Just wondering, but what do you all consider to be the best films ever made? 10/10's, ****/****'s, etc. What films are the best? I'm not talking about favorites here, but pure GREAT films. I used to be lenient about my movie ratings, but I changed them a great deal and try to give only great movies 10/10 or ****/****. How about you? -Pat

Here are movies I consider to be MASTERPIECES, 10/10, ****/****:
Platoon (1986/Stone)
Goodfellas (1990/Scorsese)
The Godfather Part I (1972/Coppola)
The Godfather Part II (1974/Coppola)
Boyz N The Hood (1991/Singleton)
Pulp Fiction (1993/Tarantino)
Schindler's List (1993/Speilberg)
The Terminator (1984/Cameron)
Die Hard (1988/McTiernan)
Halloween (1978/Carpenter)
Rear Window (1954/Hitchcock)
North By Northwest (1963/Hitchcock)
The Shining (1978/Kubrick)
Jaws (1975/Speilberg)
Psycho (1960/Hitchcock)
King Kong (1933/Cooper and Schoedsack)
Vertigo (1958/Hitchcock)
Glory (1989/Zwick)
Raging Bull (1980/Scorsese)
The Hurricane (1999/Jewison)

Movies that are very close:
Casino (1995/Scorsese)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994/Darabont)
The Wizard Of Oz (1939/Fleming)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975/Lumet)
The Green Mile (1999/Darabont)
The Longest Day (1962/Annakin and Marton)
Se7en (1995/Fincher)
The Birds (1963/Hitchcock)
The Deer Hunter (1978/Cimino)
We Were Soldiers (2002/Wallace)
ET: The Extra Terrestrial (1982/Speilberg)
Seven Samurai (1954/Kurosawa)
Jurassic Park (1993/Speilberg)
The Pianist (2002/Polanski)
Citizen Kane (1941/Welles)
Amores Perros (2000/Iñárritu)
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975/Forman)
Cidade de Deus (2002/Lund and Meirelles)
The Killing Fields (1984/Joffé)
Back To The Future (1985/Zemeckis)
Fargo (1996/Coen)
Dracula (1931/Browning)

PERFECTIONS
-------------
The Godfather part 1/2
Memento
Goodfellas
Citizen Kane

When I think of masterpieces, I think of:

Godfather
Godfather II
Ben Hur
Taxi Driver

But there are movies that are masterpieces of their own genre, but some may not look at them as masterpieces:

The Good the Bad and the Ugly
Goodfellas
A ClockWork Orange
Full Metal Jacket

I think a masterpiece is strictly opinion. What some may view as the percect film, others may disagree with.

I don't think any movie is perfect or completely flawless. The movie I consider to be the best ever made, Kieslowski's The Decalogue, is made up of 10 flawed segments, yet as one large masterpiece its by far the best piece of cinema I've seen. Citizen Kane, the second greatest movie I've ever seen, could very possibly be flawless, but I'd have to study it to be confident that it is.

Because of that, my "10/10 or ****" rating isn't strict. Of the 800 or so movies I've seen (estimated that is, so I could've seen anywhere from 600-1000), I give at least 200 the highest rating (10/10 or ****). Since my goal in watching movies is to only see the greatest movies ever made--and, basically, nothing else--giving that many high ratings seems natural. Of the thousands, perhaps millions, of films made from the dawn of the silent era, all over the world, there are probably only 500 true cinema masterpieces.

Thug

Animal House

Masterpiece- a thing made or done with masterly skill; the greatest work of a person or group.

Ok, so who is to judge, who sets the standard?

As always with these threads I look at what people think and don't agree with so many of their picks. Then I realize that each person looks at things in their own way. Films impact everyone in a different way.

But when I think about a thing called a masterpiece I think of a very high standard.

You may love a movie but that doesn't make it a masterpiece. Maybe it is the test of time. Maybe it is the amount of people who say it is a masterpiece that finally locks it in. One thing for sure, for me it shouldn't be use so lightly.

There are good movies, there are great movies and then there is the MASTERPIECE!

I second that, along with "Blues Brothers"

A Masterpiece? What films are masterpieces? "True Today, True Tommorow, True Forever". THat's what the definition is of a masterpiece.

What films are Masterpieces? Here's a list:

Schindler's List (1993/Speilberg)
The Godfather (1972/Copolla)
The Godfather Part II (1974/Copolla)
Casablanca (1942/Curtiz)
The Maltese Falcon (1941/Huston)
City Lights (1931/Chaplin)
JFK (1991/Stone)
Sunset Boulevard (1950/Wilder)
Citizen Kane (1941/Welles)
Gone With The Wind (1939/Fleming-Cuckor-Wood)
2001:A Space Odyssey (1968/Kubrick)
Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love THe Bomb (1964/Kubrick)
Vertigo (1958/Hitchcock)
Singin' In The Rain (1952/Kelly-Donen)
Lawrence Of Arabia (1962/Lean)
The Seven Samurai (1954/Kurosawa)
The Thin Red Line (1998/Malick)
Sunrise (1927/Murnau)
North By Northwest (1959/Hitchcock)
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939/Capra)
The Wizard Of Oz (1939/Fleming-Cuckor)
The Grapes Of Wrath (1940/Ford)
Raging Bull (1980/Scorsace)
The Right Stuff (1983/Kauffman)

I also have serveral dozen other films to list...

Four Star Films by Year (69 in total):
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
King Kong (1933)
La Grande Illusion (1937)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Rebecca (1940)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Casablanca (1942)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Rope (1948)
The Man in the White Suit (1951)
On the Waterfront (1954)
Rear Window (1954)
The Seven Samurai (1954)
The Ladykillers (1955)
Throne of Blood (1957)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
A Bout De Souffle (1960)
Psycho (1960)
The Hustler (1961)
Dr. Strangelove (1963)
Eight and a Half (1963)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Kes (1969)
Once Upon a Time in The West (1969)
The French Connection (1971)
The Godfather (1972)
Mean Streets (1973)
Chinatown (1974)
The Conversation (1974)
The Godfather Part II (1974)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Annie Hall (1977)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Grease (1978)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Manhattan (1979)
The Elephant Man (1980)
Kagemusha (1980)
Raging Bull (1980)
Southern Comfort (1981)
The King of Comedy (1983)
Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
Ran (1985)
Delicatessen (1990)
Goodfellas (1990)
Schindler’s List (1993)
The Lion King (1994)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Casino (1995)
Fargo (1996)
Trainspotting (1996)
LA Confidential (1997)
Se7en (1997)
Run Lola Run (1998)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
American Beauty (1999)
Magnolia (1999)
Amores Perros (2000)
Gladiator (2000)
Memento (2000)
Traffic (2000)
City of God (2002)
Finding Nemo (2003)
21 Grams (2003)

---

Three Star Films by Year (118 in total):
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Ikiru (1952)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Hobson's Choice (1953)
Wild Strawberries (1957)
Vertigo (1958)
West Side Story (1961)
Doctor No (1962)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Lolita (1962)
From Russia With Love (1963)
The Great Escape (1963)
Bande à part (1964)
A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
Goldfinger (1964)
The Killers (1964)
For a Few Dollars More (1965)
Oliver! (1965)
The Sound of Music (1965)
Persona (1966)
Seconds (1966)
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Bullitt (1968)
The Sorrow and the Pity (1968)
Medium Cool (1969)
Walkabout (1970)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Duel (1971)
Klute (1971)
Day For Night (1973)
The Day of the Jackal (1973)
Lacombe, Lucien (1974)
Young Frankestein (1974)
Just Another Saturday (1975)
All the President's Men (1976)
Marathon Man (1976)
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
Star Wars (1977)
Alien (1979)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979)
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
The Last Metro (1980)
Das Boot (1981)
Madness: Take It Or Leave It (1981)
Return of the Jedi (1983)
The Killing Fields (1984)
The Terminator (1984)
Witness (1985)
The Color of Money (1986)
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Manhunter (1986)
Platoon (1986)
Big (1988)
Die Hard (1988)
Mississippi Burning (1988)
Black Rain (1989)
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
sex, lies and videotape (1989)
Twin Peaks (1989)
The Godfather Part III (1990)
Misery (1990)
Reservoir Dogs (1991)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
Aladdin (1992)
Falling Down (1992)
The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Strictly Ballroom (1992)
Unforgiven (1992)
Forrest Gump (1994)
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Léon (1994)
Crimson Tide (1995)
Heat (1995)
Toy Story (1995)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
L’Appartement (1996)
Hard Eight (1996)
Shine (1996)
Donnie Brasco (1997)
Insomnia (1997)
Jackie Brown (1997)
Titanic (1997)
American History X (1998)
Elizabeth (1998)
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
Out of Sight (1998)
Pleasantville (1998)
Being John Malkovich (1999)
The Insider (1999)
Three Kings (1999)
Battle Royale (2000)
Cast Away (2000)
Chopper (2000)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Sexy Beast (2000)
Amélie (2001)
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Donnie Darko (2001)
Gosford Park (2001)
Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)
Snatch (2001)
Gangs of New York (2002)
In the Bedroom (2002)
Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Ocean’s Eleven (2002)
Phone Booth (2002)
The Pianist (2002)
Uzak (2002)
Feel Like Going Home (2003)
Kill Bill Volume 1 (2003)
Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Zatoichi (2003)
Infernal Affairs (2004)
Lost in Translation (2004)

I'm rather strict. Four stars are only given to a film that is of the highest order technically (in almost every aspect) and has, or will, prove(d) to be a classic; in order to gain four stars, the film must also entertain me in the highest order possible.

Three stars: the film is EITHER: boasting technical excellence but not as entertaining as other films, or highly entertaining but technically flawed.

Out-of-ten ratings are 8.5+ for four stars films. Ten-out-of-ten films are, for me, technically FLAWLESS, and the most entertaining films ever, for me.

Mick

Grease, Capo? Grease?

Yes, well, on that exception, perhaps I am letting the emotional impact it has on me get in the way of any (invisible) faults it may have. :p

Mick

Where is "The Sting". I thought that was a great movie.

Very good thread. Here's mine in no order:

Goodfellas
Godfather Part I
Godfather Part II
Raging Bull
JFK
Fight Club
Memento
Usual Suspects
Schindler's List
Scarface
The Boondock Saints
American Beauty
Se7en
Gladiator
Pulp Fiction
Kill Bill Vol. 1
Kill Bill Vol. 2

I can't believe that I forgot The Passion of the Christ!

I haven't seen it.

Mick

I haven't seen it.

Mick [/b][/quote]It statred Paul Newman and Robert Redford as Con Artists in the 1920's in Chicago. It won the 1973 best picture Oscar, but I won't buy the DVD becasue it's only a full frame film and thug says it's one of the "worst" best picture winners.

From what I've seen, The Sting is the second worst Best Picture winner I've seen--with the worst being Rocky . Few will agree with me on either of those claims, but I felt both were done for entertainment purposes only, yet aren't that entertaining.

Thug

I've seen most of Rocky and it is SEVERLEY OVERRATED! Networt or Taxi Driver could easily put Rocky to shame.

While not quite close to Network or Taxi Driver in quality, The Front is also a much, much better film than Rocky.

Cries & Whispers, The Exorcist, Last Tango in Paris, and my personal favorite of the year, Badlands, all were more deserving of the award than The Sting, IMO.

Thug

I think Rocky has become overrated because of the 4 films that followed it. The first Rocky was a great story and deserved to win the Oscar. Im not sayin it has to be on top 100 lists, but i wouldnt argue if it was. Its a great inspiration story that is overshadowed by its sequels which werent as good, especially the Rocky V which is dreadful.

I can't wait to see Rocky VI

I[m sorry, but Rocky was no were close to the Level of Taxi Driver or Network!