Films that have been considered the greatest ever

While it is impossible to objectively determine the greatest film of all time, it is possible to discuss the films that have been regarded as the greatest ever. The important criterion for inclusion in this article is that the film is the "greatest" by some specific criterion or indicator — be it a critics' poll, popular poll, box office receipts or awards. Obviously, the criterion is tilted heavily towards American films. See below for list of best movies for respective countries.

Films acclaimed by critics and filmmakers

Orson Welles' Citizen Kane has been voted number one in the Sight and Sound poll of film critics in each of the last five polls starting with the 1962 poll (the survey is carried out once every ten years). A separate poll of established film directors in the same magazine held for the first time in 1992 also has had Citizen Kane at the top. Influential critic Roger Ebert says that "The Sight and Sound poll is generally considered the most authoritative of all 'best film' lists". Perhaps not coincidentally, he considers Citizen Kane the best film ever. The film was also selected as number one in a Village Voice critics' poll, number one in a Time Out critics' poll in 1995 and listed as the greatest film ever by the American Film Institute in 1998. Citizen Kane, however, did not win the Academy Award for Best Picture, possibly because of extensive pressure exerted by William Randolph Hearst and his associates.
La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game) by director Jean Renoir was named best film by the French film magazine Positif in 1991. It also holds the number two spot in the Village Voice poll. Along with Battleship Potemkin, it is one of only two films to have appeared in every one of Sight and Sound 's 10-yearly polls (six occurrences).
The Battleship Potemkin was for many years generally considered the greatest film ever and was voted as such by a panel of experts at the 1958 World's Fair.
Ladri di Biciclette (The Bicycle Thief) was voted top film in a Sight & Sound magazine poll in 1952. Other than Citizen Kane, The Bicycle Thief is the only film to ever top the Sight and Sound poll.

Films acclaimed in audience polls

The Godfather has long stood atop IMDb's list of the top 250 films. It was also voted number one by Entertainment Weekly readers and number one in a Time Out Readers' poll in 1995.
The Godfather Part II, sometimes considered better than the original film, was voted best ever by TV Guide readers in 1998.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy was voted the most popular film of all time by an audience poll for the Australian television special My Favourite Film. Its first film, The Fellowship of the Ring (film) (2001), was the pick of readers in a poll by Empire magazine in November 2004. All 3 pictures in the trilogy also place in the Top 20 on the IMDb's list of the top 250 films, a fact that is unprecedented for any other trilogy.
Casablanca (1942) is widely cited as the greatest film of all time and was voted as such by readers of the Los Angeles Daily News in 1997. It is also regarded the "best Hollywood movie of all time" by the influential Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide. On April 7, 2006, the Writer's Guild of America declared Casablanca's screenplay the best ever written.
A New Hope (1977) was chosen by readers of Empire magazine in November 2001 and by voters in a Channel 4/FilmFour poll ^*.
The Shawshank Redemption, the #2 entry on the IMDb list, was voted the best film never to have won "Best Picture" in a 2005 BBC poll. ^* In January 2006 Empire magazine readers named it the best film ever.
Goodfellas was voted the greatest film of all time by Total Film.

Biggest box office successes

Worldwide highest grossing films (Not adjusted for inflation)

Titanic (1997) $1,845,034,188
The Return of the King (film) (2003) $1,118,888,979
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's (Sorcerer's) Stone (2001) $976,475,550
The Two Towers (film) (2002) $926,287,400
The Phantom Menace (1999) $924,317,558
Shrek 2 (2004) $920,665,658
Jurassic Park (1993) $914,691,118
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) $891,249,794
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) $876,688,482
The Fellowship of the Ring (film) (2001) $871,368,364

Not adjusted for inflation. See the inflation-adjusted list for a more accurate gauge of commercial success.

Prior highest-grossing films

The Birth of a Nation (1915): Highest-grossing film until 1925. Director D.W. Griffith said in 1929 that the film had taken $10m worldwide. This has been reported as both an under-estimate and an over-estimate, and its true takings may never be known. In the 1920s the New York Mail described the movie as "the supreme picture of all time".
The Big Parade (1925). The highest grossing silent film of all time, taking $22m world wide.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937): Highest grossing until 1939. Total gross $185m.
Gone with the Wind (1939): Highest grossing until 1966, when it was overtaken by The Sound of Music. Following a re-release in 1971, Gone with the Wind retook the lead for a further year. Current total gross $198m.
The Sound of Music (1965): Highest gross from August 1966 until the re-issue of Gone with the Wind in 1971. Current total gross $163m.
The Godfather (1972): Highest grossing until 1975. Current total gross $134m.
Jaws (1975): Highest grossing until 1977. Current total gross $470m.
A New Hope (1977): Highest grossing until January 1983. Current total gross $798m
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982): Highest grossing until 1993. Current total gross $757m. (Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope did not re-overtake E.T. until its re-release in 1997, by which time Jurassic Park had landed the top slot.)
Jurassic Park (1993): Highest grossing until 1997. Current total gross $920m.

Highest USA grossing film adjusted for inflation

By adjusting for inflated ticket prices, the popularity of films released at different times can be compared. This list estimates the number of admissions for each film by using the average ticket price at the time of each release ^*. Gone with the Wind, when adjusted for inflation is still the highest grossing film ever. The film has had at least four substantial releases worldwide (in 1939, 1954, 1961 and 1971). The adjusted for inflation value of these releases is $3.8bn worldwide, $1.3bn in the United States (2004 dollars).

Gone with the Wind (1939) $1,293,085,600
A New Hope (1977) $1,139,965,400
The Sound of Music (1965) $911,458,400
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) $907,867,700
The Ten Commandments (1956) $838,400,000
Titanic (1997) $821,413,700
Jaws (1975) $819,704,400
Doctor Zhivago (1965) $794,466,900
The Exorcist (1973) $707,639,500
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) $697,600,000

Films that have received the most Academy Awards

Ever since their inception in 1928, the Academy Awards (the "Oscars") have been seen as the most significant of the film award ceremonies. The first film to dominate an Oscars ceremony was Frank Capra's It Happened One Night in 1935. It was the first film to win five awards. Moreover it won the "Oscar grand slam" by winning Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Screenplay—a feat that has been repeated only twice more, by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1976 and by Silence of the Lambs in 1992.

In 1939, Gone with the Wind was nominated for 13 awards and two special citations. It won eight of the Awards to beat It Happened One Night's record. All About Eve (1950) broke the nominations record with 14, and won in six categories.

Gigi was the film to break Gone with the Wind's record, winning in all nine of its nominated categories at the ceremony for films made in 1958. However, its moment at the top was short-lived, as the epic Ben-Hur went on to win 11 Oscars from 12 nominations the following year.

Eleven Oscars remains the record. This achievement in turn has been equalled twice—by Titanic in 1997 with 11 awards from 14 nominations, and by The Return of the King (film), which won in all 11 of its nominated categories in 2003 in the greatest 'sweep' in the history of the Academy Awards.

Films that are considered the greatest in their particular genre

Animation

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) is the highest-grossing animated film of all time when adjusted for inflation. Snow White also appeared at #49 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American movies (compiled in 1998), higher than any other animated film.
Tale of Tales (Сказка сказок) (1979) - Yuriy Norshteyn's short film was voted by a large international jury to be the greatest animated film of all time at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympiad of Animation and the 2002 Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films. [http://context.themoscowtimes.com/print.php?aid=141447
Akira (アキラ) (1988) was chosen as the top anime ever by Anime Insider in fall 2001.
Beauty and the Beast (1991), is the only fully-animated movie (computerized or not) to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. It has also been nominated for a total of six Oscars, more than any other animated film. It was also the first animated movie to win the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical.
Toy Story (1995) was voted #1 on the Top 100 Animated Features of All Time by the Online Film Critics Society (list published March 2003). Toy Story was also the first animated movie to be nominated for a Best Screenplay award at the Oscars.
Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し) (2001) was voted best animated movie by IMDb users. It was the first anime (Japanese animation) film to win an Academy Award. It is the only movie to earn $250M before its US release.
Shrek 2 (2004) is the highest-grossing animated film of all time without correcting for inflation.
The Incredibles (2004), which won the Best Animated Feature Oscar, also became one of only four animated movies ever to be nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar. The Incredibles has also been nominated for 16 Annie Awards (the top award ceremony honoring animation), more than any other film. It also has won 10 of its nominations, another record.

Comedy

Some Like It Hot (1959) was listed Best Comedy by the American Film Institute in June 2000.
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) is listed as the highest rated "Comedy" title by the IMDb and was #3 on AFI's "100 Years...100 Laughs". It was also the highest-rated comedy on the 2002 Sight and Sound Director's Poll.
Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) was voted the greatest comedy ever by viewers of Channel 4 in 2005.^*

Concert

The Last Waltz (1978), Martin Scorsese's chronicling of The Band's farewell concert on Thanksgiving Day in 1976. Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune calls it "The greatest rock concert movie ever made -- and maybe the best rock movie, period." Terry Lawson of the Detroit Free Press comments that "This is one of the great movie experiences." The review at Total Film comments "In what is rightly considered the greatest concert film ever shot . . ." [http://www.totalfilm.com/dvd_reviews/the_last_waltz

Stop Making Sense (1984) Film critic James Berardinelli, wrote that Jonathan Demme's capturing of the Talking Heads in concert was "the best concert film to date when it first came out, and nothing in the past decade-and-a-half has come close to toppling it from that position." Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle had similar praise: "Has there ever been a live concert film as vibrant or as brilliantly realized? I don't think so."

Disaster

The Poseidon Adventure (1972) was voted best disaster movie in a consumer poll commissioned by UCI cinemas in May 2004.
Titanic (1997) (See Box office success and Academy Award sections above).

Documentary

Man with the Movie Camera, Dziga Vertov's classic experimental silent, was the highest rated documentary on the 2002 Sight and Sound critic's poll, and made Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Movies list.
Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore's controversial documentary relating gun control and the culture of fear in the United States, heads the list of 20 all-time favorite non-fiction films selected by members of the International Documentary Association (IDA). ^*
The Thin Blue Line, Errol Morris' 1988 film, has long been considered one of the greatest documentaries ever made. It is actually credited not only with solving a murder case, but also as the major factor in freeing an innocent man from prison in Texas. It was voted number two by the IDA.
The Sorrow and the Pity is the highest rated documentary at the IMDb.
Seven Up! was voted as the greatest ever documentary in a Channel 4 poll of the 50 Greatest Documentaries in 2005.
Fahrenheit 9/11, also by Michael Moore, won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. It then became "the highest-grossing documentary in its opening weekend"by breaking the old record held by Bowling for Columbine. It went on to become the "first ever documentary to cross the $100 million mark in the United States." [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361596/trivia

Epic

Lawrence of Arabia Voted best epic by readers of Total Film in May 2004. In addition it won 7 academy awards including best picture.
Ben-Hur (1959)- Collected 11 academy awards, matched by Titanic and The Return of the King. (See Box office success and Academy Award sections above).

Fantasy

Peter Jackson's highly acclaimed The Lord of the Rings film trilogy earned 17 Oscars with The Return of the King (film) becoming the first fantasy film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. All three films as of 2006 ^* are in the top 20 of the IMDb Top 250 films which is selected by user votings. Furthermore it was included as a single entry in the Time magazine top 100 films of all time as selected by critics of Time magazine — Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel.
Victor Fleming's acclaimed adaptation of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz filmed in 1939 as The Wizard of Oz is regarded as a landmark in film history and frequently appears on lists of greatest American movies of all time.

Film noir

Sunset Boulevard: Voted the best film noir of all-time by IMDb users.

Gay

Dog Day Afternoon: Sidney Lumet's film is the highest rated movie from IMDB.com dealing with gay themes.
The Birdcage is the highest grossing gay or lesbian film ^*.
Brokeback Mountain: Ang Lee's film garnered an unprecedented number of critics and guild awards for Best Picture and Director, including the Golden Globe, British Oscar, Directors Producers and Writers Guilds, New York Film Critics, Los Angeles Film Critics, Boston Film Critics, etc...

Horror/thriller

Psycho: the Alfred Hitchcock classic was voted the best horror film by IMDb users. Tops AFI’s list of the 100 most thrilling American films.
The Silence of the Lambs: the only movie classified as "horror" to ever win the "Best Picture" Oscar. One of only 3 movies to win the top 5 Oscars. Is at #2 in the list of best horror films, as voted by IMDb voters, and at #5 in the AFI’s list of the 100 most thrilling American films. The movie is perhaps most famous for Anthony Hopkins' brilliant performance as the spine-chilling Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Apart from imprinting itself in popular culture, the portrayal tops the AFI's list of the greatest villains of all time. Jodie Foster's Clarice Starling made it to #6 in the AFI's greatest heroes list.
Halloween: Voted best horror film of all time by readers of SFX magazine in June 2004. Also was the most "profitable" film of all time (lowest production cost vs. highest box office gross) until surpassed in 1990 by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This, in turn, was overtaken by The Blair Witch Project in 1999. Before Halloween, the most profitable film was Easy Rider.
The Exorcist: Voted scariest movie of all time by numerous magazines and websites. Was notorious for its ability to make moviegoers pass out and vomit.
The Shining: Stanley Kubrick's haunting The Shining was calculated to be the perfect scary movie^*.

Musical

Singin' in the Rain The highest rated movie musical at the IMDb. Highest ranked musical at the 2002 Sight and Sound poll.
The Wizard of Oz The highest ranked musical on AFI's list of the 100 best American films.
Grease was voted the greatest musical by viewers of Channel 4 in 2003.
The Sound of Music is the highest grossing musical when adjusted for inflation.
West Side Story is the winner of the most Academy Awards of any movie musical (10).

Propaganda

Triumph of the Will, Leni Riefenstahl's documentary film glorifying Hitler and the 1934 Nazi Party Convention, in Nuremberg is widely renowned and reviled as the best propaganda film ever ^*, although Riefenstahl claimed she intended it only as a documentary.
Battleship Potemkin (see Films acclaimed by critics and filmmakers above.)

Romance

Casablanca - Voted best American-based film in which there is "a romantic bond between two or more characters, whose actions and/or intentions provide the heart of the film’s narrative" by the AFI.
Gone with the Wind, considered to be one of the greatest films of all time. After adjusting for inflation, it is the highest grossing film ever. The AFI voted it as the fourth greatest film of all time.

Science fiction

A Space Odyssey (film), a popular and influential film directed by Stanley Kubrick. The highest ranked science fiction film (#11) on the Village Voice 100 Best films of the 20th century list. Also the only Science Fiction film to make the Sight and Sound Top Ten Poll.^*.
A New Hope (1977) - the highest-grossing sci-fi film ever and considered at least equal to its sequel, which is one above it on the IMDB.
The Empire Strikes Back (1980) - the highest-rated sci-fi film on the IMDb.
Blade Runner - Voted the best science fiction film by a panel of scientists assembled by the British newspaper The Guardian in 2004. ^*

Silent

Battleship Potemkin (see Films acclaimed by critics and filmmakers above.)
Modern Times, the last major American film to make use of silent film conventions such as title cards for dialogue, is the highest-rated silent film on the IMDb. There is a recorded soundtrack; one scene has dialogue spoken over an intercom, and Charlie Chaplin sings nonsense lyrics to a song at the end. City Lights, another of Chaplin's films, is the highest-rated movie without any dialogue, spoken or sung. It too has a recorded soundtrack. Metropolis is the highest-rated movie that was totally silent when released. However, IMDb viewers most likely watched the restored version which has a recorded soundtrack.
The Big Parade is the highest-grossing silent film of all time, taking $22m world wide.

War

Schindler's List is the number one film on IMDb's list of top rated war titles.
In 2005 Saving Private Ryan was voted as the greatest ever war film in a Channel 4 poll of the 100 Greatest ever war films.
Critic Leonard Maltin has said: Jeux Interdits (Forbidden Games) "is almost unquestionably the most compelling and intensely poignant drama featuring young children ever filmed."
Roger Ebert has said anime film Grave of the Fireflies "belongs on any list of the greatest war films ever made."
Critic Gabriel J. Wallace regards the World War I film All Quiet on the Western Front as being the greatest movie ever made.
Francis Ford Coppola's controversial 1979 epic Apocalypse Now is considered by Roger Ebert as the finest movie on the Vietnam War and one of his favorite films of all-time.
From Here to Eternity won 8 Academy Awards from 13 nominations, the most of any war film.
Patton won 7 Academy Awards.

Western

The Searchers was voted the greatest Western of all time by Entertainment Weekly. (See also: films acclaimed by critics and filmmakers above).
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is listed as Best Western by the IMDb's list of Top Rated "Western" Titles. Once Upon a Time in the West is listed second. Both films appear on the Time magazine poll.
Dances with Wolves is the highest grossing Western of all time, taking nearly $184 million in US box office sales ^*. It was nominated for 11 Oscars and won seven.

In particular countries

Australia

Mad Max: voted the best Australian film ever by the Australian Film Institute Nominated for four Australian Film Institute Awards, and collecting over AUD $100 million worldwide. It was shot on a budget of only AUD $300,000.

Brazil

City of God (Cidade de Deus in Portuguese), is the highest ranking Brazilian film featured in TIME magazine´s 100 best movies of all-time list ^*. It is also the highest ranked (#18) in IMDb´s top 250 list.
Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (English: God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun, also known as Black God, White Devil) an example of Brazilian cinema movement known as Cinema Novo, is considered by many critics to be the best Brazilian movie of all timewas named as such from a poll conducted by the Brazilian cinema magazine Contracampo (no. 27) [http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://www.contracampo.com.br/27/frames.htm&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=3&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DContracampo%2B27%26hl%3Den%26hs%3DJ5u%26lr%3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official Click on "articles".

Canada

Mon oncle Antoine: A poll of critics at the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival and again at the 1993 and 2004 festivals named this the greatest Canadian film of all time.
Un Zoo la Nuit: Winner of the most Genie Awards with 13.

China

Spring in a Small Town (小城之春): This 1948 film was voted the best Chinese film ever made by Hong Kong Film Awards Association in 2005.

Finland

The Unknown Soldier (Tuntematon Sotilas in Finnish), holds the record for the highest grossing domestic film in Finland, and received seven "Jussi" statuettes (Finnish Oscars) ^*.

France

Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise): Voted "Best French Film of the Century" in a poll of 600 French critics and professionals in the late 1990s.
La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game): see films acclaimed by critics and filmmakers

Germany

Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's famed silent film Nosferatu is regarded by critics and acclaimed German director Werner Herzog as the greatest German movie of all time.
Der Untergang (Downfall): This German World War II epic depicts the final days of the Third Reich in Adolf Hitler's bunker. It is currently the highest-ranked German film in the IMDb (as of June 2006)^*. Das Boot, a World War II epic film about life on a submarine, is the second highest.

India

Pather Panchali (1955), the first film of director Satyajit Ray's Apu trilogy, is the only Indian film to have ever appeared on Sight and Sound Critics's Top Ten Poll (ranked #9 in 1992). It was ranked the top Indian film in a 2002 popularity poll by the British Film Institute (BFI) conducted on the web, and number two in the BFI critics' poll in which critics were asked to compile a list of 50 best Indian as well as South Asian films ^*.
Sholay is the highest grossing movie of all time in India. It was also the top film selected in the 2002 BFI critics' poll.Krrish became the highest grossing Indian film in july 2006.
Gandhi (1982), an Anglo-Indian production, received eight awards and eleven nominations at the Academy Awards.
Pushpak (The Love Chariot), from 1988, is the highest rated Indian film on IMDb.com.
Nayakan, Pyaasa and the Apu trilogy are the only Indian films in the TOP 100 best movies in the world, as rated by TIME magazine. ^*

Ireland

The Commitments (1991) was voted the best Irish film of all time in a 2005 Jameson Whiskey poll of 10,000 Irish people, with My Left Foot coming second. 24

Japan

Rashōmon (羅生門): This 1950 film by Akira Kurosawa was the first Japanese film to gain world-wide acclaim. The highest-ranked Japanese film (#10) on the Village Voice list of 100 Best Films of the 20th Century. It was also the highest-ranked Japanese film on the Sight and Sound 2002 Directors' Top Ten Poll.
Tokyo Story (東京物語 Tokyo Monogatari), 1953. This film by Yasujiro Ozu about an aging couple as they journey from their rural village to visit their two married children in postwar Tokyo was declared the greatest film ever by Halliwell's Film Guide in 2005 25. It was also the highest-ranked Japanese film on the Sight and Sound 2002 Critics' Top Ten Poll. (As well as the only non-Kurosawa Japanese film in any of its polls.)
The Seven Samurai (七人の侍 Shichinin no samurai), 1954: Also by Kurosawa, this period adventure film is frequently cited as the greatest Japanese film ever; consistently the highest-rated foreign-made (outside of the United States) film on the IMDb Top 250, appropiately enough it is ranked #7 (as of June 2006).

Russia

Броненосец Потёмкин (Battleship Potemkin) see: Films acclaimed by critics and filmakers above.

Sweden

The Emigrants (Utvandrarna): Jan Troell's naturalist masterwork was the first Scandinavian film to receive Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Director, and it is often cited in Sweden as the greatest Swedish film of all-time.
Persona: voted "Best Picture" by US National Society of Film Critics. This film by acclaimed director Ingmar Bergman also reached the highest postion (#5) of any Swedish film on Sight & Sound's 1972 list of greatest films of all time.
The Seventh Seal: also directed by Ingmar Bergman, is the highest rated Swedish film on the IMDB.

United Kingdom

Lawrence of Arabia: voted "best British film of all time" in August of 2004 by a London Sunday Telegraph poll of Britain's leading filmmakers. (See also: Epic above).
The Third Man: Voted best British film ever by members of the British Film Institute in 1999.

United States

Citizen Kane: voted the best American film ever by the American Features Institute. (See also: Films acclaimed by critics and filmmakers section above).
Goodfellas was voted the greatest film of all time by Total Film.
A Space Odyssey (film) is considered by some critics, including the late Gene Siskel, to be the greatest film ever made, American or otherwise. Roger Ebert has also cited it in his top ten.

References

Lists of films | Lists of top achievements

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