• Believable and consistent characters. Their actions should make sense.
• A plot that doesn’t rely on lazy tropes like characters failing to communicate. I’m looking at you, romance movies.
• Character growth or change.
• An interesting and internally consistent plot.

I feel like Aliens is a great example of this. The Marines grow over the course of the mission. Everyone has a sensible motivation (to them), and works towards it. The plot is simple, but there’s clear risk because characters die.

I watch horror, so its usually a combination of these, in no particular order:

• Believable plot.
• Believable character actions.
• Lack of common tropes/clichés.
• Quality of filming (angles, shots etc. Not resolution/film quality).
• Atmosphere.
• Tension/unease, and the handling of such.
• Quality and predictability of scares (if any).
• Good pacing.
• Bonus points for layers/deeper meanings.
• Bonus points for good visual effects, e.g. CGI.
• Double bonus points for good practical effects.
• Triple bonus points if I’m scared.

shark with multiple heads

• Somewhat unformulaic, in that I should not be able to predict the gist of the ending halfway through the movie, or feel that I’ve seen the same movie before only with different setting (Looking at you, Avatar)
• Believable characters with realistic motivations
• No lazy writing relying on deus ex machinae or poor communication as plot devices
• Originality

Large scale space battles

The difference between lemmy and reddit is that people on reddit would’ve spammed movie titles on first level comments in hope for fake internet points.

Anyway, smart and organic dialogue might be the most important thing for me.

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To me, it can be hard to pin down what makes a movie “great” because the criteria change from genre to genre, and much of it is more of a subjective whole than an amalgamation of objective parts.

But, there is one metric my family uses to decide, unequivocally, if a movie was “bad” or not: if you watched it and it doesn’t lead to conversation, it was a bad movie. That means it didn’t spark any curiosity or need for discussion or even stand out in any way. Minimally, it wasn’t worth thinking about once it was over. I don’t mean short comments like “this effect was neat” or “I liked the part where…”, but substantive discussion of 5+ minutes.

By extension, movies that lead to discussions must be good, simply because there was “something about it” that spurred discussion. The specifics of that x-factor don’t really matter by this metric.

One thing I find interesting about this approach is that movies that many agree are objectively bad can lead to discussion if they are also unique or even just uniquely bad. And this approach says such movies are actually good, and I do agree with that.

The ones that end up consistently bad are big franchise films that are always same-samey, or other low-effort films that are mostly derivative.

I will compare it to a movie that I think is really good. If it’s better than that, I qualify it as a great movie.

That doesn’t insult your intelligence. That keeps exposition down, we don’t need the movie to try and tell itself to people watching it about what it is. Referential nods are okay, but placating to fanfare is obnoxious. CGI is okay when it has a place that practical effects can’t accommodate. Lack of token characters. Characters that are reasonably scripted. Scripts that don’t insult the actors and actresses having to bother reciting the lines to. A movie that is just put together very well and has little controversies surrounding its development as possible.

It is difficult to get all of these in a single film.

However:

• Art direction that makes you love design.

• Cinematography at such scale and intimacy that you love light, shadow, depth of field, and the rule of thirds

• Writing that makes you love language, references, and lived experiences

• Casting that extols the virtues of interpersonal chemistry

• Editing that forces you to feel pace, tone, and contemplation as the story demands

• A plot that twists, turns, and delivers a gut punch when you least expect it

• A twist-in-the-end that, on reflection (or re-watch), makes total sense.

• Compelling, developing characters responding to irresistible forces that wash through their being

• Murphy’s Laws in full force: failure is an option, main characters can die

e:

• A true, hidden, and/or surprise villain whose perspective you can see and might even agree with.

Good examples:

• Synecodoche, New York

• Michael Clayton

• Sicario

• Requiem For a Dream

• No Country for Old Men

The better the suspension of disbelief the better the movie

• Meaningful character development (not necessarily advancement, but at least exploration)
• Motivated decisions made by at least two people in the story: the protagonist and the antagonist (or just the protagonist if it’s a PvE-type movie)
• A challenge that challenges the protagonist(s)
• Dialogue that sounds at least plausibly like human speech
• Reactions that seem at least plausibly like human reactions

A plot that doesn’t have many holes is a nice bonus, but as long as everything else is present, not a deal-breaker.

I’ll go with:

• Either defining or subverting a genre.
• At least one likeable character, ideally the protagonist.
• Some kind of mystery at their heart.
• Leave you thinking about them after they’ve finished
• Believable characters, convincing dialogue, plausible villain

Way back in the 80s I knew a guy who scored all films by adding up the number of bare breasts and explosions. He said 3 was a minimum score for a good film.

Intent is really important, along with a good script, good characters and the pacing of the story. The intent can be a statement, or an artistic vision, or just having a damn good story to tell. Originality is really important too, something I haven’t seen before or at least not told in this way.

I’m not too bothered about production quality as I’m happily enjoying movies from 70s exploitation and 80s b-movies to low budget oddities, art house flicks, auteurs and the occasional cineast pieces. There are a lot of hidden gems in the lower layers of the movie industry, made by people with a vision that worked with what they had to pull through.

I don’t care much for template big budget flicks like romance, action-comedy or superheroes, unless it’s something recommended to me as something that stands out from the genre. I don’t mind that people watch them, they just aren’t my thing. (Though I do sometimes watch series below my uptight movie snobbery as a sort of relaxing enjoyment and dirty pleasure.)

Anyway, I want a movie to be a journey and a great movie is something I’m fully immersed in and takes turns I didn’t expect and that is making me think about it after. I’m very subjective in what I like and don’t care much for neither clout or critics or cineast cred.

Recent great movies I’ve watched, not selected for any particular reason other than I found them great and watched them recently:

• Walker (1987) by Alex Cox.

• Tideland (2005) by Terry Gilliam.

• Noriko’s Dinner Table (2005) by Sion Sono.