Hey! Welcome!

Hi movie lovers! Today begins an immense journey, one that will span across years and generations. There are some questions that never seem to have a definitive answer: Why are we here? What came first, the chicken or the egg? What movie really deserved the Best Picture Oscar in 1994? Well, we are off to find an answer to at least one of these everlasting questions. 

Because we are in uncertain and anxious times, there is no better opportunity to tackle a movie challenge. And this is absolutely a challenge. We want to watch the “best” movies of each year, create a bracket for each decade, and referee a Movie Cage Match to find the GREATEST FILM OF ALL TIME (according to us). This is going to be done unscientifically and without much direction at all, but I think that it will be fun so...it’s happening! 

Curating (lol) our Movie List

The first thing that we need to do is come up with a list of films for each year that are considered “the best." This list is not necessarily the list of movies that will be in the bracket for that decade. There are a few questions we need to tackle while making these lists, so we wanted to write down our methodology.

How can we do that when taste is so subjective? 

It seems unfair to leave some movies out when they didn’t get the awards buzz that they deserved or if they ended up being a cult classic in the years after their release. Here is how we are going to choose movies for our initial list:

1. Best Picture Nominees (Oscars): This is a given. We have to choose each Best Picture Nominee (even if we feel it is undeserved) because in our opinion, the Academy does a great job of choosing interesting movies to honor each year. Plus, we have watched the Best Picture nominees each year since the mid-2010s, so it will make our challenge easier.

2. Other Awards Nominees: We can look at the Golden Globes, the Independent Spirit Awards, the SAG awards, other award shows, as well as movies that were nominated for other categories at the Oscars.

3. Movies We Liked: This one is simple. If we liked a movie that came out that year, we will include it in the list.

4. Box Office Hits: Whether we like to admit it or not, box office performance matters. If a lot of people saw a movie in a given year, that film was successful.

5. Recommendations from Others: We respect our friends’ opinions when it comes to movies (depending on the friend--sorry!) so taking some suggestions that our friends (in real life and through social media) have enjoyed is another great way to get some otherwise-forgotten titles.

Narrowing the List

How many movies are you choosing for each year?

We need to narrow each year to six or seven films to fill out a bracket for each decade in order to have the classic 64 spot March Madness-style bracket (I had to ask Tom how many went in a bracket haha). Because of that, we are thinking that we need at least 10-15 movies per year, but honestly, it could be much higher depending on the amount of quality movies that were released. I think we should set a limit. Maybe 20 movie limit per year? Yeah, 20 movie limit. See? Unscientific. 

Once you have a list, how will you narrow it down?

We have taken on the arduous task of deciding the greatest film ever made, so there needs to be some reasoning besides “I don’t know, I just really liked it.” In the end of course, it does come down to personal preference, but here are some criteria that we will keep in mind:

Influence on movies in general

Our own personal tastes

Technical achievement (really interesting cinematography, etc.)

Screenplay, acting, music, you get it

Execution of message or purpose of film

Cultural Impact 

All of these will be considered, but if we just flat out loved a movie more than another one, that’s reason enough for us to choose the movie we just really liked.

Creating the Bracket

How are we going to seed the movies?

Once we've narrowed our list of movies down to the 64 we need to create a bracket, we need to figure out a way to assign each movie a seed from 1 to 16. We actually did come up with some semi-scientific way to assign seeds. We're going to use a points system, and if there are ties, we'll figure that out when we get to it! I did say semi-scientific. Here's the points system:

5 points: Won Best Picture at the Oscars

4 points: Won any other Oscar

3 points: Was nominated for Oscar(s)

2 points: Was nominated for Golden Globe or SAG award

2 points: Has an 80%+ fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes

2 points: Was #1 at the box office

2 points: Tom and/or Erin saw it in theaters

2 points: We watch it when we see it is on TV

Which finalists go in which region?

This will be randomized once we have the seeds for each movie.

Will we get your reasoning on why you chose certain movies?

Of course! We plan on making this a whole thing, whether you like it or not! Lots of writing to come, people. Stay tuned!