Thursday, December 20, 2018

Today in Movie History (1968): Once Upon a Time in the West opened

Once Upon a Time in the West (C’era Una Volta il West)

Released: December 20, 1968

Studio: Euro International Films, Paramount Pictures

Genre: western

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 5.32 Worldwide: 5.38

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 689.70 Worldwide: 697.35

Directing: Sergio Leone

Screenwriting: Sergio Donati, Sergio Leone

Starring: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards

Review:

This is director and co-writer Sergio “Leone’s timeless monument to the death of the West itself, rivalled only by Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid for the title of best ever made.” ^T95 This is “a magnificent, baroque costume picture,” ^T98 an “epic ballad of revenge, redemption and the painful rooting of civilization in the Old West.” ^E18

Leone traverses similar territory as he explored with The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Like that classic Western, this story “concerns three men – one mysterious (Charles Bronson), one seemingly amoral (Jason Robards Jr.) and one evil (Henry Fonda, playing brilliantly against type).” ^E18 “The plot follows Bronson’s obsessive quest to bring down Fonda, the sadist who hanged his brother.” ^E’00

“It’s the most political of Leone’s oat operas, indicting the corrupt railroad which, as it bulldozes across the landscape, displacing innocent people and hiring outlaw flunkeys to shift inconvenient settlers who won't unsettle easily.” ^E’00

“Nobody has made a better Western since. In fact, nobody has made a better Western, period.” ^E’00

Sources:

^E18 Empire (3/20/2018). “The 100 Greatest Movies”
^T95 Time Out (1995). “Centenary Top One Hundred Films”
^T98 Time Out (1998). “Readers’ Top 100 Films”
^E’00 Empire (4/13/00). Once Upon A Time in the West Review by Kim Newman

Awards/Honors/Lists:

Dave’s Movie Database Lists:

Genre Lists:

Oscars:

Wins: 0

Nominations: 0

Hall of Fames:

Lists:

First posted 3/6/2025.

Thursday, November 29, 2018

Turin University: “The Most Influential Films of All Time”

University of Turin:

The Most Influential Films of All Time

A team of researchers from Italy’s University of Turin developed an algorithm for measuring the influence of more than 47,000 movies. They used the Internet Movie Database to search for which films were most referenced. The study was published in the Applied Network Science journal.

1. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
2. Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)
3. Psycho (1960)
4. King Kong (1933)
5. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
6. Metropolis (1927)
7. Citizen Kane (1941)
8. The Birth of a Nation (1915)
9. Frankenstein (1931)
10. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

11. Casablanca (1942)
12. Dracula (1931)
13. The Godfather (1972)
14. Jaws (1975)
15. Nosferatu, a Symphony of Terror (aka “Nosferatu, the Vampire”) (Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens) (1922)
16. The Searchers (1956)
17. Cabiria (1914)
18. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
19. Gone with the Wind (1939)
20. Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potyomkin) (1925)

Resources:

Dave’s Movie Database: Movie Lists
Newsweek (11/29/2018). “These Are the Most Influential Films, Directors and Actors of All Time – According to Science”

Originally posted 8/27/2019; last updated 6/4/2023.

Thursday, July 19, 2018

MSN Entertainment “100 Best Movies of All Time”

MSN Entertainment:

100 Best Movies of All Time

This list was originally published in 2018. The now-dead link included blurbs about the movies by Shahnaz Mahmud. Because I can no longer find the link online, I don’t know how it was created.

1. The Godfather (1972)
2. The Godfather Part II (1974)
3. Sherlock Jr. (1924)
4. 12 Angry Men (1957)
5. Schindler’s List (1993)
6. Sunset Boulevard (1950)
7. City Lights (1931)
8. Pulp Fiction (1994)
9. Citizen Kane (1941)
10. Goodfellas (1990)

11. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
12. All About Eve (1950)
13. Casablanca (1942)
14. Modern Times (1936)
15. The Dark Knight (2008)
16. Chinatown (1974)
17. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
18. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
19. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
20. On the Waterfront (1954)

21. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
22. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
23. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
24. Psycho (1960)
25. Rear Window (1954)
26. Paths of Glory (1957)
27. Double Indemnity (1944)
28. North by Northwest (1959)
29. The Great Dictator (1940)
30. Toy Story 3 (2010)

31. Star Wars – Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
32. The General (1927)
33. Apocalypse Now (1979)
34. Whiplash (2014)
35. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
36. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
37. Some Like It Hot (1959)
38. Taxi Driver (1976)
39. Inside Out (2015)
40. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

41. The Last Picture Show (1971)
42. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
43. It Happened One Night (1934)
44. The Gold Rush (1925)
45. Raging Bull (1980)
46. Vertigo (1958)
47. 12 Years a Slave (2013)
48. Alien (1979)
49. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
50. Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)

51. Duck Soup (1933)
52. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
53. Touch of Evil (1958)
54. Out of the Past (1947)
55. Stagecoach (1939)
56. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
57. Boyhood (2014)
58. To Be Or Not to Be (1942)
59. Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
60. Reservoir Dogs (1992)

61. Spotlight (2015)
62. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
63. Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
64. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
65. Wall-E (2008)
66. Coco (2017)
67. Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)
68. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
69. Holiday (1938)
70. Laura (1944)

71. Notorious (1946)
72. His Girl Friday (1940)
73. The Kid (1921)
74. Aliens (1986)
75. All the President’s Men (1976)
76. Rebecca (1940)
77. Cool Hand Luke (1967)
78. L.A. Confidential (1997)
79. Inception (2010)
80. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

81. The Apartment (1960)
82. La La Land (2016)
83. Badlands (1973)
84. In a Lonely Place (1950)
85. Strangers on a Train (1951)
86. The Big Sleep (1946)
87. Unforgiven (1992)
88. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
89. The Searchers (1956)
90. Call Me by Your Name (2017)

91. Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
92. The Artist (2011)
93. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
94. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
95. Annie Hall (1977)
96. The Thin Man (1934)
97. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
98. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
99. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
100. The Social Network (2010)

Resources:

Dave’s Movie Database: Movie Lists
Original link (now dead) at MSN Entertainment (7/19/2018). “100 Best Movies” by Shahnaz Mahmud

Originally posted 6/7/2023.

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

50 years ago: 2001: A Space Odyssey, the sci-fi classic, released

2001: A Space Odyssey

Released: April 3, 1968

Studio: MGM

Genre: sci fi

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 60.54 Worldwide: --

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 409.68 Worldwide: 815.73

Directing: Stanley Kubrick

Screenwriting: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke

Starring: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester

Review:

“Man, from prehistoric times to a futuristic space age, is eerily defined in” ^VD “Kubrick’s metaphoric, thought-provoking, grandiose, science-fiction landmark film.” ^FS “Stunning images and imaginative script create an unforgettable viewing experience:” ^VD “the most spectacular and magisterial space movie of all time.” ^T98

The story centers around the investigation of the appearance on the Moon of a mysterious monolith whose radio signal leads to Jupiter. The audience learns that the first monolith appeared four million years earlier, giving insight to prehistoric ape-men how to use tools as killing weapons. Bowman (Dullea) and Poole (Lockwood), the astronauts on the mission, encounter “superior life and rebirth in some sort of embryonic divine form.” ^T95

The movie “is beautiful, infuriatingly slow, and pretty half-baked.” ^T95 So “why is this cold, oddly optimistic, overreaching sci-fi poem so interesting?” ^ML HAL 9000 (voiced by Douglas Rain), “the film’s major protagonist – an omniscient super-computer,” ^FS “has personal problems that make him a more engaging character than any of the humans in this or most other movies of the last few decades.” ^ML

The movie doesn’t make it clear how “the lurking, unambiguous danger of the rogue computer” ^T98 fits with the monoliths, which “seem to coax humankind to make evolutionary leaps and transcend bodily and technological limits.” ^FS “Nevertheless…Kubrick’s vision…demands attention as superior sci-fi, simply because it’s more concerned with ideas than…pyrotechnics.” ^T95 The movie “hit home mostly with acid trippers (dig that time warp) and intellectuals (deconstruct that star child).” ^RS The film “also boasts distinction of having put Richard Strauss into the Top 40 with ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra.’” ^LM