The Lack of Agreed Upon Film Classics Since 1995

[Scott Taylor]

Thanks for the responses. I'll note this is all based on a weird sense of what other people like, and you may very well come to different conclusions on that question.

Interesting point about major adaptations having cache. That helps Lord of the Rings.

I've heard a different argument that it's better to adapt lesser work because the best novels or plays or whatever work in that particular medium. The flipside is that stronger novels and plays have more great characters and moments. On this question, it'll be interesting to see the reputation of Denzel Washington's Fences or Macbeth in twenty years. The source material was exceptional, and reviews are decent.

With Shakespeare its a real crap shoot. There are probably at least two dozen film versions of Hamlet, at least, but the only one that I really enjoy is the 1940s version with Sir Laurence Olivier. I've watched a couple of MacBeth interpretations but not the Denzel version. Hard to imagine it topping the Kurosawa version from the 1950s.

Part of this is the director. Directors who came out of the tragedy of two world wars and a depression might have more to say on certain subjects than more younger directors who have relatively less tragic life experiences.

[ChrisIII]

The Welles version is a bit of a mess, in particular because he overdid the accents.

Welles himself is sort of an interesting story. He had a lot of ambition but it was often tempered with studio interference (especially after Hearst's backlash against KANE), him overdoing things or things just not coming together (Like his version of Dead Calm)


Regarding SOLO's failure it's sort of an interesting thing because in many ways it's the most traditional of the Disney films-male lead, most experienced director (Well, after the switcheroo), and by the guy who wrote most of the OT alongside Lucas. I know Pheobe Waller Bridge's droid got some backlash but it didn't really dominate the film.

Part of the problem I think was perhaps releasing it so soon after TLJ and it's backlash.

[krazijoe]

The Welles version is a bit of a mess, in particular because he overdid the accents.

Welles himself is sort of an interesting story. He had a lot of ambition but it was often tempered with studio interference (especially after Hearst's backlash against KANE), him overdoing things or things just not coming together (Like his version of Dead Calm)


Regarding SOLO's failure it's sort of an interesting thing because in many ways it's the most traditional of the Disney films-male lead, most experienced director (Well, after the switcheroo), and by the guy who wrote most of the OT alongside Lucas. I know Pheobe Waller Bridge's droid got some backlash but it didn't really dominate the film.

Part of the problem I think was perhaps releasing it so soon after TLJ and it's backlash.

I liked Solo so I don't get the hate. It's not like they made Venom with the movie. I guess if there is one negative critique I have is that it's Solo. I say enough with the Skywalker/Solo/Leia and family stories but move on where they are not the focus. I am so waiting for a Thrann or a KotOR movie. EXPAND the universe please...One of the reasons I an not too keen on Andor. I don't care about the Rebellion anymore. MOVE ON.

[Kirby101]

I liked Solo as well. Good space fantasy movie. It's just that at no time did I think that was Han Solo. Maybe no actor besides Ford can be.

[David Walton]

A couple of points about the different way we experience films:

--Films once had a longer theater run and were built up through word of mouth. They didn't live or die on the strength of the opening weekend. Now a film hits on Thursday and we're talking about the next big thing by Sunday.

--It's harder to conceive of anything like a pre-2000 consensus now that anyone with a social media account or a blog can publicly critique a film. If social media had been around when THE GODFATHER came out, there would have been thousands of "is it just me, or is THE GODFATHER overrated" posts. As it is, any moviegoer that didn't "get" the film just moved on to something else. But who knows how it would be seen if everyone that strongly disliked had been able to keep their distaste in the discussion?

I don't think we'll ever have the same kind of consensus with regard to popular culture again.

[ChrisIII]

I liked Solo so I don't get the hate. It's not like they made Venom with the movie. I guess if there is one negative critique I have is that it's Solo. I say enough with the Skywalker/Solo/Leia and family stories but move on where they are not the focus. I am so waiting for a Thrann or a KotOR movie. EXPAND the universe please...One of the reasons I an not too keen on Andor. I don't care about the Rebellion anymore. MOVE ON.

I think they are least working on a High Republic project (Acolyte) and I think Thrawn is likely going to be an antagonist in the Ashoka series, given that it also involves Ezra who vanished with him.

[Mister Mets]

One wrinkle may be the emphasis on, for lack of a better word, different types of derivative movies. A different way to phrase is that everything's a remake.

We have major franchises that are trucking along and we don't even know what to call some new installments. Is The Batman a remake of Batman Returns (a previous film in which Batman romanced Catwoman and fought the Penguin?) because it's not a sequel. Marvel's been making the MCU fresh by using it to tell stories in different genres (Captain America: Winter Soldier was a 1970s style paranoid thriller complete with Robert Redford in a key role; the Antman films are basically capers.)

There's an emphasis on diversity and telling old stories with different contexts. Crazy Rich Asians was not the first romcom in which a young woman realized her boyfriend's family was rich. Bros took romcom tropes for a story about a gay activist.

So many prestigious films are about the history of movies and/ or in the style of earlier films. Lalaland is about an aspiring actress, and modeled on the Jacques Demi musicals.

Many of the results are good, but there's a difference between telling a good story in the spaghetti western style, and inventing something completely new. It could also result in some vote-splitting when it's time to figure out a magazine staff's favorite movies.

A couple of points about the different way we experience films:

--Films once had a longer theater run and were built up through word of mouth. They didn't live or die on the strength of the opening weekend. Now a film hits on Thursday and we're talking about the next big thing by Sunday.

--It's harder to conceive of anything like a pre-2000 consensus now that anyone with a social media account or a blog can publicly critique a film. If social media had been around when THE GODFATHER came out, there would have been thousands of "is it just me, or is THE GODFATHER overrated" posts. As it is, any moviegoer that didn't "get" the film just moved on to something else. But who knows how it would be seen if everyone that strongly disliked had been able to keep their distaste in the discussion?

I don't think we'll ever have the same kind of consensus with regard to popular culture again.

That's a good point on longer theater runs. Studios are currently realizing that the theatrical model makes movies more popular on streaming, so there can very easily be streaming films that were ignored now, but will get more attention in a few years, just like when Shawshank Redemption took off on cable, or It's a Wonderful Life took on TV after accidentally going public domain.

It's worth noting there are indications that previous critics liked some recent work.

The first Sight& Sound Top Ten in 1952 correctly included the four year old Bicycle Thieves (good choice) and the three year old Louisiana Story (a more complicated choice that may have been a way to honor a recently deceased director.)

There's also weird stuff that has nothing to do with the quality of the film. Pulp Fiction might be less popular if Tarantino didn't use his later films to develop a cult of personality. The Sixth Sense might be better regarded if M. Night Shyamalan's next film has a really good reputation.

Don't know if many younger people will remember this, but in the 90s nostalgia was better than it is now and we used to reflect on how the adventure films of the 1980s and the big budget art films of the 1970s would never be surpassed by a more commercialised Hollywood.

90s nostalgia is a thing, but it's not the only factor here. Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, Goodfellas and Schindler's List became mainstays of best of lists pretty quickly.

There may be complex factors that lead to movies of a particular time developing reputations. So it's hard to figure out whether the new Hollywood films were a little bit better for assorted reasons (film needed to compete with television which led to greater maturity of subject matter, studios were more willing to experiment, a generation of directors was influenced by foreign films, etc) or if a handful of movies released in a ten year period we (The Graduate, The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2, Taxi Driver, Bonnie and Clyde, In the Heat of the Night, Easy Rider, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, MASH, A Clockwork Orange, American Graffiti, The Exorcist, Chinatown, Rocky, All the President's Men, Network) just captured the zeitgeist even if it wasn't better than films released in another ten year stretch.

[CliffHanger2]

Classics usually involve stars or star-making performances. Which there's definitely a lack thereof the last 20 years or so.

[thwhtGuardian]

One wrinkle may be the emphasis on, for lack of a better word, different types of derivative movies. A different way to phrase is that everything's a remake.

We have major franchises that are trucking along and we don't even know what to call some new installments. Is The Batman a remake of Batman Returns (a previous film in which Batman romanced Catwoman and fought the Penguin?) because it's not a sequel. Marvel's been making the MCU fresh by using it to tell stories in different genres (Captain America: Winter Soldier was a 1970s style paranoid thriller complete with Robert Redford in a key role; the Antman films are basically capers.)

There's an emphasis on diversity and telling old stories with different contexts. Crazy Rich Asians was not the first romcom in which a young woman realized her boyfriend's family was rich. Bros took romcom tropes for a story about a gay activist.

So many prestigious films are about the history of movies and/ or in the style of earlier films. Lalaland is about an aspiring actress, and modeled on the Jacques Demi musicals.

Many of the results are good, but there's a difference between telling a good story in the spaghetti western style, and inventing something completely new. It could also result in some vote-splitting when it's time to figure out a magazine staff's favorite movies.

That's a good point on longer theater runs. Studios are currently realizing that the theatrical model makes movies more popular on streaming, so there can very easily be streaming films that were ignored now, but will get more attention in a few years, just like when Shawshank Redemption took off on cable, or It's a Wonderful Life took on TV after accidentally going public domain.

It's worth noting there are indications that previous critics liked some recent work.

The first Sight& Sound Top Ten in 1952 correctly included the four year old Bicycle Thieves (good choice) and the three year old Louisiana Story (a more complicated choice that may have been a way to honor a recently deceased director.)

There's also weird stuff that has nothing to do with the quality of the film. Pulp Fiction might be less popular if Tarantino didn't use his later films to develop a cult of personality. The Sixth Sense might be better regarded if M. Night Shyamalan's next film has a really good reputation.

90s nostalgia is a thing, but it's not the only factor here. Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, Goodfellas and Schindler's List became mainstays of best of lists pretty quickly.

There may be complex factors that lead to movies of a particular time developing reputations. So it's hard to figure out whether the new Hollywood films were a little bit better for assorted reasons (film needed to compete with television which led to greater maturity of subject matter, studios were more willing to experiment, a generation of directors was influenced by foreign films, etc) or if a handful of movies released in a ten year period we (The Graduate, The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2, Taxi Driver, Bonnie and Clyde, In the Heat of the Night, Easy Rider, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, MASH, A Clockwork Orange, American Graffiti, The Exorcist, Chinatown, Rocky, All the President's Men, Network) just captured the zeitgeist even if it wasn't better than films released in another ten year stretch.

I still don't think there is anything to your premise.

If you look at the original AFI list of 100 greatest films from 1998 you'll see only Schindler's list in the top twenty and then a few more rounding out the tail end. Then when they did it again in 2008, you see Schindler's list actually improve in standing and the number of films from the 90's nearly doubles. And while the list you posted isn't by the American Film Insitute, is methology of polling directors, writers, actors and producers to make the list is nearly the same so it's easy enough to see it as a continuation of the AFI lists especially as there is so much overlap in the movies listed...and wouldn't you know it the trend continues and in 2014 there are even more 90's films on the list than in 2008.

So rather than some period of films where everybody was on the same page right out of the gate it looks like that as we move further from their contemporary release period films get reevaluated and included among the all time greats just like they normally did in the past. And there is nothing to suggest that the same wouldn't be true now.

[Mister Mets]

I still don't think there is anything to your premise.

If you look at the original AFI list of 100 greatest films from 1998 you'll see only Schindler's list in the top twenty and then a few more rounding out the tail end. Then when they did it again in 2008, you see Schindler's list actually improve in standing and the number of films from the 90's nearly doubles. And while the list you posted isn't by the American Film Insitute, is methology of polling directors, writers, actors and producers to make the list is nearly the same so it's easy enough to see it as a continuation of the AFI lists especially as there is so much overlap in the movies listed...and wouldn't you know it the trend continues and in 2014 there are even more 90's films on the list than in 2008.

So rather than some period of films where everybody was on the same page right out of the gate it looks like that as we move further from their contemporary release period films get reevaluated and included among the all time greats just like they normally did in the past. And there is nothing to suggest that the same wouldn't be true now.

I don't think it's that.

I got the sense that Shawshank Redemption was already really popular within a decade of its release. I don't get that with recent films. It might come down to media consumption habits; maybe I'm not reading as many lists of great films as I used to.

It's a good question to see how the AFI list changed from 1998 to 2008. I don't think it shows a much greater appreciation for the 90s.

The original AFI list had eight films from the early 90s (Schindler's List, The Silence of the Lambs, Forrest Gump, Dances With Wolves, Goodfellas, Unforgiven, Pulp Fiction, Fargo)
The tenth anniversary list added the Shawshank Redemption and Toy Story from that period, although it also dumped a few (Dances With Wolves, Fargo) so there wasn't a major increase for early 90s films in that go-around.
The only films included from that ten year period were Saving Private Ryan, Titanic, The Sixth Sense and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

I did wonder how the 80s fared in the different AFI lists, since that could be a proxy for how a more modern list might treat films from 20-30 years earlier.
Raging Bull went from 24th to 4th place, Amadeus disappeared, ET, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Platoon and Tootsie remained consistent, and some new films popped up towards the end (Sophies Choice, Blade Runner, Do the Right Thing)

In transitions, I may be overthinking the difference between the 95th and 106th vote-getters, which also makes the difference between being on the list and not being on it.

Classics usually involve stars or star-making performances. Which there's definitely a lack thereof the last 20 years or so.

I can appreciate that argument, that we've lost the culture of movie stars, and some of those 90s films were part of that.
Forrest Gump was Tom Hanks's last Oscar.
Pulp Fiction was a star turn for Samuel L Jackson, a comeback vehicle for John Travolta, and great for Uma Thurman.
Shawshank Redemption was on cable all the time as a Tim Robbins/ Morgan Freeman vehicle.
Unforgiven builds on Eastwood's reputation as a western star.
Silence of the Lambs got Jodie Foster her second Oscar, and led to career highs for Anthony Hopkins.
Goodfellas got Pesci his Oscar, and featured De Niro.

Looking at recent well-regarded films...
The Dark Knight was a star turn, but unfortunately it was posthumous.
Lord of the Rings was good for the reputations of Viggo Mortenson, Ian McKellan and Andy Serkis.
Saving Private Ryan was a war film by the biggest director with the biggest movie star.
Titanic built on Leo's stardom.
Top Gun: Maverick is a big statement on Tom Cruise, but it also leads to a lot of talk about how he's the last movie star.

So there may be some implications to having less star-driven projects. When celebrities are in recurring roles, it's also weird to figure out how to evaluate their best work. What's the strongest Daniel Craig James Bond film? Is the best Robert Downey Jr Iron Man film also the best Chadwick Boseman Black Panther film?

[CliffHanger2]

I can appreciate that argument, that we've lost the culture of movie stars, and some of those 90s films were part of that.
Forrest Gump was Tom Hanks's last Oscar.
Pulp Fiction was a star turn for Samuel L Jackson, a comeback vehicle for John Travolta, and great for Uma Thurman.
Shawshank Redemption was on cable all the time as a Tim Robbins/ Morgan Freeman vehicle.
Unforgiven builds on Eastwood's reputation as a western star.
Silence of the Lambs got Jodie Foster her second Oscar, and led to career highs for Anthony Hopkins.
Goodfellas got Pesci his Oscar, and featured De Niro.

Looking at recent well-regarded films...
The Dark Knight was a star turn, but unfortunately it was posthumous.
Lord of the Rings was good for the reputations of Viggo Mortenson, Ian McKellan and Andy Serkis.
Saving Private Ryan was a war film by the biggest director with the biggest movie star.
Titanic built on Leo's stardom.
Top Gun: Maverick is a big statement on Tom Cruise, but it also leads to a lot of talk about how he's the last movie star.

So there may be some implications to having less star-driven projects. When celebrities are in recurring roles, it's also weird to figure out how to evaluate their best work. What's the strongest Daniel Craig James Bond film? Is the best Robert Downey Jr Iron Man film also the best Chadwick Boseman Black Panther film?

Definitely think it has something to do with it. I didn't understand your last sentence though.

[Mister Mets]

Definitely think it has something to do with it. I didn't understand your last sentence though.

My point was that there are more decisions film personalities have to make when considering best of lists. A critic could include his favorite Leone/ Eastwood spaghetti western (most likely The Good, The Bad and the Ugly) or his favorite Sean Connery James Bond film (most likely Goldfinger) but recent decisions can get more complicated because it's not just about honoring a performance that's been in multiple films but other factors. This can lead to some votesplitting. Perhaps enough voters in a poll all agree that an MCU film is in the Top 50, but they may have different selections. Someone may prefer the afrofuturism of Black Panther, while someone else might like the combination of performances showcased in Avengers: Infinity War, someone else might prefer Spider-Man: No Way Home's method of honoring the history of superhero movies, a fourth critic may just think that Iron Man as the first film is the one to vote for, and a final critic may just think Captain America: Winter Soldier was the best film.

Earlier in the year, I did a poll on what the best-regarded MCU film will be, as it's a different type of film project, especially when sorting out the best.

[CliffHanger2]

My point was that there are more decisions film personalities have to make when considering best of lists. A critic could include his favorite Leone/ Eastwood spaghetti western (most likely The Good, The Bad and the Ugly) or his favorite Sean Connery James Bond film (most likely Goldfinger) but recent decisions can get more complicated because it's not just about honoring a performance that's been in multiple films but other factors. This can lead to some votesplitting. Perhaps enough voters in a poll all agree that an MCU film is in the Top 50, but they may have different selections. Someone may prefer the afrofuturism of Black Panther, while someone else might like the combination of performances showcased in Avengers: Infinity War, someone else might prefer Spider-Man: No Way Home's method of honoring the history of superhero movies, a fourth critic may just think that Iron Man as the first film is the one to vote for, and a final critic may just think Captain America: Winter Soldier was the best film.

Earlier in the year, I did a poll on what the best-regarded MCU film will be, as it's a different type of film project, especially when sorting out the best.

Okay I see what you're saying.

[numberthirty]

Another one that it hit me that doesn't ever get it's due as a "Classic..." film...

Velvet Goldmine

Way past brilliant in the "Meta..." sense. The soundtrack alone is pretty noteworthy. Some pretty crafty set pieces.

That said, it's probably never going to be on a "Classic..." list.

[thwhtGuardian]

My point was that there are more decisions film personalities have to make when considering best of lists. A critic could include his favorite Leone/ Eastwood spaghetti western (most likely The Good, The Bad and the Ugly) or his favorite Sean Connery James Bond film (most likely Goldfinger) but recent decisions can get more complicated because it's not just about honoring a performance that's been in multiple films but other factors. This can lead to some votesplitting. Perhaps enough voters in a poll all agree that an MCU film is in the Top 50, but they may have different selections. Someone may prefer the afrofuturism of Black Panther, while someone else might like the combination of performances showcased in Avengers: Infinity War, someone else might prefer Spider-Man: No Way Home's method of honoring the history of superhero movies, a fourth critic may just think that Iron Man as the first film is the one to vote for, and a final critic may just think Captain America: Winter Soldier was the best film.

Earlier in the year, I did a poll on what the best-regarded MCU film will be, as it's a different type of film project, especially when sorting out the best.

I just don't think you've actually shown that to be true. Most films find recognition as they age and are then reevaluated with where they fit into the established canon of "classics" as the people who grew up loving them and being influenced them replace the people who were more influenced with older films. It's the natural progression in just about every creative media, and I don't see that changing.

There are exceptions to the rule, like Schindler's List, but they are very few and far between.