The Movie Forums Top 100 of All-Time Refresh: Countdown

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That Mank boost is clearly paying off. But seriously, Kane is as excellent as its titanic reputation would suggest - and yet I still left it off my list. Probably doesn't help that I've only seen it twice - once like fifteen years ago with the obligatory canonical viewing and then at some point in the last couple of months. Still, is there really any arguing against it?

Jurassic Park is a shocking miss from the list. It's iconic.
As much as I was defending the simple genius of it just now, I do think that there is a cap on how good it actually is (and there are those who would obviously argue it's not) and that Spielberg's work as a blockbuster artist has definitely peaked elsewhere (arguably in two other films that will all but certainly show up soon). I'd still take it over E.T., though.
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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0



Got my #10 right thanks to Skepsis pointing out that I am an idiot. Still hopeful Fargo over Apocalypse, despite my love for Apocalypse, but we shall see. I think I'm the only one that picked Fargo in top ten.

I think Citizen Kane is great. Love the structure and the camerawork, especially the use of shadow. Also love the scenes where he makes Kane bigger than life with interesting angles. Is there anything more cinematic than that fireplace? Kane quite possibly could make my next 100. Won't be top 25 though. Oh, fresh in my mind too because I watched it after watching Mank in December. My 3rd or 4th watch of it.
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I forgot it was one at a time, I was like...uh oh someone broke up the posts!!!

I was mighty pleased with that for a fleeting second, believing that I split Yoda's posts. Then it also dawned to me that it could be just one movie a day.


Anyways, Rosebud featured as 16th on my list, and it's a movie I enjoy rewatching.



I'll take my shot at predicting the Top Ten.
9. Citizen Kane
10. Apocalypse Now
Conswarnit!

Jurassic Park belongs on any list of groundbreaking visual FX, blockbusters, and certainly dinosaur movies. But as one of the handful of greatest films ever made...not so much.

The apparent exclusion I am happiest about is The Departed. Everyone here knows I kneel at the altar of Scorsese but empirically it isn't one of his three or four greatest achievements. I don't personally think it is in his top fifteen, and it definitely doesn't belong up near the top of any list of greatest films ever made. That The Departed placed so highly eleven years ago was some recency bias coupled with maybe the median age of that voting block being quite a bit lower?



So nice voting (or refraining from voting) this time around, MoFo.
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28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
1 reveal a day from now, that's tough!

Touch of Evil > CK

Random thought while looking at the list so far; Is Dustin Hoffman not on the list?

There's still time for Meet the Fockers to show.



As much as I was defending the simple genius of it just now, I do think that there is a cap on how good it actually is (and there are those who would obviously argue it's not) and that Spielberg's work as a blockbuster artist has definitely peaked elsewhere (arguably in two other films that will all but certainly show up soon). I'd still take it over E.T., though.

I am one of those. It's a really well made film and iconic. There is tension, fun, drama, comedy and you almost feel for all characters.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
Conswarnit!

Jurassic Park belongs on any list of groundbreaking visual FX, blockbusters, and certainly dinosaur movies. But as one of the handful of greatest films ever made...not so much.

The apparent exclusion I am happiest about is The Departed. Everyone here knows I kneel at the altar of Scorsese but empirically it isn't one of his three or four greatest achievements. I don't personally think it is in his top fifteen, and it definitely doesn't belong up near the top of any list of greatest films ever made. That The Departed placed so highly eleven years ago was some recency bias coupled with maybe the median age of that voting block being quite a bit lower?



So nice voting (or refraining from voting) this time around, MoFo.

Uh oh....Holden is gonna be pissed about the next reveal.



Welcome to the human race...
I am one of those. It's a really well made film and iconic. There is tension, fun, drama, comedy and you almost feel for all characters.
I meant as in there are people who would argue it's not that good (or good at all). I know Holden has it towards the end of his Spielberg ranking, for instance.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
I love the way the silent title of Citizen Kane segues into the fence outside Xanadu and focuses on the "No Trespassing" sign; it basically tells you right up front that Kane does not want you meddling in his personal affairs but then the film attempts to do so. The camera climbs the fence and proceeds to get closer to the main building, passing the remnants of a zoo (Hearst Castle had a zoo) and a golf course. Eventually we get close to the one light on in the main building which goes off and then comes back on. Cut to the snow globe, Kane's lips, "Rosebud", globe gets dropped and broken as the nurse walks in and finds that Kane is dead.



After that we get the News on the March newsreel which delineates Kane's life and shows many views of the man. I especially like the scene on the balcony where Kane is with Hitler and the implication that Kane supported him before he knew any better. After the newsreel ends, the director seems to want to find a hook into Kane's life and focuses on the great man's final word Rosebud to try to find out what made him tick. However, the first few people seem to have no idea of what Rosebud is. However, Gregg Toland's photography highlights the use of saturated rear lighting and the way it causes people's extremities to darken and extend that light. Brenda said, "It reminds me of (the scene where Sally sings "Maybe This Time" in Cabaret.

After the death of the main character, it segues into a long newsreel about his life story. The beginning is so audacious that it throws a lot of first-time viewers for a loop. Not only that, but as you begin to get your bearings, the film introduces a number of elderly characters who all reminisce about Kane, so now we see him from many different perspectives, but they aren't always in chronological order and some of them are contradictory. So, once again, the narrative is completely unusual, and Welles and his fellow artists continue to catch you off guard by using overlapping dialogue, deep focus photography, special effects to make things seem larger than they are, extensive makeup work on almost every actor seen in the film during various times in their lives, an intense and haunting Bernard Herrmann score, which coupled with bizarre sound effects and strange editing (the scene where the bird cackles, the scene where the photograph comes to life, the photographic journey up to the opera house rafters during a particular "aria", and hundreds more). All these directorial choices just make the film more enjoyable and dense for the watcher, but once again, some people do not like films where they do not like the characters. I don't know. It seems to me that several modern directors have become famous for highlighting some of the most unlikable characters ever, and among those I would include Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan



I believe that Rosebud's use is two-fold. It's obviously meant to humanize Kane at the end of the film. At the beginning, we have no idea what Rosebud could be although we are given the clue of the snow globe falling out of Kane's hands when he says it. The beginning uses Rosebud as the entire basis of what turns out to be the "plot" of the movie. How are we going to go about trying to find out the soul of this dead man who the world knows a lot of but cannot really understand what makes him tick. Therefore, Rosebud is the clothesline from which the various witnesses are strung in an attempt to crack the nut of Citizen Kane. The fact that no one surviving or studied is able to illuminate Rosebud's meaning is significant but actually fades well into the background for a while until the film reaches its conclusion. It's only in the film's final moments, after we've seen Kane at his most-selfish-and-despotic, that Rosebud returns as something important to show that the man may truly have been just a child at heart. Rosebud certainly relates to Kane's innocence and is also somewhat explainable as the reason why he initially runs his newspaper as if he were a kid in a candy store. Kane did start out as someone who just seemed to have fun with all the things he inherited but eventually he thought of them and all his friends and employees more as possessions rather than toys or things for him to entertain himself, his cohorts and hopefully the world.

You see, I don't believe that Kane ever lost "Rosebud". After all, it was at Xanadu and he could have found it if he truly desired that. What he lost was the meaning of Rosebud and he only recalled it on his deathbed. It's as if Kane's life flashed before his eyes (sort of like the newsreel which immediately comes on directly after his death) and the thing which made him happiest of all was Rosebud. At the end of the movie we see that Kane and Rosebud are both going to the same place -- to ashes. It's tragic, yes, but what it really means is that Kane is just another man. No matter how rich and influential you are during life, you can't take it with you and you'll never really separate yourself from the simplest, humblest soul on Earth, except that perhaps that person may live a life filled with his/her Rosebud and not need to try to find a substitute by collecting objects and people. It may not be profound but it still turns the movie and the man into a tragic figure. Think about it. If we never learned what Rosebud was, most people wouldn't think as highly of the film. At least that's my opinion.

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I meant as in there are people who would argue it's not that good (or good at all). I know Holden has it towards the end of his Spielberg ranking, for instance.
Okay. I read that wrong. English is not my first language.





Citizen Kane was #2 on my list.

Like many classics, it's a film that has grown on me with repeat viewings. I think I remember my second viewing being around the same time that I first saw Vertigo, when it was pipped to the top spot on the Sight & Sound survey.

It's a film that continues to blow me away every time I see it. I just can't get other how young Orson Welles was when he made the film and how audacious the whole thing is. He writes, directs and stars in the film, plays a character at all sorts of different points in his life, and takes aim at one of the highest-profile figures in American society. The man had confidence and listening to his interviews it must definitely have been the naivety of being a first-time filmmaker that meant he wasn't deterred from his vision one bit.

Citizen Kane certainly is a revolutionary and landmark film, but that doesn't mean it was the first to do a lot of the stuff it did so well. A lot of the techniques employed by Welles had been used before in cinema and he particularly borrows from the likes of Ford and German expressionism directors, but what is incredible is how he uses them all together in perfect harmony. Kane shows how films should be made, let the camera tell the story, pack the scene with details, and don't rely on exposition or incessant cutting to dictate the mood. Welles was fortunate that he had Gregg Toland at his side, one of the greatest DPs of all time.

I also think that it's one of the saddest and most moving films ever created, the journey through the life of Charles Foster Kane is not necessarily a happy one, and the central questions it asks about a person's happiness and innocence are explored in a way that is at times very cynical but always very honest to me.
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If you're interested in Citizen Kane, or just filmmaking in general, there are two things other than the film itself worth your attention:

1. Roger Ebert's Commentary. You'll find this on some (most?) deluxe editions of the film on DVD, Blu-ray, whatever. It's just Ebert commentating over the whole film, and it's one of the best commentaries you'll ever hear. He's just constantly rattling off interesting trivia, drawing attention to framing and camera techniques, particularly those that Welles more or less invented for the film. You really get a sense for how many things that might seem unremarkable now were totally new back then. The film is filled to the brim with meaningful artistic advances and thoughtful storytelling choices.
I've been meaning to rewatch Citizen Kane for ages. Might just do it in the company of Mr. Ebert.

9. Citizen Kane
10. Casablanca
Bah!

Got my #10 right thanks to Skepsis pointing out that I am an idiot.
You're welcome



Shout out to Joseph Cotten. He is fantastic in Kane, and always fantastic in my opinion. Branching out past just the well know classics the last few years has really made him one of my favorite actors. Kane, Ambersons, Third Man, and Shadow Of A Doubt he really shines in all 3. I feel like I'm missing a big one too, but if anyone has some Cotten recs past those throw them my way.