Roger Ebert gives his list for the best films ever made
Roger Ebert has redone his own Best-of list and did not include Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane at the top, but instead had a pseudo-horror movie right at the top.
Not to hate on Citizen Kane as it is a brilliant film, but it is always refreshing to see such a distinguished group of films make the list, and not just a copy and past list as so many others are.
Mr. Ebert himself goes on to state on the value of list making in regards to best films:Â All lists of the “greatest” movies are propaganda. They have no deeper significance. It is useless to debate them. Even more useless to quarrel with their ordering of titles: Why is this film #11 and that one only #31? The most interesting lists are those by one person: What are Scorsese’s favorites, or Herzog’s? The least interesting are those by large-scale voting, for example by IMDb or movie magazines. The most respected poll, the only one I participate in, is the vote taken every 10 years by Sight & Sound, the British film magazine, which asks a large number of filmmakers, writers, critics, scholars, archivists and film festival directors.
1. The Night of the Hunter,
2. Apocalypse Now,
3. Sunrise,
4. Black Narcissus,
5. L’avventura,
6. The Searchers,
7. The Magnificent Ambersons,
8. The Seventh Seal
9. L’atalante,
10. Rio Bravo,
11. The Godfather: Part I and Part II, Â (kinda cheating including two films)
12. The Passion of Joan of Arc,
13. La Grande Illusion,
14. Citizen Kane,
15. The Scarlett Empress,
16. Tokyo Story,
17. Blade Runner,
18. Rear Window,
19. Point Blank,
20. The Red Shoes,
21. The Earrings of Madame de
22. Shadows,
23. Pickpocket,
24. Viridiana,
25. Barry Lyndon,
26. City Lights,
27. Pierrot le Fou,
28. Sunset Boulevard,
29. Notorious,
30. M,
31. The Roaring Twenties,
32. Singin’ in the Rain,
33. The Long Day Closes,
34. Killer of Sheep,
35. Gun Crazy,
36. Andrei Rublev,
37. Taxi Driver,
38. The 400 Blows,
39. Pulp Fiction,
40. Kind Hearts and Coronets,
41. In the Mood for Love,
42. Sullivan’s Travels,
43. 8 1/2,
44. Pinocchio,
45. Great Expectations,
46. Rome, Open City,
47. Duck Soup,
48. Jaws,
49. Manhattan,
50. Out of the Past,
Source: Chicago Sun Times
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The director’s cut of “Watchmen” should be on that list or at least it would be on mine.
Nick Ondras Reply:
August 5th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Watchmen was terrible. I still don’t understand why some people still like it. Not hating on you though, just wondering.
Matt Keith Reply:
August 5th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Read this article my friend James posted and see why:
http://retaliators.wordpress.com/2009/08/02/why-watchmen-is-the-perfect-movie/
I would have thought the list included Schindler’s List, Shawshank Redemption or even The Maltese Falcon or Chinatown…perhaps 2001: A Space Odyssey.
If you actually read Ebert’s blog, this list is NOT his. It’s from a magazine called The Spectator:
“That brings us to a new list of fifty films, compiled in late June by the Spectator, a weekly London magazine that has been published continuously since 1711. Conservative for nearly 300 years, it is my favorite magazine because of its writing, which is superb, and because its conservative writers are intelligent and witty, and not bloody-minded and angry like so many of their American counterparts. But enough about politics. The Spectator’s list has been compiled by two men: Its editor Matthew d’Anacona, and Peter Hoskin, its web editor.”
Daniel Herrera’s article is entirely incorrect. Charles is right when he points out that the list is not Ebert’s. The article is like an Emily Litella rant that is not yet followed by…”Never mind.”