Hagi said:
For me, Schindler's List.
Mainly because of the portrayal of Schindler. In the movies he's basically put down as some sort of half god. Capable of seducing any woman and charming any German officer. Rich, handsome, dedicated to saving everyone from the Nazi regime. Which really makes the movie rather dull and boring. Of course he's going to save everyone, he's basically portrayed as Superman. Of course he's going to do the right thing, he's the perfect guy everyone in the audience is imagining they'd be and act as.
I...don't know honestly.
I'd easily agree that it just becomes too much near the end of the movie (Schindler trying to "fix" Göth, Schindler deliberately producing faulty grenades and my personal non-favorite, Schindler providing water for the Jews stuck in a train on a hot summer day without even trying to mask his intentions while his jew-hating nazi friends consider it a cruel joke for..some reason?) but i seen it recently and there is a lot more neutral characterization going on before the end.
Schindler himself pretty much spells out multiple times that (for the first half of the movie) he really just wants to make money, and even before the concentration camp stuff jews get paid so little that they are basically his slaves. What makes him different from other nazis is that he doesn't hate or belittle jews, he just sees an opportunity for himself to make a lot of money of them (wich would non-historically explain how his later businesses failed). He is also constantly on Izak Stern's (whose business-savvyness and tricky bookeeping is another implied reason why Schindler makes so much damn money) ass because he uses his "unhatefulness" to make his factory a refuge for his fellow jews, he just happens to be guilt-tripped enough to not act on it.
As such, i found myself surprised when i last saw it that Schindler is a much more rounded character than i remembered...i think the problem is a little different.
Schindler basically comes off as Jesus (even before the end, where, again, he admittedly is portrayed as such) because all the other nazis are just so impossibly evil. With the exception of a handful of one-scene characters, almost every other nazi can barely make it through a scene without doing or saying something anti-semetic. And of course, one of the other main characters is Amon Göth, a guy who kills jews out of sheer boredom, if need be (And Schindler defends[!] this guy in front of Stern, basically excusing his inhuman behavior by saying "He's a pretty swell guy, but war turns people crazy).
Just wanted to bring it up because i did once thought so too but was surprised when revisiting the film.
ON TOPIC:
Uhm....Citizen Kane i guess.
It's a good movie, a really really good movie, but since so many people seem to be convinced that it is the best movie of all time, it tends to get overrated a lot, and people tend to ignore some glaring pacing issues as well as blatant errors regarding it's oh-so-perfect cinematography.
Other than that, Metropolis is horrendously overrated.
It was basically the "Avatar" of it's time, an overly simple and trite plot presented in (for it's time) absolutely stunning production values. It's huge influence to the science fiction genre is more owed to it's amazing concept art and matte paintings than its archievements as a film.
