Silvestro

See when I think of “greatest” I don’t think of “best”, I think of “greatest achievement” and I think that’s what AFI are going for with their list. If a film forever changes the direction of cinema then it is a great achievement. Of course making a practically perfect “best” film is also a great achievement, but I feel that just looking at the list it pretty clearly shows that is not the only type of achievement they are going for.

I have been lurking for a while but I created an account to reply to this thread because I think people are vastly underplaying the importance of being “the first”, especially with any kind of groundbreaking development. The people who do it first are the ones who have “the spark” and who take all the risk, so they deserve the kudos. If you do it first, and do it successfully, then anybody else who comes after and perfects it are just standing on the shoulders of giants. The empire strikes back wouldn’t have been as good if they had to introduce all the characters and the world in that movie, all that leg work had already been done and was super popular. I think in filmmaking if someone tries something new and innovative, and they pull it off, then that should definitely be held in high regard, even if that idea has been improved upon further down the line.