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I'll take lists until Monday morning, like 8am MDT.

Finally submitted my list. I could have done so one or two weeks earlier I guess, but I waited until the last day because I wanted to re-watch A Brighter Summer Day via the glorious new Criterion version and see whether I'd like the film any better than the first time around when there was only that disastrous old backchannels version available.

Well, obviously it's a day and night difference in terms of picture and subtitling quality, but unfortunately I'm still not fully convinced of the film. It's a beauty to behold with its wonderful brown/red colour design in most of the key scenes, and the acting and cinematography in general are impressive all around, but I still can't see why others rank this film so high. Especially in its second half,

Spoiler

after the killing of Honey,

the film becomes unfocussed and meandering in my view, and the interrogation of the father (while certainly being the most interesting part of this second half!) strangely doesn't seem to fit to the more direct focus on youth and rebellion the film seems mostly to be concerned with. Many parts of the film are impressive, for sure, but I still think that honing it down to a standard 120 min. film would have been much more convincing in the end.

So the Yang didn't make my list; however, I'm very happy to have finally voted for a film that I hadn't seen for the last 1950s list for the simple reason that we all knew then that a CC version was coming, and I didn't want to watch the inferior AE disc. And I'm so happy that I waited for it: Ray's Pather Panchali, which I've ranked as my #6 in this all-time list and which would now be my #2 in the 1950s list. Truly one of the greatest films I've seen in recent years. And similarly I would have voted for Oliveira's "Aniki Bobo" if it had only been eligible; another one I only discovered some time ago and which I will place very high on my list when the next 40s list comes around...

This is my last pair of viewings for the list.
When the Clouds Roll By
This starts off super weird with the first act making for one of the craziest and funniest films of a crazy and funny era. Unfortunately the rest of the film is fairly generic with only one or two memorable gags and a reasonable enough if too fast love story. It would be silly to expect any movie to maintain that though so that it manages to be good enough for the rest of its runtime is probably a feat in itself.

Nenette & Boni
This isn't Denis' best by a real long shot. Aside from Chocolat this is probably the least great I've seen from her to be honest. In the face of that though it does have at least one truly sublime moment , the sort of moment that causes her to be my default answer to the question of who is the best working director today. It's an inconsequential one with two side characters just cleaning up after work as some classic rock plays. It means nothing for the film in many respects, but has a load of meaning in the moment as a sudden emotional spurt of relief in an oppressive landscape. That ability for catharsis is her greatest power.

If I had to choose between "The Earrings of Madame De" and "Charulata" as a last watch, I should choose...?

Ophuls > Ray

Tough one. They're about the same quality, but push comes to shove I'd have to say Charulata feels the more unique.

A new frontrunner has emerged and...well, I have to say I preferred the two other films that have topped the list at various points, if only because one or more people voted for each of them as their personal #1. In contrast, this film has ranked no higher than #5. And while it's a great film, it also makes us look like a bunch of snobs. But I guess that was bound to happen anyway.

The dynamic here should be rather different from typical decade lists, for obvious reasons. Usually the top ranking films appear on a majority of lists, and end up with 5-10 times as many points as the films on the bottom of the list. With 22 lists in so far, the most popular film has only appeared on 9 of them, and the #1 placed film only has 3 times as many points as the current #100. This race is so close between so many films that at the moment, a single #1 vote could launch a film from #240 on the list to the top 100. (But of course, I'm not going to tell you which films could use that kind of boost!)

Well you should really let bdsweeney know if they're Charulata or the Earrings of Madame de... so he can make a decision

swo17 wrote:And while it's a great film, it also makes us look like a bunch of snobs.

Jurassic Park confirmed

Actually I have a hunch swo is talking about my No. 5, but I'll keep that for after the reveal...

Probably too late to influence anyone, but a write-up of my favorite film:

The Fly
Though picking between The Fly and Videodrome is for me like choosing between two children, The Fly’s heart and Videodrome’s unsatisfying final act make it a little easier. The Fly’s central metaphor for mortality and disease spurred Cronenberg to create two of his most identifiable characters and arguably his most soulful film, though I get that some people can’t get past the ick factor. It’s also Jeff Goldblum’s best leading role; his hyperarticulate, kinetic style is perfect for Brundle, particularly during his more manic phases.

It's also my favorite film specifically about illness and the loss of a loved one to illness. One reason metaphor is more powerful than the literal is that metaphor is usually more open-ended, leaves more space for our imaginations to fill in. The bulk of disease films are about cancer or TB, but the metaphor in The Fly can represent any illness. And not just physical illness. Before Brundle understands what’s happened and rationalizes that the changes he’s experiencing are beneficial, his manic behavior resembles bipolar disorder or someone on coke or speed. At one point he says, “It’s like a drug, but a pure and benign drug.”
When he tries to persuade Geena Davis to go through the teleporter, like an addict attempting to get a companion to do a drug with him, and she refuses, he shouts, “You’re a fucking drag, you know that?” Later he says, “You’ll do anything to bring me down.”
He also resembles a religious fanatic trying to convert others. After one of his exhortations, she says, “Don’t give me that born-again teleportation rap.”

There’s a small moment early in the film that a more typical Hollywood movie would’ve handled very differently. After Brundle and Davis have sex, he rolls over onto a small electronics component that somehow ended up in his bed, the needle-like prongs embedding into his back. These tiny wounds are the first places that wiry hairs, the first sign of his gradual transformation, sprout. Why did Cronenberg choose some apparently random machine part as the object that leads to the first clue to his transformation? More mainstream filmmakers would’ve chosen an obviously dramatic object, like a knife, cutting Brundle during a mugging. Here, Cronenberg leaves us space to fill with our imaginations. Is it a foreshadowing of the film’s ending, the grotesque interface of man (man-fly) and machine? Or is it an echo, the penetration of machine into Brundle right after Brundle penetrates Davis? Or both? If one can get past the crude absurdity of that final “interface,” the ending, thanks to the care with which Cronenberg has developed his characters, is heartbreaking.

domino harvey wrote:Well you should really let bdsweeney know if they're Charulata or the Earrings of Madame de... so he can make a decision

If it's any help, I went with ... The Earrings of Madame de...

For fun I just attempted another pass at my list and wound up with only 42 films overlapping, now I have some pondering to do before Monday.

I just watched young girls of rochefort, it'd have made a list of 75, but top fifty from this list is a crazy high bar.

I've submitted my list but have major pangs of regret. Even a list of 150 would have been difficult.

My long-time favourites have remained just that, but at least 6 in the list are a direct result of the project.

Le Sang des bêtes (1949): Wow! Despite the fact that pretty much everyone who has seen the film tells you it is really brutal and stomach churning, I still thought it would be much ado about nothing. I was wrong. There's so many incredibly horrific shots: the twitching corpses, the skull smashing, the collection of heads. The film never feels the needs to be overly suggestive; here's how animals are slaughtered.

When I saw the current no. 1 made this board looked snobbish I quickly dreamed of Stillman's Metropolitan somehow pulling it off, w/o even an appearance. One day Whit will get the honor.

So many great films on this list. I've enjoyed the revisits I've been able to make and many of the films that are new to me. A top 75 has been tough. Some coin tosses and names out of a hat might be involved.

I saw that with absolutely no advance warning at a free screening at London's Tate Gallery during a 1985 Francis Bacon retrospective.

Just submitted my list. This was insanely difficult and has reminded me why I don't normally go in for list-making, although it was useful to have a master list to choose from- if I'd had free reign I doubt I'd have managed it.
The really good thing was it encouraged me to watch some stuff that I'd been putting off. I eventually ended on 313 of the eligible films, and, although only two or three new viewings- Stage Door, A Brighter Summer Day and Holiday- made my 50, I didn't watch anything that wasn't at least interesting.
Even if I'd only seen those, aforementioned three though, this would have been more than worthwhile. Holiday in particular came as a wonderful surprise, I expected it to be amusing but wasn't prepared for it to be so moving and rich while never losing any of it's immense charm. It also helps that Lew Ayres gives one of the best supporting turns I've possibly ever seen.

I also convinced myself the The Long Day Closes was eligible and watched that for the first time, then spent ages working out what to drop to accommodate it before finding it was nowhere to be seen on the master list. Half relieved, half disappointed (it would have placed high).

I'll be the first to say I found this not that difficult. I grabbed about 60 films off the list the first time through. Sure I skipped a whole bunch of great films, many of which I truly love. I chose those films that had an immense impact on me upon viewing them (usually, but not always, the first time). These were primarily films I saw on the big screen. They were films that gave me a high of sorts. The less you think about it, the more the list will reflect a visceral, emotional response to the artwork.

movielocke wrote:For fun I just attempted another pass at my list and wound up with only 42 films overlapping, now I have some pondering to do before Monday.

While I'll take lists until first thing tomorrow morning, I hope most people don't wait until the last minute to submit. I have a lot more time to enter them today, and each list I get on Monday is another 20 minutes that everyone has to wait for results.

denti alligator wrote:I'll be the first to say I found this not that difficult. (...) The less you think about it, the more the list will reflect a visceral, emotional response to the artwork.

Me as well. Every film on my list was a rewatch in the last 5 months or so, so that I could, as I went along, immediately compare the intensity of the passionate reaction from one film to another, and without having to rely on ancient memories (not to say that some don't come really close to each other and then it's a toss-up). Plus I didn't wait until the end to rank them but did so after each viewing*. It was initially disappointing to see some old favorites lose their privileged status, but in the end it feels a lot more satisfying having a "fresh" list that I know with certainty reflects my (current) tastes.

*But then I already do that with every film I (seriously) watch for the last 9+ years since I've become (fairly late in my life) an obsessive cinephile - so I've got a ranked list of 1985 films. But 1) my tastes have somewhat evolved over those years, and 2) especially, I initially ranking them according to a more confused mixture of passionate liking and "objective" admiration, and now it feels rewarding to rid the top 400 or 500 or so of impersonality!

I didn't get to do nearly as much viewing for this list (or posting in this thread) as I was hoping to after the birth of my second kid last August, but I still was able to watch or rewatch several dozen films on the list, and I learned two things about myself and my taste in movies from putting this list together:

1.) I was anticipating as I put together the draft list in my head at the beginning of this project having an unconventional list filled with an eclectic distribution of foreign, obscure, and older films befitting someone who has considered themselves a cinephile for 20+ years now. Instead, 74% of the films on my list are American productions, the oldest film was from 1944 (and only a third were pre-1970), and my list is filled with many of the "usual suspect" classics, especially the top 25. Turns out that when it really comes down to choosing the greatest of the great, I have a very hard time overcoming the connection I have with the works that turned me on to film between the ages of 14-20 as something more substantial than a vehicle for explosions and occasional nudity.

2.) I was also hoping to do some pruning of my list such that no directors were overrepresented and I could get at least 45 or so of my favorite directors represented. Instead, I ended up with seven directors featuring at least three times on my list, with one of those having three in the top ten! When trying to parse the films that had the extra transcendental element that pushed them into my top 50, it was impossible to limit myself to just token representation from those directors whose styles and thematic concerns resonate the most on a personal level.

I'm trying to fit in one more viewing this evening before turning in my list, but all in all it was a bit of a surprise how... conventional my tastes ended up looking as my list came together.

My list still has most of the favorites that brought me into a love of film and most of my top ten and plenty of the rest come from that initial surge, but re-watching many of these films has shown me the way my taste has changed. As was mentioned earlier in this thread, the Archers films continue to grow for me and I don't know if I would have loved them quite as much when I was younger. Bresson and Tati also appeal to me much more now. For whatever reason Scorsese has kind of fallen, same with "Apocalypse Now", not to take away from either of them. As for films from 2000s-today, I only ended up with two. Most of my favorites from the past seventeen years were not to be found, so I dug around.

As a last post I'll make a strong yet very brief defense for Renoir's Boudu Saved from Drowning. It's humane in one eye and satirical in the other with the right amount of anarchist buffoonery. I understand and also appreciate The Rules of the Game and La Grande Illusion (more so the latter), but this list is in the end fun and an exercise in passion and this is one film I can watch any day. Boudu is the vagabond drifter and dreamer par excellence.

Just had a crazy idea which would mean more work for me but I'm willing to do it...

Remember that a key point of this exercise was to limit the number of films that were eligible to only those that might actually stand a chance of placing in the final list (because they had passionate support from multiple people during the decades lists). In spite of this, there are still lots of "orphans" for this final round, although that's probably not the right word to describe a film that has made it this far in the process. Those votes are essentially thrown away at this point, giving each person less of a say in the final rankings. What I would propose is that after I have collected all of the lists tonight/tomorrow morning, I give each of you the opportunity to throw out your wasted votes and vote for that many more films among the remaining contenders. So for example, if five films on your all-time list received no other votes from anyone else, I would publish a new master list of contenders (there are currently 369 of them) and give you the opportunity to add five more of these films at the bottom of your list. I would then move everything up from your original list to fill in the gaps and make a new top 50 for you for scoring purposes, where every vote will count for something.) If you think this is stupid then I won't make you do it, but for anyone interested, I would give you a day or two or three to get back to me with your new additions before publishing the final results. This would also give me a few extra days to prepare for the start of the pre-1920s project, which I could use, to be honest.

That's pretty cool, especially if we could still get a list of those discarded orphans for discussion purposes. Despite what I said above about having a conventional list, I'm sure I've got at least three orphans and maybe more like seven.