Much like that of Metallica, Tarantino's work is laughably stupid and made even more so by the fact that it purports to be high art.

On the top 50 list, maybe it's not there (although I think it would rate higher than 'Duck SOup' or 'The Good, the Bad & the Ugly'), but it's not on the top 250 list from IMDb. The IMDb list reads like the average voter was 12 years old.

Sheesh, I must be getting old.

Critics seem to have a thing against warmth, good friends, color. It does not show your sophistication that "you" vastly prefer Pulp Fiction to Forrest Gump--it merely shows you have a more pronounced, sullen side. We're trying to become a nation of non-smokers, remember?

One word. Overrrated

Actually a preference for Pulp Fiction over Forrest Gump is not so much a matter of sullenness but a preference for inventiveness and wit over warmed-over,cheesy pablum; a preference for a movie that celebrates the arbitrariness of life(and death) over a world where if you do as you're told and never question authority your success is assured (yeah right) while the dirty amoral hippie chick gets Aids and dies.

Any list that does not include Mizoguchi's Ugetsu Monogatari and Sancho the Bailiff is not to be taken seriously. These films are works of art that can change your view of human life. Annie Hall? - crap entertainment at best.

I hope that someday soon the critical world will rise above this obsession with simplifying our opinions into nonsensical lists. We seem to forget, with all our semi-futile attempts to define concretely the intangible concepts of "good movie" and "bad movie," that these lists have no actual authority. They are collections of opinions that seem to exist only to facilitate bullshit film geek discussions where the other party will only be satisfied if they can bully the other into submission, and frankly, I had enough of those in film school.

I'm not saying that critics shouldn't continue to try and define concretely what's good and bad, but these lists add a masturbatory sports-like competition that only raises blood pressure levels.

Yes, I agree, it's a shame that American film geeks are biased against foreign film, and that nostalgia has made the way we view some films a little fuzzy, but pissing and moaning about why people can't have better taste, just makes you seem like you should be writing for Ain't It Cool News. Taste and opinion is what it is, and whining isn't going to change a thing. Rather than making lists and complaining about lists, why don't film critics take the effort to remind us what's so great about these commonly accepted "great films?" That would at least be productive.

I've always thought Rear Window is a much better film than Vertigo.

For some recent pull-no-punches great films, try "Blind Shaft" and "Blind Mountain" by Yang Li. Great movies despite the lack of explosions and helicopters.

Point well taken in re The Canon. Perhaps, Andrew, someone (say, you) should put together a meta-List of the top 30 films in the past 30 years (i.e., since the end of the Second Golden Era). We might find there the happy medium between the Critics and IMDB. I can say that in 12 years of teaching film courses at a midwestern college, and asking in the first class of each what each student's favorite movie is, that Shawshank Redemption and Princess Bride have been mentioned by at least one person almost every time, and usually by more than one. Does that make them the equal of Casablanca or Duck Soup? (If not 2001 or Persona...) I'd say no, but my reasons have become more and more abstruse. One final point: I show Sunrise to my survey Am film course, and it is regularly the film they leave the class most impressed with. Its placement is genuine...as opposed to my big question mark, Blade Runner, which, if it were to be judged by the voiced-over version those of us saw in the theatre upon release, would be rated as one of the 50 most disappointing movies ever. Its reputation (and, to some extent, that of Apocalypse Now) has been saved and burnished by the video/DVD re-releases, which seems a tad unfair.

Not one Eastwood film? I suggest you take out all the Billy Wilders and replace them with Clint Eastwood films. Then you better add REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, and GIANT, because you can't talk about film without James Dean, and you need to give George Stevens some space, because you didn't include SHANE. BLOW UP deserves a spot, because it did for film what A Day in the Life did for popular music in 60's. LA DOLCE VITA would have scored higher but they were slow to bring out the DVD? A lot of these choices reflect television, what it chooses to showcase, and how well these films make the transition. Eastwood is my major disappointment, maybe his films are dark and plodding? How important is a films transition to television? Arthur Penn came from television to film, and not one mention. BONNIE AND CLYDE, top ten I think. But then THE BIRDS is better than PSYCHO, and it's in color. Go figure.

I find that I swing between Rear Window, Vertigo and Notorious as my favorite Hitchcock movie depending on the mood I'm in when I watch any of them. If not for the horrid epilogue in Psycho, that would be up there with the aforementioned as well.

Interesting point. I'd never really considered the unfair advantage Blade Runner has. The only version I've seen is the re-edited version. I wonder how many other "disappointments" would have been reborn as masterpieces if their directors had been given a second chance at fixing a studio-made mess. On the other hand, there's George Lucas (I'm not a fan but can still appreciate the outrage from the Star Wars set).

PurpleMiller mentioned: 'as opposed to my big question mark, Blade Runner, which, if it were to be judged by the voiced-over version those of us saw in the theatre upon release, would be rated as one of the 50 most disappointing movies ever. Its reputation (and, to some extent, that of Apocalypse Now) has been saved and burnished by the video/DVD re-releases, which seems a tad unfair.'

I have just the opposite take to you. I think the voice-over version is by far the best one. You miss various pieces of the plot without the voiceover. The better graphics/CGI of the re-release are minor upgrades (IMO), but losing the voiceover hurts the movie.