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TOY Story is the most-watched movie on the hotly debated Top 100 list of the Greatest Films Ever published by the Irish Mail on Sunday Magazine on February 11.
The list – compiled by MoS film critic Brian Viner – became the subject of some controversy among movie buffs as he deliberately excluded notable blockbusters such as Titanic, The Shawshank Redemption and all the Marvel movies.
Now a survey of 3,000 people carried out by the MoS sister digital platforms Extra, Evoke and Geek Ireland has found that classics
‘How can Star Wars rank lower than Life of Brian?’
which captured the pop culture zeitgeist of their times top the list of our most-watched films. While there weren’t too many shock responses, 007 James Bond , represented by Goldfinger (starring Sean Connery) did not made the cut.
Toy Story topped the table, with an overwhelming 93% of those surveyed confirming they have seen the much-loved animated comedy starring Tom Hanks as the voice of Woody and Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear.
It was followed closely by Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster Jaws (90.6%), The Wizard of Oz (88.1%) and The Silence of the Lambs (87%).
Pulp Fiction, Gladiator, Finding Nemo, The Sixth Sense and
Groundhog Day
completed our top 10.
Overall, of the total 3,045 people surveyed in our poll, almost half (44.5%) have seen more than half of the top 100 films on our Greatest Ever List.
Of these, 1.5% of those surveyed saw 90 or more films on Mr Viner’s table of must-watch movies.
On the opposite end of the scale, 2.4% said they saw fewer than 10 of the films on the MoS list.
Mr Turner, with just 6.5%, was the least-watched film, followed by 1931’s City Lights, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (6.7%), The Innocents (6.9%) and Nashville (7.1%).
Other notable films which recorded surprisingly few views were the Oscar-winning Spotlight (29.05%), Get Out (36.9%) There Will Be Blood (45.4%) starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Shakespeare In Love (54%), Brooklyn (47%), featuring Saoirse Ronan, and the Harrison Ford cinematic ‘sleeper hit’ Witness (48%). Mafia movie classics The Godfather I and II were seen by 73% and 66% respectively.
When compiling his list – of which just two of his top 25 were released later than 1990 – our film critic admitted that he didn’t expect everyone to agree with his choices.
Mr Viner said of the expected reaction: ‘I can practically hear the shrieks. Where’s The Shawshank Redemption? How can Star Wars rank lower than Monty Python’s Life of Brian? Excuse me, but you’ve forgotten everything Marvel ever made.
‘Then there’s my friend Avril, who believes that the finest movie ever is Mamma Mia! She’ll be horrified to learn that it’s not in my top 100.
‘The point, of course, is that film
appreciation is entirely subjective. But I do hope this list will stimulate debate,’ he said.