A great movie critic has an encyclopedic knowledge of film, not limited by country or genre, and has a firm understanding of the most important debates and discussions in film over the past century. Here's a list of the 1000 greatest movies: https://theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_all1000films_table.ph...

I finally agree L'Eclisse is a great film and it falls more than a hundred spaces.

Duck Soup
Casablanca/The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
The Band Wagon
The Leopard
Cries and Whispers/Badlands
Fanny and Alexander/The Man With Two Brains
Schindler's List
The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya/Blue is the Warmest color

Now let's look at the New York Film Critic Circle's choices for 1995-2021 NYFCC Choices clearly better than the Academy: Leaving Las Vegas (95), LA Confidential (97), Topsy-Turvy (99), Mulholland Drive (01), The Social Network (10), Carol (15), Roma (18), Drive my Car (21) NYFCC Choices clearly wors...

From the Hollywood Reporter: Melinda Dillon, who received supporting Oscar nominations for her turns in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Absence of Malice and portrayed the doting mom in the holiday perennial A Christmas Story, died Jan. 9, her family announced. She was 83. Right out of the ga...

Now let's look at the New York Film Critic Circle's choices for 1965-1994 NYFCC Choices clearly better than the Academy: Nashville (75), All the President's Men (76), Reds (81), Goodfellas (90), Quiz Show (94) NYFCC Choices clearly worse than the Academy: Darling (65), The Lion in Winter (68), Amarc...

Now it's time for the New York Film Critic Circle, which started giving out awards in 1936. Let's look at 1935-1964 first: NYFCC Choices clearly better than the Academy: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (36), The Grapes of Wrath (40), Citizen Kane (41) High Noon (52), NYFCC Choices clearly worse than the Acad...

As it happened, I was watching As I was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I saw Glimpses of Great Beauty on Youtube, and when it made the Sight and Sound list, youtube took it down.

Some notes on the updated list: ----What fell off the 2012 top 250? The Travelling Players (#104), 2 or 3 Things I know about Her (#106) Ivan the Terrible, Part One (#108), The Lady Eve (#110), Performance (#113), The Passenger (#114), Viridiana (#115), L'Age D'Or (#116), Spring in a Small Town (#12...

And this

The Oscars have always been about popularity, not necessarily about popularity with the public, but certainly popularity with the voting members of the Academy. Some Academy members (possibly the majority) vote for movies and performances that they have not actually seen. Can you name some major aw...

Last week I saw five movies. Let's start with the two I didn't particularly care for. No Blade of Grass starts with Britain, and all of the rest of the world being threatened by a virus that destroys key plants, like the world's cereals. Although Nigel Davenport's plan is for his family to take a bi...

At last! Well, not really at last. But we do get to learn #101-250 on Tuesday, and the ballots are supposed to be released March 2.

What makes a perfect murder mystery? One aspect that occurs is that some mysteries are readily solvable once we challenge a key assumption. In And then there were none , once it becomes clear that someone was alive on the island once Vera Claythorne hanged herself (because the chair she used was put...

Richard Brody has his own choice for nominations: Best Picture “Benediction” “Amsterdam” “Armageddon Time” “Both Sides of the Blade” “The Cathedral” “The Eternal Daughter” “Hit the Road” “No Bears” “Nope” “Saint Omer” Best Director Terence Davies (“Benediction”) Alice Diop (“Saint Omer”) James Gray ...