best film of all time

[emily leonard]

this is a tread to see whitch film is in your opinion the best film of all time

[Grey_Wolf]

In Categories:

Action:
Die Hard I
Lethal Weapon I - III
Under Siege I
True Lies
Blade I
The Bourne Identity
The Fugitive
The Hunt For Red October
The Last Boyscout
Spiderman I
Goldeneye (James Bond)

Adventure
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
The Day After Tomorrow
Excalibur (The without a doubt absolute best King Arthur movie ever)
Flying Daggers
Highlander I
I-J & the Last Crusade
The Jungle Book
The Last of the Mohicans
The LOTR trilogy
The Mark of Zorro
The Mummy & The Mummy Returns
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
Raiders of the Lost Arc
Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves
The Three Musketeers
Van Helsing

...just to mention a few. Comedy, Dance & Music and Thrillers will be added when time allows.

[Morelen]

Oh, that's too hard to choose...um...well, MY favorite movie is The Princess Bride (with Cary Elwes) but...

[Lotesse]

"Ran", by Akira Kurosawa
Gone With the Wind
other ones, too, but can't think right now

[Lotesse]

now I remember a couple more:

The Godfather, by Francis Ford Coppola
Apocalypse Now - Oliver Stone
The Leopard - Luchino Visconti
Pupl Fiction & Reservoir Dogs - Quentin Tarantino
Taxi Driver - Martin Scorsese
E.T. - Steven Spielburg
Chinatown - Robert Towne
8 Mile - Eminem/Marshall Mathers
Papillon - Franklin J. Schaffner, st. Steve McQueen & Dustin Hoffman
almost anything by Akira Kurosawa

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

i am not sure on best film of all time, but if i had to compile a list, definites would be:
Gohatto
Akira
LotR
The Devil's Advocate
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Monty Python's The Life of Brian
Star Trek VIII: First Contact
Star Trek IX: Insurrection
Star Trek X: Nemesis
StarGate

[Lotesse]

Grey Wolf, did you say "Excalibur"? I'd really, really love to know some reasons why you think this movie merits a "best" distinction. I seriously believe Excalibur is one of the laughingly WORST films ever made, EVER. If there were a college course on How To Create an Absolute Piece of Celluloid Garbage, they'd use this film as the study guide. I couldn't keep a straight face at any point during watching it, and at quite a few times my annoyance would swell up into outright rage at its insistent insipidity; plus most of the cast seemed at all times to be either stoned, twacked on 70's coke, or just plain mentally retarded.
Excalibur??!?
The only thing at all good about it was Liam Neeson.

Disclaimer: BTW, no offense is intended. Just wanna know what you think.

[Snowdog]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

...the cast seemed at all times to be either stoned, twacked on 70's coke...

It was made in 1981... very possible ... very possible indeed

This, like the 'best band ever' thread, is really a 'top movies' thread. For a 'best film of all time' would be one film, and everyone seems to name many. They all can't be the 'the best film of all time'.

I myself would probably name a different one every day.

Today, right now... I think Johnny Depp's best movie... the highly underrated one, is it...

Dead Man directed by Jim Jarmusch is outright wierd, but it has a deeper sensibility in its layers.
A side note... This was Robert Mitchum's last movie role as John Dickinson before he died.

"No one can survive becoming a legend."

[Grey_Wolf]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

Grey Wolf, did you say "Excalibur"? I'd really, really love to know some reasons why you think this movie merits a "best" distinction. I seriously believe Excalibur is one of the laughingly WORST films ever made, EVER. If there were a college course on How To Create an Absolute Piece of Celluloid Garbage, they'd use this film as the study guide. I couldn't keep a straight face at any point during watching it, and at quite a few times my annoyance would swell up into outright rage at its insistent insipidity; plus most of the cast seemed at all times to be either stoned, twacked on 70's coke, or just plain mentally retarded.
Excalibur??!?
The only thing at all good about it was Liam Neeson.

Disclaimer: BTW, no offense is intended. Just wanna know what you think.

Well, I love it. I didn't say that Everyone has to.

[Rosie Gamgee]

I don't think there's such a thing as a 'best movie of all time'. I've got my own faves, though:

Gladiator

Pirates of the Caribbean; the Curse of the Black Pearl
Signs
Holes

Shall We Dance
Always

Oscar

I've got more... I love movies. Oh, Kingdom of Heaven is climbing the charts.

[Twista]

The best films of all time - according the voters of imdb.com

http://www.imdb.com/chart/top

[Snowdog]

*shakes head at some of the crap on that list*

Today, a film that I always thought would be a good candidate for a remake, though I love the original even in its low budgetness, is The Illustrated Man.

Another one of those wierd, underrrated movies I like. All you young folk who are into tattoos & body art should give it a watch.

[The Gaffer]

Rod Steiger rocked. In the Heat of the Night etc etc.

A highly personal choice which probably has as much to do with whether you yourself were whacked out of your head on 70s coke at the time you saw it, in which case Excalibur may well have seemed like an epic.

My top film, Tampopo.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

Grey Wolf, did you say "Excalibur"? I'd really, really love to know some reasons why you think this movie merits a "best" distinction. I seriously believe Excalibur is one of the laughingly WORST films ever made, EVER. If there were a college course on How To Create an Absolute Piece of Celluloid Garbage, they'd use this film as the study guide. I couldn't keep a straight face at any point during watching it, and at quite a few times my annoyance would swell up into outright rage at its insistent insipidity; plus most of the cast seemed at all times to be either stoned, twacked on 70's coke, or just plain mentally retarded.
Excalibur??!?

sheesh why are you so bent against this film exactly. honestly it IS considered a classic film. in fact most people consider it the best version of the Arthur legend there is on the big screen. and thats saying something. and i mean its a beautiful film. and with some of the best shakespearian actors of its time. Nicole Williamson is brilliant as Merlin. And the cinimetography is very well done. Were you expecting some kind of Lord of the Rings collosal deal? Thats not the measure of a good film. They had almost no budget but they still made it work well. And theres so much subtle stuff in it! Are you saying you caught it all and yet still werent moved by any of it? Thats shocking to me. Its very poetic in places and it took me a few watches to really pick up on all the stuff. The wonderful scene where Uther is begetting Arthur with Egraine and the Duke is dying at the same time. Brilliant. The music! The first use of Carmena Borana in a major film really. And now you hear that piece of music in EVERY single movie and freakin commercial on TV. The knighting scene with Uriens. The speech scene at the Battle of Badon hill. All real quality classic stuff. Do you not like Shakespeare either because of lame special effects? I must say Excalibur is one of my favorite CULT films of all time. I can both laugh at it and revel in it and marvel at the beauty of the artistry all at the same time. But hey maybe its a generational thing.

[Insidious Rex]

Hey by the way, as far as your declaration that any college would consider this trash check out this link http://clioseye.sfasu.edu/chronicles/excaliburchron.htm from a university web site that says “it is considered one of the better Arthurian presentations of the more than 30 films in existence internationally, not because of great historical accuracy, but rather because of its mythic presentation.” And “In the end, Boorman's Excalibur is not historical, nor was it meant to be, nor has any work in Arthurian legend managed to be. The film is, however, a work of art -plain and simple.”

Oh and I found this review which was interesting:

The film has this crazy rapturousness to it. It overflows with compelling, impassioned imagery. It is all beautifully shot in lush Irish landscapes, and filled with extraordinary images of knights in beaten gold armour, woodland weddings draped in flora, battles set against beautiful red sunsets, the Lady in the Lake floating supine in the midst of a riverbed. The image of Arthur being knighted in the midst of a river is a remarkably moving one. Trevor Williams scores the film with selections from Wagner and Orff which adds a wild, primal passion - rarely has the use of classical excerpts been so well chosen in a film. Boorman has also determined to make a vision of the Arthurian legends that doesn’t befall the cliches of the stuffed doublet Mediaevalism of Knights of the Round Table, Camelot and the Prince Valiant comic-strip, of merely being extras in page-boy haircuts and standard costumes from central casting. From the moment the film opens in the midst of a brutal bloody battle where we see arms hacked off, this is clearly a different vision of the Middle Ages, one that is rooted in a grimy realism. Many have jumped on the fact that the styles of armour are wildly anachronistic, but this is relatively unimportant, indeed quite possibly deliberate - Boorman is not setting out to make an historical film. The legend of King Arthur has rarely ever had anything to do with historical realism and the film is clearly intended to takes place in a mythic neverwhen.

[Lotesse]

Rex -
1. That's fine if some people out there consider Excalibur a "classic film". Good for them. I, however, am not one of those people.
2. Any college or university that would sing the praises of this silly flick would not be a college or university that I could ever take seriously, or respect. I certainly wouldn't deign to attend such an institution.
3. Why are we arguing about this? Everyone's in ownership of the right to their own opinion.

[BeardofPants]

Best movie of all time? 2001.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

Best movie of all time? 2001.

Definitely a worthy movie to contend for best film of all time, but I give either Lawrence of Arabia or Casablanca my nods

[b.banner]

Star Wars:Return Of The Jedi
Big Fish
Ben-Hur
Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom
Hulk
Star Wars:The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars:A New Hope
Raiders Of The Lost Ark
Star Wars:Revenge Of The Sith
The Bourne Supremacy

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

3. Why are we arguing about this? Everyone's in ownership of the right to their own opinion.

I might ask you why you are trashing a movie in a thread that asks about the BEST film of all time...

Remember to some its a pretty special movie. We were joking around about it in the Python thread (another off topic rant against it by the way...) and that was fine but this clueless diatribe had to be countered in my opinion. It was just piling on unnecessarily. And you should learn about me that when people attack things I value of course Im gonna open my mouth and disgree. I would hope everyone would. Im a little disturbed you would question why I wouldnt.

2. Any college or university that would sing the praises of this silly flick would not be a college or university that I could ever take seriously, or respect. I certainly wouldn't deign to attend such an institution.

well then you are gonna have a long list of institutions that are beneath you going to. Write off the ivy league.