Comment by JKCalhoun | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JKCalhoun | Hacker News Reader

Somehow I swirled around for a minute or so and didn't see anything I would want to watch.

"This gallery features a collection of the 50,000 most popular* movies according to TMDB"

Yeah, there's the problem. I went to the TMDB site and tried sorting by popularity, rating … all I got was a whole bunch of recent films that look like all the reasons the film industry is crashing (you know, the kind of stuff you would see in a Red Box when they were still a thing).

If you really don't know what to watch you could do a lot worse than checking off films on this list (the 1001 Movies to See Before You Die):

https://1001films.fandom.com/wiki/The_List

(And you have already seen a number of them I expect.)

Elitist? Maybe. But if you can actually get through the list (I've been at it, casually, for several years now) you'll feel like you have acquired a film school degree.

I think it's fine to watch "8 ½" and hate it — at least you'll know that you hate it now. But it would be sad if you never saw "La Strada" because you thought all of Fellini's films were impenetrable.

"Marty", "Stella Dallas", "The Hustler" — just a few great American films that came to mind that I would have otherwise missed…

But if the latest Guardian of the Pirate's of the Marvel Universe movie are your cup of tea you probably have no problem finding something to watch anyway and can pass on "The List".

That list has Avatar and La La Land on it. It’s definitely not elitist!

There’s some real gems on lists like this but some of the older stuff would definitely be a slog for most people and would probably need to be put into context to make sense.

Recently I’ve engaged in a practice of just hitting play on any old movie on Prime with at least an actor or director or even studio I’ve heard of. Essentially any film from the 40s to the 00s that had a budget and was remembered enough to make it to Prime. It’s been quite rewarding, all sorts of hidden gems out there even from the 70s through 90s. Even the mediocre stuff from then is often more nuanced and creative than a lot what you get today.

> would probably need to be put into context to make sense

You're right. The book ("1001 Movies to See Before You Die") gives that context. I was surprised though that, as I went through them — slogging even, as you say, at times — in time I started to develop perhaps a new way of looking at film. And then slowly I found I was "slogging" a lot less. I began even thinking a bit more fondly back on the films I had seen earlier on that had been more of struggle for me to watch.

> with at least an actor or director or even studio I’ve heard of

I think that's the gist: anything goes, and maybe start with 3 of anything!

...based on genre (Comedy): Tampopo (1985), Matchstick Men (2003), Force Majeure (2014)

...based on subgenre (Heist): The Killing (1956), Thief (1981), Sexy Beast (2001)

...based on director (Kelly Reichardt): Old Joy (2006), First Cow (2019), Showing Up (2022)

...based on production studio (Studio Ghibli): Only Yesterday (1991), Porco Rosso (1992), The Wind Rises (2013)

...based on location (Vienna, AT): The Third Man (1949), Bad Timing (1980), Before Sunrise (1995)

...based on interest (Desires): Deep End (1970), Exotica (1994), Ghost World (2001)

...based on language (French): L'Année dernière à Marienbad (1961), Un homme qui dort (1974), Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (2019)

...based on movement (Czech New Wave): The Sun in a Net (1963), Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970), Morgiana (1972)

etc.

> based on subgenre (Heist):

If you have not seen the OG "Topkapi (1964)" you missed a real gem.

That list has Avengers Infinity War and Endgame on it by the way.

If you're only interested in great movies, no others allowed, then the top 50,000 is bound to disappoint as there aren't that many great movies yet. Setting it to 10k this is what I got in my first 5 (well spread) clicks:

- Ikiru (1952): A fantastic movie, also in the above list

- A Clockwork Orange (1971): Alright, nobody is going to believe these are random if I keep pulling these...

- Tracks (2013): Haven't seen this one, doesn't seem particularly astounding but I'd probably watch it, especially if my wife was wanting to watch something we haven't seen together.

- Songbird (2020): This one looks a bit garbage to me, probably wouldn't watch.

- Osmosis Jones (2001): Watched a few times, maybe a bit of nostalgia but it has been a few years so I would throw this up. Not deserving of the top 1000 by any means... but also not Leprechaun 5: In the Hood (2001).

And that seems pretty reasonable. I'm only about 800 movies in (since I've started tracking), of those only ~400 are in the original 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die list. To me watching straight through the various compendiums of the best movies is actually more dull than mixing in other things like the latest pop films or some stuff that wouldn't make many "top" lists but isn't necessarily bad. It's a bit like touring the best restaurants in a new area - if you do them all in a row then you just lose some of the feeling of variety. I doubt Tracks will leave an impact on my soul to the level of Ikiru, but I still want to watch things like that often.

Osmosis Jones has Bill Murray. Anything with Bill Murray is likely not too bad. And so on. There are many little walking paths like that. :)

Yeah, disappointed that, even in your anecdotal list above, three of the five are in the last dozen years.

Two of the five, with not a single movie from the same decade. Given the production rate of movies has not been constant either, is this really more than the statement "I only want to see old movies"?

I don;t think so — it's just that if you have 100-ish years to choose from, this doesn't seem like a very even spread. To be sure, I would feather off anything too early — the silent era seems only interesting to film historians that want to see where the modern ideas of film began (example: "Battleship Potemkin" (1925)).

But at the same time, Hollywood does seem to have fallen into the trap of mediocrity for some time now — probably since the 1980's to be honest (having only gotten worse over the ensuing decades). "La La Land" was popular in large part because it was something of a throwback to 1930's Hollywood. Tarantino's success seems to stem from his mining of gritty 1970's Hollywood.

So why not go back and watch "Gold Diggers of 1937" for the "La La Land" stuff, or "Straw Dogs" (1971) to see what Tarantino is making homage to.

Without putting any assumption about whether new movies or old movies are more often better, wouldn't one expect a skew somewhat following the skew of rates of movies produced per year?

I did not know of this list -- thanks! According to my Letterboxd, I have seen 757 of them already.

It seems that there are different "editions" of the list, where new films are entered and some are removed, to keep the count constant.

The worst thing, or irony, or something, IMHO, about Marvel isn't even how bad or good any of them are in isolation. It's that they are so similar so close in (release) time to each other.

I'm sure one could make a "top 5 Marvel of the 783 released so far" movies and these 5 are actually pretty darn good.

The joke is though that the list of "top 5" could probably be picked from a pool of 15 good ones and it wouldn't matter. The 15 are all pretty good.

But if you watched all 15 good ones you'd be bored out of your mind because it's the same formula.

And if you watched all the ones which are merely "ok" it's like watching the more boring variants of anime where very little happens over very many hours.

(Specific numbers just made up for the argument.)

real elitists are up to their eyeballs in criterion collection backlog, or so I like to think.

I thank god for Criterion!

Criterion is the antidote to YouTube shorts and TikTok

I discovered I love just about every movie Bogart was in through Criterion

The list has 'Watership Down' that I found very quickly and liked

Snatch (2000) isn't on it? Blasphemous.

I'll add it – two minutes Turkish.

Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels is on it, which arguably is a better film.

Strange list. Some great films, some absolute shit and glaring omissions [1].

[1] for my personal taste

Love to hear your omissions.

And as for absolute shit? Yeah, there's Andy Warhol on there.

Hey now... Flesh for Frankenstein is a fun weird mess, at least.

Sharing some in my all-time top ratings which are not in the list (would be cool if other folks shared some of theirs as well):

- Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022): Newer than the cutoff date of the list.

- Your Name (2016): I'm not usually a fan of Anime but this newer film hit different.

- Sunshine (2007): This one I know I consider far better than most do, but it's one of my favorite variants on this kind of story for some reason. Also Cillian Murphy is my favorite actor in the modern era.

All 3 of these happen to be from after the original 2003 book from Steven Jay Schneider as well (though they aren't in the newer list either). I find he did a really good job of covering the classics, but I'm sure if I dug through my top 100 I'd hit something older I liked a lot that didn't make the cut. I'm just too lazy to :D

"One, Two, Three" (1961) is Cold War comedy gold.

"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (1945) is a real tear-jerker even 70 years later.

One, Two, Three was great! I hadn't heard of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, added to the watch list for sure. Thanks

There’s Toy Story 1-4 on there and Star Wars Force awakens, but for popular films it doesn’t have the incredibles, no Star Trek (perhaps include ii), few/no bond films (Casino Royale?), few Miyazakis (Nausicaa, Mononoke), not many Tarantinos (hateful 8), not too many Burtons (Batman 2, Big Fish, Sleepy Hollow). Is there any Indiana Jones? Could include Starship Troopers.

Just a few:

Kin Dza Dza.

Tomorrow I will wake up and scald myself with tea.

Big trouble in Little China.

My neighbour Totoro.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com