The 2,000 Most Important Films Of All Time

The History of Film is the latest archival infographic from HistoryShots. It’s a meticulously researched terraform of our pop-culture past. The 2,000 “most important films” of all time are arranged by genre and release date, creating a mountainous, layered graphic that crosses strata trends with timeline chronology.

Before he could build the graphic, though, designer Larry Gormley had to narrow down thousands of candidates, collected over two years, to a more manageable figure. The final 2,000 were selected by a combination of criteria: importance to movie experts, awards, their role in defining a particular genre, and box-office success.

With the list in hand, Gormley began plotting. Each genre became its own stack in a pile, a layer that coincides with the first feature film in a genre.

Infographic: The 2,000 Most Important Films Of All Time | Co.Design: business + innovation + design