Film a Škola: The Golden Foundation of World Cinema

"The poll was organised by Jiří Králík and also coincided with screenings of the Project 100-2000. This time however there were two rounds of voting – in the first, 15 cinema experts prepared a list of 270 of the most significant films, in the second a group of 502 polling participants evaluated and supplemented this selection. The result was a list of 175 films (plus 20 runners-up) with the most votes, covering all seven of the most important periods in film history."

"The most important prerequisite for the entire project is a quality selection of films which has to fulfill the following criteria: Quality, Comprehensibility (list geared toward high schoolers guided by teacher), Representativeness, Selectiveness. "

"The two foundations currently comprise 175 foreign and 50 Czech and Slovak films. This list has to be subjected to a new evaluation once every ten years with possible replacements by more recent films. Animation, experimental films, students’ works and short features should also be included. These short films do not have to be subjected to an elaborate polling process as a limited number of cinema experts can be trusted to achieve a wise selection."

See also: http://www.listsofbests.com/list/20900

List organization: The list is broken down into decades, and within those decades the titles are ranked. The number of titles in each section varies. To make it easier to see where the cut-offs are, here are the #1 films from each era:

-pre-1930s: Intolerance (#1)
-1930-1949: Citizen Kane (#15)
-1950s: La Strada (#35)
-1960s: Markéta Lazarová (#59)
-1970s: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (#108)
-1980s: Le bal (#148)
-1990s: Before the Rain (#168)