What is the greatest movie of all time?

As Ruxton Towers points out, not defining the meaning/context of "greatest" makes this an impossible question to answer objectively. These are my top 3 movies, mainly based on their emotional impact on me. Not in any specific order.

The Shawshank Redemption: #1 movie according to IMDb - a poignant story about hope and freedom.

Cool Hand Luke: Top of the range performances from Newman and Kennedy in a story about a man who refuses to conform to society's rules and regulations.

That was an elegant scolding! "Greatest" as a criterion is a great way to collect a freightload of favorites and personal opinions. Nothing wrong with that. Nobodys gonna come up with greatest anyway. It doesnt exist. So its fun to see peoples choices and tastes. De gustubus non est disputandum and all that, spelling excepted.

Blazing Saddles

Major League

Caddyshack

Rango

Tokyo Story. Some would argue that one or more of Ozu's other films are better but I just can't ignore what he did with Tokyo Story. This is the greatest study of intergenerational relationships.

All right then, we will go with "favorites" over greatest. I am fine with that. :)

As a little kid -Star Wars (which I saw in the theater in 1978) because I had never had a in-theater experience like that. It was mind-blowing to watch Luke blowing up the Death Star and zoom off to victory with Han Solo and Chewbacca in the Millennium Falcon. Amazing moment for a kid like me.

For the style/production - Tarentino's Pulp Fiction and Baz Lurhmann's Romeo and Juliet. Those movies, for me, were totally new. I had never seen movies edited that way. They felt like the exact opposite of everything I had ever watched before. And I can still watch them today over and over again.

For my personal connection - A movie where "nothing happens" usually doesn't make a list of best movies, but because it was a weirdly spot-on reflection of our own personal experience, my wife and I both love Before Sunrise with Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. You'd have to be either me or my wife to have the same feelings about this movie that we have. But that makes it even greater to us.

For sheer magnitude of its scope and awe-inspiring story - Michael Caine's Zulu. That movie has one of the best lines ever:

Goosebumps. Loved that movie and watched it with my (veteran) grandfather about a half-dozen times. He always used to say, "Don't you wish you were there?!" right at the gnarliest and most heroic moments!

This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I'm going to go with "Titanic."

Although it's no longer "cool" among certain crowds, 'Titanic" succeeded massively on almost every metric one can use to measure a movie. It made bank at the box office. It was a HUGE step forward for special effects. It launched into the stratosphere the careers of its already-promising two promising stars, Winslet and DiCaprio, who gave excellent performances. It had a talented supporting cast, with Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Bill Paxton, etc. Several quotable lines and moments are forever seared into pop culture memory. It depicted a significant historical event pretty darn accurately, and gave a voice to everyone involved in the tragedy, from the upper crust to the steerage class. It's a story that involves men and women. The powerful and the powerless. Rich and poor. Greed and heroism. Pride and sacrifice. Just in this one single damn boat that sank, so much of society and both its beauty and ugliness is depicted. (With the glaring exception of racial minorities, although one can certainly see the class differences at play between different ethnicities of the "white" passengers.)

And at it's very core, "Titanic" is a deeply, fundamentally HUMANE movie. James Cameron clearly CARED. To this day, the scenes I recall most aren't necessarily the ones with Rose and Jack, but the ones of the mother reading to her two children in bed while waiting for the water to rise, or the old couple holding each other. Thirty years later, I was at the Titanic exhibit at COSI in Columbus this summer, and got teary-eyed thinking of those particular bits.

Yes, the dialogue maybe is not deep or complex, nor is it a movie that "challenges" people. But as an extraordinarily successful tragic romance that can be appreciated by a large segment of the population and has remained relevant long after it came out? Yes.

Also, it's in the title.

Gone With the Wind, Chariots of Fire, 2001: A Space Odessey, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Shining, Easy Rider, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Citizen Kane--representation across various genres

Very hard to narrow down...

I don't know how this is allowed, but here is the full movie -- Zulu -- free and in excellent quality on Youtube. Such a great movie and so well done in both historical accuracy and showing respect for the prowess and bravery of the Zulus.

Obviously it won't hold up to modern standards for fair representation, but considering it was 1960s Hollywood, pretty amazing.

2001 is the greatest movie ever made.

Also rans:

Star Wars

Apocalypse Now

La Dolce Vita

Goodfellas

Full Metal Jacket

Paris Texas

West Side Story

Lawrence of Arabia

Once upon a time in the west

My wife and I began watching all the movies that were nominated for Best Picture (Oscar) in 1984, and we have done so the past 40 years; we’ve even backfilled, so that we’ve seen all the movies nominated for Best Picture (609). These are the criteria that we use to pick our favorite each year.

Obviously, people will differ in their criteria, in the weight of each item, and in their response to the same film, which make discussions all the more fun and interesting!

1. Repeatability
·Can the film be viewed multiple times with profit or enjoyment?
·Usually character-driven movies score higher on this point than plot-driven movies.

2. Significance
·Does the film treat an important subject in a substantial way?

3. Impact
·Mind: Does the film change the way you think or the way you understand something?
·Emotion: Does the film affect you viscerally?
·Behavior: Does the film change the way you live?

Jaws

The Godfather

Halloween

The Shining

The Terminator

Goodfellas

The Silence of the Lambs

The Shawshank Redemption

Pulp Fiction

Fight Club

The Matrix

For what it's worth, here are my top 100 favorite movies (27 categories). Of course, people will have their own favorites, just like if we'd asked our favorite songs or paintings.

Animated
1. Bambi
2. The Lion King
3. Toy Story
4. Beauty and the Beast
Honorable Mention: The Jungle Book

Biopic
5. Amadeus
6. Lincoln
7. Oppenheimer

Children
8. The Red Balloon
9. Children of Heaven
10. The Iron Giant
11. Babe
12. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Christian
13. Calvary
14. The Mission
15. Ordet
16. Babette’s Feast
17. Wit
Honorable Mention: God on Trial

Christmas
18. It’s a Wonderful Life
19. The Muppet Christmas Carol
20. Love Actually
Honorable Mention: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Comedy
21. Some Like It Hot
22. Waking Ned Devine
23. The Princess Bride
24. What’s Up, Doc?

Coming of Age
25. Stand by Me
26. Belfast
27. Brooklyn

Crime and Heist
28. The Godfather Part II
29. The Sting
30. Fargo
31. A Simple Plan

Drama
32. Schindler’s List
33. The Godfather
34. All About Eve

Fantasy
35. Lord of the Rings Trilogy
36. Harry Potter Franchise

Film Noir
37. Laura
38. Strangers on a Train
39. Chinatown
40. Winter’s Bone

Foreign
41. The Lives of Others
42. Parasite
43. Ikiru
44. Bicycle Thieves
45. Water

Horror
46. Psycho
47. Get Out
48. The Vanishing (1988)
49. The Sixth Sense

Legal
50. Rashomon
51. Witness for the Prosecution

Musicals
52. The Sound of Music
53. Chicago

Quirky/Original
54. Lars and the Real Girl
55. Ruby Sparks
56. Amélie
57. Being John Malkovich
58. Petite Maman
59. The Station Agent
60. After Life (1998)

Romance (Tragic)
61. Casablanca
62. The Bridges of Madison County
63. Roman Holiday
64. City Lights
65. Up (first 5 minutes)

Romantic Comedy
66. When Harry Met Sally
67. Sleepless in Seattle
68. The Shop Around the Corner
Honorable Mention: The Big Sick

Satire
69. The Great Dictator
70. Thank You for Smoking
71. Jojo Rabbit

Science Fiction
72. Alien
73. Star Wars Trilogy IV-VI
74. Her

Social Commentary
75. 12 Years a Slave
76. The Killing Fields
77. Promising Young Woman
78. American History X

Sports
79. Chariots of Fire
80. Rocky

Spy
81. Casino Royale (2006)
82. Bourne Trilogy
83. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Summer Blockbuster
84. Jaws
85. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
86. Jurassic Park
87. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Honorable Mention: Top Gun: Maverick

Suspense
88. The Silence of the Lambs
89. Rear Window

War
90. The Bridge on the River Kwai
91. The Shop on Main Street
92. Forbidden Games
93. Saving Private Ryan
94. Hacksaw Ridge
Honorable Mentions: No Man’s Land; Hope and Glory

Western
95. Unforgiven
96. The Ox-Bow Incident
97. Lone Star

“Greatest”? Metropolis, Gone With The Wind, Singin’ In The Rain, Ben Hur, Star Wars, Larry of Arabia

If I had to pick one, I would go with Metropolis.

”Best?” For me, DR. STRANGELOVE!

”I do not avoid women, Mandrake…”

”Noo…”

”…but, I do deny them my essence.”

”The BOMB, Dmitri…”

”…but, with the proper BREEDING techniques, and a ratio of, say, ten females to each male, I would guess that they could work their way back to the present Gross National Product within, say, twenty years.”

”Mr. President, we must not allow, A MINESHAFT GAP!”

omg lol I could go on all night.

Tons of honorable mentions, too many to list. I’m really glad that people have done these things that I enjoy so much.

WOW! blue 7 mentioned "Tokyo Story" by Ozu. He's right. It is a great, great movie.

I'll mention another great black and white foreign flick...."Wild Strawberries."

Does no one remember Dr. Zhivago?! I still hear Lara's Theme when I ride the BART!

Airplane. I watch it all the time and always find new jokes I did not catch b4. Easily a comedy classic. Maybe not the greatest but I would watch it any time.