Overall Best to Worst: #151-251

Overall Best to Worst of #151-251

This list is my overall best to worst of every movie I've seen so far on my list of 251. I fully expect this list to get harder to compile every time I finish a set of 25 movies and need to incorporate those, but it'll be fun to see how I rank all 251 movies when I'm done. Without further ado, here it goes.

Movie #	Movie Title	My Grade
198	Apollo 13 (1995)	4.5 out of 5 (Outstanding)
158	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)	4.5 out of 5 (Outstanding)
218	Gran Torino (2008)	4.5 out of 5 (Outstanding)
212	Argo (2012)	4.5 out of 5 (Outstanding)
181	The Intouchables (2011)	4.5 out of 5 (Outstanding)
233	Sophie's Choice (1982)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
205	Cinema Paradiso (1988)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
186	The Prestige (2006)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
164	Amadeus (1984)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
215	Groundhog Day (1993)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
166	Finding Nemo (2003)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
249	Star Trek (2009)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
235	Persona (1966)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
248	Cinderella Man (2005)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
207	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
223	Training Day (2001)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
238	Ocean's Eleven (2001)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
209	Iron Man (2008)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
159	Casino Royale (2006)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
250	The Sting (1973)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
189	Tootsie (1982)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
200	The Bourne Identity (2002)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
176	Cabaret (1972)	4 out of 5 (Excellent)
185	Once Upon a Time in America (1984)	3.5 out of 5 (Very Good)
157	L.A. Confidential (1997)	3.5 out of 5 (Very Good)
193	Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)	3.5 out of 5 (Very Good)
169	Pan's Labyrinth (2006)	3.5 out of 5 (Very Good)
202	In the Heat of the Night (1967)	3.5 out of 5 (Very Good)
226	Rain Man (1988)	3.5 out of 5 (Very Good)
173	Sullivan's Travels (1941)	3.5 out of 5 (Very Good)
165	Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)	3.5 out of 5 (Very Good)
213	The Great Escape (1963)	3.5 out of 5 (Very Good)
168	The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)	3.5 out of 5 (Very Good)
240	A Fistful of Dollars (1964)	3.5 out of 5 (Very Good)
232	When Harry Met Sally (1989)	3.5 out of 5 (Very Good)
190	Cool Hand Luke (1967)	3.5 out of 5 (Very Good)
208	The Thin Red Line (1998)	3.5 out of 5 (Very Good)
244	The Untouchables (1987)	3.5 out of 5 (Very Good)
229	Catch Me If You Can (2002)	3 out of 5 (Good)
199	Ratatouille (2007)	3 out of 5 (Good)
246	Shaun of the Dead (2004)	3 out of 5 (Good)
192	The Breakfast Club (1985)	3 out of 5 (Good)
184	Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)	3 out of 5 (Good)
161	His Girl Friday (1940)	3 out of 5 (Good)
206	Rosemary's Baby (1968)	3 out of 5 (Good)
178	Edward Scissorhands (1990)	3 out of 5 (Good)
172	Casino (1995)	3 out of 5 (Good)
251	Ben-Hur (1959)	3 out of 5 (Good)
174	The Lives of Others (2006)	3 out of 5 (Good)
227	Magnolia (1999)	3 out of 5 (Good)
210	The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)	3 out of 5 (Good)
216	Airplane! (1980)	3 out of 5 (Good)
224	Bringing Up Baby (1938)	3 out of 5 (Good)
177	Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)	3 out of 5 (Good)
194	The Wild Bunch (1969)	3 out of 5 (Good)
225	Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)	2.5 out of 5 (Satisfactory)
154	The Deer Hunter (1978)	2.5 out of 5 (Satisfactory)
167	Nashville (1975)	2.5 out of 5 (Satisfactory)
182	Strangers on a Train (1951)	2.5 out of 5 (Satisfactory)
197	Requiem for a Dream (2000)	2.5 out of 5 (Satisfactory)
155	MASH (1970)	2.5 out of 5 (Satisfactory)
201	A Matter of Life and Death (1946)	2.5 out of 5 (Satisfactory)
211	Wild Strawberries (1957)	2.5 out of 5 (Satisfactory)
242	The Last Picture Show (1971)	2.5 out of 5 (Satisfactory)
231	Swing Time (1936)	2.5 out of 5 (Satisfactory)
214	Brazil (1985)	2.5 out of 5 (Satisfactory)
222	The King of Comedy (1983)	2.5 out of 5 (Satisfactory)
160	Spartacus (1960)	2.5 out of 5 (Satisfactory)
237	The French Connection (1971)	2.5 out of 5 (Satisfactory)
234	The Big Sleep (1946)	2.5 out of 5 (Satisfactory)
204	All the President's Men (1976)	2 out of 5 (Fair)
153	Donnie Darko (2001)	2 out of 5 (Fair)
221	Carrie (1976)	2 out of 5 (Fair)
228	The Conversation (1974)	2 out of 5 (Fair)
241	Grease (1978)	2 out of 5 (Fair)
175	American Graffiti (1973)	2 out of 5 (Fair)
151	La Dolce Vita (1960)	2 out of 5 (Fair)
196	Trainspotting (1996)	2 out of 5 (Fair)
152	West Side Story (1961)	2 out of 5 (Fair)
191	The Great Dictator (1940)	2 out of 5 (Fair)
195	Das Boot (1981)	2 out of 5 (Fair)
170	Come and See (1985)	2 out of 5 (Fair)
247	Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)	1.5 out of 5 (Marginal)
217	Easy Rider (1969)	1.5 out of 5 (Marginal)
179	Harold and Maude (1971)	1.5 out of 5 (Marginal)
162	Touch of Evil (1958)	1.5 out of 5 (Marginal)
180	The African Queen (1951)	1.5 out of 5 (Marginal)
156	Notorious (1946)	1.5 out of 5 (Marginal)
236	Spirit of the Beehive (1973)	1.5 out of 5 (Marginal)
243	Do the Right Thing (1989)	1.5 out of 5 (Marginal)
203	Manhattan (1979)	1.5 out of 5 (Marginal)
187	The Seventh Seal (1957)	1.5 out of 5 (Marginal)
188	Three Colours Red (1994)	1.5 out of 5 (Marginal)
239	Princess Mononoke (1997)	1 out of 5 (Poor)
245	Shadow of a Doubt (1943)	1 out of 5 (Poor)
220	Blue Velvet (1986)	1 out of 5 (Poor)
163	Duck Soup (1933)	1 out of 5 (Poor)
183	Tokyo Story (1953)	1 out of 5 (Poor)
230	Metropolis (1927)	1 out of 5 (Poor)
219	A Night at the Opera (1935)	1 out of 5 (Poor)
171	The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)	1 out of 5 (Poor)

Movie #191: The Great Dictator

Movie #: 191
Movie Title: The Great Dictator
Year Released: 1940

Director: Charles Chaplin
Notable Cast: Charles Chaplin, Jack Oakie, Reginald Gardiner, Henry Daniell, Billy Gilbert, Grace Hayle

Short Description: Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime. (IMDB.com)


Rank on the Top 100 Lists

AFI.com: N/A
IMDB.com: #70
Ranker.com: N/A
Lifed.com: N/A
Empire.com: N/A
FilmCrave.com: N/A
FlickChart.com: N/A



Date Watched: 8/18/2013

What I Liked: N/A

What I Disliked: N/A

Grade: 2 out of 5 (Fair)
Rationale: The only thing I recall 11 months after watching it is being very bored by this movie. I just don’t find Charlie Chaplin to be entertaining.

...The End

It's finally over. Four years after I began the longest and most time consuming project of my life I've accomplished watching the top 251 movies of all time. As I've stated in updates along the way, there were points were I honestly thought I wouldn't finish this project and even I'm a bit surprised I did, albeit two years after when I had initially planned on finishing. Thank you to everyone that's read my blog posts and commented when I share them on Facebook. Knowing that people take the time to at least glance at what I have to say is humbling and I appreciate it very much.

So now that I'm done, what's next? I teased a while back that I had my next project already in mind and I feel it piggybacks on this one very well.

Starting with the review I did for movie #185 I added "(as of 1/7/2013)" after "Rank on the Top 100 Lists" to each of my blogs. The reason was I was three years into the project at that point and I didn't want to imply that the rankings on those top 100 lists were still current. What I didn't realize is that set me up to create an addendum to my project in which I go back and watch movies that would have moved into the top 251 over the last four years.

Of the seven top 100 lists I used, only four of them are regularly updated. A fifth, the list from AFI.com, potentially has an update coming out in 2017 as it's updated every 10 years and was last updated in 2007. I will be using the four lists that have been regularly updated to watch the movies that weren't part of the initial top 251. If AFI.com updates theirs as well, I will watch the movies from that list too that weren't part of the initial top 251. I will still do my best to write blog posts and I will attempt to do the addendum in a timely manner, but I won't set a hard target date.

In addition, below are links to posts for random facts and statistics regarding the top 251 list. There are quite a few things I found interesting while looking at the spreadsheet I've been maintaining and I thought it would be fun to share that information.

What will happen after the addendum is complete? Who knows. I see enough movies in theaters that I could start to blog about those, even if it's just my thoughts and not a professional movie review. Let's get to that point first and determine if there's motivation left in the tank and enough readers to justify the effort.


My Top 100 From The Top 251 List - http://thecomposite251.blogspot.com/2016/12/my-top-100-from-top-251-list.html

Movies I Had Previously Seen - http://thecomposite251.blogspot.com/2016/12/movies-i-had-previously-seen.html

Movies I Hadn't Seen Before - http://thecomposite251.blogspot.com/2016/12/movies-i-hadnt-seen-before.html

Best Picture Oscar Winners - http://thecomposite251.blogspot.com/2016/12/best-picture-oscar-winners.html

The Seven Top 100 Lists Comparison - http://thecomposite251.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-seven-top-100-lists-comparison.html

25 Movie Block Comparison - http://thecomposite251.blogspot.com/2016/12/25-movie-block-comparison.html

Movie Age To Grade Comparison - http://thecomposite251.blogspot.com/2016/12/movie-age-to-grade-comparison.html

Top Graded Movies By Year - http://thecomposite251.blogspot.com/2016/12/top-graded-movies-by-year.html

The Seven Top 100 Lists Comparison

To compile the list of the top 251 movies of all time I settled on using the top 100 lists from seven different websites. While it took a lot of effort to find, combine, rank, and sort seven lists worth of movies, doing so gave me more thorough results that were not biased by the opinion of just one source.

Below is a comparison of the seven top 100 lists by average year and by average grade given to the movies in each top 100 list. For a long time the lists from Empire.com, FlickChart.com, and particularly AFI.com had very low average grades and my running joke was that if I watched a bad movie, likely it was in the top 251 because of those three top 100 lists. The list from FilmCrave.com had an excellent average grade almost from the start and I usually looked forward to watching movies from that list.

Top 100 List	Average Grade	Average Year
FilmCrave.com	3.682 out of 5	1989
Ranker.com	3.586 out of 5	1985
Lifed.com	3.505 out of 5	1981
IMDB.com	3.48 out of 5	1980
FlickChart.com	3.17 out of 5	1970
Empire.com	3.07 out of 5	1976
AFI.com (2007 list)	2.915 out of 5	1963

Movie #1: The Godfather

Movie #: 1
Movie Title: The Godfather
Year Released: 1972

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Notable Cast: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Cann, Richard Castellano, Robert Duvall, Talia Shire, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte, Diane Keaton

Short Description: The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son. (IMDB.com)


Rank on the Top 100 Lists (as of 1/7/2013)

AFI.com: #2
IMDB.com: #2
Ranker.com: #1
Lifed.com: #1
Empire.com: #1
FilmCrave.com: #3
FlickChart.com: #3



Date Watched: 12/29/2016

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 (Very Good)

Rationale: The best parts about The Godfather, without a doubt, are the story and characters, particularly Don Corleone, played by Marlon Brando, and his son Michael, played by Al Pacino. There wasn't a point where I found myself disinterested in what was happening and how those events or actions would affect the family going forward. My issues with The Godfather and why it didn't receive a higher grade are the little action that exists is very weak, the visuals aren't impressive at all, and I felt the movie was longer than necessary. During the scene in which Michael's brother Santino beats up their brother-in-law you can clearly see punches being pulled. I mean, some of those swings aren't even close to hitting. The gun fight scenes aren't much better with overdramatic or unrealistic reactions to being shot and incredibly fake looking pink-ish blood. Hopefully when I recall my feelings towards The Godfather in the future I can focus on the characters and story more so than the negatives.

Top Graded Movies By Year

Below is the list of the top graded movies by year and the grade I gave the movie. I feel this is an interesting way to look at the top 251 movies of all time because movies differ so much nowadays compared to 100 years ago. When a tie breaker was needed I used whatever movie appeared higher on my overall grade list. Not every year since 1916 is represented, especially years in the early 1910's and 1920's and anything after 2012, but most years are present.

Year	Movie Title	My Grade
1916	Intolerance	1 out of 5
1925	The Gold Rush	3.5 out of 5
1927	Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans	3 out of 5
1928	The Passion of Joan of Arc	1 out of 5
1931	M	3.5 out of 5
1933	King Kong	2.5 out of 5
1934	It Happened One Night	3 out of 5
1935	A Night at the Opera	1 out of 5
1936	Modern Times	3 out of 5
1937	Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs	2 out of 5
1938	Bringing Up Baby	3 out of 5
1939	The Wizard of Oz	4 out of 5
1940	His Girl Friday	3 out of 5
1941	Sullivan's Travels	3.5 out of 5
1942	Casablanca	3 out of 5
1943	The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp	3 out of 5
1944	Double Indemnity	3 out of 5
1946	It's a Wonderful Life	3.5 out of 5
1948	The Treasure of the Sierra Madre	3 out of 5
1949	Kind Hearts and Coronets	3.5 out of 5
1950	All About Eve	3.5 out of 5
1951	Strangers on a Train	2.5 out of 5
1952	Singin' in the Rain	3.5 out of 5
1953	Shane	1.5 out of 5
1954	Seven Samurai	4 out of 5
1955	The Night of the Hunter	2 out of 5
1956	The Searchers	2 out of 5
1957	12 Angry Men	4 out of 5
1958	Touch of Evil	1.5 out of 5
1959	Some Like It Hot	3.5 out of 5
1960	Psycho	4 out of 5
1961	West Side Story	2 out of 5
1962	To Kill a Mockingbird	3.5 out of 5
1963	The Great Escape	3.5 out of 5
1964	A Fistful of Dollars	3.5 out of 5
1965	The Sound of Music	2 out of 5
1966	Persona	4 out of 5
1967	In the Heat of the Night	3.5 out of 5
1968	Rosemary's Baby	3 out of 5
1969	Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid	4 out of 5
1970	MASH	2.5 out of 5
1971	The Last Picture Show	2.5 out of 5
1972	Cabaret	4 out of 5
1973	The Sting	4 out of 5
1974	The Godfather Part II	3 out of 5
1975	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest	3.5 out of 5
1976	Rocky	3 out of 5
1977	Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope	5 out of 5
1978	The Deer Hunter	2.5 out of 5
1979	Alien	3 out of 5
1980	Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back	5 out of 5
1981	Raiders of the Lost Ark	3.5 out of 5
1982	Sophie's Choice	4 out of 5
1983	Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi	3.5 out of 5
1984	Amadeus	4 out of 5
1985	Back to the Future	4 out of 5
1986	Platoon	3.5 out of 5
1987	Full Metal Jacket	4 out of 5
1988	Cinema Paradiso	4 out of 5
1989	Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade	5 out of 5
1990	Goodfellas	4 out of 5
1991	Terminator 2: Judgment Day	4.5 out of 5
1992	Reservoir Dogs	4 out of 5
1993	Jurassic Park	5 out of 5
1994	Forrest Gump	5 out of 5
1995	Braveheart	5 out of 5
1996	Fargo	3 out of 5
1997	Titanic	5 out of 5
1998	American History X	4.5 out of 5
1999	The Green Mile	4.5 out of 5
2000	Gladiator	5 out of 5
2001	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring	5 out of 5
2002	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers	4.5 out of 5
2003	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	5 out of 5
2004	Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind	4.5 out of 5
2005	Batman Begins	4 out of 5
2006	The Prestige	4 out of 5
2007	The Bourne Ultimatum	3.5 out of 5
2008	The Dark Knight	5 out of 5
2009	Avatar	4 out of 5
2010	Inception	4.5 out of 5
2011	The Intouchables	4.5 out of 5
2012	Argo	4.5 out of 5

Movies I Had Previously Seen

Besides being excited about watching some movies that I hadn't seen before in the top 251 movies of all time, I was really looking forward to "having" to watch movies I knew I already enjoyed. Most of the previously viewed movies were already among my favorites, but some exceptions existed. Still, I knew I could tolerate having to watch a couple of exceptions again if it meant "being forced" to watch my favorites too.

Below is the list of movies I had previously seen before I started to watch the top 251 movies of all time and the grade I gave the movie. A lot of this list skews newer, which fits right in with past observations I've made about tending to like prefer newer movies over older movies. The list averaged a grade of 3.877 out of 5 and that strong number was built on the backs of movies I adore like the Star Wars trilogy and The Lord of the Ring trilogy. Thankfully others that I didn't enjoy as much, like Donnie Darko and West Side Story, didn't severely impact the grade.

Movie #	Movie Title	My Grade
2	The Shawshank Redemption (1994)	4.5 out of 5
6	Schindler's List (1993)	4.5 out of 5
7	Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)	3.5 out of 5
9	Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)	5 out of 5
10	Fight Club (1999)	4 out of 5
11	Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)	5 out of 5
12	The Dark Knight (2008)	5 out of 5
14	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)	3.5 out of 5
18	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)	5 out of 5
20	The Matrix (1999)	4 out of 5
21	The Silence of the Lambs (1991)	3.5 out of 5
22	Back to the Future (1985)	4 out of 5
24	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)	5 out of 5
26	Forrest Gump (1994)	5 out of 5
30	12 Angry Men (1957)	4 out of 5
31	The Shining (1980)	3.5 out of 5
32	Saving Private Ryan (1998)	4 out of 5
34	Inception (2010)	4.5 out of 5
35	Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)	4.5 out of 5
44	Jaws (1975)	3.5 out of 5
46	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)	4.5 out of 5
57	American History X (1998)	4.5 out of 5
58	Gladiator (2000)	5 out of 5
60	Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)	3 out of 5
61	The Wizard of Oz (1939)	4 out of 5
66	To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)	3.5 out of 5
69	E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)	4 out of 5
73	Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)	3.5 out of 5
77	The Green Mile (1999)	4.5 out of 5
80	WALL-E (2008)	3.5 out of 5
83	Toy Story (1995)	4 out of 5
84	Rocky (1976)	3 out of 5
85	Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)	5 out of 5
86	Toy Story 3 (2010)	4 out of 5
88	Batman Begins (2005)	4 out of 5
89	The Dark Knight Rises (2012)	3.5 out of 5
90	The Lion King (1994)	4.5 out of 5
93	No Country for Old Men (2007)	3 out of 5
100	The Pianist (2002)	3.5 out of 5
101	The Terminator (1984)	3 out of 5
104	Jurassic Park (1993)	5 out of 5
108	Titanic (1997)	5 out of 5
115	Ghostbusters (1984)	3 out of 5
118	Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)	2 out of 5
119	Slumdog Millionaire (2008)	4.5 out of 5
120	Avatar (2009)	4 out of 5
121	Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)	3.5 out of 5
127	Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)	2 out of 5
138	Inglourious Basterds (2009)	3.5 out of 5
140	The Hangover (2009)	3.5 out of 5
146	The Avengers (2012)	4 out of 5
152	West Side Story (1961)	2 out of 5
153	Donnie Darko (2001)	2 out of 5
158	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)	4.5 out of 5
159	Casino Royale (2006)	4 out of 5
166	Finding Nemo (2003)	4 out of 5
168	The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)	3.5 out of 5
186	The Prestige (2006)	4 out of 5
192	The Breakfast Club (1985)	3 out of 5
193	Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)	3.5 out of 5
198	Apollo 13 (1995)	4.5 out of 5
200	The Bourne Identity (2002)	4 out of 5
207	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)	4 out of 5
209	Iron Man (2008)	4 out of 5
212	Argo (2012)	4.5 out of 5
238	Ocean's Eleven (2001)	4 out of 5
241	Grease (1978)	2 out of 5
246	Shaun of the Dead (2004)	3 out of 5
249	Star Trek (2009)	4 out of 5