Monday 28 November 2022

The greatest movies of all time

"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.

  1. The Godfather
  2. Citizen Kane
  3. Casablanca
  4. 2001: A Space Odyssey
  5. Vertigo
  6. Singin' in the Rain
  7. Star Wars
  8. Psycho
  9. The Godfather Part II
  10. Lawrence of Arabia
  11. The Wizard of Oz
  12. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
  13. Pulp Fiction
  14. Schindler's List
  15. Gone With the Wind
  16. Some Like It Hot
  17. Taxi Driver
  18. It's a Wonderful Life
  19. Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb
  20. Apocalypse Now
  21. Chinatown
  22. Raiders of the Lost Ark
  23. Raging Bull
  24. Jaws
  25. Annie Hall
  26. The Searchers
  27. Blade Runner
  28. The Silence of the Lambs
  29. North by Northwest
  30. The Empire Strikes Back
  31. Goodfellas
  32. Rear Window
  33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
  34. City Lights
  35. The Graduate
  36. On the Waterfront
  37. Alien
  38. Bonnie and Clyde
  39. King Kong
  40. Seven Samurai
  41. Double Indemnity
  42. The Exorcist
  43. Sunset Boulevard
  44. The Shawshank Redemption
  45. Titanic
  46. All About Eve
  47. Spirited Away
  48. Saving Private Ryan
  49. The Third Man
  50. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
  51. The Matrix
  52. The Sound of Music
  53. A Clockwork Orange
  54. Toy Story
  55. To Kill a Mockingbird
  56. The General
  57. Aliens
  58. The Maltese Falcon
  59. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
  60. The Bridge on the River Kwai
  61. High Noon
  62. The Grapes of Wrath
  63. Breathless
  64. Sunrise
  65. Fargo
  66. Trainspotting
  67. The Deer Hunter
  68. Tokyo Story
  69. The Piano
  70. The Wild Bunch
  71. Do the Right Thing
  72. The Philadelphia Story
  73. The African Queen
  74. Terminator 2
  75. Seven
  76. Blue Velvet
  77. Battleship Potemkin
  78. The 400 Blows
  79. 8 1/2
  80. The Night of the Hunter
  81. Nashville
  82. Mr Smith Goes to Washington
  83. La Regle du Jeu
  84. Modern Times
  85. It Happened One Night
  86. Rashomon
  87. This Is Spinal Tap
  88. Mulholland Drive
  89. L.A. Confidential
  90. Touch of Evil
  91. Sullivan's Travels
  92. Persona
  93. Duck Soup
  94. Die Hard
  95. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  96. Metropolis
  97. Forrest Gump
  98. Cabaret
  99. Bicycle Thieves
  100. Back To The Future
  101. West Side Story
  102. The Shining
  103. The Seventh Seal
  104. Moulin Rouge!
  105. Jurassic Park
  106. His Girl Friday
  107. Bringing Up Baby
  108. Bride of Frankenstein
  109. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
  110. Sherlock Jr
  111. The Best Years of Our Lives
  112. Pinocchio
  113. In The Mood For Love
  114. 12 Angry Men
  115. The Princess Bride
  116. The Lion King
  117. Life Of Brian
  118. La Dolce Vita
  119. Frankenstein
  120. Don't Look Now
  121. Ben-Hur
  122. There Will Be Blood
  123. The Usual Suspects
  124. The Gold Rush
  125. Nosferatu
  126. Midnight Cowboy
  127. The Terminator
  128. The Passion of Joan of Arc
  129. The Manchurian Candidate
  130. Pather Panchali
  131. Mad Max: Fury Road
  132. M
  133. Manhattan
  134. When Harry Met Sally...
  135. Unforgiven
  136. The Dark Knight
  137. Beau Travail
  138. The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
  139. Goldfinger
  140. The Lady Eve
  141. Stagecoach
  142. Rebel Without A Cause
  143. Lost In Translation
  144. Fantasia
  145. Return Of The Jedi
  146. Dances With Wolves
  147. The Red Shoes
  148. Sweet Smell of Success
  149. Withnail & I
  150. The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
  151. Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
  152. 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.


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16 comments:

  1. KLP1 December 2022 at 15:18

    What would make this list (and other such lists) more valuable for those like the young Matt Neal would be to include information for each movie on where they can be viewed, eg what streaming platform has the rights for subscribers or for rental at time of publication.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DrMattNeal4 December 2022 at 23:54

      Try this site for all the answer: https://www.justwatch.com/
      I think you can adjust it to suit your country when you sign up.

      Delete
  2. Marion1 December 2022 at 15:39

    Wake in Fright, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Animal Kingdom

    ReplyDelete
  3. Laurie1 December 2022 at 17:24

    The Quiet Man was an all time classic for me.

    ReplyDelete
  4. smur1 December 2022 at 23:44

    I've watched 30 of these 100 films. I would say only one of them would rank in my top 100, Spirited Away, by the best director on this whole list, Miyazaki. Several of them I consider to be embarrassingly bad...... The Empire Strikes Back ??? Raiders of the Lost Art ???

    ReplyDelete
  5. Unknown2 December 2022 at 01:09

    So western hemisphere centric, yeah a couple of token Japanese films but what about Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali? Bertolucci? De Sica? Renoir? Cinema is not limited by language

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. fispaceout3 December 2022 at 00:15

      You are spot on. There are some truly awesome Japanese and Korean movies.

      Delete
    2. DrMattNeal4 December 2022 at 23:55

      Yes agreed. I'm trying to find more non-US/English lists to broaden this out.

      Delete
  6. Jianakn2 December 2022 at 08:08

    One of the issues with lists like these is they do a survey and people tend to remember the movies they have seen on TV from the last 30 years.

    I have been a movie fan for over 50 years.

    Dances With Wolves ( the 234 minute version) is perhaps the best film made, followed by Doctor Zhivago.

    There are several classic films that could be included on the list.
    Out of Africa
    Ben Hur (1959)
    Cleopatra
    The Great Escape
    The Ten Commandments
    Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
    Blazing Saddles
    The Jungle Book (1967)
    My Fair Lady
    The Ghost and Mrs Muir
    The Return of the King
    The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
    A Beautiful Mind
    Last Tango in Paris
    How the West was Won
    The Greatest Show on Earth
    The Cheyenne Social Club
    Fantasia
    Peter Pan
    The Lover
    Color of Night
    All is Quiet on the Western Front
    Mame
    The Old Man and the Sea
    Goldfinger
    Oklahoma
    Shenandoah
    A Clockwork Orange
    Close Encounters of the Third Kind
    Ivanhoe
    The Four Feathers
    The Pink Panther
    The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
    Rocky Horror Picture Show
    Das Boat
    Roman Holiday
    To Catch a Thief
    Genghis Khan (1965)
    The King and I
    55 Days at Peking
    Coolhand Luke
    Operation Petticoat
    Zulu
    On the Beach
    Apocalypto
    Breakfast at Tiffany's











    ReplyDelete
  7. Rodney H.2 December 2022 at 19:30

    Matt, I enjoyed your ABC article & this is great top 100 list. If you’re interested in seeing more calculated top film lists, there are a number of us who have been doing them for some years. The ones I particularly like are “They Shoot Pictures” and “Phi Phenomenon”. My own list has about 15,000 films ranked & rated using over a 100 different lists & criteria sorted into Critical, Popular & Fan/User voices which are then averaged to create the overall ranking. Below is my current top 100, which, unlike the lists above, I have only published on social media. I much prefer using longer list like IMdB 250, Story of Film 500 & particularly Steven Schneider’s “1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die”. I also include top international 1,000 box office rankings & the entire history of the Academy Awards etc.

    1. Star Wars (1977)
    2. Godfather, The (1972)
    3. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The (2003)
    4. Schindler's List (1993)
    5. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
    6. 2001: a Space Odyssey (1968)
    7. Pulp Fiction (1994)
    8. Casablanca (1942)
    9. Jaws (1975)
    10. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
    11. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
    12. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001)
    13. Forrest Gump (1994)
    14. Empire Strikes Back, The (1980)
    15. Gone With the Wind (1939)
    16. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
    17. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The (2002)
    18. Godfather, Part II, The (1974)
    19. Citizen Kane (1941)
    20. Silence of the Lambs, The (1991)
    21. Matrix, The (1999)
    22. Titanic (1997)
    23. Apocalypse Now (1979)
    24. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
    25. Wizard of Oz, The (1939)
    26. Sound of Music, The (1965)
    27. Back to the Future (1985)
    28. Psycho (1960)
    29. Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
    30. Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
    31. Gladiator (2000)
    32. Some Like It Hot (1959)
    33. Raging Bull (1980)
    34. Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957)
    35. Taxi Driver (1976)
    36. Shawshank Redemption, The (1994)
    37. Jurassic Park (1993)
    38. American Beauty (1999)
    39. On the Waterfront (1954)
    40. Exorcist, The (1973)
    41. Goodfellas (1990)
    42. Annie Hall (1977)
    43. Singin' in the Rain (1952)
    44. Rear Window (1954)
    45. Graduate, The (1967)
    46. Chinatown (1974)
    47. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
    48. Vertigo (1958)
    49. Ben-Hur (1959)
    50. All About Eve (1950)
    51. Dances with Wolves (1990)
    52. Blade Runner (1982)
    53. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
    54. Alien (1979)
    55. Return of the Jedi, The (1983)
    56. Third Man, The (1949)
    57. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
    58. North by Northwest (1959)
    59. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
    60. Toy Story (1995)
    61. Se7en (1995)
    62. Seven Samurai, The (1954)
    63. Best Years of Our Lives, The (1946)
    64. Braveheart (1995)
    65. Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The (1966)
    66. Rocky (1976)
    67. Sting, The (1973)
    68. Apartment, The (1960)
    69. Clockwork Orange, A (1971)
    70. Lion King, The (1994)
    71. Unforgiven (1992)
    72. L.A. Confidential (1997)
    73. Aliens (1986)
    74. Platoon (1986)
    75. Usual Suspects, The (1995)
    76. Dark Knight, The (2008)
    77. Sixth Sense, The (1999)
    78. Double Indemnity (1944)
    79. Fargo (1996)
    80. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
    81. Deer Hunter, The (1978)
    82. Rain Man (1988)
    83. Amadeus (1984)
    84. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
    85. 12 Angry Men (1957)
    86. Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (1948)
    87. Fight Club (1999)
    88. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
    89. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
    90. Wild Bunch, The (1969)
    91. Maltese Falcon, The (1941)
    92. King Kong (1933)
    93. Inception (2010)
    94. Shining, The (1980)
    95. Midnight Cowboy (1969)
    96. Spirited Away (2001)
    97. Finding Nemo (2003)
    98. 8½ (1963)
    99. Philadelphia Story, The (1940)
    100. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hendy Barnawi3 December 2022 at 03:38

    Why The Pianist Not in the list?
    Is a great Movie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DrMattNeal5 December 2022 at 01:06

      No argument here. It obviously didn't come up a lot on the film lists I fed into my database. It's =1004 on the list, having appeared on only one top 100 list.

      Delete

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