How to find a great film/movie to watch

[Cruixer]

Hi all,
I am unashamedness looking for help. I love watching a great movie, but I am struggling more and more to find a great movie to watch. I am talking about movies to watch on my home cinema setup, rather than new releases.

Genre is not critical to me, my favourite films include Serpico, Once upon a time in the West, Blues Brothers, Blade Runner, Star Wars (the early ones and Rogue One), Ran, most of post Dune David Lynch, and many other classics. Not big into superhero stuff, but I've enjoyed some of the better Batman movies, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Story and ambience more important to me than special effects.

Just want to watch some great films, but struggling to find a way to match up my tastes to good recommendations.

Any ideas?

thanks

 

[hippo99]

Movies & TV

Movies & TV from the editorial team at AVForums

www.avforums.com

 

[Styles]

I would start with the Imdb Top 250 film list

There has got to be a few in there you haven't seen.

 

[Cruixer]

Thanks both for taking the time to respond. I think I may be looking for something that doesn't exist thought - some kind of app that will go inside my mind and tell me what films I will like before I watch them!!!

I've taken a look at both suggestions. I think the difficulty with reviews is finding a match between the reviewer and what you might like.

IMDB top 250 is a good suggestion, because despite some issues with IMDB over rating new films, if something has been around a few years and is maintaining an average above 8, its definitely worth looking at. Only issue is, that I have seen nearly everything in the top 250 and of the few that I either know wouldn't be for me, or look like hard work. By the latter I mean movies that might be technically brilliant, or rewarding in some way, but are not 'entertainment'. I will watch movies like this, but I think they need to be spaced out and you need to be in the right frame of mind for them.

Anyway, I have picked up Torment aka L'Enfer from the AV forums list, and Come and See from the IMDB top 250, that I don't think I have seen before - the latter I think might be one of those hard work films that I'll need a comedy lined up to counter.

I think I may have been alive too long, I'm running out of good films.

 

[Styles]

The taste website might help, you can browse by genre or attribute. If you create a profile you can get recommendations as well.

 

[Cruixer]

The taste website might help, you can browse by genre or attribute. If you create a profile you can get recommendations as well.

Have you found that to be any good at making accurate recommendations?

I've tried a few of these types of sites that try to match you up with like minded reviewers or users to make recommendations and I have never been very convinced. Usually I find that they seem to operate on the presumption that because you loved The Matrix, you will also love Matrix revolutions, or because you loved the LOR trilogy, you will also love the Hobbit. That obviously follows on a genre level, but for me those are both examples of a great original and poorer cash in follow ups.

I tried Taste a while back using the mobile app and I thought it was terrible, although I gave it another try last night and found the website version much better. However, even after doing loads of recommendations and getting to level 9, I then searched out movies that I love but haven't yet rated and found that most were ranked higher for all users than for 'users like me'.

Still, thanks for the recommendation, I will persevere with taste a bit longer and see if the recommendations improve.

For anyone else reading this, one site that I like and I am trying to work through it the Ebert Great movies list - all the films that Roger Ebert gave 4 stars to before he died. Some amazing movies on here, but some can be hard work and I find I need to alternate them with the odd fart comedy!

Great Movies | Roger Ebert

 

[systemsdead]

You should find something here been my Bible for a good few years

TSPDT - 1,000 Greatest Films (Table)

They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? is dedicated to the art of motion picture film-making and most specifically to that one particular individual calling the shots from behind the camera - the film director.

www.theyshootpictures.com

They also do a really good directors one and an excellent 1,000 Noir movie one.

 

[Cruixer]

You should find something here been my Bible for a good few years

TSPDT - 1,000 Greatest Films (Table)

They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? is dedicated to the art of motion picture film-making and most specifically to that one particular individual calling the shots from behind the camera - the film director.

www.theyshootpictures.com

They also do a really good directors one and an excellent 1,000 Noir movie one.

That's a great list, thanks for that.

What a contrast between this and the IMDB top 250 though. Shawshank at no.1 on the IMDB but down at 473 on the TSPDT list. I've never felt that Shawshank was anywhere close to being the best film of all time, but 473 seems a bit harsh - more than 200 lower than Groundhog day?!?

I think I sit somewhere between the two. I think the TSPDT list has a lot of films that are technically great but are not particularly enjoyable to sit through for a modern audience. I've watched Birth of a Nation all the way through and I am glad I did, but while it was great for its time, and watching it is really informative, it wouldn't stand up if released today (even putting all of the racist elements to the side). On the other hand I guess that IMDB is quite populist, and that skews it heavily towards mainstream films.

 

[Tim2049]

Try giving Mubi a shot perhaps...(?)

They often have free trials and there's there's a lot of seriously heavyweight, predominantly European and Asian cinema to be found on that channel. I've found some absolute gems.

 

[Cruixer]

Thanks. That's another good recommendation. They have a £4 for 4 months deal for the next few days, and although I have just restarted my cinema paradiso membership at this price its worth having for the days when the disc is in the post. Some great movies that I have seen already on there, so bound to be some great ones I haven't.

One of the things am am reminded that I like about cinema paradiso since restarting is that it removes the decision paralysis that streaming brings. You watch the disc you get instead of spending ages poring over the hundreds on a streaming service!

 

[Tim2049]

Thanks. That's another good recommendation. They have a £4 for 4 months deal for the next few days, and although I have just restarted my cinema paradiso membership at this price its worth having for the days when the disc is in the post. Some great movies that I have seen already on there, so bound to be some great ones I haven't.

One of the things am am reminded that I like about cinema paradiso since restarting is that it removes the decision paralysis that streaming brings. You watch the disc you get instead of spending ages poring over the hundreds on a streaming service!

Agreed. I'm a bit fan of Cinema Paradiso's service. Having given up on the majority of streaming sites, Mubi and the aforementioned certainly quench my thirst for film.

Glad to hear you got such a good deal with Mubi! Absolute bargain...

 

[Rustychain]

I just saw this thread & came across the TSPDT suggestion from systemsdead. I'd never heard of them before but I had a look at their Top 1000 list & there's a LOT on there for me to go at. A few highly rated films on there (Persona, Stalker...) I found to be hard work and I'm always surprised at how highly rated Citizen Kane is but that's the whole point of film; you don't know what you like until you try it. The synopsis of The Turin Horse makes it sound like one to avoid at all costs but it's a great film.

 

[Cruixer]

I was the OP for this thread. I also found this list interesting, but full of a lot of hard work films.

Take Sunrise for example, at number 8. I am sure this probably is one of the best films of all time, from a technical, history of film perspective, but I am hardly going to sit down on a Saturday night and queue this up. Its a museum piece really.

I also find the difference between these lists to be interesting. Shawshank has been number 1 on IMDB for quite a long time now, but its 473 on TSPDT. Citizen Kane is number 1 on TSPDT and 136 on IMDB.

I know you say you dont know what you like until you try it, but I really don't feel that I have time to trawl through 100 bad films to find one good thing, so I continue to try and find a reviewer/list that matches well to the kind of thing that I want to watch.

 

[Rustychain]

I’d agree with those sentiments. A lot of films that critics love can be hard work. Persona / Stalker / The Seventh Seal / Andrei Rublev etc. That’s why I find IMDb to generally be much more reliable. The best way might be to find a reviewer eg Roger Ebert whose tastes align with your own.

 

[Rustychain]

ie use a few of your favourite & some least favourite films & find a reviewer who whistles broadly the same tune.