I've been grading films since 2008, and in that time I've graded 264 films at least a
B+ (Very Good, 8/10). Looking at the distribution per year, there are some clear gaps. For example, I've seen
six Very Good-to-Great films from 1957
Night of the Demon,
The Tall T,
What's Opera, Doc?,
Time Without Pity,
Paths of Glory,
12 Angry Men but
zero from 1958. That bothers me.
So this is how I'm going to structure my film viewing this summer (and possibly beyond). First I'm going to go through all the years with zero B+/A-/A films and watched two films from each: one that I've seen before and remember being good (but never graded); and one that I've never seen. After I cycle through all of those, I'll move to the films with just one highly graded film per year, etc.
I'm focused just on 1919 and beyond, for starters, though I might treat the pre-1919 years as its own distinct group.
Round 11919
FAIL Male and Female (Cecil B. DeMille, 1919) C+
Back Stage (Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, 1919) C+
The Hayseed (Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, 1919) C
Broken Blossoms (D.W. Griffith, 1919) B
1920
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! TOP 100 BONUS! Just Pals (John Ford, 1920) B-
One Week (Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline, 1920) B+
Convict 13 (Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline, 1920) C+
The Scarecrow (Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline, 1920) A-
Neighbors (Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline, 1920) B-
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920) B+
1922
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (Fritz Lang, 1922) B-
Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, 1922) B+
1923
FAIL The Balloonatic (Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline, 1923) C
The Love Nest (Buster Keaton, 1923) C
La roue (Abel Gance, 1923) C+
Safety Last! (Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor, 1923) B-
1925
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! Varietι (E.A. Dupont, 1925) B+
The Big Parade (King Vidor, 1925) B+
Chess Fever (Vsevolod Pudovkin & Nikolai Shpikovsky, 1925) C+
1926
FAIL ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! Rien que les heures (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1926) C+
Slick Sleuths (Charles R. Bowers and Bud Fisher, 1926) C
A Page of Madness (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1926) B-
3 Bad Men (John Ford, 1926) B+
1929
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! TOP 100 BONUS! Un chien andalou (Luis Buρuel, 1929) B
Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929) A+
Laila (George Schnιevoigt, 1929) C+
I Graduated, But... (Yasujiro Ozu, 1929) C
A Straightforward Boy (Yasujiro Ozu, 1929) C-
1930
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! School's Out (Robert F. McGowan, 1930) C-
All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930) B+
People on Sunday (Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer, 1930) B
1958
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! TOP 100 BONUS! Cairo Station (Youssef Chahine, 1958) B-
Ashes and Diamonds (Andrzej Wajda, 1958) A-
Blackbird (Norman McLaren, 1958) B+
1977
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! The Ascent (Larisa Shepitko, 1977) B+
Powers of Ten (Charles Eames & Ray Eames, 1977) B-
Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977) B+
1988
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! DOUBLE TOP 100 BONUS! Time of the Gypsies (Emir Kusturica, 1988) B+
The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris, 1988) A-
My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988) A-
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (Todd Haynes, 1988) B
Round 21919
FAIL Different from the Others (Richard Oswald, 1919) B-
The Doll (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919) C
South (Frank Hurley, 1919) B
True Heart Susie (D.W. Griffith, 1919) B-
1923
IN PROGRESS Souls for Sale (Rupert Hughes, 1923) B+
1926192919301935193819471948194919501951195219701971197919961998