Greatest films of all time

[madhjsp]

Ian, I avoided watching both Casablanca and Maltese Falcon for years, thinking "they're just not my kind of thing". I was completely wrong. Everythnig you see about them seems to be Bogart being this kind of hard-ass sex symbol winning the girl in a twisted romance kind of thing.

In reality, they're actually really solid "bloke" films and Casablanca went from being a "not my thing will never watch and won't believe the hype" to "bollocks, probably one fo the best films I've ever seen". I was very disappointed in myself

I had literally the exact same experience with those films. I guess I just had an old film bias, but when I finally got around to watching them, I found them to be really, really good. Bogart is pretty much a badass the whole time. I'd advise anyone writing those movies off for the same reasons to give them a shot, you might be pleasantly surprised.

But as to the actual list, everyone's going to be sore about their personal favorites getting snubbed. The point is, this is supposedly a composite list that was formed by the votes of several hundred thousand people. So yeah, it isn't going to reflect everyone's personal tastes, just a sort of average.

That said, there are a few films that I'm surprised weren't included:

The Sting - absolutely fantastic film which won a slew of Oscars. Very surprised not to see it.
The Shawshank Redemption - Same as above, minus the awards (Forrest Gump beat it out that year)
Inception - I love it but I guess I could see how it's not everyone's thing
Goodfellas - better than The Godfather at what The Godfather does, IMO
Terminator 2 - Ground-breaking, would be appropriate in either the action or sci-fi lists

And for the Best Character list, why isn't Heath Ledger's Joker included? He wasn't necessarily the lead character like those on the list were, but he stole every scene he was in and really made The Dark Knight as great as it was.

 

[reddude333]

^ Agreed, Ledger was the best character in the film and honestly made it the success it is. Up there in my top 5 favorite movies and someone who should have made the list somewhere...