Is it wrong to already declare this the No. 1 movie list of all time?
After all, there are other movie lists. Lots and lots of others. So many lists, you couldn't list them all. But this is the first to ask the entertainment industry itself to pick its choices for the best pictures ever made. In May, THR sent an online ballot all over town — to every studio, agency, publicity firm and production house on either side of the 405.
The actual list is here. It features some different things than the AFI ones. They're newer of course, and they have some new movies on them. The list has 15 movies on it that were made 2000 and after.
96. Pan's Labyrinth
92. Up
90. Memento
88. Slumdog Millionaire
87. LOTR: Return of the King
84. Inception
82. LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring
79. Wall-E
76. Brokeback Mountain
71. Almost Famous
69. Gladiator
67. Avatar
60. Amelie
57. The Dark Knight
56. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
If someone asked me for a list of the best movies since 2000, I'd choose a lot of these. The only one that I haven't seen is 'Avatar' and frankly, I wonder if it would still be on this kind of list ten years from now. I could happily include the first 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie. And I thought that the 'Avengers' was better than 'The Dark Knight'. And I'd throw something from Studio Ghibli in too. But this list is pretty strong.
It's also interesting how the list breaks down by decade.
2000+: 15
1990s: 23
1980s: 15
1970s: 19
1960s: 12
1950s: 11
1940s: 3
1930s: 2
For some time now, the cinematic center of gravity has been firmly located in the 70's. The 90's dominate this list by some margin. I've got some quibbles there. 'Unforgiven' is a much better movie than 'American Beauty', for instance. In fact, 'American Beauty' at 34 was the biggest surprise of the list for me.
I know some people that worked their way through the AFI list of movies. This would serve well for the same purpose (no, I'm not taking up a new project). I've seen 92 of the movies and by my rough count, we own 47 of them. The other eight?
100. Seven Samurai
99. Bonnie and Clyde
73. All the President's Men
67. Avatar
59. Thelma and Louise
58. Sunset Blvd
52. All About Eve
41. Psycho
Maybe I'll do some updating to my Netflix queue and bring myself up to speed...
