As Richard Saunders points out, no Ealing comedies? (“I’m All Right, Jack” is great; my personal choice would be “Kind Hearts and Coronets”).

Of course, I’m personally offended by no “Police Academy” movie.

It’s too bad that Kurosawa never completed the contemplated sequel to Ran. It was going to be called “Also Ran.”

I think Kubrick must have been on acid at least part of the time while making it.

I think one needs to be on acid to enjoy the movie.

I’m surprised Abel Gance’s Napoleon isn’t on the list.

I’m not at all surprised Capra isn’t represented, although I think that’s a travesty.

I’m also shocked Chaplin doesn’t even show up until #50 – if I recall, for decades The Gold Rush was top ten. Guess he’s out of vogue.

But what absolutely stuns me is that Man with a Movie Camera is ranked #8. I agree completely, but I can’t believe any major poll would go there. I can’t even believe it ranked 27 in the previous poll.

It’s a documentary made in the Soviet Union in 1929 by a guy named Dziga Vertov. It’s the basis for the cinema verite movement, although I doubt most practitioners even know that. I don’t think a complete version even existed in the West until the 1970’s. And Vertov was already in the process of falling out of favor with the Soviet leadership, so they certainly weren’t singing his praises.

It’s just incredible filmmaking, unlike anything most people have ever seen. Vertov wrote a lot about his theories on film, and it gets really complex. Suffice it to say – this film gets described sometimes as an “art” film or a “city symphony”, like Berlin. Those are insults. There’s lots more going on here.

Believe it or not, here it is on YouTube, with the best score I’ve heard, (they used Vertov’s notes for the score).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZkvjWIEcoU

And, heck, even if you don’t appreciate the filmmaking, the slice of life footage from Moscow, Kiev and Odessa in the ’20’s is fascinating.

DNW above said ‘Imagine the movies you think of as the best “objectively”. Then stop and reflect on what films (if any) you actually do watch repeatedly, say during the holiday seasons’

They actually are largely the same for me. I don’t own many movies but I have all the Bergman from Seventh Seal to Cries and Whispers, and they’re like favorite books to me. There aren’t that many movies that I want to see more than once, very very few more than twice. Occasionally a pretty lightweight one strikes me that way–Napoleon Dynamite!–but it’s not very often.

I think other serious contenders for #1 are Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, and The Godfather.

I agree with many of the selections offered in other comments, but let me indulge myself by naming some movies I really love, even though they are never considered for top 50 lists: She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, Stagecoach, Zulu, Cinema Paradiso, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, and Ninotchka.

I’d tend to have to agree with Art, as I was already thinking along those lines, that innovation and excellence of technique have to play a role along with criticism based on the traditional canons of story-telling.

Imagine the movies you think of as the best “objectively”. Then stop and reflect on what films (if any) you actually do watch repeatedly, say during the holiday seasons.

Hitchcock may best straddle that line.

And too, we all probably have seen films that made a huge impression when we first saw them, only to shrink a fair amount with time and with our own changes in perspective. Alien, Blade Runner, Das Boot, and some of the Coen movies (Miller’s Crossing) have had that initial effect on me.

Speaking of Miller’s Crossing and a spate of Depression era and 40’s film references (True Confessions with DeNiro comes to mind), I wonder where Chinatown ranks?

Certainly cinematography, score, and the conveyance of atmosphere have to place Chinatown in the top couple hundred.

Maybe they could start a new category. Best dramatic evocations of an earlier 20th century America. Best wooden screen door slam and train whistle category.

Another movie that I think is excellent and underrated is Devil In A Blue Dress with Denzel Washington (and Don Cheadle, who steals the show).

A movie theater near me in Boston is playing this month The Wild Bunch, The Big Lebowski, Reservoir Dogs and Jaws. Because of previous commitments, I won’t be able to make all of these. Regrettable.

I think that Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line should have been somewhere on the list, despite a horrendously bad (but mercifully short) cameo by John Travolta.

I also think that the little gem of a movie Affliction, directed by Paul Schrader should be on the list.