Thoughts After Watching The Best Movies of All Time
Around seven years ago I happened upon this image on the internet, and almost at a whim printed it and began filling each of the films I’d already seen. I was shocked to find that while many of my favorite films were indeed captured (The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings, Children of Men, The Usual Suspects), that a solid two thirds of the list I had never seen. So, I embarked on the task of watching every film on here; and now, I have finally completed it in its entirety, and I thought I’d cap it off with some of my thoughts!
- Dramas are probably the genre that faired the best in my opinion, there are some real all-timers in this category that I never would have watched otherwise (Judgement at Nuremberg, The Best Years of Our Lives, All About Eve). What struck me about these films is how timeless they are; it’s fascinating to watch films from the 40’s-60’s and note how their struggles are our struggles, and to get a tad depressed at how little those struggles have resolved (The Grapes of Wrath, Paths of Glory)
- Comedies, on the other hand, faired the worst of all the genres on the list, and I had a real tough time with a lot of these; comedy is inherently more subjective than any other genre, and it can be specific to its time so that revisiting old comedies can often be a bit of a trap. And so it was for me; I had to suffer through a few films that were not only not funny to me, but actively obnoxious and difficult to get through (Bringing Up Baby, Harvey, It Happened One Night, His Girl Friday)
- On the Crime front, I was shocked I missed City of God, as this was the kind of propulsive crime thriller that would have been right up my alley when it first came out. I was also surprised how much noir ended up not appealing to me, largely due to their horribly dated portrayals of romance in their reliance on it as a motivational crutch (Notorious, The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity), though The Big Sleep of them all stood out as pretty great.
- It really is a shame that Western’s fell out of favor. When done well, it’s the perfect genre to explore themes of morality, and the films from this list are some of the best examples of that (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Ox-Bow Incident, Unforgiven)
- Science Fiction has probably undergone the most transformation over the years, and I’d argue for the better. The older sci-fi films on the list weren’t bad, but they were more idea centric while lacking compelling narratives (The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Planet of the Apes).
- Hot Take: Frederico Fellini is overrated. This is next to blasphemy for the film-school crowd (and at least one of my college professors) but I could not bring myself to enjoy any of the four films of his on this list (La Strada, La Dolce Vita, 8 ½, Nights of Cabiria). For the same style of surreal, interpretive filmmaking, Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal does it better.
- Hot Take: Charlie Chaplin is overrated. It’s easy to see why he’s admired, his talent for physical comedy is tremendous, but his films feel like thin veneers designed to get us from one bit to another (City Lights, The Kid, The Gold Rush, Modern Times). Buster Keaton’s The General fairs a bit better, but above them both stands Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last!, which feels remarkably modern in both its storytelling and construction.
- Finally, here are four films that were new to me, that I gave 10/10, became some of my favorites of all time, and I would recommend to anyone:
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)
vaporwave
pixelskylines
dededos
titsay
discoholicmusic
turnnoffyourmind
