Not the post I meant to throw up here today, but life is funny that way. A month ago, I wrote a post entitled 10 Things About Pie. Item 9 was as follows:

I am intent on seeing the best 50 movies of all time.  As nobody can agree, I have a list of 280+ movies, of which I have seen 89% and counting.

Kas Thomas asked if I could post a link to the list.  I promised him that I would.  Well it took a month, but I have uploaded the Movie List of Pie.  It is an Excel spreadsheet, uploaded to Google Docs, that I use to track the movies I have watched.  I took all my scores out, but I have seen 252 of the 282 movies on that list.  Feel free to Export and score yourself. If you have to think about if you have seen a movie, you probably need to watch the movie again.

The movies all have a “score”. The score is not meant to rank absolutely, but just to give some more order to the list.  Each movie is rated by their highest eligible score.  The scores are determined as follows:

• 1-100: This is the 2007 AFI Top 100
• 101-123: These are the 23 films from the 1998 AFI Top 100 that didn’t make the 2007 list.  They are listed in the order that they were in the 1998 list.
• 201: These movies won the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director.
• 202: These movies won the Oscar for Best Picture.
• 203: These movies won the Oscar for Best Director.
• 301-325: Made the top 25 in one of the annual AFI lists. The lists included are 100 Laughs, 100 Thrills, 100 Passions, 25 Musicals, 100 Cheers [Edit 2015: Added the top 50 & any movie on multiple lists. Multiple lists means a lower score as well.]
• 401-410: Listed in the 10 Greatest Movies in 10 Classic Genres. [Edit 2015: Moved these to 350-395 (by 5s)]
• 501-525: Top 25 grossing movies adjusted for inflation [Edit 2015: Added the top 100 and moved to 401-500 range]
• [Edit 2015: Add the top grossing US movies back to 1915 scored at 600]

One day the upper limit of the 300 range of movies will most likely be moved up to 35, or 50, as I get closer to having watched all the movies.  The 500 series might also be expanded at the same pace.

Obviously I update this spreadsheet quite a bit.  The American Film Institute (AFI) releases something every year and I often incorporate it into my list. Let us not forget the annual Oscars.  Slumdog Millionaire scored a 201 when it won this year.  Deserving as it was, I thought that Batman: The Dark Knight, with Heath Ledger’s incredible transformation into the Joker and the sweeping viewscapes of the city, deserved to win.  Some of the scenes were simply incredible.

How would I rank them?  Not sure. I don’t think there is any correct answer.  I tend to like comedies more, so any list I did would skew in that direction. The whole process has given me some insight into our culture over the last 80 years and I have seen many cliches uttered for the first time. It has been a worthwhile journey.