griffith/ Steve Jobs- Boyle/ Logan- Mangold/ 8 Mile- Hanson/ Days Of The Future Past- Singer/ Halloween- Carpenter/ Purple Rose Of Cairo/ Yellow Submarine- dunning/ 81/2- fellini/ vertigo- hitchcock

My Top Ten Of All Time as of right now is
1.Taxi Driver
2.Pulp Fiction
3.Magnolia
4.Spiderman 2
5.The Master/Manhattan
6.Chinatown
7.LA Confidential
8.Mean Girls (I love this film to death and I don’t care what anyone says)
9.Jackie Brown
10.Inception
HM: Agent Cody Banks( A guilty pleasure lol I watched this all the time as a kid), The Lion King, Fargo, Rush Hour 1 And 2, Alice doesn’t live here anymore, Blue Jasmine, There Will Be Blood, The Shawshank Redemption,And Home Alone 2 among others

Here’s a Topic Idea What are the biggest Oscar Snubs Of The 21st Century ? Some big ones include
Inside Llewelyn Davis for best picture
Before Sunset and Midnight for Best Picture
Jim Carrey for Best Actor for eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind for Best Picture
Zodiac for Best Picture
Paul Dano for Best Supporting Actor for There Will Be blood
The Master for best picture
Oscar Isaac for Best Actor for Inside Llewelyn Davis
The Dark Knight for Best Picture
The 25th Hour for Best Picture
Adam Driver for Best Actor for Paterson
Uma Thurman for Kill Bill 1 and 2 for best Actress
Kill Bill 1 and 2 for Best Picture
A History Of Violence for Best Picture
The Royal Tenebaums for Best Picture
Memento for Best Picture
Mulholland Drive for Best Picture
Naomi Watts for Best Actress for Mulholland Drive
Children of Men for Best Picture
I could go on and on it’s crazy how many great films are snubbed each year

Why are you on aboard with Deniro not getting a nomination?

It’s weird… I really, really loved Bad Times At The El Royale – I’d probably have it as a low MP on your scale, honestly. I get why a lot of people don’t love it. But it is a genre film, through and through. And it’s probably the most fun I had watching a movie in a cinema in 2018. I’m probably slightly bias as I would rank Jeff Bridges as being, definitely, one of the best actors of all-time – his performances in Fearless, Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, The Big Lebowski, True Grit, Crazy Heart and Hell Or High Water are mind-blowing to me – and this is without mentioning other great performances of his, which I haven’t the time to go through lol.* I, also, thought Cynthia Erivo gave a terrific performance. Lewis Pullman was great in his role. And Chris Hemsworth gave a came for the ages. The cinematography was engaging, as was the script. I, also, have to give credit for the use of music in the film – the use of Bernadette by The Four Tops was particularly striking to me. Granted, I can understand why you might not like him.

*If I was gonna do a Top Actors of all-time, it’d probably be DiCaprio as No. 1, followed by Bridges, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Cary Grant, Paul Newman and Clint Eastwood, in no particular order – in years to come, it would be possible that Bradley Cooper, Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal, Mahershala Ali and Oscar Isaac would find a place on my list, but it depends on what their future output is like.

Well, I think the thing for me with Brando is that I don’t really love his performance in Apocalypse Now (I haven’t seen any of his work on the Godfather or prior – the only supposedly great performance of his I’ve is Apocalypse Now), so I’m not a big fan, so far. (I’ve only seen a certain amount of movies – I am only 18, at the moment and am only recently emerging as a cinephile, so it’ll probably be a long while before I end up as well-read as you). The thing about the to-come actors I’ve listed is that I’ve loved, at least, two of their performances. So with Oscar Isaac, for example, I have 3 – Inside Llewyn Davis, A Most Violent Year and Ex Machina. Mahershala Ali, I have 2 – Moonlight (he makes this movie a great one, in my opinion, in spite of Barry Jenkins’ superb direction) and Green Book (Movie is HR, at best, but his performance is mesmerising in a way that I haven’t seen an actor be since Hoffman in The Master). Ryan Gosling was one I was tempted to put on the main list. His body of work in this decade is astounding – Blue Valentine, Drive and La La Land are the three highlights, but he is immensely charismatic and funny in The Nice Guys and Crazy, Stupid, Love. His performance in The Place Beyond The Pines is underrated and is one of the best parts of one of my favourite movies of all time (this one really connected with me, for some reason). However, his work in First Man is offputting a little to me – I thought the movie was visually stunning, but his acting was too dry this time. And I wasn’t as big a fan of 2049 as everyone else. To be fair to Gosling, though, I thought his performance was good, albeit not great.
Anyway, to answer your question, which is what I was gonna do before I went on a tangent (sorry lol), the issue with Kaluuya and Driver for me is that- actually, there’s two issues – but the main one for me is that they only have one truly masterful performance each. Kaluuya – Get Out. Driver – Marriage Story. Although, in all fairness, they are very good in Widows and BlacKKKlansman – but not masterful. The other problem with them both is is that, in a weird way, in spite of them both being fairly engaging, they do not have the charisma of the others, which is, usually, what makes an actor stand out for me. For example, in Ex Machina, it’s hard to look away from Oscar Isaac, just because of his phenomenal screen presence in it. The same goes for most of the roles of the actors on that list. They dominate the movies they’re in, but, also, have a way of bringing up the other actors around them. This is a a key asset I find in many of the great actors. I.e. Bridges in The Big Lebowski gets tons and tons of laughs and is one of the great performances of cinema, but the entirety of that ensemble, also, shines.
I don’t know. I feel like I’ve gone on a mega-tangent. Haha sorry.

Most apparitions in the « Best Performances of the Year » category, of all time (at least 2):

Robert DeNiro (9) :
} 2# en 1973.
} 2# en 1974.
} 1# en 1976.
} 1# en 1978.
} 1# en 1980.
} 5# en 1982.
} 3# en 1984.
} 3# en 1990.
} 1# en 1995.

Jack Nicholson (9) :
} 5# en 1969.
} 1# en 1970.
} 4# en 1971.
} 3# en 1973.
} 4# en 1974.
} 2# en 1975.
} 3# en 1980.
} 6# en 1989.
} 6# en 1992.

Al Pacino (8) :
} 1# en 1972.
} 6# en 1973.
} 7# en 1973.
} 1# en 1974.
} 1# en 1975.
} 4# en 1983.
} 5# en 1990.
} 4# en 1999.

James Stewart (8) :
} 2# en 1939.
} 3# en 1940.
} 1# en 1946.
} 5# en 1950.
} 5# en 1953.
} 5# en 1954.
} 1# en 1958.
} 2# en 1959.

Humphrey Bogart (7) :
} 1# en 1941.
} 3# en 1941.
} 1# en 1942.
} 2# en 1944.
} 2# en 1946.
} 2# en 1948.
} 6# en 1950.

Leonardo DiCaprio (6) :
} 1# en 2004.
} 2# en 2006.
} 1# en 2010.
} 3# en 2013.
} 1# en 2015.
} 3# en 2019.

Daniel Day-Lewis (6) :
} 5# en 1989.
} 4# en 1992.
} 4# en 1993.
} 1# en 2002.
} 1# en 2007.
} 1# en 2017.

Marlon Brando (5) :
} 1# en 1951.
} 1# en 1954.
} 1# en 1972.
} 1# en 1972.
} 2# en 1979.

William Holden (5) :
} 1# en 1950.
} 4# en 1953.
} 3# en 1957.
} 1# en 1969.
} 2# en 1976.

Dustin Hoffman (5) :
} 1# en 1967.
} 1# en 1969.
} 4# en 1970.
} 6# en 1974.
} 5# en 1979.

Paul Newman (5) :
} 1# en 1961.
} 5# en 1963.
} 2# en 1967.
} 3# en 1969.
} 4# en 1982.

Gene Hackman (5) :
} 2# en 1971.
} 5# en 1973.
} 5# en 1974.
} 4# en 1992.
} 1# en 2001.

Brad Pitt (5) :
} 3# en 1995.
} 2# en 1999.
} 3# en 2007.
} 2# en 2011.
} 2# en 2019.

Kirk Douglas (5) :
} 2# en 1947.
} 4# en 1951.
} 5# en 1951.
} 4# en 1956.
} 5# en 1957.

Cary Grant (4) :
} 1# en 1937.
} 1# en 1938.
} 2# en 1940.
} 1# en 1959.

Tom Cruise (4) :
} 2# en 1983.
} 6# en 1988.
} 1# en 1996.
} 1# en 1999.

Ryan Gosling (4) :
} 2# en 2010.
} 3# en 2011.
} 1# en 2016.
} 2# en 2017.

Bill Murray (4) :
} 3# en 1993.
} 3# en 1998.
} 1# en 2003.
} 3# en 2005.

Joaquin Phœnix (4) :
} 1# en 2012.
} 4# en 2013.
} 5# en 2019.
} 4# en 2008.

Laurence Olivier (4) :
} 4# en 1939.
} 1# en 1944.
} 6# en 1948.
} 6# en 1960.

Toshiro Mifune (4) :
} 2# en 1950.
} 2# en 1954.
} 6# en 1957.
} 2# en 1961.

Edward Norton (4) :
} 6# en 1998.
} 3# en 1999.
} 3# en 2002.
} 3# en 2014.

Johnny Depp (4) :
} 4# en 1990.
} 5# en 1994.
} 2# en 1995.
} 4# en 1998.

Gary Copper (4) :
} 3# en 1929.
} 3# en 1936.
} 3# en 1943.
} 4# en 1952.

Charlie Chaplin (3) :
} 1# en 1925.
} 3# en 1931.
} 1# en 1936.

John Wayne (3) :
} 3# en 1939.
} 1# en 1948.
} 1# en 1956.

Henry Fonda (3) :
} 1# en 1940.
} 3# en 1946.
} 1# en 1968.

James Cagney (3) :
} 2# en 1931.
} 2# en 1942.
} 1# en 1949.

Marcelo Mastroianni (3) :
} 2# en 1960.
} 4# en 1961.
} 1# en 1963.

Emil Jannings (3) :
} 1# en 1924.
} 2# en 1925.
} 3# en 1930.

Robert Mitchum (3) :
} 1# en 1947.
} 3# en 1955.
} 3# en 1962.

Montgomery Clift (3) :
} 4# en 1948.
} 2# en 1951.
} 1# en 1953.

Joe Pesci (3) :
} 2# en 1980.
} 1# en 1990.
} 4# en 2019.

Christian Bale (3) :
} 1# en 2000.
} 4# en 2010.
} 2# en 2013.

Harrison Ford (3) :
} 4# en 1977.
} 1# en 1981.
} 4# en 2017.

Ralph Fiennes (3) :
} 2# en 1993.
} 2# en 1996.
} 2# en 2014.

Sean Connery (3) :
} 3# en 1964.
} 2# en 1965.
} 3# en 1987.

Clint Eastwood (3) :
} 4# en 1964.
} 2# en 1966.
} 3# en 1992.

Orson Welles (3) :
} 2# en 1941.
} 4# en 1949.
} 3# en 1958.

Burt Lancaster (3) :
} 3# en 1947.
} 3# en 1953.
} 4# en 1957.

Warren Beatty (3) :
} 3# en 1967.
} 3# en 1971.
} 5# en 1981.

Ewan McGregor (3) :
} 4# en 1996.
} 3# en 2001.
} 5# en 2010.

Tom Hanks (3) :
} 3# en 1988.
} 5# en 1993.
} 4# en 2013.

Russell Crowe (3) :
} 4# en 1997.
} 4# en 1999.
} 4# en 2003.

John Garfield (3) :
} 4# en 1946.
} 4# en 1947.
} 5# en 1948.

Clark Gable (2) :
} 1# en 1934.
} 1# en 1939.

Jean-Paul Belmondo (2) :
} 1# en 1960.
} 1# en 1965.

Heath Ledger (2) :
} 1# en 2005.
} 1# en 2008.

Buster Keaton (2) :
} 2# en 1924.
} 1# en 1926.

Edward G. Robinson (2) :
} 2# en 1930.
} 1# en 1945.

Frank Sinatra (2) :
} 2# en 1953.
} 1# en 1955.

Klaus Kinski (2) :
} 2# en 1972.
} 1# en 1982.

Harvey Keitel (2) :
} 1# en 1973.
} 2# en 1992.

Adam Driver (2) :
} 2# en 2016.
} 1# en 2019.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman (2) :
} 2# en 2005.
} 2# en 2012.

Christoph Waltz (2) :
} 1# en 2009.
} 3# en 2012.

Peter O’Toole (2) :
} 1# en 1962.
} 4# en 1968.

Max Von Sydow (2) :
} 1# en 1957.
} 4# en 1988.

Denzel Washington (2) :
} 4# en 1989.
} 1# en 1992.

Jeff Bridges (2) :
} 1# en 1998.
} 5# en 1991.

Michael B. Jordan (2) :
} 5# en 2015.
} 1# en 2018.

Maurice Chevalier (2)
} 2# en 1929.
} 2# en 1932.

James Dean (2) :
} 2# en 1955.
} 2# en 1956.

George C. Scott (2) :
} 2# en 1964.
} 2# en 1970.

Ethan Hawke (2) :
} 2# en 2004.
} 2# en 2013.

Ray Liotta (2) :
} 2# en 1986.
} 2# en 1990.

Joseph Cotton (2) :
} 2# en 1943.
} 3# en 1949.

Errol Flynn (2) :
} 2# en 1935.
} 3# en 1942.

Takashi Shimura (2) :
} 2# en 1952.
} 3# en 1954.

Christopher Walken (2) :
} 2# en 1978.
} 3# en 1983.

Daniel Kaluuya (2) :
} 3# en 2017.
} 2# en 2018.

Casey Affleck (2) :
} 2# en 2007.
} 3# en 2016.

John Goodman (2) :
} 4# en 1991.
} 2# en 1998.

Bruce Willis (2) :
} 2# en 1988.
} 4# en 1994.

Mickey Rourke (2) :
} 5# en 1987.
} 2# en 2008.

Sean Penn (2) :
} 5# en 1995.
} 2# en 2003.

Jack Gyllenhaal (2) :
} 2# en 2001.
} 5# en 2014.

Adam Sandler (2) :
} 2# en 2002.
} 6# en 2019.

Jean Gabin (2) :
} 3# en 1937.
} 3# en 1952.

Jean-Louis Trintignant (2) :
} 4# en 1969.
} 3# en 1970.

Rod Steiger (2) :
} 5# en 1964.
} 3# en 1965.

Bruno Ganz (2) :
} 3# en 1977.
} 5# en 2004.

Matt Damon (2) :
} 3# en 1997.
} 5# en 1999.

Robert Shaw (2) :
} 4# en 1966.
} 4# en 1975.

John Hurt (2)
} 4# en 1978.
} 4# en 1980.

Tony Curtis (2) :
} 4# en 1957.
} 6# en 1959.

Michael Fassbender (2) :
} 4# en 2011.
} 5# en 2013.

Kevin Spacey (2) :
} 4# en 1995.
} 7# en 1999.

John Turturro (2) :
} 6# en 1990.
} 3# en 1991.

Jim Broadbant (2) :
} 6# en 1999.
} 3# en 2001.

Jack Lemmon (2) :
} 5# en 1959.
} 4# en 1960.

Bruce Dern (2) :
} 5# en 1978.
} 4# en 2013.

Viggo Mortensen (2) :
} 4# en 2005.
} 5# en 2003.

Benicio Del Toro (2) :
} 4# en 2000.
} 6# en 2015.

Alain Delon (2) :
} 5# en 1960.
} 5# en 1967.

Robert Downey Jr. (2) :
} 5# en 2007.
} 5# en 2008.

Hey Drake.
Ranking movies is becoming very challenging for me. I’ve thought of a new way of ranking movies. So basically there are 5 levels, the top level being perfect movies like Chinatown and the bottom not so good. Kinda like your ranking system but more like Roger Ebert’s. I will still think of a top 10 maybe like most critics for sight and sound. Do you think this is a decent way to rank movies?

Hello:

I’ve certainly lurked but have never commented here yet. Anyhow, your top 20 films are hard to argue with, even if it wouldn’t necessarily be my list, although I’m not sure I’d have Bicycle Thieves so high. I’m glad you have Jules and Jim and La Dolce Vita as high as you do. They’re among the most taken for granted films in cinema history I think. The Searchers would be a no-brainer top ten film. Likewise 2001, even if I probably personally prefer Barry Lyndon. I’ve often wrestled between L’Avventura and Rules of the Game as the Greatest Film of All Time, but I could certainly argue Vertigo as well. Lola Montes would also be up there for me. Likewise PlayTime. Granted, I’m not a very list-minded person, so I probably think in somewhat different terms. There are other films I personally love that are maybe not top 20 of all time material, such as The Long Goodbye and Maurice Pialat’s We Won’t Grow Old Together. However, I’d go to the mat insisting In A Lonely Place, Love Streams, and Two-Lane Blacktop all belong in a top 100, but I respect they’re not everybody’s cup of tea. I’d probably throw PTA’s The Master into a top 25, and you seem to rate that film pretty highly.

As for the greatest all around director of all time, it would be a toss up for me between Hitchcock and Ozu, since Antonioni doesn’t quite have the body of work as a whole to compete with those two. On the directors’ side of things I’d probably have Bresson, Cassavetes, and even Bunuel a bit higher than you do, but that’s just me. At any rate, you have an excellent blog.

What’s your top 10 of every decade (1920s + 1910s counted together ) ? Of course this question is not directed towards Drake (since we can know his top films through the lists on the blog) but towards each of the readers of the blog.

Since I’m the visionary mind behind the conversation- hahaha, it’s my time to share my list. Let’s go!

1910-1929
1. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928)
2. Sunrise (Murnau, 1927)
3. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925)
4. Metropolis (Lang, 1927)
5. Pandora’s Box (Pabst, 1929)
6. Nosferatu (Murnau, 1922)
7. Intolerance (Griffith, 1916)
8. The General (Keaton, 1926)
9. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene, 1920)
10. (tie) Greed (von Stroheim, 1924)
10. (tie) The Last Laugh (Murnau, 1924)

1930-1939
1. The Rules of the Game (Renoir, 1939)
2. M (Lang, 1931)
3. City Lights (Chaplin, 1931)
4. Stagecoach (Ford, 1939)
5. Gone With the Wind (Fleming, 1939)
6. The Blue Angel (von Sternberg, 1930)
7. Bringing Up Baby (Hawks, 1938)
8. The Wizard of Oz (Fleming, 1939)
9. The Grand Illusion (Renoir, 1937)
10. (tie) Modern Times (Chaplin, 1936)
10. (tie) The Scarlet Empress (von Sternberg, 1934)

1940-1949
1. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
2. Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948)
3. The Third Man (Reed, 1949)
4. Notorious (Hitchcock, 1946)
5. The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles, 1942)
6. Casablanca (Curtiz, 1942)
7. Late Spring (Ozu, 1949)
8. The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946)
9. (tie) Red River (Hawks, 1948)
9. (tie) Rome, Open City (Rossellini, 1945)
10. (tie) Black Narcissus (Powell & Pressburger, 1947)
10. (tie) My Darling Clementine (Ford, 1946)
10. (tie) Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944)

1950-1959
1. Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
2. Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954)
3. Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
4. The Searchers (Ford, 1956)
5. Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950)
6. The Earrings of Madame De… (Ophuls, 1953)
7. The Seventh Seal (Bergman, 1957)
8. (tie) Touch of Evil (Welles, 1958)
8. (tie) The 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959)
9. (tie) Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954)
9. (tie) A Man Escaped (Bresson, 1956)
10. (tie) Hiroshima mon Amour (Resnais, 1959)
10. (tie) Ikiru (Kurosawa, 1952)
10. (tie) Ordet (Dreyer, 1955)
10. (tie) Singin’ in the Rain (Donen, 1952)
10. (tie) Early Summer (Ozu, 1951)

1960-1969
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
2. 8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)
3. Persona (Bergman, 1966)
4. Breathless (Godard, 1960)
5. Playtime (Tati, 1967)
6. La Dolce Vita (Fellini, 1960)
7. Lawrence of Arabia (Lean, 1962)
8. (tie) Jules and Jim (Truffaut, 1962)
8. (tie) L’ Avventura (Antonioni, 1960)
8. (tie) Gertrud (Dreyer, 1964)
9. (tie) I Am Cuba (Kalatozov, 1964)
9. (tie) The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (Leone, 1966)
9. (tie) Once Upon A Time in the West (Leone, 1968)
10. (tie) Red Desert (Antonioni, 1964)
10. (tie) Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais, 1961)
10. (tie) Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky, 1966)
10. (tie) The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969)

1970-1979
1. Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
2. The Godfather Part II (Coppola, 1979)
3. Stalker (Tarkovsky, 1979)
4. Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976)
5. The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)
6. A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick, 1971)
7. Barry Lyndon (Kubrick, 1975)
8. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Herzog, 1972)
9. (tie) Days of Heaven (Malick, 1978)
9. (tie) Manhattan (Allen, 1979)
9. (tie) Cries and Whispers (Bergman, 1972)
10. (tie) Nashville (Altman, 1975)
10. (tie) The Conformist (Bertolucci, 1970)
10. (tie) Chinatown (Polanski, 1974)

1980-1989
1. Raging Bull (Scorsese, 1980)
2. Blade Runner (Scott, 1982)
3. Blue Velvet (1986, Lynch)
4. The Shining (1980, Kubrick)
5. Ran (1985, Kurosawa)
6. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989, Greenaway)
7. Do the Right Thing (Lee, 1989)
8. Nostalgia (Tarkovsky, 1983)
9. (tie) Brazil (Gilliam, 1985)
9. (tie) Dekalog (1989, Kieslowski)
9. (tie) Raiders of the Lost Art (Spielberg, 1981)
10. (tie) Dead Ringers (Cronenberg, 1988)
10. (tie) Fitzcarraldo (Herzog, 1982)
10. (tie) Fanny and Alexander (Bergman, 1982)
10. (tie) Once Upon A Time in America (Leone, 1984)

1990-1999
1. Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994)
2. Goodfellas (Scorsese, 1990)
3. The Thin Red Line (Malick, 1998)
4. Breaking the Waves (Trier, 1996)
5. Magnolia (Anderson, 1999)
6. Schindler’s List (Spielberg, 1993)
7. Eyes Wide Shut (Kubrick, 1999)
8. Heat (Mann, 1995)
9. (tie) Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)
9. (tie) Boogie Nights (Anderson, 1997)
10. (tie) JFK (Stone, 1991)
10. (tie) Red (Kieslowski, 1994)
10. (tie) Satantango (Tarr, 1994)

2000-2009
1. In the Mood for Love (Wong, 2000)
2. There Will Be Blood (Anderson, 2007)
3. Mulholland Drive (Lynch, 2001)
4. Werckmeister Harmonies (Tarr, 2000)
5. Children of Men (Cuaron, 2006)
6. Inglourious Basterds (Tarantino, 2009)
7. Punch-Drunk Love (Anderson, 2002)
8. Lost in Translation (Coppola, 2003)
9. (tie) The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford (Dominik, 2007)
9. (tie) The New World (Malick, 2005)
10. (tie) Syndromes and a Century (Weerasethakul, 2006)
10. (tie) The Lord of the Rings (Jackson, 2001-2003)

2010-2019
NOT RANKED YET
The Tree of Life (Malick, 2011)
Roma (Cuaron, 2018)
The Irishman (Scorsese, 2019)
Dunkirk (Nolan, 2017)
The Master (Anderson, 2012)
La La Land (Chazelle, 2016)
Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller, 2015)
Inception (Nolan, 2010)
Birdman (Inarritu, 2014)
Gravity (Cuaron, 2013)
The Turin Horse (Tarr, 2011)
Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood (Tarantino, 2019)
The Black Swan (Aronofsky, 2010)
The Revenant (Inarritu, 2015)
The Social Network (Fincher, 2010)

Hey Drake. Approximately how many films do you see that are not archiveable?

How does your tier system work as a number ranked list?

Approximately, is this how your tier list works??
MP: Top 300 Films of all time
MP/MS 300-400
MS:400-600
MS/HR 600-700
HR 700-1000
R 1000-2000
The other films are flawed/not archiveable. Is this (appox) your tier system?

Oops I posted in the wrong comment section

My updated Top Five

1. Taxi Driver
2.Pulp Fiction
3.The Master
4. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid
5.Nashville

Honorable Mention: Raising Arizona, Broadcast News,Fargo, Manhattan, Short Cuts, and There Will Be Blood

Hey Drake I posted a comment twice on the best film of the 2000s page but nothing is showing up

I also think someone like PTA is a very lucky man. He was in the right place at the right time and established a certain degree of cultural capital for himself that’s stuck over the course of several decades, so Indiewood has given him free reign despite the occasional financial hiccup, since the critical acclaim inevitably compensates in the end. I think someone who broke in a bit later like Sean Baker or Robert Eggers would have a hard time raising ~$35 million to make ‘the film they want to make’.

I’m not sure about Portrait of a Lady on Fire yet. I certainly liked it the first time I watched it. The second I saw it, which was also in the cinema, I was a bit jet lagged and kept dozing off (the same thing happened the one time I saw The Irishman in the theater), so I’ll need to revisit.

Hey drake, I have 2 questions
1)do you ever see a run of bad unarchiveable films? That happens to be very occasionally. It frustrates me a lot. I’m sure it must be happening to you too.

2) I haven’t really seen pacing discussed that much on this page. What are some of the worst paced and best paced movies of all time for you?( the movie could be in your top 500 or even outside of it)

@Cinephile, my list is pretty similar to TSPDT. If you are evaluating docs like movies, you’ll find most documentaries are overrated. “Its not what a movie is about, it’s how it’s about it” – Roger Ebert. For documentaries it’s the opposite, it’s more the message it provides rather than how (with cinematic techniques) it tells its story. obviously cinematic techniques and ‘artistic values’ are important too in documentaries but not as much as movies.
Close up (and most of Kiarostami movies)are unique because they blend documentary style with movie style rather seamlessly.
Anyways, what are you favorite/best Kiarostami films?
What are some other Persian language movies you admire and consider MP or close?

One flew over the Cuckoos Nest is far too low at 157.Simply One of the greatest films ever made with one of the greatest screen performances of all time from Jack Nicholson.Should be in the top 50.

@Drake, Azman & Aldo

Absolutely the “transformed” & “spiritual
experience” thing is a personal feeling, so we go back again to the subjective evaluation which I’m not interested either.

I think the guy meant that an auteuristic expression isn’t only in form and film style, the director’s craft can be impressive in other aspects. An example may be the Hoffa Killing Sequence in The Irishman. Does it future photography or camera movement like the beach sequence in Roma ? No. But Scorsese’s direction, even tho not with awe-inspiring visuals is just so powerful. From the use of silence, to the build up, to the feelings he makes you feel…. the way he constructs the scene…. that scene achieves transcendence, it smashes the viewer. Although it isn’t visually stunning, it’s a masterclass in direction. The point is that, that scene, showcases craft of the highest order, yet at the same time…. not technical mastery of the highest level. The guy didn’t mention The Irishman and specifically this example but I think this is what he meant. That craft isn’t always film style, and you can point to the text for those other things. What do you think?

Hi @Drake, a big fan from India. It’s been more than a year since I have started visiting your site daily, and I trust your opinion more than any other critic. I am fairly new to movies (have watched 1000 or so), but I love ranking them! I’ll be really happy if you could answer a couple of questions I have, to help me in properly appreciating movies. Best wishes and thanks for the great work!

You’ve said that best and favorite is the same thing for you. Do you mean that on a 100% scale? I mean, I also support that best and favorite are the same for me, but there are very small exceptions. I don’t mean that the objective #25 film of the year will be superior to the objective #1 but in some cases your #5 film will appeal to you more than your #4.

Those are some examples. One recent that comes to my mind is Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood. In the theater, especially if it’s outdoor, it puts you through a magic mood, it’s the perfect summer movie. At home, I’d say (although I still think it’s one of the best of the decade) it doesn’t offer the same experience, which is logical I think since theater is the authentic house of films, and it’s the greatest place to watch. I mean, most films probably don’t offer the exact same effect on the viewer both on theater and on home. You are still going to get blown away by it’s narrative, technical, formal mastery on TV but it’s not the same thing with the theater.

Roma, in my opinion is a simple Recommend. Great to look at but full emotionally.

“In an article in the New Yorker, Tarantino described a “hangout movie” as a film whose plot and camerawork you may admire, but whose primary attraction is the characters.”- tiff
in accordance to those criteria, i’d say it applies quite a bit to comedies. ferris bueller’s day off is a movie whose characters i love, school of rock, bringing up baby, i recently watched the film something wild by demme and that may count. goodfellas is a good choice also, and this sounds weird but Metropolis by Fritz Lang might be like that. I mean it is a very visual film but even though they don’t talk i feel something special for the characters.

Love The Deuce, Boardwalk Empire, The Soprano, The Wire & Oz.

I didn’t know Amy nicholson ripped on Scorsese. Everyone has their opinions but what can touch scorseses classics (raging bull, taxi driver, mean streets). Anyways I don’t think nicholson is the most enlightening critic out there but I like her energy as well as her knowledge of the artform. I’m pretty sure Paul Scherr is an actor and I don’t think he contributes much to the conversations but it is also interesting to see them debate classic films and what their reputations are.also I disagree with ebert (who is by all means a great critic himself) on armond white. That is how I felt when I first discovered him but then I started to realize a pattern. He talks about two things ideas and anesthetics and sometimes if he considers a films ideas to be nihilistic or anti religious or whatever he will object to the film. I agree with him bay is a great director, who might be a bit mindless, but certainly shoots like no one else out there. He also has very good writings on griffith, altman, de palma, and spielberg. Also, this is from a literary critic who passed away recently Harold Bloom, I’m paraphrasing, but this statement helps a lot. He says that great art has these three components; originality, cognitive merit, and aesthetic. That is how I look at art including cinema. Have you ever heard that quote before?

Good list, thanks for compiling.

Interesting having “The Searchers” at #1 (personally, around #50 would be more appropriate), but it seems some critics might agree with you. I think “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” has the stronger story, which you have much lower. Obviously the cinematography is far superior in “The Searchers” and it’s more influential, but “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” resonates better on an emotional level.

“2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Citizen Kane” are definitely top 5. “Vertigo” and “Apocalypse Now” are definitely top 10. I would put “The Godfather” (the first two) in the top 10, as well. Greatest acting ever. Also very nice to see “Stalker” in the top 10. Impressive.

I don’t understand the love for “Pulp Fiction.” I would switch it with “Ikiru,” which you are vastly underrating. “Pulp Fiction” is about nothing, “Ikiru” is about everything. I guess that’s why I also dislike movies like “Breathless” and “Jules and Jim.” Stylish and influential, but ultimately empty. I think “Ikiru” is just slightly superior to “Seven Samurai.” It’s Kurosawa’s masterpiece. Ebert was with me on that.

I would also switch “Blade Runner” and “Star Wars.” “Star Wars” is at least top 25. But I can understand why cinephiles might prefer the former to the latter. I suppose “Blade Runner” is more profound, but the execution just doesn’t quite work. Kubrick covered similar ground first and much better with “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The artistic ambitions of “Star Wars” are somewhat modest, but they are probably the most entertaining movies ever made (the original trilogy, forget the prequels or sequels). Even the AFI has it at #13.

Similarly, no love for “The Lord of the Rings”? Top 50 would be reasonable. Along with “Intolerance,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Star Wars,” they’re among the most ambitious movies ever made. And next to “Star Wars” probably the most entertaining.

Speaking of ambitious movies, you should re-watch “Pather Panchali”/”Aparajito”/”The World of Apu.” Easily one of the greatest epics, nearly as good as “The Godfather.” Kurosawa himself highly praised them.

Good for you for not placing the vastly overrated “Gone with the Wind,” “Schindler’s List,” “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Fight Club,” “The Dark Knight” anywhere near the top.

Overall, nice job. I’ve been working on my own top 100 list and plan on publishing it with an online magazine before the year is out. I can send to you if you’d like.

I’ve made an attempt to compile all of the most beautiful shots (or really singular frames) in cinema in this presentation:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vZM6986omJnPDAsMVRLlgzNKAybAI9WVj2TIDeQfyb0/edit?usp=sharing
Hit the present button in the top right if you want the full experience. I was going for a top one hundred or so, but it appears I’ll be ending up at a much higher number than that. It is certainly a work in progress. I wouldn’t have known or remembered some of the shots without The Cinema Archives, so thanks for that, Drake (I haven’t even seen all of the movies).

Since we’re talking about how many of these we have seen, I’ve put together a Letterboxd list to make this endeavour easier. If you have a Letterboxd account and are fairly up-to-date with logging films, then it should give you a percentage saying how much of it you have covered.

https://boxd.it/5w3rE

I’m at 42%, which is roughly 210/500. Still got a fair way to go! Highest ranked one I have seen yet is Stalker, simply because I’ve found it almost impossible to stream/rent/buy in Australia. I have finally chased down a copy which arrived in the mail just yesterday, so I’m excited to finally watch it.

One only other problem I have with this list is the fact that Birth of a Nation, and absolutely disgusting and frankly boring film is ranked 101, ahead of EVERY SINGLE SPIELBERG film is crazy. People always talk about how some movies haven’t aged well or stood the test of time (a frequent film that gets this criticism is Easy Rider), but isn’t a 3.5 hour film glamorizing and praising the KKK A bit aged as well. It’s important so maybe top 500, but 101 in my humble opinion is way too high.

Hey drake I have a question.

How long after you’ve seen a movie do you feel comfortable commenting on it? Like after how long do you not give a grade to a film in the archives?

Sometimes I don’t see a film for too long so I can’t give it a grade or remember a lot about it? How long is too long(to not give a grade) in your opinion?

Having recently re-watched both, I’m wondering about “In the Mood for Love” and “Children of Men.” What do they have going for them other than nice mise-en-scene and cinematography? The first is dreadfully dull and the second is a heavy-handed near farce. I can’t see how they are ranked higher than masterpieces from the 2000s like “There Will Be Blood” and “Mulholland Dr.” Maybe I’m missing something, but they both seem massively overrated. Thanks.