Definitive List of Films List

September 23, 2012 8:35 PM

Film nerd filter: I'm looking for the best film lists ever assembled, with extra points to those lists that are some what more specific and obscure.

I'm wanting to put together a definitive list of film lists. I want lists that meet the following criteria:

- More specific than general. For example, AFI's 100 YEARS...100 MOVIES is of less interest to me than Empire Magazine's The 50 Greatest American Independent Movies, solely because it is less specific.

- The list's specificity can be directed at any aspect: best films from a particular country, genre, theme (e.g., ultra-violent)

- The person/group that assembled the list needs to hold some kind of clout in the world of film. I'm not interest in a personal list, unless the creator is someone special.

- The more obscure, the better.

All that said, if in doubt, throw it out there.

posted by JPowers to media & arts (11 answers total)

Alex Cox's 10,000 Ways To Die (about spaghetti westerns) and Moviedrome guides (cult films). Both available from the man himself here.
posted by felix grundy at 8:50 PM on September 23, 2012

This USC Graduate School list of movies is highly regarded. I can't find the original source which is a bunch of scanned typed pages, with hand written notes and additions passed down through the years.
posted by plasticbugs at 9:05 PM on September 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm here to recommend any list or book or tv show compilation by Joe Bob Briggs, drive-in movie critic extraordinaire. He likes to rate movies by body count, naked breasts, and kung-fu (or any kind of fu, actually). All of our favorite B-52 movies, we found through Joe Bob.
posted by rw at 9:12 PM on September 23, 2012

Jonathan Rosenbaum's top 100, top 1000
posted by hydrophonic at 9:13 PM on September 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

Tarantino likes releasing lists. I guess he has a little clout.

You might be interested in a zine called Cinema Sewer, but I wouldn't say he's got clout.

I think there's going to be trade-off that the narrower the focus of the list, the more likely it comes from someone without clout.

Maybe Fangoria's top 300?

And AV Club often compiles lists in their Inventories.
posted by RobotHero at 10:29 PM on September 23, 2012

www.bleedingcool.com/2012/03/26/martin-scorseses-39-foreign-films-to-watch-before-you-die/
posted by victory_laser at 11:52 PM on September 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

Back in 2001, the critic Derek Malcolm produced his list of the twentieth century's 100 greatest films.
posted by hydatius at 6:24 AM on September 24, 2012

TSPDT's 250 Quintessential Noir Films.
posted by afx237vi at 7:02 AM on September 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

You might be able to find some here.
posted by Otis at 7:30 AM on September 24, 2012

The lists at Senses of Cinema are useful.
posted by faustdick at 8:22 AM on September 24, 2012

The lists from Cahiers du Cinema (wiki) tend to veer off the beaten path.

The guy who maintains that list, Eric Johnson, has a whole lotta lists on his site from various publications and critics.
posted by musicismath at 12:44 PM on September 24, 2012 [2 favorites]