Similar to the list of the best horror movies ever made, this list highlights the movies that made you jump the highest and cursed you with the worst nightmares. The 1. 00 Greatest Movies of All Time by Entertainment Weekly. Entertainment. Weekly's. Greatest Movies of All Time, a hardcover guide published in. Time- Life Inc. Facts and Commentary About the List: The final list was whittled down from a preliminary collection. The final 1. 00 choices deliberately. American Film Institute's most glaring omissions - Preston. Sturges, Buster Keaton, and Ernst Lubitsch, and added some of the best. Fellini, Truffaut, and Kurosawa. An additional 2. 5 more films were listed below the major. The most represented. Alfred Hitchcock (with four films), and there were three. Michael Curtiz, David Lean, Martin Scorsese, Steven. IGN's Editors count down the 100 greatest video games ever made. Certified Fresh. Movies and TV shows are Certified Fresh with a steady Tomatometer of 75% or higher after a set amount of reviews (80 for. Box-Office Top 100 Films of All-Time: Rankings of both US (Domestic) and Worldwide Box-Office blockbusters have been compiled from various recent sources. Entertainment Weekly's 100 Greatest Movies of All Time, a hardcover guide published in 1999 by Time-Life Inc. Spielberg, and Billy Wilder. Note: The films that are marked with a yellow. Best Movies of ALL TIME . You also hate us. Anyway, you click on us, which is the surest way a website has of measuring interest in its content. The All- TIME 1. 00 Movies feature—compiled by Richard Schickel and me, and handsomely packaged by Josh Macht, Mark Coatney and all the smart folks at TIME. May 2. 3rd, its opening daym, in time for Father’s Day. Thousands of readers have written in to cheer or challenge our selections, and thousands more have voted for their own favorites. The response simply underscores Richard’s and my long- held belief that everybody has two jobs: his own and movie critic. The idea was to assemble 1. TIME began, with the March 3, 1. Later, each of us was asked to contribute five items in sidebars called Great Performances (acting), Guilty Pleasures (trash treasures) and Top Scores (soundtracks). Essentially, though, a century of movies from 8. That shouldn’t be hard: pick a picture for each year, with 1. Not so simple, in fact, for we faced a couple of complications. The first was that two of us were to agree on the selections; and, though my admiration for Schickel is hardly bounded, and he probably doesn’t mind me, no two critics will agree on all, or even most, great films. The other is the onus of the list- making process. It’s a truism that a list like this takes either an hour (go with your initial inspirations) or a month (weigh every film with Solomonic probity). Our effort clocked in at about four months, off and on. And the clock is still running. Why do the list? I guess Josh and Mark and Jim Kelly, our peerless leader, hoped to sharpen the profile of the website, and indirectly the magazine. Not I, of course. As a TIME staff member, I write for the website pro bono, or rather pro ego. Or, honestly, for the fun of it. That’s how this TIME 1. LISTOMANIAI feel one of my grand gender generalizations coming on, and I can’t resist it, so here goes. Guys love to make lists. The assembling and codifying of useless information speaks to our inner math nerd, our rampant nostalgiast. Girls can play Little League baseball now, but the kid in the stands keeping the box score, and tallying individual achievements into season slugging percentages, is very likely to be a boy. Turning our pastimes into numbers is a way not only of quantifying but also of justifying them. They acquire an atomic weight; to rank them is to give them solidity, meaning. As a kid I would study the major league batting averages in the Sunday paper more assiduously than any school subject, and I kept box scores of the games our neighborhood team played. Sometimes I devised imaginary box scores too. I know what you’re thinking: he must have been a lonely child. Actually, I wasn’t; I had a loving, indulgent family. But around the nation, countless other kids, more talented or preoccupied than I, were doing the same thing, bending the MLB numbers, reconfiguring the figures. Eventually they would form a group, the Society for American Baseball Research, SABR for short. One of their group, Bill James, coined the term SABRmetrics to describe the grown- up, boy- like study of those numbers. The statistics they produced, and the inferences they made from those stats, would enrich the game and change the way it was played. So there. As with baseball, so with favorite movies, TV shows, comics. One of my youthful heroes was Fred Von Bernewitz, a Maryland boy not much older than I was. He created, mimeographed and published the E. C. Checklist, a compilation of every story in each of the dozen or so “New Trend” comic books (Vault of Horror, Weird Science, Mad, etc.) that EC published from 1. Bless his innocent obsession. His list was a signal to hundreds of other E. C. I mean, how could it be, if so many other shared it? A half- century later, with the hardcover, much- expanded edition of the Checklist still in print (under the title Tales of Terror! The EC Companion), Von Bernewitz’s labor of adolescent love is easy to celebrate as trash- art pedantry. Back then, though, applying the rudimentary scholarship of list- making to comics was as radical as Brando’s first movie mumble, or the scream of Little Richard on “Long Tall Sally.”I too was a teenage listmaker. I saw a lot of movies and, at year’s end, picked my favorites. I recently dug up my Top Five of 1. The Seventh Seal, Some Like It Hot, North By Northwest, Rio Bravo and Imitation of Life. Looking at this quintet, I marvel at the maturity of my youthful tastes—or do I curse my lifelong adolescence?—since, 4. I nominated all five for the TIME 1. The point is that listmaking is a first step to an informed enthusiasm. Juggling, sifting, thinking about the best films leads to measured judgments, the plundering of film histories, a nascent critical acuity. That’s how a hobby becomes a craft, sometimes a career. Just add verbs and thoughts. Can the choices Schickel and I made have the shelf life of the Von Bernewitz checklist? Probably not; this is just one of what must be a hundred 1. Does film criticism have an equivalent to SABRmetrics—cinemetrics? You can’t calibrate genius. There are no Win Scores, no Favorite Toy, for movies and their makers. Many readers would say that Schickel and I have no greater claim than anyone else to impose our crotchets on you. Doesn’t everyone see a lot of movies and, gradually, amass some all- time preferences? Sure. But, pardon me, we’re better. Our claims to expertise: 1. Our employment is our diploma. Still and all, list of favorites like the All- TIME 1. Movies is just that: a banquet, a groaning board of our fondest prejudices. You’re all invited to devour the food, or throw it at us. ONCE, TWICE, THREE TIMES 1. There are 1. 01 ways to choose 1. But I participated only in this century selection, so I’ll tell you what I did. First it’s like a game: I’m throwing a party—who should be on the guest list? My idea was to invite different sorts for a richer mix. Highbrows and no- brows, the solemn and the frivolous, embracing many genres (musical, western) and forms (short films, experimental, documentaries). I want the Marx Brothers to co- exist with a Robert Bresson nano- drama. And Indian family melodramas to rub shoulders with 7. An eight- decade, international melange. Then it’s research. I re- viewed many of the films under consideration. I looked at the IMDb’s list of the top 2. I dipped once more into Roger Ebert’s two volumes called The Great Movies, which contain some very thoughtful journalism on the subject. I also took a long browse through the stacks of that moldy old library of film trivia, my brain. The result was about 1. Richard the First (Schickel) had already compiled a list of 1. Neither of us knew the other’s preferences until we’d finished this initial round. After this double- blind taste test, the serious work began on the All- TIME 1. Movies. Finally, then, it’s like a marriage—the intimate exchange of opinions and passions, the business of collating, collaborating and compromising. Once, twice, three times 1. Schickel’s list, my list, our list. For movie critics, deciding which films are best is an anecdotal way of debating first principles. It’s theoretical and, toward the end of the process, it’s personal. Schickel and I were the co- captains of a lifeboat, with some of our favorites clinging to the sides, and we had to determine whose stiff fingers to pry off, which noble films to send into the sea of anonymity. One of the great, not guilty, pleasures of this exercise was to spend lots of quality schmoozing time—on the phone, through e- mail and frequently in person—with my colleague on the other coast. I live and work in Manhattan, Schickel is based in L. A. But whereas I do all my work for TIME, the magazine and website, he is a busy- busy freelance: writing books, contributing a book review column to the Los Angeles Times and cobbling up feature- length documentaries on top auteurs, most recently Woody Allen, Charles Chaplin and Martin Scorsese. He snorted at some of my selections (notably, The Fly); I yawned at some of his. He thought I was too much the China hand and Bolly- woosiast; I rankled at the inclusion of nearly every film noir melodrama ever made. I argued that, with A Streetcar Named Desire representing Marlon Brando and director Elia Kazan, the presence of the Kazan- Brando On the Waterfront was redundant; he trumped my nagging by citing Waterfront in the Great Performances and Top Scores sections. Schickel and I knew we were playing a game; we did our research; and we’re still married. CUTTING ROOM FLOOR: Here are the films from our original lists that were dropped: Schickel’s Cuts. Corliss’s Cuts. INSIDE THE LISTSA scanning of both lists shows that Schickel and Corliss agreed on 3. Sherlock Jr., Sunrise, City Lights, King Kong, Bride of Frankenstein, His Girl Friday, Pinocchio, The Lady Eve, Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Double Indemnity, Children of Paradise, Detour, White Heat, Kind Hearts and Coronets, A Streetcar Named Desire, Singin’ in the Rain, Ikiru, Ugetsu, Smiles of a Summer Night, Sweet Smell of Success, Yojimbo, The Manchurian Candidate, 8- 1/2, Persona, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Aguirre the Wrath of God, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, E. T. Note that, as we approach the present day, agreement gets rarer. We had 1. 0 coincidental selections in the 1. That mirrors a consensus on classic films, especially classics from Hollywood, and a fragmenting of taste ever since. There were also five movies on both early lists that didn’t make the final selection: Potemkin, Scarface, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, Raise the Red Lantern and All About My Mother. All worthy films. What happened? I guess we came to think of Potemkin an “official” great film that lodged in our memories more than in our guts. Raise the Red Lantern I reluctantly dumped in favor of another Gong Li- starring Chinese film, Farewell My Concubine, with its explicit approach to Chinese politics and a great performance by Leslie Cheung. The 3. 0 Best Horror Movies Of All Time. Almost as long as there has been cinema there have been horror movies. While the genre is often branded with the stigma of being low- brow, cheap, and only for hardcore fans of jump scares and gore, it is also responsible for some of the greatest films of all- time, and certainly many of our favorites fall somewhere along the horror spectrum. Just as there are trashy, forgettable, throwaway horror films every year, there are also those that that play upon our greatest fears to create tension, an ominous atmosphere, and to terrify us to our very core. The history genre is full of monsters, both human and otherwise, horrific events, and chilling scenarios that thrill us, scare us, keep us on the proverbial edge of our seats, and stick around to haunt our nightmares long after we leave the theater. The list that follows is Cinema Blend’s definitive, once- and- for- all comment on the greatest horror movies ever made, though we can’t help but wish there was room for 5. Will you agree with all of our choices? Probably not, but we’re willing to bet that some of your favorites made the cut. Friday The 1. 3th. A franchise most known for it’s hulking, un- killable, hockey- mask- wearing, machete- wielding villain Jason Voorhees, it’s easy to forget that this iconic antagonist isn’t really a part of Sean Cunninghams’s 1. Along with the likes of Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 1. Full of tension and shocks and a very young Kevin Bacon getting speared through the neck, Friday the 1. Shaun Of The Dead. Shaun of the Dead is the one movie on this list that works as a comedy first and as a horror second, but it does both so exceedingly well that there was no way this slice of fried gold could be ignored. From the minds of star Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright, 2. Shaun of the Dead gave the zombie genre the . With homages galore and weapons ranging from rifles to cricket bats to the Batman soundtrack on vinyl (but not Purple Rain), the movie wisely balances the narrative spotlight between imaginative zombie kills and the pub- loving Shaun fighting to keep his life from spiraling away. As quotable as it is blood- soaked and hilarious, Shaun of the Dead is boosted by a stellar supporting cast of talented Brits, including Bill Nighy, Dylan Moran, Kate Ashfield and Lucy Davis (among many others). Fuck- a- doodle- do, this movie is fantastic. Suspiria. With the giallo subgenre, Italian filmmakers put their own unique, memorable stamp on horror. None of them left quite the mark that Dario Argento did, and none of his impressive body of work stands quite as tall as 1. Suspiria. When an American ballet student enrolls in prestigious German dance academy, she finds much more than she bargained for, as sinister supernatural forces leave a trail of violent, grisly murders. Glossy and blood- spattered, Suspiria is visually stunning—a virtual nightmare captured on film—violent, shocking, and with a score by the legendary prog rock band Goblin, the finished product is a hallucinatory sensory overload. And I mean that as the highest compliment. Repulsion. With movies like Knife in the Water and Rosemary’s Baby, Roman Polanski has shown that you don’t necessarily need monsters and jump scares to make a truly terrifying film. Case in point: his first English- language feature, 1. Repulsion. Starring Catherine Deneuve, the story follows her character, Carol, a woman repulsed by all things sexual, who, when her sister leaves her alone for a holiday, comes unwound, sinks into a depression, and is tormented by horrific visions and hallucinations, all of which culminate in shocking real- world violence. Repulsion is widely regarded as one of the all- time greats in the realm of psychological horror, and that acclaim has rightly remained for more than half a century. Don’t Look Now. When a married couple (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie), attempting to come to terms with the death of their young daughter, travel to Venice, they’re haunted by a series of mysterious occurrences and reminders of death after an encounter with two elderly sisters comes with warnings from beyond. Clearly wearing Hitchcockian influences on his sleeve, Nicolas Roeg’s 1. Don’t Look Now employs occult sensibilities, explores the impact of grief on a relationship, and delivers a chilling, menacing story, tinged with melodrama and the supernatural, that sticks with you long after watching. Psychologically and thematically dense, it’s an examination of the human psyche as filtered through the lens of a tense, tight horror thriller. The Thing. Like many great horror movies, the ones that endure over the years, John Carpenter’s 1. The Thing From Another World, The Thing, was initially dismissed by most critics as being nothing more than an excessive gross- out schlock film. However, in the decades since its release, it has been reappraised and become recognized as one of the great offerings of the genre. A jagged sci- fi thriller that continually creates a tense, taut atmosphere of paranoia and doubt, The Thing follows the rugged crew at an isolated Antarctic research facility as they’re besieged by an alien presence that can assume the form of anything it touches. Playing to gut- level fears and using grotesquely memorable practical creature effects, this is Carpenter, one of the masters of horror, working at the very top of his game. And the ambiguous ending is still the subject of great conversation and debate. Days Later. No one can argue that George A. Romero is the godfather of zombie movies, but with 2. Days Later, director Danny Boyle became the cool uncle of zombie movies that would show up with a case of beer and a couple of sledgehammers. Headed by Cillian Murphy at his most hypnotic, and from a script penned by future Ex Machina filmmaker Alex Garland, 2. Days Later technically replaced the undead kind of zombies with fast- moving abominations fueled by a rage virus, but it still fits into (and sits near the top) of the subgenre. What starts as a stunning and contemplative look at a London mostly devoid of people turns into a rapidly worsening slide into terror as Murphy’s Jim and his fellow survivors come face to face with the somewhat predictable but still hideous outcome of such a population- depleted planet. Winning performances from Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson and Christopher Eccleston only add to its superiority. Scream. In the current landscape, it’s practically impossible to have a horror movie that doesn’t have meta, self- referential elements. You can thank horror master Wes Craven and his 1. Scream for that. As annoying as this trope has become in recent years, as handled by Craven, Scream was a game changer. Using comedy, a whodunit- style mystery, and every slasher clich. Beyond any academic praise you want to heap on the film, at the same time Scream is all of these things, it’s also a great horror film, one that is inventive and funny and harrowing all at the same time. The Blair Witch Project. Similar in spirit (if not style) to producer/director William Castle’s attempts in the 1. The Blair Witch Project was bolstered by fairly extensive pre- release buzz that sold the central story of three missing documentary filmmakers as genuine truth. It’s safe to say that approach was effective, as the film eventually grossed almost $2. At that point, . By choosing indirect and abstract scares to keep viewers unsettled, and letting . Rarely has a less- is- more strategy panned out so successfully. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. An argument can be made that only bad films should get the remake treatment, but 1. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a monolith of an exception. Perhaps it isn’t better in every way than the 1. Jack Finney’s novel), but it’s one hell of a lot more effective as a horror film. Kicking off a solid run of films for director Philip Kaufman, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is the pod people movie to rule them all, and its legacy is cemented by stars Donald Sutherland, his mustache, and Brooke Adams (not to mention Jeff Goldblum and Leonard Nimoy), as well as some of the most fabulously disgusting special effects of the decade. The film also exhibits its 1. Or wherever you want to call that psyche- shattering mutant dog. A Nightmare On Elm Street. The only franchise I can recall that made jumping rope unnervingly creepy, the Nightmare on Elm Street films remain championed more than most genre series for never fully settling into haphazardly conceived dreck. And it all started with Wes Craven’s 1. Freddy Krueger. Everything a horror fan could hope for is in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Freddy is the greatest movie monster of all time, the cast (including an infant Johnny Depp) is perfect, the backstory is chilling and the kills. Freddy’s glove is a masterpiece of weaponry, but this movie’s best deaths were Tina’s, in which her bleeding body is dragged all over her bedroom’s walls and ceiling, and Glen’s, whose murder results in a wonderful geyser of blood shooting up from his bed. Depp’s character said it best: . Baseball bats and boogeymen. Bride Of Frankenstein. When Bride of Frankenstein was first released in 1. Internet where people could argue over the value of movie sequels. Acclaimed but not entirely beloved upon its release, James Whale’s follow- up to his own 1. With Ernest Thesiger eagerly welcomed as Henry Frankenstein’s former mentor Doctor Pretorius, Bride of Frankenstein tells the ghastly next chapter in the story of Henry and Boris Karloff’s Monster, treating viewers to visual and aural splendor for a grisly tale that climaxes in the creation of the Monster’s Bride, played with magnificence by Elsa Lanchester and her unforgettable hair. The Bride is sadly only in the movie for a brief period, but her . One can only wonder what the film would have been like had it not been a big target for censorship. Evil Dead 2. Rare is the sequel that surpasses its predecessor in almost every way, but hail to the king of modern horror follow- ups, baby.
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