Reviewing The Best Movies Ever Made (A New Upcoming Series of Posts)
“What is the best movie ever made?” is a really hard question to answer and one that professional critics and average movie-goers alike have considered and debated for basically as long as movies have existed.
There are countless lists out there which attempt to answer such a question while also ranking some of the top films ever created. I’ve decided to seek out some of these “best movies ever made,” with the help of three different lists (which I’ll get more into below).
Now, over the next few months, I’ll be watching 25 of the films considered to be the greatest to ever grace the silver screen and giving my opinions on them, along with ratings and thoughts as to how they each hold up in 2023.
How We Rate Movies
There are lots of ways people can go about rating movies, but the two main ways people approach handing out a grade to a film they’ve just watched are by asking themselves one of two questions: “How much do I, as an individual, enjoy this film?” or “What is the level of quality of this film (its artistic merits)?”
As a reviewer, I think that it’s important to acknowledge both questions in handing out a grade to a movie. It’s conceivable to find a film that you personally enjoy, but can also admit is not a great movie in terms of quality. Similarly, it’s very possible to find a movie that you can see as being a well-done film, but that you don’t like or connect with on a deeper level. I think that a reviewer needs to answer both questions for him or herself before coming up with a final, overall grade or rating for a movie, that encompasses both one’s personal opinion and feelings along with an assessment of the film’s quality.
It's important to note that while this is how I come up with my movie ratings, and how I’ll grade the film’s listed below – there’s really no standard for how reviewers grade (or rank) films.
Determining Which Films to Watch
When I decided I wanted to watch (or re-watch) some of the movies that are generally considered the best films, I actually had a bit of trouble deciding which lists to consult. There have almost been too many “best movies ever”-type lists made by various publications over the years. I ultimately decided to select the top 10 films from each of three different lists to watch and review.
The first list I selected to draw movies from was American Film Institute’s “100 Years... 100 Movies.” This list, which was last updated in 2007, features mainly American-made films and is the result of polling 1,500 artists and leaders in the film industry. Despite being 16-years old at this point and only featuring American films, I found that this list included a lot of the movies that “film people” will typically answer when asked what the best movie is.
Next, I chose Sight and Sound’s 2022 critics poll of the ten best movies. Sight and Sound is a monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute. It polls over 1,600 people in the film industry to make up its list, which also includes foreign-made films. Since people are being asked what the “best” movies are on a yearly basis here, this list is more heavily impacted by what’s going on currently in the world. For example, the film in the top spot on this list was directed by a woman, a fact that some critics of the list felt was motivated by political and personal reasons as opposed to the movie’s merits.
The last list I consulted was IMDb’s Top 250 Movies. This list is continuously updated as moviegoers rate films on a scale from 1-10 on the Internet Movie Database website. To be included on the list, a film needs to have been rated by at least 25,000 users, though films in the Top 250 generally have over a million votes. This IMDb ranking of movies includes more films popular with the general public (not film critic-types).
I decided that by taking a look at the top ten films in each of these “best movies” lists I would have a good sampling of movies to watch that were considered “the best.” When taking into account that some movies appeared on multiple lists, I was left with 25 films.
The 25 “Best” Movies (Which I’ll Watch and Review)
Citizen Kane (1941) - AFI No. 1, S&S No. 3
The Godfather (1972) - AFI No. 2, IMDb No. 2
Casablanca (1942) - AFI No. 3
Raging Bull (1980) - AFI No. 4
Singin' in the Rain (1952) - AFI No. 5, S&S No. 10
Gone with the Wind (1939) - AFI No. 6
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) - AFI No. 7
Schindler's List (1993) - AFI No. 8, IMDb No. 6
Vertigo (1958) - AFI No. 9, S&S No. 2
The Wizard of Oz (1939) - AFI No. 10
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) - S&S No. 1
Tokyo Story (1953) - S&S No. 4
In the Mood for Love (2000) - S&S No. 5
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - S&S No. 6
Beau Travail (1999) - S&S No. 7
Mulholland Drive (2001) - S&S No. 8
Man with a Movie Camera (1929) - S&S No. 9
The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - IMDb No. 1
The Dark Knight (2008) - IMDb No. 3
The Godfather Part II (1974) - IMDb No. 4
12 Angry Men (1957) - IMDb No. 5
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) - IMDb No. 7
Pulp Fiction (1994) - IMDb No. 8
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) - IMDb No. 9
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) - IMDb No. 10
In the typical way I compile reviews on “What Jeff Watched,” I’ll write-up three or so movie reviews at once in a single post. All posts in this series will have the title, “Reviewing the Best Movies Ever Made,” and will link to one another so they’re easy to navigate. Enjoy!