AMF's All-Time Film List 2016 edition: Added Entrants

[BleuPanda]

Greetings all,

I plan to host a survey of AMF's favorite movies of all-time using the results of our decade lists. The entrants will be limited to:
1) The top 20 for each decade (30 for pre-50s, 10 for 2010s)
2) All entrants in our previous all-time polls
3) Two additional movies from each user that does not belong to either category above

Later this evening I will post all the movies from the first two categories (sans the two polls finishing up).

For the third section:
1) Send me a private message with your top 3 choices by December 31, 2015
2) If two people name the same film, it will automatically move on and their third will take its place
3) If you plan to vote for a movie from the 2010s or before 1950, make sure to wait until you're sure it didn't make the top 10/30 for its respective poll


Once we enter January, the actual survey will begin:
1) Like the decade poll, you are expected to rank all entrants you have seen
2) However, I am considering an alternate method based on the size of the list. This alternative method consists of:
a) Rank your top 100 (if you have seen 100)
b) You can choose to either keep listing or stop at 100
c) If you stop at 100, you must still list all the movies you have seen. They will be collectively ranked at 101.
d) the movies you haven't seen will be ranked at your median; if you stopped at 100, the lowest these unwatched films can be ranked is 101.
3) You will be given two months (+ December, so really 3) to catch up on as many of these top movies as you can. The deadline will be February 29th.

I want discussion of my alternative method as listed above. Do people like this option? Would you rather force everyone to rank everything they have seen? After a certain point the points from the formula become almost insignificant, so I'd rather lessen the burden for those who don't want to bother with the lower half of their list. Is 101 good for the stopping point, or would you want something higher?






The Lists:
2010s:
A Separation
Her
Boyhood
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
Moonrise Kingdom
12 Years a Slave
Black Swan
Birdman
Whiplash

2000s:
Mulholland Drive
No Country for Old Men
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
City of God
There Will Be Blood
Children of Men
The Lives of Others
Memento
Amelie
Requiem for a Dream
Donnie Darko
3-Iron
A Prophet
Ghost World
Dancer in the Dark
The Best of Youth
WALL-E
Talk to Her
Let the Right One In
Waltz With Bashir

1990s:
Pulp Fiction
Fargo
The Silence of the Lambs
Festen
Magnolia
Breaking the Waves
American Beauty
The Big Lebowski
The Usual Suspects
Reservoir Dogs
Goodfellas
Three Colors: Red
Being John Malkovich
The Thin Red Line
The Shawshank Redemption
Schindler's List
Short Cuts
Groundhog Day
Raise the Red Lantern
All About My Mother

1980s:
Blade Runner
Blue Velvet
Wings of Desire
Paris, Texas
The Elephant Man
The Shining
Once Upon a Time in America
Grave of the Fireflies
Down By Law
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Come and See
My Neighbor Totoro
Raging Bull
Do the Right Thing
Star Wars Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
Fanny and Alexander
Ran
The Thing
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Zelig

1970s:
Apocalypse Now
The Godfather
The Godfather: Part II
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Taxi Driver
A Clockwork Orange
Alien
Chinatown
Stalker
The Deer Hunter
Annie Hall
Barry Lyndon
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Manhattan
Days of Heaven
Aguirre: The Wrath of God
Cabaret
The Sting
Eraserhead
The Conversation

1960s:
2001: A Space Odyssey
Once Upon a Time in the West
Psycho
The Apartment
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
8 1/2
Persona
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Andrei Rublev
The Battle of Algiers
Le samourai
Army of Shadows
Midnight Cowboy
La Dolce Vita
The Manchurian Candidate
Bonnie and Clyde
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
La jetee
Harakiri

1950s:
Vertigo
Singin' in the Rain
Touch of Evil
Seven Samurai
Some Like It Hot
Sunset Blvd.
Rear Window
Rashomon
North by Northwest
The Seventh Seal
Tokyo Story
The Night of the Hunter
12 Angry Men
The Wages of Fear
The 400 Blows
Wild Strawberries
Los Olvidados
The Searchers
A Man Escaped or: The Wind Bloweth Where It Listeth
Sansho the Bailiff

pre-1950s:
Casablanca
Modern Times
City Lights
Citizen Kane
Children of Paradise
M
Metropolis
The Third Man
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
The Gold Rush
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Gone With the Wind
Bicycle Thieves
Monsieur Verdoux
To Be or Not to Be
Notorious
The Red Shoes
The Rules of the Game
Freaks
The General
Grand Illusion
The Grapes of Wrath
The Passion of Joan of Arc
It's a Wonderful Life
Battleship Potemkin
Rebecca
Double Indemnity
Nosferatu
Day of Wrath
The Man With a Movie Camera

Top 100 lists (excluding above):
A Beautiful Mind
Amadeus
Blow-Up
Boogie Nights
Brazil
Dawn of the Dead
Dazed and Confused
Dekalog
Deliverance
Duck Soup
Edward Scissorhands
Fight Club
Halloween
Happiness
High Fidelity
Hoop Dreams
Jaws
Lawrence of Arabia
Leon/The Professional
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Network
Night of the Living Dead
Rosemary's Baby
Rushmore
Solaris
Spirited Away
Star Wars
The Evil Dead
The Exorcist
The Graduate
The Great Dictator
The Mirror
The Taste of Others
The Wizard of Oz
This Is Spinal Tap
To Kill a Mockingbird
Trainspotting
Yi Yi

We are currently at 198.

[whuntva]

Seems very convoluted, Bleu.

I actually just made a Top 100 on IMDB, because I thought we'd be doing it the old-fashioned way, by posting ballots.

I think I know what my submissions are already, but I will wait until these current polls wrap up to play it safe.

I think I like option B best

[BleuPanda]

There are many issues with an open ballot:
1) They heavily favor the most viewed films
2) Votes get spread thin enough that even the top 100 will likely have films with only 2 or 3 votes
3) All it takes is a few people who only pay attention to one era to create bias


Limiting it to a certain selection of films we already know AMF likes allows us to see our actual overall opinion. This way, a film that only 2 people love and everyone else hates won't shoot into the top 100. This method allows us to include middling opinions.

I could just limit it to *rank your top 100 from the selected films* if that makes it clearer what's happening.

[whuntva]

Got it! Thanks!

I see where you're coming from.

I also imagine there will be a bit of overlap from decade polls and our last Top 100. So the final pool will be narrower than I thought, and easier for me to see these films.

Most of the movies were on my to-watch list anyway, so I'm game.

[BleuPanda]

It will be just like ranking in the decade polls, but with ~250-300 films? Something like that. Big, but I'd like to do a top 250 with actual reasonable data.

[Petri]

This sounds great.

1) The top 20 for each decade (30 for pre-50s, 10 for 2010s)

160 movies

2) All entrants in our previous all-time polls

Most of them are among those 160 movies so maybe 20 movies (only guessing)

3) Two additional movies from each user that does not belong to either category above

(15-20 voters = 30-40 movies).

So about 200-220 movies (maybe bit more). I assume I have seen about 90 % of the finalists (depents how obscure movies people will choose) so percentage can be greater. I think the minimum of ranked movies could be bigger than 100 (there's difference in points between #101 and #200) (perhaps 150?) or maybe there could be a chance to give most of the movies outside the top 100 the same score than #101 and then the ones voter really dislikes could be ranked (voter have seen 190 movies and hates 5 of them he ranks top 100 give 85 movies the same score and the bottom five will get scores of #186, #187, #188, #189, #190). Actually this sounds a lot of work to the host so maybe not (actually antonius suggested something like this when he submitted his 2010s list).

I'm definitely going to participate despite the rules. At least I think there should be a chance to rank all the movies voter have seen (I think I'm going to do that).

[BleuPanda]

The option is an option for each individual, i.e. I could rank all ~200 films and someone else could decide they feel like stopping at 100. It's one or the other for each person, not for all of us.

And I think there were a few odd entrants in both all-time lists.

[whuntva]

I think I will just nominate the next three highest films from my Top 100 that are not Automatic Qualifiers. I know for a fact at least eight of my Top Ten are.

The thing is that some of them are pre-1950, so I want to see how they pan out.

[BleuPanda]

You could also just send me a slightly longer list and I can remove those that qualify from the polls.

[Gillingham]

Not uncomplicated, but I do understand your reasoning.

I don't think this should replace the free-for-all all time lists, but it's a nice alternative anyway.

[BleuPanda]

I don't think this should replace the free-for-all all time lists, but it's a nice alternative anyway.

Of course, but I want to do something to celebrate our completion of these decade lists. This opportunity only comes once every 6 years if we keep a consistent pace.

[BleuPanda]

I have added the lists in the initial post.

[Petri]

I have added the lists in the initial post.

Wow there were more movies outside the top 20s than I expected (although some of the early movies will end up to top 30 of early decades poll). I remembered that Taste of Others and Hoop Dreams (and Rushmore) were in top 100 because they were big surprises then but A Beautiful Mind... that I had forgotten.
I have seen 171/173 of these (and the ones I haven't (Raise the Red Lantern and Best of Youth) are bit hard to get).

[BleuPanda]

Actually, do we need two months, or would just December and January be enough? I only need to see 20 of the current list, and I'm sure I've seen most of the top in the 2010s and pre-1950. Though I guess there's the issue of the extra films...

How does everyone feel?

[whuntva]

I probably do.

I haven't really counted, but I think I need that long just to hunt these films down.

UPDATE: Also, I did the math. Of the current pool, I have seen 123 of the films. Not bad, but I still think I have some catching up to do.

[BleuPanda]

I guess another question is if 30 is enough for the pre-50s list. I think the era could easily have more representation, but the small pool of voters kind of interferes with being an accurate representation of AMF's overall thoughts. We already had two films that qualified from the top 100 lists fall in the lower half, and all it took was one big fan to shoot a film up the list.

[BleuPanda]

I have added the top 10 from the 2010 poll and moved A Separation from the Top 100 lists. Now we're at 182.

[BleuPanda]

Would anyone mind if I bump this up to more than 2 films? I think 3 is certainly a better number, and I'd be willing to include more if everyone agrees.

Also, since I have reached the top 25 in the pre-50s topic, all guaranteed placements are known. Feel free to send in your nominations.

[BleuPanda]

Added the pre-1950 list. I think I'll go with everyone's top 3s unless we get a large amount of contributors. I want to aim for slightly above 250, but if it gets too unruly I'll go lower.

[Nick]

Over the past year I've really tried to become more "well watched" (hey, if "well read" can be a phrase, so can "well watched"), and as such I've watched a load of classic movies I'd never seen before. That being said, I've only seen 72 out of the 198 films listed, so I'm almost certainly the least "well watched" forumer in this thread.

I do have a question about the voting process, Bleu. So each forumer is supposed to submit a list of 3 movies to you that aren't among the 198 currently listed? And those 3 movies will automatically go on the list no matter what? Is that so?

[bootsy]

Over the past year I've really tried to become more "well watched" (hey, if "well read" can be a phrase, so can "well watched"), and as such I've watched a load of classic movies I'd never seen before. That being said, I've only seen 72 out of the 198 films listed, so I'm almost certainly the least "well watched" forumer in this thread.

I do have a question about the voting process, Bleu. So each forumer is supposed to submit a list of 3 movies to you that aren't among the 198 currently listed? And those 3 movies will automatically go on the list no matter what? Is that so?

I have the same question.

As for alternate method. I don't understand it at all.

[BleuPanda]

Over the past year I've really tried to become more "well watched" (hey, if "well read" can be a phrase, so can "well watched"), and as such I've watched a load of classic movies I'd never seen before. That being said, I've only seen 72 out of the 198 films listed, so I'm almost certainly the least "well watched" forumer in this thread.

I do have a question about the voting process, Bleu. So each forumer is supposed to submit a list of 3 movies to you that aren't among the 198 currently listed? And those 3 movies will automatically go on the list no matter what? Is that so?

Yes, vote for 3 additional movies. I'm not sure if I'll take the top 2 or 3.

The three things under the alternate method are all parts of the same. Simply put, if you have seen 100 movies or more, you can choose to stop individually ranking each additional film at that point (but you still must list what you have seen for calculations). Section d doesn't matter on your own end.

The whole point of the option is that, if someone has seen 200+ of the films but doesn't feel like thinking too much about their lower half, they can choose to opt out.

[Nick]

Over the past year I've really tried to become more "well watched" (hey, if "well read" can be a phrase, so can "well watched"), and as such I've watched a load of classic movies I'd never seen before. That being said, I've only seen 72 out of the 198 films listed, so I'm almost certainly the least "well watched" forumer in this thread.

I do have a question about the voting process, Bleu. So each forumer is supposed to submit a list of 3 movies to you that aren't among the 198 currently listed? And those 3 movies will automatically go on the list no matter what? Is that so?

Yes, vote for 3 additional movies. I'm not sure if I'll take the top 2 or 3.

The three things under the alternate method are all parts of the same. Simply put, if you have seen 100 movies or more, you can choose to stop individually ranking each additional film at that point (but you still must list what you have seen for calculations). Section d doesn't matter on your own end.

The whole point of the option is that, if someone has seen 200+ of the films but doesn't feel like thinking too much about their lower half, they can choose to opt out.

Ahh okay, thanks for clearing that up. Looks like I have quite a lot of movies to watch over the next 3 months.

I do have one question though. While I really like your idea that each forum will submit 3 movies to you that aren't listed, do you think there may be some negative consequences as a result of strategic voting? Say there's two movies in my all time top ten that don't appear among the 198 listed, a super popular movie and a rather obscure one. I could hypothetically vote in the obscure one over the super popular one, even if I liked the super popular one more, because I would be confident that the popular one would inevitably be voted in by someone else.

I'm not saying I would vote this way, but do you think strategic voting like this is a concern for this poll?

[Petri]

I do have one question though. While I really like your idea that each forum will submit 3 movies to you that aren't listed, do you think there may be some negative consequences as a result of strategic voting? Say there's two movies in my all time top ten that don't appear among the 198 listed, a super popular movie and a rather obscure one. I could hypothetically vote in the obscure one over the super popular one, even if I liked the super popular one more, because I would be confident that the popular one would inevitably be voted in by someone else.

I'm not saying I would vote this way, but do you think strategic voting like this is a concern for this poll?

I think this one is one of the very few polls in which we shouldn't be concerned of strategic voting at all (not my concern in any other polls either though). I mean we are sending names of two or three movies to BleuPanda by email. It's extremely hard to guess what are the choices of people. Of course you can guess (maybe someone votes for Satan Tango or Mad Max: Fury Road) or check the old personal favorites of all time lists (bootsy is a big fan of Nolan movies, Greg is a very big fan of Fall of House of Usher) but it's always easier to see in monthly polls that some movies/albums/songs are safe (in the final for sure).
I haven't decided yet what three movies I'm going to choose. I try to pick movies I really love (of course), the movies people will have a chance to see (for reasonable price and with English subtitles/dialogue at least) but maybe the most haven't seen them yet. It's going to be a difficult choice.

[bootsy]

Over the past year I've really tried to become more "well watched" (hey, if "well read" can be a phrase, so can "well watched"), and as such I've watched a load of classic movies I'd never seen before. That being said, I've only seen 72 out of the 198 films listed, so I'm almost certainly the least "well watched" forumer in this thread.

I do have a question about the voting process, Bleu. So each forumer is supposed to submit a list of 3 movies to you that aren't among the 198 currently listed? And those 3 movies will automatically go on the list no matter what? Is that so?

Yes, vote for 3 additional movies. I'm not sure if I'll take the top 2 or 3.

The three things under the alternate method are all parts of the same. Simply put, if you have seen 100 movies or more, you can choose to stop individually ranking each additional film at that point (but you still must list what you have seen for calculations). Section d doesn't matter on your own end.

The whole point of the option is that, if someone has seen 200+ of the films but doesn't feel like thinking too much about their lower half, they can choose to opt out.

Thanks this helps a lot.

[BleuPanda]

Here are the added films; I want everyone to have an equal chance to get unique representation, so I'm going to PM each user who only has three films with a match with another list. I"ll post the main topic once I have responses from those users (either way, keep watching all these films!).




Multiple nominations:
Back to the Future (Nick and Petri)
Breathless (BleuPanda and Michel)
The Departed (Nick and Listyguy)
L.A. Confidential (Henry and luney6)

Individual ballots:

Michel:
The Idiots
Pierrot le fou
Sleuth

Greg:
The Element of Crime
Heart of Glass
Ivan the Terrible, Part I

Henry:
On the Waterfront
Cool Hand Luke
Dances With Wolves

acroamor:
It's Such a Beautiful Day
Frances Ha
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Live in Phoenix:
The Man Who Fell to Earth
A Christmas Story
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure

Midaso:
The Ice Storm
Naked
The Right Stuff

Petri:
Songs from the Second Floor
Rocco and His Brothers
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring

bonnielaurel:
Lust, Caution
Machuca
Jean de Florette

bootsy:
Inception
Oldboy
The Matrix

Nick:
Koyaanisqatsi
Kill Bill
Airplane!

Barry:
Woman in the Dunes
Ikiru
A Woman Under the Influence

Listyguy:
Inglorious Basterds
Good Will Hunting
Forrest Gump

Chilton:
The Man Who Planted Trees
Hiroshima mon amour
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

luney6:
Nashville
Pather Panchali
Eyes Wide Shut

whuntva:
Great Expectations
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The Iron Giant

BleuPanda:
Mad Max: Fury Road
Amour
Last Year at Marienbad

Gillingham:
Earth
Ordet
Winter Light

MrMooney88:
La Bête Humaine
The Hunt
Young Frankenstein

[Gillingham]

Bleu, mine are missing from the list above.

[BleuPanda]

We now have everything listed. I'll get the main topic up when I get home tonight.