103 Movies You Have To See or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Poll

[a pretty girl is like]

Night of the Hunter.  I know we have Coen Bros. fans here.  Find out why they get so much inspiration from this.  It's American gothic meets German expressionism meets The Munsters.

[Kete]

I love the part when Robert Mitchum sticks Shelley Winters in the wood chipper.

[Asbestos Bill]

Drive

[Darth Geek]

How the hell has MST3K: The Movie not gotten voted in yet?

[LucasM]

D.B. nominated it before, and it was shot down by others because it was "too new" and that it might be caught up in 'too much hype'.

"The Avengers"

My thought is that I am seldom affected by what others think is a 'good' or 'not good' film; I am perfectly capable of assessing a film, regardless of hype, and I believe others here can also.

Do I think the film is a masterpiece?  No.  If it weren't for all the characterization from the five films leading up to this, I think it would feel a bit shallow, as there isn't much time for characterization in it.  Do I think Whedon did a good job of pulling together the nine characters necessary for the film (the six Avengers, Fury, Colson, and, of course, Loki)?  Heck yeah.  Do I think Whedon did an overall great job on a film that people said 'couldn't be done'?  Yes.  But those also aren't really why I think it deserves to be on the list.

To quote myself from a couple pages back [stuff related directly to this in blue, the rest left for context]:

My approach for what I've been choosing is sort of an amalgam of different ideas (I think many were expressed by others early in the thread).  My selections have been 'if someone was new to this country (or planet), what films would be most important for them to see in order to get a handle on what this country is 'about' culturally'.

In some cases, that is film history (showing where our entertainment grew from [e.g. Chaplin]), in others it is 'often referenced' films [e.g. The Matrix], in others it is 'fine example of the craft of moviemaking' [e.g. Bridge on the River Kwai], and in still others it may simply be 'what people liked enough to pay a lot of money to see, and often repeatedly' [e.g. Avatar, and, if nominated, Titanic, and if/when it might be renominated, The Avengers, because any film that could get the country/planet - in probably the worst world-wide financial collapse we've seen (since film was created, at least) - go and shell out over a billion dollars to see, is 'relevant' to the planet/country... regardless of it's other film qualities].

[[Just woke up and in a couple paragraphs re-fried my brain.  (Unfortunately, zombies LOVE twice-fried brains!)  I'd best go back to silence/stealth mode. ]]

[Kete]

Poll is up!

[Kete]

Poll is complete. The winners are:
MST3K: The Movie
The Shawshank Redemption
The Avengers

We need 10 more movies for the next poll.

[Russell]

WHOA WHOA WHOA! Do we mean the Avengers from 1998 or the one from 2012? because the distinction must be made considering they were both mainstream and impossible to erase from our memories.

[goflyblind]

i thought it was the 1912 movie about the crimean war. that's why i voted for it.

[Relaxing Dragon]

I'm gonna nominate Scream again. Apart from being about as influential as you can get for the entire genre, it's one of the few truly great horror movies to come out of the 90s. Considering what a genre wasteland that decade was, that's something to be proud of.

[Darth Geek]

I'm gonna nominate Scream again. Apart from being about as influential as you can get for the entire genre, it's one of the few truly great horror movies to come out of the 90s. Considering what a genre wasteland that decade was, that's something to be proud of.

I don't consider Scream great by any stretch, but a lot of that genre wasteland is because of Scream.

[Relaxing Dragon]

I'm gonna nominate Scream again. Apart from being about as influential as you can get for the entire genre, it's one of the few truly great horror movies to come out of the 90s. Considering what a genre wasteland that decade was, that's something to be proud of.

I don't consider Scream great by any stretch, but a lot of that genre wasteland is because of Scream.

Feelings on greatness aside, I don't agree that Scream had so much to do with that wasteland. It didn't even enter the scene until after the halfway point, and a lot of the immediate imitators were actually going after I Know What You Did Last Summer (a copycat of a copycat scenario, if you will). At any rate, influential movies can hardly be blamed for what the lazier set tries to copy them with (The Matrix is still a benchmark film, even if it unleashed Bullet Time on the entertainment world).

[Tripe]

All right I'll add Excalibur back into the mix.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I'll go with Animal House this round, it got a lot of votes before but was up against some pretty stiff competition.

[Edward J Grug III]

I nominate Arsenic and Old Lace.