The Stacker Challenge 2023

Back in 2018, I decided to go through the American Film Institute’s 100 Movie List, the original not the revised one from a few years later, and then do a write up over at Gabbing Geek. Sure, I had seen most of those movies before, but it was still fun and challenging to do it all the same, and I discovered a few movies I hadn’t seen before.

I really wanted to do something like that again for my own site. Sure, I could just do the revised list, but why not find something with more movies I haven’t seen? I considered a few and finally opted for a top 100 movie list off Stacker.com. Why them? They looked like they had as good a list as any, but their methodology was to combine IMDB scores (for the crowdpleasers) and the Metacritic score (for the critic-pleasers) to come up with what may be a mathematical way to pick the best movies. They also didn’t limit themselves to just American or English language movies, so that means I am bound to see some foreign language stuff for the first time.

It also means that Citizen Kane isn’t holding the #1 slot.

Anyway, this is a challenge I am giving myself for 2023, though I will probably start early and just schedule stuff in advance. I mean, one of the first few movies I would be watching is over six hours long. But in the meantime, here’s the roster. I’ll be starting at the bottom and working my way towards the top.

1. The Godfather
2. 12 Angry Men
3. Casablanca
4. Rear Window
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
6. Schindler’s List
7. Seven Samurai
8. City Lights
9. Pulp Fiction
10. Citizen Kane
11. Vertigo
12. Lawrence of Arabia
13. Spirited Away
14. Psycho
15. Singin’ in the Rain
16. Parasite
17. Dr. Strangelove
18. North by Northwest
19. Modern Times
20. Metropolis
21. Three Colors: Red
22. Fanny and Alexander
23. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
24. The Godfather: Part II
25. Pan’s Labyrinth
26. Some Like It Hot
27. Rashomon
28. All About Eve
29. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
30. Sweet Smell of Success
31. The Leopard
32. Army of Shadows
33. WALL-E
34. Apocalypse Now
35. Boyhood
36. Gone with the Wind
37. Grave of the Fireflies
38. Touch of Evil
39. Notorious
40. The Night of the Hunter
41. The Conformist
42. Children of Paradise
43. Toy Story
44. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
45. A Separation
46. The Third Man
47. Double Indemnity
48. Ran
49. Rififi
50. Saving Private Ryan
51. Goodfellas
52. Ratatouille
53. 12 Years a Slave
54. The Apartment
55. The Maltese Falcon
56. The Grapes of Wrath
57. The Battle of Algiers
58. Battleship Potemkin
59. Quo Vadis, Aida?
60. Star Wars: Episode IV–A New Hope
61. Taxi Driver
62. Inside Out
63. Rosemary’s Baby
64. A Streetcar Named Desire
65. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
66. The Wild Bunch
67. My Left Foot
68. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
69. The Lady Vanishes
70. The Adventures of Robin Hood
71. The Shop Around the Corner
72. Au Hasard Balthazar
73. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
74. Toy Story 3
75. There Will Be Blood
76. Beauty and the Beast
77. It’s a Wonderful Life
78. Yojimbo
79. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
80. La Dolce Vita
81. The Philadelphia Story
82. Anatomy of a Murder
83. The Shawshank Redemption
84. The Dark Knight
85. No Country for Old Men
86. Alien
87. La La Land
88. Spotlight
89. Chinatown
90. Manchester by the Sea
91. Paths of Glory
92. Pinocchio
93. Ikiru
94. The Best Years of our Lives
95. High and Low
96. Jules and Jim
97. Umberto D.
98. Yi Yi
99. The Best of Youth
100. Moonlight