The fine folks at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? have done some more tweaking to their list of The 1,000 Greatest Films. You’ve got to admire their initiative. It’s like the movie fanatic’s Holy Grail:
This list of the 1,000 Greatest Films of all-time has been compiled by using individual critics’ and filmmakers’ top-tens from film polls conducted by Sight & Sound (1992 & 2002), John Kobal (1988), Positif (1991), Time Out (1995), Village Voice (1999), Facets (2003) and selected top tens listed by Senses of Cinema, Combustible Celluloid, Your Movie Database’s (YMDB) Critics Corner and various other sources. Commencing with John Kobal’s 1988 poll, a total of 1,000 top-tens have so far been used to calculate (via some rather tricky formulas) the 1,000 Greatest Films.
Painstakingly collated and ‘lovingly’ assembled, we believe that this is quite possibly the most definitive guide to the most-acclaimed movies of all-time. At the very least, it is a rather spiffy place for all budding/established film buffs to commence/enhance their cinematic experiences. So what are you waiting for? Start that checklist now!
I’m an enthusiastic supporter of lists like this. Not because they’re objective or infallible — far from it — but because they send me in new directions and force me to confront my own biases. Like, I’ve seen 49 of the top 50 films (The Conformist, if you’re curious), but once we get into the next hundred or so, my dislike of certain genres (westerns, especially) begins to catch up with me. Looks like I need to spend some time with John Ford.
This list’s greatest asset is its length. Midway through, once you’ve worked your way past the canonical films, you start discovering titles like Michael Snow’s La Region Centrale, Fritz Lang’s The Tiger of Eschnapur, Erich Von Stroheim’s The Wedding March, and Henry Hathaway’s Peter Ibbetson. I love knowing that so many films I’ve never heard of are still there waiting to be discovered.