Top 100 Films by TalkCeltic

Cheers mate. Would have loved to kept it going but it was a tough one to keep track of without resorting to an excel spreadsheet. I was just using the notes app on my phone !

 

I've seen 89 of this final list, but to be honest, some of the entries are horrific for a top 100 films of all time list. Some of the films on it I like, and would happily watch, but in no way do they get close to being "great" films.

To have films like Die Hard and Ferris Bueller, but not have It's a Wonderful Life or Schindlers list for example, is crazy.

I think the original list is more representative of truly great films and filmmaking

 

I think imdb's own top 250 list is more accurate that the user created list you posted.

 

There were definitely flaws in the methodology of this list

 

Both received a vote, one more and they would have made it

 

Yea IMDB's list is pretty much spot on. Die Hard is definitely on there, of course.

Gonna watch the handful of films on this list that I've never seen before. Which somehow includes One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

 

It would take tens of thousands of suggestions to get a true indication. The methodology is as good as it could be without taking up every moment of your time to collate it mate

You've done well mate. Great thread

 

It is subjectivity that makes it fun though, I wouldn't have Schindler's List anywhere near any such list, a film based on a historical novel that has been presented as truth should be disregarded immediately, but people like it. It is a feel good story about an awful period of human suffering. I see it as E.T. for adults with Jews and Nazis.
Of course the counter of the first argument is that it isn't entirely Spielberg's fault that people have accepted as truth, it could even be seen as a compliment and he uses good directing techniques to cover-up the simplicity of the story, although Keneally helped him there with how the book was written.

The whole action film genre is one that leaves me cold, I struggle to watch a film when you feel you know the end before you even know the plot, but that really is my problem. There is obviously very much a demand for these films and critics constantly rate Die Hard as one of the very best of the genre, often the best. Even those of us that don't like action films can appreciate that at least it didn't take itself too seriously and it had Rickman at his best.

What I am getting at is that every film has for and against and this wasn't a scientific experiment or done with the use of critical theory; it was fire up what you think is the greatest, on our one and viewer reviews on imdb's official.
I personally don't get Shawshank for example, some people got upset over it, but I see it as a very bland film full of cliched dialogue and over the top cinematography, yet I must accept that people will continue to like it.
A bit like Phil Collins.

 

Just to add that it was great thread. Enjoyed it a lot, was fun scratching around my head for films I haven't seen in years as well as seeing films I hardly thought about at all being deemed as classics by others, fair play.

 

Shawshank is a good film but it definitely didn't have the same effect on me that the others in the top 5 of the list had.

 

Definitely, in terms of pure enjoyment I think I'd sooner pick a film from the list on here.

Critics/Experts look at things in films that most ordinary people that sit down to watch a film wouldn't notice if they watched it 100 times.

 

Shawshank Redpemption in my opinion when from underrated (I remember the Daily Mail gave readers a free copy with the paper), to now being overrated.

 

I remember going to see it when it was first out at the cinema, back home. In fact, the only reason we picked this was because the 3 other choices were Beethoven's 2nd, Sister Act 2 & Streetfighter. So even from the first time I saw it compared with what other options were out there, it was always heads and shoulders above everything else that was out at the time, and always held it in high regard. One of those true rarities: a film that is superior to the source material.

 

I completely don't get your take on some films. Schindlers List is a dramatisation of a story based on fact, but like the telling of any story it is embellished upon, otherwise it would be a documentary.
The themes in Schindlers List, the performances and the striking visuals make it an absolute classic in my opinion. A story need not require a great deal of plot to make it enthralling. The depths of depravity that humans can sink to make the film captivating. If you take Reservoir Dogs for example, other than a little background storyline, it is essentially a bunch of guys in a room arguing over a botched raid - yet it is astonishingly good.

 

I like the action in Die Hard and it's definitely I film I enjoyed watching but I hate Bruce Willis' character.

I hate that "all-American hero" pish

 

It isn't, it is the screen adaptation of a historical novel written by Thomas Keneally. Keneally knew a man who survived the Holocaust, as a result of Schindler, in Australia. Keneally never set out to write a story based closely on fact, if he had he wouldn't have won a Booker prize for it.
It is therefore the dramatisation of a novel and it is actually misleading to treat otherwise yet it regularly is.
I agree with the rest, although I feel that Schindler's List over simplifies everything, something all Spielberg films are guilty of, perhaps it is what makes him so popular.

I do agree that some of the greatest films have some of the most basic plot lines, Reservoir Dogs being an excellent example.

 

Similiar to @cambridgebhoy , most action films don't do much for me. Meh, explosion, meh, gunfight, meh... whatever.

But the original Die Hard is something apart. Before Bruce Willis made John McClane into the cliche 'take down a helicopter with a motorbike' parody in all the subsequent sequels, what made the original so good was that he wasn't invincible, there was a vulnerabiliy to him, he wasn't bulletproof. We never really see that again in any of his later outings when its more Bruce Willis being Bruce Willis.

Balance that with Alan Rickman's performance as Hans Gruber, one of the most iconic 'bad guys' cinema has seen, and it does set it apart from neary all of it's peers in the genre - which includes all of it's sequels.

 

The list in the pub is ridiculous in my opinion. The guy must have stopped watching films after 1999.

To me, a film like Die Hard should be in the top 100 films of all time. It may not have the most amazing cinematography, writing or score but it does what films are, in the main, supposed to do....entertain.