1. Thin Red Line, The (1998)
2. Andrei Rublev (1972)
3. Seven Samurai, The (1956)
4. Solaris (1973)
5. Days of Heaven (1978)
6. Once Upon a Time in the West (1969)
7. Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1977)
8. Mirror, The (1975)
9. Playtime (1967)
10. Avventura, L’ (1960)
It is constantly changing as I am constantly seeing new films. I need to see Seven Samurai again and reevaluate it. Maybe I should limit it to one film from one director on my top ten. Heres 11-20.
11. Pickpocket (1959) 12. Come and See (1985) 13. Battle of Algiers, The (1965) 14. George Washington (2000) 15. Woman in the Dunes (1964) 16. Topo, El (1970) 17. Passenger, The (1975) 18. Hoop Dreams (1994) 19. Virgin Spring, The (1960) 20. Don’t Look Now (1973)1) BATTLE OF ALGIERS (PONTECORVO, 1966)
2) HAROLD AND MAUDE (ASHBY, 1971)
3) THE DEVILS (RUSSELL, 1971)
4) TOKYO STORY (OZU, 1953)
5) THE GODFATHER II (COPPOLA, 1974)
6) ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS (VISCONTI, 1960)
7) THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE (EUSTACHE, 1973)
8) BLUE VELVET (LYNCH, 1986)
9) TAXI DRIVER (SCORSESE, 1976)
10) L’AVVENTURA (ANTONIONI, 1960)
With no special order
1. Persona
2. Seventh Seal
3. Wild Strawberries
4. Fanny and Alexander
5. The Godfather 1 and 2
6. Apocalypse Now
7. The Adventure
8. 8 1/2
9. 400 Blows
10. Akira
11. Mulholland dr.
12. Oldboy
13. Tokyo Story
14. Seven Samurai
15. 2001
16. A Clockwork Orange
17. Stalker
18. Solaris (Tarkovsky)
19. Andrei Rublev
20. Annie Hall
Here is a list of my favorites hungarian movies:
1. Werckmeister Harmonies (Tarr, 2000)
2. Nárcisz és Psyché (Bódy, 1980)
3. Sinbad (Huszárik, 1971)
4. Simon, the Magician (Enyedi, 1999)
5. The Sack (Zolnay, 1966)
6. Elégia (Huszárik, 1965)
7. Time Stands Still (Gothár, 1982)
8. The House Under the Rocks (Makk, 1959)
9. Tomorrow Pheasant (Sára, 1974)
10. Rock térítö (Xantus, 1988)
and some other favourite movies:
1. La Jetée (Marker, 1962)
2. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
3. Beaty and the Beast ( Cocteau, 1946)
4. Orpheus (Cocteau, 1950)
5. The Trial (Welles, 1962)
6. Modern Times (Chaplin, 1936)
7. 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959)
8. Tykho Moon (Bilal, 1996)
9. Nosferatu(Murnau, 1922)
10.Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976)
.
.
.
1. McCabe & Mrs. Miller
2. Seven Samurai / Ran
3. 8 1/2
4. Annie Hall
5. Le Samourai
6. Written On the Wind
7. Two-Lane Blacktop
8. Badlands
9. The Big Lebowski / Fargo
10. Psycho
Honorable mention:
Vertigo, Taxi Driver, Chinatown, Harakiri, Bonnie and Clyde, Days of Heaven, Blue Velvet, Playtime
Naked Lunch, David Cronenberg (The combination of Burroughs and Cronenberg excites me greatly, and the result is two minds differing philosophies yet amazingly in sync)
Oldboy, Park Chan-wook (Violent, dark and stylish; Chan-wook’s second film in his vengeance trilogy is so lovingly and powerfully put together. Plus, it is just so damn entertaining)
L’Avventura, Michelangelo Antonioni (There is just so much to love in this film’s characters and photography and mood; it is the perfect example of why I love Italian cinema)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Terry Gilliam (As a huge fan of Hunter S. Thompson’s writing, I feel a similar feeling towards Fear and Loathing as towards Naked Lunch. It is quite simply a pitch-perfect adaptation of his seminal work. From a filmmaking point of view, it’s relentless style loudly proclaims the magic of cinema)
Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky (It seems a great deal of people dislike this film simply because it is so depressing, but that emotional resonance is one of the reasons it is such a powerful film)
Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino (An enduringly complex work. Far more behind it than just cool dialogue and a groovy soundtrack)
Yi-yi, Edward Yang (One of the saddest/funniest films ever made. I really don’t know what to say beyond that it is just simply beautiful)
Head-on, Fatih Akin (An example of the kind of dysfunctional love stories that I seem to seek out more than anything else)
Dolls, Takeshi Kitano (I never used to think it was Kitano’s best film at all, but simply my favourite film. Now the notion of best film – as most representative of form and his vision – seems irrelevant. There’s not a lot of talking in Dolls, but the images say it all)
The Lower Depths, Jean Renoir (Even though I love Rules of the Game, it’s Renoir’s adaptation of the Lower Depths that stays in my mind; not least because of Louis Jouvet’s amazing performance as The Baron)
I find it hard to number them, so I don’t think I will even try.
this is kind of impossible for me, so I kind of narrowed it down to reperesent one director with each film
1. Ichi the killer- Takashi Miike
2. Red – Krsystof Kieslowski
3. Happy Together – Wong Kar wai
4. Harold and Maude – Hal Ashby
5. Talk to her – Pedro Almodovar
6. 9 souls – Toshiaki Toyoda
7. Metropolitan – Whit Stillman
8. Masculin Feminin – Jean luc Godard
9. 9 queens – Fabian Bielinsky
10. stolen kisses – Francois Truffaut
I consider myself still highly uninformed when it comes to classics, foreign films, and the avant-garde… but as it stands this is what my list is:
8 1/2
Clockwork Orange
Stalker
Blue Velvet
The Big Lebowski
Dogville
Eraserhead
Once Upon a Time in the West
Once Upon a Time in America
Ran
10 favorites as of right now in no real order. This is really hard. I have seen at least a thousand movies. These are not the best but merely some of my personal favorites that I really like right as I am writing this. If I made a top ten list tomorrow, half of these would be gone.
Kill Bill
Quentin Tarantino liked samurai and kung fu movies so he decided to make the ultimate samurai movie and throw in some kung fu for good measure. And it doesn’t even have any samurai in it!
RoboCop
Nobody was willing to make this until Verhoeven came along. He made what could have been schlock into a darkly humorous, deeply moving piece about one man’s loss of humanity and his quest to regain it.
Excalibur
Best. non-comedy King Arthur movie. Ever. Don’t give me the Lancelot du Lac bs. Excalibur is a way more fun (unless you have a foot fetish) and Boorman just understands the material better than Bresson. Bresson didn’t really grasp the the mythology, so he just chooses to deconstruct it. Anyone can do that (maybe not in Bresson’s way). Only Boorman could have made Excalibur and breathe new life into in ways Bresson could never dream off.
The 400 Blows
Truffaut’s first and best.
Taxi Driver
The Pineapple Express
My personal favorite film of 2008 and the greatest stoner-action movie ever. It’s a top of the line stoner flick meets an awesome, over the top action movie.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Klaus Kinski and Warner Herzog are crazy.
Yojimbo and Sanjuro
Seven Samurai may be a better made than this duo but it’s not as watchable do to it’s extreme length.
Before Sunrise / Before Sunset
My favorite romance movies ever. Just two people walking around a city talking.
The Dark Knight
I have to put this here since I have been a huge Batman fan since I was a little kid and this was basically an interweaving of some of the best stories combined with a great original take on the character (except for the voice). Heath Ledger deserves all the trophies.
Mine is mainly a confluence between six I consider the greatest of all time, and another few that I have as personal favorites. They are not numbered, or to be taken in any order, except for the division between best and favorites.
Citizen Kane — What I consider most elevating about this film is the use of the entire image; there’s both a prosaic efficiency and a literary poetry about the ability to integrate both the background and the foreground to create and amplify meaning. Never before and never again has so much been done on the screen at once.
The Rules of the Game — The greatest representation of the world being all a stage and all men and women merely players in a game of their own (un)doing. The ultimate portrayal, indictment, and (surprisingly funny) satire on human manners.
Man with a Movie Camera — Condolences to Mann and Tarantino, but this is the only film to have been made completely from style. The edits are jarring, the shots beautiful one frame, gritty the next, and the illustration of film as separate from any other medium complete.
Menilmontant — Perhaps I’m overestimating the strength of the idea versus its execution, but the film’s greatest success is not that it told a story without sound and without intertitles, but that it showed the world it could be done, and admonishing it when it doesn’t.
Vampyr — More than just one of the most well shot films, but also a display of technical brilliance to narrative service almost as good as Citizen Kane. The raw unsettling mood it creates, especially with the non-narrative intercuts, and the slow structural pacing are all uniquely Dreyer’s.
Memento — The idea is strong enough to merit it a place, but it’s not just the structure, but the cyclical nature of the film as a whole, the reminders of the nature of memory that (in Leonard’s words) “we take for granted” and the invitations to be as confused as Leonard is whenever his conscious memory (or is it "memory) in invoked. Oft overlooked (and much too underrated) are the brilliant updates on the noir archetype that bridge the distinct of this story to the generalities of the genre. It’s more abstract and far more interesting than Chinatown could hope to be.
Now that the “bests” are out of the way (and if my selections suck, there’s a whole wall on my profile you can complain to [I just like talking to people…{*sob* I’m so lonely…}]), I now have the liberty to present films that are a mixture of both the best and favorites.
Le Samourai — The ultimate lone wolf in the only profession that would suit him. At once a crime film, a character study, and even a star vehicle, the film may not be Melville’s greatest (that high honor beloning to Army of Shadows), but it is his most polished.
Collateral — The American answer to Le Samourai with solitude, criminal meditation and minimalism supplanted by technicals of tradecraft, and Michael Mann’s hyper-real visual stlye. Not Mann’s greatest work (The Insider_), nor his most distinctively stylish (_Miami Vice), but my own personal favorite.
Yojimbo — The truly masterless samurai at the exiting doorset of his era. Long before Altman laid his hands on The Long Goodbye was the man-for-hire made (almost) an anachronism.
L.A. Confidential — The revisionist revisionist noir. To me, it’s the most interesting noir and one of the most well-photographed color films.
Ordet — This film can move me like no other can. It is the most powerful aesthetic experience I’ve ever had from a film.
Did I miss any?
1) Eyes Wide Shut
2) Dead Man
3) Down By Law
4) Buffalo 66
5) Band Of Outsiders
6) The Idiots
7) Mala Noche
8) Permanent Vacations
9) Pink Flamingos
10) The Big Lebowski
Mala Noche is my favorite Van Sant
1. Mulholland Drive (Winkie’s Diner)
2. Eyes Wide Shut (the mansions)
3. the Double Life of Veronique (wistfulness)
4. Rosemary’s Baby (tight plot)
5. Salo (the wedding)
6. the Passion of Joan of Arc (Falconetti)
7. the Seventh Continent (flushing money down the toilet)
8. Dead Ringers (gynocological instruments for operating on mutant women)
9. the Phantom of Liberty (the missing girl)
10. Zodiac (I am not Paul Avery)
wow, kudos on bringing this post back to life. Looking back at my list, I’d probably change 2 or 3, funny how a couple weeks changes your perspective.
inland Empire
Rosemary’s baby
days of Heaven (for the score alone, I’d vote that)
Yojimbo
Crimes and misdemeanors
Shining
Videodrome
Fight Club
Meshes of the Afternoon
Diabolique
And 3 that most people mention, so I bracket them of in the category of the “of course”:
Raging Bull
Citizen Kane
Seven Samurai
1. Brokeback Mountain
2. Network
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. The Searchers
5. Hud
6. City Lights
7. Touch of Evil
8. The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
9. Amelie
10. Brief Encounter
I was pleased to see Shame on someone’s list. That’s a really good Bergman film. That’s one where he leaves behind some of the novelistic devices and obvious psychologizing that mark some of his other works. I like that one, and Hour of the Wolf, and Persona, and I even like some of The Serpent’s Egg, although it’s not a perfect film by any means it’s a film that is nearly impossible to forget.
1) Eyes Wide Shut
2) Dead Man
3) Down By Law
4) Band Of Outsiders
5) Buffalo ’66
6) The Great Dictator
7) Mondo Trasho
8) Trainspotting
9) Blow-Up
10) The Big Lebowski
the searchers;sunrise;tokyo story;the general;sansho the bailiff;modern times;vertigo;bringing up baby;grand illusion;the man who shot liberty valance;rio bravo;taxi driver;intolerance;citizen kane;au hasard balthazar;ordet
A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick)
Pierrot le fou (Godard)
Taxi Driver (Scorsese)
Psycho (Hitchcock)
A Woman Under the Influence (Cassavetes)
The Godfather (Coppola)
Once Upon a Time in America (Leone)
Fitzcarraldo (Herzog)
M (Lang)
Pickup on South Street (Fuller)
I had no idea so many people liked Mulholland Drive or The Mirror that much. I’m always watching and rewatching films, so the list is very subject to change. The more I see films, the more the list of films that I need to rewatch to appreciate increases. The latest one I’m on the fence about is L’avventura. I love Monica Vitti’s character and I love the visuals, and I’m surprised at the film having a lot more heart than I thought it would given that I saw Blow Up before. But I still have lots of reservations about it. It may very well turn into one of my favorite films after a second or third viewing, though. Anyway, here’s my list:
1. Mulholland Drive (Lynch) – It just devastates me, both times I’ve seen it. I expected this semi-cheesy but fascinating Twin Peaks-ish narrative from the beginning but there were little twinges of weirdness that suggested something else – that first scene in the diner with the two guys talking to each other and it’s blindingly bright and the camera is trying to do this over the shoulder dialogue thing except it seems like it’s just going to float off into the air. And then things start getting more and more sinister and you have these David Lynch-isms like the cowboy saying cryptic things sort of fall apart and give way to something much deeper and more profoundly upsetting. The scene towards the end where Camilla invites Diane to the director’s house taps into a lot of things for me. It’s hard to explain it. I’ve seen the film twice, and I will wait to see it a third time until I’m with someone special.
2. The Mirror (Tarkovsky) – I’ve seen this film so many times. It’s really hard for me to put into words why it has affected me so much – it might have something to do with the way the guy films nature. It’s serene and terrifying at the same time. Or that this film covers such a large gamut of events and emotions in just over 100 minutes. The word genius should be used sparingly, but Tarkovsky is a full-blown genius.
3. 8 1/2 (Fellini) – I’ve seen this three times, two with friends. It’s just a great testament to a virtuosic filmmaker – everything is so alive and fun and hyperreal. It’s also one of those films that speaks towards the necessities of cinema and the need to favor one’s own expression over silence.
4. Persona (Bergman) – I’m currently reading over the Sontag essay about this film because it’s damn confusing. From a bare emotional response that I got after seeing it, what I did see terrified and disturbed me deeply in a way that no other film has ever done.
5. Videodrome (Cronenberg) – Sometimes when I’m watching a film, especially for the first time, I say to myself “gee I wish they would push this a little bit farther”. And then I saw this film. It’s so gloriously absorbed into its own weirdness in a way that I find extremely satisfying. I don’t even want to begin trying to interpret why I do.
6. Nashville (Altman) – This is a long movie. It’s 150 minutes but seems so much longer because of the endless characters and mini-storylines going on. And then those threads come together into this shocking and strangely affecting climax.
7. Network (Lumet) – A well-filmed movie with an immaculate script that has unfortunately only increased in relevance over the years.
8. The Conversation (Copolla) – I’m not a big Godfather fan, but this film really did it for me. The couple scenes in the hotel room – with the toilet and with the bloody handprint are some of the most disturbing I’ve ever seen. The point that you can analyze things on a very scientific and objective level and still miss the obvious is also a very important one.
9. Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky) – One of the few films I feel no reservations about calling an epic. Is it just me or is the Criterion release a not-so-good quality? It must have to do with the circumstances surrounding the Soviet film industry and the film’s many different cuts, which is a shame.
10. Repulsion (Polanski) – I hate it when people try to say that the main character is simply sexually “repressed” and imagining the stuff she does out of some misplaced desire, instead of out of some more intense psychological fear. Not that it should be read as a case study of a psychological disorder. One of the interesting things about this film is how often the “reality” of the film coincides with the character’s psychological descent – she seems to have some justification in her paranoia, given the amount of guys leering over her.
Too hard.
Liz: Loved your pics and your reasons. I share your reservations about L’avventura after just seeing it again. Too me, the best part took place on the island and then I just kind of got bored with the characters and plot in the rest of the film. Let’s leave it off the top ten, shall we? But it is all your call. Great take on Repulsion and the other films. I love it when some one gets up close and personal (like Matthias and others above who expound on why they chose something) with their film pics as it means so much more to me. Thanks!
I don’t have a top ten becuase there are just so many great films. But here goes….
1. The Godfather/Godfather Part 2
2- Fantasia
3- 2001
4- Rear Window
5-Metropolis
6-Nosferatu
7-Double Indemnity
8-Goodfellas
9-La Dolce Vita
10- Blue Velvet
sorry, but just 10 is too damn hard. here is my list in the order that i can remember;
1. in the mood for love
2. battle of algiers
3. love and death
4. seven samurai
5. high and low
6. raging bull
7. the shop on main street
8. ivan’s childhood
9. ju dou
10. the godfather
11. dog day afternoon
12. sword of doom
13. the fog of war
14.my life as a dog
15. kung fu hustle
16. double indemnity
17. scenes from a marriage
18. i am cuba
19. monty python’s holy grail
20. little dieter needs to fly
21. stroszek
22. closely watched trains
23. rushmore
24. the cranes are flying
25. ong bak
26. that obscure object of desire
27. dr. strangelove
28.take the money and run
29. the piano teacher
30. lost in translation
there are more but i am tired right now and don’t want to think too much
- lolita
- the godfather i and ii
- crimes & misdemeanors
- every man for himself and god against all
- rear window
- rushmore
- days of heaven
- ugetsu
- joe vs. the volcano
- frederick wiseman’s ‘high school’
TOP 10 FILMS OF ALL TIME:
1. In a Lonely Place (1950, Nicholas Ray)
2. Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)
3. His Girl Friday (1940, Howard Hawks)
4. Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz)
5. Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock)
6. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra)
7. Almost Famous (2000, Cameron Crowe)
8. Jules and Jim (1962, Francois Truffaut)
9. Five Easy Pieces (1970, Bob Rafelson)
10. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001, Wes Anderson)
10 1/2. The Naked Kiss (1964, Samuel Fuller)
TOP 10 CRITERION DVDs:
1. Notorious
2. The Royal Tenenbaums
3. The Naked Kiss
4. Ace in the Hole
5. Brief Encounter
6. Cleo from 5 to 7
7. The Double Life of Veronique
8. La Jetee
9. 8 1/2
10. Written on the Wind
Rumor has it that Wings of Desire and My Life to Live are going to be released by Criterion; if that’s true, then my list will have to be modified.
Mulholland Drive
Blue Velvet
The Dark Knight
Leaving Las Vegas
Sideways
My Own Private Idaho
The Last Picture Show
Happiness
Requiem for a Dream
There Will Be Blood
Right now?
An Autumn Afternoon (Ozu)
Umberto D. (De Sica)
Satantango (Tarr)
Yi Yi (Yang)
A Time to Live, a Time to Die (Hou)
Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi)
Maborosi (Kore-eda)
Stalker (Tarkovsky)
Scenes from a Marriage (Bergman)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
I don’t really feel like I’ve seen enough, yet, though.
Adam Lee
Oh, I forgot Badlands (Malick) and Repo Man (Cox).
This was hard, it’ll probably change in a couple weeks.
I also forgot High Fidelity (Frears) and If….(Anderson)