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This list is crap

Shrek 2 even considered as Best Comedy? Where are the sports movies?

A tag

Someone added the following template to the top of the article. It is clearly metadata for editors, so I am moving to the appropiate location. Make of it what you will:

No, this template is obviously meant for the article page: Any notice of bias belongs on the article because it qualifies the accuracy of the article to readers, and it refers the reader to the talk page, so obviously isn't meant to be posted on the talk page. See Wikipedia:Template_messages/Disputes. 119 21:26, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Notice the comment above this section on this talk page? Where someone has bothered to write "nice job"? Please don't slap comments that effectively say "THIS ARTICLE IS CRAP" across the top of the page without contributing anything to it. Not even a comment on the talk page explaining why you think it is crap. It is extremely rude to other editors, and does nothing to help the reader. Pcb21| Pete 00:09, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Your argument is emotional and not relevant. Bias is bias, it doesn't matter who thinks they should get a pat on the back. Removing accusations of bias from article pages and putting them on talk pages only is greatly reducing the number of people that will see it and doing a disservice to the reader. 119 17:08, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
It is absolutely not doing a disservice to the reader. We have a link to a disclaimer on every single page. Are we trying to dupe the reader into believing that articles that don't have this tag are satisfactorily treated from a global perspective? That is plainly not true. Pcb21| Pete 18:33, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Should NPOV or factual accuracy dispute tags be put only on the talk page as well? 119 17:08, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Absolutely. Pcb21| Pete 18:33, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

NPOV-section - Documentary

Many people consider Michael Moore's work to be innacurate liberal propaganda. It is definately not from an NPOV that his works are considered a 'documentary'. Maybe these two entries would be best under a new section - political commentary, or ? DanD

The IDA disagrees with you on Bowling for Columbine and F 9/11 winning the Palme D'or award also disagrees with you. "Many people" is a weasel word. If you're going to dispute POV then put up a source because you're clearly promoting a POV (under the guise of NPOV, oddly enough) with "many people." Cburnett 07:35, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
All documentaries are propaganda at some level. Filmakers make choices where they point their cameras, how they edit the footage, how they phrase the narration. Michael Moore is very up-front about where he is coming from. But I think that is besides the point. The article has a long history of requiring citations from OTHERS who consider the film "the best", and Michael Moore's films meet this criteria. It was critical consensus for BEST DOCUMENTARY from the members of the International Documentary Association (IDA), highest gross for a "documentary" quoted from many sources, and the academy award nods that matter. If the IDA had a POV for choosing it, that is not relevant to saying that the ARTICLE is not NPOV. If you are disputing the citations, you have a case. I think you can mention that the films are controversial, and you are welcome to cite any OTHER films considered the best documentary (with a citation). But I don't think you can make a case that these films are not "considered" to be the best documentary, so I'm reverting. -- Samuel Wantman 07:45, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)


Whatever the film's actual merits, if a proper authority declares it the "greatest ever" then it can be put on this list. The IDA put Bowling for Columbine at the top of their list of documentaries, so it may be included.
But there is no good reason for saying Fahrenheit 9/11 is a "documentary considered the greatest ever". How does box office success translate into "greatest ever" status? And box office success plus the Palme D'Or doesn't equal "greatest ever" status either, unless you mean it was the Greatest Documentary Ever of 2004. There is no common cultural consensus that it is a "greatest ever" documentary like there is that Raiders of the Lost Ark is a "greatest ever" action-adventure film - perhaps ten years from now, but not since it's release. There is already a tragic lack of diversity in the documentary section; all but two of the films listed (the earlier Seven Up films and my own inclusion of Man with the Movie Camera) were released within the last 25 years. F 9/11 has no reason for being there, and on top of that fatal flaw it is simply disingenous to let it take up space. There is no excuse for it's inclusion other than someone wanted to see it there. --Jeff Fries 10:09, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Edited to add: if you are reading this, please ignore it. I will come back to this issue at a later time, on the correct discussion page. --Jeff Fries 19:25, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

What counts as a movie?

"Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" is listed as a distinct movie, but all three parts of the series were filmed continuously. Much like what happened with Tolkien's original manuscript, this movie was artificially separated into 3 parts strictly for marketing purposes. But when considering it qua artis, why maintain the synthetic separation? Would episodes 1-13 of "Flash Gordon in Space Soldiers" (a serial movie) each be considered as individual movies?

And I don't mean sequels should necessarily be considered unbroken extensions of the originals; but in the case of "Lord of the Rings", both the movie and the novel were created as single works and were separated after the fact. There are other cinematic instances of this aside from serial movies - from television mini-series like "Roots" to other iconic movies like "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions", or "Back to the Future 2" and "Back to the Future 3".

I don't see why anyone but box office marketers should be constrained to consider movies only as commercial, cut-and-dry concepts -- especially given this new medium.

It was planned as 3 movies, released as 3 movies, had 3 different titles, 3 different listings at IMDB, got different awards, were reviewed as 3 movies, etc... It was 3 movies. --Samuel Wantman 06:45, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Problems with the 'Comedy' section

Shrek 2, Finding Nemo, Snow White and 101 Dalmatians are all ANIMATIONS. Besides, only fools and children find them really funny (although Shrek 2 does have its moments). If anyone knows what the highest-grossing comedies actually are, please add them. Localperson118 11:22, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Dancing Dirty

Samuel, Ok not all the films in the last were romantic, but the list was definitely biased that way. The alternative is to list the film in the main "audience poll" section. I am not sure that is appropriate. A further alternative, not to list it at all, seems wrong... we are accepting plenty of other films based on limited lists. Why are you picking on this film in particular? Pcb21| Pete 12:13, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

1) As you say, not all the films on the list were romantic. From what I saw in the reference, MOST were not. Only 4 of the 10 ten could possibly be labled a romance.
2) The people polled were not asked to pick their favorite romantic movie. How can we say that this was an audience pick for "greatest romantic film of all time"?
3) Yes, other films are based on limited lists, but how were they limited? Some (like Casablanca) were films that were chosen from a list limited to just American films (AFI picks). When that happens, it is clearly stated in the article (or should be), and a reader can understand that the film was considered the best "American" film. So what was "Dirty Dancing" chosen from? Who came up with the list of 100 films and what criteria was used? I don't know the answer to that question. Perhaps it was the 100 highest grossing films of all time. If so, then Dirty dancing is the "British pick for best film out of the top 100 grossing films", and we can find a place to say it in the article either under "UK", "audience poll", "highest grossing" or even start a new category (other?, combination?).
4) If any other listing is as ambiguous, I'd be willing to remove it from the article.
5) I have nothing against Dirty Dancing. I don't remember having ever seen it.
-- Samuel Wantman

Thanks Samuel. From what I remember of the poll 4 out of ten sounds very low. Maybe the non-romances floated to the top? Anyhow lets forget about putting it in a purely romance setting and consider putting it in the general "audience poll" category. By comparison we already have references there to Entertainment Weekly, Time Out, TV Guide , Los Angeles Daily News, Empire and Channel 4/FilmFour. All of these (with the possible exception of the Time Out one) are geographically specific.... and I bet they had a far sight less than 200,000 responses... so maybe putting in "Audience Poll" section with a note that the list was slanted to modern commercial romantic is most appropriate.

By limited, I didn't just limited by genre. The AFI ones for example are limited to 400/500 by some unknown process, and then the "influential critics etc" bring it down to an ordered 100. This is not so different from your number 3) where we don't know the origin of the 100.

Re 5), I have seen Dirty Dancing, and it is quite possibly the worst film that appears in this article, but nevertheless I feel it belongs somewhere in the article, if only it tells us more about Diet Coke-drinking txters than the make up of a great movie. Pcb21| Pete 22:42, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I put back, but this time in the audience poll section. Pcb21| Pete 12:17, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Not Quite Best Ever

Should "Rules of the Game" be on this list? Even though it's widely acclaimed, no one has showed evidence of it ever being considered the greatest ever. 2nd best isn't the best right? In the French section though, could say something like "highest French Film on Sight and Sound's famous poll". Also the list of the 10 highest grossing films (real and adjusted) should only show the top film (Titanic and Gone with the Wind), again, as this is for those who is or has been at the top. The list of past highest grossing films make sense though. --Poorpete 16:35, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think there is value in listing "near misses", as long as the nearness of the miss is quantified. Pcb21| Pete 19:53, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Pcb21 (about this, not about Dirty Dancing), but I must admit my view is biased by the fact that I was the person who added Rules of the Game to this list. My rationale was that over the years, whenever I have read an article about "the greatest films ever" they always included more than one film. I was inspired to see Rules of the Game the first time because of an article about the "Sight and Sound" poll. Anyone interested enough to read this article would probably want to know what the "runners up" to Citizen Kane were. -- Samuel Wantman 21:49, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cause it seemed only to bug me, I searched for and found a well regarded critic poll that named "Rules of the Game" best film. Now onto "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", number 8 in box office revenue, only $1 billion shy of Titanic, not quite a "near miss" for best ever. I'd say a link to List of highest-grossing films after Titanic should suffice, yes? --Poorpete 19:13, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but leave a few of the highest grossing and the adjusted highest. This illustrates the point that the highest grossing list is heavily biased towards recent films. -- Samuel Wantman 20:13, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Excellent work finding the citation Poorpete. It would be a real big win for this article if we can somehow get more non-Hollywood import. We also have the data for doing a inflation-adjusted worldwide (as opposed to mere American as we have now) top grossing films. Once we have that (and it would clearly be sans Harry Potter, then I think top 10 would be ok to keep. If you want just a link to top grossing, then that's fine, but its hardly as if this article is too long. Pcb21| Pete 22:30, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Trouble with finding a worldwide adjusted list, is there's no current agreement on how to set up such a standard. As the US inflation can be calculated, the World's inflation would be hard to quantify. I believe Boxofficemojo created the adjusted list by figuring out how many tickets were bough for a movie. I wonder if there's such lists somewhere? --Poorpete 20:43, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Can we move this page?

I'd like to move this page to a title that doesn't have the word LIST in it. As this page evolves it is becoming more prose than list. I think that is a good thing, and it should expand more in that direction. I'm proposing some titles. Can you react to them and add more possibilities? Perhaps we can reach a concensus. -- Samuel Wantman 19:07, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Best movies of all time

Greatest movies ever

Movies that have been considered the greatest ever

    • I'd vote for this one, a "list" can go without saying, but i think the word "considered" has to be in there to avoid a free-for all of opinionated cinemaphiles. "Have been" is okay, as it allows films like the Bicycle Thief, although I wouldn't mind "Movies considered the greatest ever" --Poorpete 19:56, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Having the word "considered" either in the title or text doesn't stop a free-for-all. Opinionated cinemaphiles "consider" their selections to be the best too. What keeps these lists in order is the clear description at the beginning, and all of us who remove films without citations. -- Samuel Wantman 22:13, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I support a rename, but fear that going for anything more radical than the third option will incur the wrath of those wikifiddlers who think they know what NPOV should mean, but don't, and get promptly moved again :) Pcb21| Pete 15:41, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This is definitely more prose then list. "Movies that have been considered the greatest ever" sounds like the way to go to avoid the deletionists/NPOV crusaders. Just look what they're trying to do to List of the Great Boners of all time, an article in the same spirit as this one. - Pioneer-12 19:29, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Consolidating the animation sections

Ive consolidate the three animation sections into one. I removed Beauty and the Beast and Shrek because there were no cites as being the best. I considered keeping the Anime section, but Spirited Away also qualifies as the favorite animation in an audience poll. The distinction between computer animated and hand drawn has long bothered me. Both are the same genre, Beauty and the Beast was created using both technologies. -- Samuel Wantman 01:13, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Farenheit 911 as a documentary

Documentaries are films that intend to be factual. Farenheit is a film that intends to persuade. Most notoriously, in the section where Moore interviewed members of congress, which his own transcripts of the conversation show to have gone entirely differently than portrayed in the film.

I think Michael Moore is a great director. I think Bowling for Columbine is exceptional. But without at least the INTENT to present factual information, you can't call it a documentary. It dilutes the word to the point where it is meaningless, where US WW2 propaganda films are also documentaries.

At the very least it is highly questionable whether it is a documentary. There is no controversy that Farenheit 911 is a political film. Lets call it that. Its alot easier than calling it a documentary, and then preserving NPOV by noting that there is a controversy as far as whether or not that is the case. --Jsolinsky 01:19, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

That some people think Fahrenheit 911 is the best documentary is enough to add it to the documentary list, all of the items here are only supported by a minority of sources. It doesn't really matter what we personally think about this. Fahrenheit 911 is listed as the highest grossing documentary of all time because some important people think so. It is our job to fairly report what these sources state, not judge their correctness. Making up our own opinions is original research. Moreover you have not any sources listing Fahrenheit 911 as the best or highest grossing political film of all time. Such citations are needed for all items on this page. - SimonP 02:08, May 30, 2005 (UTC)
Its fine to say "Some people think Farenheit 911 is the greatest documentary ever" as long as some people say it. That's NPOV. Its fine to say "some people say Farenheit 911 is a documentary". That's NPOV. But the page as presently worded lists Farenheit 911 as a "Documentary". That's a controversial POV. Even the documentary film entry declares that this is a controversial topic. I don't understand why you insist on labeling it as something controversial when there are plenty of NPOV terms that could be used. "Political" or "Non-Fiction" for example. I also don't understand why you reverted from $125.5M to $100M or why you removed the part about it setting an opening weekend record for Palm d'Or winners (over Pulp Fiction). --Jsolinsky 02:55, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Please see my comment from the previous discussion about this topic above . If you want to add Farenheit 911 to this article it MUST have a citation that shows it to be THE BEST in the category or else several people will remove it. This is a result of the VfD discussion for this article (see the archive and the top of this talk page). Without citations, this article was becoming a POV depository.

If you find something that says "a poll of blah, blah, blah chose it to be the best political film of all time", it can stay. I think you might have trouble finding such a citation, but if you do, I'd have no objection to having it in the article.

I'm not sure how the highest grossing opening weekend for Palm d'Or winners fits into this article. It is a combination of both a critical pick (the Palm) and a box office pick. If you were to add a section on combinations of categories that had several entries, then this could be added there as well. As such a section does not yet exist, this citation doesn't really fit with the article. -- Samuel Wantman 08:29, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Stating that Farenheit 911 is a documentary without referencing the controversy is POV no matter how you slice it. Puting it in a category labeled documentary is the same as asserting it is a documentary. There are lots of ways we can fix this:
  1. We can make sure that all uses of the word documentary are part of an attributed quote (and therefore NPOV).
  2. We can call it something else (non-fiction or political)
  3. We can include a reference to the controversy
  4. We can remove it from this page
There are other solutions I'm sure. --Jsolinsky 14:05, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
Please note the word considered in the title of this page and in the heading "films that are considered the greatest in their particular genre". We are not "stating that Farenheit 911 is a documentary" we are stating that some consider it to be a documentary, which is undeniable. - SimonP 16:28, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

The participants in this discussion seem to be talking past each other. Jsolinsky is talking about how to describe F9/11's genre. Others tend to being talk about criteria for inclusion (i.e "greatest ever XYZ" cites). Pcb21| Pete 16:37, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

I feel the two are linked. All the citations for F9/11 are for it as a documentary, not for some other genre. Jsolinsky has yet to present any sources calling it the highest grossing political or non-fiction film. Even if he did it should still be listed under both genres as being considered a political film does not invalidate the sources that consider it a documentary. Moreover if there is a great controversy over whether F9/11 is a documentary I feel it would have been mentioned on the Fahrenheit 9/11 or the Fahrenheit 9/11 controversy page. Both those pages call the film a documentary with no hint of any debate over the issue. - SimonP 17:08, May 30, 2005 (UTC)
What citations are you talking about? Since I've been editing this page (quite recently) there haven't been any links in the Farenheit 9/11 listing, nor has there been any attribution. If, instead of calling it a documentary, you quote others as saying its a documentary I will have NO PROBLEM. If the reason why you replaced over $125.5M with over $100M is that the $100M comes from a quote, then it ought to be clear in reading the entry which quote it comes from. Again, "X says Farenheit 9/11 is the highest grossing documentary" is a NPOV fact. Listing Farenheit 9/11 as a documentary is clearly POV and in my opinion just plain false. --Jsolinsky 19:29, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
As for controversy, the documentary film entry does clearly state (as of when I first edited this page) that there is a controversy over whether or not Farenheit 9/11 is a documentary. I didn't invent it. Adding to the Fahrenheit 9/11 controversy page is on my todo list. It seems more focused on the political arguments (arguments that could hurt/help Bush) than on the question of deliberate deception (obviously the issue which most concerns me) --Jsolinsky 19:29, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
Hear are citations for its inclusion in the documentary section:
From the IMDB [1]
  • "Became the widest number of screens for a documentary three weeks in a row"
  • "The highest-grossing documentary in its opening weekend: $23,920,637 (equalling the three-month run total of Moore's last film Bowling for Columbine (2002))"
  • "First ever documentary to cross the $100 million mark in the United States."
From the Wikipedia Fahrenheit 9/11 article:
  • "The film has since been released in 42 more countries and holds the record for highest box office receipts by a general release documentary."
I'm certain I could list dozens more, and I will do so if requested. -- Samuel Wantman 20:07, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
I would certainly have no objection to including any of these quotes as long as they are clearly linked to their source. It is a fact that IMDB says this. --Jsolinsky 20:27, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
Yes, they are cut and pasted from the linked pages. Why did you change "Documentary" to "Non-Fiction"? One of the most important things I learned in a film class taught by Richard Leacock is that ALL film, including documentary, is subjective and has a POV. I think that is why the genre is called "Documentary" instead of "Non-fiction". -- Samuel Wantman 22:36, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
I don't care if films have POV. Wikipedia should be NPOV even when discussing POV topics. I like my documentaries to be POV, but I don't want them to lie. Fahrenheit contains at least one segment that was edited to communicate the exact opposite of what was filmed. This stands in stark contrast to Michael Moore's earlier work. There is a vast body of propaganda films that have traditionally not been called documentaries. WWII propaganda films stand out in this reguard. By expanding the term to include 9/11 we dramatically dilute its meaning. --Jsolinsky 02:14, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
Also, the IDA calls these films documentaries.[2] If the people who make these films call them documentaries, that is enough for me, so I reverted the change. -- Samuel Wantman 22:57, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

The bottom line is this. We have a choice between using a POV term (documentary) or a NPOV term (non-fiction). It is "absolute and non-negotiable" Wikipedia policy that articles be written from a NPOV. I don't understand why we would even consider using the POV term when there is a suitable alternative. According to the Documentary_Films entry: "there has been some debate over whether or not these three films are actual documentaries or not." We should either include both sides of the debate or use the NPOV term. I think a discussion of whether the films are documentaries or not would get in the way of this page's function, so using the NPOV term seems like the obvious thing to do. --Jsolinsky 02:14, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Well that was my first non-trivial reversion. This is my first edit war. I'm going to initiate a Wikipedia:Truce by not changing the category name again until after Wednesday. If, at that time we haven't reached an agreement, I'll put out an RFC. --Jsolinsky 02:23, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

NPOV does not mean making everything so vague and contentless that everyone will agree. It is a fact that some consider F 9/11 a documentary, and that is all this page is asserting. Moreover non-fiction is just as POV because it implies that the film is not a documentary. Please stop reverting, you are well beyond the three revert rule and you will be blocked if you continue. - SimonP 02:28, May 31, 2005 (UTC)
I reverted exactly once. Please check the history. I have tried atleast four different edits to make this NPOV while satisfying concerns. Wikipedia:Revert refers to the act of returning a page to what it was. --Jsolinsky 15:00, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
    • Actually from Jsolinsky is saying, even "non-fiction" would be inappropriate because there is a lot of fiction in it!
    • Joking aside, let's get agreement rather than a mere truce.
    • Here is a compromise suggestion. "ABC and XYZ say that F9/11 is the best documentary ever. IMDB says it is the highest grossing documentary. (*)" Then (*) links to a footnote that says "See also F911 controversy". Pcb21| Pete 08:03, 31 May 2005 (UTC)


Jsolinsky is a single person blocking consensus, and as far as I can tell, a minority of one. One of the strengths of consensus is that a minority of one CAN block consensus, but those occasions should be few, and only in the most extreme circumstances. I want to know if Jsolinsky feels so strongly about this as to block a long held consensus. If so, I'd like Jsolinsky to convince us we are all wrong. To do that you have to refute all the reasons we have for citing F9/11 as a documentary and convince us we are wrong. Here's my list of reasons for calling the section 'documentary'. :
    • "Non-Fiction" is not a genre of film that is commonly used to discuss film. There is no category for Non-Fiction at IMDB. It is not mentioned in the Wikipedia List of film genres. There is a rule about no original research. Creating a genre of film is original research.
    • All the citations for all the films in the category list say "such and such film was the best DOCUMENTARY". That means they should be in the Documentary film section. It doesn't make sense to have a heading that doesn't agree with the text of the section and the citations.
    • In the article about documentaries, there is mention of propaganda films, two schools of thought about Cinema Verite -- one which manipulates the events being filmed, the other which tries not to. In Nanook of the North, one of the most famous documentaries of all time the director had the Eskimos use a harpoon to hunt walrus even though they'd normally use guns, because it fit a romantic view of the native people. My point is that there is a very long history and a variety of ways that documentary films have a POV. Even the least manipulative director makes decisions about where to point the camera, what footage to use, what footage not to use. It is impossible to make a movie without having a POV.
    • I don't believe that "Non-fiction" is NPOV. I think "Documentary" is NPOV because that is the what the citations call the film, that is what the IDA calls the film. "Non-fiction" films are called documentaries by the film world. Calling them "Non-fiction" is taking a point of view that film world is using the wrong name.
    • I will not block having links to a footnote that says "See also F911 controversy", and if it ends this discussion I'll be all for it. But I'm hesitant because it opens up this argument to footnote every controversy about every film mentioned, and that is not what this article is about. This article is about what films are CONSIDERED the best. It is not about racist propaganda (Birth of a Nation), communist propaganda (Battleship Potemkin), etc...
    • One of Jsolinsky's suggestions was "We can make sure that all uses of the word documentary are part of an attributed quote (and therefore NPOV)." When I did that, he still reverted the section. I believe there were four mentions of documentary and I put 2 of them within quotations from citations. It seemed awkward to write the entire section this way, so I didn't find quotations for the other two. It seemed redundant to do so, but I'd be willing to put every mention in quotes to end this.
    • There is no question that the other films are documentaries. So why shouldn't they be in a section called documentary? The reason is that would only leave F9/11 in a non fiction section which wouldn't make any sense.
    • I don't understand the reasoning that says F9/11 has to be called "non-fiction" because Moore created a fiction in the way he edited one part of the film. If he created "fiction", how is it "non-fiction"?
    • What makes a film "the best" is inherently POV. Early on, everyone who edited this page added their own choices for the best films. The page was put on the VfD list. The result of that process was that the POV of the editors was irrelevant, what was important was that there were citations from reputable places that considered a film "the best". If a group of several THOUSAND makers of documentaries gave F9/11 an award for the best documentary of 2004, if the IMDB calls it a documentary, then it is NPOV for us to list it as a documentary. I think this argument trumps all the others. I have heard many criticisms of Star Wars that talk about how unscientific the film is. The shots of space flight depicted is contrary to the laws of physics. All the explosions in space have big explosion noises even though sound doesn't travel in a vacuum. If I cite these things should I be able to remove Star Wars from the list of Science Fiction films? Of course not because the genre of Science Fiction regularly includes many things unscientific. It is the same for documentaries. It is the same for TV news broadcasts. It is the same for "non-fiction" books. They all have a POV. It is the same for every intellectual endeavor. -- Samuel Wantman 10:32, 31 May 2005 (UTC)


  1. The section title "Documentary" is not in quotes. It is POV to say it is a documentary. There are other NPOV terms that satisfy. That is the entirety of my complaint.
  2. Some of the recent comments appear to suggest that I treading new ground by calling Fahrenheit 9/11 a non-fiction movie. This is absurd. A quick search finds thousands of such references and thousands more using the word genre to characterize non-fiction films. This is a widespread and common way to refer to Farenheit 9/11 and I am unaware of anyone who objects to this characterization. "Fahrenheit 9/11 is blazing. In just three days of national release, Michael Moore's attack on the Bush administration and the war in Iraq set box-office records: The weekend's top-grossing movie, at $23.9 million, is the highest-grossing nonfiction film ever. (By Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer, 06/29/2004 12:01 AM PDT)[3]"
  3. Somebody wrote that by including F9/11 in the category of non-fiction films we are expressing the POV that it is not a documentary. I will assume that this was some awful attempt at trolling unless somebody repeats it.

--Jsolinsky 15:00, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

There are 1,010,000 hits on google for "Fahrenheit 9/11".
There are 353,000 hits for "Fahrenheit 9/11" documentary.
There are 25,700 hits for "Fahrenheit 9/11" non-fiction.
Samuel Wantman 10:01, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Another listing type?

If you look around the net, many "best movie" lists present 100 "best" films without specifying an order. There must be a dozen or more of these easily accessible. There was one in Time magazine just last week for example. We could easily compile a list of such lists, and say film X has appeared on these lists the most times. If we include all such lists we can find, this is listing would be NPOV (no selectiveness on our part). I am sure it would also be interesting.

Starting a list of lists to get the data from:

This is similar to what I did at List of rock and roll albums and list of hip hop albums Tuf-Kat 21:51, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert is not the world. Why is what he thinks are the greatest movies in the world making to the list? Mandel 11:58, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Feel free to add the opinions of other influential critics. Pcb21| Pete 12:49, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Then the list will go on to become overlong. The beginning of it states explicitly: "a critics' poll, popular poll, box office receipts or awards". Mandel 13:55, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
How many critics do you have sources for? Pcb21| Pete 14:16, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Please, all you need to do is to look into each Sight and Sound poll. Who are we to judge whether a critic is influential or not? Mandel 20:31, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Some Genres Missing?

Why are some genres (action/adventure) missing? Is it because action films are generally considered to not be great films? I'm seen a lot of "greatest film" lists, and I've never seen an action film on that list. Is it because action films tend to not engage the brain? My suggestion is that we add in more movie genres to the list and list the great films that fall under those categories.

The central tenet for this article is citability. If we can cite a "greatest action film" then great let's get it in. Seems like the kind of thing AFI might have done.

Here is another thing I'm not sure of: is a "great film", from a critic's viewpoint, a film that engages the mind? Or can pure entertainment be as equally important? In other words, can an action film that is immensely entertaining ever be considered great (Indiana Jones), or would it only be considered good; leaving the "great film" title for films that are more than just entertaining? This is all subjective of course, but what is the general criteria?

Perhaps it may help people like me to include a list of criterias for a great film (a list that most critics would agree upon).

I agree a section discussing "common criteria", littered with a few choice quotes from people describing how they decide a film is great could be of great benefit to the article. Again citations remain paramount.

It should also be noted that films are subjective, and although the films listed below are considered great by most critics; most of them are from American cultures. Our culture affects what we believe to be a bad film or a good film. There are possibly some cultures outside of the U.S. which believe that Battlefield Earth is a great film! This should be explained in the article somewhere.

Yes the cultural bias thing has been mentioned before. Ideally we need to get more input from other people who are familiar with other cultures and languages. Does Bollywood spawn greatest film lists for example? Pcb21| Pete 09:10, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Less reliance on IMDb

This page should definitely rely less on the opinions of people who have seen none of the first 70+ years of films, and only a few of the last 30 years worth (ie: the majority of individuals on IMDb) and more on notable film critics and film historians, who spend their entire lives viewing, reviewing, and researching films. Imagine if it had been left up to the general population to decide what should be in the Library of Alexandria. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-09-28 18:23

Audience polls, the IMDb, and box-office gross will obviously highlight different films than critics and historians. This article can present both. Feel free to add more citations of critics and historians where appropriate. -- Samuel Wantman 23:37, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
My point is that we don't go to the general population when asking for opinions on science, medicine, mathematics, art, or any other subject, so why should we for film? Because the general population just happens to have taken a liking to film, while ignoring all the other subjects? Not a good argument. This isn't even the general population we're talking about, but the people who happen to have computers, who know about IMDb, who may or may not have seen a film in their lives, and who happen to be alive. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-09-29 00:04
And that's a fair point. My response though is much the same as Samuel's. Let's somehow find some more data from individuals and add it in. That will restore the balance with the bonus of having more data. Pcb21| Pete 12:01, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

IGN Staff picks...

This entry in the animation section seems pretty questionable to me. The article has been defined to include picks by critics, audiences and awards. I don't quite see how staff pick of a gaming website qualifies. Going down this path would lead to the staff at my local Starbucks adding their picks for the best Sci-Fi movie. If IGN was a film site, and the staff were noted film critics, that would be a different story. Before removing this, I'd like to hear other opinions. -- Samuel Wantman 06:22, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

"Film project"

The LOTR mention as being the highest grossing "film project" seems forced. Films made at once and release separately are rarities. It might be better to talk about film series or film franchises (Star Wars, Star Trek, James Bond, Godfather, etc...) I would guess that Star Wars is the highest grossing of these. Even so, I'm not convinced it is worth mentioning. -- Samuel Wantman 07:24, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Triumph of the Will

Because this film is so controversial, I feel the need to describe why I thought it belonged on the list of Best Documentaries.

First, Triumph gave its director major international recognition that no other similar film has done, and carries extremely high name recognition, even seventy years after it was made. Pretty-much every major newspaper ran major obituaries when Riefenstahl died, and ALL of them mention the film with high praise. Although all sane individuals disagree with its message, like Birth of a Nation it's famous for it's techniques. (I challenge you to find me a major critic who says otherwise) By contrast, most people can't name her other pioneering film, Olympia. Second, is there a line between documentary and propaganda? Triumph is usually described as both, and I noticed the Documentary catagory also contains the Michael Moore films Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, both of which are considered (especially the latter) propaganda.

Here's the praise I could find (Give me a critic and I'll dig up more): Roger Ebert called it a "great documentary" and "by general consent [one] of the best documentaries ever made". [4] The Wall Street Journal called it "pioneering", "a mélange of documentary and propaganda" and "revolutionary in its cinematography and editing". [5] The New York Times said Triumph was a "daringly innovative documentary" and that it "deeply influenced later generations of documentary makers and television commercial makers." [6] The Guardian of Britain, while calling it a "documentary" also said Triumph was "renowned and reviled as the best propaganda film ever". [7] The Washington Post refered to it as an "the most effective Nazi propaganda of all time", an "overly long, but fascinating documentary", and "brilliantly shot and edited". [8] The Economist, said indirectly said "[its] filming and editing techniques both broke new ground, and many shots that now seem commonplace had never been seen before." [9]

However, because it is extremely controversial, I would be willing to have it moved under "German" cinema, perhaps in tandem with Fritz Lang, Werner Herzog, or Wolfgang Petersen. Palm_Dogg 11:56, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't have any complaint about the film's inclusion under Documentary — I generally concur with your argument — but you shouldn't have marked its addition as a minor change... KJBracey 12:34, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Fair enough. I just started editing this week, so my apologies. Palm_Dogg 13:06, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for documenting the reasons for its inclusion. From what you have listed here and in the article, the only citation that seems to be on point is Ebert's, and he doesn't claim that it is the best documentary, but just ONE of the best. I don't think that is sufficient. I think there should be a citation that say it is considered THE BEST or perhaps THE SECOND BEST documentary ever made. It seems that most of the citations say it is the best PROPAGANDA film ever made, and I would have no problem moving the entry to a new propaganda section. I think it is important for this article to limit inclusion to films that can be directly cited for inclusion without editorial interpretation. Being cited as the best propaganda film does not mean that it has been cited as the best documentary. -- Samuel Wantman 08:36, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
As I said, I would be willing to have it moved under Greatest German Films (Which I still can't believe isn't on this page). Palm_Dogg 14:54, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
If it were moved to the Germany section (which just was added), it should have a citation calling it the greatest GERMAN film. My point is that the cites you have mentioned and the cites I have seen call it the greatest PROPAGANDA film, and not the greatest DOCUMENTARY nor the greatest GERMAN film. I think it would be fine under a section called PROPAGANDA. -- Samuel Wantman 06:04, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
OK, move it. My only worry is that a Propaganda section is too escoteric for this page. Palm_Dogg 16:12, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

'Juice' in the Comedy Section

Not sure who is responsible for this article, but the mention of 'Juice' under the 'Comedy' heading (Juice (2004) is considered by some to be the funniest film of all time. It stars actors Gary Yarbrough and Adam Sadowski, and is directed by Aaron Botwick.) seems pretty bogus to me and should be removed.

In fact...I removed the following from the arcticle:

  • Juice (2004) is considered by some to be the funniest film of all time. It stars actors Gary Yarbrough and Adam Sadowski, and is directed by Aaron Botwick.

There is no such film, and there are no such actors.

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