Frankcastle
Several points:
1) safe and predictable: The game here wasn't to find unsafe, unpredictable good movies. It was to list the best.
I'm not sure you even understand the notion of "safe and predictable". Hiroshima mon Amour is, in some sense, a very safe and predictable choice - perhaps the safest. But I doubt you have heard of it.
Kane - just on influence alone - makes a good choice for a top 10 list - but I'm just as happy to put in a top 5000 list.
Raiders, on the other hand, is devoid of actors, and therefore, acting. I was an exercise in marketing, not art. Generally, films that have action figure spinoffs, just don't qualify - whether they are successful or not.
The plot of Raiders was utterly facile. The Lord of the Rings films were, though, much worse - for not only did the plots make little or no sense - the idea that computer produced images somehow is a sign of great film is nothing short of surreal.
There were many, many films I left off my list - as I keep saying, I'm happy for any of them to be criticized. Bunuel is missing. Heck - Huston, Hawks, Ford are all missing.
My Kuroswawa pick is all wrong - The Hidden Fortress, The Seven Samurai, Kagemusha, Rashomon, - or perhaps my favourite - Dersu Uzala - should have been there instead.