Stalker (1979) – Andrei Tarkovski
Twentynine Palms (2003) – Bruno Dumont
Persona (1966) – Ingmar Bergman
Dekalog (1989) – Krystof Kieslowski
Trys Dienos (1991) – Sharunas Bartas
Vivre Sa Vie (1962) – Jean Luc Godard
Code Inconnu (2000) – Michael Haneke
In the Mood for Love (2000) – Wong Kar Wai
Mat I Syn (1997) – Alexander Sokurov
Satantango (1994) – Bela Tarr
Glad to see this one again, as it was posted before the auteurs poll and has some different selections than those on the poll resullts – although many are the same, of course. Interesting comparisons between this thread and our final, and shows how tricky it is to ‘nail’ this down – not that I ever want to repeat the exercise.
1. Pulp Fiction
2. Dawn of the Dead (the real one)
3. The Seventh Seal
4. Apocalypse Now
5. The Shinning
6. 2001 A space Odyssey
7. Naked Lunch
8. Night of the Living Dead
9. Empire Strikes back
10. Dead Ringers
Andrei Rublev
The Silence
8 1/2
Citizen Kane
Boudu Saved from Drowning
L’Avventura
City of God
Jules and Jim
Rashomon
Taxi Driver
one per director.. list will probably change numerous times within the next month
Easy…
1. Fellini
2. Kubrick
3. Scorsese, “Vertigo”, “Apocalypse Now Redux”, “Notorious”, “Sunset Blvd.”
4. Allen, Lynch
5. Chaplin, Welles, Eisenstein, Bergman
6. Leone, Tarantino, Coen bros.
7. Other major films by Sir A. Hitchcock, many great International and Itaian classic films
8. A few cult movies
9. …
X. …
my current top ten (although my top 3 has’nt change yet)
1. wong-kar wai’s in the mood for love
2. federico fellini’s 8 1/2
3. ingmar bergman’s persona
4. pedro almodovar’s all about my mother
5. lar’s von triar’s dancer in the dark (or maybe dogville)
6. francois ozon’s 8 women
7. catherine breillat’s fat girl
8. woody allen’s hannah and her sisters
9. carl theodor dreyer’s the passion of joan of arc
10. isao takahata’s grave of the fireflies (sob*sob*sob)
Everytime I answer this question I answer it on the spot. It always has subtle changes, but that’s not too profound because ten is a pretty limiting number.
1) L’Eclisse
When I saw this in a class, it blew me away. I seemed to be the only one or one of the only ones. Most people didn’t have anything to say, but I went nearly insane trying to think of a good way of essentially saying “every single frame means something”.
2) Walkabout
Nicolas Roeg is one of my favorite directors, and this movie is eternally fascinating.
3) The Double Life of Veronique.
I don’t give Kieslowski nearly enough love, even though I’ve enjoyed everything of his that I’ve ever watched. I’ll have to come out and admit that sometimes I really don’t care if the images of a movie are beautiful because I’m something of a structuralist (so, for instance, I’m really not impressed by Bertolucci’s The Conformist because there’s honestly some scenes in that movie where the beauty of the imagery detracts from the point being made, for instance when they’re in the forest and he’s running away, and the camera can’t follow along because it’s too distracted by the light coming through the trees….), but The Double Life of Veronique is one of those “beautiful films” that I just viscerally eat up, engorge my eyes with. Damned beautiful film, this one.
4) L’etoile de mer
Poetic Man Ray film off of the poet Robert Desnos—haunting and shocking, completely silent, and enigmatic. I’ve never put this movie on a top of list before, but for some reason it popped in my head just right now.
5) Sherlock Jr.
Greatest Buster Keaton movie EVAR, and Buster Keaton was perrrrty damned great.
6) Requiem for a Dream
A: I want to have Aronofsky’s babies. B: this is his most emotionally devastating film. C: for some reason, I can put this movie on at a party and everyone will stop talking and pay attention. I’ve done this before. It’s hypnotizing.
7) A Man Escaped
Again, framing framing framing. Somehow Bresson manages to make a huge impact… with nothing but white space.
8) Naked Kiss
I have to give some love to Samuel Fuller right now. He’s just…. raw and sincere. Where else can you start out a film with a bald prostitute kicking the shit out of her pimp?
9) Outer Space
This one is included on the Other Cinema DVD “Experiments in Horror”. It’s the visual equivalent of noize music, and it also includes noize music. It’s painful to watch—not just like Dog Star Man, which is also brilliant, but also much more of a audio-visual assault. I like it sometimes when movies try to give me a headache. Otherwise I wouldn’t watch Cassavetes films.
10) Ten is always the hardest because it means you have to end. So, um…. Dawn of the Dead.
Okay: Romero=genius. But Romero is also the type of filmmaker that is really, really good for study because he keeps things simple and it’s incredibly unpretentious about the whole thing. In his own words: “I make zombie movies because that’s how I can keep making movies. I can make a movie about whatever I want, but all I need to do is tell the studio I’m making another zombie movie and they give me money”. This is from a recent interview. His statements on the Tales of Hoffman Criterion DVD about simplicity in film is also really important, too. Many filmmakers talk about “just doing it” in terms of making movies, but Romero shows how you can “just do it” and make a structurally brilliant film, too. The editing of Dawn of the Dead is amazing.
Runner up: Peeping Tom. ’Nuff said.
—PolarisDiB
1) The Royal Tenenbaums
2) Persona
3) Peeping Tom
4) Female Troubles
5) Audition
6) Blazing Saddles or An American Werewolf in London
7) Youth of the Beast
8) The Naked Kiss
9) Wall.e or Monoke-hime
10) Aliens or Old Boy
-City of God
-La Haine
-Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
-Trainspotting
-A Clockwork Orange
-Revolver
-One Flew Over Cuckoo’s Nest
-Everybody Loves Sunshine
-Eyes Wide Shut
-Intermission
-My Own Private Idaho
-La Mala Educacion
-Goodfellas
-Lost Highway
-Requiem For A Dream
-Closer
-Huevos De Oro
-Amores Perros
-Pulp Fiction
-21 Grams
My favourites (without order)
1.) The Holy Mountain
2.) Help!
3.) Requiem for a Dream
4.) The Matrix
5.) The good, the bad, the ugly
6.) 2001: A Space Oddessey
7.) Magnolia
8.) Apocolypse Now
9.) Le Samourai
10.) Band of Outsiders
yes!
1. Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)
2. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
3. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
4. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Blake Edwards, 1961)
5. Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios [Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown] (Pedro Almodóvar, 1988)
6. Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)
7. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
8. The Insider (Michael Mann, 1999)
9. Man with a movie camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
10. Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001)
Ikiru
Shawshank Redemption
Rushmore
All About My Mother
The Spirit of the Beehive
Hana-bi
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
Stalker
Central Station
The Wild Bunch
That’s my top 10 now:
1.Goodfellas
2.Raging Bull
3.The Seventh Seal
4.Bicycle Thieves
5.Lawrence of Arabia
6.Once Upon a Time in the West
7.The Godfather Ι
8.The Good,the Bad and the Ugly
9.Taxi-Driver
10.The Godfather II
Ok I have two Coppola,two Leone and three Scorsese.If I put one per director(except Scorsese)
1.Goodfellas
2.Raging Bull
3.The Seventh Seal
4.Bicycle Thieves
5.Lawrence of Arabia
6.Once Upon a Time in the West
7.The Godfather
8.One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
9.Nuovo Cinema Paradiso
10.Schindler’s List/Vertigo/Sunset Blvd.
in no order. my favourite.
reservoir dogs
the battle of algiers
M
2001: a space odyssey
peeping tom
the piano teacher
taxi driver
blue velvet
a clockwork orange
the night porter
1) Stanley Kubrick — 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
2) Lindsay Anderson — If…. (1968)
3) Jacques Tati — Play Time (1967)
4) Ki-duk Kim — Bin-jip (2004)
5) Jean-Luc Godard — Week End
6) Ron Fricke — Baraka (1992)
7) Jun Ichikawa — Tony Takitani (2004)
8) Jim Jarmusch — Down by Law (1986)
9) Herbert Ross — Play It Again, Sam (1972)
10) José Luis Guerín — En la ciudad de Sylvia (2007)
1.Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi)
2.Mirror (Tarkovsky)
3.Alice in the Cities (Wenders)
4.Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky)
5.The Green Ray (Rohmer)
6.Maborosi (Kore-eda)
7.North by Northwest (Hitchcock)
8.2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
9.Rules of the Game (Renoir)
10.Sunrise (Murnau)
bubbling under: Paris Texas, Celine and Julie go Boating, Seven Samurai, Some Like it Hot, Pather Panchali…
well, we had the poll of top 10s recently but i guess that was with some different participants and these lists can always throw up some interesting films or trends, and i’m not averse to promoting my own favourites
10) Das Boot
9) In The Mood for Love
8) Amadeus
7) Solyaris
6) Manhattan
5) Blue
4) Apocalypse Now
3) Andrei Rublev
2) 8 1/2
1) Stroszek
Manhattan
The Passenger
Hana-bi
Talk to Her
Apocalypse Now
Seppuku
No Country for Old Men
Fitzcarraldo
Memento
Pan’s Labyrinth
Last September, I came up with…
1. Before Sunrise/Before Sunset (1995/2004, Richard Linklater)
2. Pulp Fiction (1994, Quentin Tarantino)
3. Unforgiven (1992, Clint Eastwood)
4. Boogie Nights (1997, P.T. Anderson)
5. Pleasantville (1998, Gary Ross)
6. The Apartment (1960, Billy Wilder)
7. Jerry Maguire (1996, Cameron Crowe)
8. Toy Story/Toy Story 2 (1995/1999, John Lasseter)
9. Back to the Future (1985, Robert Zemeckis)
10. The Sweet Smell of Success (1957, Alexander Mackendrick)
And then…
11. Fight Club (1999, David Fincher)
12. Dr. Strangelove (1964, Stanley Kubrick)
13. Network (1976, Sidney Lumet)
14. L.A. Confidential (1997, Curtis Hanson)
15. Chinatown (1974, Roman Polanski)
16. Three Kings (1999, David O. Russell)
17. Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)
18. Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock)
19. Memento (2000, Christopher Nolan)
20. Trainspotting (1996, Danny Boyle)
21. The Shop Around the Corner (1940, Ernst Lubitsch)
22. Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985, Tim Burton)
23. The Man Who Would Be King (1975, John Huston)
24. Bottle Rocket (1996, Wes Anderson)
25. Quiz Show (1994, Robert Redford)
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2. Spellbound
3. American Beauty
4. Hustle & Flow
5. Children of Men
6. Rushmore
7. Divorce, Italian Style
8. Blazing Saddles
9. Man Bites Dog
10. No Country for Old Men
Travelling Players
Ugetsu
Tokyo Story
Citizen Kane
Au Hasard Balthazar
Rules Of The Game
The Red and the White
In The Mood For Love
Sunrise
Through the Olive Trees
Ten favorite movies in absolutely no order at all:
if….
Raging Bull
Drugstore Cowboy
M
Plan 9 from Outer Space (I know what you’re thinkin’, but it was a labor of love from a… er— “resourceful” director, and I love it)
Chinatown
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Modern Times
Un Chien Andalou
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Honorable mentions:
Oldboy
Brazil
Metropolis
Blade Runner
Eraserhead
Kill Bill vol. 2
2001
and tomorrow I will slap myself in the face for forgetting an all-time favorite. That’s all.
10. Pierrot le fou (1965)
9. Memories of Underdevelopment (1968)
8. Nashville (1975)
7. Synecdoche, New York (2008)
6. Sans soleil (1983)
5. Week-End (1967)
4. Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)
3. Black God, White Devil (1964)
2. 8 1/2 (1963)
1. Out 1 (1971)
Yeah, I know I recently posted a top 10, but my list has changed since.
PS – My inclusion of Synecdoche may seem questionable to some due to how recent it is, but I bet in 30 years it will be a classic.
1) The Chelsea Girls (1966) Paul Morrisey, Andy Warhol
2) Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) Bela Tarr
3) Merry-Go-Round (1981) Jacques Rivette
4) Repulsion (1965) Roman Polanski
5) Down By Law (1986) Jim Jarmusch
6) Diary Of A Country Priest (1951) Robert Bresson
7) Les Vampires (1915) Louis Feuillade
8) Mulholland Drive (2001) David Lynch
9) The Brown Bunny (2003) Vincent Gallo
10) Andrei Rublev (1969) Andrei Tarkovsky
As of right now, here’s the list:
1. Synecdoche, New York
2. Lost In Translation
3. Winter Light
4. 8 1/2
5. Waking Life
6. The 400 Blows
7. The Royal Tenenbaums
8. The Silence
9. Breathless
10. The Dark Knight
I have a “Lucky Eleven,” though, too, that I have to put on the list: The Fall.
Now, I see the list and notice the lack of PT Anderson, which is weird, since he is an enormously talented individual; Magnolia is a brilliant film that deserves to stand beside most of the films on my list. Then, though, when you have to narrow it down, I guess a lot gets lost.
Savvy
I’ll stick with my top ten from a few months ago plus one-
Andrei Rublev
Berlin Alexanderplatz
The Chelsea Girls
Fallen Angels
Johnny Guitar
Muriel
Salo
Satantango
Shock Corridor
Tabu
Vivre sa vie
Children of Men
Contempt
Days of Heaven
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
If…
Last Days
Lost in Translation
Pierrot Le Fou
Regular Lovers
Red Desert
A very rough list, remembering that I have many more films to see.
1. Blade Runner
2. Apocalypse Now
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. The Night of the Hunter
5. 8 1/2
6. Seven Samurai
7. Pulp Fiction
8. Goodfellas
9. Dazed and Confused
10. Ugetsu
Honorable mentions:
-There Will Be Blood
-Persona
-Amarcord
-Sunrise
-Citizen Kane
-Touch of Evil
-Rashomon
& many, many more.
Drew Gregory
Recently Bergman and Kubrick have really made me hate the whole list thing. And this is coming from someone who loves lists! Its just as I see more and more films I feel like the new ones I watched are being handicaped because they are new and I am stubborn to move down old favorites. I mention the directors above because they were so consistent and made so many masterpieces that are good for different reasons that it is hard to rank their films. Anyways I will repost my current top 10.
My Top 10 (order always changes):
1. Vertigo
Where do I start? This film is perfect in every way. The hypnotic blend of music and images grabs hold of you and pulls you into the film. The best film to really show what obsession is with one of the most haunting disturbing scenes ever put on film. It works on an entertainment level and on an emotional level like films rarely do.
2. Taxi Driver
Travis’s loneliness becomes your loneliness. His frustrations become your frustrations. And his madness becomes your madness. New York is its own character battling Travis and pushing him further and further to the edge. The slower paced scenes through the film make the explosions of violence all the more powerful. Scorsese captured this character perfectly. And once again a great score from Bernard Hermann.
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
This film already gets major credit when me, someone living in 2009, wonders how the hell did they do that. But the film is so much more. Every image is captivating and dances along with the amazing use of sound. Classical music and silence are so perfectly synchronized with the images. The film leaves room for discussion and pure wonderment.
4. Persona
This film really has only 2 characters (if that) and one is mute through the film. Bergman adds the perfect touches of bizarre and abstract images that really show the craziness of a disturbed person’s mind or maybe just the mind in general. There are many interpretations of this film and I have mine and you have yours and it makes the film even greater that it can work on countless levels.
5. Rashomon
Everyone has their side of the story and every story is captivating. Through the film you might wonder slightly who is right but that is not really the point. The point is that probably everyone is lieing and what they says about people. Kurosawa takes a heavy theme and shows it in a creative, unconventional way.
6. The Godfather
The little details are what makes this film perfect. The accuracy of the wedding, the way Sonny bites his knuckles, the time spent in Sicily, that 1 second moment where Michael sits down before shooting the two men, it is all just wonderful. This film is filled with astonishing performances that really capture each character. The evolution of Michael tops off the film. Oh and the baptism scene damn it blows me away every time.
7. Citizen Kane
People always grumble at Citizen Kane. When someone found out I had seen every best picture winner they asked what my favorite was and before I could answer they said God don’t say Citizen Kane. I said it didn’t win but if it did it would be high on my list. When I first sat down and watched Citizen Kane I was expecting a great film but also a boring film. This is just not true. Every time I see this film I am captivated and entertained by Charles Foster Kane. This film shows loneliness just as much as Taxi Driver. And in my opinion it is just as disturbing on an emotional level.
8. 8 1/2
Many times in the film Guido’s wife calls him a liar. Well I have to say Federico Fellini is by far the most honest person ever. He holds nothing back in showing himself. He shows his good traits, his bad traits, and some more bad traits. What results in his honesty is likely the most truthful telling of a person that will ever be on film. I love the use of flashbacks and dream sequences (can anything beat the harem scene?). Fellini really opens a door for us into his world and I greatly appreciate it.
9. A Clockwork Orange
In the trailer for A Clockwork Orange there are flashes of images and words to describe the film and that really sums it up. Exciting. Witty. Disturbing. Beethoven. So often in film the future is shown with flying cars and space ships (not that I mind that) but Kubrick does something totally different. It is the future but it is shown in what I think is more gritty and realistic (not necessarily really going to happen but realistic) way. I love how the film shows that it is not just that Alex is evil and the ones he abuses are the good guys it is just Alex is stronger in a messed up world. When he has little power the people he picked on pick on him. They are not good. He is not good. What is good? What is evil? Is being good good if it is against your will? I wildly entertaining and disturbing film with also deep messages. Kubrick once again gives us some dazzling images.
10. Apocalypse Now
From The End to The End I am blown away. Be it the first time the 20th time every time this film blows me away. Willard’s madness doubled with Kurtz’s madness. But are they the ones that are mad? Doesn’t Kilgor appear to the audience as madder than them? The place and events they are in are so crazy does it make Kilgor saner purely because he can coexist with it or does that make him the crazy one. The Odyssey-like voyage to Kurtz’s camp is filled with vignettes of events that are entertaining and down right depressing. One scene I feel is worth mentioning is when Clean is killed and the recording from his family still plays as he is dead. Wow. It just hits me every time. The best war film ever. It shows the craziness and depressing nature of war.