UK Channel 4 / FilmFour Top 100 list (1 Viewer)

[Iain Lambert]

Well, over Saturday and Sunday night Channel 4 and Film Four in the UK revealed their top 100, as voted by viewers and visitors to the website. here.

 

[TheoGB]

any connection between this list and what 4 have the rights to is, of course, completely coincidental

This was my thought - that they'd got a list ages ago and then gone about working out which they could get clips from and what they had on archive for people talking about it. But I guess that's just evil thought.
At least we actually had people like Ridley Scott talking about movies and not recycled contributions from paid opinions like the 'Top Ten...' series.
I think it invalidated itself the moment they left Fight Club off, personally.
Though since Empire Strikes Back is probably my favourite movie it's cool that it got to number 1.

 

[Iain Lambert]

After writing a snotty whinge to them about the lack of Fincher, Burton or Gilliam on the list, I'm actually glad that Fight Club wasn't on there. They did a great job of making sure that everyone knows the endings to The Usual Suspects and The Shawshank Redemption, so they would have almost certainly have ruined this for people as well.
Was it just me, or was the way they just basically said 'The Matrix lobby scene is really cool, people fire guns a lot' meant as a dig at the film's fans?
Oh, and The Full Monty? More popular than Titanic? What an odd country we live in...

 

[PhilipG]

Well, not quite as bad as that Empire list. Casablanca should be fifteen or so places higher up, but there you go...
100 good films - not necessarily in the right order.

 

[Steve Christou]

Not as bad as it could have been, nothing wrong with voting Star Wars as favorite film ever, if thats what the public feel, why not, Star Wars was a great movie IMHO, if they had voted for Citizen Kane at no.1 I would have been very suspicious, but my favorite movie 'Ben-Hur' wasn't even listed, bastards!, nor was Bridge on the River Kwai!! Aliens should have been in there too, oh never mind.

 

[TheoGB]

Oh, and The Full Monty? More popular than Titanic? What an odd country we live in...

I dunno. TFM is probably better on re-watch than Titanic. I think the latter was a movie worth seeing (at the cinema, at any rate) but when you come back to a big list like that your eye tends to linger on the stuff that you have most fun watching. A movie that's so 'down' is less likely to get anywhere...

 

[Iain Lambert]

Oh I wasn't suggesting that its surprising that Titanic is a 'great' film, but given how everyone went so gaga over it at the time, and I've pretty much forgotten everything about Monty I had no idea that so many people still liked that so much.

Of course, while watching the programme I was more outraged by it having just beaten out Alien, Lambs, Withnail, Great Escape, Toy Story and The Third Man; all films that have stayed with me long after I found Monty to be a fun little Brassed Off-style social comedy with a lot of word-of-mouth behind it.

 

[Grant B]

I never expected to see "Get Carter" on a Best of anything list. OK, It might get on the top 100 films of Sylvester Stallone but that's about it.

 

[Iain Lambert]

Somehow I suspect they meant the Mike Hodges masterpiece, not that car-crash of a Stallone vehicle.

 

[PhilipG]

Grant, LOL.
(I presume that was tongue-in-cheek, and you are well aware of the Michael Caine original film.)

 

[Grant B]

I am just wondering, since the poll is weighted so heavily to very recent films, how many people voted for the recent version.

But I must say, I saw more classic films on the BBC in the few years I lived in Cumbria than I had in my entire life in the states.

Then again entering little factors like; There is nothing else to do Cumbria than watch the BBC and try and keep warm & dry and What else is there to watch after everything signs off and you're not into watching the Welsh farming report..

Anyways

Cheers

Grant

 

[george kaplan]

Hmm,
No Apartment, Rear Window or North by Northwest
but they do include Titanic, Gladiator, The Full Monty
Definitely not my cup of tea.

 

[Jason St Louis]

I want to add my two cents, being i watched the show. Lets be honest? it was full of PC! choices for the 100 greatest films "what do theses so called? insiders and "industry experts" know? There is an old saying "Don't believe everything you see and hear"!

The newer films like Gladiator were put in there because of its recent "accolades", Spartacus is mile down the list huh? Terry Gilliam, David Fincher and Tim Burton as one board member pointed out, are left out because there work is so extreme maybe, or there work is seen as "arty" (With the exception being Fincher)Brazil frrom Gilliam was on Saturday and it was a artish, bizzare but an understandable film with a twist?

If the list was voted for, then it's a mess because one their list has too much bias (From a people's list)movies getting the nod over other films.

No way, no how is Titanic beating "Seven Samurai" "The Good, The Bad and The ugly" and "Alien" from industry people, even heavy hitters in the top ten could not have all been there, if this was all random?

Lets face facts in a real list, even if all the country loves "Star Wars" movies like it, in the top 100 from C4 were all there because most peolpe have seen them? where were all the international films from around the world? 55% of that list were Hollywood ? If i did the Top ten or twenty plus this is what it would be like

"2001", "Paltoon", "Spartacus", "BenHur", "Godfather", "Gone with the Wind", "Snow white and the Seven Dwarfs", "Star wars", "Pulp fiction", Se7en, Seven Samurai, Shawshank Redemption, ET, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Jaws, Psycho, Alien, The Omen, Usual suspects.

Also with such classics as Forbidden Planet, Raging Bull, Planet of the Apes(1968), Bullit, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, The Lion King, The Fall of the Roman empire, The Wild bunch, A Clockwork orange, Fight Club, Cleopatra and others following in behind them (also this list is in random order so don't get anrgy at me o.k.?)

Alot of good films came out in the 1990's but too many of them are being held as the greatest of all time?

greatness depends on how a film will be remembered years down the line, how the the acting captured people's imaginations? the production values (how many times have you looked at a film and said, "They knew what they were doing in thoses days, cos it stills holds up today"?)

A lot of factors count went you talk of the greatest of all time, To me it doesn't exist! cos everthing is questioned and debated like time itself films good films will age and be either viewed as classics a masterpiece or become timeless depends on the audience and views taken by someone at the time!

 

[andrew markworthy]

Grant - I was born and raised in Barrow-in-Furness, and that is where I developed a taste for watching television and reading. If there is anything to do there which doesn't involve getting plastered and then hurling abuse at passers-by, please let me know. I spent the better part of two decades looking.

Back to topic - the list is exactly what I'd expect from the majority of people who'd contribute opinions to that sort of poll.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Iain, you now know why I am expressly against working up "best of all-time" lists with any material more recent than the last 5 years.

That's how N-Sync ends up with #1 album of all time, and Gladiator, TFM, etc. end up near the tops of these lists.

Plus, by having it online you skew the views to youth culture, often having never seen more than 1 or 2 films older than 1975.

I respect the EDUCATED opinions of others. But someone who hasn't seen a film from before 1992 telling me that The Matrix and Gladiator are the greatest things ever....sounds like the "DVD Generation" talking there.

 

[Seth Paxton]

To follow up my point, go look at IMDb. They are the classic representation of how new = good.

Top 100 films ever...

9 come from 1990-95

22 come from 96+ THAT'S 22!!

Aren't we lucky that 1/5th of the greatest films ever just got made in the last 5 years. They sure must have been terrible at filmmaking for those other 70 years or so (figuring 1915 as a rough beginning of serious pop cinema).

Also, good thing they got a clue in the late 90's since the early 90's had like 40% as many good films at the late 90's.

Clearly these lists require people to start getting a perspective on the current hot films.

I do respect Usual Suspects, Pulp Fiction, Schindler, Shawshank, Silence because they are maintaining themselves on lists like these as others fall aside. Gladiator used to be in the top 10 or 20 at IMDb. Now it is past 100. Titanic is also off the 250 after being way near the top at one time.

I love Memento, but I'm not sure it will or should be in the top 10 of all time films (at IMDb).

 

[TheoGB]

It's all pretty screwed. On the other hand you've got to be careful to realise that maybe Citizen Kane and Spartacus have had their day.

[flameproofing active]

The fact is there's precious little that is truly a classic in this field. Shakespeare is an obvious exception but if you look back on literature, for example, times do change.

Problem is that once something gets the label classic it gets elevated to the point where you can't ditch it. Naturally, people will put the more recent stuff in the top of lists because it excites them more. Also, you've got to consider the an older film viewer doesn't necessarily have an more valid a point than a newer one.

The most-liked art is usually made by the young so maybe the young should be judging stuff? Who knows. I'm sure 25 years ago we'd be sitting discussing whether Star Wars was in fact a classic and suggesting that it probably wasn't but there it is. So maybe the Matrix or Gladiator will still be high on a similar list in 25 years...

 

[Iain Lambert]

The big problem with the IMDb list is that its made up from votes by people who have just seen the films. I thought Titanic was an absolutely stunning 3 hours of celluloid after my first viewing, so I'd have given it a 10 at the time. Does that really mean that I now believe its impossible to make a better film? I don't think so...

 

[TheoGB]

Surely a 10 simply means that film could not have been better - it's only a rating 'within' the film itself. You found it truly satisfying and that's the sign of a good movie.

 

[Iain Lambert]

I agree that thats how it 'should' work, but the IDMb top 250 is based on a mean mark by users, subject to a couple of clauses about minimum number of votes to avoid something tiny getting vote-stuffed.

Whats being measured to a large extent with modern movies on the IMDb is whats the greatest film for the duration of its length; few votes are made even a few months after release, let alone the years that Seth quite reasonably suggests we wait in order to have some perspective.