Life is filled with moments where we are able to take a step back and smile, cheer, or celebrate. Some of those moments are more meaningful than others. And to be honest, what I'm about to share with you guys isn't really that meaningful at all... except to me.
That's because this week I was able to accomplish something that's been in the works for more than six years. (That takes me back to my freshman year of college!) So maybe now you can understand why this thing of so little importance to the rest of you is actually a big deal for me.
On Tuesday night I watched Intolerance, a movie from 1916 that happened the be the last of 170 movies on my "list". It's a list that includes all 82 movies to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and the movies on BOTH of the American Film Institute's (AFI) list of 100 greatest movies. (I'll explain more later.)
Perhaps I've already bored you, and you want to discontinue reading. If so, I will not be offended. But if you'd like to hear the story about my six-year quest to watch the 170 greatest movies in American Cinema, then keep on going.
HOW IT STARTED
I actually wasn't that interested in historic films. I didn't wake up one day and set out to make this a goal. No... it all started with complete boredom. I had just completed my first semester of college (which was awesome, but that's for another post.) Then winter break came and I was "forced" to go back to my hometown (population 1,980) and stay with my parents for a month while the University was closed. I was miserable. There was absolutely nothing to do!
That's because this week I was able to accomplish something that's been in the works for more than six years. (That takes me back to my freshman year of college!) So maybe now you can understand why this thing of so little importance to the rest of you is actually a big deal for me.
On Tuesday night I watched Intolerance, a movie from 1916 that happened the be the last of 170 movies on my "list". It's a list that includes all 82 movies to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and the movies on BOTH of the American Film Institute's (AFI) list of 100 greatest movies. (I'll explain more later.)
Perhaps I've already bored you, and you want to discontinue reading. If so, I will not be offended. But if you'd like to hear the story about my six-year quest to watch the 170 greatest movies in American Cinema, then keep on going.
HOW IT STARTED
I actually wasn't that interested in historic films. I didn't wake up one day and set out to make this a goal. No... it all started with complete boredom. I had just completed my first semester of college (which was awesome, but that's for another post.) Then winter break came and I was "forced" to go back to my hometown (population 1,980) and stay with my parents for a month while the University was closed. I was miserable. There was absolutely nothing to do!
I was desperate, so I asked my dad if I could go through his old VHS collection and watch a couple movies. Among the ones I borrowed from his stash were Platoon, Dances with Wolves, and Gone with the Wind. What do these three movies have in common?
Ding! Ding! Ding! You guessed it, they all were recipients of the Academy Award for Best Picture. The only reason I knew that is because they had a little Oscarette on the cover saying "Winner for Best Picture", or something to the equivalent of that.
"Hmmm," I thought, "I wonder how many others I have seen..." After a quick Internet search, I found that I had seen about a dozen others or so: Forrest Gump, Rocky, The Godfather (Parts I & II), Gladiator, plus some others.
Right then and there I decided to make it a goal of mine to watch all 76 Best Picture winners. (That's how many there were at the time.) I didn't really have a plan, but I was inspired and motivated. For whatever reason, I really wanted to watch these other 60 or so movies.
MY PLAN OF ATTACK
For the rest of that break, I probably watched another five movies that were easy to get hold of. Upon returning to college, I was able to borrow a movie from a friend here and there, but I was able to watch most of them on my new favorite TV station - Turner Classic Movies. I would get online to see if/when certain movies would be on TV, and then set my VCR to record them. Then on weekends I would watch three at a time.
I was knocking them off the list left and right for a quite a while. By the end of that semester I had probably watched between 40 and 50, but they were becoming harder to find. Blockbuster and Movie Gallery didn't have a lot of the older movies. TCM was still showing new ones, but they were not airing nearly as frequently. Things really slowed down after a while.
THE LIST GROWS
I can't remember exactly how I found out about it, but I believe I was surfing the web. (It was my sophomore year now. Over the past few months, I wasn't able to watch very many new Best Pictures.) But I read an argument that the Best Pictures weren't necessarily the "best movies" of American cinema. Perhaps they were great when released and pulled in a lot of money at the box office, but had not stood the test of time.
Enter the American Film Institute -- considered by many to be the "Major Leagues" of the Film Industry. In 1998, they released the "100 years, 100 movies", listing the 100 greatest movies of all time... in order.
I'm not sure what compelled me to do it (I still had several more Best Pictures to watch), but I printed off the list and told myself I was going to watch all of those movies too. Suddenly, my list of 77 movies became a list of 144 movies (33 of the movies on AFI's list were Best Picture winners).
Like when I first started watching the Best Picture list, there were a handful of films on AFI's list that I had already watched. But most I had never seen. Actually, many I had never even heard of because they were made way before I was even born. I tried watching them whenever I could.
ANOTHER GROWTH
Keep in mind that a movie was getting added to the Best Picture list every year. So by the time my senior year rolled around (2007), we were up to 146 movies. But a more substantial addition was on the horizon... AFI put out a 10th Anniversary Edition to their "100 years, 100 movies". With it, came 21 new movies that had not been on either of my previous two lists. So the total was now 167.
THE NEXT THREE YEARS
Fast forward through three more Academy Award ceremonies, and here we are in 2011 with 170 movies on the three lists combined. I never did watch movies at the same pace as I did my freshman year. Since graduating, it's pretty much been a movie here... another movie there. There was about a six-month period where I didn't watch any at all because I couldn't find them. However, once I subscribed to Netflix, I was able to track all of them down but one.
I had to buy an old VHS of Calvalcade (1933) on Amazon.com because it's not available on a DVD. That was the 169th movie I watched.
And on Tuesday, Intolerance was the 170th.
THE RESULT OF MY QUEST
Some of my favorite movies of all time are among these 170, including The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty, and Gladiator. But these were all movies I thoroughly enjoyed BEFORE I knew of such lists.
Because I made it a point to watch all these movies, I discovered so many incredible films. Granted, there are some on here that were extremely difficult to get through, and there's no way I could watch them again. But for the most part, this was awesome...
Among my favorites that I never would have watched otherwise: Sunrise, City Lights, It Happened One Night, Casablanca... And that's just before 1945!
It was also great to see the different periods of movies. From the silent era to the Golden Age, to the 50's when people thought the movie was dying. From Hitchcock's thrillers to Spielberg's amazing touch. It's fascinating.
WHAT'S NEXT?
Although I'm done for now, this list will never truly end. Every year a new best picture will be named. And every ten years AFI will update their "100 years, 100 movies". I will be right there to find out just what movies those are. But in the meantime, here is a list of all the movies that were on my three lists. How many have you seen?
*Denotes movies to win Best Picture
| 1915 | The Birth of a Nation |
| 1916 | Intolerance |
| 1925 | The Gold Rush |
| 1927 | The General |
| The Jazz Singer | |
| Sunrise | |
| *Wings (BP in 1928) | |
| 1929 | *The Broadway Melody |
| 1930 | *All Quiet on the Western Front |
| 1931 | *Cimarron |
| City Lights | |
| Frankenstein | |
| 1932 | *Grand Hotel |
| 1933 | *Cavalcade |
| Duck Soup | |
| King Kong | |
| 1934 | *It Happened One Night |
| 1935 | *Mutiny on the Bounty |
| A Night at the Opera | |
| 1936 | *The Great Ziegfeld |
| Modern Times | |
| Swing Time | |
| 1937 | *The Life of Emile Zola |
| Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs | |
| 1938 | Bringing Up Baby |
| *You Can't Take It with You | |
| 1939 | *Gone with the Wind |
| Mr. Smith Goes to Washington | |
| Stagecoach | |
| The Wizard of Oz | |
| Wutherington Heights | |
| 1940 | Fantasia |
| The Grapes of Wrath | |
| The Philadelphia Story | |
| *Rebecca | |
| 1941 | Citizen Kane |
| *How Green was my Valley | |
| The Maltese Falcon | |
| Sullivan's Travels | |
| 1942 | *Casablanca (BP in 1943) |
| *Mrs. Miniver | |
| Yankee Doodle Dandy | |
| 1944 | Double Indemnity |
| *Going My Way | |
| 1945 | *The Lost Weekend |
| 1946 | *The Best Years of Our Lives |
| It's a Wondeful Life | |
| 1947 | *Gentleman's Agreement |
| 1948 | *Hamlet |
| The Treasure of the Sierra Madre | |
| 1949 | *All the King's Men |
| The Third Man | |
| 1950 | *All About Eve |
| Sunset Boulevard | |
| 1951 | The African Queen |
| *An American in Paris | |
| A Place in the Sun | |
| A Streetcar Named Desire | |
| 1952 | *The Greatest Show on Earth |
| High Noon | |
| Singin' in the Rain | |
| 1953 | *From Here to Eternity |
| Shane | |
| 1954 | *On the Waterfront |
| Rear Window | |
| 1955 | *Marty |
| Rebel Without a Cause | |
| 1956 | *Around the World in 80 Days |
| Giant | |
| The Searchers | |
| 1957 | *The Bridge on the River Kwai |
| Twelve Angry Men | |
| 1958 | *Gigi |
| Vertigo | |
| 1959 | *Ben-Hur |
| North by Northwest | |
| Some Like it Hot | |
| 1960 | *The Apartment |
| Psycho | |
| Spartacus | |
| 1961 | *West Side Story |
| 1962 | *Lawrence of Arabia |
| The Manchurian Candidate | |
| To Kill a Mockingbird | |
| 1963 | *Tom Jones |
| 1964 | Dr. Strangelove |
| *My Fair Lady | |
| 1965 | Doctor Zhivago |
| *The Sound of Music | |
| 1966 | *A Man for All Seasons |
| Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf | |
| 1967 | Bonnie & Clyde |
| The Graduate | |
| Guess Who's Coming to Dinner | |
| *In the Heat of the Night | |
| 1968 | 2001: A Space Odyssey |
| *Oliver! | |
| 1969 | Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid |
| Easy Rider | |
| *Midnight Cowboy | |
| The Wild Bunch | |
| 1970 | M*A*S*H |
| *Patton | |
| 1971 | A Clockwork Orange |
| *The French Connection | |
| The Last Picture Show | |
| 1972 | Cabaret |
| *The Godfather | |
| 1973 | American Graffiti |
| *The Sting | |
| 1974 | Chinatown |
| *The Godfather - Part II | |
| 1975 | Jaws |
| Nashville | |
| *One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest | |
| 1976 | All the President's Men |
| Network | |
| *Rocky | |
| Taxi Driver | |
| 1977 | *Annie Hall |
| Close Encounters of the Third Kind | |
| Star Wars | |
| 1978 | *The Deer Hunter |
| 1979 | Apocalypse Now |
| *Kramer vs. Kramer | |
| 1980 | *Ordinary People |
| Raging Bull | |
| 1981 | *Chariots of Fire |
| Raiders of the Lost Ark | |
| 1982 | Blade Runner |
| ET: The Extra Terrestrial | |
| *Gandhi | |
| Sophie's Choice | |
| Tootsie | |
| 1983 | *Terms of Endearment |
| 1984 | *Amadeus |
| 1985 | *Out of Africa |
| 1986 | *Platoon |
| 1987 | *The Last Emperor |
| 1988 | *Rain Man |
| 1989 | Do the Right Thing |
| *Driving Miss Daisy | |
| 1990 | *Dances with Wolves |
| Good Fellas | |
| 1991 | *Silence of the Lambs |
| 1992 | *Unforgiven |
| 1993 | *Schindler's List |
| 1994 | *Forrest Gump |
| Pulp Fiction | |
| The Shawshank Redemption | |
| 1995 | *Braveheart |
| Toy Story | |
| 1996 | *The English Patient |
| Fargo | |
| 1997 | *Titanic |
| 1998 | Saving Private Ryan |
| *Shakespeare in Love | |
| 1999 | *American Beauty |
| The Sixth Sense | |
| 2000 | *Gladiator |
| 2001 | *A Beautiful Mind |
| LOR: The Fellowship of the Ring | |
| 2002 | *Chicago |
| 2003 | *LOR: The Return of the King |
| 2004 | *Million Dollar Baby |
| 2005 | *Crash |
| 2006 | *The Departed |
| 2007 | *No Country for Old Men |
| 2008 | *Slumdog Millionaire |
| 2009 | *The Hurt Locker |
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