Hey everyone, great to be back again. Some of you might remember a similar title from a list I made back in April, where I made a list of the top 250 movies with 13 sources, or a preview of this list I made last month.
I want to emphasize that this is NOT an official ranking nor my personal ranking; it is just a statistical and, personally, interesting look at 500 amazing movies. These rankings reflect the opinions of thousands of critics and millions of people around the world. And I am glad that this list is able to cover a wide range of genres, decades, and countries. So before I get bombarded with "Why isn't X on here?" or "How is X above Y?" comments, I wanted to clear that up.
I sourced my data from Sight & Sound (both critic and director lists), TSPDT, iCheckMovies, 11 domestic websites (Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, IMDb, Letterboxd, TMDb, Trakt, Blu-Ray, MovieLens, RateYourMusic, Criticker, and Critics Choice), and 9 international audience sites (FilmAffinity, Douban, Naver, MUBI, Filmweb, Kinopoisk, CSFD, Moviemeter, and Senscritique). This balance of domestic/international ratings made the list more well-rounded and internationally representative (sites from Spain, China, Korea, Poland, Russia, Czech Republic, Netherlands, and France).
As for my algorithm, I weighted websites according to both their Alexa ranking and their number of votes compared to other sites. For example, since The Godfather has hundreds of thousands of votes on Letterboxd but only a couple thousand on Metacritic, Letterboxd would be weighted more heavily. After obtaining the weighted averages, I then added the movie's iCheckMovies' favs/checks ratio and TSPDT ranking, if applicable. Regarding TSPDT, I included the top 2000 movies; as an example of my calculations, Rear Window's ranking of #41 would add (2000-41)/2000=0.9795 points to its weighted average. I removed movies that had <7-8K votes on IMDb, as these mostly had low ratings and numbers of votes across different sites as well. For both Sight & Sound lists, I added between 0.5 and 1 point to a movie's score based on its ranking, which I thought was an adequate reflection of how difficult it is to be included on these lists. As examples, a #21 movie would have 0.9 points added while a #63 would have 0.69 points.
Any feedback is appreciated, especially other sites I may not have sourced. If you found this list interesting, I would really appreciate it if you can give my newish Youtube channel a subscribe. It really helps a lot. Thanks guys.
Some stats:
Decades:
1900s - 1 film
1910s - 1
1920s - 22
1930s - 22
1940s - 40
1950s - 65
1960s - 75
1970s - 58
1980s - 54
1990s - 64
2000s - 55
2010s - 43
Directors with multiple films:
12 films - Akira Kurosawa
10 - Alfred Hitchcock, Ingmar Bergman
8 - Charlie Chaplin, Stanley Kubrick
7 - Andrei Tarkovsky, Billy Wilder, Hayao Miyazaki, Steven Spielberg
6 - Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel
5 - Christopher Nolan, Buster Keaton, Fritz Lang, Howard Hawks, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen
4 - David Lynch, Ernst Lubitsch, F. W. Murnau, Francis Ford Coppola, John Ford, Lee Unkrich, Quentin Tarantino, Roman Polanski, Sergio Leone, Werner Herzog, William Wyler, Yasujirō Ozu
3 - Brad Bird, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Clint Eastwood, Coen Brothers, David Fincher, David Lean, François Truffaut, Frank Capra, Hirokazu Koreeda, James Cameron, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Melville, John Huston, Masaki Kobayashi, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pete Docter, Peter Jackson, Richard Linklater, Ridley Scott, Robert Bresson, Satyajit Ray, Sidney Lumet, Vittorio De Sica, Wim Wenders
2 - Abbas Kiarostami, Alain Resnais, Andrew Stanton, Arthur Penn, Béla Tarr, Bong Joon-ho, Brian De Palma, Chris Marker, Edward Yang, Elia Kazan, Emir Kusturica, Frank Darabont, George Cukor, George Roy Hill, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Isao Takahata, Jacques Tati, Jean Cocteau, Jean Renoir, Jim Sheridan, John Cassavetes, John Lasseter, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Kenji Mizoguchi, Leo McCarey, Louis Malle, Luchino Visconti, Max Ophüls, Mike Leigh, Mike Nichols, Mikhail Kalatozov, Miloš Forman, Orson Welles, Otto Preminger, Park Chan-wook, Pedro Almodóvar, Peter Bogdanovich, Peter Weir, Raoul Walsh, Robert Zemeckis, Sam Mendes, Stanley Donen, Terrence Malick, Terry Gilliam, Thomas Vinterberg, Victor Fleming, Wong Kar-wai, Zhang Yimou
Cloned from:
https://letterboxd.com/reelstats/list/the-500-greatest-movies-of-all-time-according/
Shows & Movies I watched in the year 2021
Events such as the cultural revolution and the abolition of Hay's code contribute to the daring and more experimental nature of films of the 60s which were a prelude to what was to come in the 70s. 70s begins with worldwide major film movements. This period is considered to be the heyday of cinema with the release of many great films that would change the landscape forever.
[This is a series of lists listing films deemed important based on their technical, artistic, historical or cultural significance. This shall also serve as a good resource for film studies however it is extensively based on my own personal preferences.
Resources:
[1]r/truefilm, IMDb, AFI's top 100, Sight & Sound Critic's Directors' Top 100, and various others.
[2] Looking at Movies: https://www.amazon.com/Looking-Movies-Fifth-Richard-Barsam/dp/0393600653 and The Movie Book:
https://www.amazon.com/Movie-Book-Ideas-Simply-Explained-ebook/dp/B017AR0MUS
[3] Download Links: Qxr, Sartre, Garshasp for more iconic ones. Yify and others for the rest.(Piracy Is Illegal ffs & I shall not be responsible)
Excerpt From https://www.imdb.com/user/ur73738276/watchlist?sort=release_date%2Casc&view=detail listing films from 1961's *La Notte to 1980's Altered States
PS: Trakt has incorrect dates for a great many titles. so use IMDb or wikipedia! This list uses IMDb and 'Rank' is the correct order]
Films already seen have been exempted. Imported 227/231
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!
HollyWood Movies based on Popularity
This is a list based on the show 'The Movies' on CNN and compiled by a user on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/ct3rer/every_single_movie_mentioned_on_cnns_the_movies/
All the movies with "Must-See" badge on Metacritic. Movie gets the badge when it has a score of 81 or higher and has been reviewed by at least 15 pro critics.
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
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
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board was established in 1988. Each year, 25 "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films" are preserved, to increase awareness for its preservation. To be eligible for inclusion, a film must be at least ten years old but it is not required to be feature-length, nor is it required to have been theatrically released.
Source: https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/
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
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
Todo el mejor cine de la historia
Liste des films présents dans le livre et le site Movieland www.movieland.io
Source: https://nofilmschool.com/2016/04/12-films-have-perfect-cinematography-according-60-critics
All the Movies
by Sam Gass