mine are in no particular order, these are just the 20 films that I’ve seen thus far in my life that i warrant use the medium to its forte for all of the reasons films should be watched (entertainment, art, philosophy, political/social commentary, writing, acting, directing, aesthetics, etc.).
1) Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Park Chan-Wook)
2) The Thin Red Line (Terrance Malick)
3) The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin)
4) Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa)
5) Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese)
6) The Wind that Shakes the Barley (Ken Loach)
7) Videodrome (David Cronenberg)
8) Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock)
9) Pierrot le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard)
10) Of Mice and Men (Lewis Milestone)
11) Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen)
12) Talk to Her (Pedro Almodovar)
13) The Godfather (F.F.Coppola)
14) Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven) [no this is not a joke]
15) City Lights (Charles Chaplin)
16) The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman)
17) Day of Wrath (Carl Th. Dreyer)
18) This is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner)
19) Casablanca (Michael Curtiz)
20) Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra)
I want so badly to include The Piano Teacher (Haneke) The Reflecting Skin (Philip Ridley) and The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo) Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Nick Stoller) and Breaking the Waves (Lars von Trier) but only 20, and this is my list! I stick by it!
Also i didn’t include any documentaries or animations because i feel that they are their own medium in themselves.
01 A Clockwork Orange
02 Cinema Paradiso
03 Not One Less
04 Once Upon a Time in America
05 Aparajito
06 The World of Apu
07 Jackie Brown
08 Mulholland Drive
09 Enter the Void
10 Fight Club
11 The Piano Teacher
12 The Bear
13 Trainspotting
14 Full Metal Jacket
15 2001: A Space Odyssey
16 Taxi Driver
17 Annie Hall
18 Psycho
19 City of God
20 Nights of Cabiria
Well, I’ve taken the list for RUS’ Sight & Sound Poll and the list for Scorpio’s Glimpses:
Lonesome (1928)
Masquerade in Vienna (1934)
Ala-Arriba! (1942)
Men on the Mountain (1942)
Great Freedom No. 7 (1944)
Under the Bridges (1945)
Path of Hope (1950)
The River (1951)
The Quiet Man (1952)
Tokyo Story (1953)
Vertigo (1958)
Ballad of a Soldier (1959)
Night Train (1959)
Rio Bravo (1959)
The Tiger of Eschnapur & The Indian Tomb (1959)
Divorce Italian Style (1961)
Strange Voyage (1964)
Time to Love (1965)
Manila in the Claws of Neon (1975)
Pale Rider (1985)
To fill the empty slot I added a silent (silent movies are allowed, aren’t they? I see very few nominees)
1. Light Sleeper (1992, Paul Schrader)
2. The White Ribbon (2009, Michael Haneke)
3. The Mirror (1975, Andrei Tarkovsky)
4. Heat (1995, Michael Mann)
5. Inception (2010, Christopher Nolan)
6. Antichrist (2009, Lars von Trier)
7. Teorema (1968, Pier Paolo Pasolini)
8. Vengeance is Mine (1979, Shohei Imamura)
9. Pierrot le fou (1965, Jean-Luc Godard)
10. Wings of Desire (1988, Wim Wenders)
11. The Free Will (2006, Matthias Glasner)
12. Through a Glass Darkly (1961, Ingmar Bergman)
13. Tokyo Story (1953, Yasujiro Ozu)
14. Metropolis (1927, Fritz Lang)
15. Hana-bi (1997, Takeshi Kitano)
16. Lost Highway (1997, David Lynch)
17. Koyaanisqatsi (1983, Godfrey Reggio)
18. The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (1972, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
19. La bete humaine (1938, Jean Renoir)
20. The Conformist (1970, Bernardo Bertolucci)
1. Dead Man’s Shoes (Shane Meadows)
2. Onibaba (Kaneto Shindô)
3. Charade (Stanley Donen)
4. 39 Steps (Alfred Hitchcock)
5. Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders)
6. Point Blank (John Boorman)
7. Enter The Void (Gaspar Noé)
8. Klute (Alan J. Pakula)
9. Old Boy (Chan-wook Park)
10. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino)
11. Excalibur (John Boorman)
12. Betty Blue (Jean-Jacques Beineix)
13. Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)
14. Mr Roberts (John Ford)
15. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (Sidney Lumet)
16. Two Lane Black Top (Monte Hellman)
17. Electra Glide in Blue (James William Guercio)
18. Sex and Lucia (Julio Medem)
19. Walk About (Nicolas Roeg)
20. Withnail and I (Bruce Robinson)
@Brad S and Uli3Cain—I think Dimitris and Lemonglow are just having fun in their own ways with this. But I do challenge them to pick up the gauntlet and post their top twenties.
Gotta say that any top ten or twenty list I ever make of music, books or film is always treated as a list of music, books or film that I could not do without were I marooned on a desert island.
And if I were marooned on a desert island I’d be okay with it knowing that I could listen to the National’s Boxer and Life’s Rich Pageant by R.E.M, read Brontë’s Jane Eyre and The Glory and the Dream by Manchester, and watch Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz and Haneke’s The Piano Teacher whenever the hell I wanted.
“I think Dimitris and Lemonglow are just having fun in their own ways with this. But I do challenge them to pick up the gauntlet and post their top twenties.”
Wait a sec…I didn’t question the “validity” of this “game-project”, I simply asked Polaris a question…
…and as Doctor already stated, I myself HAVE already posted a couple of recs and selected film entries for other, similarly constructed projects which do reflect my film taste e.g. Scorpio’s As I Was Browsing poll attempts. Evidently, I’m glad I posted my picks somewhere else since I can predict that this “users top 20 movie list” will contain more or less many of the films presently in the top spots of the MUBI top 100 films based on Popularity, which you can view them if you press the Explore section in the Films tab, unless of course that “elective” process as Doctor already stated this project looks like is more random than usual and we see a 2001 vs Taxi Driver matchup in the first stage of it….but I guess that’s too bold to occur, huh?
20. Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone, 1984)
19. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
18. Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)
17. City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)
16. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
15. The Best of Youth (Marco Tullio Giordana, 2003)
14. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969)
13. A City of Sadness (Hsiao-hsien Hou, 1989)
12. Scenes From a Marriage (Ingmar Bergman, 1973)
11. Au Revoir Les Enfants (Louis Malle, 1987)
10. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
9. Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954)
8. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
7. Vivra Sa Vie (Jean Luc Godard, 1962)
6. Make Way For Tomorrow (Leo McCarey, 1937)
5. The Big Lebowski (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1998)
4. The Phantom of Liberty (Luis Bunuel, 1974)
3. Samurai Rebellion (Masaki Kobayashi, 1967)
2. Le Trou (Jacques Becker, 1960)
1. Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)
1) Les enfants du paradis
2) The Third Man
3) Triumph des Willens
4) Kind Hearts and Coronets
5) La ronde (Ophüls)
6) The Ladykillers (Mackendrick)
7) Casablanca
8) Der blaue Engel
9) The Maltese Falcon (Huston)
10) Zorba the Greek
11) Young Frankenstein
12) Die Büchse der Pandora
13) L’Atalante
14) Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Murnau)
15) Le quai des brumes
16) Die 3 Groschen-Oper (Pabst)
17) A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Dieterle & Reinhardt)
18) Sleeper
19) The Producers (Brooks)
20) Zorro, the Gay Blade
1. Zabriskie Point
2. The Saragosa Manuscript
3. The Battle Of Algiers
4. Ordet
5. Brief Encounter
6. Zerkalo (Mirror)
7. Satantango
8. Jeanne Dielman
9. Les Diaboliques
10. Night Of The Hunter
11. Providence
12. Black Narcissus
13. The Tin Drum
14. Simon Of The Desert
15. Rosemary’s Baby
16. Three Women
17. Kwaidan
18. onibaba
19. Ugetsu
20. La Bele Et La Bête
“unless of course that “elective” process as Doctor already stated this project looks like is more random than usual and we see a 2001 vs Taxi Driver matchup in the first stage of it….but I guess that’s too bold to occur, huh?”
That’s actually quite likely, Dimitris, from experience. The initial list, yes, will look like the “most popular” tab, but once people see it, they have a tendency to go, "Wait, Taxi Driver is that high? I submitted it, but I don’t know, is it really better than ….? " And then things start moving around.
But I am getting many more responses than I expected and this thing is much bigger than my previous attempts, so whereas in previous attempts the first published longlist was very malleable, by the time this submission point is done the top twenty may already be too high to pull down. Pluralism happening at my fingertips, it’s fascinating to watch but difficult to show.
—PolarisDiB
It’s really interesting because even the lists above that look like they were taken off other people’s lists or top of lists from magazines around the world, introduce at least a couple-three new titles that no one has listed yet. Every single one. So even if one of our canon-detractors reads through this and prescribes it all canon, it’s at this point
909 unique titles
of canon. Which isn’t surprising since 1001 Movies You Must See before You Die and They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? lists are 1000 titles long and generally considered “canon”, but it does go to show that even within this concept, people react uniquely and individually.
Kenji early on listed L’Avventura as a movie that “didn’t need my help.”
L’Avventura has yet to be submitted, less voted for. So these are the things I am discovering while I am doing this.
Meanwhile, thinking about Dimitris’ concern, I think a comparison with the database-generated list will be interesting, and here’s why. Pulp Fiction I rate 5 stars, because I think it is that well made of a movie. But it is not my favorite movie, by a long shot. So I help it get its top listing on Mubi’s database, but it is not representative of my favorites, at least. Pulp Fiction has been submitted numerous times thus far, and whereas it’s pretty high it’s not nearly as high as you’d imagine… yet.
Also, submission organization rule update #1: After a movie achieves 29 points, it only receives ONE point per additional submission subsequently. That means that any movies that reach up to 30 points via submission duplicates only raises one point at a time instead of two. And yes, a couple of titles this last 24 hours hit the 30 point mark.
—PolarisDiB
Damn Polaris, this whole thing is just too confusing. Tell me again, when is it I’ll be able to cast my vote for Three Men and a Baby? That movie is hee-larious.
After you post your list, Mr. I Haven’t Posted a List Yet.
—DiB
sigh…alright, if you insist…jeez, the things I have to do to show my love for Tom Selleck’s mustache…
I don’t have time to think about this in too much, so I just hit refresh on my profile page twenty times and picked my favorite film from each group of four. Not too bad a representation really…
Darby O’Gill and the Little People
Ornamental Hairpin
Taking of Power by Louis XIV
Vassilisa the Beautiful
Calendar
Best Years of Our Lives
Il Posto
Senso
Through the Olive Trees
Woman Times Seven
Parrish
La Notte
Yi Yi
Madhumati
Outlaw and His Wife
Ashes and Diamonds
The Ear
White Hell of Pitz Palu
The Leopard Man
Les Vampires
1. Playtime
2. Tokyo Story
3. The Passion of Joan of Arc
4. The General
5. Late Spring
6. Charulata
7. Floating Clouds
8. Ugetsu
9. The Rules of the Game
10. A Page of Madness
11. The Leopard
12. Pather Panchali
13. Ordet
14. Humanity and Paper Balloons
15. The Cloud-Capped Star
16. Rear Window
17. A Brighter Summer Day
18. The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums
19. Au hasard Balthazar
20. Children of Paradise
I think you’ll find, in this type of game, that people attack in packs. The ones that start out near the top aren’t safe at all.
Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)
2001 (Kubrick)
Good Bad Ugly (Leone)
Great Dictator (Chaplin)
Rear Window (Hitchcock)
The Tree of Life (Malick)
There Will be Blood (P.T. Anderson)
Certified Copy (Kiarostami)
Last Life in the Universe (Ratanaruang)
Inglorious Basterds (Tarantino)
Oldboy (Chan-wook)
The Hole (Tsai)
Maborosi (Kore-eda)
Snake of June (Tsukamoto)
Cold Fish (Sono)
Audition (Miike)
Hard Boiled (Woo)
Tropical Malady (Apichatpong)
A Bittersweet Life (Ji-woon)
Harakiri (Kobayashi)
The first 20 that i could remember.
Not to be taken seriously, but, for the sake of participation. . .
L’Intrus
Sunrise
Raging Bull
Notre musique
Clean, Shaven
The House is Black
A Brighter Summer Day
The Color of Pomegranates
The Wind Will Carry Us
The Crowd
Spirit of the Beehive
Vertigo
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Funeral (1996)
The World (2004)
Last Life in the Universe
Les Vampires
Ordet
White Heat
The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums
No Hal Hartley?
Another day I might have ended up with The Girl From Monday, Simple Men, or Book of Life.
As long as these lists aren’t serious, I could make one – but then, what would be the point ?
Bob, then you’d be one of the cool kids.
In no particular order…
01 After Hours – Martin Scorsese
02 That Obscure Object of Desire – Luis Buñuel
03 Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid – Sam Peckinpah
04 The Shining – Stanley Kubrick
05 Pulp Fiction – Quentin Tarantino
06 Monty Python’s Life of Brian – Terry Jones
07 The Evil Dead – Sam Raimi
08 Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers – Nick Park
09 Eyes Wide Shut – Stanley Kubrick
10 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me – David Lynch
11 Au hasard Balthazar – Robert Bresson
12 Taxi Driver – Martin Scorsese
13 The Mirror – Andrei Tarkovsky
14 Inland Empire – David Lynch
15 Judex – Georges Franju
16 Blue Velvet – David Lynch
17 Le samouraï – Jean-Pierre Melville
18 Way Out West – James W. Horne
19 Magnolia – Paul Thomas Anderson
20 The General – Buster Keaton
1. Back To The Future
2. Robocop
3. Buffalo 66
4. Eastern Promises
5. Donnie Darko
6. The Shining
7. Saving Private Ryan
8. Happy Gilmore
9. Bottle Rocket
10. There Will Be Blood
11. Apocalypse Now
12. Garden State
13. A Clockwork Orange
14. Blade Runner
15. Valhalla Rising
16. Fight Club
17. Drive
18. The Tree Of Life
19. Requiem For A Dream
20. Into The WIld
Bob, then you’d be one of the cool kids.
Not after they see my list….better to be thought cool, than make a list and remove all doubt.
1. My Neighbour Totoro (Miyazaki)
2. Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky)
3. The Godfather (Coppolla)
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
5. Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone)
6. Mirror (Tarkovsky)
7. Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi)
8. Taxi Driver (Scorsese)
9. Barry Lyndon (Kubrick)
10. Ikiru (Kurosawa)
11. Mulholland Drive (Lynch)
12. Pather Panchali (Ray)
13. Spirited Away (Miyazaki)
14. The General (Keaton)
15. Yi Yi (Yang)
16. Persona (Bergman)
17. Tokyo Story (Ozu)
18. Picnic at Hanging Rock (Weir)
19. Woman of the Dunes (Teshigahara)
20. The Room (Wiseau)
1. La Strada (Fellini)
2. The Last Laugh (Murnau)
3. The 400 Blows (Truffaut)
4. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
5. Midnight Cowboy (Schlesinger)
6. Hiroshima, Mon Amour (Resnais)
7. Taxi Driver (Scorsese)
8. Rocco And His Brothers (Visconti)
9. Letter From An Unknown Woman (Ophuls)
10. Sunrise (Murnau)
11. A Woman Under The Influence (Cassavetes)
12. Synecdoche, New York (Kaufman)
13. Ikiru (Kurosawa)
14. The Conformist (Bertolucci)
15. Donnie Darko (Kelly)
16. Apocalypse Now (Coppola)
17. The Roaring Twenties (Walsh)
18. Man With A Movie Camera (Vertov)
19. The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums (Mizoguchi)
20. Casque d’Or (Becker)
1. Contempt
2. The Ox Bow Incident
3. Rear Window
4. Diary of a Country Priest
5. Masculine Feminin
6. Passion
7. Five Easy Pieces
8. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
9. Don’t Look Back
10. Love and Death
11. The Royal Tennenbaums
12. Notre Musique
13. Lancelot of the Lake
14. Timecode
15. Wages of Fear
16. Amarcord
17. Young Frakenstein
18. Open City
19. Blood of a Poet
20. Orphée
Doctor Lemonglow
Brad, I thought my first post was clear enough in saying that, while I suspect there are some contradictions in the method and purpose, I was glad that everyone was having fun.
That phrase “beyond reproach” should have covered the matter of my finding no harm.
Uli: I’ve already participated in making my preferences known at several threads in the past, and I didn’t just do it the easy way, i.e., a simple list. I provided rather lengthy revues/explanations for all of my top choices. You can find that and much more in my earlier posts.
I’m just not up for taking part in an Iowa caucus. But again, I’m glad everyone who does participate is having so much fun, plus I’m learning some things about folks here.