Discuss: Influential Movies No Longer Made, Says TCM

Posted by Paige MacGregor (paige@filmschoolrejects.com) on April 15, 2009

Influential Films

According to TCM, a highly influential film has not been made since 1977. That’s right, TCM released their list of the Top 15 Most Influential Classic Films, the cut off being, apparently, 1977 (the last, of course, being Star Wars: A New Hope).

While I understand the logic behind the argument that the majority of the most influential films of all time were made during the first half of the twentieth century, when advances in transitions, lighting, effects, etc. were being made practically on a daily basis, it also seems odd not to include at least one film that could represent the 1980s on.

Check it out:

  • The Birth of a Nation (1915)
  • Battleship Potemkin (1925)
  • Metropolis (1927)
  • 42nd Street (1933)
  • It Happened One Night (1934)
  • Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
  • Gone With the Wind (1939)
  • Stagecoach (1939)
  • Citizen Kane (1941)
  • The Bicycle Thief (1947)
  • Rashomon (1950)
  • The Searchers (1956)
  • Breathless (1959)
  • Psycho (1960)
  • Star Wars (1977)

Sadly, TCM’s list contains a number of influential films that the majority of people today have not been and probably will not ever be exposed to, including Battleship Potemkin (1925) and Metropolis (1927). Even many film studies majors go their entire college career without exposure to some of these films, a fact that saddens us, the Rejects, a great deal.

I highly recommend checking out the list and taking a few minutes not only to read through the list, but to read and contemplate the justifications provided for each film’s inclusion.

What do you think? Should the 15 Most Influential Films of All Time include one or more movies from the past 30 years? If so, which one(s)?


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  • Jim
    Roger Ebert suggested "The Blair Witch Project," narrowed the gap between amateur productions and big-budget studio films (to say nothing of the increasing general emphasis on handheld cameras).

    In truth, there really haven't been any movies that notably advanced the form in the past thirty years. There have been high water marks ("Raging Bull," "Schindler's List," "Seven"), but most of the influential films in our generation have merely influenced trends. "Scream" and the post-modern horror films, "Lord of the Rings" and the return of epic Hollywood, "The Matrix" and dark-leather-action "cool."
  • If Blair Witch truly is to blame for the trend of horrible sequences filled with shakeycam effects, then I think someone should go back in time and stop it ever being made. It would save me alone large piles of money which I spent on painkillers after the stupid shaking caused me headaches!
  • If I HAD to pick a film I would say "The Matrix" but I'm not sure it should be called influential.
  • ChiefSquirrel
    I think one could argue that Clerks really brought independent film mainstream and was a reasonably groundbreaking comedy. I would also say Saving Private Ryan is highly influential
  • Chille
    I really think Lord of the Rings should be up there
  • The Matrix was the first movie to pop off my tongue when thinking about influential, but what about Halloween? Didn't it inspire huge numbers of slasher movies? Not to mention 2001: A Space Odyssey or even Alien? How about influential animated movies? After all, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is not the only animated movie to have influenced what we see today!

    Yes, TCM focused on only the most influential classic movies, but what defines a classic? Is it only age? Do movies have to be 30+ years old to be classics now? (Also, yikes - Star Wars is 32 years old this year). The word "classic" doesn't even refer to the age of something, the dictionary defines it as (among many other things) - "of the first or highest quality, class, or rank: a classic piece of work." Another definition? Definitive. Was "The Matrix" a definitive piece of cinema history? Absolutely. So are many other movies which have been released far more recently. Hell, each genre has a "classic" movie and the comic genre alone has a couple of "classic" additions in the last couple of years. How about "Wall-E" as a definitive piece of animation history?

    This is the problem with publishing lists of the "best" movies under whatever category or employing whatever specification. Something is always going to be missed.
  • The Matrix was the first movie to pop off my tongue when thinking about influential, but what about Halloween? Didn't it inspire huge numbers of slasher movies? Not to mention 2001: A Space Odyssey or even Alien? How about influential animated movies? After all, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is not the only animated movie to have influenced what we see today!

    Yes, TCM focused on only the most influential classic movies, but what defines a classic? Is it only age? Do movies have to be 30+ years old to be classics now? (Also, yikes - Star Wars is 32 years old this year). The word "classic" doesn't even refer to the age of something, the dictionary defines it as (among many other things) - "of the first or highest quality, class, or rank: a classic piece of work." Another definition? Definitive. Was "The Matrix" a definitive piece of cinema history? Absolutely. So are many other movies which have been released far more recently. Hell, each genre has a "classic" movie and the comic genre alone has a couple of "classic" additions in the last couple of years. How about "Wall-E" as a definitive piece of animation history?

    This is the problem with publishing lists of the "best" movies under whatever category or employing whatever specification. Something is always going to be missed.
  • Fair points, but I classic can also be defined as: "Having lasting significance or worth; enduring"

    And I think that is the definition they would use, and it is kind of hard to say a movie that is only 10 years old has lasting significance.
  • Fair points, but classic can also be defined as: "Having lasting significance or worth; enduring"

    And I think that is the definition they would use, and it is kind of hard to say a movie that is only 10 years old has lasting significance.
  • I'd agree with that - it's difficult to tell whether something that was made in 1999 would be considered "classic" - let alone "influential."

    I think it all depends on whether these films actually influenced filmmakers either directly or indirectly. That's something hard to quantify, although I do think that list is a stellar list of films.

    But there are definitely a few films from the 1980s that have influenced the filmmakers of today. And I know it's off that topic, but is The Godfather not more influential?
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