How many of Time's best movies of the past century have you seen?

What a vile, odious, uninformed list! This renews my lack of faith in critics.
They refer to Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and The Godfather as “one of the classic, default choices”, then leave them off the list. Instead they have some very sketchy picks, for no reason than they want people to talk about the list, and how wrong it is.
I have seen 78 of the listed movies. I have seen all of the 20’s, 9 each of the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s. I am not ignorant on film. Only one movie in my top 10 is on this list: The Best Years Of Our Lives. Forget City Lights, Chinatown, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Lawrence Of Arabia, Pulp Fiction, or The Seventh Seal. Instead, we get crap like Moonlight and Moonstruck.
How do these hacks sleep at night?

I’m not sure. I think I’ve seen about 34 of those. Maybe more that I’ve forgotten or don’t recognize their titles.

Interestingly, I’ve seen several from each decade, EXCEPT ZERO of the ones listed from the 2000s or 2010s. I think I only even recognize about six of the titles from the last two decades on the list.

I remember most of the listed films that I have seen, pretty well, except some of the Westerns.

It makes me interested to look up and maybe see some of the ones I don’t recognize, or do but never saw.

However, I wonder how they chose these. I suspect they only picked one per year, which of course means many many great films (especially in past decades) got excluded. Even so, I suspect that even if I’d seen all the great films from some of those years, I imagine I might make some other choices. Some of them are great, and others give me pause. It doesn’t match my favorite movie list very closely at all.

Fun to consider, though.

(I found the list here: https://time.com/collection/100-best-movies/ )

I counted 15. I have seen some scenes from some others, but I didn’t count those. Considering I was a teenager in the ‘80’s and young adult in the ‘90’s, that list was terrible for me. I did see almost every movie on the list for the ‘80’s, but the ‘90’s nothing. Those years were when I saw the most movies. I have seen some of the classics from before my time though.

By the way I saw Barbie yesterday and I highly recommend it! I smiled and laughed for most of the movie and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I’ll look later but for now I’ll say that I’m in a movie club where we’ve watched the Best Oscar winners chronologically from the beginning. We’ve been going about a year and a half and we’re up to the 90s now.

3.

Why does everyone like the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari? Does any list maker actually watch it before adding it, or are they just looking at what other people have put on their lists? The only thing I got from that movie was what a somnambulist was. And how does M not make the list? I’m with @filmfann (except about Moonlight) – this is just a list of movies, not real content. Do it badly enough, and people will click through. This made me lose even more respect for Time.

I got 32 when I looked at the list.

@Smashley I’m with you on Moonlight. I thought it was wonderful.

26, I think. Really bad memory…I can read a book or watch a movie and not realize I’ve seen or read it until I’m halfway through. Makes re-dos kind of refreshing, though. :D

But yeah, I agree with others…they missed the boat almost entirely. I wonder if they chose a lot for their ‘cultural’ value or cinematography or some such b.s. rather than popularity or storyline or good acting.

Apparently, I am not a reel film fann as I have only seen 18 of these.

I do think that any “Best of” list has got to be subjective and open to criticism.

I’m reading Middlemarch by George Eliot now, considered by many to one of the greatest novels ever, and to my mind, it shouldn’t have made it out of the 19th century.

25

I think this is a much better way to group movies. Every list since the beginning of the lists has the same movies over and over. Yeah the Godfather is cinema perfection (meh), and Rosebud’s shit doesn’t stink (meh), but seeing them on lists over and over does nothing to make me better appreciate film. This list actually makes me want to watch new movies.

@Smashley Considering the other films to choose from in 1920 , I think it’s a reasonable choice. The Golem is sort of similar in some ways, but I think rather more tedious and less stylistically and creatively interesting. One Week and The Scarecrow are Buster Keaton comedies, so sort of apples vs oranges.

Caligari is a surrealist dream-like weird impressionist masterpiece, with a very creative style and art. It also cracks me up. I find it quite entertaining and interesting. It’s actually a favorite of mine.

Caligari was considered to be the best movie made to that point. It hasn’t aged well.
Pandora’s Box and Diary Of A Lost Girl are well regarded, due to the the beautiful Louise Brooks, but really don’t belong on a Top Ten silent films list.
Nanook is a wonderful documentary, but also doesn’t belong here.
I understand many of those listed represent personal tastes. My list does as well. It’s just most film historians and critics would agree with my list, rather than Time’s.

Their 1920’s list:

The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari
Within Our Gates
The Kid
Orphans Of The Storm
Nanook Of The North
The Thief Of Bagdad
Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans
The Passion Of Joan Of Arc
Steamboat Bill Jr.
Pandora’s Box

My list:

Metropolis
Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans
The Passion Of Joan Of Arc
Safety Last
The General
Nosferatu
The Battleship Potempkin
The Phantom Carriage
7th Heaven
The Gold Rush

and it pains me to leave off Napoleon.

Yes, I know. My list is damn near predictable, since it is similar to many film critics lists. That’s the point. The movies haven’t changed since their release. Time magazine is trying to call attention to itself by creating a badly informed list.

@filmfann and @zaku – yeah, I’m probably being too harsh, and I get why historical significance is a factor in these things, but whenever I see that movie on a list, I truly wonder if the writer has actually watched the thing through. That part where the guy is attacked by the floating German words… yeesh. They would call that move “ham fisted” nowadays. I get that the thing was innovative and experimental, but Keaton and Chaplin were masters of their craft in the same era.

Now maybe someone can explain Killer of Sheep to me..

I came up with 28 for sure & 3 or 4 that I think I watched but can’t seem to remember what they were about…so maybe I didn’t. I was a bit surprised at some that made the list & some that didn’t

I’ve only seen 18 of the films in Time’s list. I am very dubious about lists but they sometimes suggest good films I may have missed. My definition of a good film is one I enjoy more the second or even the third time I watch it and they aren’t many.