Anyone know of a balanced top movies list?

Your second sentence is straightforward and can hardly be disputed.

But your first raises more complex questions.

I included on my "200 favorite movies" list certain older films which I respected for their innovation and influence, but which I would be reluctant to choose over "lesser" movies for an evening's entertainment. I did not intend to be pretentious, just respectful to those who contributed to cinema as an art-form.

But in retrospect, I feel there was no point in including them. Everyone with any clue about film history would be aware of them, and of many other historically important films which I had not included. I should have just included those which rang my bell, whether or not they had claims to importance.

Had I done so, my list would have been quirky and idiosyncratic, but at least it would have been "mine".

I am not sure that what you are asking for could ever exist. Most people with more than two brain-cells will agree on the "worth" of the modern crap you describe. And most with any knowledge of cinema history will (more or less) agree on which films were innovative and influential. But when it comes to which older films have "held up" and can be thoroughly enjoyed without making allowances for their era (i.e. can compete with, and maybe outclass, modern films), there will be as many opinions as there are posters.

Maybe I should be tasked with amalgamating several lists into one big list.

Yeah, i can't blame you there. so if i understand you correctly i would imagine i am something in the ball park of what your looking for as i don't really get into too many of the super hero variations and the like and i generally avoid movies prior to the 1960's (as going before the 1960's movies overall feel etc tend to be too different vs more modern standards) and most of my favorites are in the 1990's to date.

i have a Top 100-ish list (see my signature), which currently contains 127 movies(which is everything i gave a 7.5-8/10 or higher), and i got some lists from the 1990's to date. i figure my Top 100-ish movies should give you a pretty good idea of my overall tastes in movies as that will probably give you a ball park figure if my tastes in movies are close enough to yours or not.

there is also 214 movies i scored a 7/10 or higher to out of the 2,000+ total i have seen. if you really want these i could probably get you a list without too much effort as i got them on a text file on my computer. in the future i may update "My Top 100-ish Movies of All-Time!" to include all of my 7's and higher and rename the list to something like 'My Favorite Movies".

p.s. to state the obvious... i ultimately rate movies based on how enjoyable they are to watch for me and the further they get away from that the lower the rating. this is common sense but it seems some around here try to differentiate betwen 'best' and 'favorite'. they are the same for me as it makes no sense saying 'Movie A' is better if you personally like 'Movie B' more.


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My Top 100-ish Movies of All-Time! = http://goo.gl/EYFYdz
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It might be a good idea to talk to other people you respect on here about their top movies.

For instance if you and another poster have rated a lot of the same films and they give a specific film a much lower rating then you did it would be a good idea to talk to them about that film specifically. Maybe, from a critical consensus, it does not deserve to be on your list.

But, I do not think that any list can avoid bias. TSPDT is, in my mind, a really good list; even though I understand that many of the films are over my head for one reason or another.

I'm not sure I understand what you're looking for as any list is determined by the parameters involved in evaluating what is on the list and the people voting.

With regard to imdb, modern movies are given preferential treatment because of the voters. The Top-250 on imdb is a fairly good representation for what modern audiences think of cinema. The older a film is, the less young people that will see it, the less likely it is to complete with a film that gets 200,000 votes the first month of its release.

With regard to other lists, typically crafted by collaborations of critics, it's really just a matter of what parameters those voting are given. For example, I'm certain that "A Man With a Movie Camera" is an important and influential film, but it certainly doesn't rank among my favorite films of all-time. When I rank greatness, I ignore influence, but I don't make the rules. You can't force everyone voting to take that position.

My suggestion would be to look at respected lists (like Sight and Sound) and ignore the films that are there because of their perceived importance if that's not something that interests you.

"My only enemy is time." - Charles Chaplin
http://paulopicks.blogspot.com/

I feel like Metacritic is pretty fair, but that would depend on your opinion of Metacritic ratings you see on IMDB (if you have). Their top movies are pretty fairly listed imo.

They already did that. See the TSPDT list of 1000 films.

"A lot of sites are pretentious and they're cluttered with older influential films that haven't held up."

Such as?


Names of these pretentious films would give me a better idea of what you're after.