Superlatives like "the greatest director" and "the greatest film" are highly subjective, and, quite honestly, not of much value. In this way, our great films and directors lists are not intended to be definitive, but rather attempts to find consensus from the dozens of critics' polls across the internet and in film publications. Think of them as helpful resources for discovering some of the films and filmmakers considered among the best cinema has to offer.

The Cinemastat project was started in 2015 and continues to be periodically updated. Please note that some pages currently may load on our legacy website; we are in the process of migrating all pages to the current site.

Most of the photos on this website are from Wikimedia Commons.

Cinemastat Creators

Cinemastat is a project of J.J. Shankar and Nick Shankar, two film lovers in the U.S.

Contact and Feedback

For any questions, comments, feedback, or concerns, please email njsa2018@mymail.pomona.edu or nick.shankar@berkeley.edu. We welcome your suggestions on how to improve the site and make it a better resource for people interested in global cinema.