As this is a blog dedicated to storytelling, I would be remiss if I did not, at some point, talk about film.

Look, I’m not an expert or even really a knowledgeable amateur when it comes to discussing the intricacies of what makes a film “great.” For that, I bow down to the lovely critics and experts and people in the business who are dedicating their lives to exploring this wonderful medium. But in an effort to be exposed to some of the greatest stories of all time, I’ve been on a structured path to see all of the best films that have ever been made.

A few months ago, I was reading one of those “Top 100 films of all time” lists, and I was struck by how few of them I had seen. Deciding that I would watch them all, I compiled the Master Movie List of Awesomeness (shall I post it here?), which is made up of the “top films of all time” from the following sources as of June 2014:

• Tim Dirks of AMC
• Gail Kinn & Jim Piazza
• Roger Ebert
• Richard Corliss of TIME
• Sight and Sound magazine
• Empire magazine readers survey
• IMDb
• Rotten Tomatoes
• all Academy Award Best Picture winners in history

Even with many overlaps, the full list has about 400 movies on it. Every Thursday, JT and I host an open house movie night where we watch two of the films (or just one if it’s longer than 3 hours) with our friends. In addition to the new and/or less decorated movies I’ve watched outside of movie night, since June I’ve seen (in order):

• His Girl Friday
• The Godfather
• Taxi Driver
• West Side Story
• Blade Runner
• The Third Man
• North by Northwest
• Psycho
• Citizen Kane
• Annie Hall
• American Beauty
• Driving Miss Daisy
• Roman Holiday
• The King’s Speech
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day
• Aliens
• City of God
• The Graduate
• Apocalypse Now

That’s a whole lot of story.