Oldboy
Roger Dodger. Pretty much perfect I reckon. A lot more complex than any other film of its type. Roger thinks he’s the smooth, suave Casanova but after being dumped all that unravels, not that he’d notice though. Pure stylish example of wit and originality, The Sunday Times calling it “The Thinking Man’s Antidote to Sex and the City” is the perfect description of this film. Plus Campbell Scott is untouchably brilliant in the film.
The Godfther
The Shinning
Pulpfiction
Oldboy
Vertigo
Cinema Paradiso, nothing can be more perfect then that
“Easy Rider”
A clockwork orange, goodfellas, the godfather part 2, citizen kane.
Nostalghia (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983) is simply perfect.
Fanny And Alexander, Wild Strawberries
Jan Svankmajer’s Alice
Are some of the perfect movies…but there are so much that I’ll just write these…
Citizen Kane, Mon Oncle Antoine, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Chinatown, Fantasia, L’été Dernier à Marienbad, Persona, La Source, Clockwork Orange and especially Paris,Texas & The Return.
These are the films that left me completely silent after a showing, still trying to understand the feeling I had.
The feeling of perfection maybe, but who knows what is a perfect film.
Subjectivity of the Art.
THE SHINING, THE SEVENTH SEAL, SEVEN SAMURAI and NOTORIOUS all popped in my head relatively quickly. so did DR. STRANGELOVE, and 8 1/2 and AMARCORD should probably be mentioned as well, but Fellini, along with Kubrick, have way more serious contenders for this title than is fair to mention. Same with Hitch. I can see why someone would want to make a case for VERTIGO over other Hitchcocks, but NOTORIOUS is my favorite. CHINATOWN, positively. PULP FICTION, probably.
Watched Seven Samurai once and then again w/ commentary, which makes for the only time i’ve ever watched a movie twice in immediate succession. The commentary was that informative… i was totally drawn in. And it helped me come to the conclusion it belonged on this list pretty quickly. It’s one of the few commentaries i’ve ever watched in fact.
THE MIRROR, definitely.
But don’t take my word for it!… Ingmar Bergman on Tarkovsky (he’s not talking specifically about The Mirror):
“My discovery of Tarkovsky’s first film was like a miracle. Suddenly, I found myself standing at the door of a room the keys of which had, until then, never been given to me. It was a room I had always wanted to enter and where he was moving freely and fully at ease. I felt encouraged and stimulated: someone was expressing what I had always wanted to say without knowing how. Tarkovsky is for me the greatest, the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.”
and elsewhere, Bergman again:
“When film is not a document, it is dream. That is why Tarkovsky is the greatest of them all. He moves with such naturalness in the room of dreams. He doesn’t explain. What should he explain anyhow? He is a spectator, capable of staging his visions in the most unwieldy but, in a way, the most willing of media. All my life I have hammered on the doors of the rooms in which he moves so naturally. Only a few times have I managed to creep inside. Most of my conscious efforts have ended in embarrassing failure – THE SERPENT’S EGG, THE TOUCH, FACE TO FACE and so on. Fellini, Kurosawa and Bunuel move in the same fields as Tarkovsky. Antonioni was on his way, but expired, suffocated by his own tediousness. Melies was always there without having to think about it. He was a magician by profession.”
I love that… “He doesn’t explain. What should he explain anyhow?”
Bergman’s books and interviews are well worth seeking out.
some afterthoughts on Seven Samurai… it’s probably not my favorite kurosawa film despite needing to be on this list… i really like RAN, and his modern films and noirs… like high and low, and stray dog…
Vigo’s “L’Atalante” for sure … followed up by Jiri Menzel’s “Closely Watched Trains” and Rohmer’s “La Collectionneuse”
(Thumbs down? WTF! This is subjective … How can you say these are not three of the most “perfectly” crafted personal visions captured with limited budgets … I bite my thumb at you!)
3-iron, oldboy
Persona – Ingmar Bergman
Apocalype Now, Magnolia, City of God, The Seventh Seal
the thin red line.
“Persona” by Ingmar Bergman, “Crimes and misdemeanors” by Woody Allen, “Bin-jip” by Kim Ki-duk, “Week-end” by Jean-Luc Godard, “Ce jour-lá” by Raoul Ruiz, “El dependiente” by Leonardo Favio. Also “La strada” by Federico Fellini. Also “The draughtsman’s contract” (Greenaway), “Matador” (Almodovar), “Kaze no tani no Naushicaa” (Miyazaki), “Le voyage dans la lune” (Melies), “Crash” (Cronenberg), “Sunset Boulevard” (Wilder), “L’anee derniere a Marienbad” (Resnais), “Raging bull” (Scorsese), “Jules et Jim” (Truffaut), “All about Eve” (Mankiewicz), " “La pelle” (Cavani), “L’enfer” (Chabrol), “Wild at heart” (Lynch), “La belle noiseuse” (Rivette), “Fargo” (Coen brothers), “Psycho” (Hitchcock), “Touch of evil” (Welles), “El” (Bunuel), “Grizzly man” (Herzog), “Ran” (Kurosawa), “Kwaidan” (Kobayashi)…
Breathless by Godard & La Strada by Felini
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, “Effi Briest”
For me, a perfect film should be like a breath of fresh air meaning it is impossible to add or to withdraw anything of it. Everything is there for a reason: each frame, each sound, each line of dialogue. It’s a little bit like there wasn’t any editing possible. It’s a whole.
There isn’t a lot of movies who can go it this category. The first film i’m thinking of is BAND À PART by Godard.
A woman under the influence
L’ Avventura
Sunrise
Hail Mary
Last tango in paris
Rolling thunder
Tokyo Twilight
The last picture show
Opening night, Jules and Jim, the last emperor, reds, the 40 year old virgin, there’s something about mary, contempt, faces, dr. strangelove, platoon, jfk, the battle of algiers, hands over the city, seven samurai, sanjuro, yojimbo, rashomon, heat.
VERTIGO
Duck, you sucker aka a fistful of dynamite. In my opinion leone’s best film after the good the bad and the ugly.
Any of Terence Davies’ autobiographical work is perfect cinema for me. There is a stunning sequence in ‘The Long Day Closes’ where an entire boy’s world – everything that matters to him and has shaped him – is presented to the viewer through image and soundtrack, with not a word of dialogue spoken. His work perfectly represents Robert Bresson’s (‘A Man Escaped’ is another favourite of mine) idea that there are “two types of films: those that employ the resources of the theater; those that employ the resources of cinematography”. Davies said something similar in an interview once – that if you’re being told the story by what people say then that’s television or photographed theatre, not cinema. Real cinema, he said, creates meaning through images and the juxtapositioning of those images. Makes perfect sense to me.
On a different level I always thought that ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ was pretty near perfect. I can’t see how it could be improved, and so many people love it that Frank Darabont must’ve been doing something right!
Wings of Desire
Blow-Up
The Bicycle Thief by Vittorio De Sica
Clockwork Orange. Period.
Aidan Hughes
Of the films I’ve seen recently, Charlie Wilson’s War was beautifully put together as far as script and performances went and the editing and pace were exemplary in a way not seen since the 50’s/60’s. Not my favourite film of all time but perfect nonetheless.