Cinema isn't dying, it's evolving
August 22, 2016 8:45 PM   Subscribe

The 100 greatest films of the 21st century (so far), as determined by 177 film critics from around the world.
posted by imaginary_mary (143 comments total) 55 users marked this as a favorite
 
I've seen all* of these films!

*Except for 93 of them.
posted by not_on_display at 8:50 PM on August 22, 2016 [12 favorites]


At last, a "best of" list I've seen at least half of!

Good list, if for no other reason than to point out that Jean-Luc Godard is still making films.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:54 PM on August 22, 2016 [4 favorites]


After an admittedly rushed first glance, the weakness in this list is the number of filmmakers who were active before the beginning of the 21st Century -- accomplished artists who have simply continued to make accomplished art.

The better list would be to yank out anyone whose first feature film was released prior to January 1992 (which I arbitrarily selected because Reservoir Dogs screened at Sundance that year, feel free to use 1989's sex, lies and videotape instead) and fill in the spots with other films.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:58 PM on August 22, 2016 [7 favorites]


I cannot believe Idiocracy isn't number one.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:03 PM on August 22, 2016 [7 favorites]


Glad to see Far From Heaven was on the list.
posted by infinitewindow at 9:08 PM on August 22, 2016 [4 favorites]


"The Dark Night"? Are you kidding me?
posted by alex_skazat at 9:11 PM on August 22, 2016 [6 favorites]


We're only 16 years in. We still have a World War or Depression or Squid Rebuttal to really shake things up and give us the good 21st century art.
posted by notyou at 9:15 PM on August 22, 2016 [2 favorites]


Scrolled down to make sure the right movie was number one, and it was.

I'm really glad to see Spring Breakers represented here. I regret that Cloud Atlas doesn't show up, but I understand why it wouldn't. Boyhood's being as high up as it is feels right.

Margaret, film #31, is astoundingly good. Go out of your way to see it, if you can.

Can somebody who's seen Goodbye to Language weigh in on that? I'm desperately curious about it, but haven't heard anything about it one way or the other that makes up my mind, and I haven't had the time to watch it myself.
posted by rorgy at 9:20 PM on August 22, 2016 [3 favorites]


There are some good movies on here, but the exclusion of both Hard To Be A God and It's Such A Beautiful Day has filled me with terrible rage.

Because those are two legitimately great, important films.

I feel the need to get into a great, sprawling fistfight with someone over this. That is how right I am.
posted by louche mustachio at 9:22 PM on August 22, 2016 [11 favorites]


Pixar with three hits on the list... and Incredibles isn't one of them. Sigh.

I am glad to see that No Country For Old Men made the top ten. That one had me turning it over in my head for two days afterwards putting the whole thing together, which is not an easy feat for a film. It features one of the purest movie villains ever, in a movie with no real heroes. Also the Basterds made it... so damn many great performances in that movie.
posted by azpenguin at 9:24 PM on August 22, 2016 [7 favorites]


#1 is correct. The top five are all great films. A Separation is high up but should be higher. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind still sucks.

Can somebody who's seen Goodbye to Language weigh in on that?

It's awesome, watch it.
posted by DaDaDaDave at 9:26 PM on August 22, 2016 [2 favorites]


Mulholland Drive. Huh. (on preview, I guess this isn't a headscratcher for some. I saw it and thought it was interesting and could not tell you a damn thing about it today; for me that's not the mark of a #1 of the century)

Not one of the LoR movies?

The Incredibles is not on the list? I might actually put that movie as #1. Or as someone said up the thread, Idiocracy.

If I was throwing Korean cinema a bone, I would have gone with The Host over Oldboy, but okay.

I enjoyed Ex Machina a great deal as well, and it is nowhere to be found.

But ya know, lists are always flawed. There's some excellent films here. I just saw the newest Star Trek, which I found to be a flaming pile of turd, and it's reassuring to remember that good movies aren't completely dead.
posted by mcstayinskool at 9:28 PM on August 22, 2016 [4 favorites]


Oh is this what we're going to do today, fight?!
posted by Fizz at 9:30 PM on August 22, 2016 [11 favorites]


Dogtooth
Donnie Darko
Exit Through the Gift Shop
The Forbidden Room
posted by eschatfische at 9:48 PM on August 22, 2016 [5 favorites]


The half of these I've seen are pretty close to a list of the best movies I've seen in the last 15 years, so I'll have to check out the rest.

(I was surprised A Separation was so high? It was REALLY REALLY GOOD, but. Hm.)
posted by jeweled accumulation at 9:51 PM on August 22, 2016


Seems kinda early for the 21st Century to have to defend itself from the accomplishments of the previous 100 years.
posted by PHINC at 9:52 PM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


Well, not many women, but Sarah Pilley rocks, so...

Also, it needs Robert LaPage, although I admit my favourite,No, is from 98, and might be lost in non-Canadians.


If we looked at directors producing films o my 's nice 2000, who would you put on the list, Pluto Gangsta (or others).
posted by chapps at 9:59 PM on August 22, 2016


I basically stopped watching movies at one point but I was still a bit surprised that I have only seen one movie on that entire list.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 10:05 PM on August 22, 2016


Ctrl-F Edward Yang. Yes!

The funny thing about Yang's movies is that they invariably do extremely well on top X lists like this one but no one ever seems to have watched them. If you have any interest at all in art films you should definitely, definitely check at least one of his films out. A Brighter Summer Day is what most consider his masterpiece, but it was released in 1991. Yi Yi, which is the one on this list, is also great.
posted by perplexion at 10:23 PM on August 22, 2016 [4 favorites]


There's some really great films on there and... some pretty questionable ones (Zero Dark Thirty? Almost Famous? Dark Knight? ha ha A.I. that's a joke right?).

it needs Robert LaPage

I like LePage a lot but his 21st Century films are not as strong as his early films. If you ever get a chance to see his art pieces or his plays they are worth checking out. What this list really needs is Guy Maddin.


Can somebody who's seen Goodbye to Language weigh in on that?


Have you seen his more recent films? Goodbye to Language is densely referential, fairly experimental though it does have a narrative of a sort. I liked it and found it pretty innovative. I expected the 3D to be gimmicky but it is more interesting then I thought it'd be. I think Godard, even at his most obtuse & opaque, is always interesting. So if you found anything he's done in the last 2 and a half decades interesting I'd think you'd find this one worth checking out.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:29 PM on August 22, 2016 [4 favorites]


59. A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, 2005)

Can someone explain this one to me? I watched this film with my wife, and we both found it execrable. Just unbelievably bad. Dumb story, weak acting, unnecessary gore, apparently random rape scenes, ..., just ugh. And yet, lots of critics seem to like it? I do not understand.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 10:34 PM on August 22, 2016 [2 favorites]


Everything I saw on that list that is ranked 51 through 100 I liked. Everything I saw on that list that is ranked 50 and better I thought was overrated and got too much hype.
posted by Metro Gnome at 10:38 PM on August 22, 2016 [2 favorites]


Welp. I guess they can close out the 'Best of the 21st Century' list now.
posted by mazola at 10:39 PM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


But for serious I loves me the 'Zodiac'.

And 'Burn After Reading' deserves to be on that list.
posted by mazola at 10:43 PM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


Funny, I didn't see It's Such A Beautiful Day at the top, or indeed on the list. Did I click the wrong link?
posted by Sokka shot first


You can be in my gang.
posted by louche mustachio at 10:59 PM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


As usual with these things I found many more personal favorites in 51-100 than I did in 1-50. Zodiac (which might be my own #1 choice) and Mulholland Drive being obvious exceptions.

Stoked to see Carlos and Once Upon A Time in Anatolia sneak in, both very powerful in vastly different ways.

Personal favorites that were overlooked:

- Phoenix (actually did a triple take because I couldn't believe it was left off. In addition to being excellent and having one of the more memorable endings of the last 25 years, it feels like the kind of movie that SHOULD be on this list.)

- Glass Chin
- Kader (Destiny)
- A Touch of Sin
- Neighboring Sounds
- Extraordinary Stories
- Miami Vice
posted by dreamlanding at 11:02 PM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oh is this what we're going to do today, fight?!

This list has no Refn?!
posted by Apocryphon at 11:15 PM on August 22, 2016


Hedwig.
posted by mazola at 11:16 PM on August 22, 2016 [12 favorites]


I have seen many but probably not the majority of these movies, and every time I saw a title, I nodded and thought "yeah, that was a really great movie".

I'm a bit surprised Gravity isn't in the list. It's maybe the only movie I've seen where the 3D was an actual storytelling device and not just a gimmick. Actually pushed forward that technology, I thought. Plus the story was well told and was both interesting and worked on a literary level.
posted by hippybear at 11:17 PM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'd pick Europa Report over Gravity but I loved them both.
posted by mazola at 11:18 PM on August 22, 2016 [5 favorites]


Mulholland Drive [. . .] I saw it and thought it was interesting and could not tell you a damn thing about it today

Obviously one's mileage may vary, but I haven't seen Mulholland Drive in about ten years and I can still delight and/or terrify myself just thinking about Club Silencio, the man behind Winkie's (of course), the shot of the woman singing and as the camera pulls back you realize she's being filmed lip-syncing, the mobster guy rejecting the espresso, "You came back!", etc.

A History of Violence [. . .] Can someone explain this one to me?

Another one I haven't seen in a while, but 59th best of the century so far sounds about right to me. What I mostly remember about it is how uncomfortable and distressed I felt watching it. I remember some of the shots being framed "wrong," but wrong in a way that creates a powerful feeling of tension, like something awful might happen at any moment for no reason. Many of the characters seem like they're overplaying their (social and dramatic) roles, from the husband and wife who role-play as their teenage selves to the gangsters who act like caricatures of gangsters. Nothing happens for a long time, then there'll be an outburst of incredible brutality. Things take crazy turns, e.g. (spoiler) the scene near the beginning where Viggo Mortensen saves the day, and there's an abrupt cut from his heroic warrior-type pose to the hideously destroyed face of the guy he just shot. I found all of this deeply disturbing, jarring and affecting, possibly because it was 2005 and I already felt like I was living in a nightmare where horrible things were constantly happening just out of sight.
posted by DaDaDaDave at 11:20 PM on August 22, 2016 [15 favorites]


I came in here ready to fight them if Toni Erdmann wasn't on the list. But it was!

So this is my public service announcement, because I think I'm the first person to ever mention that film on here: go watch Toni Erdmann. Ideally in a crowded cinema. It is fantastic. Trust me on this.

(Seen about 30 on the list, not sure about some of them but generally agree with their selection).
posted by Pink Frost at 11:22 PM on August 22, 2016


Needs more Jupiter Ascending for the sheer majesty of its glorious wonderful stupid.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:34 PM on August 22, 2016 [5 favorites]


Under The Skin needs to be in the top ten. Glad to see Holy Motors in there. AI is in there just to appease the ghost of Kubrick.
posted by benzenedream at 11:35 PM on August 22, 2016


Yes, where the hell is Hertzfeldt?! It's Such a Beautiful Day beats any Pixar hands down. And World of Tomorrow is a short animation that's more deserving than a lot of full length films on here. I can only guess that the critics are not familiar with Hertzfeldt ... Just hoping that he'll still be alive and uploaded by 2100 to see himself at the top of lists regarding the 21st century.

Also, wait what is Brooklyn really that good?
posted by sapagan at 12:02 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


The data visualisation linked to the article is pretty interesting... they break down the reviewers and chosen films by nationality(both heavily weighted to the US) and language (heavily weighted to English) and also films by gender if director and critic, so that's interesting.
9 have a female director, in 3 the directions is a mixed-gender team. 31% or participating critics were women.
none of the Canadian critics in the breakdown given listed Polly's work among their choices, which I found interesting.
posted by chapps at 12:18 AM on August 23, 2016


Good to see the BBC make an effort to be a little more global in their selection of critics, but the US is still over represented with 82 of the 177 critics polled. The UK has 18, which is perhaps understandable given this is a BBC poll, but Japan only has 1 which given the relative importance of those two nations film industries is a bit backwards to say the least.

I don't mention that to suggest the final list would necessarily be dramatically different, some US critics ranked non-US films much higher and some critics from outside the US had lists mostly of US films, but including a broader cross section of world film goers is still a plus.

I just wish they would better define what it is they are looking for when they make their selections of critics since combining mass audience populist critics with those interested in non-mainstream cinema will always tip the balance in favor of the more widely seen films since that's an inevitable outcome of commercial dominance.

My problem with these polls isn't that popular films end up dominating the lists so much as it is the whole concept ends up being incoherent in terms of saying anything useful about movies. As a way to draw page views and provoke the usual arguments about what is on or missing from the lists, it's fine, but for people using the list as a guide to "great cinema" it isn't a very effective method. In general, the audience for a movie like Ratatouille, for example, likely aren't an ideal crowd for Goodbye to Language so if they do watch the Godard they aren't primed to appreciate it as much as they might something closer to mainstream film conventions. While fans of Godard aren't likely to get much from lists containing all the usual suspects from conventional film culture because they are likely to already be aware of those and have some opinion on the form. (That isn't to say there aren't people who like both, I'm sure there are, but that isn't the norm.)

A better concept would be to actively try to shape the polls by being more selective in who is being asked to participate. Popular commercial reviewers in one poll, more avant garde film critics in another. Some films might make both lists, great, but the rest would better speak to those trying to make sense of the current film world as befitting their interests.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:24 AM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


Because I go to some lenghts just to be lazy, I put it up on Letterboxd to check how many I've seen.

Turns out, 21 (although 4 of them I've seen, just not on the past 4 years or so). Figures my highest ranked movies are clustered in the 20s and then in the 70s.
posted by lmfsilva at 12:30 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


Take this list and give someone a drink, then read the list out loud to them. Best spit takes ever.
posted by kestralwing at 12:32 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


No In Bruges?

This list is an inanimate fucking object!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:41 AM on August 23, 2016 [8 favorites]


YOU'RE AN INANIMATE FUCKING OBEJCT!
posted by lmfsilva at 12:46 AM on August 23, 2016 [8 favorites]


Regarding A History of Violence, I'm always slightly irked when people categorize Cronenberg as a "body horror" director, not because that's wrong exactly, just because it tends to limit how people think about his work, where "body horror" is thought to be a visual manifestation rather than a notion about how one sees oneself and the effect that has on how one interacts with the world.

For A History of Violence, if there is a single key to understanding the movie I'd suggest it's the line where Maria Bello's Edie says she wishes she knew Viggo Mortensen's Tom back when he was a teen. In effect, she gets her wish, much to her dismay. The role play, the rape, and the violence comes from that time in Tom's youth. That is who he was, the implicit question then is whether or how much is that who is still is, which is a question we all might ask ourselves sometimes when reflecting on how we've "changed" over the years.

That's the short take on it anyway. I think it's an excellent film.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:46 AM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


Oh, and no offense mcstayinskool, but Korean cinema doesn't need any bones thrown their way. There have been plenty of excellent films from Korea over the past 16 years that could easily have made this list over many of the ones that did had they been seen.

Hong Sang-soo, for example, is one of the most acclaimed filmmakers in the world among more avant-garde film critics, and they have fine filmmakers working in both popular commercial veins as well as other more niche areas. Castaway on the Moon should please any fan of mainstream cinema willing to read subtitles, while movies like A Tale of Two Sisters, The Foul King, Save the Green Planet!, Oasis, Die Bad, Memories of Murder, Secret Sunshine, Painted Fire, The President's Last Bang, Joint Security Area, Take Care of My Cat, A Brand New Life and One Fine Spring Day should prove Korean cinema is as diverse and vibrant as anyplace else in the world.
They don't need bones, just more viewers.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:09 AM on August 23, 2016 [10 favorites]


Pretty sure that Richard Linklater's presence on this list is affirmative action for White guys.
posted by pxe2000 at 2:54 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


This is a very bad list.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:23 AM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


Yes, where the hell is Hertzfeldt?! It's Such a Beautiful Day beats any Pixar hands down.

It goes beyond Pixar - I would pit it against any film on this list.

And when I say "film" I mean it. One of the wonderful things about it is how much Hertzfeldt delights in the artful power of the medium itself. I forget where I saw it, a blog post perhaps, but it was a screenshot of an effect that he had gotten quite by accident, a serendpitous moment of strange beauty that never would have occurred in a studio, and certainly have been discarded without thought if it had.

For all that, he takes all these experimental techniques and his own style (which he simplified purposefully because he found that the faces conveyed more expression with fewer details) and makes a very thoughtfully constructed film that uses every glimmer and glitch to draw you further into Bill's experience. You laugh at the jokes and the weirdness at first ... and you don't realize how deep you've gone in, and it's genuinely wrenching.

It's a film that justifies my assertion that animation is the closest thing we have to real fucking magic.
posted by louche mustachio at 3:25 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


I think it's a good list, but I'm disappointed that Monsoon Wedding didn't make it.
posted by plep at 3:30 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]



Oh is this what we're going to do today, fight?!


OH HELL YES WE ARE GONNA FIGHT RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET

THERE IS A LIST ON THE INTERNET AND THAT LIST IS WRONG

CALL THE COPS, I DON'T GIVE A FUCK




I AM 100% SOBER



NO, YOU CALM DOWN

posted by louche mustachio at 3:34 AM on August 23, 2016 [7 favorites]


Not a bad list. Some that I'd include:
Ex Machina
Upstream Color
The End of the Tour
Phoenix
What We Do In The Shadows
Girlhood
Locke
Prince Avalanche
Snowpiercer
Contagion
I am Love
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Young Adam
Old Boy (original)
28 Days Later
Wonder Boys
posted by octothorpe at 3:48 AM on August 23, 2016 [6 favorites]


Seriously, they chose THAT movie as number#27?! WTF?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:56 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Mulholland Drive definitely deserves some kind of award. Everyone I respect agrees that it is a great movie even though they cannot agree on what exactly it is about.

The only other film I can think of like this is Last Year at Marienbad. It feels like a dream sequence but who is doing the dreaming? What appears to be the most pivotal moments or events are not addressed directly. Instead we get to witness only the aftermath or the consequences and so are left attempting to deduce what lies at the center of this hurricane by examining its flotsam.
posted by vacapinta at 5:15 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Birdman and Take Shelter are conspicuously absent from that list. And yeah, I have a special place in my heart for Almost Famous, but I wouldn't put it on that list.
posted by grumpybear69 at 5:21 AM on August 23, 2016


none of the Canadian critics in the breakdown given listed Polly's work among their choices

We hate our own. As an example, most Canadians never gave Guy Maddin a second thought until Europeans and Americans had been celebrating him for a decade and even then we only grudgingly decided he might be worth talking about. Add to that the distribution for Canadian films is woeful in this country. As frustrating as the Quebec system can be at least they support their own. We treat Canadian cinema like a spoonful of cod liver oil - like a distasteful medicine we have to hold our noses to choke down.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:43 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


Best film on the list: Mulholland Dr.
Worst film on the list: Brooklyn, probably
Most surprising inclusion: Moulin Rouge!? Really? Anyone willing to stump for this one?
Most surprising exclusion: yeah, I can't believe Hertzfeldt was only mentioned by four critics
Moment of confusion: figuring out whether the film on the list was Leviathan or Leviathan
Wuz robbed: The Duke of Burgundy would hold its own in the teens, if not higher, on that list
posted by Mothlight at 5:45 AM on August 23, 2016


There are good movies on this list like ​Memento and the Swedish original of Let the Right One In, but many crap ones too. And many missing greats like Gross Point Blank.

I'll avoid the fascist cheer-leading of Kathryn Bigelow too, thanks.

I'd agree with their thesis that film has evolved though, largely because such warmongering has declined. And they need to grant someone like Kathryn Bigelow special access to produce it. Although some loony toons like Tom Cruise do so anyways.

In the past, we had James Bond being the good guy, along with his buddies at the CIA. Now we've films like Jason Bourne, Enemy of the State, etc. where the bad guy is leadership of the CIA, an American company, etc.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:48 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oh man, I know it's not trending at the top of Rotten Tomatoes, but Neon Demon is going to be seen as an important film one day. You'll see.

And it's a goddamn travesty that Effing Cameron Crowe and Wes Anderson are included here. Boring and Boringer.
posted by Dressed to Kill at 5:49 AM on August 23, 2016


Not a bad list. Some that I'd include:
...
Old Boy (original)


#30 on the list. It's not the Hollywood remake.

I was kind of shocked to realize I'd seen more than a quarter of these, given than I'm usually the guy who doesn't see movies and somehow has a film degree. Pleasantly surprised to see Children of Men so high, it's one of my favourite films of all time and that usually means it has niche appeal at best.
posted by chrominance at 5:50 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


Oh, and no offense mcstayinskool, but Korean cinema doesn't need any bones thrown their way.

None taken. My point was that Korean cinema was under-represented on the list.
posted by mcstayinskool at 5:51 AM on August 23, 2016


Appears Grosse Point Blank is from 1997, so they get a pass on that one.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:51 AM on August 23, 2016


In the past, we had James Bond being the good guy, along with his buddies at the CIA. Now we've films like Jason Bourne, Enemy of the State, etc. where the bad guy is leadership of the CIA, an American company, etc.

I also like to think that Skyfall is actually quite critical of MI-6 and the Bond role, even as it sympathizes with them. To me, it's basically a movie about why neither of those institutions work anymore, for all of M's bluster in front of Parliament about why they're necessary. Just, you know, ignore the very end of the movie and you're good!
posted by chrominance at 5:53 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Ah, my bad then, I misread your "If I was throwing Korean cinema a bone" to mean "if you were to bother" rather than "if they are going to only list one". Apologies.
posted by gusottertrout at 6:21 AM on August 23, 2016


Girlhood

Yes, this should have made the list.

A lot of the movies I have seen on the list deserve the recognition, but there are some clunkers and also just some personal variances in taste. I mean, I saw Mulholland Drive and found it so boring that today I can't remember anything about it other than how bored I was, but clearly other people found it a compelling film.

There are others that I would argue for adding, but this is a much better list to begin with than many "top 100" lists, so it feels like quibbling about details rather than important omissions for the most part. I am surprised that Catherine Breillat doesn't seem to have made the list (for Fat Girl at least, if nothing else), and there are a few other omissions of that scale, but there is also a lot of quality here.

I'll avoid the fascist cheer-leading of Kathryn Bigelow too, thanks.

The political implications of her films is an interesting discussion, but even if you despise that aspect of her work, I think it would be hard to argue that her films have not been important and influential in early 21st century cinema.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:28 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


This list has some greats, some WTFs, but the order and arrangement is infinite yawn. The position of white cis man worship talismans Boyhood and Tree of Life says everything that needs saying about this list.
posted by 0bvious at 6:39 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


Yes, Bigelow's films, I think are rather something more than simple fascist cheerleading. Her interest in the subjects doesn't seem to me to be clear endorsement by any means, more an examination that allows viewers to draw their own conclusions should they deem that necessary. Whether that's enough is up to the individual of course, but it doesn't bother me as a technique.
posted by gusottertrout at 6:42 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


I agreed with a lot of the inclusions. I feel like I could replace dozens of listed films with ones I like better. Instead of saying what I'd remove, here are a few I might add. So what if some are more along the lines of "favorite" than "best." That's how these things always go.

Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within
Infernal Affairs
Shaolin Soccer
A Hijacking
Departures
Locke
Owl and the Sparrow
Gomorra
Running on Karma
Mud
The Maid
The Damned United
The Great Passage
Starbuck
Crimson Gold
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 6:59 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'll avoid the fascist cheer-leading of Kathryn Bigelow too, thanks.

It's weird how some people see cheer-leading and others see these cold, clinical studies of how these systems break people, exploit the worst in them, and then just drop them on the ground when they're done chewing on them.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:02 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


I thought that Patricia Arquette's was the hero of Boyhood. I'm not sure that's how Richard Linklater meant it but her performance was so much better than anyone else's that she really stole the film.

Also you have to give Linklater serious props for the audacity of the concept. He managed to make a fictional narrative film in a way that no one in the hundred and ten years of movie making had done before.
posted by octothorpe at 7:03 AM on August 23, 2016 [10 favorites]


I cannot fucking believe they left off Goodfellas

'are you talking to me?' classic
posted by beerperson at 7:06 AM on August 23, 2016 [7 favorites]


24/100. More than I expected. And many of the ones I haven't seen were already on my "I need to get around to seeing that sometime" list.

Pixar with three hits on the list... and Incredibles isn't one of them. Sigh.

Pixar with three hits on the list... and Up isn't one of them. Sigh.

And World of Tomorrow is a short animation that's more deserving than a lot of full length films on here.

Agreed, but based on the ones that did make the list I'm assuming that by "film" they mean "feature-length, non-documentary film." If you include shorts and documentaries I could probably name another 20 that should make the list.

Also should be on the list: Hugo.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:11 AM on August 23, 2016


Boyhood should have been Arquette's film, but her character was never allowed to breath in the way the Boy and his father do. Her mistakes are writ large - she even repeats the exact same ones. Her struggle is irrelevant, because the focus is on the Boy and his relationship with his father (Ethan Hawke). Richard Linklater pretends to care about the plight of mothers but his real passion is for male slackers, as the focus of his entire career suggests. The film is a win for the slacker, with a sidelong glance of pity for women.

I'm not even going to get started on the father worship of Tree of Life
posted by 0bvious at 7:11 AM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


Goodfellas came out in 1990.
posted by hippybear at 7:12 AM on August 23, 2016


classic
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 7:14 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Naming Mulholland Drive #1 is how film critics positions themselves as a Serious Critic of the Cinematographic Arts as opposed to, you know, just a movie reviewer. It's an interesting film and deserves to be on the list, sure, but it's also pretentious and impenetrable and the fulcrum of Lynch's descent into commercial irrelevance.
posted by Nelson at 7:22 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Whereas iconoclasm,
posted by beerperson at 7:29 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


The position of white cis man worship talismans Boyhood and Tree of Life says everything that needs saying about this list.

Well, some white cis man worship talismans are also great movies, and some aren't. Boyhood (which, although I think Arquette's character is way more significant and sympathetic and real than you do and her last scene is the most powerful and important scene in the film, I would agree is basically dude-centric) is a great movie. Tree of Life...not so much.
posted by DaDaDaDave at 7:42 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


The position of white cis man worship talismans Boyhood and Tree of Life says everything that needs saying about this list.

You can check your assertions against the actual data by checking out the accompanying infographics. In short, I'll give you Tree of Life, which was cited by only two female critics, but Boyhood was a top-10 film with the women as well as the men.

Of course we're unable to correct for sexual orientation or gender identity based on the limited information available, but I do think there's more going on in Boyhood than you give it credit for. The highest-ranking movie that received no votes from female critics at all is Certified Copy, which surprised me at first but is, upon some reflection, an interesting and possibly illuminating result wrt that film's point of view regarding male-female relations. A good excuse to see it again.
posted by Mothlight at 7:49 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


Mulholland Drive is not impenetrable.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 7:50 AM on August 23, 2016 [6 favorites]


> Not one of the LoR movies?

> The position of white cis man worship talismans Boyhood and Tree of Life says everything that needs saying about this list.

Y'all are entitled to your opinions and preferences, of course, but anyone who thinks the LoR movies were great, and anyone who thinks Boyhood wasn't (because of "white cis man worship," seriously?)... well, we're not going to have the same movies on our lists.
posted by languagehat at 7:55 AM on August 23, 2016 [9 favorites]


Mulholland Drive is not impenetrable.

Yeah, I don't understand where that rap comes from. If I were looking to criticize it, I wouldn't think to call it "pretentious." Instead, I'd probably accuse it of shamelessly pandering to the preferences of compulsive movie nerds — noirish mood and atmosphere, check; meta inside-the-dream-factory setting, check; an actor in a dual role, check; evocative Angelo Badalamenti score, check; nude scenes and lesbian sex, check; bizarre, hallucinatory denouement, check; a narrative "puzzle" to be solved, ripe for endless consideration on the Internet, check ...

People don't vote for this film because they think it makes them look smart. They vote for it because it rocks their pleasure centers.
posted by Mothlight at 8:09 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


And it has something poignant and profound to say about the way Hollywood chews up young lives and spits them back out again (program it on a double feature with The Neon Demon!). But it's hugely entertaining, too. The performance at Club Silencio? The nightmare figure behind the Denny's? That pasty, menacing cowboy, who appears out of nowhere just to be creepy as fuck for a couple minutes of screen time? C'mon!
posted by Mothlight at 8:13 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Lynch's descent into commercial irrelevance.

You say that like its a bad thing. An unique idiosyncratic but unpopular work always trumps a successful but derivative one for me. While it is true that commercial success is not always an anathema to artistic success it can be hard to align those two concerns. When it happens its lightening in a bottle.

Saying all that I think I kind of agree on your point regarding one's perception of being a serious critic though I'd point out that Mulholland Falls is actually a pretty safe film to support. I think Lynch's Inland Empire is a better film but far more "pretentious and impenetrable" and out right alienating than Mulholland Falls. Mulholland Falls has a narrative that requires work but is coherent, has music people recognise and actors people know. For a Lynch film made in the last 16 years Mulholland Falls is downright populist entertainment!
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:13 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


This list reminded me that I haven't watched Zodiac in a while, so thank you, list!
posted by Lucinda at 8:14 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Yeah, lost me with Moulin Rouge. It's actually kind of insulting to the other pictures on the list that it's included.
posted by holborne at 9:03 AM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


I've seen eight movies on this list, and six of them weren't particularly great; so based on my sample, this gets a big "meh" from me.
posted by yeolcoatl at 9:20 AM on August 23, 2016


Almost none of these are available on Netflix, but I did find these on Amazon (I didn't bother searching for movies I've already seen so not a complete list):

Carlos
The Gleaners and I
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
The Headless Woman
Far From Heaven
A Prophet
Dogville
Certified Copy
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
The White Ribbon
Holy Motors
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
posted by steveminutillo at 9:23 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


I think it's probably significant that this is a result of averages of 177 different critics' top ten lists, so it's going to favor movies that were included in those limited lists. And if you look at those lists, you definitely see different tastes and priorities in play. (Hey, Adriano Aprà! I'm sensing a tetch of bias!)

Mulholland Drive definitely belongs on the list. It's beautifully made, it's a fantastic rewatchable story, and, not insignificantly, it has very broad appeal among people who watch movies critically, so it's going to show up on a lot of diverse lists. It may not have the sheer commercial appeal of Lynch's earlier crowd-pleasing blockbuster smash hits such as Eraserhead or Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times), but it is a solid, well crafted, beautifully told story, and it would be very suspicious if it didn't show up on a list like this.

And pretentious is such a weird and specific criticism that more often than not boils down to, "I don't like or understand this, therefore nobody does." Before you call something pretentious, consider the possibility that something is just not your particular jam before jumping to the conclusion that people are lying or deceiving themselves in order to impress you. That's just a super-weird assumption to make about people.

This is not the type of list that a single person would come up with, and it's certainly not authoritative. I mean, there's some stuff on there that I think is dumb, and the ones that do belong there are all in the wrong order. But it's pretty cool, and I'm going to read through those lists, find people whose tastes jibe with mine, and try to find some movies I've missed.

But overall, it does illustrate pretty well that there are a lot of great movies still being made, for pretty much any taste or genre. But you do have to hunt around to find them sometimes.
posted by ernielundquist at 9:39 AM on August 23, 2016 [7 favorites]


Moulin Rouge!? Really? Anyone willing to stump for this one?

Well, I'll give it a go, though it's pretty clear it won't matter. I certainly wouldn't put it on the top of the list but I have no problem that it's there. The essence of Moulin Rouge is, really, just a celebration of the old-fashioned deep, sincere love story - which as many writers have discussed over the last decades, is something that's become hard to do in an age when deep sincerity is now massively uncool and irony rules everything. It takes a plot that's essentially an archetypal myth at this point (see: the many versions of La Dame aux Camélias), and encrusts it with layer upon layer of pop culture, glitz, glam and superficiality -- it's a maximalism that I think somehow helps make the one main moment of the film, "come what may, I will love you until my dying day," ring out more strongly in contrast to all the hectic craziness of the rest of the film. It's like Luhrman is saying "ok, you think big, operatic emotion and spectacle is uncool or passé? Well, I'll just make it bigger, louder, more spectacle-laden than ever until the sheer weight and force of the thing makes it amazing again."
posted by dnash at 9:39 AM on August 23, 2016 [7 favorites]


Ahhh, so happy to see that The Lives of Others made it. I need to watch it again.
posted by aperturescientist at 9:39 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


What a weirdly bad list.

(also, no Primer? Seriously?)
posted by Cosine at 9:51 AM on August 23, 2016


And no Coherence?

Again, a weirdly bland list.
posted by Cosine at 9:55 AM on August 23, 2016


An interesting list although clearly not without issues. I really wish that there was more Canadian/Québécois cinema, specifically C.R.A.Z.Y. or Incendies or a Xavier Dolan. Also Adaptation and Russian Ark are missing.

Anyways if we're talking lists I have soft spot for The 21st Century’s Most Acclaimed Films from They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?
posted by mr. manager at 10:03 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Hmmm -- shoulda swapped #s 2 and 4. Or maybe bumped #2 to #4.
posted by Quasirandom at 10:16 AM on August 23, 2016


The problem with this list being compiled so quickly is that it Just traces trends with list of movies that attracted a lot of adulation from critics. It's like reading that a poll of 1990s College Republicans named Ronald Reagan as the best Republican president ever.
posted by deanc at 10:22 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Asghar Farhadi's About Elly really really should be on there, too. In place of Moulin Rouge! (ugh, that exclamation point), perhaps.
posted by holborne at 10:26 AM on August 23, 2016


Almost Famous shouldn't be on a list of Crowes top 100 bowel movements, let alone one that involves movies made by other people.
THAT is what pretentious is: pretending to be more sophisticated or important than it is. Just the director fellating himself while forcing two tablespoons of boomer sentimentality and forged precious nostalgia down the audiences throats.
posted by lkc at 10:37 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Wow, 2007 was a hell of a year for movies:

There Will Be Blood
No Country for Old Men
Zodiac
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Ratatouille


All in the same year!

Not to mention these movies that didn't even make this list:

Killer of Sheep
Persepolis
No End in Sight
This is England
Atonement
Eastern Promises

posted by AceRock at 10:42 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


I don't think Killer of Sheep could make the list, though.
posted by pxe2000 at 10:47 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


I don't consider it a problem to compile a list of the most critically acclaimed movies. There are a few weird things about the methodology that build in some strangeness, like the fact that it's top ten lists, which probably disadvantages some more prolific or consistently good directors, but I can't think of a better group to ask about good movies than those whose job it is to rate movies.

Pedro Costa should have made the list somewhere, and would have if his votes weren't scattered around three different movies. The movies are even related to each other. I would have definitely put either Colossal Youth or Horse Money in my top 10. Lars von Trier's Antichrist should have been on there as well, but I am guessing that most critics didn't want multiple movies by the same director taking up their ten slots, so they prioritized either Melancholia or Dogtown instead. There are tons of movies missing from the main list, but the individual lists have lots more if you think something is missing.

(Was there a remake of Killer of Sheep? Because the one I know was made in 1977.)
posted by ernielundquist at 10:48 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


(Was there a remake of Killer of Sheep? Because the one I know was made in 1977.)

Right, my bad, same movie -- re-released in 2007.
posted by AceRock at 10:51 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


I can't think of a better group to ask about good movies than those whose job it is to rate movies.

The problem with that is that there is no real qualifications required to be a reviewer other than the ability to write decently and on schedule. Lists like this can be the equivalent of compiling a list of the best restaurants by asking both four star chefs and the McDonald's grill crew.

These kinds of lists also intrinsically benefit films that are better known to begin with as more people will have seen them and therefore they have more chances to make lists. Hollywood always does well in part because of that, and the small groups of art films that always show up on these lists also tend to keep reappearing because they show up on these lists. If you don't have some measure of films the reviewers have seen, then knowing what's being purposefully not chosen or just not viewed is never clear. Though with many of the reviewers I'm fairly certain it's the latter given the amount of space and time they devote to whatever crap is shoveled out of Hollywood that week. Most film reviewers are just adjuncts to Hollywood marketing departments in that way. They may discriminate between Hollywood films, but they'll still tell you that's where you should spend your money.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:11 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


You can check your assertions against the actual data by checking out the accompanying infographics.

Yeesh, ~68% of the critics whose opinions/votes went into this are men. Only 12 of the 100 or so movies on the list were directed by women.

Some movies that received zero votes from women, but that still made the list include:

Certified Copy (IMDB summary: "In Tuscany to promote his latest book, a middle-aged British writer meets a French woman who leads him to the village of Lucignano. While there, a chance question reveals something deeper.")
Moulin Rouge
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
AI - Artificial Intelligence
Requiem for a Dream

There were no films on the list that received zero votes from male critics. I wonder how this list would look if they weighted the scores to account for the gender disparity in the voters. I'd guess that Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty (57th on the list as it currently stands) would outrank Tree of Life (7th).
posted by AceRock at 11:11 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Only 12 of the 100 or so movies on the list were directed by women.

Sadly, that might be a higher proportion than if you looked at the all the movies that have gotten any kind of distribution since 2000. Only 4.7% of Hollywood films made from 2009-2013 were directed by women, for example. I wonder if Hollywood is unusually bad that way, or if that's pretty typical.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 11:52 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


If you have any interest at all in art films you should definitely, definitely check at least one of his films out. A Brighter Summer Day is what most consider his masterpiece

I'd have to agree.
posted by abrightersummerday at 12:21 PM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


Women do seem to have taken a drubbing on this list. Lynne Ramsay isn't on there at all, and neither is Catherine Breillat, although both show up on some of the individual lists. Based on the names, it looks like Breillat's Fat Girl is on two different women's top tens, and Ramsay's votes are split between Morvern Callar and We Need to Talk About Kevin. Lucrecia Martel's on the main list with The Headless Woman, but La Ceinaga should be there too. Claire Denis needs to be there more than once, too.

But I guess I have fairly low expectations of a list like this. I can pretty easily skim over the stuff I don't like or know I probably wouldn't, and focus instead on mining the individual lists.

Re: Certified Copy. Abbas Kiarostami is on a lot of individual lists, and I just looked up to see which other movies he's made since 2000 and found out he just died in July. Maybe the reviewers had him in mind a little more because of that, but it wouldn't be surprising if that ranking were deserved. He really was a talented director, and I haven't seen Certified Copy, but he is really good at what he does. Was. Did. There are others I'd take off before that, even sight unseen.

Damn, though. Abbas Kairostami died, you guys.
posted by ernielundquist at 12:30 PM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Wow, 2007 was a hell of a year for movies

Passing by the Odeon on Shaftesbury Avenue in London one afternoon in September-October 2007 and this is what was playing.
posted by Flashman at 12:32 PM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Certified Copy is wonderful.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 12:37 PM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Yes on more Claire Denis. White Material is a great film IMO, but 35 Shots of Rum belongs there too. That one with Vincent Gallo eating people, not so much.
posted by Kafkaesque at 12:55 PM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


The list is very US/English-centric (and very very heavily European/American), but while they say "We asked 62 critics from around the world" they don't do any fancy breakdown of the reviewers, I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of those were US or British. Which is reasonable enough for a BBC/English language article, I suppose.
posted by thefoxgod at 12:58 PM on August 23, 2016


Devils on the Doorstep. A great black comedy from China that won at Cannes iirc, and was subsequently banned by the gov't.
posted by storybored at 1:41 PM on August 23, 2016


An interesting list although clearly not without issues. I really wish that there was more Canadian/Québécois cinema, specifically C.R.A.Z.Y. or Incendies or a Xavier Dolan. Also Adaptation and Russian Ark are missing.

I think you need a global distribution to make it on that list (since the critics are from all around the globe) and this really hurts those kind of movies, and also a lot of Quebec movies have that 'local' grounding in them that surely makes them resonate more here. C.R.A.Z.Y for example, the broad strokes of the story are somewhat universal, but in addition to being very well cradted it captures it's different eras + Quebec francophone familly dynamics/societal changes so well that it becomes very special in it's local market and helped it do very well critically and at the box-office in Quebec when it got released.
posted by coust at 1:45 PM on August 23, 2016


He really was a talented director, and I haven't seen Certified Copy,

You must see it, just DO NOT read anything at all about it beforehand. I'm pretty sure I've commented about this on here somewhere before. It was my first Kiarostami film. It was a film festival, I saw "Juliette Binoche is in this" so I bought a ticket because I'll watch anything she does. When it was over everyone in the audience looked around at each other, like, "what just happened?" In a good way. Like our minds had been warped.
posted by dnash at 4:13 PM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


In a similar vein, The Baader Meinhof Complex was better than 'Carlos'.

The Great Gatsby was better than 'Moulin Rouge'. The 20's excess shlock & glitz with an undertone of pathos is the perfect combination for the Luhrmann touch. It was more enjoyable than the glum 1974 film version.

'Boyhood' was okay but kinda over-rated. The overall concept was rather bold and innovative, but the Boy eventually grew into a flat and uninteresting actor. The actress playing his sister was much more expressive, and she stole every scene that she was in.
posted by ovvl at 4:32 PM on August 23, 2016


Putting Boyhood all the way up at #5 is just an attempt to troll those of us who managed to sit through it, right? It was a gimmick in search of a story.
posted by mrbula at 4:59 PM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


No Mike Leigh? "Happy go lucky" was a good movie.

The Fast Runner (2002)
posted by acrasis at 5:02 PM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


I don't know anything about the critics besides the linked info, but this reads like a weirdly pure white male nerd list. Clearly the reviewers aren't all white male nerds, so I wonder whether there's something in averaging a bunch of lists where a simple majority of participants are WMN (hah) that gives rise to a meta-list that is much purer than the individual constituents. You could probably work out the statistics or find some theorem to this effect in the social choice literature, but it's actually pretty interesting how the presence of a few oddballs on each list drops away in the final average, yielding a list that is actually (for 100 items) pretty surprising in how few surprises it contains, and how consistent the perspective behind it seems to be. I feel like I've met this guy many times before, with his love of cerebral, violent, slightly-but-not-very experimental or speculative mainstream cinema. But I don't really have any better ideas for how to aggregate it all and preserve the original diversity, apart from something like a Borda vote system or Posner's silly quadratic vote, which might allow smaller subsets of voters to put more of their chips behind a few more oddball entries. Maybe also seeing it aggregated by female or non-US critics might be interesting as well. But in any case, it's a nice illustration of the mediocritizing tyranny of the majority when applied to certain types of vote or list aggregation.
posted by chortly at 5:48 PM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


> Putting Boyhood all the way up at #5 is just an attempt to troll those of us who managed to sit through it, right? It was a gimmick in search of a story.

I wish people who didn't like something wouldn't pretend that everyone who says they liked it is just trolling. I used to say that about Cecil Taylor, and then I came to appreciate him. But even if I hadn't, I've learned better than to assume my taste is the be-all and end-all.
posted by languagehat at 5:57 PM on August 23, 2016 [7 favorites]


In a similar vein, The Baader Meinhof Complex was better than 'Carlos'.

The Baader Meinhof Complex is a great movie, but I'd say Carlos is more ambitious and more successful. But they are both great and worth watching more than once, and I can easily see how someone might prefer the one over the other.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:41 PM on August 23, 2016


Moulin Rouge!? Really? Anyone willing to stump for this one?

Well, I'll give it a go, though it's pretty clear it won't matter.


I've always thought that Moulin Rouge! was Luhrmann translating Bollywood into a non-Indian setting. The use of popular songs, the spectacular production numbers, the over-the-top production values, the completely sentimental love story (La Boheme!)...

I think it's a film that works really really well, but I think you have to like La Boheme and have to like musicals and really like hearing Roxanne roared by someone who can't actually sing in order to fully appreciate the song.
posted by hippybear at 8:14 PM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


OK, if we're adding glaring omissions here, I don't doubt that all can agree they were searching the list for these timeless titles.

The Fast and the Furious
2 Fast 2 Furious
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Fast & Furious
Fast Five
Fast & Furious 6
Furious 7
Fast 8
posted by Metro Gnome at 10:27 PM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


The successor to The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift would definitely have earned a spot in the top 20, if only they'd thought to call it Fast & Fourious.
posted by DaDaDaDave at 11:03 PM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


Well, I'd just as soon have one of the later Justin Lin Fast and Furious movies on the list as I would The Dark Knight, Mad Max: Fury Road, the Pixar films, or a number of others too. Nothing I see makes the Fast and Furious flicks any less deserving than many that did make the cut. Of course using the worst movies on the list as justification for substitutions probably isn't the best way to go.
posted by gusottertrout at 2:12 AM on August 24, 2016


ok, you think big, operatic emotion and spectacle is uncool or passé? Well, I'll just make it bigger, louder, more spectacle-laden than ever until the sheer weight and force of the thing makes it amazing again."

I can certainly appreciate that that is the aim, but for me the effect is like trying to eat cups of frosting.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:21 AM on August 24, 2016


84. Her (Spike Jonze, 2013)
83. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)

LOL
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 7:41 AM on August 24, 2016


I cannot believe Idiocracy isn't number one.

Idiocracy sucks.

No, really. Fuck Idiocracy.
posted by non canadian guy at 9:20 AM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]


Idiocracy is a freakin documentary! Folks, this is Not The Onion!!!
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:42 AM on August 24, 2016


The most amazing and prescient part of Idiocracy is the long boring part where you're supposed to think Luke Wilson's character is in danger of being killed in the sports arena and everyone kind of sits around twiddling because they can't figure out how suspense works
posted by beerperson at 9:45 AM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


I watched Idiocracy once when it first hit the premium movie channels. I found it mildly amusing and appreciated the social commentary but was not overly impressed. Should I bother watching it again?
posted by hippybear at 10:05 AM on August 24, 2016


No, that was pretty much my take at the time too.

Since then, I've added to that the criticism that Idiocracy is overly optimistic — in that electrolytes are a real thing, that sports drinks actually have. They may not have the effects that the people in Idiocracy believe them to, but at least they exist. That puts the people in Idiocracy ahead of many real-world people in terms of understanding science.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:15 AM on August 24, 2016


I watched Idiocracy once when it first hit the premium movie channels. I found it mildly amusing and appreciated the social commentary but was not overly impressed. Should I bother watching it again?

Eh. One thing about Idiocracy - and I watched it awhile ago, so I'm a bit hazy on the details - is that the celebrity-wrestler-porn-star-whatever-he-was President strikes me as a pretty decent analogue for Trump. So there's that. In general, it's a decent and amusing movie, but I don't even think it's Judge's best (Office Space is easily better). I wouldn't not watch it again, but I wouldn't go out of my way.

Re: Boyhood, the Boy is kind of a crap teenage actor, though he's very good as a kid. But I think that's sort of saved by how those scenes do a great job at evoking the mood of adolescence. I can't even put my finger on why, exactly, but something about those scenes really captured the mood of being 15/16/17, even though much of the dialogue consisted of trite teenage philosophizing, and whenever the Boy opened his mouth I kind of wanted to punch him in the face.

Another thing is, after thinking about it, I realized that Boyhood is just as much the story of the parents (particularly the mom) as it is of the Boy. Arquette and Hawke were both great in it, and I think if you view it from that angle, it starts to look a little different.
posted by breakin' the law at 11:40 AM on August 24, 2016


My list would look pretty different, but I'm very happy with many of the inclusions here.

In particular, I think these are sublime and profound filmgoing experiences: Uncle Boonmee..., Ida, The Assassination of Jesse James, Cache, Synecdoche New York, A Serious Man.

(I think Inland Empire is superior to Mulholland Drive, but I can't argue with its absence on a list that never dips too far into the strange/cult stuff. It's a bit much to take even for critics)
posted by naju at 12:35 PM on August 24, 2016


I would've liked to see It Follows included. Too genre maybe.
posted by naju at 12:39 PM on August 24, 2016


Carlos is a mini series, I'm not sure it's comparable to the other films on the list - I'm surprised it's there at all (it was very good, to be sure).
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 5:20 PM on August 24, 2016


Carlos is a mini series, I'm not sure it's comparable to the other films on the list - I'm surprised it's there at all (it was very good, to be sure).

It was released both ways, as a miniseries and as a long film, so it at meets the letter of the law if not the full spirit. But even as a miniseries, it is very much a holistic piece of work, rather than fully separated episodes.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:15 PM on August 24, 2016


I'm assuming Carlos got some votes from people who didn't see it at the theaters at all. On DVD the difference between miniseries and film is pretty much non-existent.

As to the movie itself, I don't see it as being one of Assayas's better films, I would have chosen Demonlover, Clean, or Summer Hours from him myself, even though Carlos is a solid piece of work. I guess it loses some of its luster since it did come out around the same time as a number of other films like The Baader Meinhoff Complex, United Red Army, Meserine, and Che. Long looks at real historical figures of violence and complex social relationships. Carlos, for me, just didn't stand out enough form those others to make it a good choice for the list. Assayas's other films though would have.

One of the big surprises for me was not seeing a Tsai Ming-liang film on the list. Just a few years ago that would have been unimaginable. His last film wasn't good, but he dominated the early part of the century in critic polls of the time. Can't believe he's dropped so far already. Maybe voted were split between a few of his films?

There are a lot of movies I'd have preferred to see on the list, too many to name I guess. Nonetheless I was really hoping Oxhide 2 would make the cut as that's the kind of movie that both needs the notice and fully deserves all the acclaim it can get.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:41 PM on August 24, 2016


Synecdoche New York

This is a bad movie. I wish people would stop acting like it's a good movie. I could write like 10 paragraphs on this, but i'd have to watch it again to take it down piece by piece and i really don't want to because i've seen it like 5 times.

It's just a crappier retread of Being John Malkovich in like 10 different ways. I feel, like AI is on there as a nod to Kubrick IMO along with others here as well, it's just a shoe in by someone who wished Malkovich could be on the list.

My couple friends who loved it hadn't seen Malkovich, and agreed it was a pale comparison immediately afterwards.

And i mean, i almost entirely agree with this list! The only other movies i eye-rolled hard at were like, Spring Breakers and Wolf of Wall Street which are both bong hit faux-deep popcorn poppers to me. But something really gets my goat about people thinking Synecdoche is some masterpiece and this isn't even nearly enough words to explain why.
posted by emptythought at 12:50 PM on August 25, 2016


I love all the comments in this thread which are predicated on the list being created by a single person rather than a compilation of top-ten lists from 177 people.
posted by beerperson at 1:23 PM on August 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


As to the movie itself, I don't see it as being one of Assayas's better films, I would have chosen Demonlover, Clean, or Summer Hours from him myself, even though Carlos is a solid piece of work.

I liked Carlos, but yeah, if I were going to pick an Assayas film to put on the list, I'd choose either Summer Hours, Apres Mai (Something In The Air), or Clouds of Sils Maria.
posted by dnash at 1:26 PM on August 25, 2016


Synecdoche was a profoundly moving, life-changing film for me. I had seen Malkovich, Adaptation, etc. before it and absolutely loved them, but nothing prepared me for what I consider to be the singular masterpiece of the past decade. Not willing to fight about it, just, y'know, people experience things differently and it's all valid and I'm not just acting like I enjoy it for cred or something. (Why did you see it 5 times if you hate it that much? Nevermind, I don't want to know...)
posted by naju at 1:35 PM on August 25, 2016


I don't think Spring Breakers is faux-deep. It is self-aware in it's unironic trashy glory, with a grilled-up James Franco jamming in a poolside white piano to Britney Spears, surrounded by girls in swimwear and pink ski masks with shotguns. But part of the reason it is fun to watch is that I don't think there's any intended, hidden depths to it, although we could argue if this kind of intended superficiality counts as depth.

A movie around the same theme that is often compared to that is complete garbage? Bling Ring. A movie that has fuck-all going for it.
posted by lmfsilva at 1:38 PM on August 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


I realize this thread is old and that the whole point of lists like this is to give people an excuse to fight over them and that my comment is futile in almost every way... But I'm pretty mad that Frozen is neither on this list nor mentioned in this thread. Seriously. Wall-E was cute and all, but Elsa is frickin' iconic. So many people identified with her struggle, women escaping from the religious cults they grew up in, gay and trans people coming out of the closet, anyone who has stuffed down their identity for years and then finally let their freak flag fly was writing essays on the internet about what Let it Go meant to them. It was a box office juggernaut and still moves merchandise like no other Disney movie except Star Wars, years later. It made Idina Menzel (or possibly "Adele Dazeem") a household name. And it's a really good story executed with stunning visuals, excellent light-opera-style musical storytelling and humor, believably flawed characters, and emotional stakes that feel very real. What more do people want? What, is it too girly for you, critics? You don't like Disney princess movies? Well, Elsa is a QUEEN.

Frozen will still be watched, I predict, at the end of the 21st century, when the majority of these movies are forgotten.
posted by OnceUponATime at 9:28 AM on August 29, 2016


It's an interesting question as to why say, Ratatouille would make the list and Frozen wouldn't. I personally can't see any good reason for the former over the latter, though I can see arguments for choosing neither depending on what one takes "greatest" to mean.

Frozen clearly seems to be a watershed film in many ways, and is undoubtedly more socially significant a movie in that regard than most others on the list. So if cultural importance is your hallmark of great, then I could certainly see Frozen making the list since it was so popular and helped shift popular cinemas conception of the importance of women audience members for driving sales. That sounds glib perhaps, but for commercial films sales go a long way to determining what will get made in the future, so seeing Frozen rake in the cash can have a positive effect on what kinds of films get made and who those films are aimed at. Which is nothing to take lightly given how influential Hollywood remains in shaping public perception.

At the same time, there are a number of good reasons Frozen might not make a list, as it isn't equally groundbreaking in its artistic achievements as it is its popular ones. Some of us would advocate for movies every bit as radical in terms of their gender roles and "message", but those films may not be as popular, so the question then is over the relative importance of popularity and artistic merit, as any one person may see it. Siding with the popular, as mentioned above, has its cultural advantages, but it also demands a narrower standard of what might constitute great art, where how something is expressed is always secondary to how many people hear it.

That said, I think it would be hard to argue that this list is made up of only films deemed artistically important since as was noted Wall-E and Ratatouille are on the list and they are not significantly more important in any artistic regard no matter how you'd measure them. So I think you'd have to look to who gets to vote on these kind of lists and the history of film writing to see some of the biases inevitably associated with making claims for importance in film. The history of popular film writing isn't great. It's heavily masculinized, even among many of the women writers like Pauline Kael, for just one example, who have a preference for film styles that better support violence and certain masculine attitudes towards art and the world. So in that way there is no solid rationale I can see for why Frozen missed out compared to many other films on the list.

That's all a bit waffly I suppose, but that's the nature of these sorts of things I'm afraid. Without a more clearly defined purpose or meaning invoked in making the selections, the list itself becomes an arbitrary reflection of popular bias more than a positive reflection of the state of film art or cultural importance.
posted by gusottertrout at 10:37 AM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


Ratatouille, at least, probably speaks uniquely to critics because in many ways it's about criticism.
posted by naju at 12:23 PM on August 29, 2016


Ratatouille is also a great slapstick film grounded by themes of unlikely artistry and a very fitting ending to cap it all. It's a film with soul and I don't think it's inclusion is unearned unless one rules out animation on principle.
posted by ersatz at 2:20 PM on August 29, 2016


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