As He Was Scrubbing the Toilet Vigorously, the Custodian Saw 50 Nuggets of Gold: My Current All-time Top 50

By: Blue K, Custodi​an of the Cinema

To make it interesting, I limited myself to one film per director. And yes, these are ranked in order of preference, but it’s hardly an exact science. And my preferences change daily, but these are the top 50 for this very moment.

• 01
  The Mirror
  Andrei Tarkovsky
• 02
  Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
  Sergei Parajanov
• 03
  The Passion of Joan of Arc
  Carl Theodor Dreyer
• 04
  Sans soleil
  Chris Marker
• 05
  Bicycle Thieves
  Vittorio De Sica
• 06
  Through the Olive Trees
  Abbas Kiarostami
• 07
  Charulata
  Satyajit Ray
• 08
  Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East?
  Bae Yong-Kyun
• 09
  Ugetsu
  Kenji Mizoguchi
• 10
  The Age of the Earth
  Glauber Rocha
• 11
  Sátántangó
  Béla Tarr
• 12
  Early Summer
  Yasujirô Ozu
• 13
  Sherlock Jr.
  Buster Keaton
• 14
  Grand Illusion
  Jean Renoir
• 15
  The House is Black
  Forugh Farrokhzad
• 16
  Pickpocket
  Robert Bresson
• 17
  Vivre sa vie
  Jean-Luc Godard
• 18
  Mother and Son
  Aleksandr Sokurov
• 19
  The Silence
  Ingmar Bergman
• 20
  Maborosi
  Hirokazu Kore-eda
• 21
  Badlands
  Terrence Malick
• 22
  Heremias
  Lav Diaz
• 23
  Meshes of the Afternoon
  Maya Deren
• 24
  The Travelling Players
  Theodoros Angelopoulos
• 25
  Man with a movie camera
  Dziga Vertov
• 26
  Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
  Stanley Kubrick
• 27
  Death by Hanging
  Nagisa Ôshima
• 28
  The Golden Thread
  Ritwik Ghatak
• 29
  Diamonds of the Night
  Jan Němec
• 30
  La notte
  Michelangelo Antonioni
• 31
  Fata Morgana
  Werner Herzog
• 32
  Killer of Sheep
  Charles Burnett
• 33
  Io Island
  Kim Ki-young
• 34
  Letter from an Unknown Woman
  Max Ophüls
• 35
  Ashes and Diamonds
  Andrzej Wajda
• 36
  The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun
  Djibril Diop Mambéty
• 37
  When the Tenth Month Comes
  Đặng Nhật Minh
• 38
  On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate
  Hong Sang-soo
• 39
  Mamma Roma
  Pier Paolo Pasolini
• 40
  Days of Being Wild
  Wong Kar-wai
• 41
  Wanderers of the Desert
  Nacer Khemir
• 42
  A Moment of Innocence
  Mohsen Makhmalbaf
• 43
  In Search of Famine
  Mrinal Sen
• 44
  Forest of the Hanged
  Liviu Ciulei
• 45
  I Stand Alone
  Gaspar Noé
• 46
  Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks - Part 1: Rust
  Wang Bing
• 47
  Taipei Story
  Edward Yang
• 48
  The Seventh Continent
  Michael Haneke
• 49
  As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
  Jonas Mekas
• 50
  Mysterious Object at Noon
  Apichatpong Weerasethakul