The "Greatest" movie

[Savonarola]

After reading Ide and Frunk's conversation concerning Empire's "Greatest Movie" poll in the TV/Movie Megathread, I'm curious as how Languish would answer Ide's criteria for "Greatest Movie."

1.)  What is your favorite movie?
2.)  What do you consider the most important movie?
3.)  What do you consider the best made movie ever?

[Savonarola]

For me:

Favorite:  The Passion of Joan of Arc
Most important:  Birth of a Nation
Best Made:  The Last Laugh

I just gotta be me.   

[Valmy]

For me:

Favorite:  The Passion of Joan of Arc
Most important:  Birth of a Nation
Best Made:  The Last Laugh

I just gotta be me.   

Movies have really gone downhill since the calendar turned to 1930 eh Sav?

[Viking]

1. The Usual Suspects followed by Millers Crossing (Gabriel Byrne used to pick only good movies to be in)
2. Jaws followed by The Jazz Singer (because after them the industry was never the same)
3. Gone with the Wind followed by Titanic (focus on detail in every aspect and at every level in these movies)

[Grey Fox]

1. Shawshank Redemption
2. Titanic
3. I don't know how to evaluate that so...E.T.

[Valmy]

1. The Usual Suspects.
2. Um...what was the first movie to really use CGI effects?  Sometimes I hear the earlier Cameron film, the Abyss, mentioned for that.
3. Citizen Kane.  Every scene is like art.

[Eddie Teach]

Favorite- Raiders of the Lost Ark
Greatest- The Godfather
Most Important- Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle

[Valmy]

1. Shawshank Redemption

Is this you once you left Alberta?

[Duque de Bragança]

2. Um...what was the first movie to really use CGI effects?  Sometimes I hear the earlier Cameron film, the Abyss, mentioned for that.

Tron, or the Last Starfighter, depending on the view point.

[Savonarola]

2. Um...what was the first movie to really use CGI effects?  Sometimes I hear the earlier Cameron film, the Abyss, mentioned for that.

I believe Labyrinth was the first film to use CGI; but it's just the owl at the beginning of the film.

[Savonarola]

2. Um...what was the first movie to really use CGI effects?  Sometimes I hear the earlier Cameron film, the Abyss, mentioned for that.

I believe Labyrinth was the first film to use CGI; but it's just the owl at the beginning of the film.

Labyrinth was only the first realistic CGI animal.  Wikipedia has a full timeline of CGI milestones:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_computer_animation_in_film_and_television

[Valmy]

I guess if we go by that timeline it would probably have to be TRON.  The difference in my mind is the CGI was not used as a substitute for real actors and objects like The Phantom Menace and its digital cast.

[Ideologue]

Favorite: Flash Gordon.
Most Important: Citizen Kane, for the codification of the language of sound cinema, the dominant mode of cinema (runner up: Star Wars, for the first self-sustaining super-franchise--where Jaws died, real IPs live).  Otherwise I guess Birth of a Nation.  Hard to avoid that one.
Best Made:  Probably Russian Ark, but I haven't seen it yet.

Otherwise, it's very hard to choose from the contenders, but using my criterion of "difficulty"--perhaps better understood as "overcoming difficulty"--they are as follows: 2001: A Space Odyssey for its technical accuracy and innovative special effects; Barry Lyndon for its revolutionary space-age cinematography; Oldboy for its long take fight sequence; The Raid for its unparalleled physicality; Rope for its mobile long takes in the primitive conditions of 1948; The Invisible Man for extremely complicated and advanced special effects; The General, Steamboat Bill, Jr., Safety Last!, and Death Proof for their death-defying stunts; Intolerance, the Ken Adam Bond movies, and Titanic for their enormous physical sets built and populated by hundreds at the cost of tens of millions in 2014 dollars.

I'm not stuck on "boy, that seemed hard" as the only definition of "best made," incidentally.  It's just that a more artistic, subjective, and qualitative definition--incorporating the "best editing" or "best cinematography" or "best production design" or whatever--would be largely synonymous with my "favorite."

[Savonarola]

I guess if we go by that timeline it would probably have to be TRON.  The difference in my mind is the CGI was not used as a substitute for real actors and objects like The Phantom Menace and its digital cast.

It's interesting going back and watching "The Dark Crystal" now.  It would be so much easier to CGI everything in now; yet Jim Henson's all puppet world is more believable than that of "The Phantom Menace."

[Eddie Teach]

Your "best made" criteria seem to completely ignore script and acting. Film is not merely a series of connected images.