Top 10 Films of All Time – What’s on Your List?
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Now that we've been told to stay at home and work from home, many of us are getting a bit bored, if not starting to go crazy. What better time to revisit some of our favorite films, especially since we're probably watching far more films than we're making these days. The Hollywood Reporter recently came out with their list of the Top 10 Movies of All Time, as decided by a poll of studio heads, Oscar winners and other prominent people in the entertainment industry. The list was not made by film critics, but by people who are involved in film making and presumably at the pinnacle of success in the industry. I'm a bit surprised by some of the choices in the top 10. What's on your top 10 list?
Here are the top 10 films from The Hollywood Reporter list:
- The Godfather (1972) Director: Francis Ford Coppola
- The Wizard of Oz (1939) Director: Victor Fleming
- Citizen Kane (1941) Director: Orson Welles
- The Shawshank Redemption (1994) Director: Frank Darabont
- Pulp Fiction (1994) Director: Quentin Tarantino
- Casablanca (1942) Director: Michael Curtiz
- The Godfather: Part II (1974) Director: Francis Ford Coppola
- T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) Director: Stephen Spielberg
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Director: Stanley Kubrick
- Schindler’s List (1993) Director: Stephen Spielberg
I'm not surprised that The Godfather placed first on the list, as it's a masterpiece of film making, and surely one of the best films of all time. I would not include either The Shawshank Redemption or Pulp Fiction on my own top 10 list, however, although both are excellent films.
Here are some other THR film rankings that I would have placed much higher:
Star Wars (1977): 11
Gone With the Wind (1939): 15 (would be in my top 10)
Chinatown (1974): 21
Jaws (1975): 24
Singin’ in the Rain (1952): 26 (would be in my top 20)
Blade Runner (1982): 29
Alien (1979): 42 (would be in my top 20)
Sunset Blvd. (1950): 58 (would be in my top 20)
North by Northwest (1959): 62
Vertigo (1958): 70 (would be in my top 20)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003): 87 (would be in my top 20)
Rear Window (1954): 49
I’m partial to many classic films from the golden era of Hollywood, so more of those films would be on my list. These type of lists indicate that the criteria that makes a film great can be very subjective.
Top 10 lists by film genre are more helpful, and some directors have truly mastered a particular genre, such as Alfred Hitchcock and suspense, or Busby Berkeley and musicals. My categories would be Comedy, Drama, Suspense, Musicals, Horror, and Science Fiction. Since early film makers didn't have the ability to create the astounding visual effects that we see today, maybe I’d even have categories of pre-1960 and post-1960 films.
What are you watching now? Old movies? New TV shows? If you’re feeling bored, isolated, and out of touch, reach out to your industry colleagues on social media or send them an email. I’ll bet they’d be glad to hear from you by now.