A (Second) Shot at This...

MOVIES.

I'm posting, for the first time, my list of the top 100 films ever released. To be brief, my intent in putting this up in this forum is twofold: first, I would like to open a discussion about film on a larger scale on this blog - I welcome any and all comments about anything this post brings up - your thoughts, agreements, disagreements, suggestions, even your thoughts on lists in the larger sense, if that's what strikes you. Second, I hope to use the feedback from my friends and others to improve my own posting - in short, I want to make this the best list I can.

So, here goes: A top 100 films, selected and ranked on grounds of artistic, cultural and creative merit. Although in large part unavoidable, my attempt in making this list was to ignore either contemporary relevance or temporal considerations. In other words, I believe David Lean's 1956 version of "Great Expectations" is better than versions both before and after its release not because it broke any technical ground, but because I believe it is a more focused and emotionally satisfying creative work than any other rendition. Similarly, I leave "Birth of a Nation" off this list not because it is racially offensive, but because, frankly, I believe there have been 100 movies better than it made in the last 100 years or so.

On with the show:

Another Top 100 List

*draft 2 - major changes include additions of "Blade Runner" (1982) and "Cool Hand Luke" (1967), expansion of honorable mentions to 25 entries*

1. Citizen Kane (1941)
2. The Godfather (1972)
3. Schindler’s List (1994)
4. Casablanca (1942)
5. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
6. The Godfather, Part II (1974)
7. The Searchers (1956)
8. Seven Samurai (1954)
9. La Dolce Vita (1959)
10. The Graduate (1967)
11. Psycho (1960)
12. The Bicycle Thief (1949)
13. On the Waterfront (1954)
14. Gone With the Wind (1939)
15. The Seventh Seal (1957)
16. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
17. Rashomon (1950)
18. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
19. The Third Man (1949)
20. The Great Dictator (1940)
21. Chinatown (1974)
22. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
23. Pulp Fiction (1994)
24. Annie Hall (1977)
25. Vertigo (1958)
26. It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
27. Sherlock Jr. (1924)
28. Raging Bull (1980)
29. Jaws (1975)
30. Sunrise (1928)
31. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
32. Ran (1985)
33. High Noon (1952)
34. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
35. It Happened One Night (1934)
36. Metropolis (1926)
37. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
38. Star Wars (1977)
39. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
40. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
41. Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
42. The Apartment (1960)
43. Taxi Driver (1976)
44. Duck Soup (1933)
45. Easy Rider (1969)
46. Rear Window (1954)
47. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
48. Days of Heaven (1978)
49. Close Encounters of the 3^rd Kind (1977)
50. Apocalypse Now (1979)
51. All About Eve (1950)
52. Network (1976)
53. Nashville (1975)
54. 8 ½ (1963)
55. The Gold Rush (1925)
56. Paths of Glory (1957)
57. The Lord of the Rings (2003)
58. Midnight Cowboy (1969)
59. Touch of Evil (1958)
60. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
61. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
62. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
63. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
64. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
65. Badlands (1973)
66. The Lost Weekend (1945)
67. Strangers on a Train (1951)
68. The Elephant Man (1980)
69. Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid (1969)
70. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
71. Blade Runner (1982)
72. Double Indemnity (1944)
73. Nosferatu (1922)
74. Great Expectations (1956)
75. Brazil (1985)
76. The Sting (1973)
77. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
78. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
79. King Kong (1933)
80. The Battleship Potemkin (1925)
81. The Quiet Man (1952)
82. Notorious (1946)
83. Life is Beautiful (1999)
84. A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)
85. Patton (1970)
86. Doctor Zhivago (1965)
87. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
88. E.T. – the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
89. Kill Bill (2003)
90. Miller’s Crossing (1990)
91. Cool Hand Luke (1967)
92. La Strada (1954)
93. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
94. The Conversation (1974)
95. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
96. Unforgiven (1992)
97. The Big Sleep (1946)
98. Rebel Without A Cause (1955)
99. The Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
100. Fargo (1996)

Honorable Mention

1. The Deer Hunter (1976)
2. Goodfellas (1990)
3. The 400 Blows (1959)
4. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)
5. M (1931)
6. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
7. Some Like It Hot (1959)
8. The Last Picture Show (1971)
9. The Right Stuff (1983)
10. Modern Times (1936)
11. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
12. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
13. Requiem for a Dream (2000)
14. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
15. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
16. Blow-Up (1966)
17. Munich (2005)
18. The Wild Bunch (1969)
19. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
20. North By Northwest (1959)
21. Manhattan (1979)
22. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
23. Traffic (2000)
24. Platoon (1986)
25. This is Spinal Tap (1984)