FictionIsntReal

Reportedly, this is the first Hollywood film to explicitly feature flatulence. By breaking open that barrier to what is now part of the foundation of modern cinema, it is canonical. But it's also a great movie everyone should see.

It may not be the most enjoyable PTA film (which isn't an option anyway), but There Will Be Blood is the most canonical. I ultimately agree with bmichael, and since I can't cast a second vote against Re-Animator, I suppose the closest thing. Isn't a museum where one places canonical works of art?

I vote no on Re-Animator. It's not an especially good movie, and especially not canonical. Stuart Gordon's take on Lovecraft is not as good as John Carpenter's or the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Gordon always has to invent a villain not in the original story to make it more of a bog-standard horror movie. Just letting Herbert West himself be the unintentional villain could have been better. West himself is more naturally interesting than Dan, of whom I remember hardly anything. I'm going to stick up for Amy's gripe about The Fly: the idea of putting two great movies against each other to make a hard choice between them, in which one is guaranteed to fail (and if re-attempted, like Jurassic Park vs Empire Strikes Back, fail permanently) implies that the Canon is restrictive. Not every movie we enjoy gets to be in. A movie in the Canon should be special. This movie is not that. A movie like Martyrs I don't even especially enjoy, but it fully commits to its premise and goes places most movies (even horror movies) don't. It seems far more eligible for the Canon than this. They Live, a movie I don't like as much as other people, is also much more canonical. The cat was not just named "N*gger", but rather "N*gger-Man". He gave the cat in "The Rats in the Walls" the same name; when it was republished in the 1950s it was renamed to Black Tom. ReAnimator before Nightmare on Elm Street? Sometimes I have a hard time telling whether Devin is being serious or not. Even Jeff Goldblum in The Fly was better than Herbert West, although West is certainly the best thing in this movie. Dueling mad scientists happened in Bride of Frankenstein, which added Dr. Pretorius (a name Gordon also used in From Beyond for his invented villain). I don't care for the Pretorious character in either movie.

Both the original Fly and the remake got sequels, so which one? That re-contextualization happens at the end of the first [REC]. I haven't seen any of the sequels. I don't watch that many horror sequels. I did watch Insidious Chapter 2 recently, and it's just ok. Cube Zero is at least better than Cube 2, but I wouldn't even say I like it that much. Exorcist 3 isn't a bad movie I consider good, it's a good movie which simply isn't as good as the first (I haven't seen #2 and only know it by reputation). Lucky McKee's The Woman is technically a sequel to a previous Jack Ketchum adaptation titled Offspring from Andrew van den Houten, but it's hardly ever discussed except as being a predecessor to McKee's superior sequel and sharing Pollyanna McIntosh as The Woman. I can't even say I enjoy The Woman all that much, as I'm not really into pushing the extremes like that, but I suppose it's a well made example of that type. The Silence of the Lambs is also better known than Manhunter, but it's arguable as a sequel since there are no actors returning in the same roles (a couple do play different minor ones) and Manhunter isn't really a horror film. Oddly enough, the only Friday the 13th film I've seen is Jason Takes Manhattan. I don't care for it, which could be partly responsible for me not seeing any of the others.

I ultimately came down on the no side. It's a kind of enjoyable dumb movie, but it's not that great (someone compared it to Commando, and I don't think that belongs in the Canon), so what makes it canonical? Piercing the veil of our overlords? The Matrix has displaced it on that front. A story of David Icke's hidden aliens? There's V, which was a more successful franchise. The drawn out unglamorous fight scene? I'd have to put Liam Neeson's Crossing the Line aka The Big Man in the canon for that, and that movie is not canonical.

"Some Like it Hot" may not be the funniest movie of all time (which it has been called), but I can see how it could be in the running. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes seems more dated despite being on color film.

I like Singer a lot more than many folks at BMD and think this is probably his best film. But this seems like a good example of a movie which is good, but not canonical (his X-Men may be more canonical, if not as good). If you never see this movie, you're missing out on a good movie, but that's it. There's nothing essential about it. The twist is well known, but the same is true of The Crying Game (which perhaps, like me, nobody bothers to see once they've heard) or Citizen Kane (which is canonical for other reasons). The Sixth Sense actually might be canonical due to the twist, and it became something expected from Shyamalan in every subsequent movie, but there's little lasting impact from this.

A hugely influential film whose nihilism distinguishes it from Silence of the Lambs, and the first time Fincher really got to be Fincher. Yes.

I'm surprised how negative folks are on it now. I'd heard what a classic it was for years, and when I saw it was not disappointed. I can't think of many action/suspense films where Hoffman is the protagonist, and he pulls it off here, as does Olivier's villain. The reveal that Szell was in cahoots with the authorities by selling out his comrades is a great bit of 1970s cynicism (with some inspiration in Operation Paperclip) that I only just now realized I was probably ripping off in one of my own writings. I will agree that it would probably be better if Szell's death was deliberate rather than accidental.

Still the only Linklater I've seen, but a fitting representative work. A very unique movie which could hardly be done better, and seminal in the history of independent films. People may say that inspiring Kevin Smith is a bad thing, but that still makes it canonical. Even the credited character names are funny.

This may be unfair, since I saw & loved Burton's Batman as a kid (I went through a stretch where I just dressed as Batman all the time, except for one day when I dressed like Bruce Wayne), and just watched Superman and didn't care for it (I saw Batman Returns last year or the year before, and didn't think it as good as the original). The best thing about Superman is John Williams' score, and it's somewhat reminiscent of his other work. Danny Elfman's Batman score is quite good, but it's really the rest of the movie which makes the difference. It's impossible to take Lex Luthor seriously as a villain, because his gang is too comical & incompetent. It's only the extreme incompetence of the military that permits him to accomplish anything. Nicholson's Joker is both scary and funny. He would have killed Otis & Teschberg in an amusing manner way early on. The world of Batman is also quite stylized, echoing German expressionism but somehow timeless, which of course set the template for the cartoon series.

Chaplin, that would be an interesting Versus. Apocalypto is the better movie, but is in the grander scheme Mel Gibson's post-Passion non-English historical epic. Passion & Braveheart (the proto-Game of Thrones "violent & gritty" medieval film) are lesser films, but more canonical. The success of the former (and the way it was marketed/distributed to churches) may even be responsible for all the "God's Not Dead" mini-industry of crappy Christian films which so irk Tyler Smith.

That might depend on whether the question is "Which is a better movie" or "Which is part of the Canon". The Passion has a Tomatometer rating of 49% vs Last Temptation's 82%. But the former was a surprise success (an entire movie in a dead language! before Game of Thrones helped make that sort of thing cool!) while the latter did poorly and is little remembered, except when someone wants to mention that it's better than The Passion. I expect distaste for Mel Gibson will also play a role.

I vote yes. It's probably the most notorious of Von Trier's films, its unique elements help it spread beyond the circles of those willing to watch a Brechtian exercise with chalk outlines or the strictures of Dogme 95.