What is the most important movie ever made?

Question

This is not necessarily your favourite, but one which has had the most genuine impact on our lives or has influence the most films that came after it. Please also give an explanation.

Answer 1

I know that 'Shoah' was much more factual, but for me it's 'Schindler's List'.
Spielberg had entertained us for years with blockbusters such as Jaws, E.T., Close Encounters, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, but then to suddenly release Schindler's List to his audience was a remarkable step for a successful director to make.
The film is uncompromising in it's depiction of the attrocities by the Nazis, and yet this was 'mainstream' cinema, by a 'mainstream' and 'safe' director.
Spielberg then went on to do 'Saving Private Ryan', which must have the most gut-wrenching scenes of war ever realised.
He would surely not have been so bold had he not made Schindler's List.
I have never been in a cinema where a film has reduced an audience to silence so effectively.
The horrors just pile up - you see heads being shot apart, children at peril, and the scenes of the dissolution of Krakov chill me whilst I write this.
I am not sure if Schindler's List ranks amongst the most innovative films though, Stanley Kubrick's are way up there, but for sheer nerve, and for a director such as Spielberg to throw Schindler's List at his audience, it must be one of the most 'important' films of the last 50 years, and has certainly paved the way for other film-makers to tackle such dark subjects.
It is not only the subject matter which shocks, but the fact that a director with whom we had grown with, and who gave us the 'blockbuster', suddenly moved away from that and made what is by far his best movie, and stunned the rest of us into realising his genius.
Even his critics were silenced.

Answer 2

It isn't my favourite film and it isn't the best made film ever but it's got to be Star Wars A New Hope because it was the first time that the studios realised that they could not only produce a successful film but they could make gazillions of dollars from the tie-ins. Also it's still as popular today as it was then. Little kids want the toys for Christmas THIS year. It's gone beyond being a movie (all 3 of the original Star Wars movies should be counted really) it's become a phenomenon. The technology influenced so many other movies sinse and it's bandwagon just keeps rolling as strong as ever.

Answer 3

Citizen Kane. Changed the way films were made for decades and decades. Some of the cinematographic story-telling devices used first in that film are still used today. An important movie doesn't have to be about something important. Schindler's List was great, but not much innovation, if you think about it. Which is a more influential film, Forrest Gump or Pulp Fiction? Who won Best Picture? Which is more influential and remembered, Citizen Kane or How Green Was My Valley? Who won Best Picture? Yeah.

Answer 4

Hotel Rwanda. Yes, Schindlers List is important but the World fought back at Germany and the attrocities of the holocaust are well documented. We (the western world) just sat back and watched the massacres in Rwanda (albeit not on the same scale as the holocaust). Hotel Rwanda is important on the basis that it brought an untold story that needed to be told to the masses.

And sadly it still goes on today. Flagrant breaches of human rights, ethnic cleansing etc. but if there's no oil there, we don't get involved but hey, thats a discussion for another forum....

And I supose everyones interpretation of 'important' will be different. Some are answering technically, other emotionally,

Answer 5

Battleship Potemkin (1925), at least from a movie making point of view. Very close to Birth of a Nation in this respect. It is the template for every epic made since. When you watch it, almost every scene you have seen in other movies made later, especially the Odessa stair sequence.

It was actually made to be a propoganda film, but in doing so, the director made it an experimental film as well. Many of the editing techniques used in the movie common today but revolutionary for the time.

Answer 6

There were a lot of best movies...It depend on individual taste...here is the best of in all genres....look for ur favourite among this....
Best Action/Adventure-Indiana Jones Trilogy
Best Adaptation- Spiderman Trilogy
Best Animation-Shrek 1&2
Best Biopic-The Ten Commandments (1956)
Best Classics-Gone With the Wind (1939)
Best Comedy-Dumb and Dumber(1994)
Best Crime/Gangster-The Godfather Trilogy
Best Documentary-The Fog of War (2003)
Best Drama-Schindler's List(1993)
Best Historical Epic-Ben-Hur (1959)
Best Kids/Family -E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Best Musical- The Sound of Music (1965)
Best Religion-The Passion of the Christ (2004)
Best Remake-King Kong (2005)
Best Romance-Titanic (1997)
Best Science Fiction-Starwars(all six!!)
Best Fantasy-Lord of the Ring Trilogy
Best Sequel -Back to the Future II(1989)
Best Sports-Rocky Anthology
Best Suspense/Horror- Ringu Of Terror (2005)
Best Teen-American Pie Trilogy
Best Thriller-Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Best War-Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Best Western-The good, the bad and the Ugly(1968)
Best Monster-Aliens qualilogy
Best disaster-The day after tomorrow(2004)

Those were unforgettable classic.....highly recommanded
and they have influence or will influence how movie is gona is going to make in the future....

Answer 7

Almost all of your other answerer's are wrong. The most important film ever made is Eisenstein's "The battleship Potemkin" This film was the most influential film in the entire history of world cinema. The most iconic and technically brilliant part of the film is the famous Odessa steps sequence. The most important element of Eisenstein's work was his genius with ground breaking editing techniques which have influenced just about every film maker that has come since.

Answer 8

Spielburg's 'Schindler's List'.

To me it showed the passion and unselfishness that human beings can have during a time of great human suffering.

The way Oscar Schindler starts weeping at the end when he's saying that he should have sold his car to save more Jews shows the commitment he had to try a save those that we persecued by the Germans during World War II.

These days there are so few people like Schindler, if there are any at all, who are willing to put a side differences to save the lives of their fellow man.

I loved the fact that Steven Spielburg, a Jew himself, has given us a wonderful movie that tells us that: 'Whoever saves one life, saves the world.'

Answer 9

The Ten Commandments

Answer 10

I've recently seen City of God and Hotel Rwanda.

They are both movies that have made me think about a world that is so different from the one I live in!

Very thought provoking and well made.