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| "The results are in. The greatest movie ever made is... Spice World, Don Corleone." |
Updated: June 26, 2023
How do we figure out which film is the greatest of all time?
It's a question we've wanted to answer ever since we started making movies, and it's one we can never solve. Until now.*
In 1998, I stumbled upon the American Film Institute's list of the greatest American films of all time. It sparked a life-long passion for cinema and an obsession with similar film lists. I wanted to see all the great movies, and these lists told me which ones to start with. As time went on, the lists blurred together into one huge list on my computer, which then made me wonder what would happen if I compiled them properly in a spreadsheet. Would it tell me what the greatest film of all time was?
Below is the result of that ridiculous thought. I collected 65 lists, each containing either 50 or 100 (or sometimes 101) films. Some were alphabetised, some were ranked, some were arranged chronologically, so I used a rudimentary weighting system to even them out - basically an appearance on an unranked list got you a five, while an appearance on a ranked list started at 10 points for the top 10, nine for being in the next 10, and so on. I sought out lists of under-represented films - those from certain continents, or of certain genres, or certain eras, or directed by women - in a further attempt to even things out.
I realise what a flawed endeavour this is, and that my methodology is also flawed, but here are the results nonetheless.
- The Godfather
- Citizen Kane
- Casablanca
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Vertigo
- Singin' in the Rain
- Star Wars
- Psycho
- The Godfather Part II
- Lawrence of Arabia
- The Wizard of Oz
- E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
- Pulp Fiction
- Schindler's List
- Gone With the Wind
- Some Like It Hot
- Taxi Driver
- It's a Wonderful Life
- Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb
- Apocalypse Now
- Chinatown
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Raging Bull
- Jaws
- Annie Hall
- The Searchers
- Blade Runner
- The Silence of the Lambs
- North by Northwest
- The Empire Strikes Back
- Goodfellas
- Rear Window
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- City Lights
- The Graduate
- On the Waterfront
- Alien
- Bonnie and Clyde
- King Kong
- Seven Samurai
- Double Indemnity
- The Exorcist
- Sunset Boulevard
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Titanic
- All About Eve
- Spirited Away
- Saving Private Ryan
- The Third Man
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
- The Matrix
- The Sound of Music
- A Clockwork Orange
- Toy Story
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- The General
- Aliens
- The Maltese Falcon
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
- The Bridge on the River Kwai
- High Noon
- The Grapes of Wrath
- Breathless
- Sunrise
- Fargo
- Trainspotting
- The Deer Hunter
- Tokyo Story
- The Piano
- The Wild Bunch
- Do the Right Thing
- The Philadelphia Story
- The African Queen
- Terminator 2
- Seven
- Blue Velvet
- Battleship Potemkin
- The 400 Blows
- 8 1/2
- The Night of the Hunter
- Nashville
- Mr Smith Goes to Washington
- La Regle du Jeu
- Modern Times
- It Happened One Night
- Rashomon
- This Is Spinal Tap
- Mulholland Drive
- L.A. Confidential
- Touch of Evil
- Sullivan's Travels
- Persona
- Duck Soup
- Die Hard
- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
- Metropolis
- Forrest Gump
- Cabaret
- Bicycle Thieves
- Back To The Future
- West Side Story
- The Shining
- The Seventh Seal
- Moulin Rouge!
- Jurassic Park
- His Girl Friday
- Bringing Up Baby
- Bride of Frankenstein
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
- Sherlock Jr
- The Best Years of Our Lives
- Pinocchio
- In The Mood For Love
- 12 Angry Men
- The Princess Bride
- The Lion King
- Life Of Brian
- La Dolce Vita
- Frankenstein
- Don't Look Now
- Ben-Hur
- There Will Be Blood
- The Usual Suspects
- The Gold Rush
- Nosferatu
- Midnight Cowboy
- The Terminator
- The Passion of Joan of Arc
- The Manchurian Candidate
- Pather Panchali
- Mad Max: Fury Road
- M
- Manhattan
- When Harry Met Sally...
- Unforgiven
- The Dark Knight
- Beau Travail
- The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
- Goldfinger
- The Lady Eve
- Stagecoach
- Rebel Without A Cause
- Lost In Translation
- Fantasia
- Return Of The Jedi
- Dances With Wolves
- The Red Shoes
- Sweet Smell of Success
- Withnail & I
- The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
- Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
- A Streetcar Named Desire
The Godfather appeared on the most lists (38), just ahead of Casablanca and 2001: A Space Odyssey (37), followed by Citizen Kane (35), and Lawrence of Arabia and Vertigo (34). The Godfather Part II appeared on the fewest number of lists of the films in the top 10 (30).
In the top 100, Mulholland Drive appeared on the least number of lists (9).
The highest ranking non-English language film is The Seven Samurai (#40), the highest silent film is City Lights (#34), and the most recent films are 2002's Spirited Away (#47) and 2001's The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (#60). The oldest films are 1927's Sunrise (#64) and Metropolis (#96).
Of the films in the top 100, The Godfather had the highest average score per list (8.4), while Citizen Kane, Star Wars, It's a Wonderful Life, and The Shawshank Redemption were the only other films to also average higher than 8.
For films that appeared on a minimum of five lists, the best average is City Of God (8.6) and There Will Be Blood (8.6), The Godfather (8.4), and Withnail and I, Citizen Kane, and Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (8.3).
The only films in the top 100 directed by women are The Wachowski's The Matrix (#51) and Jane Campion's The Piano (#69). The next highest is Beau Travail (#137) Sofia Coppola's Lost In Translation (#143), and Jeanne Dielman (#151).
* Just kidding. We'll never know the answer.
