About The Poll
This poll was conducted in November 2008. The list was compiled using votes from Empire readers, Hollywood actors, actress and key film critics.
They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? (TSPDT) is a modest but growing film resource dedicated to the art of motion picture filmmaking and most specifically to that one particular individual calling the shots from behind the camera - the film director.
This list is based on TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest Films, a list compilated by Bill Georgaris using thousands of best-of/all-time lists.
www.theyshootpictures.com
Trading on its impeccable reputation, Halliwell’s now presents it’s Top 1,000 favorite films. Starting at number 1,000, each entry includes a plot summary, cast and crew, awards, key critical comments, DVD and soundtrack availability, and a wealth of other interesting details. To supplement the countdown, there is commentary from film stars, show business personalities, well-known critics, and the movers and shakers in the film industry, each naming their favorite films or weighing in on Halliwell’s selection. Illustrated throughout with classic and modern film stills and posters, this is a book that every cinema fan will want to own. John Walker is one of Britain’s leading film critics.
The list has 42 extra films, because trilogies, or series, are counted as one entry (The Godfather, The Apu Trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, Antoine Doinel, Laurel and Hardy shorts, etc...)
Source: https://www.amazon.com/Halliwells-Top-1000-Ultimate-Countdown/dp/0007181655
This list is drawn from "The New York Times Book of Movies: The Essential 1,000 Films to See", published in 2019. It contains a selection of 1000 reviews that have been printed in The New York Times. The majority of movies in this book are among the "10 Best Films" chosen by New York Times critics at the end of each year.
Source: https://www.amazon.com/New-York-Times-Book-Movies/dp/078933657X
Spanning the length of Roger Ebert's career as the leading American movie critic, this book contains all of his four-star reviews written during that time. A great guide for movie watching.
Taken from external source. 64 movies missing from original.
HollyWood Movies based on Popularity
Diary of everything I saw while social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic
In his Guide for the Film Fanatic (1986), Danny Peary provides short reviews for over 1600 “Must See” films.
104 movies missing. Imported from external source.
Includes all the films of the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Book, including films culled to make way for newer releases, up to the 2021 edition.
This is the list that Spike Lee distributes to his graduate students at NYU every year.
Spike says: "I've Been A Professor At The NYU Graduate Film For The Past 15 Years.The 1st Day Of Every Class I Hand Out My List Of Films That I Feel You Must See If You Want To Make Films. Please Look At This List And See What You Might Have Missed. As I Tell My Students If You Want Your Film "Game" To Be Tight You Must Have Seen Great Movies, World Cinema, It Just Can't Be Hollywood Films. Educate Yourself. Learn. Grow. Evolve. Make Great Films.
Peace, Onward And Upward,
Spike Lee."
Source: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spikelee/the-newest-hottest-spike-lee-joint/posts/574874
Imported with Trakt.tv List Importer.
The Story of Film: An Odyssey, a 15-part series written and directed by award-winning film-maker Mark Cousins, is the story of international cinema told through the history of cinematic innovation.
The series provides a worldwide guided tour of the greatest movies ever made; an epic tale that starts in nickelodeons and ends as a multi-billion-dollar globalised digital industry."
Note: "Motion Capture Mirrors Emotion (2009) dir. Jorge Ribas," a documentary about the making of Avatar, is missing because it does not appear to have an imdb page.
Source: https://www.amazon.com/Birth-Cinema-Hollywood-Dream/dp/B00AMQ1B1O
A personal introduction to 1000 movies by the provocative contemporary film critic and historian David Thomson.
Source: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Have-You-Seen-Introduction-masterpieces/dp/014102075X
BBC Culture polled film critics from around the world to determine the best American movies ever made. The results are surprising – Gone With the Wind appears at 97.
Movies
I started off by gathering ratings from IMDB (User/Critic Average), Rotten Tomatoes (Tomatometer, Critic Average, Audience Score, User Average), Metacritic (Critic Average, User Average) and Letterboxd (User Average). I was then able to determine a rating (out of 10) for each individual rating and therefore come up with an average rating for each site. Each site’s average rating was then weighted fairly so that no site’s ratings were favored above the rest.
The next step was to make sure that each film was treated fairly. Other top movie list’s like IMDb’s Top 1000 removes films that have under a certain viewing number (25,000 I think), but rather than ruling out films that may have been overlooked by the general audience (especially older films), I opted to alter these films score by carefully deducting points depending on how many people have seen it, and therefore voted on it. I also thought it was needed to make sure that recent films (released within the past 36 months) were also not favored, as it usually takes 3 years for the average rating to settle down. So I also added a deduction to these films that fell under this rule.
Taken from here: https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/3hbiio/update_1001_greatest_movies_of_all_time_plus/
List of Nominees and Winners.
Warren Beatty in "Heaven Can Wait"
Gary Busey in "The Buddy Holly Story"
Robert De Niro in "The Deer Hunter"
Laurence Olivier in "The Boys from Brazil"
Jon Voight in "Coming Home" - WINNER
Bruce Dern in "Coming Home"
Richard Farnsworth in "Comes a Horseman"
John Hurt in "Midnight Express"
Christopher Walken in "The Deer Hunter" - WINNER
Jack Warden in "Heaven Can Wait"
Ingrid Bergman in "Autumn Sonata"
Ellen Burstyn in "Same Time, Next Year"
Jill Clayburgh in "An Unmarried Woman"
Jane Fonda in "Coming Home" - WINNER
Geraldine Page in "Interiors"
Dyan Cannon in "Heaven Can Wait"
Penelope Milford in "Coming Home"
Maggie Smith in "California Suite" - WINNER
Maureen Stapleton in "Interiors"
Meryl Streep in "The Deer Hunter"
"The Brink’s Job" Art Direction: Dean Tavoularis, Angelo Graham; Set Decoration: George R. Nelson, Bruce Kay
"California Suite" Art Direction: Albert Brenner; Set Decoration: Marvin March
"Heaven Can Wait" Art Direction: Paul Sylbert, Edwin O’Donovan; Set Decoration: George Gaines - WINNER
"Interiors" Art Direction: Mel Bourne; Set Decoration: Daniel Robert
"The Wiz" Art Direction: Tony Walton, Philip Rosenberg; Set Decoration: Edward Stewart, Robert Drumheller
"Days of Heaven" Nestor Almendros - WINNER
"The Deer Hunter" Vilmos Zsigmond
"Heaven Can Wait" William A. Fraker
"Same Time, Next Year" Robert Surtees
"The Wiz" Oswald Morris
"Caravans" Renie Conley
"Days of Heaven" Patricia Norris
"Death on the Nile" Anthony Powell - WINNER
"The Swarm" Paul Zastupnevich
"The Wiz" Tony Walton
"Coming Home" Hal Ashby
"The Deer Hunter" Michael Cimino - WINNER
"Heaven Can Wait" Warren Beatty, Buck Henry
"Interiors" Woody Allen
"Midnight Express" Alan Parker
"The Lovers’ Wind" Albert Lamorisse, Producer
"Mysterious Castles of Clay" Alan Root, Producer
"Raoni" Jean-Pierre Dutilleux, Barry Williams and Michel Gast, Producers
"Scared Straight!" Arnold Shapiro, Producer - WINNER
"With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women’s Emergency Brigade" Anne Bohlen, Lyn Goldfarb and Lorraine Gray, Producers
"The Divided Trail: A Native American Odyssey" Jerry Aronson, Producer
"An Encounter with Faces" K.K. Kapil, Producer
"The Flight of the Gossamer Condor" Jacqueline Phillips Shedd and Ben Shedd, Producers - WINNER
"Goodnight Miss Ann" August Cinquegrana, Producer
"Squires of San Quentin" J. Gary Mitchell, Producer
"The Boys from Brazil" Robert E. Swink
"Coming Home" Don Zimmerman
"The Deer Hunter" Peter Zinner - WINNER
"Midnight Express" Gerry Hambling
"Superman" Stuart Baird
"Get Out Your Handkerchiefs" France - WINNER
"The Glass Cell" German Federal Republic
"Hungarians" Hungary
"Viva Italia!" Italy
"White Bim Black Ear" Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
"The Buddy Holly Story" Joe Renzetti - WINNER
"Pretty Baby" Jerry Wexler
"The Wiz" Quincy Jones
"The Boys from Brazil" Jerry Goldsmith
"Days of Heaven" Ennio Morricone
"Heaven Can Wait" Dave Grusin
"Midnight Express" Giorgio Moroder - WINNER
"Superman" John Williams
"Hopelessly Devoted To You" from "Grease" Music and Lyrics by John Farrar
"Last Dance" from "Thank God It’s Friday" Music and Lyrics by Paul Jabara - WINNER
"The Last Time I Felt Like This" from "Same Time, Next Year" Music by Marvin Hamlisch; Lyrics by Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman
"Ready To Take a Chance Again" from "Foul Play" Music by Charles Fox; Lyrics by Norman Gimbel
"When You’re Loved" from "The Magic of Lassie" Music and Lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman
"Coming Home" Jerome Hellman, Producer
"The Deer Hunter" Barry Spikings, Michael Deeley, Michael Cimino and John Peverall, Producers - WINNER
"Heaven Can Wait" Warren Beatty, Producer
"Midnight Express" Alan Marshall and David Puttnam, Producers
"An Unmarried Woman" Paul Mazursky and Tony Ray, Producers
"Oh My Darling" Nico Crama, Producer
"Rip Van Winkle" Will Vinton, Producer
"Special Delivery" Eunice Macaulay and John Weldon, Producers - WINNER
"A Different Approach" Jim Belcher and Fern Field, Producers
"Mandy’s Grandmother" Andrew Sugerman, Producer
"Strange Fruit" Seth Pinsker, Producer
"Teenage Father" Taylor Hackford, Producer - WINNER
"The Buddy Holly Story" Tex Rudloff, Joel Fein, Curly Thirlwell, Willie Burton
"Days of Heaven" John K. Wilkinson, Robert W. Glass, Jr., John T. Reitz, Barry Thomas
"The Deer Hunter" Richard Portman, William McCaughey, Aaron Rochin, Darin Knight - WINNER
"Hooper" Robert Knudson, Robert J. Glass, Don MacDougall, Jack Solomon
"Superman" Gordon K. McCallum, Graham Hartstone, Nicolas Le Messurier, Roy Charman
"Bloodbrothers" Walter Newman
"California Suite" Neil Simon
"Heaven Can Wait" Elaine May, Warren Beatty
"Midnight Express" Oliver Stone - WINNER
"Same Time, Next Year" Bernard Slade
"Autumn Sonata" Ingmar Bergman
"Coming Home" Story by Nancy Dowd; Screenplay by Waldo Salt, Robert C. Jones - WINNER
"The Deer Hunter" Story by Michael Cimino, Deric Washburn, Louis Garfinkle, Quinn K. Redeker; Screenplay by Deric Washburn
"Interiors" Woody Allen
"An Unmarried Woman" Paul Mazursky
From https://letterboxd.com/reelstats/list/the-1001-greatest-movies-of-all-time-according/
Rotten Tomatoes list of best 70s Movies as listed here; https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/essential-1970s-movies/
Welcome to the days of disco and dirty deeds as we plunge into a new wave of movies: raw and renewed, unfiltered, while laying the groundwork for blockbuster era to come. Welcome to the 140 essential movies of the ’70s.
The two moods we aimed to capture in this countdown: The wilting of ’60s flower power optimism under the harsh light of urban reality and decay; meanwhile the destruction of the musty Hays Code — a musty ruleset that dictated what could be depicted on-screen for decades — suddenly allowing directors to pursue more personal expressions in film, often violent and sexual. You’ll find stories of lone men (Taxi Driver, Dog Day Afternoon) and women (Wanda, Norma Rae) against the system, and paranoid political thrillers (All the President’s Men, Three Days of the Condor). There are the horror hallmarks (Alien, Halloween) including international (Suspiria, Deep Red), and box office game changers (Star Wars, Jaws). Low-budget exploitation (The Last House on the Left, Mad Max), and a few things a willing warped mind can get off on (The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Holy Mountain). All movies considered for this list needed to have a Tomatometer (after 5 reviews) and have been made during the decade, even if it didn’t get a major release until later, e.g. Hausu or Killer of Sheep.
Now, let’s strut them mean streets, let’s do the time warp again, let’s have ourselves a close encounter with 140 essential 70s movies!
Source: https://nofilmschool.com/2016/04/12-films-have-perfect-cinematography-according-60-critics
Empire Magazines 500 Greatest Films of All Time
by Maxim Machalek