The MoFo Millenium Top 100 Countdown

I'm on 51 so far.

I'm on 49, but I own a few of the ones I haven't seen on DVD.

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"George, this is a little too much for me. Escaped convicts, fugitive sex... I've got a cockfight to focus on."

Wait, are you guys watching each of these as they show up?

I've watched a few of them since they showed up, but not immediately and not consistently, no.

You mean that you think that 90% of all good movies are made in the US? Because 90% of the movies in this list are US made. I am not an American (nor UK or Canada or Australia or New Zealand), so in my country we tend to be more open to non-US movies because we accustomed to watching movies with subtitles.

I think that a reasonable proportion between "foreign" and US movies would be 50-50%. Given that most movies are not US movies. Let's stick to the facts:

1 - The world produces about 3,000 movies a year, of which 600 are made in
the US and 2,400 are made outside of the US. That means that 80% of all the movies produced in the world are foreign movies.

2 - However, the US studios have most of the budget: about 2/3 of the world's investment into movie making is done in the US. And bigger budgets mean that the vision of the director may be easier to implement but it also means that the film is more commercial and hence tends to suffer from studio imposed limitations on the artist that makes the movie (the director).

3 - The overall conclusion is that while the US produces many good movies the rest of the world also produces many good movies as well and overall I expect that more than half of the world's good movies come from outside of the US: In fact of my top 10 favorite directors only three are American or British.

The fact is that most people living in English speaking countries do not watch many foreign movies. The vast majority of all movies produced were not produced in the US but it is probable that 95% of the movies you watched in your life are probably US movies and thus you tend to recall mostly the good movies produced in the US. That's why you think it is normal that a top movies list would have 90% of US movies.

Americans have a tendency to not watch anything foreign because they have a huge cultural industry and thus are not used to consuming foreign cultural products. Countries with smaller cultural industries tend to be more open to foreign cultural products, such as mine.

Try watching foreign movies in large doses, start from the IMDB top 250 list and watch the foreign movies there. I didn't like each one of the foreign movies I watched there but currently my top 10 favorite films list has only one american film.

Yeah, I'd certainly encourage people to try lots of different types of foreign films. At the same time, I don't think it's wrong to think or say that most great films are made in the United States. I don't think it's mysterious or controversial, either: it's a statement about the economics of the industry, not a claim about the superior creativity of Americans.

Filmmaking is a collaborative process, so it has to gravitate towards where the money, labor, and expertise is. Lots of foreign filmmakers come here to make their movies. Lots of good ideas and talented people come here to contribute to the industry. What does it really even matter how the film is produced or distributed, anyway? I mean, Guillermo del Toro's from Mexico, but he makes "American" films, in the sense that they're largely made and financed here.

To be a great foreign film, then, usually means to be good enough to be produced in America, but to not actually have it happen for whatever reason. For example, because the director in question hasn't established themselves yet. Or because, in rarer cases, there's not as much of an audience for it here.

I was more or less with you up to here. Mainly, I'm not sure what you mean by "good enough to be produced in America," but many directors don't even bother trying. There was a lot of French financing Japanese films, UK and Canada are doing rather well in that respect too. The only incentive in American production is related to marketing as far as I see.

I figured I would pay for that generalization. It's a fair point, and my only defense is that I was speaking very broadly. Very talented directors often come to America because there's a greater concentration of technical talent, lower proximity to people who can get films made, and more money to be had. And there are very, very few directors, no matter how foreign or artsy or anything, who wouldn't rather have more money than less to make their films. There are, of course, exceptions.

No. I haven't watched any of the films that have showed up that I haven't seen. I did rewatch Drive when it showed up (still brilliant) and I tried to watch The Royal Tenenbaums, which felt like it was just being odd for the sake of it, so i turned it off, but other than that, I have seen all these films beforehand.

These are all the foreign movies I have seen

1.Pelicanman (2004,Finnish Made)
(1 star) it was disgustingly terrible and such a stupid synopsis)

2.The House Of Branching Love (2007,Finnish made)
(5 stars) It's a love movie about a divorce, i liked it.

3. Dirty Bomb (2011,Finnish made)
(7 stars) It was hilarious and very enjoyable.

That's it for my foreign movies.

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no one else is dealing with your demons friend - tyler joseph.

Let me start off by saying I don't discriminate against foreign films, my favorite film is Sweedish. But IMHO 10% of films being foreign, and so far 40% of the top 20, isn't all that bad. I don't like when people will rate foreign higher than domestic, I think they're equal, but they're are plenty of people who would rate a foreign film, higher just because its subtitled, and it makes them feel like a true "film buff". There's **** foreign movies, Katyn for one is absolute crap.

Yes many Americans don't watch foreign films, but not only Americans, my parents are Russian and never watch subtitled movies. For me it doesn't make a difference. I'm not shocked or disappointed that most PF these films are English, we have a handful of foreign, I'll count how many are foreign and edit this post and we can all decide if it's enough. And if not what foriegns shouldve been included

EDIT: I counted 14 foreign films meaning 16% so far, not to shabby if you ask me.

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That's all you had to say.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Just for that, Honeykid, you're getting the magical floating head of Whoopi disturbing a kiss between Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler. A real horrorpiece.

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I suppose I could have left all the rest implied, but I didn't because that's a little too simplistic, and would imply that greed was the only explanation. But coming here "for the money" makes sense even for someone who isn't concerned with accumulating wealth. There are any number of artistic visions that just can't be done properly without a sizable budget, and where the money is, there is inevitably a great deal of talent. So even a filmmaker who cares next to nothing about making money could easily conclude that this is the best place to bring their vision to life.

Three days no movie, unnaceptable.

I agree, that's why I said you could've just left it at "for the money." That said, these days, those artiistic visions have great trouble getting financed because they don't/won't make the kind of profits that the money men are looking for.

Haven't seen and haven't had any intention on seeing either.

Way overrated imo. Far and away the best film of Kelly's one-hit-wonder career, but that's not saying much considering he's directed nothing but rubbish after DD was released. This is a solid film, but # 15. No.

I don't think most non-American directors who are making great films in their countries are really just wishing that they were good enough to be in the USA. I also don't think the truly great films are necessarily as tied to the 'economics of the industry' as you do.

If everyone involved in film was only motivated by money and box office returns, then perhaps what you have said would be true; if the budget of a film was a reliable guide to its quality, then perhaps it would be true; if the US both reliably picked up the best filmmakers from everywhere and reliably made them better by giving them more money...

Of course all films require a group effort, but the great films are driven by the vision of one person, or of maybe a handful, and it's that vision that separates the great films from the others, not more high-cost expertise throughout the cast and crew. I don't think I'm being too naive in saying these people are usually more motivated by art than money. The production requires some money, but it doesn't always, or even usually, require the biggest budgets. Enough money to make great films is available in many countries. Enough genius to do so is in shorter supply, but it too is spread around the world.

It seems to me that the main types of films your claims might be true for are action blockbusters, which I'd say would be the most positively influenced by additional money. (And even then I'm not sure that that is true; there were two big budget action films in my top 25 of the millennium for this thread and neither of them are American.)

Additional money and prestige might help the US punch above its weight in terms of great films/amount of films ratio. Lots of great films come from the USA, but more than the (far higher number of) films put out by the whole rest of the world? I don't think so. Certainly not from the films I've seen.