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dersu uzala, kwaidan, the new world
These aren’t all complete-packages, but they are all beautiful:
The Cell
In The Mood for Love
The Diving Bell and the Butterball
I’ve Loved You So Long
Once
Manhattan
Lawrence of Arabia
The Thin Red Line
What Dreams May Come
Dark City
The Third Man
& others I can’t think of.
Am loving seeing so much support for Malick in one place – I owe the beginning of my true appreciation of the beauty of cinema to this man.
Not read all posts so not sure if this one has already been mentioned – but Tarkovsky’s The Mirror is the single most beautiful piece of cinema I have ever seen. I never would have believed I could be reduced to wracking sobs at the sight of a man turning the pages of a book. The Mirror is not a film – it is cinematic art of the highest order.
In the Mood for Love
Days of Heaven (but the dialogue was weak)
Color of Pomegranates
Cries and Whispers
Giulietta degli Spiriti
Chungking Express
Lost in Translation
Delicatessen
Cocteau’s Orpheus series
Contempt
and others..
Baraka (Fricke) gets my vote. Zhang Yimou’s films are all visually stunning.
Paris, Texas
Dreams – Akira Kurosawa
Raise the Red Lantern
Once Upon A Time in the West
Miller’s Crossing
Raging Bull
City of Lost Children
When it comes to visual beauty, it often depends on the director. I think everything Kubrick did (since ‘68 at the latest) was beautiful. Everything Tarkovsky did was beautiful. Pretty much every Bertolucci (The Conformist) movie and every Leone (Once Upon a Time in the West) movie and Antonioni (L’Eclisse) movie is beautiful.
But if we’re looking for specific movies from people who don’t always make visually dominant movies…:
There Will Be Blood
Elephant
Japon
As these posts show, beauty is a very personal thing. I have been repeatedly overwhelmed by the elegance, grace, and style of The Leopard, The Age of Innocence, The Magnificent Ambersons, French Cancan, Partie de campagne, Morocco, Anatahan, Wild River, Broken Blossoms, L’Atalante, Marie Antoinette, Godfather II, and Shanghai Triad, to name a few that come off the top of my head. However, for me, the most beautiful film is the hour-long existing fragment of Frank Borzage’s The River. With the melodramatic “plot” material missing, what remains is the most intense depiction ever of a man and a woman meeting and coming together.
Contempt
Days of Heaven
The Conformist
In the Mood for Love
Red Desert
Other films that are visually pleasing but that I would not consider beautiful: Apocalypse Now, Pierrot Le Fou
I swear “The Leopard” is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Every frame has its own beauty.
Blade Runner
All of Terrence Malick’s films
Persona
Lawrence of Arabia
The Abyss
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Metropolis
Ghost in the Shell
2001: a Space Odyssey
The Fountain
Koyaanisqatsi
Tokyo Olympiad
The Thin Red Line
Wings Of Desire
Lawrence of Arabia
Ozu’s films….etc., etc.
Raise the Red Lantern
L’Avventura
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring
Bleu
Woman in the Dunes !!!!
A lot of the ones I’d mentioned have already been mentioned. But have to add The Tree of Life – beauty overload.
I know these have been mentioned many times but…I just can’t resist!!!
Days Of Heaven – the opening title sequence alone is sublime.
The Conformist – Vittorio Storaro’s work is magnificent
Spirit Of the Beehive – beauty on celluloid, no less.
Aaron J Ban
Oh, and dare I add The Matrix?