The "Greatest" movie

[Barrister]

You can end the debate: I have found The Greatest movie:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1226232/

[lustindarkness]

The Nightmare Before Christmas

[Savonarola]

You can end the debate: I have found The Greatest movie:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1226232/

Budget:  $6,000,000 (estimated)
Gross:  $115,862 (USA)

That's what you get for not casting Muhammad Ali in a movie called "The Greatest."   

[Ideologue]

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

There is not even a remotely objective way to rate acting.  Scripts can be evaluated from a logical standpoint, but logic is rarely something that makes a movie bad or good, or even worse or better.

[dps]

Favorite movie:  The Maltese Falcon.  Ask on different days, and you'll get different answers.

Most Important:  Birth of a Nation.  Despite the unfortunate POV.

Best Made:  Jurassic Park.  More than 20 years later, there are new films that don't do CGI as well, and nothing has really blended practical effects and CGI as well.

[Eddie Teach]

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

There is not even a remotely objective way to rate acting.  Scripts can be evaluated from a logical standpoint, but logic is rarely something that makes a movie bad or good, or even worse or better.

An unobjective rating that takes all facets of the film into account is a better gauge of the overall quality than an "objective" rating of the camerawork.

[Admiral Yi]

I measure movie quality by how many times I can  rewatch it and still enjoy it.

Groundhog Day, Aliens, Caddyshack, A Bridge Too Far, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Godfather I & II, Spinal Tap, Holy Grail, Jungle Book, these are movies I've seen umpteen times and still derive pleasure from.

Don't know how to distinguish between favorites and well made movies.

Most important is not something I concern myself with.

[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.   

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

Hoover gets elected and Bam! everything goes to hell.    God damn engineers. 



I first saw Passion of Joan of Arc at a live performance with "The Voices of Light" music.  The composer, Richard Einhorn, was the conductor and Anonymous 4 were among the singers.  While the film is one of the best from my favorite eras of cinema; that performance has made it my favorite film.

DW Griffith had developed a lot of his ideas about cinema in the short films he made prior to "Birth of a Nation;" but it's in "Birth" that he put them all together and with a much larger a scope.  That began feature film as we know it.  For a comparison see "Cabiria" made a year before in which all the actors run about like someone had just shouted "Fire!"  (Admittedly, "Cabiria" is an Italian picture.)

I took "Best made" to mean that all the individual elements of film are put together for best use.  In that sense "The Last Laugh" would be my pick.  It seems to be told completely naturally and without artifice; yet it's filled with Murnau's expressionist nightmare. 

With Ide's definition of "Best made" as most difficult to make I think I'd pick "Fitzcarraldo" which, while making, Werner Herzog actually did have a steam ship transported through the Peruvian rain forest; all while placating Klaus Kinski.  Kinski was such a bastard to everyone on that film that the natives offered to kill him for Herzog.  "Russian Ark" was trivially easy to make as compared with that. 

[grumbler]

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

Film is a story told through the visual and auditory medium.  Scripts and acting can help that process, obviously, but even great scripts and acting can still result in crap films.

I'd argue that the score is more important to a film than the dialogue, for instance, though both are subordinate to cinematography.

[grumbler]

Favorite movie;  Dr. Strangelove.  It just works on so many levels, and the anecdotes surrounding its making are the stuff of legend.

Most Important:  Citizen Kane.  Pretty much a redefinition of the entire concept of the motion picture.

Best Made: That's a hard one.  There are so many that combine all of the elements of a great flick, but the one that does it best-best is probably Nineteen Eighty-Four.  It is at the same time a brilliant adaptation of one of the most important books ever written, and also probably the hardest movie to watch I've ever encountered, because it is literally so powerful (in the good, cinema sense) that watching it and knowing what is going to happen is almost physically painful.  It is the only movie about which I am serious when I recommend it with the warning that one should never watch this and then go to bed.

[Norgy]

Favorite movie;  Dr. Strangelove.  It just works on so many levels, and the anecdotes surrounding its making are the stuff of legend.

Most Important:  Citizen Kane.  Pretty much a redefinition of the entire concept of the motion picture.

I agree. My second favourite is "Lawrence of Arabia".
I can watch both time and time again.

[Sheilbh]

Favourite -  A Matter of Life and Death
Best made - Breathless
Most important - I don't know for film in general, but for me it's La Haine. I borrowed it from my French teacher when I was doing my A-Levels and it made me interested in film. It was for me, at that age, amazing and exciting and opened my eyes to what a good film could do.

[mongers]

Favourite -  A Matter of Life and Death
Best made - Breathless
Most important - I don't know for film in general, but for me it's La Haine. I borrowed it from my French teacher when I was doing my A-Levels and it made me interested in film. It was for me, at that age, amazing and exciting and opened my eyes to what a good film could do.

Yes, I'd forgotten what an excellent film it is.

Some good recommendations in this thread,though I don't get how Ide can suggest a film he hasn't seen.      'Russian Ark' was interesting, but not exactly earth shattering.

[Sheilbh]

Yes, I'd forgotten what an excellent film it is.

It and Casablanca were the first films I thought of when thinking what's my favourite. I'd no idea I was so romantic

[crazy canuck]

Favourite - Its tough to pick. I will go with Dr. Zhivago
Best - Godfather I and II - dont make me pick between them
Most important - Fail Safe.