Is The Godfather the greatest American film ever made?

Yeah, I remember some years ago when I brought up their noir/neo noir list.
Lists like tht interest not for their numerical listing but rather why is included for the reasons you’ve given.
I remember searching out lists for top 100 Brazilian films ever made, top 100 Mexican film, top 100 European horror films ever made, top 100 Giallo, top 100 spaghetti westerns, top 100 poliziottesco films, top 100 Japanese yakuza films and more recently a list of Italian cannibal films (for um….research ), and the lesser known euro war/macoroni combat films.
I try to be extensive.

That's how you do it.


It's all about finding things or hearing about things and going for it


Who cares if you like it. If you like movies, that should be good enough

Position 209 for 2025, 210 for 2024. Check back in the year 2233 and I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised.

I've hardly even touched TSPDT. I've mostly used Sight & Sound to determine which films to watch, but I'm curious how TSPDT differentiates.

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IMDb
Letterboxd

S&S sends out ballots every decade to a select set of critics to send in their list of top 10 best/favorite movies, and then just lists the movies that get the most votes. So, every movie that gets any type of vote is amongst somebody's favorite movies and it's more of a question of which movie is amongst the most people's top 10 favorite movies.

I don't follow TSPDT, like other people I know, but it's an aggregate of other best of lists. I'm not clear what the weightings are, but my understanding is the S&S polls are heavily weighted (and it includes both current and past ones). But by also pulling in a lot of other "best of lists," it gets a wider range of movies, more data points, so it makes more sense to go further down the results, and you'll get more random stuff showing up higher. At least that's what I understand from what other people who look more at the list sometimes tell me.

Interesting, looks like I got to check it out.

Absolutely NOT. The greatest is the one that scared the living sh** out of me when I saw it in a Saturday afternoon kiddie matinee in my small town Bijou. It was Tarantula....John Agar and Mara Corday run and scream from a giant, hairy spider while Leo G Carroll works with his chemistry set in the lab. I actually found a DVD copy not too long ago in my local Wall-Wart close-out bin.

Giant spiders beat the heck out of watching Corleone family members do whatever it was that they did.

It's a poll of polls.

"Compiled from 16,874 film lists and ballots, the 20th edition of The 1,000 Greatest Films is quite possibly the definitive collection of the most critically acclaimed films you will find."

This one's been going on for a while, but seems to have gone meandering. It makes me wonder.....given that some watchers are quite ardent that GF is the greatest movie ever, and that some (including me) are not willing to bestow that status, what WOULD be the criteria for "Greatest"?

Do we go with the opinions of the Great Unwashed, who have put money down on popcorn and date night to make box office receipts huge? Do we sample their opinion?

Do we count purchases, disk sales, streaming receipts?

Do we sample erudite reviewers or university trained experts with degrees as critics?

Do we sample untrained, but generally literate movie goers like me?

What are the criteria?

This is certainly what we should discuss. Sales and critical analysis are both types of "impact," so to have both would help. But since quite a few movies would have both, we narrow the list only down to a couple thousand. In the vein of critics vs. comman reviewers, we have websites that take into account both, thankfully, so I suppose the only thing to do would be to take the movies that fit both massive acclaim towards the general public AND the critics, as well as to decide on a minimum amount of money made after adjusting for inflation.

At least, that would be the start.

Bare minimum average rating for critics
Bare minimum average rating for the public
Bare minimum box office after adjusting for inflation.

A base estimation on all of this, considering world impact and sales adjusted for inflation, and lack of controversy, would leave the clear winner to be Star Wars. Fourth highest grossing (no May the 4th or Episode IV pun intended), easily the biggest impact on the world, the masses absolutely adore it on the level of The Godfather.

So in this instance, the definition of "objective" would be "worldwide."

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The same criteria that you used to determine that Tarantula was the greatest film...Because it resonated with you and still does. It's a good b-sci-fi creature flick too.

So what I'm saying is: We each determine what the greatest film is by whatever metric we decide is relevant and important to us. Sorry if that's boring but that's how I call it.

We could go by x number of critics opinions...but I don't give a rat's ass about that, as my opinion is what matters to me. I get it that my personal greatest film isn't going to be to other's liking, but they'll just have to find their own greatest film, I'm not sharing

Why do we think this should even be possible? Who do we anoint to bless the criteria? And then assemble the data? And get through that entire process and come out on the other end with a conclusion that absolutely no one, everywhere in the world, would contest? The world would reverberate with the sound of a billion film fans collectively slapping their foreheads and saying "Of course! That's the answer to the the ultimate question of movies, life, the universe, and everything!"

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Scarecrow: I haven't got a brain ... only straw. Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain? Scarecrow: I don't know. But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they? Dorothy: Yes, I guess you're right.

But there's a difference between assessing what the world sees as the greatest vs. no one contesting it. One can be at least partially calculated and discussed, which is what some people here are attempting, while the other is basically wishing for world peace.

It's kinda the same thing. To "assess what the world sees as the greatest" still implies that someone, or some group, has to do the assessing. It just won't miraculously manifest. And having done so, "the world" will accept the "assessment." You're lobbying for a theoretical possibility. Can you explain specifically how this theory of a "greatest film of all time" can be derived with credibility?

I was just thinking what would I do if I was in charge of choosing the #1 greatest movie of all time for one of the big, renowned movie list, like AFI.

Would I say, 'screw it and just pick my personal favorite'? Probably not as I'd feel like I had an obligation to those at AFI not to choose Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman or even Sweet Smell of Success. So instead I'd feel hemmed in by past list and past opinions and probably end up picking a movie that has landed in the top 5 spot for decades. I bet that's how a lot of people who helm those list roll.

An opinion becomes a standard, then it becomes movie dogma. Why isn't Sweet Smell of Success or Jaws or even Downfall voted number one instead of The Godfather? Don't tell me those films aren't as good as The Godfather. So the answer must be that popular opinions have great impact on people's own opinions...I believe TheManBehindTheCurtain just posted something very similar. But I was thinking about this all day long, really I was!

I am aware of no satisfactory criteria.

Research and discussion on a board that's willing. But people have tried since the dawn of man to get the whole world on their side. One's just a look at what the world typically sees, like looking up the most common religion. The other literally requires a mindcontrol helmet to stretch across the world a la Cerebro.

Having something to say that isn't boring or stupid.


And anyone could do that, if they at least slightly tried.

Since I'm so stupid, perhaps you can enlighten me on the original question about that well-worn gangster movie. It would be a teaching moment for all of us if you can do that. Why IS the Godfather better than Tarantula? 50 words will suffice.