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Spike Lee Shares His NYU Teaching List of Essential Films

167 points by pmcpinto 11y ago

StavrosK 11y ago
> When Spike originally released this list, many noted the lack of female filmmakers. Lee accepted that critique and released an updated list. Does that mean that he saw movies that he felt were worthy of being on the list and (perhaps subconsciously) decided not to list them? Or did he end up listing some movies that he didn't feel were as good as the others, just to meet the quota?
- ekianjo 11y ago
  > just to meet the quota? Probably that one, because the Thought Police is always watching. Nevermind that most movie directors are male, so even if you were to be representative in terms of %, you would probably still end up with 90% movies made by male directors.
  - caf 11y ago
    His "updated list" added 8 films, so a touch over 90%.
    - melling 11y ago
      Were they all by women? What's the diff on the movies and directors?
      - caf 11y ago
        The Piano – Jane Campion (1993) Daughters of the Dust – Julie Dash (1991) The Hurt Locker – Kathryn Bigelow (2008) Sugar Cane Alley – Euzhan Palcy (1983) The Seduction of Mimi – Lina Wertmuller (1972) Love and Anarchy – Lina Wertmuller (1973) Swept Away – Lina Wertmuller (1974) Seven Beauties – Lina Wertmuller (1975)
- mootothemax 11y ago
  >> When Spike originally released this list, many noted the lack of female filmmakers. Lee accepted that critique and released an updated list. >Does that mean that he saw movies that he felt were worthy of being on the list and (perhaps subconsciously) decided not to list them? Or did he end up listing some movies that he didn't feel were as good as the others, just to meet the quota? The charitable interpretation would be statistics: if 90+% of recognised films have been directed by men - and I'd expect more men to have directed films in, say, the 1950s than the present day - it's not terribly unlikely that a list would feature only men through chance alone. Given that such lists are going to be loosely defined - I imagine Lee could come up with several, different, lists on any one day - I don't see why including women directors would be to the detriment of a list and only to meet a "quota."
  - forgetsusername 11y ago
    >I don't see why including women directors would be to the detriment of a list and only to meet a "quota." Obviously women aren't a detriment to the list in and of themselves. It's the fact that Mr. Lee made a list of must see movies, was critcized, then went back and changed the list based on the criticism. So which is the list of must see movies? What movies were "must-see" pre-criticism, that were no longer worthy post-criticism? PC run amok.
    - mootothemax 11y ago
      >It's the fact that Mr. Lee made a list of must see movies, was critcized, then went back and changed the list based on the criticism. He added to the list; no films were removed. >So which is the list of must see movies? What movies were "must-see" pre-criticism, that were no longer worthy post-criticism? The current list. And none. >PC run amok. I can't write a sensible comment to this.
      - xyzzy4 11y ago
        Did he specify which films were added in the second revision?
- Arnt 11y ago
  The latter doesn't seem terribly likely. If he wanted to avoid criticism, he wouldn't have set himself a quota as low as 8%. It seems more likely that when he thought about the criticism, he thought about whom he might've overlooked and remembered Lina Wertmüller. Come to think of it, I'll watch something by her.
  - jonnathanson 11y ago
    Exactly. If you read his lists, either the original or the amended versions, you'll see that they are really lists of his favorite filmmakers, grouped by the filmmakers' best or most representative works. It's obvious, by the way the list is categorized, that Lee was thinking of it that way.
    - StavrosK 11y ago
      Ah, that makes more sense, thanks. My question was because, if this were a list of films, the works themselves are pretty removed in someone's mind from their creators, so I doubt that there would be as strong a bias there. If it's actually a list of filmmakers, then the reaction makes sense, thank you for clarifying.
      - jonnathanson 11y ago
        I'm assuming it's both. Kind of. I mean, the supposed purpose is a list of films, but as you read through that list and the way it's been laid out, you see that Lee approached the task by first thinking about a list of filmmakers. And then you have some other films on the list which are there because they're noteworthy, regardless of the director. So it's sort of a hybrid. A lot of filmmakers, critics and film buffs, when asked to list the best films of all time, will start from the perspective of their favorite filmmakers and then work backwards from there. (The general public takes the opposite approach.) Similarly, if you ask a music critic or musician to list his favorite songs, he'll often start with favorite albums and then back into songs. Or maybe favorite artists -> albums -> songs. They're used to thinking about an individual work in the broader perspective of its creator's entire catalog. This can be a useful perspective to consider. Especially since there are some filmmakers (or authors, or artists, or bands) whose career output is highly influential, but whose individual works never really crack the Best of All Time list. Scorsese is a good example. Arguably none of his films, individually considered, ranks as a Best of All Time contender. But when you consider his entire output, you can't deny his influence on the technique of modern storytelling. I'd say the same thing about Milos Forman, for instance, though One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest does stand on its own merits on many people's lists. You could also make this argument for Steven Spielberg, controversial though he may be to film snobs. He hasn't made any given work as singularly brilliant as many of the movies listed here, but you can't deny that Spielberg has basically been synonymous with popular American cinema for the better part of an entire era. From the late 70s through the mid 2000s, he basically is the pop movie industry. And like Scorsese, he has had an outsized impact on the way people tell stories through the medium.
- ant6n 11y ago
  Or he realized that by only featuring male movie makers, he inadvertently left out stories worth telling, with a different perspective. In general, including women is not about giving them some unfair advantage, it's about removing an unfair disadvantage.
  - PlzSnow 11y ago
    The 2 lists are "best of both worlds". We have the original list, which is what he actually thinks are the most important films. And we have the second list for those for whom gender etc is more important than quality. So everyone is happy!
- jbmorgado 11y ago
  Don't know, let's wait until some other group that thinks they are discriminated to speak up and then check what movies Spike Lee ads to the list.
  - LeifCarrotson 11y ago
    I realized this comment was in poor taste, so I deleted it.
    - jbmorgado 11y ago
      Only when Spike Lee ads them to the list, and Polish Directors as well. We should all be offended by the clear discrimination towards Polish in this list.
- dpweb 11y ago
  It's unfortunate Spike was shamed into updating the list. I fear the effect is not to help remove the discrimination and bias (that certainly exists) against women in many areas of society. The effect is more likely feeding a backlash against this kind of unnecessary thing, by providing another example of what many people will just label as "PC gone wild". The net effect, it hurts the cause of trying to increase diversity, instead of helping it overall. Provide scholarships. Encourage girls to enter film programs. Put quotas in film schools even! That's the way a woman will direct the Godfather of the future, not shaming people into including diversity into every single thing.
  - alanctgardner3 11y ago
    It's important to have role models you can identify with. Recognizing and celebrating the achievements of female directors is important. When you don't include female directors in lists of great movies, when female directors don't win awards, it reinforces the idea that women are allowed to enter the industry, but they can never really thrive and succeed in the same way a man can. Scholarships and quotas help at the top of the funnel, but if the middle of the funnel is still awful and discriminatory you're just feeding more people into the meat grinder.
    - tomp 11y ago
      > It's important to have role models you can identify with. Anyone that cannot identify with someone as a role model just because s/he has a different sex, is incredibly sexist and doesn't deserve to be accomodated in any way. > when female directors don't win awards, it reinforces the idea that women are allowed to enter the industry, but they can never really thrive and succeed in the same way a man can IMO, it just reinforces the idea that women need to try harder to become better.
- benten10 11y ago
  I believe the issue was that the 'white man' demographic had been given special reservations in the first one. When they asked him if a bunch of white men had (unknowingly to him) influenced him to overrepresent by a laaarge margin, he opted to account for the unconscious bias by 'thinking' more consciously about it. Of course, now those goddamn petulant PC white men want all the spaces in the list, even AFTER he has acknowledged his bias inherent in the original list. If they'd ONLY choose to be objective and stop being selfish about the goddamn unconscious bias they are favored with. But nooo, in this ridiculous age of political correctness and 'everyones view is correct', they get do goddamn complain that they didn't get 100% of his opinion. These people are pretty much Hitlers to free speech : / PS: BTW, what's the politically correct term for a 'petulant white man-child"? I've gotten some sideeye once in a while by one of those radicals when I've used the term in public.
  - ugexe 11y ago
    "Petulant white benten10" should be politically correct enough while retaining the spirit
- bgilroy26 11y ago
  > Or did he end up listing some movies that he didn't feel were as good as the others, just to meet the quota? The assumption behind this statement is that the list from the article is "Spike Lee's Top Films" This list isn't about movie quality, it's about forming the minds of young directors. Spike Lee speaks his mind. Nobody tells him what to say. If he updated his list, it was because he felt the new list would do a better job helping new directors grow in their craft.
  - crusso 11y ago
    The assumption behind this statement is that the list from the article is "Spike Lee's Top Films" It's not an assumption. Watch the video where Spike Lee says, "On this list is what I consider the greatest films ever made..."
    - JohnKacz 11y ago
      He also asks backers to send in their suggestions for the list "because of course there's going to be stuff I left out."
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    >Spike Lee speaks his mind. Nobody tells him what to say. // Isn't that demonstrated to be false here. He spoke his mind and then he was told that he shouldn't have said what he did so he revised it and made his "speech" more acceptable to those who complained.
- eitally 11y ago
  It likely means he chose many of these films based on specific directorial characteristics, a number of which were easy to swap out for similar, female-directed films containing the same characteristics.
  - StavrosK 11y ago
    That's another good explanation. Sounds pretty likely, now that you mention it.
    - eitally 11y ago
      That was my optimistic interpretation because I refused to consider that he might actually be sexist. :) I could be wrong, but I hope not!
- duaneb 11y ago
  Do you gain anything from this train of thought? He decided to edit the list; why not simply accept it? Also, I suspect spike lee is sensitive about recognizing minority directors (women are a minority among them).
- aninhumer 11y ago
  Why are so many people assuming that the initial list represented his comprehensive judgement of all films ever? Is it not far more likely that he added films as sufficiently important ones occurred to him, and at some point decided the list was fairly comprehensive and stopped? Then subsequently, someone pointed out that there weren't many films by female directors, and this prompt made him think of a bunch of other films worth adding?
  - RodericDay 11y ago
    > JohnKacz 14 minutes ago He also asks backers to send in their suggestions for the list "because of course there's going to be stuff I left out." It's really amazing the degree to which many of us white dudes, over-represented in intellectual compendiums everywhere, react when we feel the slightest, feeblest threat.
    - kelukelugames 11y ago
      Have you read the thread on the Github diversity slides.
    - mc32 11y ago
      It's not that. He could have put up a list with mostly women, or mostly African films, people would mostly be okay with that. It's the perception of his giving in and revising in the face of dissent on something more or less personal. Let's say he put up a list of favorite foods. Then someone notices there are no lamb dishes and he adds lamb to it. Or there is no vegetarian dish and adds vegetarian dishes. It's not a big deal either way but people read "undue influence to change personal preferences"
      - RodericDay 11y ago
        You seem to be missing the point of me highlighting that Spike Lee himself asked for people to point out omissions "because of course there's going to be stuff I left out". If there's no lamb dishes, I request reminders, someone points out a lamb dish, and I add lamb, it's not healthy or reasonable to propose that I am being unduly influenced by the lamb lobby. It's within the realm of possibility, sure, but to bring it up reflects paranoia, scepticism towards lamb dishes, and possibly a persecution complex due to overexposure to lamb-related GitHub drama. It is a big deal, by the way. It makes HackerNews look like ReturnOfKings.
- EC1 11y ago
  Do you have a link to the original?
- fosco 11y ago
  his response was a larger release of the list [0] which added 8 movies and 5 directors. [0]http://www.openculture.com/2014/11/spike-lees-list-of-95-essential-movies.html http://www.openculture.com/2014/11/spike-lees-list-of-95-ess...
xabi 11y ago
List on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070332247/ http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070332247/
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  Just to add, it's not in any particular order. (well it is, alphabetically by the director's name)
- DanBC 11y ago
  I'm surprised there isn't a list of magnet links. (Although a quick check on !KAT shows limited numbers of seeds for many of these)
lqdc13 11y ago
Surprising lack of Citizen Kane. At the same time, a lot of social/cultural struggle films. No Psycho by Hitchcock but 3 other movies by him? Updated list completely different from the first list?
- ekianjo 11y ago
  The list is for aspiring filmmakers, not necessarily just good movies. I can see why Rear Window made it to the list, because it's a script that is ideally made for the movie medium, for example.
  - josephcooney 11y ago
    Really? Rear Window always seemed like a script that would be ideally served as a play (i.e. not many scene changes) that Hitchcock had adapted well to a movie.
    - ekianjo 11y ago
      I'm not sure how you would adapt it as a play : how can you capture someone looking at many apartments at a glance in an act ? In a movie, you can just move the camera around in no time from one flat to another, and that effect is incredibly difficult to reproduce in about any other medium.
  - lqdc13 11y ago
    Exactly. This is why Citizen Kane should be there. It is not the most enjoyable movie to watch but it was brilliant and a huge paradigm shift.
- forgetsusername 11y ago
  >No Psycho by Hitchcock but 3 other movies by him? Not like my opinion matters (nor does Mr. Lee's, in the grand scheme of things), but Psycho probably isn't in my top 3 Hitchcock films, either. Vertigo, The Birds, Rear Window for me. Consider Notorious, North by Northwest, Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder...there are quite a few permutations, taste dependent.
routerl 11y ago
Apocalypto by Mel Gibson? Huh.
- ekianjo 11y ago
  Yeah, I was thinking the same thing for that one. I'm not sure why he picked it. I don't think Gibson as a director made any memorable movie (some are decent but I can't see them being in such a list).
  - waterlesscloud 11y ago
    Lee picked it because it's exceptionally good cinema.
    - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
      Do we know this? Perhaps there's one scene that stands out; or he feels that the visuals are perfect but the story is terrible; or it's an example of how you can make great movies but still be hated; or ...
  - weego 11y ago
    I guess that's the problem with a list and no context. Without knowing what exactly he saw in it that he thinks an aspiring director should pay attention to then you can watch them, but to what end? The issue with being an aspiring anything is you likely lack the maturity and contextual awareness to glean knowledge from every experience.
- mozumder 11y ago
  Absolutely brilliant directing, and a good film to learn about staging. You know you have a great movie when you can turn the sound off and you're still captivated by the story. Lots of people think you can treat a movie like a book. They forget that cinematics are far more important for movie storytelling than narrative. If you want to write a book, then write a book. Don't make a movie if what you want is a book. Movies are different from books, and should be treated as such.
johnloeber 11y ago
A few observations: * No citizen kane, some other "classics" have also been omitted * No French cinema * No silent cinema * The omission of what is generally heralded as Kubrick's strongest work surprises me * No Tarantino
- ekianjo 11y ago
  > No French cinema If you start like that, then there's no Chinese cinema either (and there would be certainly a few worth mentioning). I'd take such a list as being mainly made of Hollywood movies, as well as whatever is appealing to Hollywood directors.
- waterlesscloud 11y ago
  No French cinema? Breathless is on there, as well as 400 Blows and Day For Night.
- aardshark 11y ago
  The 400 blows is French cinema
- jgrahamc 11y ago
  > No French cinema The following films are on Lee's list and are French: Les 400 coups (400 Blows), Truffaut La Nuit américaine (Day for Night), Truffaut A bout du souffle (Breathless), Godard Paris brûle-t-il? (Is Paris Burning?), Clément So 4/87 (approx 5%) of his films are French.
wmccullough 11y ago
I feel bad that we now live in a world where a person can't release a list of influential filmmakers without including another group arbitrarily. As someone in the tech world, if someone asked me who my list of influences were, I'd be afraid to answer for fear of being lambasted for not including Sheryl Samdberg or Marissa Mayer.
- Caprinicus 11y ago
  You don't have to change your lists because people complain. People complain about everything.
- ant6n 11y ago
  It's such a burden to have a modicum of social awareness. Almost as much as being from 'another group' while in the tech world... except not at all.
yiyus 11y ago
Many people are talking about the great films that he is missing. But if this is a list of films every aspiring director should see and not just a list of very good films, I think it would also be important to watch bad and very bad movies. Ed Wood should be in a list like this, for example, as well as TV films, anime, stop-motion films...
- pauly 11y ago
  Ed Wood or Plan 9 From Outer Space?
  - bmelton 11y ago
    The Room
  - yiyus 11y ago
    Both
skarist 11y ago
Good list. However, I notice lack of movies from such great directors as Wim Wenders and Andrei Tarkovsky. Well, I guess it is difficult to put together a list like this anyway.
dommer 11y ago
The list has little value in isolation. A brief context about why a particular film is in the list would be much more helpful. The audience can then understand why he included "controversial" directors like Gibson. The list on its own is just a list of films to watch that someone enjoyed...and everyone would most likely have a different list.
- waterlesscloud 11y ago
  I'd counter that if you watch the films on this list and don't understand why Lee included them, you're not likely to be a good film director.
  - elthran 11y ago
    But this is a list for aspiring directors - If I'm currently aspiring to be a better director, then some level of explanation would be beneficial to me
    - waterlesscloud 11y ago
      Not really. If these movies don't stimulate your directorial imagination, a few words aren't going to help.
    - bazzargh 11y ago
      It's a list for aspiring directors who are part of the NYU Graduate Film program http://tisch.nyu.edu/grad-film/courses http://tisch.nyu.edu/grad-film/courses ... and they get three years of context. You could ask for context from any university reading list... http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/offerholders/reading-lists/english.html http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/offerholders/... ...they're of passing interest to people looking to be 'well read', but are provided mainly for the students, and the context is the course.
      - dommer 11y ago
        I think that was my point. As a reader of this list, it is of passing interest. Take the course this list accompanies and I will receive much better context and substantially improve my understanding of their inclusion.
marincounty 11y ago
My favorite movies, but for no particuliar reason: Platoon Wall street Three days of the condor Chinatown Sunset Boulevard The Stranger(actually all of Orson Wells movies) Any Andy Griffith episode Bicycle thieves 1948 Niagara Double indemnity (actually most billy wilder films) The Misfits (last film for Marilyn and Rhett Butler--forgot his name.) Giant Rebal without a cause Leaving Las Vegas Blow out (all three) Saturday night fever Yes, even Urban Cowboy One flew over the cocos nest Deliverance Hanna and her sisters East of Eden Dr. Strange love Back to the future Jaws In cold blood(with Robert Blake) In cold blood (with Eric Roberts, and forget his name) The asphalt jungle 1948? All about eve The hot rock Little Haus Big Halsey (Redford said it was his worst movie. Yes, it's masagonistic. Yes, he plays a jerk. But the movie captures the 70's I recall as a kid. The filming is great. His side kick in the movie did a great job playing a sweet, innocent, country teen.) A lot of foreign films I have yet to see.
frign 11y ago
> Note: When Spike originally released this list, many noted the lack of female filmmakers. Lee accepted that critique and released an updated list. Thanks, I'll stick with the original list. Given the small number of female filmmakers in Hollywood an only-male list is not unlikely. Political Correctness is a bitch.
- cruise02 11y ago
  Yeah, I'd hate to be exposed to eight more great films if they were made by women. /s
redwood 11y ago
I respect his humility. However his own film "Do the Right Thing" should be on this list.
redwood 11y ago
Surprised to see no Almodovar. Interesting to see a less well known Woody Allen pic
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
crispyambulance 11y ago
We should just accept that whatever anyone puts on their "must see" list is up to personal discretion and, when asked of a director, is going to say more about the director's viewpoint and formative experiences than anything else. If one wants to see "all the great films", I suggest focusing on specific genres/languages/formats one at a time rather than an uncategorized "top 10/20/87/100...".
jbmorgado 11y ago
"When Spike originally released this list, many noted the lack of female filmmakers. Lee accepted that critique and released an updated list." It's interesting to see that people that label themselves anti discrimination actually not only live perfectly fine with positive discrimination, but they actually come to expect it as a standard policy and take offense when it doesn't happen.
- adamlett 11y ago
  Being anti-rascist or anti-sexist does not necessarily imply being is anti-discrimination. To give an example, in many places positively discriminate old people by offering lower prices or better seating. Yet it would be absurd to claim that this constitutes ageism towards young people. It is understood that being old is in many ways a handicap, and by discriminating positively, we seek to lessen that handicap.
  - jbmorgado 11y ago
    Your argument implies that women have an handicap and they can't direct movies as well as men and as such need positive discrimination. You are not supposed to force just women, just men, or just any other person from some sub-group into being included in some achievement that you want to atribute to the best overall individuals. I believe that is very clearly not the message of feminism and if it is, then feminism would be clearly broken.
    - RodericDay 11y ago
      The "handicap" in this case is the momentum carried by decades of forced subjugation, which can still be seen in tons of our social and cultural norms. Nothing to do with intrinsic potential.
      - jules 11y ago
        I'm not sure if that was serious, but women dominate in plenty of subjects. When are we going to accept that on average women are not interested in the same things as men? Trying to make everything 50-50 only makes people miserable. Give people equal opportunity, and if they make different choices that is a good thing, because they're choosing what makes them happy.
tosseraccount 11y ago
No Battleship Potemkin? No Birth of a Nation? Metropolis?
owly 11y ago
This is not much different than most film school lists. Nothing special.
owly 11y ago
This is not much different than most film school lists. Nothing special.
mbubb 11y ago
Wow - this is lacking. Very much a Hollywood/ NYC focus. I could think of 5 (each) Russian, Chinese, French, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Australian films would be before "Bad Lieutenant" (a film I like a lot - esp with the original Schooly D soundtrack) For women - Maya Deren for historical purposes and no Chantal Ackerman or Pilar Nair? I am not a film buff even - this is just a crap list.
- mbubb 11y ago
  And the inclusion of films like Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun" is bizarre. That film is like a 2hr episode of "Hogan's Heros" set in a Japanese POW camp.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    JG Ballard spoke about his time in the camp and why he wrote the book. Including the film makes a lot more sense when you see the context: http://www.jgballard.ca/media/2002_feb3_BBC4_radio.html http://www.jgballard.ca/media/2002_feb3_BBC4_radio.html Ballard says this about the film: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/mar/04/fiction.film http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/mar/04/fiction.film
    - mbubb 11y ago
      The story is incredible - the film is not very good.
- jonnathanson 11y ago
  It's not total crap; most of the films on the list probably do deserve their place on anyone's hypothetical list. But it's certainly light on indie, experimental, and world cinema (particularly non-Western cinema), and I can think of many films I'd swap out for films not on the list. As could any film buff, I'd imagine. Which is kind of the whole point of being a film buff: there will be plenty of room for disagreement. But yeah, this is basically a Film Studies 101 primer list.
  - 11y ago
Tycho 11y ago
Is there a site/webapp that i can drop this list into and it will tell me which titles are available on netflix? (or other online streaming services)
- f_allwein 11y ago
  Not the most elegant solution, but quick & easy: you could paste the list into a Google Spreadsheet, then add a formula to create a hyperlink to Netflix. E.g. for iTunes (I'm not on Netflix) this would be "http://ax.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/search?term="&A1 , with A1 being the field for the movie title. So take a look at the Netflix search results url and see if you can do the same there.
pbhjpbhj 11y ago
It would be interesting to see top developers list their favourite computer programs. Would you revise your list to be sure the lead developer on each program made a certain distribution amongst different characteristics sex/age/location/first-language? Should a Uni degree including dev ensure that amongst the programs/theorems/languages studied that some were from a particular group/sex/ethnicity/whatever?
- ereckers 11y ago
  I would actually. "Lists" of these types get stale after a while. Providing lusts along some defined attributes makes things interesting and can introduce one to something that would not make a typical best of list. Netflix is doing it with their movie suggestion (ie. Strong female lead) and I'm sure they're not worried about being too "PC", though I'm sure some, somewhere have intimated at it.
mikeash 11y ago
Nearly the whole conversation here is about how terrible it was to update the list to include some women. Imagine if instead of "women" it was something else. Maybe, "Why didn't you include any Soviet filmmakers?" Or, "What about Alfred Hitchcock?" Or maybe, "You should include some films from the silent era." And imagine Spike Lee took those suggestions and said, you know what, you're right, I should include some films from the silent era, there's some great stuff in there. Would you be just as upset about Spike Lee bending to his critics instead of sticking to his guns in that case? Or would you see that maybe there is some merit in this sort of back-and-forth? Would you accept a suggestion for "silent films" but rail against a suggestion for "films by female directors"? If so, why is that, exactly? Does the merest suggestion of political correctness shut off your thinking?
- StavrosK 11y ago
  Since I made the initial comment, I'll reply. > Would you be just as upset If by "just as upset", you mean "not upset at all, but rather curious", then yes, I would be exactly as upset. > Would you be just as upset about Spike Lee bending to his critics instead of sticking to his guns in that case? I would wonder why he changed a list of something entirely personal to him after some people pointed out that he didn't include any films from the silent era. I am equally curious as to why the reply was "oh yeah, here are five films from women", rather than "oh yeah, I forgot a bunch of stuff, some including women". If anything, it sounds a bit patronizing to women filmmakers, that they're included as an afterthought. A satisfying (to me) reply would be "holy shit guys I had a brain fart and was only thinking of men when compiling the list and completely forgot about my favorite female filmmakers, here they are, sorry about that, wow".
  - mikeash 11y ago
    You may not be upset, but a quick glance at the comments shows a ton of people who are quite upset that Lee responded to this criticism the way he did. You wonder why he changed a list of something personal to him after people gave him additional food for thought? Are your opinions so set in stone? If you compiled a list of top programming language features, could you not even conceive of adding more entries to it after publishing it and having people make suggestions? Why do people expect this stuff to be carved in stone from the beginning? Your hypothetical reply looks a lot like his real reply to me.
contingencies 11y ago
How are The Element of Crime[0], THX1138[1] and the Qatsi Trilogy[2] not on this list? The former is simply the best film ever made, the second interesting as a gritty example of lowish budget success in a completely different genre from that which the (very famous) director became known for (and is a successful remake of a film from his student days), and the latter proves once and for all the power of cinema regardless of conventional plot. [0] https://torcache.net/torrent/CC4B99AC6FE2EA3D23173F05C95F9CDA6870683D.torrent?title=[kat.cr]the.element.of.crime.lars.von.trier.1984 https://torcache.net/torrent/CC4B99AC6FE2EA3D23173F05C95F9CD... [1] https://torcache.net/torrent/B138110324E5F7D8AF381E553BCE0AFE361B2B59.torrent?title=[kat.cr]thx.1138 https://torcache.net/torrent/B138110324E5F7D8AF381E553BCE0AF... [2] https://torcache.net/torrent/447F5AA67047731AD64F10653CBEEA7BA7A34A8C.torrent?title=[kat.cr]qatsi.trilogy.1982.2002.brrip.720p.krazykarvs https://torcache.net/torrent/447F5AA67047731AD64F10653CBEEA7...
- contingencies 11y ago
  Zero discussion downvote. Typical. HN is such a cultural community, ha!
gsibble 11y ago
District 9 doesn't belong anywhere near this list.
sebular 11y ago
I find it disappointing that the films on this list are overwhelmingly old. Sure, many of these were groundbreaking and influential in their time, but filmmaking has come such a long way since the days of Hitchcock, for example. In his original list, "City of Gods" (which he didn't even spell correctly-- the english title is "City of God") is the only film made in the last 2 decades. His updated list, which was supposed to be more inclusive to women, adds Apocalypto, District 9, Kung Fu Hustle, and Dirty Pretty Things, all of which are directed by men-- and he even removed "City of Gods", one of the few movies from the original list that had a female (co)director. In fact, the entire list reads like a giant insult to all of Lee's contemporaries. Does he want every aspiring filmmaker to enter the business with antiquated sensibilities about cinematography? He's coming across like the smug high-schooler who just discovered Led Zeppelin and declares that they're the greatest band of all time, and all modern music is crap.
- kzhahou 11y ago
  Maybe for an aspiring director, it's already pretty obvious what movies to see from the last 20 years, and they've already seen them.

167 points by pmcpinto 11y ago

> When Spike originally released this list, many noted the lack of female filmmakers. Lee accepted that critique and released an updated list. Does that mean that he saw movies that he felt were worthy of being on the list and (perhaps subconsciously) decided not to list them? Or did he end up listing some movies that he didn't feel were as good as the others, just to meet the quota?

ekianjo 11y ago
> just to meet the quota? Probably that one, because the Thought Police is always watching. Nevermind that most movie directors are male, so even if you were to be representative in terms of %, you would probably still end up with 90% movies made by male directors.
- caf 11y ago
  His "updated list" added 8 films, so a touch over 90%.
  - melling 11y ago
    Were they all by women? What's the diff on the movies and directors?
    - caf 11y ago
      The Piano – Jane Campion (1993) Daughters of the Dust – Julie Dash (1991) The Hurt Locker – Kathryn Bigelow (2008) Sugar Cane Alley – Euzhan Palcy (1983) The Seduction of Mimi – Lina Wertmuller (1972) Love and Anarchy – Lina Wertmuller (1973) Swept Away – Lina Wertmuller (1974) Seven Beauties – Lina Wertmuller (1975)
mootothemax 11y ago
>> When Spike originally released this list, many noted the lack of female filmmakers. Lee accepted that critique and released an updated list. >Does that mean that he saw movies that he felt were worthy of being on the list and (perhaps subconsciously) decided not to list them? Or did he end up listing some movies that he didn't feel were as good as the others, just to meet the quota? The charitable interpretation would be statistics: if 90+% of recognised films have been directed by men - and I'd expect more men to have directed films in, say, the 1950s than the present day - it's not terribly unlikely that a list would feature only men through chance alone. Given that such lists are going to be loosely defined - I imagine Lee could come up with several, different, lists on any one day - I don't see why including women directors would be to the detriment of a list and only to meet a "quota."
- forgetsusername 11y ago
  >I don't see why including women directors would be to the detriment of a list and only to meet a "quota." Obviously women aren't a detriment to the list in and of themselves. It's the fact that Mr. Lee made a list of must see movies, was critcized, then went back and changed the list based on the criticism. So which is the list of must see movies? What movies were "must-see" pre-criticism, that were no longer worthy post-criticism? PC run amok.
  - mootothemax 11y ago
    >It's the fact that Mr. Lee made a list of must see movies, was critcized, then went back and changed the list based on the criticism. He added to the list; no films were removed. >So which is the list of must see movies? What movies were "must-see" pre-criticism, that were no longer worthy post-criticism? The current list. And none. >PC run amok. I can't write a sensible comment to this.
    - xyzzy4 11y ago
      Did he specify which films were added in the second revision?
Arnt 11y ago
The latter doesn't seem terribly likely. If he wanted to avoid criticism, he wouldn't have set himself a quota as low as 8%. It seems more likely that when he thought about the criticism, he thought about whom he might've overlooked and remembered Lina Wertmüller. Come to think of it, I'll watch something by her.
- jonnathanson 11y ago
  Exactly. If you read his lists, either the original or the amended versions, you'll see that they are really lists of his favorite filmmakers, grouped by the filmmakers' best or most representative works. It's obvious, by the way the list is categorized, that Lee was thinking of it that way.
  - StavrosK 11y ago
    Ah, that makes more sense, thanks. My question was because, if this were a list of films, the works themselves are pretty removed in someone's mind from their creators, so I doubt that there would be as strong a bias there. If it's actually a list of filmmakers, then the reaction makes sense, thank you for clarifying.
    - jonnathanson 11y ago
      I'm assuming it's both. Kind of. I mean, the supposed purpose is a list of films, but as you read through that list and the way it's been laid out, you see that Lee approached the task by first thinking about a list of filmmakers. And then you have some other films on the list which are there because they're noteworthy, regardless of the director. So it's sort of a hybrid. A lot of filmmakers, critics and film buffs, when asked to list the best films of all time, will start from the perspective of their favorite filmmakers and then work backwards from there. (The general public takes the opposite approach.) Similarly, if you ask a music critic or musician to list his favorite songs, he'll often start with favorite albums and then back into songs. Or maybe favorite artists -> albums -> songs. They're used to thinking about an individual work in the broader perspective of its creator's entire catalog. This can be a useful perspective to consider. Especially since there are some filmmakers (or authors, or artists, or bands) whose career output is highly influential, but whose individual works never really crack the Best of All Time list. Scorsese is a good example. Arguably none of his films, individually considered, ranks as a Best of All Time contender. But when you consider his entire output, you can't deny his influence on the technique of modern storytelling. I'd say the same thing about Milos Forman, for instance, though One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest does stand on its own merits on many people's lists. You could also make this argument for Steven Spielberg, controversial though he may be to film snobs. He hasn't made any given work as singularly brilliant as many of the movies listed here, but you can't deny that Spielberg has basically been synonymous with popular American cinema for the better part of an entire era. From the late 70s through the mid 2000s, he basically is the pop movie industry. And like Scorsese, he has had an outsized impact on the way people tell stories through the medium.
ant6n 11y ago
Or he realized that by only featuring male movie makers, he inadvertently left out stories worth telling, with a different perspective. In general, including women is not about giving them some unfair advantage, it's about removing an unfair disadvantage.
- PlzSnow 11y ago
  The 2 lists are "best of both worlds". We have the original list, which is what he actually thinks are the most important films. And we have the second list for those for whom gender etc is more important than quality. So everyone is happy!
jbmorgado 11y ago
Don't know, let's wait until some other group that thinks they are discriminated to speak up and then check what movies Spike Lee ads to the list.
- LeifCarrotson 11y ago
  I realized this comment was in poor taste, so I deleted it.
  - jbmorgado 11y ago
    Only when Spike Lee ads them to the list, and Polish Directors as well. We should all be offended by the clear discrimination towards Polish in this list.
dpweb 11y ago
It's unfortunate Spike was shamed into updating the list. I fear the effect is not to help remove the discrimination and bias (that certainly exists) against women in many areas of society. The effect is more likely feeding a backlash against this kind of unnecessary thing, by providing another example of what many people will just label as "PC gone wild". The net effect, it hurts the cause of trying to increase diversity, instead of helping it overall. Provide scholarships. Encourage girls to enter film programs. Put quotas in film schools even! That's the way a woman will direct the Godfather of the future, not shaming people into including diversity into every single thing.
- alanctgardner3 11y ago
  It's important to have role models you can identify with. Recognizing and celebrating the achievements of female directors is important. When you don't include female directors in lists of great movies, when female directors don't win awards, it reinforces the idea that women are allowed to enter the industry, but they can never really thrive and succeed in the same way a man can. Scholarships and quotas help at the top of the funnel, but if the middle of the funnel is still awful and discriminatory you're just feeding more people into the meat grinder.
  - tomp 11y ago
    > It's important to have role models you can identify with. Anyone that cannot identify with someone as a role model just because s/he has a different sex, is incredibly sexist and doesn't deserve to be accomodated in any way. > when female directors don't win awards, it reinforces the idea that women are allowed to enter the industry, but they can never really thrive and succeed in the same way a man can IMO, it just reinforces the idea that women need to try harder to become better.
benten10 11y ago
I believe the issue was that the 'white man' demographic had been given special reservations in the first one. When they asked him if a bunch of white men had (unknowingly to him) influenced him to overrepresent by a laaarge margin, he opted to account for the unconscious bias by 'thinking' more consciously about it. Of course, now those goddamn petulant PC white men want all the spaces in the list, even AFTER he has acknowledged his bias inherent in the original list. If they'd ONLY choose to be objective and stop being selfish about the goddamn unconscious bias they are favored with. But nooo, in this ridiculous age of political correctness and 'everyones view is correct', they get do goddamn complain that they didn't get 100% of his opinion. These people are pretty much Hitlers to free speech : / PS: BTW, what's the politically correct term for a 'petulant white man-child"? I've gotten some sideeye once in a while by one of those radicals when I've used the term in public.
- ugexe 11y ago
  "Petulant white benten10" should be politically correct enough while retaining the spirit
bgilroy26 11y ago
> Or did he end up listing some movies that he didn't feel were as good as the others, just to meet the quota? The assumption behind this statement is that the list from the article is "Spike Lee's Top Films" This list isn't about movie quality, it's about forming the minds of young directors. Spike Lee speaks his mind. Nobody tells him what to say. If he updated his list, it was because he felt the new list would do a better job helping new directors grow in their craft.
- crusso 11y ago
  The assumption behind this statement is that the list from the article is "Spike Lee's Top Films" It's not an assumption. Watch the video where Spike Lee says, "On this list is what I consider the greatest films ever made..."
  - JohnKacz 11y ago
    He also asks backers to send in their suggestions for the list "because of course there's going to be stuff I left out."
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  >Spike Lee speaks his mind. Nobody tells him what to say. // Isn't that demonstrated to be false here. He spoke his mind and then he was told that he shouldn't have said what he did so he revised it and made his "speech" more acceptable to those who complained.
eitally 11y ago
It likely means he chose many of these films based on specific directorial characteristics, a number of which were easy to swap out for similar, female-directed films containing the same characteristics.
- StavrosK 11y ago
  That's another good explanation. Sounds pretty likely, now that you mention it.
  - eitally 11y ago
    That was my optimistic interpretation because I refused to consider that he might actually be sexist. :) I could be wrong, but I hope not!
duaneb 11y ago
Do you gain anything from this train of thought? He decided to edit the list; why not simply accept it? Also, I suspect spike lee is sensitive about recognizing minority directors (women are a minority among them).
aninhumer 11y ago
Why are so many people assuming that the initial list represented his comprehensive judgement of all films ever? Is it not far more likely that he added films as sufficiently important ones occurred to him, and at some point decided the list was fairly comprehensive and stopped? Then subsequently, someone pointed out that there weren't many films by female directors, and this prompt made him think of a bunch of other films worth adding?
- RodericDay 11y ago
  > JohnKacz 14 minutes ago He also asks backers to send in their suggestions for the list "because of course there's going to be stuff I left out." It's really amazing the degree to which many of us white dudes, over-represented in intellectual compendiums everywhere, react when we feel the slightest, feeblest threat.
  - kelukelugames 11y ago
    Have you read the thread on the Github diversity slides.
  - mc32 11y ago
    It's not that. He could have put up a list with mostly women, or mostly African films, people would mostly be okay with that. It's the perception of his giving in and revising in the face of dissent on something more or less personal. Let's say he put up a list of favorite foods. Then someone notices there are no lamb dishes and he adds lamb to it. Or there is no vegetarian dish and adds vegetarian dishes. It's not a big deal either way but people read "undue influence to change personal preferences"
    - RodericDay 11y ago
      You seem to be missing the point of me highlighting that Spike Lee himself asked for people to point out omissions "because of course there's going to be stuff I left out". If there's no lamb dishes, I request reminders, someone points out a lamb dish, and I add lamb, it's not healthy or reasonable to propose that I am being unduly influenced by the lamb lobby. It's within the realm of possibility, sure, but to bring it up reflects paranoia, scepticism towards lamb dishes, and possibly a persecution complex due to overexposure to lamb-related GitHub drama. It is a big deal, by the way. It makes HackerNews look like ReturnOfKings.
EC1 11y ago
Do you have a link to the original?
fosco 11y ago
his response was a larger release of the list [0] which added 8 movies and 5 directors. [0]http://www.openculture.com/2014/11/spike-lees-list-of-95-essential-movies.html http://www.openculture.com/2014/11/spike-lees-list-of-95-ess...

xabi 11y ago

List on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070332247/ http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070332247/

IkmoIkmo 11y ago
Just to add, it's not in any particular order. (well it is, alphabetically by the director's name)
DanBC 11y ago
I'm surprised there isn't a list of magnet links. (Although a quick check on !KAT shows limited numbers of seeds for many of these)

lqdc13 11y ago

Surprising lack of Citizen Kane. At the same time, a lot of social/cultural struggle films. No Psycho by Hitchcock but 3 other movies by him? Updated list completely different from the first list?

ekianjo 11y ago
The list is for aspiring filmmakers, not necessarily just good movies. I can see why Rear Window made it to the list, because it's a script that is ideally made for the movie medium, for example.
- josephcooney 11y ago
  Really? Rear Window always seemed like a script that would be ideally served as a play (i.e. not many scene changes) that Hitchcock had adapted well to a movie.
  - ekianjo 11y ago
    I'm not sure how you would adapt it as a play : how can you capture someone looking at many apartments at a glance in an act ? In a movie, you can just move the camera around in no time from one flat to another, and that effect is incredibly difficult to reproduce in about any other medium.
- lqdc13 11y ago
  Exactly. This is why Citizen Kane should be there. It is not the most enjoyable movie to watch but it was brilliant and a huge paradigm shift.
forgetsusername 11y ago
>No Psycho by Hitchcock but 3 other movies by him? Not like my opinion matters (nor does Mr. Lee's, in the grand scheme of things), but Psycho probably isn't in my top 3 Hitchcock films, either. Vertigo, The Birds, Rear Window for me. Consider Notorious, North by Northwest, Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder...there are quite a few permutations, taste dependent.

routerl 11y ago

Apocalypto by Mel Gibson? Huh.

ekianjo 11y ago
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing for that one. I'm not sure why he picked it. I don't think Gibson as a director made any memorable movie (some are decent but I can't see them being in such a list).
- waterlesscloud 11y ago
  Lee picked it because it's exceptionally good cinema.
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    Do we know this? Perhaps there's one scene that stands out; or he feels that the visuals are perfect but the story is terrible; or it's an example of how you can make great movies but still be hated; or ...
- weego 11y ago
  I guess that's the problem with a list and no context. Without knowing what exactly he saw in it that he thinks an aspiring director should pay attention to then you can watch them, but to what end? The issue with being an aspiring anything is you likely lack the maturity and contextual awareness to glean knowledge from every experience.
mozumder 11y ago
Absolutely brilliant directing, and a good film to learn about staging. You know you have a great movie when you can turn the sound off and you're still captivated by the story. Lots of people think you can treat a movie like a book. They forget that cinematics are far more important for movie storytelling than narrative. If you want to write a book, then write a book. Don't make a movie if what you want is a book. Movies are different from books, and should be treated as such.

johnloeber 11y ago

A few observations: * No citizen kane, some other "classics" have also been omitted * No French cinema * No silent cinema * The omission of what is generally heralded as Kubrick's strongest work surprises me * No Tarantino

ekianjo 11y ago
> No French cinema If you start like that, then there's no Chinese cinema either (and there would be certainly a few worth mentioning). I'd take such a list as being mainly made of Hollywood movies, as well as whatever is appealing to Hollywood directors.
waterlesscloud 11y ago
No French cinema? Breathless is on there, as well as 400 Blows and Day For Night.
aardshark 11y ago
The 400 blows is French cinema
jgrahamc 11y ago
> No French cinema The following films are on Lee's list and are French: Les 400 coups (400 Blows), Truffaut La Nuit américaine (Day for Night), Truffaut A bout du souffle (Breathless), Godard Paris brûle-t-il? (Is Paris Burning?), Clément So 4/87 (approx 5%) of his films are French.

wmccullough 11y ago

I feel bad that we now live in a world where a person can't release a list of influential filmmakers without including another group arbitrarily. As someone in the tech world, if someone asked me who my list of influences were, I'd be afraid to answer for fear of being lambasted for not including Sheryl Samdberg or Marissa Mayer.

Caprinicus 11y ago
You don't have to change your lists because people complain. People complain about everything.
ant6n 11y ago
It's such a burden to have a modicum of social awareness. Almost as much as being from 'another group' while in the tech world... except not at all.

yiyus 11y ago

Many people are talking about the great films that he is missing. But if this is a list of films every aspiring director should see and not just a list of very good films, I think it would also be important to watch bad and very bad movies. Ed Wood should be in a list like this, for example, as well as TV films, anime, stop-motion films...

pauly 11y ago
Ed Wood or Plan 9 From Outer Space?
- bmelton 11y ago
  The Room
- yiyus 11y ago
  Both

skarist 11y ago

Good list. However, I notice lack of movies from such great directors as Wim Wenders and Andrei Tarkovsky. Well, I guess it is difficult to put together a list like this anyway.

dommer 11y ago

The list has little value in isolation. A brief context about why a particular film is in the list would be much more helpful. The audience can then understand why he included "controversial" directors like Gibson. The list on its own is just a list of films to watch that someone enjoyed...and everyone would most likely have a different list.

waterlesscloud 11y ago
I'd counter that if you watch the films on this list and don't understand why Lee included them, you're not likely to be a good film director.
- elthran 11y ago
  But this is a list for aspiring directors - If I'm currently aspiring to be a better director, then some level of explanation would be beneficial to me
  - waterlesscloud 11y ago
    Not really. If these movies don't stimulate your directorial imagination, a few words aren't going to help.
  - bazzargh 11y ago
    It's a list for aspiring directors who are part of the NYU Graduate Film program http://tisch.nyu.edu/grad-film/courses http://tisch.nyu.edu/grad-film/courses ... and they get three years of context. You could ask for context from any university reading list... http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/offerholders/reading-lists/english.html http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/offerholders/... ...they're of passing interest to people looking to be 'well read', but are provided mainly for the students, and the context is the course.
    - dommer 11y ago
      I think that was my point. As a reader of this list, it is of passing interest. Take the course this list accompanies and I will receive much better context and substantially improve my understanding of their inclusion.

marincounty 11y ago

My favorite movies, but for no particuliar reason: Platoon Wall street Three days of the condor Chinatown Sunset Boulevard The Stranger(actually all of Orson Wells movies) Any Andy Griffith episode Bicycle thieves 1948 Niagara Double indemnity (actually most billy wilder films) The Misfits (last film for Marilyn and Rhett Butler--forgot his name.) Giant Rebal without a cause Leaving Las Vegas Blow out (all three) Saturday night fever Yes, even Urban Cowboy One flew over the cocos nest Deliverance Hanna and her sisters East of Eden Dr. Strange love Back to the future Jaws In cold blood(with Robert Blake) In cold blood (with Eric Roberts, and forget his name) The asphalt jungle 1948? All about eve The hot rock Little Haus Big Halsey (Redford said it was his worst movie. Yes, it's masagonistic. Yes, he plays a jerk. But the movie captures the 70's I recall as a kid. The filming is great. His side kick in the movie did a great job playing a sweet, innocent, country teen.) A lot of foreign films I have yet to see.

frign 11y ago

> Note: When Spike originally released this list, many noted the lack of female filmmakers. Lee accepted that critique and released an updated list. Thanks, I'll stick with the original list. Given the small number of female filmmakers in Hollywood an only-male list is not unlikely. Political Correctness is a bitch.

cruise02 11y ago
Yeah, I'd hate to be exposed to eight more great films if they were made by women. /s

redwood 11y ago

I respect his humility. However his own film "Do the Right Thing" should be on this list.

redwood 11y ago

Surprised to see no Almodovar. Interesting to see a less well known Woody Allen pic

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

crispyambulance 11y ago

We should just accept that whatever anyone puts on their "must see" list is up to personal discretion and, when asked of a director, is going to say more about the director's viewpoint and formative experiences than anything else. If one wants to see "all the great films", I suggest focusing on specific genres/languages/formats one at a time rather than an uncategorized "top 10/20/87/100...".

jbmorgado 11y ago

"When Spike originally released this list, many noted the lack of female filmmakers. Lee accepted that critique and released an updated list." It's interesting to see that people that label themselves anti discrimination actually not only live perfectly fine with positive discrimination, but they actually come to expect it as a standard policy and take offense when it doesn't happen.

adamlett 11y ago
Being anti-rascist or anti-sexist does not necessarily imply being is anti-discrimination. To give an example, in many places positively discriminate old people by offering lower prices or better seating. Yet it would be absurd to claim that this constitutes ageism towards young people. It is understood that being old is in many ways a handicap, and by discriminating positively, we seek to lessen that handicap.
- jbmorgado 11y ago
  Your argument implies that women have an handicap and they can't direct movies as well as men and as such need positive discrimination. You are not supposed to force just women, just men, or just any other person from some sub-group into being included in some achievement that you want to atribute to the best overall individuals. I believe that is very clearly not the message of feminism and if it is, then feminism would be clearly broken.
  - RodericDay 11y ago
    The "handicap" in this case is the momentum carried by decades of forced subjugation, which can still be seen in tons of our social and cultural norms. Nothing to do with intrinsic potential.
    - jules 11y ago
      I'm not sure if that was serious, but women dominate in plenty of subjects. When are we going to accept that on average women are not interested in the same things as men? Trying to make everything 50-50 only makes people miserable. Give people equal opportunity, and if they make different choices that is a good thing, because they're choosing what makes them happy.

tosseraccount 11y ago

No Battleship Potemkin? No Birth of a Nation? Metropolis?

owly 11y ago

This is not much different than most film school lists. Nothing special.

owly 11y ago

This is not much different than most film school lists. Nothing special.

mbubb 11y ago

Wow - this is lacking. Very much a Hollywood/ NYC focus. I could think of 5 (each) Russian, Chinese, French, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Australian films would be before "Bad Lieutenant" (a film I like a lot - esp with the original Schooly D soundtrack) For women - Maya Deren for historical purposes and no Chantal Ackerman or Pilar Nair? I am not a film buff even - this is just a crap list.

mbubb 11y ago
And the inclusion of films like Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun" is bizarre. That film is like a 2hr episode of "Hogan's Heros" set in a Japanese POW camp.
- DanBC 11y ago
  JG Ballard spoke about his time in the camp and why he wrote the book. Including the film makes a lot more sense when you see the context: http://www.jgballard.ca/media/2002_feb3_BBC4_radio.html http://www.jgballard.ca/media/2002_feb3_BBC4_radio.html Ballard says this about the film: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/mar/04/fiction.film http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/mar/04/fiction.film
  - mbubb 11y ago
    The story is incredible - the film is not very good.
jonnathanson 11y ago
It's not total crap; most of the films on the list probably do deserve their place on anyone's hypothetical list. But it's certainly light on indie, experimental, and world cinema (particularly non-Western cinema), and I can think of many films I'd swap out for films not on the list. As could any film buff, I'd imagine. Which is kind of the whole point of being a film buff: there will be plenty of room for disagreement. But yeah, this is basically a Film Studies 101 primer list.
- 11y ago

Tycho 11y ago

Is there a site/webapp that i can drop this list into and it will tell me which titles are available on netflix? (or other online streaming services)

f_allwein 11y ago
Not the most elegant solution, but quick & easy: you could paste the list into a Google Spreadsheet, then add a formula to create a hyperlink to Netflix. E.g. for iTunes (I'm not on Netflix) this would be "http://ax.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/search?term="&A1 , with A1 being the field for the movie title. So take a look at the Netflix search results url and see if you can do the same there.

pbhjpbhj 11y ago

It would be interesting to see top developers list their favourite computer programs. Would you revise your list to be sure the lead developer on each program made a certain distribution amongst different characteristics sex/age/location/first-language? Should a Uni degree including dev ensure that amongst the programs/theorems/languages studied that some were from a particular group/sex/ethnicity/whatever?

ereckers 11y ago
I would actually. "Lists" of these types get stale after a while. Providing lusts along some defined attributes makes things interesting and can introduce one to something that would not make a typical best of list. Netflix is doing it with their movie suggestion (ie. Strong female lead) and I'm sure they're not worried about being too "PC", though I'm sure some, somewhere have intimated at it.

mikeash 11y ago

Nearly the whole conversation here is about how terrible it was to update the list to include some women. Imagine if instead of "women" it was something else. Maybe, "Why didn't you include any Soviet filmmakers?" Or, "What about Alfred Hitchcock?" Or maybe, "You should include some films from the silent era." And imagine Spike Lee took those suggestions and said, you know what, you're right, I should include some films from the silent era, there's some great stuff in there. Would you be just as upset about Spike Lee bending to his critics instead of sticking to his guns in that case? Or would you see that maybe there is some merit in this sort of back-and-forth? Would you accept a suggestion for "silent films" but rail against a suggestion for "films by female directors"? If so, why is that, exactly? Does the merest suggestion of political correctness shut off your thinking?

StavrosK 11y ago
Since I made the initial comment, I'll reply. > Would you be just as upset If by "just as upset", you mean "not upset at all, but rather curious", then yes, I would be exactly as upset. > Would you be just as upset about Spike Lee bending to his critics instead of sticking to his guns in that case? I would wonder why he changed a list of something entirely personal to him after some people pointed out that he didn't include any films from the silent era. I am equally curious as to why the reply was "oh yeah, here are five films from women", rather than "oh yeah, I forgot a bunch of stuff, some including women". If anything, it sounds a bit patronizing to women filmmakers, that they're included as an afterthought. A satisfying (to me) reply would be "holy shit guys I had a brain fart and was only thinking of men when compiling the list and completely forgot about my favorite female filmmakers, here they are, sorry about that, wow".
- mikeash 11y ago
  You may not be upset, but a quick glance at the comments shows a ton of people who are quite upset that Lee responded to this criticism the way he did. You wonder why he changed a list of something personal to him after people gave him additional food for thought? Are your opinions so set in stone? If you compiled a list of top programming language features, could you not even conceive of adding more entries to it after publishing it and having people make suggestions? Why do people expect this stuff to be carved in stone from the beginning? Your hypothetical reply looks a lot like his real reply to me.

contingencies 11y ago

How are The Element of Crime[0], THX1138[1] and the Qatsi Trilogy[2] not on this list? The former is simply the best film ever made, the second interesting as a gritty example of lowish budget success in a completely different genre from that which the (very famous) director became known for (and is a successful remake of a film from his student days), and the latter proves once and for all the power of cinema regardless of conventional plot. [0] https://torcache.net/torrent/CC4B99AC6FE2EA3D23173F05C95F9CDA6870683D.torrent?title=[kat.cr]the.element.of.crime.lars.von.trier.1984 https://torcache.net/torrent/CC4B99AC6FE2EA3D23173F05C95F9CD... [1] https://torcache.net/torrent/B138110324E5F7D8AF381E553BCE0AFE361B2B59.torrent?title=[kat.cr]thx.1138 https://torcache.net/torrent/B138110324E5F7D8AF381E553BCE0AF... [2] https://torcache.net/torrent/447F5AA67047731AD64F10653CBEEA7BA7A34A8C.torrent?title=[kat.cr]qatsi.trilogy.1982.2002.brrip.720p.krazykarvs https://torcache.net/torrent/447F5AA67047731AD64F10653CBEEA7...

contingencies 11y ago
Zero discussion downvote. Typical. HN is such a cultural community, ha!

gsibble 11y ago

District 9 doesn't belong anywhere near this list.

sebular 11y ago

I find it disappointing that the films on this list are overwhelmingly old. Sure, many of these were groundbreaking and influential in their time, but filmmaking has come such a long way since the days of Hitchcock, for example. In his original list, "City of Gods" (which he didn't even spell correctly-- the english title is "City of God") is the only film made in the last 2 decades. His updated list, which was supposed to be more inclusive to women, adds Apocalypto, District 9, Kung Fu Hustle, and Dirty Pretty Things, all of which are directed by men-- and he even removed "City of Gods", one of the few movies from the original list that had a female (co)director. In fact, the entire list reads like a giant insult to all of Lee's contemporaries. Does he want every aspiring filmmaker to enter the business with antiquated sensibilities about cinematography? He's coming across like the smug high-schooler who just discovered Led Zeppelin and declares that they're the greatest band of all time, and all modern music is crap.

kzhahou 11y ago
Maybe for an aspiring director, it's already pretty obvious what movies to see from the last 20 years, and they've already seen them.