What about those "artsy" films...
...that cinema experts consider the best ever made? Do they live up to the hype, or can they only be appreciated by scholars and critics? Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Roger Ebert has written that years ago film societies, university film clubs, and art movie houses provided a place for serious movie fans to watch and/or discuss great movies, old and new. However, these gathering places have mostly disappeared. In 1992, Ebert said "there was once a time when young people made it their business to catch up on the best works by the best directors." Now, in retirement, that's exactly what I am doing. Will I find them masterful or overrated, profound or pretentious, riveting or dated?
Which films to consider? There are many "best of" lists, but I've compiled my own based on some widely recognized sources:
I'm now several years into this, and it's taking a bit longer than I expected. Sometimes life gets in the way, and I watch lots of other things as well. I took side journeys to view all the films of Jean Renoir, Alfred Hitchcock, and Akira Kurosawa in roughly chronological order. But, in general I've found that these movies are indeed masterful examples of film art, but that of course some are greater favorites for me than others. Is it a "great" movie if I cannot stand to watch it or if it did not connect emotionally for me? Often, yes—it just doesn't become a favorite movie. Roger Ebert wrote that not only do we respond to films in personal ways, but that our response is often different at various stages in our lives. Furthermore, greatness is subjective anyway: "We go to different movies for different reasons, and greatness comes in many forms." I find that I can grasp and admire the expertise in the creation of a film but not love viewing it. I'm also finding that some films require more than one viewing to truly appreciate, and that an informative commentary often adds to my admiration (or at the very least my understanding) of a film. I like the quote from Francois Truffaut, the great French New Wave director, who said that a successful film incorpoates "simultaneously an idea of the world AND an idea of the cinema." I take that to mean: the greatest films have something meaningful to say about humanity and the world, but they should also have a creative, artistic approach to the use of cinematic tools. Those are the films I find most satisfying.
Which films to consider? There are many "best of" lists, but I've compiled my own based on some widely recognized sources:
- the prestigious decennial (once every ten years - I had to look that up) poll by the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound magazine
- the 360+ "Great Movies" reviews and book series by Ebert (who sadly died in early 2013 soon after I started this project)
I'm now several years into this, and it's taking a bit longer than I expected. Sometimes life gets in the way, and I watch lots of other things as well. I took side journeys to view all the films of Jean Renoir, Alfred Hitchcock, and Akira Kurosawa in roughly chronological order. But, in general I've found that these movies are indeed masterful examples of film art, but that of course some are greater favorites for me than others. Is it a "great" movie if I cannot stand to watch it or if it did not connect emotionally for me? Often, yes—it just doesn't become a favorite movie. Roger Ebert wrote that not only do we respond to films in personal ways, but that our response is often different at various stages in our lives. Furthermore, greatness is subjective anyway: "We go to different movies for different reasons, and greatness comes in many forms." I find that I can grasp and admire the expertise in the creation of a film but not love viewing it. I'm also finding that some films require more than one viewing to truly appreciate, and that an informative commentary often adds to my admiration (or at the very least my understanding) of a film. I like the quote from Francois Truffaut, the great French New Wave director, who said that a successful film incorpoates "simultaneously an idea of the world AND an idea of the cinema." I take that to mean: the greatest films have something meaningful to say about humanity and the world, but they should also have a creative, artistic approach to the use of cinematic tools. Those are the films I find most satisfying.
How I Picked the Films...
Once I decided to do this personal film study project, the next step was - which films? There are many lists. I considered using imdb.com or rottentomatoes.com, but those did not appeal to me. For my purposes they skew too strongly toward recent, mainstream releases. And, I didn't want to rely on self-proclaimed reviewers who cannot be counted on to have seen films of the past or those from other countries. When someone says "xxxxx" is my favorite movie, I always wonder what frame of reference they have.
The American Film Institute has a wide range of lists. However, I found their list biased toward U.S. films, and indeed in reading further their voting comes from "leaders of the American film community." If you wished to do a study of American films (with a smattering of others) this might be the list to use, but that's not my goal.
The British Film Institute's magazine, Sight & Sound, offers perhaps the oldest, best known list. Published every ten years since 1952, the most recent (August 2012) poll tallied votes from 846 "critics, film festival programmers, academics, distributors, writers, and other cinephiles" from 73 countries to compile a Critics Top 250 list. That's good enough for me - the choices of this impressive group are movies that I feel any cinema fan should have seen and about which they should have developed an informed opinion. S&S also surveys film directors for a parallel Directors Top 100 list, so I added those poll results to my scoring as well. Note: the new 2022 lists have several new films, which I will be checking out during 2023.
These surveys simply asked each voter for a non-ranked list of the ten greatest films. What did they mean by "greatest?" As they put it in their survey letter:
“We leave that open to your interpretation. You might choose the ten films you feel are most important to film history, or the ten that represent the aesthetic pinnacles of achievement, or indeed the ten films that have had the biggest impact on your own view of cinema.”
Since the submitted films were not ranked, there was no such thing as a movie receiving the most "first place votes." Each movie simply got one vote every time anyone listed it. As a result, the #1 film should not be necessarily considered the best movie of all time, but rather the one that is most widely and universally considered to be "Great" by the global film community.
I chose to balance this wide ranging source with a more individual one. I first encountered Roger Ebert through occasionally watching his television series with Gene Siskel, but later learned that I prefer his more traditional, written criticism. He had wide ranging taste and was a true lover of cinema whose writing was thoughtful but never pretentious. In 1975 he became the first film writer to ever win a Pulitzer Prize for general criticism. In addition to his Chicago Sun-Times reviews (since 1967) of new movies, starting in 1996 he regularly revisited favorites from the far and recent past for his Great Movies project. These are available as a web site, and a series of books (which include 100 of the titles per volume). Tragically, he passed away a few months after I started this project.
Ebert also did not care for top 10 lists and avoided them whenever possible. At the time of his death he included some 365 films, unranked, in his Great Movies series. Each of his GM books includes 100 movies, but in no particular order. However, in the Book II introduction, he almost reluctantly listed approximately 25 films that were included in Book I and II that he described as "obvious first-team" entries. Were there more "first-team" films in Book III and IV? Almost certainly, but he never made such a list. However, we do have access to his 2012 Sight and Sound poll ballot; in fact the individual lists of all voters are available. This has proven to be a valuable resource as well.
So, to recap, here are my sources:
I created a scoring system based on a film's tiered ranking in the two S&S lists, and gave extra credit based on a movie's highest ranking in the Ebert sources. I've organized the results into three groups that I'm calling Tiers: 31 in Tier One with 44 more in Tier Two. As explained above, the only real difference between the two groupings is that the Tier Two titles are not quite as universally acclaimed.
The American Film Institute has a wide range of lists. However, I found their list biased toward U.S. films, and indeed in reading further their voting comes from "leaders of the American film community." If you wished to do a study of American films (with a smattering of others) this might be the list to use, but that's not my goal.
The British Film Institute's magazine, Sight & Sound, offers perhaps the oldest, best known list. Published every ten years since 1952, the most recent (August 2012) poll tallied votes from 846 "critics, film festival programmers, academics, distributors, writers, and other cinephiles" from 73 countries to compile a Critics Top 250 list. That's good enough for me - the choices of this impressive group are movies that I feel any cinema fan should have seen and about which they should have developed an informed opinion. S&S also surveys film directors for a parallel Directors Top 100 list, so I added those poll results to my scoring as well. Note: the new 2022 lists have several new films, which I will be checking out during 2023.
These surveys simply asked each voter for a non-ranked list of the ten greatest films. What did they mean by "greatest?" As they put it in their survey letter:
“We leave that open to your interpretation. You might choose the ten films you feel are most important to film history, or the ten that represent the aesthetic pinnacles of achievement, or indeed the ten films that have had the biggest impact on your own view of cinema.”
Since the submitted films were not ranked, there was no such thing as a movie receiving the most "first place votes." Each movie simply got one vote every time anyone listed it. As a result, the #1 film should not be necessarily considered the best movie of all time, but rather the one that is most widely and universally considered to be "Great" by the global film community.
I chose to balance this wide ranging source with a more individual one. I first encountered Roger Ebert through occasionally watching his television series with Gene Siskel, but later learned that I prefer his more traditional, written criticism. He had wide ranging taste and was a true lover of cinema whose writing was thoughtful but never pretentious. In 1975 he became the first film writer to ever win a Pulitzer Prize for general criticism. In addition to his Chicago Sun-Times reviews (since 1967) of new movies, starting in 1996 he regularly revisited favorites from the far and recent past for his Great Movies project. These are available as a web site, and a series of books (which include 100 of the titles per volume). Tragically, he passed away a few months after I started this project.
Ebert also did not care for top 10 lists and avoided them whenever possible. At the time of his death he included some 365 films, unranked, in his Great Movies series. Each of his GM books includes 100 movies, but in no particular order. However, in the Book II introduction, he almost reluctantly listed approximately 25 films that were included in Book I and II that he described as "obvious first-team" entries. Were there more "first-team" films in Book III and IV? Almost certainly, but he never made such a list. However, we do have access to his 2012 Sight and Sound poll ballot; in fact the individual lists of all voters are available. This has proven to be a valuable resource as well.
So, to recap, here are my sources:
- The 2012 Sight & Sound Magazine Critics Top 250 list
- The 2012 Sight & Sound Magazine Directors top 100 list
- Roger Ebert's personal ballot in the 2012 S&S survey
- Ebert's "first team" list from his Great Movies II book introduction
- and finally, general inclusion in Ebert's "Great Movies" project
I created a scoring system based on a film's tiered ranking in the two S&S lists, and gave extra credit based on a movie's highest ranking in the Ebert sources. I've organized the results into three groups that I'm calling Tiers: 31 in Tier One with 44 more in Tier Two. As explained above, the only real difference between the two groupings is that the Tier Two titles are not quite as universally acclaimed.
How to find these films...
Since many of these films are semi-obscure older movies I've had to play detective at times to find them. Here are some tips...
Unlike newer films, these titles do not usually have those breezy, lightweight behind-the-scenes featurettes. Instead they often have a commentary by a film scholar that covers interpretation and technical aspects of the movie. Some have archival interviews with the director and actors, a few photos from the set, and additional text analyses. I love all this background information, and it's been described as a film school in a box. If you are on a budget, feel free to shop for used DVDs. While some cinephiles consider this below their standards, the fact remains that a copy from a used media store still looks surprisingly good, especially if upscaled by a modern blu-ray player to a 4k HDTV. If you love a film enough, you can always upgrade your copy to a better, newer version and gift or sell your DVD copy. Sometimes I've even held on to a DVD because it has unique supplements that I wish to keep that are not available on other releases of the film.
Thanks for reading this far, and if any of my comments on this web journal lead you to check out any of the films for yourself, that would be fantastic!
David Dixon, last revised January 2022, [email protected]
- The Criterion Collection offers the ultimate selection of "important classic and contemporary films." They are leaders in the restoration of films and their discs are usually the highest quality version available of any film. Criterion discs also include the best, most extensive extras such as commentaries, interviews, and behind-the-scenes features. If you are a cinema fan, you need to be aware of Criterion. But, they are pricey and they don't have the rights to every film. Their discs are sold online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble (and even at some B&N stores - but not any near me). Prices are usually best at Amazon, but Criterion and B&N each have half-price sales a couple of times a year. Note: Criterion's Essential Art House collection and their Eclipse Series are their less expensive DVD-only lines with no disc extras. The EHA series may be discontinued now. The Eclipse series includes additional works that might not be well known enough for a standalone release. There is an active Criterion presence online, with discussion forums, podcasts, and FaceBook groups.
- StudioCanal and Kino Lorber are other distributors that have physical media for some of these titles.
- Netflix includes a LOT of movies, but their streaming options are limited for these less mainstream movies. You'll probably need to subscribe to one of their physical disc packages to see some of these films.
- The Criterion Channel subscription streaming service includes many of the Criterion Collection titles, several of the disc supplements, plus many additional films. This is a great way to preview a film to see if you like it enough to buy it. Why purchase? So that you can watch the films and all the supplements whenever you wish at highest quality. It also further subsidizes Criterion's business and their efforts at film restoration.
- Turner Classic Movies programs a number of films from this list, as do other streaming services (which change too frequently for me to list here reliably).
- Amazon has a large library of streaming videos that includes some of my list. I've also had good luck buying used discs through Amazon resellers.
- EBay, although I am not an active shopper there. I have had better luck buying used copies from individuals through the Criterion-oriented Groups on FaceBook.
Unlike newer films, these titles do not usually have those breezy, lightweight behind-the-scenes featurettes. Instead they often have a commentary by a film scholar that covers interpretation and technical aspects of the movie. Some have archival interviews with the director and actors, a few photos from the set, and additional text analyses. I love all this background information, and it's been described as a film school in a box. If you are on a budget, feel free to shop for used DVDs. While some cinephiles consider this below their standards, the fact remains that a copy from a used media store still looks surprisingly good, especially if upscaled by a modern blu-ray player to a 4k HDTV. If you love a film enough, you can always upgrade your copy to a better, newer version and gift or sell your DVD copy. Sometimes I've even held on to a DVD because it has unique supplements that I wish to keep that are not available on other releases of the film.
Thanks for reading this far, and if any of my comments on this web journal lead you to check out any of the films for yourself, that would be fantastic!
David Dixon, last revised January 2022, [email protected]