I am feeling contentious all of a sudden (must be the phases on the moon – see my more recent comments on the ‘canon’ thread), and I would like to know why so many people put Fargo on their top ten list? Sure, it is OK, and mildly funny at times, but the story really didn’t jell with me enough to put it on any list of ‘great’ films. I found it more disturbingly violent than I would like for a film billed as a dark comedy. I like a lot of the Coen brothers work, rating personally Big Lebowski, for example, much higher than Fargo for films of theirs I liked. I am the last person, with many very questionable choices on my own lists, to question anyone else’s taste. I just want to know what I am not getting about Fargo? Yours in stupefaction, Bob
If I have to choose only ten, I will not grade them against each other.
Animal House-John Landis
Blue Velvet-David Lynch
Brazil-Sir Terry Gilliam
City of Women- Federico Fellini
The Double Life of Veronique-Krzysztoff Kieslowski
Fear and Loathing … in Las Vegas-Sir Terry Gilliam
Léon-Luc Besson
Pierrot le fou-Jean-Luc Godard
Private Parts-Betty Thomas
3 Women-Robert Altman
greed
psycho
touch of evil
every man for himself and God against all
kagemusha
brief encounter
black narcissus
chinatown
jules et jim
henry: portrait of a serial killer
i could think of many others that deserve to be there just as well
Bob Stutsmen:
I don’t know what exactly you’re not getting about Fargo, but it seems like a lot. You’re probably wanting it to be a comedy when it is not and you’re probably ignoring how incredible the characters are because you don’t like the story. You were probably expecting one thing when you watched it and got something else. Did you by any chance watch Fargo after you had already seen and decided you love The Big Lebowski?
Shotzi: I had seen Fargo before Big Lebowski and had watched every Coen movie up to a certain point – with mixed reactions. Perhaps I did think Fargo would be more of a comedy than a rather dark drama, but I am sure it was just me who couldn’t really get into the characters. Since I have no desire to see the film again (I have seen it twice), I will drop the matter and defer to the collective wisdom of others. That is, if everyone else enjoys it, why should I quibble if it’s not my cup of Coen tea?
The more I think of it, I believe I will now stick to my rather facetious positing of a top ten earlier with Love Story on top, since it is all relative anyway and this is all some kind of game in cine one-up-manship. Yes, Love Story is now my favourite movie as you don’t need to say you were sorry for having seen it (remember the famous quote…)
Rules of the Game
Pather Panchali
In the Mood For Love
400 blows
Fanny and Alexander
Wages of Fear
I Fidanzati
Fitzcarraldo
Days of Heaven
Tokyo Story
Ughhhh….this is real hard. These lists change with mood.
new post – new top 10…yet again..
8 1/2
The Godfather I & II
2001:A Space Odyssey
Pulp Fiction
Pierrot Le Fou
Fight Club
Pather Panchali
In the mood for Love
Apocalypse Now
Day for Night
Annie Hall
Wild Strawberries
The Squid and the Whale
Spirited Away
Chungking Express
Waking Ned Devine
Millions
Punch-Drunk Love
8 1/2
Dr. Strangelove
On the Waterfront
City Lights
Citizen Kane
The Graduate
Rebel Without a Cause
Seven Samurai
In no particular order
There Will Be Blood
2001: A Space Odyssey
Raging Bull
Citizen Kane
Seven Samurai
Taxi Driver
8 1/2
Days of Heaven
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Aguirre, Wrath of God
Honorable Mentions:
Vertigo
A Woman Under the Influence
1. city of god (cidade de deus)
2. a clockwork orange
3. 8 1/2
4. taxi driver
5. pierrot le fou
6. la strada
7. the 400 blows
8. citizen kane
9. vertigo
10. the godfather
I’m with SAM LIM in that my 3000 “favorite movies” depend entirely on my mood at the time. However, like VELLAEM, I do have some constants.
These are my PERSONAL favorites, not based on any academic/historical/theoretical/or-any-other-kind-of-lofty analysis:
THE GODFATHER, PART II
NASHVILLE
LACOMBE, LUCIEN
LE DOULOS
DERSU UZALA
DR. STRANGELOVE
RAGING BULL
WINTER LIGHT
8 1/2
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO
ORDINARY PEOPLE
THE APARTMENT
APOCALYPSE NOW
A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE
BEING THERE
ASHES AND DIAMONDS
UNFORGIVEN
AUNTIE MAME
LE FEU FOLLET <+ added just this year
I find it quite depressing how all those lists just look like any other. Really depressing.
Big Fish sucked!
If I did a random 10 favorites Id say:
1)Gummo
2)The Vanishing
3)Europa
4)City of Lost Children
5)Down by Law
6)Kubrick’s The Killing
7)Wages of Fear
8)Videodrome
9)Burden of Dreams
10) Svankmajer’s Alice
Eyes Wide Shut
The Thin Red Line
8 1/2
La Strada
There Will Be Blood
Ugetsu
La Dolce Vita
Amarcord
Barry Lyndon
The Shining
Juliet of the Spirits
A Clockwork Orange/Dr. Strangelove/2001: A Space Odyssey/Lolita/Paths of Glory/The Killing/Full Metal Jacket
Nights of Cabiria/I Vitelloni/…And the Ship Sails On
Vertigo/Rear Window/North By Northwest
Citizen Kane/Touch of Evil/F For Fake/The Third Man/Chimes At Midnight/The Magnificent Ambersons/Lady From Shanghai
Wild Strawberries/The Virgin Spring/Through A Glass Darkly-Winter Light-The Silence/The Seventh Seal
Magnolia/Boogie Nights
Oh hell…this is where I get into trouble and spiral out of control : ) I agree that no
top ten list can ever be objective. My problem is that each of my favorite directors Kubrick, Fellini, Welles, Bergman have ATLEAST four or five films that must be
considered when putting together a list like this.
I would love to have enough room for a picture like the Coen Bros.’ Miller’s Crossing
or Barton Fink, which haven’t been mentioned yet and represent their best work.
The Godfather I & II or Chinatown or Goodfellas; or Down By Law (I absolutely love what Jarmusch does) but if i’m really honest with myself I have to say that I have never seen anything to equal the power of those films I listed above. That Terence Malick, Paul Thomas Anderson and Kenji Mizoguchi made it among that company is a sign of my deepest respect. In my eyes, Malick and P.T. Anderson, along with Wes Anderson, are the hope of our future in American film. They have the talent and vision to create entire bodies of (endlessly re-watchable) work that we can fall in love with and ponder over
for years. Sorry for rambling… : )
I find it quite depressing that Sarajevo’s psycho-emotional stability relies on the quality of our top-ten lists.
And just to be unnecessarily repetitive and emphatic:
Really depressing.
Is it about who has the most obscure films listed? Else, I think there is a consensus about some of the greatest films and therefore overlap in lists.
Evan you critized someone’s pick of Big Fish and you included Gummo?
I usually say something along these lines:
Apocalypse Now
George Washington
The Fountain
Children of Men
8 1/2
Fanny & Alexander
Days of Heaven
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Punch-Drunk Love
Barry Lyndon
and figure that covers most of my bases. But then again, Altman is my favorite director so I could just as easily include Nashville, 3 Women, The Long Goodbye, The Player, Short Cuts, Thieves Like Us…
Stalker, also, will probably make its way in there. I just saw that but oh lord did I love it.
And I’ve just recently gotten into Kurosawa who will no doubt be making an appearance in a future list. It’s getting to be revision time.
I refuse to even attempt to offer an objective list.
I will instead offer my favorite film:
MCCABE & MRS. MILLER
and favorite director:
Akira Kurosawa (SEVEN SAMURAI, RAN, HIGH AND LOW, YOJIMBO, THRONE OF BLOOD, etc.)
and favorite film that hasn’t appeared on anyone else’s list so far:
WRITTEN ON THE WIND
I am glad to find so many people with similar tastes (Rick, Rob, etc.)!
You and me, Kazu…. we would get along real well.
@Christian Pieper
To the everyday people, yes, I guess top 10s don’t mean much.
But as an aspiring filmmaker, to constantly see that people have the same unpersonalized tastes and have no opinion of their own, yes, it is quite depressing.
Citizen Kane
Seven Samurai
A Clockwork Orange
2001: A Space Odyssey
Vertigo
I know you said ten but I can’t do it…I’ll have to just keep going.
@Sarajevo
Whether or not it is depressing to you (I never said it wasn’t, just that it shouldn’t be) doesn’t change the fact that a top-ten list is a stupidly fun way of talking about what one likes. To draw from them some broad conclusion about people’s “unpersonalized tastes” is probably taking them a bit too seriously, and to be depressed that the concept of artistic quality is a social phenomenon is like being depressed when one notices gravity. As for the label of “aspiring filmmaker”, I would suggest that it is simply a modified expression of “non-filmmaker”, and therefore, doesn’t seem to represent much rationale for an alternate psycho-emotional framework. Beyond that, insisting on informing others of their “unpersonalized taste” isn’t a behavior in which all “aspiring filmmakers” would collectively participate. I’d say it says more about one’s inflated sense of self-worth, desperate desire to appear superior, and antisocial attitudes, than it does about one’s intended (or at least hoped for) career.
My wife started to give me a hard time because every time I’d answer the question “What’s your favorite movie?” I’d have a different favorite. So I decided that I would just say “Play Time”. So, that’s what takes my number 1 spot, but after that this is a list that could change on a daily basis.
1. Play Time (Jacques Tati)
2. The World of Apu (Satyajit Ray)
3. Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks)
4. Wagon Master (John Ford)
5. Mes petites amoureuses (Jean Eustache)
6. Limelight (Charlie Chaplin)
7. Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks)
8. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock)
9. Big Wednesday (John Milius)
10. Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu)
1. Andrei Rublev
2. It’s a Wonderful Life
3. The Rules of the Game
4. The Searchers
5. Night of the Hunter
6. Dead Man
7. White Heat
8. Peeping Tom
9. In the Mood for Love
10. Werckmeister Harmonies
Can’t really do it, rank anyway, and I think I put up a list along these lines in another thread, and I think it probably was quite different from this list:
Contempt
Godfather 2
Yi Yi
Aparajito
Being There
Harakiri
Cleo From 5 To 7
The Apartment
Breathless
Death By Hanging
Some of those I was writing about earlier in other threads, so they are fresh in mind. There are several constants there. Five Easy Pieces, after life, The Conversation, The Big Heat, Lower Depths, Throne Of Blood all might have been in that other list, I don’t recall. They’re all among my all-time faves as well.
Am I just a crazy nerd or anyone else have this fantasy about being chosen by Robert Osborne to be TCM’s guest programmer one month? I have often — seriously — pondered which underexposed masterpieces I would unveil to the telvision audience. It’s so hard to work it down to four — let alone these top ten lists. I’ve tried drawing them up but they always seem to shift around at some point. Maybe I’ll try a new one.
Adam Lee
also Repo Man