Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
See I don't see how Citizen Kane can still claim the top spot.

It almost seems like they are just repeating what others before them decided or something.

I mean it's good, but is it really the best movie ever made?

And the Graduate is better than Shindler's list?

How do they determine this list anyway?

Its not that Citizen Kane by todays standards is the greatest film of all time. Thats impossible, because even a film by "todays standards" will be "outdated" in a few years. Citizen Kane is heralted as a great film because it laid all of the basic groundwork for modern cinematic technique. I'm not sure if i would rank it as number one, but its definitly in the top three or four. Historically speaking, its as important as a film can be. Like Picasso--"so cliched, whats the big deal?" well, not much nowadays, but in terms of importance Picasso is a monumental figure.

All lists are subjective, so you find a bit of leeway in the rankings, but overall they are mostly the same, its always the same usual suspects because its simply art history. Its like if you had art critics have a top 100 works of all time for painted medium there would be some differences but generally 85% of the rankings would be similar--you'd have your davince's and michaelangelo's and Picasso's and Guagin's and Matisse's in varying rankings. For film you have your Coppola's and your Kurosawa's and your Eisenstein and your Hitchcock's and your Fellini's. Most of those film lists are American ones/ Hollywood ones, ie AFI, so you don't have "foreign" films, which would result in an incredible different listing.