Black & White World

Stennieville’s Essential 100 Films

If you’ve been surfing around film blogs the last week or so, you’re probably aware that AFI came out with their “new and improved” Top 100 Movies of All Time list.  It’s the 10th Anniversary of AFI’s crappy lists, in fact, so they’ve released a new list to celebrate their crappy lists.  And all around the blogosphere, film bloggers have been announcing their own Top 100 lists.  I, ever the follower, have decided to take on this gargantuan task myself.

Criteria seems to vary—some people are doing 100 Greatest Films and others are doing 100 Favorite Films.  “Greatest” vs. “Favorites” is a toughie when you’re making a list like this.  Someone out there referred to his/her list as 100 movies he/she would save if the world was about to end, and that’s how I’d prefer to think of my own list.  There will always be film lovers out there who will save Citizen Kane and Gone With the Wind.  All things being equal, I’d rather save a lesser-seen or unsung movie.  As an example—going into the final cuts, I decided that lots of people would be clamoring to save Tampopo, but maybe Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald would fall by the wayside if I didn’t make a concerted effort.  That’s all things being equal, mind you.  My list still includes some classics you’re likely to run into on a lot of similar lists:  Casablanca, Singin’ in the Rain, Bringing Up Baby, Sullivan’s Travels—because I love them too much to leave them off.

I started off making the list off the top of my head, and came up with about fifty or so.  Then I trawled through my own movie lists going back over the last five years, and also 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.  Eventually I had about 150 really great movies, and began the painful process of cutting it down.  At 130, I was convinced I couldn’t cut any more films—which is why my Top 100 is followed by a list of 30 Honorable Mentions.

Here, then, is the list itself, arranged by decade:

1920-1929:
- Sherlock, Jr., 1924
- The Freshman, 1925
- Sunrise, 1926
- The General, 1927
- The Kid Brother, 1927
- Steamboat Bill, Jr., 1928
- The Crowd, 1928
- The Man With the Movie Camera, 1929

1930-1939:
- Animal Crackers, 1930
- City Lights, 1931
- One Way Passage, 1931
- The Public Enemy, 1931
- M, 1931
- Five Star Final, 1931
- Trouble in Paradise, 1932
- The Thin Man, 1934
- It’s a Gift, 1934
- A Night at the Opera, 1935
- Swing Time, 1936
- Libeled Lady, 1936
- My Man Godfrey, 1936
- Dead End, 1937
- Tovarich, 1937
- The Awful Truth, 1937
- Bringing Up Baby, 1938
- Le Jour se Leve, 1939
- Ninotchka, 1939

1940-1949:
- It’s a Gift, 1940
- The Great McGinty, 1940
- His Girl Friday, 1940
- The Shop Around the Corner, 1940
- Hold Back the Dawn, 1941
- Ball of Fire, 1941
- Sullivan’s Travels, 1941
- Palm Beach Story, 1942
- Casablanca, 1942
- To Be or Not to Be, 1942
- Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, 1944
- Double Indemnity, 1944
- I Know Where I’m Going!, 1945
- Brief Encounter, 1946
- It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946
- A Matter of Life and Death, 1946
- Best Years of Our Lives, 1946
- They Won’t Believe Me, 1947
- Key Largo, 1948
- Bicycle Thief, 1948
- Criss Cross, 1949
- Kind Hearts and Coronets, 1949

1950-1959:
- Asphalt Jungle, 1950
- Sunset Blvd., 1950
- The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1950
- Ace in the Hole, 1951
- Singin’ in the Rain, 1952
- Shane, 1953
- Roman Holiday, 1953
- Rear Window, 1954
- The Seven Samurai, 1954
- La Strada, 1954
- Throne of Blood, 1957
- The Nights of Cabiria, 1957
- Sweet Smell of Success, 1957
- 3:10 to Yuma, 1957
- 400 Blows, 1959
- North by Northwest, 1959

1960-1969:
- The Apartment, 1960
- La Dolce Vita, 1960
- One, Two, Three, 1961
- To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962
- 8½, 1963
- The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964
- A Hard Day’s Night, 1964
- The Ipcress File, 1965
- The Italian Job, 1969

1970-1979:
- Young Frankenstein, 1974
- The Man Who Would Be King, 1975
- Network, 1976
- Breaking Away, 1979

1980-1989:
- Brazil, 1983
- This is Spinal Tap, 1984
- Ran, 1985
- Matewan, 1987
- Eight Men Out, 1988
- Cinema Paradiso, 1988
- Do The Right Thing, 1989

1990-1999:
- Miller’s Crossing, 1990
- Dogfight, 1991
- Groundhog Day, 1993
- Trois Couleurs: Bleu/Blanc/Rouge, 1993-1994 (I’m a cheater!!)
- Muriel’s Wedding, 1994
- Toy Story, 1995
- Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald, 1997
- Galaxy Quest, 1999

2000-Present:
- Monsoon Wedding, 2001
- Spirited Away, 2001
- About a Boy, 2002
- Kill Bill, Vol. 1, 2003
- Capturing the Friedmans, 2003
- A Very Long Engagement, 2004
- United 93, 2006
- Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006

Honorable Mention: (in the order that they were cut)
- All About Eve, 1950
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, 1982 (laugh if you want; I cried bitter tears when cutting this one)
- Dodsworth, 1936
- The Big Lebowski, 1998
- Limbo, 1999
- Little Caesar, 1931
- Seven Chances, 1925
- Metropolis, 1927
- The Big Parade, 1925
- Adventures of Robin Hood, 1938
- Pygmalion, 1938
- Bachelor Mother, 1939
- South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, 1999
- The Great Escape, 1961
- Hope & Glory, 1987
- Top Hat, 1935
- The 39 Steps, 1935
- A Fish Called Wanda, 1988
- The Princess Bride, 1987
- L.A. Confidential, 1997
- Theodora Goes Wild, 1936
- Some Like it Hot, 1959
- Dead Again, 1991
- Judgment at Nuremberg, 1962
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975
- Downfall, 2004
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004
- Tampopo, 1985
- Paths of Glory, 1957
- The Life & Death of Colonel Blimp, 1944

Whew!  There.  Feel free to berate me and let me know what really obvious stunners that I missed in the comments below.

1. It’s nice to see someone who took the time to make a honest, and valuable, list of great movies. Kudos to you Stennie. A great job. My only question is how Downfall got demoted below the others. It’s a stunning movie, equal to anything on your list.

   Thanks for the effort you put into this. Some of these I haven’t seen yet and will rent.

   Posted by Duke  on  07/08  at  05:39 PM

2. Godfathers?  Baby Face?

   That’s about it for the berating.  Good job finding spots for The Best Years Of Our Lives, The Day The Earth Stood Still, and The 400 Blows.

   Posted by  on  07/08  at  08:02 PM

3. Regarding the Godfather movies:  Two was on my original list of 150 (One never made the cut).  A big factor for the final list was re-watchability factor:  I asked myself, “Would I want to go the rest of my life without seeing this movie again?” I love both of them and recognize their greatness, but I probably wouldn’t die if I never saw either film again.

   Babyface… I’m in awe of its boundary-breaking, but I don’t know that I can really consider it a great film.

   Shoot, though—just thought of another little-known pre-Coder, Employee’s Entrance.  That’s one I should have put on the list for sure.

   Posted by  on  07/08  at  08:39 PM

4. Nice to see something like “Dogfight” and especially “Matewan” on a list (do I detect some liberal tendencies here? ;)). But “About a Boy” (you must be joking)? “Cinema Paradiso” (pure kitsch)? And I don’t get all the Jeunet hype - he’s a brilliant craftsman, but all of his movies ring empty and hollow. As for the honorable mentions: To see crap like “Downfall” and masterpieces like “Colonel Blimp” on the same roster - well, it kinda hurts.

   Posted by  on  07/14  at  10:03 PM

5. It’s great to see W.C. Fields make someone’s top 100.  However, IT’S A GIFT should be listed as 1934.  Fields’ other great film, THE BANK DICK is from 1940.

   I’m also glad to see Preston Sturges’ films make the cut, but I would have ranked THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK over the ones listed above.

   Posted by garv  on  07/23  at  08:10 PM

6. I love Morgan’s Creek, but I’m finding that it doesn’t hold up that well over repeated viewings, whereas The Great McGinty just gets better every time I watch it.

   Thanks for the correction on the Fields film—I believe I watched them back to back, and clearly I got the years mixed up.  Corrected above.

   Posted by  on  08/03  at  03:07 PM

7. Pretty nifty list and of course you’ll get arguments on the omissions—so I won’t even start.  But I love the fact that your taste ranges so widely over the years.  Too many film critics think movies began in the 70s.  But looking at your recent entries, I know that you know better.  So do I!

   Posted by Pat Evans  on  02/20  at  03:59 AM
Page 1 of 1 pages