Best movie ever

[Wiegert]

Iron Man 2 is a pretty good, fun movie, please consider directing your disdain elsewhere, like Transformers 2.

Honestly? I thought Iron Man 2 was average at best. All three Iron Man movies may have been box office hits when they came out, but 1 and 3 were the only ones that live up to my expectations. Though I certainly don't think any of them would be worthy of "best movie ever". Not least the first sequel.

To be fair, you have to go much further than Iron Man 2 to find Marvel's worst live-action effort in recent years.



And this may come as a surprise, but what I consider to be the best movie ever - if I had to name one that I've seen - isn't even among my favourites (my top 5 at least). Blade Runner is not only an impressive visual spectacle even to this day, with a wonderful tech-noir theme and some of the most memorable acting in the industry. The legacy it cemented has also gone on to shape a number of other movies and published media. So to me, that makes it worthy of such an accolade.

 

[SnakeOfBacon]

Honestly? I thought Iron Man 2 was average at best.

By 'pretty good' I thought Iron Man 2 was somewhere on the good side of average, not the best movie ever or anything. Perhaps I misunderstood you, I thought you were lambasting Iron Man 2 as if it were something shameful, rather than just saying it was an average movie, which is why I brought up Transformers 2 as something better to lambaste, since Iron Man 2 already gets a lot of flak for being 'average'.

 

[Wiegert]

Well I did say it was also a criminal offence to put both movies on the 'worst movies' list in the footnote. It's no place for the outstandingly good or the distinctly average.

 

[SnakeOfBacon]

Well I did say it was also a criminal offence to put both movies on the 'worst movies' list in the footnote. It's no place for the outstandingly good or the distinctly average.

Ah, si Señor.

 

[The Bman]

Here's my top 100.

 

[synchromesh]

James Bond: Skyfall.

 

[IneedSchool]

I would say it's a tie between A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, and Goodfellas for me.

 

[vasiliflame]

Star Wars "The Empire Strikes Back"
A lough I could write a list but If I only had one blu ray stuck in a player I would choose this

 

[SniperRed3]

The Italian Job original
AND EVERY SINGLE MOVIE AND TV SHOW BY MONTY PYTHON EVER MADe

 

[King1982]

Pulp Fiction= The best movie ever maded in human history. If you dissagree, you're wrong

 

[PeterJB]

Very difficult question. I can't name any one film definitively, and I'll only rate films I've seen instead of passing judgement on one's I haven't (which includes The Godfather, Gone With the Wind, Citizen Kane and Casablanca), and I won't take the box office into account because, as Michael Bay has so beautiful demonstrated, the correlation between film quality and ticket sales is not particularly strong.

Titanic
The Empire Strikes Back
Pulp Fiction
Kill Bill Vols. 1 and 2
Psycho
Forrest Gump
The Shawshank Redemption
The Help
LOTR Trilogy
The Lion King
Downfall (Der Untergang)
The Truman Show

 

[cbarbosa]

Seven Pounds

​

 

[vasiliflame]

Very difficult question. I can't name any one film definitively, and I'll only rate films I've seen instead of passing judgement on one's I haven't (which includes The Godfather, Gone With the Wind, Citizen Kane and Casablanca), and I won't take the box office into account because, as Michael Bay has so beautiful demonstrated, the correlation between film quality and ticket sales is not particularly strong.

Titanic
The Empire Strikes Back
Pulp Fiction
Kill Bill Vols. 1 and 2
Psycho
Forrest Gump
The Shawshank Redemption
The Help
LOTR Trilogy
The Lion King
Downfall (Der Untergang)
The Truman Show

I pretty much agree with you 100% all great movies I was going to say did you know the lion king slipped in there , but now remembering back I watched that to death as a kid and know all the songs so I obviously love it too.

 

[PeterJB]

I pretty much agree with you 100% all great movies I was going to say did you know the lion king slipped in there , but now remembering back I watched that to death as a kid and know all the songs so I obviously love it too.

I thought I needed at least one Disney movie in there. I've seen the Lion King God only knows how many times, so it's lost a bit of its spark, but it has this ability to resonate with people of all age groups, which isn't the case with most of Disney movies.

 

[20832]

Shawshank Redemption, Inception, The Green Mile and Her are amonst my favorites and are in my opinion some of the best films ever made.

 

[Danoff]

Very difficult question. I can't name any one film definitively, and I'll only rate films I've seen instead of passing judgement on one's I haven't (which includes The Godfather, Gone With the Wind, Citizen Kane and Casablanca), and I won't take the box office into account because, as Michael Bay has so beautiful demonstrated, the correlation between film quality and ticket sales is not particularly strong.

Titanic
The Empire Strikes Back
Pulp Fiction
Kill Bill Vols. 1 and 2
Psycho
Forrest Gump
The Shawshank Redemption
The Help
LOTR Trilogy
The Lion King
Downfall (Der Untergang)
The Truman Show

Mostly a terrible list. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed a lot of those movies immensely. But very few of these movies have any repeatability, and to me, and this is just my personal opinion, a movie has to be enjoyable many times through to rate highly on my list.

Granted, that automatically eliminates a movie like Shawshank, which is just not fun to watch. It's a masterpiece to be sure, but how can I rate it above a movie that I can get so much more enjoyment out of?

Even better examples are Schindler's List or Life is Beautiful. Those two examples are powerful and moving achievements for sure. But I don't ever want to see either movie again for the rest of my life. Were they great? Yes. But they were made with an inherent handicap - they're not fun to watch. It's fine that movies like that exist, and I'll watch them for sure, but I'll never rate them in my top 10. Horror movies often fall into this category as well.

 

[jeffgoddin]

So by mostly but not entirely terrible list I hope you're excepting Empire Strikes Back from what you'd consider unworthy of being considered one of the greatest movies ever. Certainly rewatchable.

And I do agree with the rewatchability thing. For a movie to be "the best movie ever" for somebody, I'd hope they want to watch it over and over again. Which is why my choice (though few if any would agree with it) was Conan the Barbarian. I've seriously enjoyed that movie well over 100 times over the past 25 years. Great music, great story (if simple,) great setting and production value (for its time,) and the Playboy chick aside, some pretty great acting as well (Arnold has proven I hope his worth as an actor subsequently, and thankfully in this just his 2nd movie he didn't have to say hardly anything.) And most importantly, a very fun movie for me.

 

[Danoff]

So by mostly but not entirely terrible list I hope you're excepting Empire Strikes Back from what you'd consider unworthy of being considered one of the greatest movies ever. Certainly rewatchable.

Yes, there are some movies on that list that are definitely exceptions to my post. LOTR is on my personal top 10.

 

[PeterJB]

Mostly a terrible list. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed a lot of those movies immensely. But very few of these movies have any repeatability, and to me, and this is just my personal opinion, a movie has to be enjoyable many times through to rate highly on my list.

Granted, that automatically eliminates a movie like Shawshank, which is just not fun to watch. It's a masterpiece to be sure, but how can I rate it above a movie that I can get so much more enjoyment out of?

Even better examples are Schindler's List or Life is Beautiful. Those two examples are powerful and moving achievements for sure. But I don't ever want to see either movie again for the rest of my life. Were they great? Yes. But they were made with an inherent handicap - they're not fun to watch. It's fine that movies like that exist, and I'll watch them for sure, but I'll never rate them in my top 10. Horror movies often fall into this category as well.

Asides from Psycho and The Help these are all films I've seen more than once. Shawshank for the most part is quite morbid and depressing, but it does has a very uplifting ending. The depressing nature is what I like about it, not necessarily because it's depressing, but because it's integral to the brilliantly-crafted plot. I don't necessarily need a film to make to make me feel good or have a consistently happy atmosphere in order to make me want to watch it again. These are all films which I praise for a mixture of their dialogue, music, historical context, comedy, cinematography, choreography, and cast performance.

 

[Danoff]

I don't necessarily need a film to make to make me feel good or have a consistently happy atmosphere in order to make me want to watch it again.

That's definitely not the case for me either, and I don't mean to say that a movie that lacks repeatability is necessarily a sad one. I think Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, and to a certain extent the Truman Show all lack this characteristic despite not being particularly depressing.

 

[Bopop4]

That's definitely not the case for me either, and I don't mean to say that a movie that lacks repeatability is necessarily a sad one. I think Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, and to a certain extent the Truman Show all lack this characteristic despite not being particularly depressing.

I found and Forest Gump and Pulp Fiction to be very repeatable.

 

[Danoff]

I found and Forest Gump and Pulp Fiction to be very repeatable.

That's down to personal opinion then. I don't care to watch those over again.

 

[Joel]

Mostly a terrible list. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed a lot of those movies immensely. But very few of these movies have any repeatability, and to me, and this is just my personal opinion, a movie has to be enjoyable many times through to rate highly on my list.

It's a pretty interesting thing to think about, when we think of the best movie, are we judging it as a work of entertainment or art?

If someone asked me if I wanted to watch Schindler's List tonight I'd say no. If someone asked me to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark tonight I'd watch it and enjoy it even though I've seen it multiple times. As entertainment Indiana Jones is clearly superior to Schindler's List, it's leaps and bounds more entertaining to watch. Even with that fact I still have a hard time calling a movie like Indiana Jones (or Iron Man, Star Wars, etc) a "better" film than something as moving as Schindler's List.

Maybe the difference for me is I don't often watch movies as a leisure activity, I watch sports and play video games as my regular entertainment media. If I sit down to watch a movie it's usually been a few weeks since I've watched a movie, and I tend to choose the Schindler's List style of movie over the Indiana Jones type.

 

[Danoff]

It's a pretty interesting thing to think about, when we think of the best movie, are we judging it as a work of entertainment or art?

That gets right at the heart of the issue. And I think it differs for different people which category gets used for "best" movie. Schindler's list is just straight up not entertaining. Not even a little. But it is definitely art!

I think everyone watches movies for both reasons, sometimes within the same movie (LOTR being a good example). Most of us have seen Schindler's list and Iron Man, and we went into those movies for different reasons. But when you talk about the "best" movie, there is a bit of choice to make. Do you rate entertaining movies above art? Do you rate art above entertainment? Do you rate them equally and look for movies that combine them? Everyone's answer will be different.

...and then there's yet another angle. Art can be great but still not enjoyable to experience. You can look at an ugly awful painting and be moved, and still not want to look at the painting anymore. Art that demonstrates beauty moves you in a different way, and often gets more repeat viewings. Does that make it better?

For me, it does make it better. I enjoy movies that can move me every time I watch them, and are still an enjoyable, entertaining experience.

Let's take Star Trek II - Wrath of Khan as an example:
- Stuff blows up
- Cool space lasers
- Likeable characters
- Fantasy Technology
- Cunning tactics

Fun

- A decades-long vendetta
- Life and death battles
- Self-sacrificial death of a loved character

Moving

The scenes at the end of that movie get me every time, and I come back for more because the movie itself is fun. And that's why I rank it among the best movies ever. I think, fundamentally, this is why we don't see Schindler's List on anyone's top movie list.

 

[GTCHAMPION1]

TRON!!!!!!
TRON LEGACY!!!!! Best Movie Ever!
Ronin... with Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, Natascha McElhone
Top Gun
Fearless... with Jet Li
Unleashed... with Jet Li
The Italian Job... the original & the new one.
District B13... it is an action movie with parkour
ALL BRUCE LEE MOVIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...lol
-Marlowe
-Fist of Fury
-Enter the Dragon
-The Game of Death
-Return of the Dragon
-The Big Boss
-Chinese Connection

 

[Maccer_42]

The Warriors would have to be my pick.

 

[hardvibes]

Easy

-The Prestige
-Inception
-A Beautiful Mind
-Cinderella Man
-The Pursuit of Happyness
-The Dark Knight
-Django Unchained
-The Godfather trilogy
-Back to the Future trilogy
-The Green Mile
-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
-The Truman Show
-The Shawshank Redemption
-Watchmen
-Blow
-Mission: Impossible
-Léon
-Trainspotting
-The Pianist
-Minority Report
-La Vita È Bella
-Nuovo Cinema Paradiso
-Das Leben der Anderen
-Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain

 

[jeffgoddin]

@Maccer_42 okay, I can buy that!

@hardvibes maybe not as easy as you think, since you're only supposed to pick one, and you listed 20+... so out of all that, which is the one best movie ever for you?

 

[hardvibes]

@hardvibes maybe not as easy as you think, since you're only supposed to pick one, and you listed 20+... so out of all that, which is the one best movie ever for you?

Yeah you're right but it's a very tough choice.
The first one of my list: The Prestige.

 

[ScottPuss20]

Probably Batman: The Dark Knight Rises