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: May 1, 2024

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 have collected 82 lists, each containing between 30 and 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. Star Wars
  7. Singin' in the Rain
  8. The Godfather Part II
  9. Psycho
  10. The Wizard of Oz
  11. Lawrence of Arabia
  12. Pulp Fiction
  13. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
  14. It's a Wonderful Life
  15. Some Like It Hot
  16. Schindler's List
  17. Gone With the Wind
  18. Taxi Driver
  19. Annie Hall
  20. Chinatown
  21. Raging Bull
  22. Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb
  23. Apocalypse Now
  24. Jaws
  25. The Searchers
  26. Raiders of the Lost Ark
  27. Blade Runner
  28. North by Northwest
  29. Goodfellas
  30. The Empire Strikes Back
  31. Seven Samurai
  32. The Silence of the Lambs
  33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
  34. City Lights
  35. On the Waterfront
  36. Rear Window
  37. The Graduate
  38. King Kong
  39. Double Indemnity
  40. Alien
  41. Bonnie and Clyde
  42. Sunset Boulevard
  43. The Exorcist
  44. Spirited Away
  45. The Shawshank Redemption
  46. Tokyo Story
  47. All About Eve
  48. Titanic
  49. Breathless
  50. To Kill a Mockingbird
  51. The Third Man
  52. Saving Private Ryan
  53. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
  54. La Regle du Jeu
  55. A Clockwork Orange
  56. The Matrix
  57. The Sound of Music
  58. The General
  59. Rashomon
  60. Sunrise
  61. 8 1/2
  62. Toy Story
  63. Fargo
  64. Aliens
  65. The 400 Blows
  66. The Maltese Falcon
  67. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
  68. The Bridge on the River Kwai
  69. High Noon
  70. The Grapes of Wrath
  71. Do the Right Thing
  72. The Deer Hunter
  73. In The Mood For Love
  74. The Wild Bunch
  75. Persona
  76. Battleship Potemkin
  77. Trainspotting
  78. The Philadelphia Story
  79. The Piano
  80. The Night of the Hunter
  81. Nashville
  82. Blue Velvet
  83. The African Queen
  84. Pather Panchali
  85. The Seventh Seal
  86. Terminator 2
  87. Seven
  88. La Dolce Vita
  89. This Is Spinal Tap
  90. The Shining
  91. Mulholland Drive
  92. Modern Times
  93. Mr Smith Goes to Washington
  94. Bicycle Thieves
  95. Metropolis
  96. M
  97. Touch of Evil
  98. It Happened One Night
  99. The Princess Bride
  100. Cabaret
  101. Back To The Future
  102. The Best Years of Our Lives
  103. His Girl Friday
  104. L.A. Confidential
  105. Forrest Gump
  106. Sullivan's Travels
  107. Sherlock Jr
  108. Duck Soup
  109. West Side Story
  110. The Gold Rush
  111. Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
  112. Die Hard
  113. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  114. There Will Be Blood
  115. Bringing Up Baby
  116. Moulin Rouge!
  117. Jurassic Park
  118. The Passion of Joan of Arc
  119. Notorious
  120. Bride of Frankenstein
  121. Midnight Cowboy
  122. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
  123. The Lion King
  124. The Apartment
  125. Pinocchio
  126. 12 Angry Men
  127. The Red Shoes
  128. Life Of Brian
  129. Frankenstein
  130. Don't Look Now
  131. Ben-Hur
  132. Beau Travail
  133. When Harry Met Sally...
  134. The Usual Suspects
  135. The Lady Eve
  136. Manhattan
  137. Withnail & I
  138. Pan's Labyrinth
  139. Nosferatu
  140. The Terminator
  141. Andrei Rublev
  142. Aguirre, The Wrath Of God
  143. The Manchurian Candidate
  144. Mad Max: Fury Road
  145. Airplane!
  146. The Dark Knight
  147. Stagecoach
  148. Man With A Movie Camera
  149. Unforgiven
  150. The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King

The Godfather appeared on the most lists (40), just ahead of Casablanca (39) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (38), followed by Citizen Kane (37), and Vertigo (35). The Godfather Part II appeared on the fewest number of lists of the films in the top 10 (32).

In the top 100, In The Mood For Love appeared on the least number of lists (11).

The highest ranking non-English language film is The Seven Samurai (#31), the highest silent film is City Lights (#34), and the most recent films in the top 70 are 2002's Spirited Away (#44) and 2001's The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (#67). The oldest films in the top 60 are 1926's The General (#58) and 1927's Sunrise (#60).

Of the films in the top 100, The Godfather had the highest average score per list (8.5), while Citizen Kane, The Shawshank Redemption, La Regle du Jeu and In The Mood For Love 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 The Godfather and Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (8.5), Withnail & I, There Will Be Blood (8.6), and Citizen Kane (8.4), and In The Mood For Love and City Of God (8.2).

The only films in the top 100 directed by women are The Wachowski's The Matrix (#56) and Jane Campion's The Piano (#79). The next highest is Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman (#111), Claire Denis' Beau Travail (#132), and Sofia Coppola's Lost In Translation (#157).

* 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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