I’m from Iceland
1. Börn
2. Foreldrar
3. Heima
4. Sódóma Reykjavík
5. Hrafninn Flýgur (When The Raven Flies)
6. Englar Alheimsins (Angels Of The Universe)
7. Á Köldum Klaka (Cold Fever)
8. Skyttunar
9. Perlur Og Svín
10. Reykjavík-Rotterdam
“Kenji,u mean U.S. films,when one’s talking abt American films,from where i see it..he/she means the continent America…”
Well, in the rest of the world, American films are films from the United States. No need to be so politically correct.
@Kjartan: Angels Of The Universe is a very good film, I agree.
Did you see The Juniper Tree by any chance? Two other movies I like are Nói albínói and 101 Reykjavík. They have quite a unique sense of humor.
@Kenji: I agree – new worlds to discover. I love this thread already!
It doesn´t depend on the nationality of a director wether a film is American or British, but on to which country the responsible production company belongs. In the case of 2001 it has been co-produced by the British Stanley Kubrick Productions, and the American Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, so it´s both a British and an American film, that´s how film festivals categorize to which country a film belongs. For the same reason can films like Vertigo be classified as completely American although Hitchcock was born in Great Britain.
I am from Romania
1. Restul e tăcere( The Rest Is Silence)
2.Asphalt Tango
3.Terminus paradis(Next Stop Paradise )
4.Mihai Viteazul(Michael the Brave)
5.Nunta muta(Silent Wedding)
6. Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii (The Way I Spent the End of the World)
7.Ciuleandra
8.Ion: Blestemul pamîntului, blestemul iubirii(Ion: The Lust for the Land, the Lust for Love)
9.Morometii(The Moromete Family)
10.Offset
NEW ZEALAND:
Sleeping Dogs (Donaldson, Roger; 1977)
Utu (Murphy, Geoff; 1983)
Vigil (Ward, Vincent; 1984)
Kitchen Sink (Maclean, Alison; 1989)
An Angel at My Table (Campion, Jane; 1990)
The Piano (Campion, Jane; 1993)
Heavenly Creatures (Jackson, Peter; 1994)
Once Were Warriors (Tamahori, Lee; 1994)
Two Cars, One Night (Waititi, Taika; 2003)
Kaikohe Demolition (Habicht, Florian; 2004)
Thanks for this thread! Many films I haven’t heard of.
Okay this is my list (Mexico) in chronological order:
Salón México (Emilio Fernández, 1949)
Los olvidados (Luis Buñuel, 1950)
Nazarín (Luis Buñuel, 1952)
El ángel exterminador [The exterminating angel] (Luis Buñuel, 1962)
Animas Trujano (Ismael Rodríguez, 1962) – starring Toshiro Mifune : )
Hasta el viento tiene miedo (Carlos Taboada, 1968)
El lugar sin límites [The place without limits] (Arturo Ripstein, 1978)
Del olvido al no me acuerdo (Juan Carlos Rulfo,1999)
Luz silenciosa (Carlos Reygadas, 2007)
Lake Tahoe (Fernando Eimbcke, 2008)
I’ve always looked abroad for the most inspiring cinema, but if I had to pick my UK favourites, they’d include:
Clockwork orange
Trainspotting
If…?
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Far from the Madding Crowd
Sexy Beast
Control
Man on wire
@James: why do you take exception to Kubrick films being included in UK top 10s but not films by Wilder, Polanski, Murnau and Verhoeven among the US top 10s?
@Alexandru Cucu: great to have a Romanian list here. I would be interested in anything you might say about the films you’ve chosen. I see you top 2 are both by Caranfil and get high averages at imdb.
Czech Republic
1. Návrat ztraceného syna (Return of the Prodigal Son, Evald Schorm, 1966)
2. Mučedníci lásky (Martyrs of Love, Jan Němec, 1966)
3. Pět holek na krku (Five Girls Around the Neck, Evald Schorm, 1967)
+
Adelheid (František Vláčil, 1969)
Démanty noci (Diamonds of the Night, Jan Němec, 1964)
Erotikon (Seduction, Gustav Machatý, 1929)
Holubice (The White Dove, František Vláčil, 1960)
Paralelní světy (Parallel Worlds, Petr Václav, 2001)
Valerie a týden divů (Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, Jaromil Jireš, 1970)
Ze soboty na neděli (From Saturday to Sunday, Gustav Machatý, 1931)
Germany
Der letzte Mann (Murnau)
Nosferatu (Murnau)
M (Lang)
Spione (Lang)
Bis ans Ende der Welt (Wim Wenders)
Alice in den Städten (Wenders)
Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss (Fassbinder)
Fitzcarraldo (Herzog)
Das Boot (Petersen)
Yella (Christian Petzold)
It’s sad, but the Puerto Rican cinema output is very, very few and mostly poor. The only “auteur” director from Puerto Rico would be Jacobo Morales, who directed films such as Lo que Le Paso a Santiago and Angel. The Puerto Rican film I’ve been craving to see for forever would be Los Peloteros by Ramon Rivera, or more commonly known by his nickname “Diplo”. I haven’t been able to find a print of it anywhere, except for this measly youtube clip, for those who are interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gktmSzV0F0. It looks really great though. The good news about Puerto Rican cinema is that it has recently seen a huge output in films produced and shot here, such as Maldeamores, Casi Casi, and even the horrible Daddy Yankee film “Talento Del Barrio” helps, as it is, as of date, the highest grossing Puerto Rican film of all time. Hopefully we will eventually see a great surge in Puerto Rican cinema in the next coming decade.
For those interested in Puerto Rican cinema, I highly suggest you seek out Lo Que Le Paso a Santiago by Jacobo Morales, or anything you find by him. He is truly great!
Another Canadian list. I’ll limit myself to one per director (or otherwise the list would be dominated by Egoyan and Cronenberg).
1. Videodrome
2. The Adjuster
3. Le Declin de l’empire americain
4. The Silent Partner
5. Léolo
6. Black Christmas
7. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
8. C.R.A.Z.Y.
9. Atanarjuat
10. Crime Wave (aka The Big Crimewave) – not to be confused with the Sam Raimi/Coen brothers failure of the same year.
At the end of the 90s I sounded out a Puerto Rican cinemateque/film centre and they sent me a list of the best P.R films, which i must admit i’d not heard of and i don’t have the list to hand (it’s in France). Although Puerto Rico has featured in the Variety International Film Guide that comes out each year- and i recommend for an overview of films worldwide- sadly the country has been ignored by Sight and Sound’s polls, In fact some other countries in this thread have had very poor representation in the polls too.
India:
1. Sholay
2. Padosan
3. Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi
4. Andaz Apna Apna
5. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro
6. Sharaabi
7. Muqaddar Ka Sikandar
8. Black
9. Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam
10. Do Bheega Zameen
Kenji,you now why it’s happening?not only the Sight and Sound poll is arguably in favor of English-spoken voters,participants of it in general…but the reflective essence of the films there are supporting popular trends,genre-like and basically..country reference…
the country issue especially is irritating for the simple fact of : pop culture…just look at the downfall of Iranian or Chinese mass releases..it’s all abt the public/productive reaction and if one trend dies,so will some movements too…
i’m always skeptical when i check those polls,particularly when i see the same repetitive list of films appearing in each “respective” poll..
we all get it for example that 1984 is a significant novel but even Tales of Genji doesn’t need to be jealous of a 1984..
same goes for a Gaav in front of a Vertigo,honestly,it’s getting tired all these years,decades…
Another list from India,
Pather Panchali – Satyajit Ray (1955)
Guide – Vijay Anand (1965)
Kaagaz ke Phool – Guru Dutt (1959)
Subarnarekha – Ritwik Ghatak (1962)
Nayakan – Maniratnam (1987)
Kalyug – Shyam Benegal (1981)
Ram Lakhan – Subhash Ghai (1989)
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge – Aditya Chopra (1995)
Company – Ram Gopal Varma (2002)
Satya – Ram Gopal Varma (1998)
Ok, i’ll do India, as i qualify- if i was great at cricket i would play tests for India (as Wales is shamefully not allowed independently).
Pather Panchali (Ray)
Pakeezah (Amrohi)
Cloud-Capped Star (Ghatak)
Mughal-e-Azam (Asif)
Subarnarekha (Ghatak)
Charulata (Ray)
Paper Flowers (Dutt)
Days and Nights in the Forest (Ray)
Baiju Bawra (Bhatt)
Rat Trap (Gopalakrishnan)
Dmitris, yes it’s terrible that Sight and Sound passes itself off as an international poll, when half the directors and a high percentage of critics polled are British and American, and most countries have never had a representative making a selection.
I will do a list for US because I qualify (I think) …
The Godfather I and II
Taxi Driver
Pulp Fiction
Vertigo
The Magnificent Ambersons
Hannah and her Sisters
Chinatown
2001: A Space Odyssey
Nashville
Fargo
I’m Korean-American, born and raised in Korea who has lived in the States since 11. I’ll go with Korean as most of us know American films. In chronological order.
1. Aimless Bullet (Yu Hyun-mok) 1960 – a neo-realist masterpiece from the golden age of Korean cinema.
2. The Housemaid (Kim Ki-young) 1960 – One of Martin Scorse’s top 3 favorite films. Need I say more?
3. Goryeojang (Kim Ki-young) 1963 – Tackles the same subject as Shohei Imamura’s Ballad of Naruyama—the ancient Far Eastern practice of leaving one’s elderly parents in the mountains to die to save precious resources for the young. But Kim’s work is more gripping, compelling, and phantasmagoric.
4. Last Witness (Lee Doo-young)) 1980 – A cinematic exorcism of South Korea’s troubled and conflicted history, masquerading as a crime genre flick. P.S. Not the 2003 remake!
5. Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? (Bae Yong-kyun) 1989 – Winner of the grand prize at the Locarno International Film Festival. One of the most beautifully shot films ever and possibly the finest film ever made about Buddhism. Tied for #91 as one of the 100 greatest films ever made in Sight and Sound’s 1992 critics’ poll.
6. Seopyonje (Im Kwon-taek) 1993 – The 2002 Cannes best director winner’s musical masterpiece from a career spanning 100 feature films. Similar in tone and theme to Angelopoulos’ The Traveling Players.
7. Petal (Jang Sun-woo) 1996 – The in-your-face Golden Lion and Golden Bear nominee Jang’s finest work, which like many other fine Korean films, deals with the nation’s troubled past. This one pulls no punches in its depiction of a young girl who has gone mad after losing her mother in a government massacre of its own people.
8. Peppermint Candy (Lee Chang-dong) 1999 – A perfectly pitched tale of of innocence swept up in a tide of history told in an innovative reverse sequence by a Golden Lion and Palm d’Or nominee.
9. Turning Gate (Hong Sang-soo) 2002 – Some call him the new Antonioni, others the new Rohmer, and still others the new Woody Allen. But Hong Sang-soo is a unique artist all of his own, and Turning Gate is his masterpiece.
10. Oldboy (Park Chan-wook) 2003 – It may be a fanboy favorite, but this has already become one of the biggest cult classics of world cinema.
“Some call him the new Antonioni, others the new Rohmer, and still others the new Woody Allen. But Hong Sang-soo is a unique artist all of his own…”
Actually, his treatment of character, and the depth behind them reminds me a lot of Ozu. Which is a high compliment. Ah, I love his films.
10. Atlantic City (1980)
9. Leolo (1993)
8. Atanarjuat (2002)
7. La region centrale (1971)
6. Dead Ringers (1988)
5. Spider (2002)
4. Cowards Bend the Knee (2003)
3. The Hart of London (1970)
2. Videodrome (1983)
1. Crash (Like I need to tell you which Crash I’m talking about.)
Lusitania :
Um Filme Falado (Oliveira)
Aniki-Bobo (Oliveira)
Rapsodia Portuguesa (Mendes)
Viagem Ao Principio Do Mundo (Oliveira)
A Selva (Vieira)
Alice (Martins)
Daqui P’ra Frente (Ruivo)
A Flor Do Mar (Monteiro)
Casa De Lava (Costa)
Belarmino (Lopes)
Aaron, How is Atlantic City Canadian? French director, American actors, American setting…. Am I missing something here?
Atlantic City is officially a Canadian (and French) film, no doubt funding.
Philippines:
01. “Batch ’81” (Mike de Leon)
02. “Maynila sa Kuko Ng Liwanag” (Manila in the Claws of Brightness) (Lino Brocka)
03. “Oro, Plata, Mata” (Peque Gallaga)
04. “Himala” (Ishmael Bernal)
05. “Insiang” (Lino Brocka)
06. “Kakabakaba Ka Ba?” (Mike de Leon)
07. “The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros” (Aureus Solito)
08. “Bayaning Third World” (Third World Hero) (Mike de Leon)
09. “Working Girls” (Ishmael Bernal)
10. “Heremias” (Lav Diaz)
Maynila sa Kuko Ng Liwanag is a great movie.
LES BONS DEBARRAS
1980 d. Francis Mankiewicz
Made during a period when Quebecois filmmakers were fascinated by dysfunctional losers—rather than today’s snappily dressed, gloomy yuppies—the late Francis Mankiewicz’s best picture is saturated with a deep and satisfying melancholy. Set during a cold, grey autumn in the Laurentian mountains, the movie presents its fallen world through the eyes of an obsessive young girl who won’t let her mother (Marie Tifo) have a life. Imagined by the reclusive writer Rejean Ducharme, played by Charlotte Laurier, the kid is a dangerously compelling seductress who wreaks havoc out of a need to control those she loves. Mankiewicz was one of the most emotionally powerful, and yet subtle, of Canadian filmmakers. It’s hard to understand why he’s also one of the most overlooked.
DEAD RINGERS
1988 d David Cronenberg
The basic premise of Dead Ringers is derived from a novel based on a true incident. The twin gynecologists, Elliot and Beverly Mantle, played exquisitely and to perfection by Jeremy Irons, encounter a famous actress and carry on an affair with her. Elliot seduces her, pretending to be Beverly, and she ends up falling for Beverly. This leads to a rapid downhill spiral for the brothers into pills, eventual drug addiction and death.
Although fairly restrained for Cronenberg, the film contains several brilliant set pieces. In a particular lurid touch, inside the Mantle clinic’s operating theatre, the doctors and nurses wear blood-red surgical masks and gowns. Beverly designs and commissions a range of special gynecological instruments for treating “mutant” women. Laid out on a trolley, they are truly the stuff of nightmares.
LE DECLIN DE L’EMPIRE AMERICAIN
1986 d. Denys Arcand
A black comedy of manners built around a series of satiric and witty conversations about sex, love and life between several Montreal academics who are friends, lovers or both. The group includes a serial adulterer, an AIDS sufferer and a divorcee in a sadomasochistic relationship. It’s as if these aging professors are the militants of Quebec’s faded Quiet Revolution who are now locked into a sexual roundelay as their only outlet for action and iconoclasm. As Le Chat dans le sac in 1964 was the rallying cry for a militant generation, Le Declin de l’empire americain is its epitaph.
THE SWEET HEREAFTER
1997 d. Atom Egoyan
Based on the novel by Russell Banks, The Sweet Hereafter recounts the events leading up to and following a school bus accident that kills 14 children and injures many others. The story follows the families, told from multiple viewpoints, whose lives irrevocably change and the big city lawyer (Ian Holm) who shows up in the community hoping to sign people up for a class-action lawsuit. In the ensuing atmosphere of suspicion, guilt and doubt, a surviving teenager (Sarah Polley) manages to regain her strength and dignity, and by telling a lie, reunites the community and drives the lawyer from the town.
The film takes place in layers, on sometimes subtly different temporal planes, both before and after the accident. Told in Rashomon-like fashion, Egoyan has made an almost perfect adaption of Banks’s complex novel of guilt and redemption. The cast is seamlessly perfect, featuring a central performance by Holm as the deeply flawed lawyer with a smouldering intelligence which holds the screen with a magnetic core. Egoyan’s most accessible film to date.
Synopses for the above from:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JSF/is_19_6/ai_30066436/?tag=content;col1
ATANARJUAT: THE FAST RUNNER (2001), d. Zacharias Kunuk
Lovers of gorgeous, slow-moving cinema—think Malick or Tarkovsky—should appreciate Atanarjuat, Canada’s first feature film produced in an aboriginal language (Inuktitut). If this strikes you as a dry description and your eye’s already edging down to the next entry, hold up—the film enraptured festival-goers around the globe, picked up countless awards, and proved that Arctic landscapes merit a cinematographer’s precision eye. Based on an Inuit legend, Atanarjuat tells the story of a skilled runner and hunter who overcomes a cruel rival for the hand of his bride—a union that leads to strife, murder and, ultimately, the need for speed on Atanarjuat’s part as he runs for his life over an ice-field in the film’s signature scene. It’s absolutely breathtaking and just one of many big pay-offs for viewers with the attention span the story demands once it settles into its arc and begins to explain its enigmatic opening scene. This film puts me into a trance state—I’m not sure if it’s the Arctic vistas or the astonishing soundtrack (a mix of Inuit and Tuvan music), but I think it’s one of the best films born in Canada. While its subject matter, pacing and semiotic reliance on gestures and absences may not suit everyone, Atanarjuat feels as enormous as the epics of Beowulf and Gilgamesh, or the saga of Egil.
LE CONFESSIONAL (1995), directed by Robert Lepage
Several things recommend this Quebecois film, the main one being lead actor Lothaire Bluteau, who helped put Canadian film on the map as the Christ figure in Arcand’s Jesus of Montreal. (For serious—I’m not discussing Canadian film ad nauseam without mentioning Bluteau. Say it with me now: Blue-Toe.) Other reasons to watch are 1) the exquisite framing of interior scenes, and 2) the way-fun references to Hitchcock’s 1953 thriller I Confess. The Confessional shifts back and forth between two time periods—1952, when Hitchcock excited the hell out of Quebec City by setting and shooting his latest work there, and 1989, when Bluteau’s character Pierre returns home to bury his father. He also, very quickly, gets involved in a family mystery that has a great deal in common with the mystery in Hitchcock’s film—in both cases, priests go down for someone else’s crime thanks to the stranglehold of the confessional’s seal. There’s a heavy emphasis on the inescapability of the past (Pierre literally tries to paint over his family history, and fails), a critique of the Quebec Catholic Church, and a serious examination of origins. But it’s also fun just to watch Kristin Scott Thomas totter around in kitten heels as Hitchcock’s production assistant, and Lothaire Bluteau … well, just be. I could gush out another 500 words about the brilliance of Bluteau, who’s recently been settling for guest spots on “Oz” and “24.” But he’s only one of the great players in The Confessional; the others are Quebec City itself and the Château Frontenac, the world’s most photographed hotel, whose interiors are very well used here indeed.
MAELSTROM (2000), d. Denis Villeneuve
Hollywood may be wearing out its welcome for movies that focus on invisible threads or fateful moments that connect strangers, but these elements are faint enough in Maelström to overlook, should you need to. The film actually came out the same year as Amores Perros (which seems to have ignited the current fad), and I think Maelström is its only legitimate competitor so far. Besides, you’re more apt to be distracted by the film’s cycle-of-life doubling and mirroring, which is pronounced and expertly staged. Set in Montreal, Maelström presents the downward spiral of a daughter of privilege struggling through a very bad week that involves abortion, a fatal hit-and-run accident, and possible embezzlement. In brief, girl is a mess. As bleak as it all seems, Maelström is warmed by the periodic intrusion of its narrator, a (series of) talking fish on a chopping-block; there’s a heavy Czech influence on the frame-story scenes, which recall the surreal, puppet-dense films of Jan Svankmajer or Jiri Trnka. The heroine isn’t terribly likeable on paper, but Marie-Josée Croze infuses her with enough charisma and confusion to persuade us to attach ourselves to her. And the film warms several more degrees at the halfway point, when the son of the Norwegian fishmonger she killed shows up, complicating her predicament; though viewers may quibble about probability, I’m not sure it harms the film in any way. Norway, in fact, and water and seafood (and maelstroms) are the motifs on which everything else rests, making for a beautiful movie that floats on affect while it rivets itself to its structure. It doesn’t hurt that Charles Aznavour’s Les deux guitars and Tom Waits’ The Ocean Doesn’t Want Me curl through the soundtrack periodically.
LEOLO (1992), d. Jean-Claude Lauzon
Jean-Claude Lauzon was shaping up to be Canada’s contribution to the Jeunet-Del Toro school of directing when he died in a plane crash in 1997. His only other feature, Night Zoo, was the first “real” cinematic experience handed to me by a Canadian director—it was Lauzon who informed me that my country has an industry beyond CBC TV and National Film Board shorts. While it doesn’t reach for Eraserhead levels, Léolo is the most disturbing movie on the list; it’s notorious for not one but three infamous scenes (including one that is ten times the pie scene in American Pie). In other words, the film falls squarely into not-for-the-squeamish territory, but if you thirst for the beautiful absurd, it’s required viewing. The story is set in a bizarro Montreal where twelve-year-old Léo is convinced he’s the secret offspring of a Sicilian farmer, conceived by an imported sperm-covered pomodoro that gets lodged accidentally in his mother. You can’t blame him for dreaming, given the way mental illness runs through his family tree and overwhelms his sisters and grandfather; Léo would rather be Léolo and escape his genetic destiny altogether. His parents are obsessed, in fact, with mental and physical health, ensuring there are daily bowel movements all around. Lauzon writes lines like Baudelaire and generates an unforgettable visual canvas: insects gathered in bottles, a cowardly body-builder, a boy snorkel-hunting old fishing lures in a filthy-hazy pond, and the redoubtable Ginette Reno who, as the maternal Mrs. Lozeau, fills the screen with helpless, hectoring devotion. A beauty worth chronicling somehow emerges from the debris-strewn landscape in which Léo is forced to come of age.
HIGHWAY 61 (1991), d. Bruce McDonald
Before Bruce McDonald found a niche directing episodes of “Queer as Folk” (US) and “ReGenesis,” he made three films that have reached cult status in Canada: Roadkill (1989), Hard Core Logo (1996) and Highway 61, a dark comedy about a small-town barber who agrees to drive a strange woman and a corpse from Pickerel Falls, Ontario to New Orleans—pursued by Satan, no less. As with many low-budget indies, the acting’s a little rough and the oddness pervasive, but the scenes grow progressively stronger and funnier, by and large, as the film gets going; I’m thinking especially of the border crossing, the first encounter with the singing Watson family, and a highly quotable bingo parlour episode. Don McKellar inhabits Pokey the naïve barber with his signature twitchiness, and Earl Pastko is fulsome and unforgettable as the sinister Mr. Skin who acquires souls (?) along the route for twenty bucks, a mickey of bourbon or a bus ticket apiece. This is a road movie tinted with the Coen brothers’ fancy, and one that illuminates some of the more carnivalesque aspects of the American landscape from a Canadian point of view. It’s also a nod to the history of American music, from Delta blues to Dylan to the Ramones. Watch for a brief appearance by Jello Biafra as a sententious US customs officer.
Above synopses from:
http://www.pajiba.com/guides/ten-secret-canadian-films.php
ELDORADO 1995 – Charles Binamé
This free-form Canadian drama chronicles the dysfunctional lives of six young people living in Montreal during the summer of 1994. All of the characters are in their twenties, and all are dissatisfied with modern life. Rita is hell on rollerblades and makes her free-wheeling living snatching purses and breaking into cars. She camps out in the apartment of her wealthy friend, Roxan who devotes her spare time to caring for the homeless. Lloyd is a skinhead Deejay for an alternative radio station. His self-important, outrageous ranting provides the background for the rest of the stories. Lloyd is in love with Loulou, a barmaid at a punk club. Loulou is involved in a boring relationship with liquor store clerk, Marc; she looks to Lloyd for excitement. Finally there is screwed-up Henriette, who is so busy venting her neurosis in her shrink’s office that she has no time to listen to the doctor’s advice.
http://www.fandango.com/charlesbiname/filmography/p188583
Honorable mentions:
CAREFUL 1992 – Guy Maddin
THE HANGING GARDEN 1997 – Thom Fitzgerald
ECLIPSE 1994 – Jeremy Podeswa
FULL BLAST 1999 – Rodrigue Jean
LES VAUTOURS 1975 – Jean-Claude Labrecque
no Claude Jutra on the Canadian list? :P
Dimitris Psachos
Kenji,u mean U.S. films,when one’s talking abt American films,from where i see it..he/she means the continent America…