Daytripper

I finally got around to seeing "The Lookout" recently. In the ad for the movie, Richard Roeper raves "A Masterpiece". Now, the film was quite good, to be sure, but steady on Roeper......a masterpiece? No. It got me to thinking, what movies do you consider to be "A Masterpiece"? I'm looking at my top 20 favorites and even though I think most are "great", I'd only consider one or two masterpieces.

The Bus

I'm not Alistair Cookie so I can't possibly answer that.

JPRaup

Out of my top 25 I consider the following bolded masterpieces:


1 The Godfather Part 1 and 2 (1972, 1974)
2 Pulp Fiction (1994)
3 Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly) (1966)
4 Cidade de Deus (City of God) (2002)
5 Memento (2000)
6 Raging Bull (1980)
7 Snatch (2000)
8 Goodfellas (1990)
9 Casablanca (1942)
10 Reservoir Dogs (1992)
11 The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
12 Vertigo (1958)
13 North by Northwest (1959)
14 Apocalypse Now (1979)
15 Taxi Driver (1976)
16 Jaws (1975)
17 Fight Club (1999)
18 Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
19 The Deerhunter (1978)
20 Terminator 2 (1991)
21 Children of Men (2006)
22 Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
23 Psycho (1960)
24 Die Hard (1998)
25 Double Indemnity (1944)

IMRICKJAMES

If you say the "M" in an abusive manner, like saying Bio Dome is a masterpiece do you have to go to rehab like some other words?

Daytripper

Depends on your race

Supermallet

Richard Roeper is a soundbite man. His opinion means nothing.

Apone

Out of my favourite list it would be Fritz Lang's M.

PopcornTreeCt

Leon: The Professional

Everything else is just sub-par.

Hiro11

Here's a slightly obvious list, but movies I consider to be masterpieces. These are movies that I don't think have noticible flaws and every time I watch them I'm amazed at how tight and accomplished they are.

Yojimbo
8 1/2
Dr. Strangelove
Once Upon a Time in the West
Rear Window
Tampopo
The Right Stuff
Spirited Away
Kind Hearts and Coronets
The Third Man
Annie Hall
The General (Buster Keaton)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Once upon a Time in the West has some continuity and editing problems but is just so cinematic and massive that it's a masterpiece in my mind. I'd be hard pressed to find flaws in any of the other ones...

You're right, I have a lot of movies I really like and watch over and over again, but they wouldn't be masterpieces in my mind.

Hiro11

That's a really, really good movie.

B5Erik

I don't know, I don't see too many movies called, "Masterpieces," that don't at least deserve some consideration as such - but I supposed the term is thrown around a bit too much.

Still, here's a group that I would consider to be legitimate (undisputable) Masterpieces:

Seven Samurai
Ran
Casablanca
Citizen Kane
Bridge on the River Kwai
Lawrence of Arabia


And these are arguably Masterpieces - and I would argue that they are at the very least masterpieces within their genres:

Out of the Past
The Big Sleep
The Maltese Falcon
The Asphalt Jungle
D.O.A.
War of the Worlds (1953)
Forbidden Planet
Alien
Aliens
Terminator 2
Total Recall
Gojira
King Kong (1933)
Jaws
The Godfather 1 & 2
Chinatown
Goodfellas
The Shawshank Redemption
The Searchers
Winchester '73
Stagecoach (1939)
Once Upon a Time in the West
Open Range


I could probably rattle off another 50 or so if I spent the time. It just depends on how you define, "Masterpiece."

eedoon

Open Range? As good as that movie is, I'm not sure if I'd put that in an "arguably" masterpiece movies. Oh well. Different strokes for different people.

darkside

This kind of thing is very difficult. I conder the following masterpieces IMHO (in no particular order BTW), but have had people tell me they were bored to tears by some of the films on my list (I hated Once Upon a Time in the West for instance). You also have to face the fact there are people out there that think movies like Friday and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle are masterpieces.

Casablanca
Citizen Kane
2001
Seven Samurai
Dr Strangelove
8 1/2
The Searchers
Grave of the Fireflies
Pulp Fiction
The Godfather 1 & 2
Grand Illusion
Raging Bull
Schindler's List
To Kill a Mockingbird
Bride of Frankenstein
Monty Python's The Life of Brian
A Night at the Opera
Duck Soup
This is Spinal Tap
Young Frankenstein
Unforgiven (I expect many to disagree on this one)

B5Erik

Remember, I said, "Arguably," a masterpiece or a masterpiece within its genre. I consider Open Range to be one of the best Westerns ever made. The cinematography is beautiful, the script very, very well written, the performances spot on - and the final shootout is brilliantly executed. Yeah, a "Masterpiece," of a Western - a work of art. At least that's what I'm arguing.

Hiro11

A true masterpiece but the hardest-to-watch film I've ever seen (which is pretty amazing given that it's animated). It's almost unbearably tragic and awful. It's one of my top movies of all time but I don't think I'll ever watch it again.

Meglos

I thought this thread was going to be about "meh".

PopcornTreeCt

Goodfellas is overrated. That is all.

Sondheim

It's hard to distinguish between a "great film" and a "masterpiece". For this situation, I'm going to call a masterpiece (pretentiously) "something that transcends the medium" or "something that reveals film to be the artform that it is."

Some of my all-time favorites I would not consider masterpieces, but that does not mean I like them less than the others. The ones in bold (from my top 20) are the ones I consider to be masterpieces.

I'm sure some will disagree with several of my choices, and that's fine too.

Vertigo
The Crowd
Grande illusion, La
West Side Story
Les 400 coups (The 400 Blows)
2001 : A Space Odyssey
Les parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg)
Delicatessen
Hotaru no haka (Grave of the Fireflies)
Minority Report
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Singin' in the Rain
Twelve Monkeys
Yojimbo
Da hong deng long gao gao gua (Raise the Red Lantern)
Being John Malkovich
39 Steps, The
Big Parade, The
Vitelloni, I
Stalag 17

eedoon

Point taken. I enjoyed the movie as well, but I think The Searchers is more arguable than Open Range.

Supermallet

I agree with almost everything on your list. Life of Brian, while hilarious, I wouldn't call a masterpiece. I would also strike Schindler's List from that...uh...list.

I would add Blue Velvet, Aguirre The Wrath of God, Brazil, and Videodrome off the top of my head.

RagingBull80

Just curious but Why don't you feel that Taxi Driver is a masterpiece? What makes it less than Raging Bull?

islandclaws

Of my favorites (let's say top 5) the only 2 I would consider bonafide masterpieces would be The Godfather and Once Upon a Time in the West.

AvidDVD

that is a good question.

Kudama

For me I would say
SE7EN
Rushmore
Alien
Children of Men
Pan's Labyrinth

And the word literally means an artist's master piece. So all you're saying is that the film in question is that film maker's best one.

Zen Peckinpah

To me, "masterpiece" means that a movie is infallible. Not in one way is the content of the film flawed, and it's just perfect to the max. A list of those movies, IMO, that are bona-fide requirements for film buffs and classes:

Once Upon a Time in the West
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Goodfellas
Taxi Driver
The Wages of Fear
Blade Runner
The Godfather and The Godfather Part II
Apocalypse Now
Miller's Crossing
The Big Lebowski
Pulp Fiction
Reservoir Dogs
Blue Velvet
The Elephant Man
Rashomon
Aliens (Alien is too, but Aliens is better IMO)
The Thing (Carpenter)
Fight Club
A Clockwork Orange
Dr. Strangelove