What this Site is and How to Use It

What this Site is:

Welcome to my site.  The goal of it is to provide tracking lists of movies for people to refer to or to use for themselves.  Many people are using one list or another for recommendations on movies to see.  They will be able to find most of them here.

News and Updates

This post will contain notes on what corrections, updates, and expansions I have made to any of the lists and other posts.  If you have not visited in a while, check here to see what may have changed.

April 11, 2013 - Thanks to Anders and marie_dressler, both of whom kindly shared their research with me, the 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die tracking sheet now has up-to-date Netflix Instant Viewing information - including a new column showing when the entry will expire from Instant Viewing - as well as a new column showing the up-to-date Hulu Plus availability for all of the entries.
April 3, 2013 - The big news is that I have uploaded an entirely rebuilt They Shoot Pictures Don't They tracking sheet from the recently issued 2013 edition.  It has major changes both in content and presentation.  It still has tabs for the current Top 1,000 in ranked and alphabetical order, plus all 395 films that used to be on the Top 1,000, plus a tab that combines all of these films into a single tracking list.  To these I added columns for the director, country of origin, and runtime, and then added tabs that have the Top 1,000 sorted by descending runtime and alphabetical by director.  In the Publishing Companies post I added three tracking sheets from Empire Magazine - the Top 500 Films, the Top 100 World Films, and the Top 100 British Films.

March 10, 2013 - I have made a number of updates to this site.  It was pointed out to me that I had an order error in the 1,001 Movies list, with two films swapped around.  While correcting this I also checked the order of every other entry and found one more correction that was needed.  I have now uploaded a new 1,001 Movies tracking sheet that has these corrections, as well as some updated Netflix availablity information.  Along with this I have also uploaded the latest versions of ten other tracking sheets that have had new winners announced since January 3, 2013.  Those new tracking sheets are: the Oscars, the Oscar Best Picture Nominees, the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, the Cesars, Berlinale, the Image Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards, the Annies, and the Razzies.  Finally, the latest version of the They Shoot Pictures Don't They list was announced a couple of weeks ago.  It will take a considerable amount of work to incorporate it into the tracking sheet I have here, since I will basically be rebuilding everything from scratch.  (I don't just have the 1,000 current movies in my tracking sheet; I also have all the films that used to be in the many versions of the TSPDT lists.)  I will get the latest and greatest version into my tracking sheet here in time.  When I do you will see a new update announcement in this post.

January 3, 2013 - I have made a number of updates to this site.  First, all 66 tracking sheets are now moved over to the new hosting site and all should be available for viewing/downloading. Second, I have added new tracking sheets for the Sight & Sound Critics' and Directors' 2012 voting and the Entertainment Weekly Top 100 movies to the Publishing Company Lists post.  Third, I added a tracking sheet for the National Film Registry movies to the Miscellaneous post.  Fourth, the Consolidated and Weighted IMDB Top 250 list has been updated to contain the films from the 2012 year end.  It now spans 15 years.  Finally, all tracking sheets for those festivals and countries that handed out awards after I initially placed them here have been updated to include every award through the end of 2012.

October 2, 2012 - I have embedded an updated 1,001 Movies tracking sheet that includes all the changes from the new 2012 edition of the book.  I have also added a column that tracks all changes across all editions.  In addition, I added a new tracking sheet for the 348 movies across all six 101 Genre books that are unique from the 1,001 Movies list.  All eight tracking sheets in the 1,001 Movies post should now be working for everyone.

October 1, 2012 - The hosting site for the tracking sheets I embedded here has decided to not cooperate.  I am in the process of transitioning to another site.  When things are complete I will post an "all done" message here.  If there is a specific one you cannot access and you would prefer not to wait, please leave a comment on that post asking about it and I will move it to the top of my To Do list.

September 3, 2012 - Embedded updated versions of all six 101 [genre] Movies You Must See Before You Die tracking lists.  They now have a column indicating if the film in the 101 [genre] list is also in the larger 1,001 Movies list.  Note - an updated 1,001 Movies list with not only the changes from the 2012 edition, but also a new column indicating every change to the list from each edition of the book from 2004 to 2012 should be going up some time in October after the 2012 edition is released.

June 7, 2012 - Embedded new 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die tracking list.  This version now has a comprehensive list of films available via Netflix, as well as updated information on movies in the 1,001 Movies Blog Club, and a few small corrections.

May 11, 2012 - Launched this site.

1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (and Related Genre Lists)

The book 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die was first published in 2003.  Each year a few more movies are added to the list.  (The total now stands at 1,103).  Some people are making attempts to see every movie in the book.  You can read much more about it, as well as the blog club that has been formed to review movies from this book, by reading my post on it here.

They Shoot Pictures Don’t They

The They Shoot Pictures Don’t They Top 1,000 movies list is the one on this site that is most heavily weighted towards “critics’ films”.  (For the other end of the spectrum see some of the entries in the Miscellaneous post.)  Like the 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die list, this one has also spurred people to see if they can complete the entire thing.

15 Year Weighted and Consolidated IMDB Top 250 List (1998 – 2012)

Of all the tracking lists on this site, this one is a unique creation of my own.  I first discovered IMDB back in 1997.  At the end of the year 1998 I printed off the Top 250 list in order to have as a list of recommended movies to possibly see in the coming year.  I have continued to do this at every year end since.  The result is a look back at the past and the trends among the movies that have made up the list.

American and British Film Institute (AFI and BFI) Lists

Both the American and British Film institutes have published lists of the best movies their respective countries have to offer.  I have compiled those various lists into tracking spreadsheets.  Please note that the AFI included a few foreign movies with an American co-production and the BFI included films that were “culturally British”.

Oscars and Golden Globes

The Academy Awards are the oldest film awards in the business.  The Oscar has been getting handed out since 1929.  The Golden Globes have been handed out by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association since 1944.  While the same film is often selected as the best by both organizations, there are also significant differences from time to time.  The Golden Globes also split comedies and dramas into separate categories to ensure that comedies don’t get overlooked.

Film Awards from Countries Outside the United States

There are 25 different countries represented here, as well as two pan-continental film awards.  I tried to track down any country that had had a regular film awards process for more than the last few years. 

Film Festivals

It feels as if at some point every town with a film projector and some spare money in the budget has hosted a film festival.  I had to limit what festivals I included otherwise I would have never gotten this site off the ground.  I have transcribed the Best Film winners from the five festivals that seem to have the largest impact on movie lovers and critics.  I realize this is completely subjective on my part.  If you feel there is an egregious omission, please let me know.

Publishing Company Lists

Various publications have taken it upon themselves to issue lists of the best films ever made.  Included in this post are lists from The New York Times, Time Magazine, Time Out, Entertainment Weekly, Sight & Sound, and Empire Magazine.  If you know of others that you feel would be good to include, please let me know in the comments. 

Miscellaneous Film Lists

This post contains a wide variety of film lists.  Check out the popular movies in the People’s Choice Awards.  It’s not always about best movies; see how many of the Razzie winning films you’ve watched.  Looking for some substance?  Try the Independent Spirit Awards.  There are several more lists here beyond those.  There’s a little something for everybody.

Critics' Lists

I have none now since these are part of the larger They Shoot Pictures Don’t They list, but I wanted to have a placeholder post in case I decided to do some in the future.