Top 100 favourite films lists cause a lot of debate, but when you try to make a Top 100 greatest films, then you get real problems. Channel 4 (British TV) have made an "interesting" attempt. They started by having some "experts" create the initial, unordered 100 films they thought were the greatest, (by the following criteria and with reference to other such lists as well). Then voting was opened up to anyone visiting the Channel 4 website. The list was supposedly intended to include films that:

•  are generally considered as classics of cinema
•  broke new ground in technique, subject matter, or ideas
•  had phenomenal popular appeal and a lasting impact on popular culture
•  represent the greatest work of cinema's most respected directors and performers

So, we start with a list of great films that is reasonably good, but has some obvious omissions and includes some populist choices, not to mention some very obviously biased choices! "Four Weddings and a Funeral"? - I don't think so. And how about the most overhyped film ever, "Titanic" - included because of popular appeal? Quite satisfying when viewing the programme to see the next film above "Titanic" being "The Jungle Book"! "The Matrix" was popular, but SFX move on quickly, so will it stand the test of time? And there are some odd choices on which films of particualar directors to include/exclude. Of course there are many individual favourites that will not make the initial list, but neither do some terrific films, like "Brazil", for instance. And note, the voting took place before the two biggest ever book-to-film movies were released, ("Harry Potter" and "Lord of the Rings".)

What about the voting? Did the people voting really choose their objective opinion of greatest films, or simply choose their favourites from the initial list? I'm sure a few would do the former, (remembering that "Citizen Kane" created many film-making techniques), but most would do the latter, in which case we have the bias of population grouping of those viewers. How many people do you think have seen all 100 films anyway? And it doesn't matter how influential a particular film was in changing film history, if it doesn't appeal to today's audience, how many will vote for it? Of course, who can argue with "Blade Runner" being voted a Top 10 movie yet again? Ridley Scott must be pleased with his "double" as the recent "Gladiatior" is also in the Top 10!

For those not familiar with Channel 4, they are a British TV channel who have a particular interest in Film and have produced some very good cinema-released films themselves although I don't think any should have been included on this list!

The final list, as broadcast on 24/25 November 2001 is as follows:

1. Star Wars / The Empire Strikes Back (1977/80) - George Lucas / Irvin Kershner
2. The Godfather / The Godfather Part II (1972/74) - Francis Ford Coppola
3. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - Frank Darabont
4. Pulp Fiction (1994) - Quentin Tarantino
5. Some Like It Hot (1959) - Billy Wilder
6. Gladiator (2000) - Ridley Scott
7. It's a Wonderful Life (1946) - Frank Capra
8. Blade Runner (1982) - Ridley Scott
9. Schindler's List (1993) - Steven Spielberg
10. Goodfellas (1990) - Martin Scorsese
11. Psycho (1960) - Alfred Hitchcock
12. Jaws (1975) - Steven Spielberg
13. Apocalypse Now (1979) - Francis Coppola
14. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) - Milos Forman
15. The Matrix (1999) - Andy and Larry Wachowski
16. Casablanca (1942) - Michael Curtiz
17. The Usual Suspects (1995) - Bryan Singer
18. Wo hu cang long {Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon} (2000) - Ang Lee
19. Citizen Kane (1941) - Orson Welles
20. Raging Bull (1980) - Martin Scorsese
21. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) - Steven Spielberg
22. Taxi Driver (1976) - Martin Scorsese
23. Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) - Terry Jones
24. Singin' in the Rain (1952) - Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen
25. L.A. Confidential (1997) - Curtis Hanson
26. The Wizard of Oz (1939) - Victor Fleming, King Vidor
27. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - Stanley Kubrick
28. Kes (1969) - Ken Loach
29. Vertigo (1958) - Alfred Hitchcock
30. Lawrence of Arabia (1962) - David Lean
31. Fargo (1995) - Joel and Ethan Coen
32. Gone with the Wind (1939) - Victor Fleming
33. Trainspotting (1995) - Danny Boyle
34. The Full Monty (1997) - Peter Cattaneo
35. The Graduate (1967) - Mike Nichols
36. Alien (1979) - Ridley Scott
37. The Silence of the Lambs (1990) - Jonathan Demme
38. Withnail and I (1986) - Bruce Robinson
39. The Great Escape (1963) - John Sturges
40. Toy Story (1995) - John Lasseter
41. The Third Man (1949) - Carol Reed
42. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) - Mike Newell
43. The Sound of Music (1965) - Robert Wise
44. Fitzcarraldo (1982) - Werner Herzog
45. Deliverance (1972) - John Boorman
46. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ( 1966) - Sergio Leone
47. Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) - Robert Hamer
48. Chinatown (1974) - Roman Polanski
49. The Exorcist (1973) - William Friedkin
50. Annie Hall (1977) - Woody Allen
51. The Italian Job (1969) - Peter Collinson
52. Sunset Boulevard (1950) - Billy Wilder
53. The Jungle Book (1967) - Wolfgang Reitherman
54. Titanic (1997) - James Cameron
55. Jean de Florette / Manon des Sources (1986) - Claude Berri
56. Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963) - Stanley Kubrick
57. Rebel Without a Cause (1955) - Nicholas Ray
58. Shichinin no samurai {The Seven Samurai} (1954) - Akira Kurosawa
59. A Matter of Life and Death (1946) - Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
60. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) - George Roy Hill
61. Secrets and Lies (1995) - Mike Leigh
62. Blue Velvet (1986) - David Lynch
63. La Dolce Vita (1960) - Federico Fellini
64. Spartacus (1960) - Stanley Kubrick
65. Metropolis (1926) - Fritz Lang
66. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) - Arthur Penn
67. King Kong (1933) - Merian C Cooper and Ernest B Schoedsack
68. Get Carter (1971) - Mike Hodges
69. The Searchers (1956) - John Ford
70. Det Sjunde inseglet {The Seventh Seal} (1957) - Ingmar Bergman
71. Don't Look Now (1973) - Nicolas Roeg
72. Brief Encounter (1945) - David Lean
73. MASH (1969) - Robert Altman
74. The French Connection (1971) - William Friedkin
75. Top Hat (1935) - Mark Sandrich
76. The Producers (1968) - Mel Brooks
77. Trois Couleurs Bleu/Blanc/Rouge {Three Colours trilogy} (1993-94) - Krzystof Kieslowski
78. Cabaret (1972) - Bob Fosse
79. Goldfinger (1964) - Guy Hamilton
80. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) - David Hand
81. The Gold Rush (1925) - Charles Chaplin
82. High Noon (1952) - Fred Zinnemann
83. Saturday Night Fever (1977) - John Badham
84. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) - Michael Curtiz and William Keighley
85. Enter the Dragon (1973) - Robert Clouse
86. À Bout de Souffle {Breathless} (1959) - Jean-Luc Godard
87. Ice Cold in Alex (1958) - Lee Thompson
88. Bronenosets Potyomkin {The Battleship Potemkin} (1925) - Sergei Eisenstein
89. The African Queen (1951) - John Huston
90. The General (1927) - Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton
91. A Hard Day's Night (1964) - Richard Lester
92. Way Out West (1937) - James W Horne
93. Henry V (1944) - Laurence Olivier
94. Easy Rider (1969) - Dennis Hopper
95. My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) - Stephen Frears
96. Belle de Jour (1967) - Luis Buñuel
97. Bride of Frankenstein (1935) - James Whale
98. The Terminator (1984) - James Cameron
99. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) - Karel Reisz
100. Do the Right Thing (1989) - Spike Lee

This list is published on the Film Four website, although we actually had the complete list up on the Web before they did! In fact, they initially published the list in a completely different order and took most of the next day fixing it. Also, other news services were all given the results with an error in, so for some time, this was about the only place you could find the correct list!

You may be interested in checking out the reports at BBC news or Sky News.

And if you don't like the list, (as many don't), Sisqua.com set up an alternative free vote in response to the Channel 4 list. The results make fascinating reading - see our report.