Rypro 525

Also these DO NOT HAVE TO BE THE BEST MOVIE! Just movies that changed the way we look at movies today ect
no particular order
The Jazz Singer (not the greatest movie, but it was the first talkie)
Citizen Kane (obvious reasons)
bonnie and clyde (one of the first violent movies)
the wild bunch (see bonnie and clyde
psycho 1960 (one of the first slasher movies)
The Exorcist (one of the most contraversial movies ever made)
Pulp Fiction
Bullitt (one of the first car chases and first movie to ever say "********"
2001 a space Oddessy
forbidden planet

lesterlong

Add the Matrix and the original Metropolis.

Rypro 525

I could only pick ten, never have seen metropolis and never really thought about matrix. I almost put star wars instead of forbidden planet but fp was one of the first mainstreme sci-fi movies.

Pants

Bullit is not the first car chase...not by a long shot

My list:

Lumiere films

Meliese films

The Great Train Robbery

Birth of a Nation

Blackmail (first British talky, better than Jazz singer, better use of sound)

Citizen Kane

Roshoman

L'aventura

2001

Jaws

Rypro 525

It might have not been the first but it is one that put car chases on the map

LBPound

The Jazz Singer
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The Wizard of Oz
Citizen Kane
Jaws
Star Wars
Toy Story

Pathetic I can put 3 more on the list right now, but maybe I'll come back to it.

bboisvert

I dunno... it's hard to do a "most influential" movies list without including any silent films. Birth of a Nation, the works of Chaplin/Keaton, the Lumière brothers, Méliès, etc.

Also, not to nit pick, but I have to ask what some of these titles are doing on the list. The Wild Bunch? Great film. Amazing film. But it came at the complete tail end of the film western. What did it influence?

Same thing with 2001. Great film. One of the best ever. But who/what did that influence? For better or worse, Star Wars has had significantly more impact on the direction of motion pictures than 2001.


I guess I may have less of a problem if you better define what this list is supposed to represent.

Rypro 525

With The Wild Bunch it was one of if not the first movie that showed the bullets hitting a person, before then, I think it was illegal?? Give me some backround on that. I saw that on an amc special.

With 2001, from what I hear (haven't seen, just from reading), it was a space movie where there wasn't any cheese in it. And I say, this influenced star wars ect.

audrey

I believe 2001 was the first major movie to use:

* front projection (at least on a wide scale)
* motion control cameras (although crude)
* product placement

It also set a higher standard for special effects than was the norm prior to the film’s release.

HistoryProf

Blair Witch Project

Terrell

The topic is the top 10 most influential movies of all-time. The Matrix wouldn't be anywhere near that list. Joel "Windbag" Silver would have you believe that, but it isn't so. I'll have to think on this a while.

I'll put 5 down now in no particular order.

01. Citizen Kane
02. Star Wars
03. 2001: A Space Odyssey
04. Jaws
05. Seven Samurai
06. Snow White
07. Wizard of Oz
08. Psycho
09. The Godfather
10. Raiders of the Lost Ark

I'll really have to think about the last two. You could argue they belong on the list, but I guess you could argue that with 30 films I haven't listed. I'll leave them up for now, but if I come across two movies that I think are more influential, I'll take them off. I could put Close Encounters for the sheer fact is it's the first time I can ever remember the aliens in a movie being friendly.

Groucho

The Matrix hasn't influenced much more than a few parodies and bad knockoffs. No way it would be in the top 10.

I agree with most of the other choices, and would add a couple more: Abel Gance's Napolean,Woody Allen's Annie Hall, and Frank Capra's It Happened One Night.

greatjedi

No one said:

Jurassic Park

Though it wasn't the first film to use computer animation, it was the first to show believable photo-realistic creatures created in a computer. Heck that film alone brought an end to stop motion animation.

Terrell

Well, I did say I've have to think on it a while, but I didn't do much thinking. Oh well, picking this category for real ould be very tough. There are many highly influential films.

Pants

Quote:

With The Wild Bunch it was one of if not the first movie that showed the bullets hitting a person, before then, I think it was illegal?? Give me some backround on that. I saw that on an amc special.

Illegal?

I wouldn't include the Wild Bunch on any list, but if there were to be an arguement Rypro pretty much has it. It was influential for bringing a new level of ultra-realistic, ultra-violence to the screeen.

I will defend 2001 by pointing out what no one else here seems to understand ("First use of rear projection" Who would give a s**t?) The reason 2001 is on my list is pretty much for the same reason L'Aventura is on my list too. 2001 was the first American, Big Budget, Hit Movie that was "poetic". By this I mean defiantly non-narative, ponderious, often deliberately vague, it used PURE CINEMA (images and sound) to convey things that can't be said in words. Over the years this kind of poetic filmmaking (pioneered by Bresson, Antonioni, Kubrick, Tarkovsky, and others) has become a genre unto itself. 2001 is the greatest and most influential of this movement

Pants

My list w/ more detail:

Lumiere films: Birth of Realism

Meliese films: Birth of Formalism

The Great Train Robbery: First hit "narative film"

Birth of a Nation: Pioneering in its action montage editting and cross cutting

Blackmail: I pick this instead of the Jazz Singer because the Jazz Singer sucks. This first British talky from Hitchcock uses inovative sound design

Citizen Kane: What can I say

Roshoman: Influential as one of the first foriegn films to be a INTERNATIONAL HIT. It, like Kane, is probably one of the best examples of experimental narative formal structure

L'aventura: First hit "poetic film"

2001: See above

Jaws: Changed H'wood forever, First Big Blockbuster

Gdrlv

Tough topic, but here are my choices (based solely on films I've seen)...

Metropolis
Birth of a Nation
Citizen Kane
Frankenstein (1931)
Snow White
Rashomon
The Wizard of Oz
Jaws
Star Wars
Pulp Fiction

Rypro 525

Pants
http://www.amctv.com/show/detail/0,,60472-1-EST,00.html
it was discussed in this documentary which airs often on amc.

edytwinky

as recent as it was, I'd put Matrix on the list as it really changed the way for graphical effects in movies

Pants

No doubt it was discussed, but I don't think it was ever ILLEGAL to do anything in film (excepting morality clauses that were used to punish porn filmmakers) . That is, you weren't going to jail or paying a fine

Iron_Giant

Citizen Kane (Some say best movie ever, I do not. But it belongs on the list)
Star Wars (Started the Sci-Fi movie making again)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Raised the SF bar to a new High)
Psycho (Hate the movie, but it did start the slasher movies)
The Godfather (One of the most quoted movies ever)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Started the Fun/Action craze)
Jaws (The 1st Summer Big Blockbuster)
Wizard of Oz (A true classic)
Snow White (Wow. Walt was ahead of his time)

joelgee

Okay. In no particular order and subject to change pending further thought and research:

I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
A Trip to the Moon (1914)
Rififi (1955)
Mean Streets (1973)
Jaws (1975)
It Happened One Night (1934)
Potemkin (1925)
Nanook of the North (1922)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937)
Phantom of the Opera (1925)

To call a movie made within the last, say five years, one of the most influential of all time is ignoring over a century of filmmaking, a very myopic view indeed.
J

Terrell

I wouldn't simply because there were movies made before The Matrix that had superior overall effects. Jurassic Park. Heck, regardless of what anyone thinks of TPM, it had superior overall effects and push the boundaries further than The Matrix in my opinion. The Matrix didn't even influence the CGI-craze generation of effects. As someone said earlier, Jurassic Park was the first film to use truly photoreal effects.

RyoHazuki

How aboot Die Hard. Die Hard defined the modern action movie.

harpo787

I don't have 10 influential, since I'd probably list much of what has already been listed....but how about these that I've not seen yet:

Toy Story: (was this the first movie ever done completely in computer animation?) and/or

Final Fantasy: first animated movie to be incredibly realistic down to human details (many animated movies have incredible backgrounds, but continue to keep the animals/people in cartoon-ish style, which makes sense, because they are just computer animated versions of cartoons).