The Greatest Films of All Time: Intro and 1-20

Magic Lantern show from the 19th century

"Cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians."

Francis Ford Coppola

Welcome to the first in a series of posts about one man's quest to figure out the greatest films of all time. In this initial installment, I offer a general introduction to my improbable journey. Then, after various mystical, intellectual and emotional adventures in the realm of cinema - or, more accurately, the gut-wrenching, heart-breaking and mind-numbing struggle with lists, lists, lists! from around the world - I will reveal the amazing and (mon Dieu!) sometimes shocking tableau of what might be the 20 Greatest Films of All Time!

[UPDATE: The other posts in this series include Films 21-50, Films 51-100, Films 101-200, and The Directors.]

Reel One

A few months ago, I decided to start watching masterpieces of cinema that I had never seen before. Being the geek that I am, I wanted a neat, orderly list, so I could cross off titles as I saw each film. But where would I find such a creature? Who among the myriad critics, directors, academics, movie fans, and purveyors of popular magazines had ever compiled the one, true, absolutely indispensable list?

It seemed like a simple question: What are the greatest films of all time?

But it depends, of course, on who's making the list. In the internet age, there seem to be new ones every month, but too often they're skewed towards a specific audience/genre, or pander to commercial tastes, or only include films from one country, mostly the United States. (Recently, the American Film Institute managed all three tendencies at once in "America's 10 Greatest Films in 10 Classic Genres.")

I wanted something more: A genuine attempt at a film canon.

(If you want to argue about the very concept of "canons," take it up with Paul Schrader. "Canon Fodder." Film Comment 42.5 (2006) 33-49.)

Buster Keaton contemplates the Greatest Films of All Time

Obviously, a canonical list had to include cinema from all over the world. But I realized that my very conception of the world's greatest cinema came from reading American critics, taking classes in American universities, watching films distributed in the U.S., and talking with other American film fans. Sure, Roger Ebert may think Kurosawa's Seven Samurai is one of the greatest films of all time, and they may show it in classes at NYU or on Turner Classic Movies, but do people in Asia regard it as highly as we do in the United States? (Not really, as it turns out.)

Hollywood has been such a force in the movie industry for so long, we can forget sometimes about the equally longstanding cinematic traditions and thriving industries in other countries. Film history begins in France, with the Lumière brothers and George Méliès, and until the advent of World War II, the French gave Hollywood a run for its money. Later, via the Nouvelle Vague, they played a profound role in the transformation of cinema in the late 1950s and early 1960s. India also has a rich cinematic history and produces more films than Hollywood. So what do the French think is the greatest film of all time? What about the Indians? I was no longer content with a list that simply included international films but was still developed by Americans. I wanted to know what movies the rest of the world loves and considers important.

Do the Portugese think a Hollywood musical like Singin' in the Rain belongs on a list of the best films ever made? (Yes, they do.) What about The Godfather? It's the #1 film on IMDB. Is it the #1 film all over the world? (Not necessarily. Americans and Asians had it ranked #3 overall; Europeans, on the other hand, ranked it #20.)

As it turns out, it wasn't easy finding lists of The Greatest Films of All Time as chosen by people outside of the U.S. and the U.K. (The very idea of listing great works of art may be an Anglo-American trait.) I searched high and low on the internet and found a few efforts from other countries, but not many. I even contacted the film divisions of the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library, seeking guidance from my professional brothers, but neither proved helpful. Finally, I tracked down a book published in 1995 by the Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film/International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), the most important association of film archives in the world. The book, which was located in only three libraries in the U.S., was called Le jeu des catégories [The Categories Game: a game for the cinema's centenary], and it included lists of great and important works of cinema chosen by film archives and institutes from various places around the globe. It proved very useful for my purposes.

Yeah . . . but will it play in Osaka?

In the end, I compiled 30 lists from eighteen different countries. Two lists came from individual critics: Roger Ebert and Jonathan Rosenbaum. Many were done by groups of critics/judges in formats like the British magazine Time Out or the Russian film journal Kinovedcheskie Zapiski. From the FIAF book, I wound up with lists from 17 archives and institutes from around the world, including ones in China, India (maybe the most fascinating list), Ecuador, Finland and Israel. In another post, I'll give all of the sources and talk about some of the problems (and treasures) encountered in using them.

One important note now, however: When I say something like, "the Asians don't seem as enthralled by Stanley Kubrick," (which they don't), I'm obviously talking about a small number of Asians connected to cinema: maybe two dozen directors, critics and archivists in this case. The sample sizes from each of the regions is ultimately too small to formulate any serious conclusions. This isn't an academic paper - it's simply a personal quest. And the results served my purpose: To develop a list of great films from a more international perspective, and to see how many and what kind of cultural variations might show up when discussing cinema in different parts of the world. While my findings from these 30 lists obviously can't be conclusive, I do think they're interesting and worthy of discussion.

Alas, I couldn't find any lists from Africa or the Middle East. That's interesting in and of itself.

In choosing my sources, I had three main criteria: 1) that the lists had to be made by people or groups consciously trying to rank the Greatest Films of All Time, 2) that the lists had to include films from everywhere, and 3) that the lists had to be from 1995 or sooner.

I didn't use IMDB's TOP 250, for example, because I don't think the results are determined by people who necessarily know world cinema and have been mulling over 113 years of film history. As much as I loved WALL-E, I'm simply not ready to say it's the 19th greatest film ever made. Maybe it will be in the future, but I think wrestling with a canon requires a certain amount of distance from an initial release. At least more than 17 days. I did, however, include the Top 200 list from the IMDB Classic Film Board, as that list did fit my criteria.

The website They Shoot Pictures, Don't They compiles lists from over 2,000 sources to make their own grand list of the 1,000 Greatest Films. It's like the mega-version of what I put together. So why didn't I just use the TSPDT list? Well, it's an excellent and fun website, and I included their Top 200 in my own analysis, but I wasn't satified with their rankings because I had problems with their criteria - or lack thereof. They seem to include whatever list they could get their hands on: Sight & Sound's 10 Greatest Films from 1950 (i.e., nothing from the last 58 years of cinema), Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 "Best French Films Since the Liberation," or "The Top 10 Greatest Animated Lesbian Action Films of the 1990s," chosen by Ned, a first-year film student at North-Central State University in the Middle of Nowhere. There are some fascinating lists available on their website, but many of them didn't fit my criteria.

With all due respect for people in the rest of the world . . . What the hell's wrong with you?!?! What's so hard to understand about The Lady Eve? (It showed up on 4 out of 6 Anglo-American lists, and none anywhere else. Is comedy the hardest genre to transfer from one culture to another?)

One of the best sources, I thought, was the British Film Institute's journal Sight & Sound. Each decade, they produce highly regarded Top Ten Lists, one chosen by Critics and one by Directors. They do an excellent job of including judges from around the world, both men and women. If you love film and love lists, I recommend spending some time on their website. You can see individual choices from all the judges in the 2002 edition. Which film, for example, did Jim Jarmusch choose as the greatest of all time? (Jean Vigo's L'Atalante). Or compare #1 picks by Richard Linklater (Minnelli's Some Came Running), Roger Ebert (Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God) and Thai critic Anchalee Chaiworaporn (À bout de souffle [Breathless] by Godard). You can also track the perception of cinematic greatness over time. Citizen Kane didn't even make the first Top Ten in 1952, when De Sica's Ladri di biciclette [Bicycle Thieves] was considerewd the Greatest Film of All Time, even though it had only been released four years earlier. After that, however, Citizen Kane has been ranked #1 on every Sight & Sound list from the last five decades. Bicylce Thieves didn't make the Critics Top Ten in 2002.

So, let's get it on with it. What are the greatest films of all time? Is it even possible to decide?

Out of 30 lists, ranging from 10 to 200 films each, I wound up with a staggering total of 580 films that someone somewhere considered to be the greatest of all time. Many films were only chosen once. But some films definitely began to separate themselves from the rest of the pack.

One, and only one, film wound up on ALL 30 LISTS. An amazing feat, it seems to me. (The #2 film, for example, only showed up on 24 lists.)

Not only that, it was also NUMBER ONE on every single list that ranked its films.

There was, then, surprisingly (and disappointingly) little debate about the Greatest Film of All Time. After all these years, it's still Citizen Kane (1941).

Orson Welles may have been shunned by Hollywood and had terrible luck raising money to make movies at all, but his rookie effort is still considered to be the greatest work in the history of cinema. Though I suppose it shouldn't have, the outcome surprised me. I thought by now that Kane's reputation might have subsided somewhat. It's obviously an incredibly important film, but was it, aesthetically speaking, the Greatest Film of All Time? Or, maybe it wasn't so highly regarded in other parts of the world. Maybe the Russians wouldn't think it was that great. But no, the 28 critics at the Russian film journal Kinovedcheskie Zapiski chose Citizen Kane as #1 overall. It was on a Time magazine list that included popular fare like Finding Nemo, and lists by film archives from Venezuela to Slovenia. It was even among the Vatican's list of Top Ten Greatest Films.

Yeah, whatever. Orson Welles and Citizen Kane. Yawn. His wife, however, definitely ranks #1 in the eyes of many serious and intellectual people who appreciate the finer aspects of cinema.

The #2 and #3 films also showed up on a lot of lists (24 and 23 respectively), often battling for second place. In the final analysis, Jean Renoir's La Régle du jeu [Rules of the Game] (1939) nudged out Sergei Eisenstein's silent classic Bronenosets Potyomkin [The Battleship Potemkin] (1925).

And, almost immediately, cultural differences started showing up. Potemkin was actually #2 in the rest of the world outside of the U.S. and U.K. Where did it rank in the Anglo-American universe? Down at #42! Do Americans think it's too old? Too communist? Why such a big discrepancy?

I developed a point system, awarding 100 points to the #1 film in a ranked Top 100, for example, and giving X number of points to films on unranked lists. If a film showed up in an unranked Top 10, for instance, I gave it 50 points, because it seems significant to be one of only ten works chosen. On an unranked list of 100 films, I gave each one 20 points. I tried to be fair in my calculations, but I'm certainly not claiming the system to be perfect. I also tracked the number of times a film was mentioned (Only the Top 100 titles.)

Citizen Kane wound up with 1,735 points in my system and was mentioned 30 times. Rules of the Game had 1,390 points (24 mentions) and Battleship Potemkin scored 1,253 points (23 mentions).

Only three other films scored over a thousand points:

4. Otto e Mezzo [8½] (1963) - Federico Fellini - 1137 (19 mentions)

5. La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928) - Carl Dreyer - 1061 (20 mentions)

6. Vertigo (1958) - Alfred Hitchcock - 1042 (16 mentions)

Hitchcock's classic also showed a bit of cultural variation, ranking #2 overall in the U.S./U.K. lists and only #18 in the Asian lists.

Jean-Luc Godard tries to determine the masterpieces of world cinema

Rounding out the Top Ten Greatest Films of All Time:

7. À bout de souffle [Breathless] (1960) – Jean-Luc Godard - 898.5 (17 mentions)

8. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – Stanley Kubrick - 880.5 (15 mentions)

9. The Godfather (1972) – Francis Ford Coppola - 872 (14 mentions)

10. Tokyo monogatari (Tokyo Story) (1953) – Yasujiro Ozu - 844.5 (14 mentions)

Godard's first work may have transformed cinema more than any other movie since Citizen Kane, but don't tell the folks in the U.S. and U.K. Despite a high finish in the rest of the world, it came in at #63 in the Anglo-American lists. Do we hate him because he's French? Because he was a political radical? Because he won't tell us a nice, simple story?

Conversely, Kubrick's science fiction classic didn't impress the Asians as much as everyone else, only reaching #33 on their lists. It's such a visual and musical work, almost non-verbal at times - it seems like it would translate more easily into other cultures. Could images or concepts be more culturally specific than we think? Even more interesting, they don't seem to like Stanley Kubrick in general. Though he had 8 films on the full list, 2001 was the only one they mentioned. What is it about his work that doesn't connect with an Asian audience?

And here's the rest of the Top 20:

11. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) – F.W. Murnau - 833.5 (16)

12. L’Atalante (1934) – Jean Vigo - 829 (14)

13. Intolerance (1916) – D.W. Griffith - 828 (16)

14. Shichinin no samurai [The Seven Samurai] (1954) – Akira Kurosawa - 792.5 (12)

15. Rashômon (1950) – Akira Kurosawa - 775.5 (14)

16. The Searchers (1956) – John Ford - 749 (13)

17. Singin' in the Rain (1952) – Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen - 740 (14)

18. Pather Panchali (1955) – Satyajit Ray - 722.5 (15)

19. Ladri di biciclette [The Bicycle Thieves] (1948) – Vittori De Sica - 716.5 (13)

20. Ugetsu monogatari [Ugetsu] (1953) – Kenji Mizoguchi - 710.5 (14)

Though he didn't make it into the Top Ten, Kurosawa was the only director to have more than one film in the Top Twenty. As I mentioned before, Seven Samurai is actually regarded more highly in the U.S./U.K. - where it came in fifth - than it is in Asia, where it was only #19. Asians preferred Rashomon more, ranking it #13. Europeans, on the other hand, were the opposite. They had Seven Samurai at #13, but Rashomon doesn't show up until #95.

Another Japanese film that showed wide variations between Asia and Europe was Kenji Mizoguchi's 1953 classic, Ugetsu, which the Europeans ranked #9 and the Asians #96. But that's nothing compared to the variation shown with Mikio Naruse's 1955 film, Ukigumo [Floating Clouds], which ranked #9 overall on Asian lists and wasn't mentioned at all in the rest of the world. This Japanese film didn't even get released in the U.S. until 1980. I had never heard of it before. Could this be a case of poor distribution that has kept us from seeing and appreciating a great piece of art from another part of the world? How did Kurosawa do so well in the U.S. during the same time period?

What about Singin' in the Rain, perhaps the quintessential American musical? How did it do? Well, the Europeans think it's grand (The French critics at Cahiers du cinema ranked it #7 all time), but the Anglo-Americans only had it at #28 and the Asians at #48.

The Asians also didn't care as much for Jean Vigo's L'Atalante, ranking it #50, whereas it wound up #9 overall in the U.S./U.K.

Films ranked 1-20 that show up in my own list of Favorite 100 Films: Citizen Kane, Otto e Mezzo [8½], À bout de souffle [Breathless] The Godfather L’Atalante, The Seven Samurai, Rashômon, and Singin' in the Rain.

I'll discuss other regional differences in future posts and reveal more of the Top 200 as I go.

Which directors had the most films mentioned? (Cash prize for naming the top three.) Which decade produced the highest number of masterpieces? What was the worst year for great cinema? What do Asians have against Chinatown? And why do Americans hate Luchino Visconti? (Because he was in the Italian Communist Party?) So stay tuned (oops, that's a television metaphor) for future installments.

In the meantime, I'd love to hear what you think about some of these "greatest" films that have been listed. And which movies do you think are the best of all time?

Next up: Films 21-50