What’s in a List?

Trying to Pick a Top 100 a Pain unto Itself

People constantly ask me what I think the best movie of all time is. I hardly ever respond, mainly because it is an impossible question. Opinions, even my own, change, and what I consider on Tuesday as the greatest might only be third on Thursday, Saturday a completely different picture taking my top position and those other two forgotten somewhere deep inside my subconscious.

This is probably why I didn’t respond this year to the American Film Institute’s latest Top 100 list, a ten-years-later revisiting of their inaugural best-of cavalcade AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Movies. I enjoyed the list the first time around, found much to both revel in and be disgusted by. But over the last decade AFI has defeated their own purpose, each year bringing another new list of 100 that only diluted and destroyed the inherent power of what the venerable film institution was trying to do in the first place.

Citizen Kane still ranks number one on the AFI Top 100 list - but should it?

But that sort of indifference didn’t apply to Daily Film Dose webmaster, writer and editor Alan Bacchus. After seeing how little the AFI list had changed, he decided to conduct an experiment. He would recreate the AFI list by crafting a list from, as he states on his website, “film bloggers, cinephiles, fanboys/girls, [etc.] who are equally informed as the 1500 leaders surveyed by the AFI, but represent a completely different demographic.”

Why do this? Was Bacchus disenchanted or letdown with the AFI list in some personal and primal sort of way? “I don't necessarily find the AFI list a letdown,” said the film lover and writer in an email response to my queries, “I was let down by the lack of change in ten years between the original list and the new [one]. Aside from a few additions, it’s very similar to the last one. The 1990’s Indie cinema is considered our generation’s [version] of the 1970’s mavericks’ one. There wasn’t much love shown for Tarantino, PT Anderson, David O Russell, David Fincher, Soderbergh [et al].”

Very little at all, actually, and with the Coen Brothers’ Fargo actually falling off of the AFI list (and no David Lynch, Terrence Malick or David Cronenberg) a case could be made that just about all (Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction still made the cut, moving up to 94^th) of the modern mavericks working their magic the past two-plus decades just weren’t up to par according to the film institute. With that in mind, I decided to play Bacchus’ little game and compile my own ballot for his version of the AFI Top 100 list.

Coen Brothers' 1994 masterpiece Fargo fell off new AFI Topp 100 list

Here’s the thing, though, about trying to craft a list of what you think the greatest 100 films in American history are: It’s hard. I don’t mean to sound supercilious or whiny, but the bottom line is that, for any true lover of cinema (American, International, Independent or otherwise), trying to put together any sort of list is borders on impossible. You will have to leave numerous personal favorites lying on the cutting room floor abandoned; films you thought you treasured more than just about any other disregarded for another you didn’t realize you loved and admired quite as much as it turns out you really did.

For me, that means the shock wasn’t so much what made my list (many, like The Godfather Part II, Casablanca, All the President’s Men, Alien, Citizen Kane, Some Like It Hot and Fargo were relative no-brainers) as to what did not (no Marx Brothers, no Gone With the Wind, no The Sound of Music, no Star Wars, no – sadly – Cronenberg). But what really shook me up was how compiling this personal ballot affected me. It took me five hours to get it to the point I was actually happy enough to submit the thing, and for days after I kept going over my choices and ruminating over them like a petulant child worried they weren’t going to get desert even though they’d been extra well-mannered for the entire day.

By the time it was all said and done, I couldn’t help but wonder what the point of all this was and if Bacchus actually had any expectations people would even take a look at his painstakingly crafted version. “I really [hope] it spreads to all reaches of the internet,” he responded, “from amateur blogs to professional [journalists]. This way it will have the greatest chance of being part of the ‘permanent record.’ There are so many lists out there on the internet and months after they are made many just disappear. Hopefully when the AFI makes their next update list in 2017 this ‘shadowed’ list will still be available for people to read and reference.”

And does Bacchus foresee any major differences between the AFI’s Tenth Anniversary Top 100 list and his own? “I think Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, Raging Bull, Vertigo will stay close to the top 10, [but] I’d be surprised to see Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz crack [it],” he states. “I also think genre films will be better represented.”

“Filmgeeks, bloggers, etc. will be the ones to redefine the history and appreciation of films that didn't make $250-million at the box office or win Oscars. For example: The Prestige. It made only $53-million at the US Box office, but bloggers and internet cinephiles have already made the film an [online] sensation and the legend of that film is growing exponentially. In fact, I've already seen The Prestige in some voters’ top five of all time, and this is a film that wouldn't ever make [the AFI’s] Top 400 film short list.”

Christopher Nolan's The Prestige popular with online bloggers and cinephiles

Bacchus sounded his call for submissions on July 6 and has set a six week deadline to receive the 1,500 ballots he needs to compile his AFI-like list. From there, he thinks it should take another six-to-eight weeks to juggle all the numbers and produce his Top 100. For those interested in participating, go here to download the ballot or head to www.dailyfilmdose.com for more information.

For the curious, here’s a copy of my own ballot. The films are in the order of the year of their release so, please, don’t try to read more into my selections then is really there.

Sara Michelle’s Top 100 Ballot

1.      Intolerance (1916)

2.      Greed (1925)

3.      The General (1927)

4.      Frankenstein (1931)

5.      King Kong (1933)

6.      It Happened One Night (1934)

7.      Modern Times (1936)

8.      Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)

9.      Bringing Up Baby (1938)

10.  Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939)

Anne (Fay Wray) watches Kong in battle in RKO's King Kong

11.  The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

12.  Fantasia (1940)

13.  The Philadelphia Story (1940)

14.  Citizen Kane (1941)

15.  The Maltese Falcon (1941)

16.  Sullivan's Travels (1941)

17.  Casablanca (1942)

18.  Shadow Of A Doubt (1943)

19.  Double Indemnity (1943)

20.  The Big Sleep (1946)

Joseph Cotton and Teresa Wright in Universal Studios' Shadow of a Doubt

21.  It's A Wonderful Life (1946)

22.  Notorious (1946)

23.  Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948)

24.  The Third Man (1949)

25.  All About Eve (1950)

26.  Sunset Blvd. (1950)

27.  A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

28.  Singin’ In The Rain (1952)

29.  The Band Wagon (1953)

30.  From Here To Eternity (1953)

Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor in MGM's Singin' in the Rain

31.  On The Waterfront (1954)

32.  Rear Window (1954)

33.  20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954)

34.  Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956)

35.  The Searchers (1956)

36.  The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)

37.  Touch Of Evil (1958)

38.  Vertigo (1958)

39.  North By Northwest (1959)

40.  Sleeping Beauty (1959) 

Julie Andrews in Walt Disney Pictures' Mary Poppins

41.  Some Like It Hot (1959)

42.  Psycho (1960)

43.  The Hustler (1961)

44.  Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)

45.  To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)

46.  From Russia With Love (1963)

47.  The Great Escape (1963)

48.  Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (1964)

49.  Mary Poppins (1964)

50.  Bonnie And Clyde (1967)

51.  Cool Hand Luke (1967)

52.  In The Heat Of The Night (1967)

53.  Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

54.  2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

55.  The Wild Bunch (1969)

56.  M*A*S*H* (1970)

57.  Patton (1970)

58.  A Clockwork Orange (1971)

59.  Cabaret (1972)

60.  The Godfather (1972)

Roman Polanski directs Mia Farrow in Paramount Pictures' Rosemary's Baby

61.  The Exorcist (1973)

62.  The Sting (1973)

63.  Chinatown (1974)

64.  The Conversation (1974)

65.  The Godfather Part II (1974)

66.  Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

67.  Jaws (1975)

68.  All The President’s Men (1976)

69.  Taxi Driver (1976)

70.  Days Of Heaven (1978)

Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss in Universal Studios' Jaws

71.  Halloween (1978)

72.  Alien (1979)

73.  Apocalypse Now (1979)

74.  Manhattan (1979)

75.  The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

76.  Raging Bull (1980)

77.  Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)

78.  Blade Runner (1982)

79.  E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

80.  The Thing (1982)

Kurt Russell in Universal Studios' The Thing

81.  Tootsie (1982)

82.  The Terminator (1984)

83.  Blue Velvet (1986)

84.  Hoosiers (1986)

85.  Platoon (1986)

86.  Die Hard (1988)

87.  Do The Right Thing (1989)

88.  Goodfellas (1990)

89.  Beauty And The Beast (1991)

90.  The Silence Of The Lambs (1991) 

Belle dances with Beast in Walt Disney Pictures' Beauty and the Beast

91.  Unforgiven (1992)

92.  Ed Wood (1994)

93.  Pulp Fiction (1994)

94.  Toy Story (1995)

95.  Fargo (1996)

96.  Rushmore (1998)

97.  The Thin Red Line (1998)

98.  Fight Club (1999)

99.  American Splendor (2003)

100. The Incredibles (2004