North by Northwest 1959

Top 250 movies, as rated by regular IMDB voters. List updated daily.

/u/StopReadinMyUsername on reddit combined the average ratings (Critic's & Users) from IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and Letterboxd, and then weighted and tweaked the results with general film data from iCheckMovies and IMDb to reveal the 1001 Greatest Movies of All Time.

source: http://redd.it/3hbiio

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die is a film reference book edited by Steven Jay Schneider with original essays on each film contributed by over 70 film critics.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1001_Movies_You_Must_See_Before_You_Die

This is a list of every movie that has made an appearance on the Top 250 list since the beginning of the site in 1996 through 2024. I will maintain a changelog below for when new movies are added to list.

List made using data from IMDB Top 250 History - https://250.took.nl/

Changelog - https://bit.ly/2E0i6w4

Odd Entries Explained - https://bit.ly/38dS0Ul

Movies

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt/?cmp=FBRT_Top100Films

UPDATED: 3/28/22

NOTE: It appears Rotten Tomatoes has removed this list. There will not be any future updates to this list.

2024 Updated List:
https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/best-movies-of-all-time/

From https://letterboxd.com/reelstats/list/the-1001-greatest-movies-of-all-time-according/

Films I want to watch from Hollywood's golden era.

This list contains the favorite movies of movie critic Jonathan Rosenbaum who writes for the Chicago Reader. The movies span virtually every decade, and include many an obscure movie.

http://www.alsolikelife.com/FilmDiary/rosenbaum.html

The They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? 1,000 greatest films list is primarily compiled by using over 6000 individual critics' and filmmakers' best-films-of-all-time lists/ballots. The resulting list is very diverse and spans virtually all movie-producing decades and countries.

Source: http://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000.htm

Well over a century has passed since the Lumière brothers frightened the life out of Parisians with The Arrival of a Train at a Station, and well over a million titles have since been recorded - if the Internet Movie Database is anything to go by.

Out of these million-plus movies, our team of experts has picked what we believe is the essential 1,000 - those that best sum up the dazzling achievement and variety of the movies.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/film/series/1000-films-to-see-before-you-die

Over 1,000 films are listed in this visually arresting, full-color celebration of the silver screen. Film personalities, including actors, directors, cinematographers, and animators, write about their favorite films from a variety of angles. Martin Scorsese, Nicole Kidman, and Nick Hornby are among those who weigh in. Writers are matched to suitable (or sometimes surprising) themes and genres within the wider subject of how films can alter the course of a life. Movie stills and posters, trivia, and top-ten lists make this a book that can be dipped into or read from cover to cover. Great screen moments — endings, beginnings, kisses, death scenes — are given special spreads. The eclectic approach speaks to fans of big Hollywood blockbusters and factoid-reciting film geeks alike.

Source: https://www.amazon.com/Time-1000-Films-Change-Guides/dp/1904978738

Directors Special

Excellent list! I'd like to go through all of these with my kids.

Link: https://www.artofmanliness.com/living/entertainment/100-must-see-movies/

Note: I didn't include all the movies in a few of the series (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Bourne, Indiana Jones, etc.)

This list is drawn from "The New York Times Book of Movies: The Essential 1,000 Films to See", published in 2019. It contains a selection of 1000 reviews that have been printed in The New York Times. The majority of movies in this book are among the "10 Best Films" chosen by New York Times critics at the end of each year.

Source: https://www.amazon.com/New-York-Times-Book-Movies/dp/078933657X

/u/StopReadinMyUsername on reddit created a list called "1001 'GREATEST' MOVIES OF ALL TIME" in 2015.

Since this list is still very popular, he posted an updated list on reddit in April 2020.

For this list he combined the average scores from IMDb, Letterboxd, Rotten Tomatoes & Metacritic, and tweaked the results with data from Letterboxd, iCheckMovies, TSPDT?, TMDb and IMDb.

source: https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/fswg60/by_combining_the_average_scores_from_imdb/

Source: IMDB
Filter: Votes >= 10000
Order: Votes Descending
Date: 2014-08-23

Movies with spy plot in any form (dramas, action, adventure, comedies, war, crime, mystery, conspiracy theories, political thrillers, science fiction, e.t.c.).

Definition: A Spy movie shows the espionage activities of government agents seeking to uncover or maintain secrets from each other and for one country or for the benefit of another. Offering a combination of exciting escapism, technological thrills, and exotic locales, and combine the action and science fiction genres. They may also involve elements of political thrillers.

Essential / Must-see / Genre-defying: espionage movies:

North By Northwest (1959)
Notorious (1946)
The Conversation (1974)
Mission: Impossible (1996)
Casino Royale (2006)

Everyone has their favourite genre but we can surely all agree that thrillers are the best. And if you don’t believe us, there’s a suspicious figure in that darkened doorway who’d like a word. From the early classics, like Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger or Fritz Lang’s M, to the films of David Fincher and Martin Scorsese, they’re rich in nerve-shredding, adrenaline-pumping rides into the darker recesses of the psyche. Thrillers show us horrors and weave in human dramas, but they use those raw materials to forge something particular: a sense of unease and suspense.

With masterful control of those elements, Hitchcock could manipulate his audiences like puppets on a string, delivering shocks that reverberate through cinema history. Fincher’s Seven and Zodiac have carried on the legacy, while films like Pig, Nightmare Alley and The Card Counter show that the thriller is the genre for all eras. Even superhero flicks, like Captain America: Civil War and The Batman, have been borrowing liberally from the crime thriller. It is, unlike many of its ill-fated characters, alive and well.

But what are the very best of them? As we’ve done with science fiction, horror films, romances, comedies, westerns and war films, we’ve dusted cinema for prints and taken a magnifying glass to its finest thrillers to boil them down to a tonne of all-timers. On the list? Murder, political intrigue, espionage, conspiracy, manipulation, gaslighting and, of course, crime. Lots of crime. Enjoy – and hold on tight.

Written by Abbey Bender, Joshua Rothkopf, Phil de Semlyen, Tom Huddleston, Andy Kryza & Tomris Laffly

Source: https://www.timeout.com/film/best-thriller-movies

(2022 edition)

In 1952, the Sight and Sound team had the novel idea of asking critics to name the greatest films of all time. The tradition became decennial, increasing in size and prestige as the decades passed.

The Sight and Sound poll is now a major bellwether of critical opinion on cinema and this year’s edition (its eighth) is the largest ever, with 1,639 participating critics, programmers, curators, archivists and academics each submitting their top ten ballot. What has risen up the ranks? What has fallen? Has 2012’s winner Vertigo held on to its title? Find out below.

https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-time

The Sight and Sound critic's poll began in 1952, and has continued on each decade, growing in scope as time has passed.

This list represents the results of the 2022 critic's poll, which is the eighth poll overall, and the largest ever, with 1,639 participants. This year is notable for Vertigo falling to the number two slot, replaced by Jeanne Dielman at number one.

BFI list of 100 Greatest Movies of All Time.

https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-time

Includes all the films of the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Book, including films culled to make way for newer releases, up to the 2021 edition.