Remember That TCM List of Influential Films? Here's a New Variation…
Surprise, Kane takes it again...
Back in mid-April Turner Class Movies (TCM) revealed a list of their Top 15 Most Influential Films of All-Time. Shortly thereafter Kris Tapley at InContention.com started polling his readers to come up with another variation of the list and today the results are in.
Some of the complaints about TCM's list had to do with the fact it didn't include a film after 1977's Star Wars and it had two John Ford/John Wayne films. That was, of course, on top of people getting upset over what films were left off the list, which is just one of the motivating factors for Tapley's attempt to take another stab at it.
I have included the In Contention list directly below and movies with an * indicate a film that was also on TCM's list. The only thing I wish this list had was reasoning behind each title, but since it was a user poll and not generated by Tapley himself it would have been impossible for him to guess everyone's motivations, but for the most part the reasoning is quite obvious for each.
Perhaps the most noticeable detail is the top ten is made up of titles only from the United States even though I would assume almost every single top director would cite any number of foreign films that influenced them beyond measure.
Check it out below and weigh in with your thoughts.
- Citizen Kane* (Orson Welles, 1941)
- Star Wars* (George Lucas, 1977)
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
- The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
- The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)
- Psycho* (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
- Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
- Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs* (David Hand, 1937)
- Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995)
Their honorable mentions included Annie Hall, Apocalypse Now, Battleship Potemkin*, The Birth of a Nation*, Casablanca, The Godfather Part II, Gone with the Wind*, The Matrix, Metropolis* and Rashomon*.
Films that were on the TCM list and did not make the InContention.com reader poll are 42nd Street (1933), It Happened One Night (1934), Stagecoach (1939), Bicycle Thieves (1947), The Searchers (1956) and Breathless (1959).
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Another example of people thinking movies are "influential" or "the best" because they're popular to them. I find it funny that all of the movies on the new list are American as if America is the only place that influences people to make movies.
I find it funny that you included Pulp Fiction in place of at least one of the original artists Tarantino unapologetically copies from (Godard).
TCM had it (mostly) right the first time – you can't leave Stagecoach & It Happened One Night off of a 'most influential' list.
I wish lists gave reasons.
Citizen Kane is the most influential film of all time *because* of it's unprecedented production value as indicated by Welles smashing holes in the floor in order to get the camera lower to the ground than previously seen, for example.
Toy Story…u must be kidding me. I'd put Schindler's list instead of toy f***g story
Hmmm — So the list goes from two John Ford/John Wayne films to none (as if either Stagecoach, which heavily influenced Citizen Kane and Seven Samurai, or The Searchers, which was a tour de force for both Ford and Wayne could be left out) and leaves out the first film to take all of the top five Oscars (It Happened One Night). It makes one wonder if the respondents have actually seen these films. The concept of "greatest influence" also requires more than a decade or so to be established, thus eliminating Pulp Fiction and Toy Story which simply aren't old enough to tell if they've been highly influential or not. Of course, Battleship Potemkin and Metropolis ought to be included as most influential too though.
@SuZ:
Pulp Fiction was 16 years ago. It's actually getting pretty old.
@Will:
LOL. 16 years ago as "getting pretty old" is a relevant construct. To me, 15 – 16 years is a pretty small window of time. If it were "pretty old," I'd be beyond ancient. It's all a matter of perspective and, from my point of view, it takes time to establish perspective and influence.