top movies update

I apologize for not getting back to the mini-reviews yet. I've been spending almost all my movie-watching time rewatching favorites in order to finish out the Top Movies list. I have watched one or two new movies, though, so I do feel a mini-review or two coming on...

But first: I've rewatched a couple dozen movies on my favorites-but-only-watched-once list (I still have at least another dozen to rewatch). Unsurprisingly, most of these did not make the cut. What did are:

• Million Dollar Baby
• You Can Count On Me
• Breaking the Waves
• Secrets & Lies
• A Love Song For Bobby Long
• Shadowlands
• Hotel Rwanda
• Yi Yi (just barely)

Perhaps more interesting is how few of IMDb's Top 100 made my list. 28 as of this writing. And only 40 out of IMDb's Top 250. Conversely, nearly half of my Top Movies list doesn't appear in the IMDb Top 250.

And it's not just because I haven't seen the movies in IMDb's list: I've seen all but two of the Top 100 (and Inception was just released so it's excluded from my "Prior to 2010" list anyway) and all but eight of the Top 250. While I see what others might see in the other Top IMDb Movies, they didn't make my list because I've found them lacking in one or more ways.

Is this normal? After all, IMDb's Top 250 is not compiled by a single person. I consider my tastes very Hollywood mainstream, and IMDb's ratings are usually a very good predictor of my own appraisal of a movie, but when it comes to what ranks the highest, most of IMDb's patrons and I split ways.

I think it comes down to this: I'm a romantic who has nevertheless seen thousands of movies of all sorts and liked many hundreds of them. To me the ideal movie tells a great story in a manner engaging enough to not only suspend disbelief but actually change your outlook on life. Showing off is fine for selling popcorn, but not for lasting art. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Welles and Cameron.)

Some people have seen so few movies that anything with high production values elicits applause, regardless of whether or not it was done better before. Some have seen so many that the only thing they rate highly is originality. I believe I have seen so utterly many movies as to make originality such a rare treat that it is only one among many criteria for greatness. When you've seen so much what stands out most is the craft. A movie that is so well-crafted it transcends normal criteria and becomes a work of art. That to me is a classic.

My Top Movies of All Time (released before 2010)

1. Casablanca (1942)


2. The Godfather: Part II (1974)


3. The Godfather (1972)


4. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)


5. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)


6. Million Dollar Baby (2004)


7. Trouble in Paradise (1932)


8. Amélie (Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain) (2001)


9. Strictly Ballroom (1992)


10. The Professional (Léon) (1994)


11. National Velvet (1944)


12. Amadeus (1984)


13. The Matrix (1999)


14. Roman Holiday (1953)


15. To Be or Not to Be (1942)


16. Apocalypse Now (1979)


17. Pulp Fiction (1994)


18. Gladiator (2000)


19. You Can Count On Me (2000)


20. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)


21. Gigi (1958)


22. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)


23. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo) (1966)


24. Cinema Paradiso (Nuovo Cinema Paradiso) (1988)


25. Raising Arizona (1987)


26. The Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai) (1954)


27. Vertigo (1958)


28. Groundhog Day (1993)


29. When Harry Met Sally... (1989)


30. Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no haka) (1988)


31. Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)


32. Jerry Maguire (1996)


33. Singin' in the Rain (1952)


34. The City of Lost Children (La Cité des enfants perdus) (1994)


35. How Green Was My Valley (1941)


36. Saving Private Ryan (1998)


37. The Lady Eve (1941)


38. The Philadelphia Story (1940)


39. In a Lonely Place (1950)


40. It Happened One Night (1934)


41. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)


42. To Catch a Thief (1955)


43. Whisper of the Heart (Mimi wo sumaseba) (1995)


44. All About Eve (1950)


45. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)


46. Fight Club (1999)


47. The Sound of Music (1965)


48. West Side Story (1961)


49. The Apartment (1960)


50. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)


51. Das Boot (1981)


52. The Shining (1980)


53. The Lion in Winter (1968)


54. The Night of the Hunter (1955)


55. Empire of the Sun (1987)


56. Secrets & Lies (1996)


57. Shadowlands (1993)


58. A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004)


59. Rio Bravo (1959)


60. Hotel Rwanda (2004)


61. Memento (2000)


62. Platoon (1996)


63. Paris, Texas (1984)


64. Brazil (1985)


65. Advise & Consent (1962)


66. Superbad (2007)


67. Swingers (1996)


68. Kiki's Delivery Service (Majo no takkyubin) (1989)


69. His Girl Friday (1940)


70. Gone with the Wind (1939)


71. A Clockwork Orange (1971)


72. Breaking the Waves (1996)


73. Fanny och Alexander (1982)


74. Tokyo Story (Tokyo monogatari) (1953)


75. Beauty and the Beast (1991)


76. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)


77. The Wizard of Oz (1939)


78. Dark Victory (1939)


79. Yi Yi (2000)