Based on the true life of mobster Henry Hill, Goodfellas was born in the shadow of The Godfather, but as the years go on, the question of which is more influential becomes mostly a matter of generation.

‘As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.’ Ray Liotta’s opening line is the crime movie equivalent of ‘Once upon a time…’, and what follows is Martin Scorsese’s version of a fairy tale – the story of a starry-eyed Brooklyn kid who realises his boyhood dream and still comes out a schnook in the end. 🏆 The most deserving Oscar winners of all-time Written by Abbey Bender, Dave Calhoun, Phil de Semlyen, Bilge Ebiri, Ian Freer, Stephen Garrett, Tomris Laffly, Joshua Rothkopf, Anna Smith and Matthew Singer After all, that’s what lists are meant to do, right? So go ahead and yell at your computer. And even with all that ground covered, we’re sure someone is going to get mad over something we’ve either included or omitted.

It spans over a hundred years and multiple countries. We’ve included everything from big-budget blockbusters to arthouse classics, romcoms and horror flicks, crime capers to eardrum-bursting action sagas. But we still had to do it, because talking – okay, arguing – over movies is as much a part of film culture as watching them. Obviously, coming up with a definitive list of the best films ever made is a daunting task. We may grow out of certain bands and songs, but a favourite movie retains a spot in your heart and memory for a lifetime, to the point that standout scenes and lines of dialogue become part of our personal histories – almost as if we’ve lived those scenes ourselves. It probably has something to do with how cinema shapes us. Other artforms spark passionate debate, of course, but there’s something about cinema that really gets the most hardcore buffs going. That’s how strongly people feel about their favourite comedies, horror flicks, heist movies and Swedish arthouse classics.

Lists are made to start discussions, after all, and ranking the greatest movies of all-time can be a particularly hot-tempered debate. What you’re about to read may grind your movieloving gears, but we can’t apologise for it.

Imdb the phantom of the opera 2004