I've been doing lists like this for years. Earlier this year I detailed how I intended to complete a more balanced history survey (most of my previous attempts had the recency bias fallacy, and I'd been perfectly happy with such results, until I wasn't). The New York Times encouraged film fans recently to present their top ten of the past quarter century (my results also featured here), and that also encouraged me. So now my all-time top ten has a full seven decades represented, which isn't too bad. My overall top pick hasn't changed since I first saw Alexander, which despite its overall reputation remains for me a stunning, complete cinematic achievement, everything I want to see in a movie (and in its many cuts). I weighted the original Star Wars where it deserves as an original statement, as too Orson Welles' masterpiece Citizen Kane, which if populated by acting (aside from Welles himself, not only one of the great directors, but a master in front of the camera, too) that is otherwise subpar by reasonable definitions (which Welles himself could afford to ignore, since so many of them were his stock ensemble, including Joseph Cotton). Ranking high for the first time ever, for me, the funniest film I've ever seen, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Throw in The Dark Knight, which is as close to modern myth as superheroes are likely to get anytime soon; Casablanca, which is as classic as classic Hollywood without Welles can get; JFK, which is the defining film featuring American history, real or imagined; The Truman Show, which at one time was my favorite film; Isle of Dogs, the most recent film to be included in this elite number; and The Princess Bride, the other funniest film I've ever seen, and long deserving of more respect on these lists. And all the way to another Star Wars, at 100. Ranked fairly low, here, is Conclave, which the more I think about it, the more I think it deserves serious consideration in that top ten, but...I don't want to appear too hasty. It was just released last year, after all. About the only film that's not a Hollywood production, or near enough, is Crazy Samurai Musashi, a film just about no one else has even heard of, but I simply adore. Because I love film as a medium so much, there's a ton of movies I can't believe aren't on my own list, but there are a lot of movies, and a hundred is a hundred.
1. Alexander (2004)2. Citizen Kane (1941)
3. Star Wars (1977)
4. The Dark Knight (2008)
5. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
6. Casablanca (1943)
7. JFK (1991)
8. The Truman Show (1998)
9. Isle of Dogs (2018)
10. The Princess Bride (1987)
11. The Fall (2008)
12. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
13. Oppenheimer (2023)
14. The Last Duel (2021)
15. Crazy Samurai Musashi (2020)
16. Gladiator (2000)
17. Munich (2005)
18. Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
19. The Departed (2006)
20. Warrior (2011)
21. Inglourious Basterds (2009)
22. Memento (2001)
23. Interstellar (2014)
24. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2019)
25. Revenge of the Sith (2005)
26. Arrival (2016)
27. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
28. Yesterday (2019)
29. Logan (2017)
30. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
31. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019)
32. Amsterdam (2022)
33. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)
34. The Death of Stalin (2018)
35. It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
36. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
37. The Matrix (1999)
38. Silence (2016)
39. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
40. High Noon (1952)
41. The Blues Brothers (1980)
42. Pulp Fiction (1994)
43. Mary Poppins (1969)
44. The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
45. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
46. On the Waterfront (1954)
47. Forrest Gump (1994)
48. Man on the Moon (1999)
49. In Bruges (2008)
50. Saving Mr. Banks (2013)
51. Raging Bull (1980)
52. The Lobster (2016)
53. Man of Steel (2013)
54. A Monster Calls (2016)
55. A Few Good Men (1992)
56. Django Unchained (2012)
57. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
58. Inception (2010)
59. The Godfather (1972)
60. Apocalypse Now (1979)
61. Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004)
62. Scrooged (1988)
63. White Christmas (1954)
64. Superman (1978)
65. The Wild One (1953)
66. Spaceballs (1987)
67. Looking for Richard (1996)
68. The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
69. The Batman (2022)
70. Source Code (2011)
71. The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
72. Midnight in Paris (2011)
73. Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
74. The Tree of Life (2011)
75. The Third Man (1950)
76. Seven Psychopaths (2012)
77. Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
78. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
79. The Ten Commandments (1956)
80. Back to the Future (1985)
81. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
82. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
83. Waiting for the Barbarians (2020)
84. Winter’s Tale (2014)
85. Touch of Evil (1958)
86. North by Northwest (1959)
87. Locke (2014)
88. The French Dispatch (2021)
89. Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)
90. A Complete Unknown (2024)
91. The Hateful Eight (2015)
92. Dunkirk (2017)
93. The Courier (2021)
94. Conclave (2024)
95. The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)
96. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
97. American History X (1998)
98. Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)
99. (500) Days of Summer (2009)
100. The Force Awakens (2015)
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