There was a Christmas party in Melbourne in mid-December, and a lot of film studies academics, writers and students were there. Somebody had the bright idea of circulating lists for nominations for the millennium’s “best” and “worst” films, directors, screen performers and film theory. Reading over these lists, it is pretty clear that some of the nominations at least are tongue-in-cheek. Initials and other identifying marks of the party guests have been eliminated – and it is possible that the lists have been tampered with in other ways as well. All in all, it is hard to say what these lists actually represent.

Best Film of the Millennium

Worst Film of the Millennium

Best Director of the Millennium

Worst Director of the Millennium

Best Screen Performer of the Millennium

Worst Screen Performer of the Millennium

Best Film Theory of the Millennium

Worst Film Theory of the Millennium

BEST FILM OF THE MILLENNIUM

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

Alien 2

L’Armee Des Ombres

Asphalt Jungle

L’Avventura

La Belle Noiseuse

Black Narcissus

Boogie Nights

Conan, The Barbarian

Contempt/Le Mepris

Dead To The World

Diner

E.T. (and I don’t care what anyone says otherwise)

Fires Were Started

The General

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Gun Crazy (40s)

Heat

Husbands

Hypocrites

Illustrated Auschwitz

In A Lonely Place

India Song

Jeanne Dielman

Jules Et Jim

The Land (Robert Flaherty)

Man With A Movie Camera

Mary Poppins

Metropolis

The Mirror

Night of the Hunter

Ocassional Work Of A Female Slave (Kluge)

Out of Sight

Pandora’s Box

Point Blank

Rebecca

The Right Stuff

Sally Marshall Is [Not] An Alien

Saturday Night Fever

Shop Around The Corner

Showgirls

Spinal Tap

Stairway To Heaven

Starship Troopers

Stella Dallas (any version)

Sunless

Sunrise

Thin Red Line

Tokyo Story

Two Lane Blacktop

Undeground

The Wizard of Oz

World War Two

Zero De Conduite

WORST FILM OF THE MILLENNIUM

(Each “+” indicate one more vote)

Acid House

Bad Boy Bubby

Bigger Than Tina

The Bodyguard

Body Of Evidence

Boogie Nights

Born On The Fourth Of July

Cape Fear (Scorsese)

Citizen Kane +

Dead To The World

The Haunting (remake)

Isabelle Eberhardt

Iycror And The Lunatics

Kundun

The Last Test (English)

Leaving Las Vegas

Lost Highway

Lost Horizon (remake)

Love Serenade

Saving Private Ryan

Schindler’s List

Shaded Places

Showgirls

Spawn

Starship Troopers

Tomorrow Never Dies

True Lies

Twister

Underground +

Welcome To Woop Woop

BEST DIRECTOR OF THE MILLENNIUM

(Each “+” indicates one more vote)

Michelangelo Antonioni

Gillian Armstrong

Jack Arnold

Tex Avery +

Joel Coen

Bruce Connor

George Cukor

Brian De Palma

Marguerite Duras

David Fincher

Howard Hawks

Hitchcock imitators

John Hughes

Stanley Kubrick

Sergio Leone

David Lynch

Michael Mann

Jean-Pierre Melville

Russ Meyer

Andy Milligan

John Milius

Kenji Mizoguchi

F.W. Murnau – for City Girl

Mikio Naruse

Yasujiro Ozu +

Sean Penn

Michael Powell

Jean Renoir

Douglas Sirk

Alan Smithee

Agnes Varda

Josef von Sternberg

Jean Vigo

Wong Kar-Wai

Ed Wood Jr.

WORST DIRECTOR OF THE MILLENNIUM

(Each “+” indicates one more vote)

Woody Allen

Paul Anderson (Event Horizon, Soldier)

Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights)

Nick Broomfield

James Cameron

Noel Coward

Paul Cox ++

Norman Dawn

The person who did Twister ( – Jan de Bont – don’t you know anything about Bad Directors?)

Mike Figgis

Ross Gibson

Peter Greenaway

George Lucas

Chris Marker

Russ Meyer

Tracey Moffatt

Alan Parker

Ken Russell +

Joel Schumacher

Martin Scorsese

Tony Scott

Kevin Smith +

Quentin Tarantino

Frank Thring + (dirty bastard)

Paul Verhoeven

Whoever directed The Celebration – avoid it!

BEST SCREEN PERFORMER OF THE MILLENNIUM

(Each “+” indicates one more vote)

Animal (TV)

Drew Barrymore

Clara Bow

Charles Boyer

Louise Brooks

Steve Buscemi

The cat from The Long Goodbye

Marilyn Chambers

Annabel Chong

Peter Coyote

Bette Davis

Alain Delon +++

Sandy Dennis

Debbie Diamond

Clint Eastwood

Emilio Estevez (Repo Man)

John Fernside

Ridge Forrester

Lillian Gish

Cary Grant (as PK puts it, the prince from dream city)

Gustav Grungden

Charlton Heston (pre NRA)

Sam Jaffe

Buster Keaton +

Harvey Keitel’s penis

“Beat” Takeshi Kitano

Alexandra Kluge (for Occasional Work Of A Female Slave)

Burt Lancaster

Marfa Lapinka

Marlena (when she was possessed by the Devil in Days of Our Lives)

Dean Martin

Toshiro Mifune

Warren Oates

Michel Piccoli

Zana Que

Jean Reno

Jasmin St Clair

Susan Sarandon

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Sam Shepard

Michel Simon in Boudu

Homer Simpson +

Sally Spectre (Bold + Beautiful)

Barbara Stanwyck (but for one film only ) (No! I don’t agree!)

James Stewart

Sharon Stone’s beaver

Nigel Terry (Excalibur)

Gene Tierney (Leave Her To Heaven)

Tribbles (from Star Trek)

John Turturro

Conrad Veidt

Christopher Walken

Lau Ching Wan

Peter Weller

Orson Welles

Peta Wilson (TV Nikita)

James Woods

Chow Yun-Fat

Kitty Yung

The guy who plays the head of the resistance in L’Armee Des Ombres

WORST SCREEN PERFORMER OF THE MILLENNIUM

(Each “+” indicates one more vote)

Woody Allen

Patrick Bergen (except his todger)

Nick Broomfield

Sandra Bullock +

McCauley Calkin

Jim Carrey

Kevin Coster

Tom Cruise

Michael Douglas

Michael Douglas’s buttocks

Marianne Faithful

Sally Fields

John Flaus

Richard Gere

Elliot Gould

Steven Guttenberg

Darryl Hannah

Charlton Heston (post NRA)

Alan Jones

Nicole Kidman

Spike Lee

Jennifer Jason Leigh

John Malkovich

Kylie Minogue

Demi Moore

Roger Moore

Gwenth Paltrow

Bill Paxton

Priscilla Presley

Keanu Reeves

Winona Ryder

William Shatner

Sylvester Stallone

Donald Sutherland

Keifer Sutherland (proving hereditary theory)

Quentin Tarantino

Dick Van Dyke as an auteur

Mark Wahlberg

Orson Welles

Robin Williams + (bring back Mork!)

BEST FILM THEORY OF THE MILLENNIUM

“One from the Heart” Serge Daney

Gilles Deleuze

Derrida – I know it isn’t film theory but it should be!

“Lulu and the meter man” Thomas Elsaesser

Jean Epstein

Manny Farber (article on Preston Sturges)

Formalism changed my life

“Nobody knows anything” including William Goldman

Linda Hutcheow: Irony’s Edge

Aldous Huxley

Pauline Kael‘s anti-auteurism – even though she doesn’t live down to it

Friedrich Kittler

Jean-Jacques Lecercle

Emmanuel Levinas

Miniaturization

Mulvey: “Visual Pleasure & Narrative Cinema”

Jean-Luc Nancy
Jean Louis Schefer

Hardcore: Linda Williams

“Is there such a thing?”

WORST FILM THEORY OF THE MILLENNIUM

Auteur stuff

Bordwell, the bore

Noel Burch

Noel Carroll (Philosophy of Horror)

I’m prepared to admit that I don’t know enough film theory to comment but some early feminist stuff fills me with pity

Freud Jokes and the Sub(UN)conscious

Marxism (“Du…!”)

Christian Metz

The Imaginary Signifier

“Visual Pleasure …” / Laura Mulvey

Vera Oika on Slasher movies

That silly “Suture” article by someone male and French – Jean-Pierre Oudart

Narrative theory

Psychoanalysis – but only applied to cinematic spectatorship

Kaja Silverman: Male Subjectivity at the Margins

Cinematic realism