Top 11
By: Anthony
These movies I won’t argue are perfect (though some are pretty much there) or the greatest (whatever that means); they’re the ones I’ve felt most shook up by. “Favourites” is such an ugly word (especially with the UK/US spelling issue: favorite vs favourite :S) and I won’t claim I’ve seen by my inconsiderable age (= 24) enough cinema to warrant any kind of comprehensive or exhaustive listing of films.
I wanted to make this list simply to mark the great celluloid (or digitally encoded) moments of my life: Antoine Doinel pacing in his apartment; Bullingdon looking on at Lady Lyndon’s signing a document; Marie A. lying in the grass, reading Voltaire; an old couple merrily confusing and amusing city passerbys; Pixote arousing maternal sympathy and then repulsion in Sueli; the austere yet warm counterpoint of “Leaning on Jesus” between Robert Mitchum and Mrs. Cooper; a boy trying to beat his dad in a basketball game only to be rebuffed; the long takes full of sadness and longing and misery; “And it’s a beautiful day.”; the death/not-death scene of Guy Maddin’s mother cross-cut with the long tracks and swells of snow; the failing of the light at the end of a too-long day. The images each film offers is vital and alive and almost too painful for me to dwell on. Yet they matter and I’m grateful for having seen them.
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01François Truffaut
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02Stanley Kubrick
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03Sofia Coppola
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04Leo McCarey
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05Héctor Babenco
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06Charles Laughton
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07Steve James
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08Louis Malle
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09Joel Coen
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10Guy Maddin
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11Carlos Reygadas
