ONLINE CRITICS PICK 100 BEST DIRECTORIAL DEBUTS. BLACKWOODS NOT ON LIST.

Neither Drug Store Cowboy or She's Gotta Have It are technically debut features. Laughton also directed pieces of The Man on the Eiffel Tower and (I thought) O. Henry's Full House before Night of The Hunter. Nit picking aside, interesting list. Nowhere near what I would rank them, but who cares?

But, Boyz N the Hood and no Menace II Society? Nope.

If this was done in 2012 there'd be another name on it.

Kind of hard to get too upset about this one - you have to start thinking down some fairly obscure and/or international avenues before you get to people who might deserve a spot who didn't get one. Though someone will probably go and prove me wrong with an obvious one now.

Are you alluding to a certain person whose name rhymes with Boy Pixie?

In any case, the list is pretty arbitrary, but I still don't understand much of its reasoning. The placement of Night of the Living Dead so high doesn't make sense to me other than it being a beloved genre staple, for example.

Impressive list. Starting to wonder if DBA can live up to the hype.

Have you seen the TV movie? Freaking scary, even today. I kind of miss, although was not alive for, the string of made-for-tv horror movies. Stuff I could show my six year old niece and not have an angry sister.

Trilogy of Terror and Dark Night of The Scarecrow could use for a remake too.

I misread the acronym. Whoops, sorry Rath.

Err, actually I have no idea what DBA is for. And now I fell like a dumbass.

Interesting list. It's obvious a testament to the potential talent then the quality of the films, but I like that. Some of their choices baffle me (Mike Hodges) but then they pleasantly surprise me with Synecdoche, NY, a brilliant choice.

I won't bother getting into the specifics of the numerical placement... but man looking at this list is a bit intimidating, especially if you're considering a career in film. ha

Who?

And I hope he's right.

What is Boy Pixie referring to?

Peter Pan is doing a doc on his life story. Fall 2011. Be there.

You've been here since 2007. You really should know this. Just think about it.
Heh.

I'm thinking, but I really have no idea.

I'll be damned if this didn't make me laugh far harder than it had any right to. Well done, Ripoll.

I'll give you a hint: it's Troy Nixey's Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.

You should look up the BBC ones. Stone Tape and Ghostwatch are among the best ghost stories ever put to screen.

I enjoy The 40-Year-Old Virgin as much as the next guy, but I'm a little surprised to see it on here. Irrespective of the context of Apatow's career, I don't think the film warrants inclusion. It's funny and fresh, but a little too broad for its own good at times.

Like any other list there's no way it's gonna fully satisfy anyone's taste really. Lots of great films there though, but the order is a bit screwy.

Films like "Clerks" and "El Mariachi" are just fan wanking though...

Totally. I just don't think it's that good a debut. A good one, sure, but not particularly deserving a place on the list.

For sheer resourcefulness and influence, I'd argue Clerks is more deserving of its spot on there. Say what you will about the guy (people usually don't even need an invitation) he delivered a film on a micro-budget with local/non-actors which still resonates well over 15 years later. It's showing its age, of course, but it's still funny and still inspires budding filmmakers. It's like the punk rock album that makes kids think "if that counts, I could try that!"

There's also no arguing the debt films and filmmakers like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Apatow, respectively, owe Smith and Clerks (Seth Rogen's main career goal starting out was to be in a Kevin Smith movie, after all.)

Ghostwatch is awesome. My dad tricked me with that when I was far too young. Still kinda freaks me out thinking about it. I've been meaning to check out Stone Tape. Might just have to cave in and grab the R2 DVD.

There's always going to be exceptions but a personal favourite they've missed is Ridley Scott's The Duellists. Two hours of Harvey Keitel being a relentless French dick, all seemingly filmed in watercolours. Beautiful.

As a member of the OFCS, I can tell you there's stuff I voted for that isn't on there (Menace II Society pops to mind), and stuff I don't think needs to be on there, and stuff that needs to be ranked way higher (like Titicut Follies). I voted for She's Gotta Have It at #12. I voted for Withnail & I, which didn't make the list; I voted for The Reflecting Skin, which didn't make the list. I love Night of the Living Dead, but I ranked The Maltese Falcon and Night of the Hunter ahead of it. There are many other critics who voted along the lines of what people want to see in a list like this. But then all the votes have to be mooshed together, and the list is that moosh.

I can tell you the list they gave us to pick from was huge, and we all had to pick our individual top 25. And then to narrow all those votes down to 100, and figure out what's ranked where according to how many points each got, couldn't have been easy for the poor bastards who were tasked to do it. If enough people vote for X movie in X spot, which gets X amount of points, it's gonna come in ahead of Y movie regardless of whether you or I think Y movie is way better.

I can also tell you I used to have a lot more disdain for lists like this before I started having to contribute to them. Knowing that not only wouldn't some of my picks make the list, but that the list is necessarily going to omit or downgrade deserving films. And knowing that lists like this are always flawed and usually motivated by wanting to bring attention to whatever organization is doing it. And there are going to be more lists like it to come.

Finally, I can tell you there was a lot of forum debate over shit like whether Duel counts as Spielberg's debut. Someone pointed out that it was released theatrically overseas, so in it went. Not that it matters since it didn't make the list, but Welcome to the Dollhouse was offered to us as Todd Solondz' debut, and though he'd like us to forget this, it wasn't. People make these lists; people fuck up.

Also, I wonder if any of us actually didn't rank Citizen Kane as #1. I did. I mean, it's such a boringly obvious choice, but how do you not? It's the textbook example in film of knocking it the fuck out of the park first time at bat. And then if it didn't get the top spot, some people would complain about that.

am i blind, or is Kubrick's THE KILLING weirdly not on this list?

It'd be weird if it was.

Not a bad list but Bob Roberts should be in there somewhere.