The Lists Project

[Yojimbo]

So, I can still vote for the first season of Deadwood in the Pre-1920s Vol. 04 List, since Deadwood takes place before the 1920s, right?

I'm veering towards Season 3 being my favourite: it might be something to do with my preference for open endings, though.

[swo17]

Here's something I've been keeping track of for the last several years:

Every film appearing on at least two top 10s throughout Volume 3 of the lists project

Another way to think about this is that, on average, if a film makes someone's top 10 list for a ten-year span, they probably consider it to be the best film of the year it came out. And if our list projects were limited to ten films each decade, these are all the films that would not be orphaned. Unsurprisingly, the very top performers from each decade make it here, but the more familiar titles that lack passionate support are removed (see for example Singin' in the Rain, which placed #6 in the overall 1950s list but only appeared on a single top 10). In their place are more obscure titles that probably few people saw but that really resonated with at least a couple people that did. Among other things, I think this list does a fair job of distilling a lot of great directors' filmographies into the bare essentials. (For instance, I think the four John Ford picks are pretty much perfect, and I didn't even include any of them in any of my personal top 10s.)

So here's a crazy idea I had about a way to end this round of the lists project: an all-time list that works from the list linked above (plus any qualifying films from the upcoming 2010-2014 list). You might think of it like these are all the films that performed well enough in the preliminary rounds to make it through to the final round of voting. Here are some reasons I think it could be worth doing this:

1. I don't think a free-for-all all-time list would work, because there wouldn't be enough common ground between the lists for the aggregate results to be meaningful. But if everyone were limited to just the films for which strong support has already been demonstrated, I think that problem would go away. Plus, it's probably a lot easier to prepare a top 50 all-time list when all the films that you love but no one else does are ineligible.

2. There are a lot of members that only participated in either the early decades lists or the late decades lists. This would be a good opportunity for those people to branch out and explore the highlights from those time periods that might be kind of blind spots for them. And even for mostly familiar time periods, there are probably at least a few picks here that many have never seen.

3. A lot of these films are behemoths that few probably feel the need to defend. But perhaps if they are up against lots of other behemoths, this will change. Also, as I've said, there are at least a couple people passionate about all of these films. Hopefully passion prompts discussion.

4. Perhaps the novelty of doing an all-time list would put a much needed surge of interest/participation back into the lists project?

Of course, this will only work if enough people are interested in doing it. If so, sound off!

[domino harvey]

I love it!

[TMDaines]

That's actually a pretty great suggestion. I really like that in principle. It would provide a good chance to highlight some of your true darlings that already have some common ground.

One thing I always want to know with these lists is how many people have seen some of the lesser known films? Are there films out there that are loved by the few who have actually watched them, but just haven't had a large enough audience from our participants to make the end list. We have a finite amount of films here, would it be possible to have everyone who participates submit a list of what they have and have not seen? It would take 15 minutes to type Y or N next to a couple hundred film titles on a spreadsheet. It could be used to weight the scoring system or provide an alternate that highlights overlooked gems.

[mizo]

Wow, thanks swo! Anybody looking for a general viewing guide (that covers a little bit of pretty much all the bases, from what I can tell) has about the best resource they could ask for! Me included!

As for making it into a project, I'm certainly tempted by the idea of getting a chance to really have at it with the canon and, as you say, defend "the behemoths." I see a few all-time favorites on that list that I'd love an excuse to yap about (Notorious! Man of the West!).

So I guess what I'm saying is...Yes. We should do that.

Edit: I'm just seeing TMDaines' reply. Would we make the Y or N lists now, at the commencement of the project, or when submitting our lists?

[swo17]

We have a finite amount of films here, would it be possible to have everyone who participates submit a list of what they have and have not seen? It would take 15 minutes to type Y or N next to a couple hundred film titles on a spreadsheet. It could be used to weight the scoring system or provide an alternate that highlights overlooked gems.

I think it's conceivable for someone to end up having seen all the films on the list, and I'd certainly recommend it, though I'm hesitant to require anything of participants that would begin to resemble homework. (And where does it end? Is seeing the film enough? Were you totally engaged with the film when you watched it (Y/N)? Did you read all the praise and criticism about it and amply weigh it all before coming to your own informed decision (Y/N)?) There are going to be like 600 films on that list and I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from participating who would otherwise be willing to.

[domino harvey]

I think if you can make a Top 50 from the ~600 films, you've seen enough to participate, no? I get the idea, but it strikes me as dangerously close to the behavior that got lubitsch ousted from tallying lists

[swo17]

Right. I think there are less than ten films on that list that I personally haven't already seen, and so why shouldn't I try to fill in those gaps as part of this exercise, but I would accept all lists submitted without question.

[domino harvey]

Would there be interest in including films that made two top tens from the genre projects in the final culling?

[thirtyframesasecond]

I think if you can make a Top 50 from the ~600 films, you've seen enough to participate, no? I get the idea, but it strikes me as dangerously close to the behavior that got lubitsch ousted from tallying lists

Oh yeah, I remember sending a pre-20s list and him replying asking whether I'd seen all these films with the suggestion that if I hadn't, then my list wasn't really worth considering.

I like the idea of creating a 'canon' from swo's list; I'm sure we've all seen a decent percentage in order to come to a consensus.

[mizo]

Would there be interest in including films that made two top tens from the genre projects in the final culling?

Wouldn't that just end up privileging certain types of films over others? Like, for example, if you're really into the Czech New Wave, you're going to be at a disadvantage when compiling your favorites compared to somebody who's really into Westerns and has a much larger pool to pick from?

[swo17]

Would there be interest in including films that made two top tens from the genre projects in the final culling?

I'm not opposed to this suggestion but some things to consider:

1. Do you still have access to all the old input that you would need to come up with all the candidates, including the projects you didn't run? I had a pretty difficult time compiling everything from the silent era before I was running things but was eventually able to piece it all together between what was posted here and PMs. (I should note that lubitsch was very helpful in this regard.)

2. Would this idea over-represent whatever genres we've arbitrarily decided to tackle so far?

3. Every film that's been eligible for the genre lists has been eligible for the decades lists as well. If they didn't perform that well during the applicable decades lists, do they really have a chance at making an all-time list? Part of the idea here is to give as many of the top 50 spots as possible to films that actually stand a chance at getting multiple votes. (If every person that's participated in any of the decades projects participated in this one, it's very likely that at least the two people that originally included a film in their top 10 would also include it now--there's only room for about five films from each decade on average, but looking back at my own personal top 10s, only about half of my picks had strong enough support to make it to this aggregate one.)

[domino harvey]

I have all original lists from the ones I ran (i.e. All but animation and documentary)

[TMDaines]

Personally I liked the idea of sticking to the decades lists without diluting it further.

We have a finite amount of films here, would it be possible to have everyone who participates submit a list of what they have and have not seen? It would take 15 minutes to type Y or N next to a couple hundred film titles on a spreadsheet. It could be used to weight the scoring system or provide an alternate that highlights overlooked gems.

I think it's conceivable for someone to end up having seen all the films on the list, and I'd certainly recommend it, though I'm hesitant to require anything of participants that would begin to resemble homework. (And where does it end? Is seeing the film enough? Were you totally engaged with the film when you watched it (Y/N)? Did you read all the praise and criticism about it and amply weigh it all before coming to your own informed decision (Y/N)?) There are going to be like 600 films on that list and I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from participating who would otherwise be willing to.

Fair enough. I thought it would make for an interesting census of what has been seen by all and what deserves more attention but has only been seen by few. I still think the biggest factor in films ranking highly on these lists is availability and actually being seen.

[jindianajonz]

Wouldn't that just end up privileging certain types of films over others? Like, for example, if you're really into the Czech New Wave, you're going to be at a disadvantage when compiling your favorites compared to somebody who's really into Westerns and has a much larger pool to pick from?

That was my thinking as well. The nice thing about using decades as a baseline is that
A) No films can be excluded (except those after the 2014 cutoff)
B) Every film is given a clear space (as opposed to films which may belong to multiple genres)
C) Every film is given a fairly even weight (more 'obscure' genres like Westerns or Musicals would likely get disproportional representation on the list, though arguably the fact that some decades are more popular than others could also yield the same problem)

Since the only thing that makes Swo's idea work is the fact that we have whittled a nearly infinite pool of films to choose from down to a 'mere' 600, I don't see a reason to dilute these with films that couldn't make the cut in open competition but only managed to shine in the smaller pond of their respective genre. That being said, I'd still be interested in seeing which films meet the two-top-ten qualification from the Genre lists.

EDIT: Apparently I didn't check for a whole new page of unseen responses before I posted

[swo17]

I have all original lists from the ones I ran (i.e. All but animation and documentary)

To address my concern #3, I wonder if we could do something like this: Have my main decades list and then a supplemental one for films that only qualified through the genre projects. For every film you include from the supplemental genre list, you can vote for an extra one from the main list (to be potentially used as an alternate). I can tally the results based on the first 50 films voted for, and then if it looks like votes for genre-only films end up being wasted, I can replace those votes with the alternates from the main list so that everyone's votes would still count as much as possible.

[domino harvey]

I couldn't even read all of that, much less make someone else do it! It was just a thought, plenty of films to choose from with just the decade lists

[zedz]

Great idea, and sort of solves several of the major problem of all-time lists. It's more of a "Best of the Lists Projects" project.

[mizo]

Now That's What I Call a List Project! Vol. 3

[YnEoS]

I like the idea of doing the all time list this way. For the 3.0 decades project I only participated in the 20s, 60s, and 70s (and 70s was mostly because of all the HK films I watched that year, I probably wouldn't have otherwise). Thanks to the genre lists I should be in a better position for the 30s, 40s, and 50s next round, and doing an all time list would be another low pressure way to explore my other blind spots, 70s(non-HK films), 80s, 90s, and 00s films.

Would there be interest in including films that made two top tens from the genre projects in the final culling?

I'd be in favor of working the genre lists in some way if there's a way that makes sense for the list runners.

[swo17]

Alright, I'd say we have enough support to do this thing! Does the standard eight-month time frame make sense to everyone? I mean, I could do a top 50 right now, but I'd prefer there to be plenty of opportunity for people to fill in gaps and revisit old favorites.

[movielocke]

I like this idea, but I'd say go with more than 50, lists of 75 or 100 would yield a better final tally. With such a breadth, many of us will wind up skewing the outcome by imposing random quotas while constructing our list of 50 to whittle it down. Casting a wider net would minimize the effects of quota limits that will undoubtedly still be used.

[swo17]

I've run the math on this before, and there isn't a huge difference between aggregate results at the top of a list if you only count top 10s, top 20s, etc. so I don't think doing top 75s or top 100s would have an appreciable effect on an overall top 100. However, if we wanted the end result to be a top 200 or 250 or something, then it could make sense to work from larger individual lists.

[movielocke]

I think a wider net would eliminate some unrepresentative discards, for instance, I'm probably going to include Seventh Seal in a top fifty, but not Fanny and Alexander because I already have included my favorite Bergman and need the room in a list of fifty. If other people are also self imposing a one film per director rule to whittle it down to fifty you could easily get an outcome that directors with the most films in the above list are potentially going to be underrepresented or under placed as they're not going to earn as much overlap as directors with only one or two films eligible.

[domino harvey]

Uh, why impose a one film per director rule if it doesn't reflect your favorites? A top 50/100 total makes the most sense. I have no interest in participating in a Top 200 of anything