Waiting on a few replacements from a couple of members before I post the compiled Master List.

The 12 films which find a place in the most number of lists right now are:-


Casablanca (1942) - 7 entries
Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981) - 7 entries

Star Wars (1977) - 6 entries

Citizen Kane (1941) - 5 entries
Schindler's List (1993) - 5 entries
The Wizard Of Oz (1939) - 5 entries

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - 4 entries
Metropolis (1927) - 4 entries
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) - 4 entries
The Godfather (1972) - 4 entries
The Matrix (1999) - 4 entries
The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - 4 entries

Can't believe three of mine made the list. Perhaps some residue of taste actually resides in my thunker. Looking forward to the Master List.

I think with Star Wars A New Hope, you might not "get it" because many of it's elements are made for the American culture circa late 60's and early 70's. Still there's so many elements that are timeless and multicultural.

I know you didn't say you didn't like A New Hope, but I'd always be shocked if I heard someone say they didn't like it. Not only is it fascinating, visually rich, but I think Mark Hamil's performance of Luke was Oscar worthy. He brought so much heart and sincerity. He was OK in Empire, and ghastly in Jedi. He was in a really bad accident at the start of Empire. I don't know if gave him some brain damage. Not kidding.

I pretty much just chose 20 films that popped into my head when I think of "great," without too much thought. If I had stopped to think about it the task would have been too daunting and I would have been bogged down for weeks with internal debate.

It's a terrible task when there are directors, like Kubrick, Scorsese, Coppola, Hitchcock, Robert Altman and Akira Kurosawa, whose entire bodies of work can be considered masterpieces or near, with few missteps. Now I'm regretting RAN wasn't on my list... Nor were any Woody Allen films; like him or hate him, he's one of the most influential filmmakers of the modern era.

I probably broke some rules here mentioning some films by name.

Personally, I am a big Star Wars fan with my favorite being A New Hope. Honestly though, I enjoy all of the Star Wars films including the prequel series.

In regards to Star Trek, despite my love for Star Wars, I am a far bigger fan of Star Trek than Star Wars. In my opinion, Star Trek is a more compelling, universal series. To me, it has many more layers and levels of meaning than Star Wars. Related to this, it is absolutely loaded with philosophy, which is a topic I intimately love. By the way, I only regard on screen material as part of either series. I do not take the books and so forth for either series into account. Also, the term "Star Trek" refers to all the shows and movies, not just TOS ("The Old Series").

Okay, here's the latest.

- We have a total of 229 nominated films from 17 HDC members, myself included.

- The number of films which figure in TWO or more lists stands at 60.

- This means, we have to find 40 more films (and 25 Honorable Mentions) from the rest (which is 169 in number).

- Debating will be phase-wise, which means, we shall tackle the films in the order of the most number of representations, proceeding on to the next batch, and so on.

- Debating should be interesting once we reach the TWO and single nomination films.


First batch will be up later today. Sharpen your pencils and get ready to rap those gavels!

I really just hoped that a lot of the great ones I missed were on other lists.

I started off with a rough draft of about 40 or so movies then started to thin it out as best I could, but I wasn't ever really satisfied with my final 20. I'm hoping some people have picked up on a few classics that didn't quite make my cut or that I just overlooked altogether and that some of the lesser known classics aren't completely ignored. Its not easy picking just 20 movies.

Whittling down my 55-odd to the final 20 which are my favorites AND are equally great in their standings in their own genre (IMO) was a really tough task as well.

Be sure I'll be fighting tooth and nail for the ones I listed and which ended up in the two or less votes' sections. :halloween:

Picking just 20 movies was incredibly hard - much harder than when we made the horror list, because at least that was limited to one genre. With all genres BUT horror, there was so much to choose from.

As you'll probably find out, I have 4 movies from the same movie franchise on my list, and I debated that a lot with myself - should I just pick the best one of them, and make room for 3 completely different movies. But then again, I couldn't actually choose between what I consider to be 4 incredible works of art, and hated the thought of picking what I felt was a less deserving movie over one of them.

So... my list might be a little "boring" in that way, but my choices came from the heart, and I have a "defence" for every choice... I also fully expect that I'm going to need it! ::big grin::