Seeing all the great films mentioned by everyone here got me to thinking – is this thread going to produce an even more interesting list than the current poll? It seems like people are digging for personal favourites or things someone might have missed instead of trying to impress everyone with one’s own ‘best’ picks. This is less predictable, in any case. Keep it going. More films I have to add to my own ever expanding ‘to see’ list.
Marq, anyone who doesn’t like Night of the Hunter… I don’t know what to say. Not dark enough? If it was any darker you’d stub your toe getting into bed.
I agree about Night of the Hunter Justin. And also if you dont like Wages of Fear you have your head up your ass! And you know who you are.
Satantago. I can not recommend this film enough.
The Puppetmaster, or A Time to Live, a Time to Die, or Dust in the Wind.
The Band’s Visit.
Man Push Cart, or Chop Shop.
Maborosi.
Theres a few.
Tricheurs (Cheaters), 1984, Barbet Schroeder. More, 1969, also Schroeder. This one features an excellent soundtrack by Pink Floyd, when they mattered.
Thank you Clovenhoof. Sometimes I think people give opinions like that just to be contrary or to get attention.
no, i gave my fucking opinion based on seeing it and not really thinking too highly of it. notice i also mentioned that perhaps i should give it a second viewing.
My 2 cents…
The Man Who Would Be King… a John Houston gem ( first wanted to make it with Bogey and Gable…. but it’s great with Caine and Connery)
Wings Of Desire – Wim Wenders beautiful in every way
3 Women… Altmans mystical European feeling late ’70’s masterpiece.
Grapes of Wrath.. Ford does a Renoir and matches the master.
Francesco rosi’s Hand over the City is one of the most hard-hitting neorealist film i’ve ever seen; it will stays with you like most of the films recommended here. But what interesting here is among the great auteurs mentioned here(bergman,kurosawa,ford etc) F. Rosi was the least know or probably the most underrated. You will not regret catching it.
justin, marq…while i agree that night of the hunter is a good film, i can also understand a tepid reaction based on the fact that it has kinda become like star wars in that it is such and all pervasive story, with symbolic imagery(the love/hate tattoos) that have permeated all aspects of popular culture in a way that could allow for someone watching it now to almost see it as a sort of self parody.
i feel at some point during my youth i became conditioned by the animaniacs to practically know without knowing the plots and imagery to many classics of the past in a way that often renders such classics without an ounce of surprise to offer me upon viewings now.
it is kinda sad, but really just a byproduct of an all encompassing and increasingly self referential popular culture. and one that we must live with an understanding of if we are all to get along.
Well, okay, I was putting down your opinion, but if you’re going to launch a thread yelling Highly Recommend Me Something!!!! it’s rather poor form to trash what people give you.
Night of the Hunter is about lost innocence: the exposure of children to violence. It’s children who find the corpse in the cellar in the first scene; children who chillingly chant a playground song about execution; and of course the two children running for their lives from Mitchum. It’s probably the best statement on this subject that I’ve ever seen.
Cockfighter
The Other
Audrey Rose
Bless The Beasts And Children
David And Lisa
D.A.R.Y.L.
Landscape In The Mist
Don’t Look Now
In A Glass Cage
I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang
Life Of Oharu
La Terra Trema
The Fire Within
This Man Must Die
Marnie (underrated Hitchcock)
Primer
Tropical Malady
Matango
House (japan 1977)
Funeral Procession Of Roses
Snake Of June
Junior Bonner
Seven Men From Now
The Tall T
Venom And Eternity
all Bresson
The Stuff
Family Life
Threads
Nuts In May
Withnail And I
Muertos De Risa
Nazarin
The Chess Player
Straight Time
Wise Blood
Therese
Van Gogh
Coup De Torchon
Graveyard Of Honor (Fukasaku)
Ziegunerweisen
Conan The Barbarian with Arnold’s commentary
Night of the Hunter is also what Charles Laughton said “Is a mother goose fairytale” so no one should take the film to literal. It is an amazing piece of work, maybe the top 5 American films ever made.
Every person should see 2001: A Space Odyssey. Changed my life.
As far as recent movies go. Watch Mulholland Drive. Then watch it again.
I’m jumping on the “Night of the Hunter” band wagon. I saw it last month for the first time, and was shocked to find a new film that rocketed to the top of my rather stable Top 40 list. I love it, and need to give it a second viewing to ensure that I wasn’t just extremely overexcited that day, and I really want to make time for it again. Right after I saw it, I wanted to watch it again.
@Marq
You want recommendations, but “Night of the Hunter” didn’t do much for you. That’s fine. Different strokes. I just worry that my recommendations will be more of the same that you might not like:
“Bad Day at Black Rock”
“Pick up on South Street”
“Paris, Texas”
“Out of the Past”
are all seconded as great recommendations from others.
Other recomendations:
“The Baron of Arizona”
any Vicent Price/Robert Corman 60-70s Poe adaptation
“Stalker”
“The African Queen”
“Johnny Guitar”
“The Descent”
“Session 9”
TV:
“The Wire”
“Twin Peaks”
“Freaks and Geeks”
Vertigo
Psycho
Rear Window
Pit and the Pendulum
Masque of Red Death
Tomb of Ligiea
Hercules (Steve Reeves)
7th Voyage of Sinbad
The Big Sleep
The Tall T
Quartermass II
The Gorgon
Mister Roberts never really achieved the “timeless classic” status I feel it should have (Henry Fonda! James Cagney! William Powell! Jack Lemmon!), but I love it and recommend it with all enthusiasm. And everyone else is right, you should see Night of the Hunter.
Willam
no specific order
Andrei Roublev
The Swimmer
L’Eclisse
Mamma Roma
Shock Corridor
Peeping Tom
The Silence
Fists in the Pocket
Knife in the Water
Hangover Square
The Rules of the Game
Autumn Fire
Child Bride
Diary of a County Priest
Violence in a Women’s Prison
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
Edvard Munch
Two-Lane Blacktop
Eraserhead
The Conversation
The Passenger
Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Rolling Thunder
Seance on a Wet Afternoon
Our Lady of the Turks
Nostalgia
Carnival of Souls
Window Water Baby Moving
Flaming Creatures
Scorpio Rising
The Whip and the Body
Beautiful, Bloody, Bare
Woman in the Window
the Strange affair of uncle Harry
Pink String and Sealing wax
Wages of Fear
Pickup on South Street
Jazz on a Summers day
The Killing
Hail Mary
The Vanishing
Bad timing
Love Streams
Paris, Texas
Stranger than Paradise
After Hours
Body Heat
Silent Light
Werckmeister Harmonies
The Brown Bunny
Elevator to the Gallows
The Harder they Come
La Commare Secca
The Mirror
SToszeck
Herz aus Glas