Empire 500 Greatest Movies of all time review

Naturally, lots of critics and magazines come up with these lists to create debate among movie enthusiasts and most importantly increase readers. The Empire list has been around for a while now (2008?) so we have had plenty of opportunity to discuss the list and even watch some of the movies we missed. My current total of movies from the list stands at 193 films with around another 30 on my list of films I want to see. It would be very difficult to see all 500 given the diverse number of films, it's safe to say there is at least 100 films on the list I have no interest in ever seeing but that is not to say they are not deserving of a place on the list.

The first problem with the list I found is that there was quite a bit of populist sentiment with recent examples being Transformers, Spiderman 2 and Zodiac being included among the list. The first two were very average movies at best whilst Zodiac was a decent film but certainly not amongst the 500 greatest ever. If Empire re-do this list again in 5 years then I'd be shocked if these films would still be included. These are just a few examples whilst classics like Guns of Navarone and Doctor Zhivago are missing.

A deserving candidate?

This is without dissecting the actual order of the list as well which is even more shocking and seems almost random outside the top 100, Casino Royale at 56 anyone and Aliens above Alien? It's hard to argue with the films within the top 5 as they are true classics even if I'm not an Indian Jones fan.

The front-page offers up some clues as to the shortfall of the method for choosing the films as 10,000 Empire readers were asked their opinions. I dread to think what some of the films people voted for that didn't make the list.

This is the link to the list: Empire 500 Greatest Movies of All-Time List. It would be good to hear people's thoughts on the list and if you sad enough to count how many movies you have seen from the list.