[zamadatix]

If you're only interested in great movies, no others allowed, then the top 50,000 is bound to disappoint as there aren't that many great movies yet. Setting it to 10k this is what I got in my first 5 (well spread) clicks:

- Ikiru (1952): A fantastic movie, also in the above list

- A Clockwork Orange (1971): Alright, nobody is going to believe these are random if I keep pulling these...

- Tracks (2013): Haven't seen this one, doesn't seem particularly astounding but I'd probably watch it, especially if my wife was wanting to watch something we haven't seen together.

- Songbird (2020): This one looks a bit garbage to me, probably wouldn't watch.

- Osmosis Jones (2001): Watched a few times, maybe a bit of nostalgia but it has been a few years so I would throw this up. Not deserving of the top 1000 by any means... but also not Leprechaun 5: In the Hood (2001).

And that seems pretty reasonable. I'm only about 800 movies in (since I've started tracking), of those only ~400 are in the original 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die list. To me watching straight through the various compendiums of the best movies is actually more dull than mixing in other things like the latest pop films or some stuff that wouldn't make many "top" lists but isn't necessarily bad. It's a bit like touring the best restaurants in a new area - if you do them all in a row then you just lose some of the feeling of variety. I doubt Tracks will leave an impact on my soul to the level of Ikiru, but I still want to watch things like that often.

[actionfromafar]

Osmosis Jones has Bill Murray. Anything with Bill Murray is likely not too bad. And so on. There are many little walking paths like that. :)

[JKCalhoun]

Yeah, disappointed that, even in your anecdotal list above, three of the five are in the last dozen years.

[zamadatix]

Two of the five, with not a single movie from the same decade. Given the production rate of movies has not been constant either, is this really more than the statement "I only want to see old movies"?

[JKCalhoun]

I don;t think so — it's just that if you have 100-ish years to choose from, this doesn't seem like a very even spread. To be sure, I would feather off anything too early — the silent era seems only interesting to film historians that want to see where the modern ideas of film began (example: "Battleship Potemkin" (1925)).

But at the same time, Hollywood does seem to have fallen into the trap of mediocrity for some time now — probably since the 1980's to be honest (having only gotten worse over the ensuing decades). "La La Land" was popular in large part because it was something of a throwback to 1930's Hollywood. Tarantino's success seems to stem from his mining of gritty 1970's Hollywood.

So why not go back and watch "Gold Diggers of 1937" for the "La La Land" stuff, or "Straw Dogs" (1971) to see what Tarantino is making homage to.

[zamadatix]

Without putting any assumption about whether new movies or old movies are more often better, wouldn't one expect a skew somewhat following the skew of rates of movies produced per year?