Making film lists is silly. Getting angry about film lists is even sillier. And yet, when Empire produced their updated 100 Greatest Movies list last week, Twitter exploded like nitrate film strapped to a hand grenade. But the real problem with lists like this isn’t their content, it’s the snobbery surrounding them, and perhaps a list like this one has something to tell us after all.
On 25 November, Empire published a new iteration of their semi-regular 100 Greatest Movies feature. Brewed from a concoction of reader polls and critics’ submissions, it has an undeniably populist slant, with Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Avengers: Infinity War all sitting happily in the top ten. There are unavoidable problems with this. The list contains only six films not in the English language for example, and the grand total of four pictures directed by women is a damning indictment of the state of Western popular culture. But, curiously, much of the furor surrounding the piece seemed less to do with genuine representational concern, and more to do with the majority of films on the list being an artist’s worst nightmare: popular.
Popularity has always had a rocky relationship with ‘greatness.’ The period of ‘New Hollywood’ (roughly 1967-1976) is notable as a time when critical and popular tastes were more or less aligned. Films like The Graduate, The Godfather, The Exorcist and Jaws all swept the box office and took home a shed-load of awards and critical praise for their trouble. Since then, however, the film industry has seen a distinctive split between films considered ‘popular’ and those thought of as ‘the greats.’ Though a film like Avengers: Infinity War may receive universally positive reviews on release, pretty soon its legacy is relegated from ‘good’ to ‘good for what it is.’ The result is a critical definition of ‘greatness’ which often ignores a film’s cultural and societal impact beyond a small collection of cinephiles, relegating a whole area of cinematic and historical assessment to the moniker of populist trash.
There’s a common perception at the centre of film criticism which demands that the ‘best’ films should be underseen, obscure and underrated. It’s an understandable impulse; when a great film hasn’t been given the recognition it deserves, the desire to scream its praises from the rooftops is stronger than it is for the latest billion dollar blockbuster. It’s how smaller films thrive where they would otherwise be drowned out, and it’s a largely positive thing. Too often, however, this impulse translates into the reverse, as self-professed film buffs tear into those films that do end up cashing in at the box office while continuing to heap praise on the obscure indie darlings that most audiences will not have the time or opportunity to see.
Far from improving the quality of film discourse, this toxicity does more to discourage people from engaging in film journalism more generally. The result is an industry which, though some small improvements have been made in recent years, still panders overwhelmingly to middle-aged men. Comparing Empire’s latest top 100 with the last time the same list was produced in 2017, they both feature 79 of the same films, including seven of the ten highest-grossing films of the 1980s. Both lists include more 80s science fiction films (eight) than any other genre, and the median release year of this common 79 is 1993.
And yet there never seem to be many complaints when The Terminator, Ghostbusters and The Empire Strikes Back routinely rank among lists like these. Do these films deserve to be there? Absolutely! They’re great! But it’s worth acknowledging that a significant reason that blockbusters like these are ‘allowed’ to be placed alongside 12 Angry Men and Pan’s Labyrinth is because, for years, film journalism has been dominated by (white) men who came of age between 1980 and 1989.
Obviously, the movie industry has changed somewhat since the Reagan era. Corporatism and a hero-washed cinema-slate make it slightly galling to root for the put-upon underdog that is the Marvel behemoth. But, for millions of people, films like Avengers: Infinity War and Guardians of the Galaxy are their generation’s Return of the Jedi and Back to the Future. They’re a gateway into other, more artistically nuanced worlds, and while we can and should rail against some of the impacts the Marvel studio-model on our culture, it seems churlish to dismiss an entire genre of film from rankings like these when that genre also coincides with the most popular films of this generation.
Like it or not, the cinema landscape of the last decade or so has been dominated by superhero movies, and it’s difficult to imagine looking back on this time without acknowledging their significance. Of the new entries to the list since 2017, Black Panther stands out as perhaps the finest example of the ‘classic’ superhero film, lent additional poignancy by its huge cultural impact and the legacy of Chadwick Boseman. Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame jointly serve as the conclusion to the largest continuous storyline in blockbuster history. Logan is more revisionist western than traditional comic-book movie, while Thor: Ragnarok is one of the most popular mainstream comedies of recent years. If any films have come to define the cultural environment of the 2010s, they have. It’s not that other films don’t also deserve to be on the list. It’s that few other films can credibly claim to be as culturally significant as these ones, if only because they’ve been seen and loved by the widest possible audience.
Ironically, though, after all this kerfuffle, Empire‘s latest list actually seems to be a hopeful step towards the sorts of more ‘interesting’ films its’ critics yearn for. Of the aforementioned four women-directed movies in the feature, three (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Lady Bird and Point Break) were added since 2017. Also new to the list, Parasite swept to an impressive 18th in the overall rankings, seemingly emblematic of the slow, one-inch climb it helped encourage popular audiences to make over the barrier of subtitles. In The Mood For Love, Do The Right Thing, Brokeback Mountain and Moonlight are all interesting, exciting choices. While they still may not be the most obscure, the most challenging or the most revered, they demonstrate an audience willing to engage with other cultures, with race, and with LGBT+ stories in a way they perhaps weren’t as little as four years ago. And that, if nothing else does, seems pretty great.
Words by James Harvey
Support The Indiependent
We’re trying to raise £200 a month to help cover our operational costs. This includes our ‘Writer of the Month’ awards, where we recognise the amazing work produced by our contributor team. If you’ve enjoyed reading our site, we’d really appreciate it if you could donate to The Indiependent. Whether you can give £1 or £10, you’d be making a huge difference to our small team.