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© Senses of Cinema |
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Jeffrey M. Anderson
(in no particular order)
Sherlock, Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924) Jeffrey M. Anderson is the film critic for the San Francisco Examiner.
Adam Bingham
I've been meaning for some time now to force myself into producing a list of my top ten films of all time. It's been hell. Here goes:
1. Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953) (the rest of the list is in no particular order)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
The General (Buster Keaton/Clyde Bruckman, 1926)
Le Rayon vert (Eric Rohmer, 1986)
Earth (Alexander Dovzhenko, 1930)
The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1939)
A City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1989)
A Time to Love and a Time to Die (Douglas Sirk, 1958)
Le Samourai (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)
The Human Condition (Masaki Kobayashi, 1959–61) After berating myself for the above list's lack of Hawks, Herzog, Ophuls, Renoir, Bresson, Fassbinder, Welles, Nick Ray, Nic Roeg, Kiarostami, Kar-Wai, Carne and Resnais, I give honourable mention to the following: The Ballad of Narayama (Shohei Imamura, 1983); Days and Nights in the Forest (Satyajit Ray, 1969); Eternity and a Day (Theo Angelopoulos, 1998); Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1954); The Last Flight (William Dieterle, 1931). Adam Bingham is currently working towards his Masters degree in Film Studies in Sheffield, England.
David Cairns
(not really in any particular order, barring #1)
1. He Who Gets Slapped (Victor Sjöström, 1924)
A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1946)
The General (Buster Keaton/Clyde Bruckman, 1926)
Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
La Fin du jour (Julien Duvivier, 1939)
The Three/Four Musketeers (Richard Lester, 1973/4)
Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985)
Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)
Le Notti di Cabiria (Federico Fellini, 1957) As they always say, I'll probably change my mind about half of my choices tomorrow... I'd like to include Whale, Leone, Bertolucci, Reed, Truffaut, Murnau... David Cairns is a writer-director (Cry for Bobo) and film lecturer based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Neel Chaudhuri
(in preferential order)
1. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000) ...a few directors who are absent because I could not bear to choose 'one' film – Ozu; Douglas Sirk; Fellini; Billy Wilder. Other films that might well displace the above next time around – Pakeezah (Amrohi); Amarcord (Fellini); All That Jazz (Fosse), and La Passion de Jeanne D'Arc (Dreyer). Neel Chaudhuri is presently residing and working in Bangalore, India, and is perpetually contemplating making his masterpiece. Every year he swears never to contribute to another top ten list!
Matt Clisbee
(in preferential order)
1. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) Aside from Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, I doubt any of my picks will surprise. Although I don't agree with the rhetoric of Riefenstahl's work (and apparently neither did she), the film is an invaluable, revolutionary work of art. For many of the same reasons we admire a film like Citizen Kane – its ingenious cinematography, engrossing narrative and so forth, a learned film enthusiast can appreciate this propaganda film for the very same reasons. Films that were a close call but simply failed to make the list include Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show; Coppola's The Conversation; Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter; Demme's Silence of the Lambs; Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces; Fellini's 8½; Wilder's Double Indemnity; Allen's Hannah And Her Sisters; Bergman's Persona; Truffant's La Mariée était en noir, and Huston's The Maltese Falcon. Matt Clisbee is visiting lecturer of Communication Studies throughout the Greater San Francisco region. For the past two years, Matt has been a columnist for the Cambridge Movie News, an independent film periodical out of Boston, MA.
Doug Cummings
(the ranking beyond the top three is somewhat arbitrary and always evolving)
1. Ordet (Carl Dreyer, 1954) I've restricted myself to one film per director, which creates an odd mix but keeps the list from being overrun by Dreyer, Bresson and Tarkovsky. My single favourite Kieslowski may actually be Blue, but The Decalogue allows for ten films. Doug Cummings is a graphic artist in Los Angeles. He received a BA in Media Arts from the University of Arizona, moderates www.filmjourney.org, and is a co-founder of mastersofcinema.org and www.robert-bresson.com.
Rick Curnutte
(revised list, in preferential order)
1. La Passion de Jeanne D'Arc (Carl Dreyer, 1928) See also Rick's previous lists: Feb–Mar 2001 Sept–Oct 2001 Rick Curnutte is a film critic and the editor of the online film magazine, The Film Journal.
Inge Fossen
(in no particular order)
Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980) Lists like this are inevitably unfair, but when movie buffs play children's games, the outcome is always unpredictable. Special mention goes to: Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950); Fando and Lis (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1967); Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973); Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958), and Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955). See also Inge's revised list: Jan–Mar 2005 Inge Fossen is a 25 year old student from Norway, currently preparing to start working on Master's Degree in film history.
Scott Kelly
(in preferential order – eligibility limited to pre-1994 sound films)
1. Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939) Films that blew me away on first viewing that still get the blood boiling – honourable mention to: Chinatown; Les Enfants du Paradis; La Grande Illusion; Do the Right Thing; On the Waterfront; To Kill a Mockingbird; The Cranes are Flying; Shadow of a Doubt; Woman of the Dunes. Scott Kelly is a film enthusiast and lawyer who lives and works in Toronto, Canada.
Mike Kitchell
(in no particular order, with the exception of #1, which consistently remains my absolute favourite)
1. Institute Benjamenta (Brothers Quay, 1995) Honourable mentions to Nashville (Altman, 1975); Alphaville (Godard, 1965); Gummo (Harmony Korine, 1997); The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Werner Herzog, 1974), and The American Soldier (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1970). I'm sure this list will be different next week, but as of right now these movies peak my best interests. See also Mike's revised lists: Jan–Mar 2005 Apr–June 2007 Mike Kitchell is a highschool student from Bloomington, Illinois, who sacrifices a social life for movies.
Dorian Knight
(in no particular order)
Martha (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974) These films are all stark, uncompromising visions. For most the beauty lies only in the hint of hope that remains at the conclusion of somewhat bleak visions. Dorian Knight is a film actor and is from Wellington, N.Z. – but on the move soon...
Josh Krauter
(in alphabetical order)
California Split (Robert Altman, 1974)
Fear Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1973)
High Hopes (Mike Leigh, 1988)
Ladri di Biciclette (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)
Love Streams (John Cassavetes, 1984)
Mikey and Nicky (Elaine May, 1976)
The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)
Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955)
Scenes from a Marriage (Ingmar Bergman, 1973)
Stroszek (Werner Herzog, 1977) These ten films throb and hum with the shambling, awkward rhythms of real life colliding with fantasy and performance. Here are five more that nearly made it: Cockfighter (Monte Hellman, 1974), The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946), On the Bowery (Lionel Rogosin, 1957), Stranger Than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch, 1984) and Wanda (Barbara Loden, 1971). I also have a feeling that Luis Buñuel and Robert Bresson will end up on the list someday. See also Josh's revised list: Jan–Mar 2005 Josh Krauter is an unpublished writer who loves film. He lives in Austin, Texas.
Frederick Linch
Ten, No More, No Less
(in no particular order)
The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)
Deconstructing Harry (Woody Allen, 1997)
La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960)
The Big Lebowski (Joel Coen, 1998)
The Suspended Step of the Stork (Theo Angelopoulos, 1991)
Steel Helmet (Samuel Fuller, 1951)
The Hole (Tsai Ming-liang, 1998)
Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992)
Smoke (Wayne Wang, 1995)
Who's Singing Over There? (Slobodan Sijan, 1980) Frederick Linch is a 62 year old business owner in Phoenix, AZ, who spends his non-business time programming Central and Eastern European films for 4 film festivals; lecturing on film 5 to 6 times a month for the last 13 years; creating and owning the Cinematheque de Langlois, Kino Eye and Tiny Downtown Film Festival series, and assembling a library of 5000 films, which he views on his 11-foot home entertainment screen. He is also the former chairperson of the board of the Palm Springs International Film Festival.
Paolo B. Maligaya
Here are my picks so far for the ten best films ever. Let's see which ones will be out in a year's time.
(in preferential order)
1. La Strada (Federico Fellini, 1954) Apart from the ten above, please let me mention 5 movies from the Philippines which I truly feel deserve worldwide recognition, and which should be seen by everyone who is into film: Biyaya ng Lupa (Blessings of the Land, Manuel Silos, 1959); Maynila: Sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Light, Lino Brocka, 1975); Manila By Night/City After Dark (Ishmael Bernal, 1980); Himala (Miracle, Ishmael Bernal, 1982); Itim (Black/The Rites of May, Mike de Leon, 1976). Paolo B. Maligaya is a 27 year old film fanatic from Manila, Philippines. Eight years ago he decided he would like to direct films, and has attended several workshops on film. Right now, he's watching all the good (and bad) films he can get his hands on, before starting his assault on the film world (that is, if he can get his butt off the couch).
Miguel Marías
I'm afraid you forcefully guide people to obvious choices, instead of allowing mention of one hundred or more films, so that what one really loves, in spite of himself, prestige, historians, political correctness and other hindrances, would surface. So I'm mentioning for each of my favourite directors one of the three I prefer, wherever possible (I'd lie if I told you Under Capricorn is for me the best of Hitchcock's movies, but not if I championed Land of the Pharaohs or Hatari! as Hawks' greatest).
(in an approximate order of preference)
1. The Wings of Eagles (John Ford, 1957) Shame and frustration: not to mention Godard, Hawks, Vigo, Lubitsch, Ophuls, Borzage? And there you'd cut me, not allowing me to regret Nicholas Ray, Chaplin, Keaton, Griffith, Sternberg, Stroheim, Buñuel, Sirk, Jacques Tourneur, Ozu, Naruse, Tanako Kinuyo, Bresson, Guitry, Pagnol, Lumière, Grémillon, Feuillade, Donskoi, Barnet, Vertov, Rouch, Satyajit Ray, Kurosawa, Walsh, Dwan, Henry King, Capra, Tati, Minnelli, Anthony Mann or Mankiewicz. Nor Singin' in the Rain! Or Strangers When We Meet or These Thousand Hills. Or Listen to Britain or Black Narcissus. Or Cielo negro by the Spaniard Mur Oti or Armiño negro by the Argentinian Carlos Hugo Christensen. Such limited choices are no true choices. I don't see much sense in reminding people they really should see Seventh Heaven or Tol'able David (and not even that, for that matter, is possible), when they'd rather run searching for Smilin' Through or Beloved Infidel, or try to see something by the old Chinese master Bai Chen. Miguel Marías is 55, a film critic since 1966, a former director of the Spanish Film Archive and the author of books on Manuel Mur Oti and Leo McCarey.
Scott McGee
(in no particular order)
Steamboat Bill, Jr. (Buster Keaton & Charles Reisner, 1928) Honourable mentions: the usual suspects for Universal's great horror cycle of the 1930s; the best from Hollywood's 1970s Renaissance; The Thin Man (W.S. Van Dyke, 1934); L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1997); The Last of the Mohicans (Michael Mann, 1992); The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982), and Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947). My omissions are blasphemous, so the less said, the better. Scott McGee is a writer/producer with the Turner Classic Movies cable channel in the US, as well as a graduate of the Emory University Film Studies Program.
Phil Mole
(in preferential order)
1. Au Hasard, Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966) Very special runners-up include Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944); La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939); Shock Corridor (Sam Fuller, 1963); City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931), and The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955). I regret the absence of many other personal favourites by Carl Dreyer, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Howard Hawks, Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Yasujiro Ozu, Ingmar Bergman, Anthony Mann, Otto Preminger, Nicholas Ray, Preston Sturges, Jacques Rivette, Frederick Wiseman, Errol Morris and Andrei Tarkovsky. Phil Mole is a free-lance writer and ardent film fan living in Chicago who often contributes to Skeptic and Skeptical Inquirer, and who buys more DVDs than he can afford.
Victor J. Morton
(in preferential order)
1. A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971) Yeah, this is a fairly canonical list and it pains me to have nothing by Buñuel, Dreyer, Lubitsch, Sturges, Keaton, Rohmer, Von Trier and Haneke. But these are the films that I have never gotten tired of through at least a half-dozen or more viewings (23 in the case of Ambersons). Victor J. Morton has a personal site called Rightwing film geek, which presents film criticism from a conservative perspective. He's a Washington-area cinephile and has had some film writings published in The Washington Times, National Review and 24fps.
Charles Oakley
Making a Top Ten list was a challenge I couldn't ignore.
(in no particular order)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) In staying with a genre-dominated list, there are five movies that could (and should) be in this top ten list. The alternates are: 1. Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon, 1997); 2. Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku, 2000); 3. La Femme Nikita (Luc Besson, 1990); 4. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974), and 5. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994). Charles Oakley lives and works in Bristol, Connecticut. He is a cinephile and writer feverishly working on screenplay after screenplay. He wonders if there's anything else worth doing.
Girish Shambu
(in no particular order)
The Young Girls of Rochefort (Jacques Demy, 1967) Five most frequently-watched films: The Heart of the World (Guy Maddin, 2000); Le Samourai (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967); Footlight Parade (Lloyd Bacon, 1933); Sherlock, Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924), and Raising Cain (Brian De Palma, 1992). Girish Shambu teaches at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, and writes about cinema.
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TALLY at November–December 2003,
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1. 2. 3. 4. 6. 9. 10. |
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939) Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927) Au Hasard, Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966) Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953) The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998) The Searchers (John Ford, 1956) |
79 47 42 30 30 28 28 28 27 26 |
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By director: |
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1. 2. 4. 5. 6. 8. 9. |
Alfred Hitchcock Jean-Luc Godard Stanley Kubrick Orson Welles Robert Bresson Andrei Tarkovsky Martin Scorsese Ingmar Bergman Carl Dreyer Akira Kurosawa |
143 96 96 95 81 76 76 70 62 62 |
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Mubarak Ali
(in preferential order)
1. Dekalog (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1988) Five that could be there tomorrow: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968), 8½ (Fellini, 1963), The Three Colours Trilogy (Kieslowski, 1993–4), Un Condamné à Mort s'est Echappé (Bresson, 1956), Celine et Julie Vont en Bateau (Rivette, 1974). The masterworks of Polanski, Lynch, Kar-Wai, Hitchcock, Herzog, Buñuel, Egoyan and Tati have been sadly left off for another list, for another day. See also Mubarak's revised list: Jan–Mar 2005 Mubarak Ali is a final year Medical Laboratory Science student based in Auckland, New Zealand, who watches movies whenever he can, and writes for the newly launched local film journal, Lumiere.
Ashley Allinson
There is no such thing as order in an exercise of such magnitude.
Performance (Donald Cammell & Nicolas Roeg, 1970) See also Ashley's revised list: Jan–Mar 2005 Ashley Allinson is a teacher and writer from Toronto, Ontario.
Michael J. Anderson
(in chronological order)
Lady Windermere's Fan (Ernst Lubitsch, 1925) Were this the Sight & Sound poll, I would have found a way to include Vertigo as well – if there has to be a greatest film of all time, I would prefer Hitchcock's to 'Kane (or maybe it is that I would just prefer a change). Michael (24) currently resides in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area. He will be attending the cinema studies program at NYU in the fall, but is somewhat worried that Harmony Korine and Kevin Smith will pass for masters with many of his fellow students.
Timothy Boniface
(in alphabetical order)
Coup de Torchon (Bertrand Tavernier, 1981) I would feel far too guilty to omit the following and can not fairly consider the above any better than these below, but according to the rules and with great difficulty I must: Last Tango in Paris (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1972), Marat/Sade (Peter Brook, 1966), The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955), Salò (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975), and Yi yi (Edward Yang, 2000). All these films can stop me in my tracks. For some (The Killing, The Trial) it may be through sheer brillance of execution and humor (albeit often dark), while with others (Ordet, A Woman Under the Influence), it's the depth and sincerity and beauty which overwhelm me; still others I find undeniably vital (Coup de Torchon, Salò). Timothy Boniface is a simple cinephile lost/hiding (?) in Baltimore, USA. Currently he finds himself to be a graphic artist and illustrator, though that may certainly change.
Pilar Castaneda
(in no particular order)
Le Salaire de la peur (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953) Pilar Castaneda lives in Brussels and was born in Tangier, 54 years ago. Ever since sharing a seat with her brother while watching Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Hawks, 1953), she's gone to the movies as much as she's been able to (never more than five times a week).
Andrew Collins
(in no particular order)
Vivre sa vie (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)
Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1963) I didn't want to put two works by the same director, considering it's only a top ten. However, I could not help it with Jean-Luc "Cinema" Godard; how could I leave out Bande à part? Also, although I feel the work of R.W. Fassbinder rivals any of the filmmaker's here, I did not feel any single one of his films was strong enough (his entire oeuvre, though, is one of the most incredible, idiosyncratic ever, check it out!). This last statement can also apply to Robert Altman, Jacques Rivette (though it did break my heart leaving La Belle Noiseuse out), Powell-Pressburger and many others. Andrew Collins is a film school dropout and a literature major living in Philadelphia, PA, currently taking it easy before launching his furious and swift attack upon the world of Cinema. Or dying a complete unknown. Whichever comes first.
William Domanski
(in preferential order)
1. Wagon Master (John Ford, 1950) Honorable mentions: Mikey & Nicky (Elaine May, 1976), Ulzana's Raid (Robert Aldrich, 1972), Tom Horn (William Wiard, 1980), Rolling Thunder (John Flynn, 1977) and Targets (Peter Bogdanovich, 1968) William Domanski is 40 years old and lives in rural Virginia. At the age of 9 he saw a drive-in double feature of The French Connection and Vanishing Point and has never recovered.
Andrés S. Glavina
Ten is a very small number. And it's foolish to try to order them.
(in chronological order)
Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
Andrés S. Glavina is simply a movie lover from South America.
Chris Gregory
(in no particular order)
Pee Wee's Big Adventure (Tim Burton, 1985) I don't mean for this list to directly reflect on my personal taste in film. My choices have not been dictated by a need for public vindication, or the recognition of the superiority of my choices over anyone else's, or by the kudos attached to my familiarity with films that are either obscure or are hard to find. This is a list of films that I would insist that people should see if they hadn't already seen them before. And I'd expect that they would enjoy watching them. They're films that I love and would want to share with anybody. I've avoided anything particularly arty or difficult or extreme (well...excepting Videodrome). Watching these films should make anyone a better human being, and at least give them a few chuckles. Chris Gregory is a Melbourne-based writer.
Engin Gülez
(in no particular order)
Room at the Top (Jack Clayton, 1959) Engin Gülez is a 22-year old would-be poet and filmmaker living in Ankara, Turkey.
Jake Haisley
I list the following films as examples of superb direction through the
development of a unique and pervasive style, the use of judgment and
restraint in approaching emotional, psychological and philosophical
complexities, and the willingness to confront the universal issues of man as
an individual and a motivating social entity.
The faith and spiritual identity of the One:
The ironic modern fate and existence of the One:
Modern war and the dehumanisation of the One:
The transcendental power of love within the One:
Ego, desire, will and the quest for self-worth of the One:
The pursuit of purpose and legacy in the One:
Faith and the self-alienation of the One:
Self-image and the social alienation of the One:
The idolisation and absolute empowerment of the One:
Modern war and the dehumanisation of the Many: Also incredibly deserving of mention are the films of Sergei Parajanov (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Color of Pomegranates), Werner Herzog (Fitzcarraldo, Stroszek), Luis Buñuel (The Exterminating Angel, Belle de Jour), Sergio Leone (Once Upon a Time in the West, Once Upon a Time in America) and Ingmar Bergman (Wild Strawberries, Fanny and Alexander). Jake is an 18 year old film lover with aspirations to write about film. He lives in the United States.
Mark R. Johnson
(in chronological order)
Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1943) Cinema is a zone between economics and emotion. The industrial and economic forces that allowed us to see our favourite films are the same forces that prevented us from seeing others we may have loved even more. See also Mark's revised list: Jan–Mar 2005 Mark R. Johnson, 40, is a U.S.-born screenwriter, director and journalist who currently lives in Brussels, Belgium.
Myles Jones
(in chronological order)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) Myles Jones is an MRC-sponsored post-doctoral research associate in neuroscience (not much to do with film!) in the Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, U.K.
Jonathan Kung
(in no particular order)
Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
Dekalog (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1988)
To Have and Have Not (Howard Hawks, 1944)
In the Bedroom (Todd Field, 2001)
Before Sunrise (Richard Linklater, 1995)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
Cet obscur objet du désir (Luis Buñuel, 1977)
It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939) Special mention to the Canadian experimental short film Our Marilyn (Brenda Longfellow, 1987). Could very well be the best short film I've ever seen, as well as being one of the few experimental films I haven't found to be horribly overblown and pretentious. Jonathan Kung is yet another film student, he goes to Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Maximilian Le Cain
(revised list, in preferential order)
1. Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971) See also Max's previous lists: Nov 2000 June 2001 Maximilian Le Cain is a filmmaker and cinephile living in Cork City, Ireland.
Philip Matthews
(in no particular order)
Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch, 1995) Philip Matthews is a film reviewer with the New Zealand Listener magazine. He lives in Auckland.
Keith Uhlich
(revised list, in preferential order)
1. Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
3. Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960)
4. Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967)
5. The Young Girls of Rochefort (Jacques Demy, 1967)
6. Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995)
7. The Tiger of Bengal/The Indian Tomb (Fritz Lang, 1959)
8. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (John Cassavetes, 1976)
9. Hot Blood (Nicholas Ray, 1956)
10. The Thing With Two Heads (Lee Frost, 1972) An alternate five: The Bitter Tea of General Yen (Frank Capra, 1933), Christmas Holiday (Robert Siodmak, 1944), 7 Women (John Ford, 1966), Return to Oz (Walter Murch, 1985), The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein (John Gianvito, 2001) And just to defy Senses' only five-extra rule: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002). See also Keith's previous list: Feb–Mar 2001 Keith Uhlich is a writer living in Brooklyn, NY. You can read him online at www.culturedose.net. His e-mail is keith@culturedose.net.
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TALLY at September–October 2003,
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By film: |
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1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 7. 8. 9. 10. |
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927) La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939) The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998) Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953) The Searchers (John Ford, 1956) Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954) Au Hasard, Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966) |
71 45 39 30 28 28 27 26 25 24 24 |
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By director: |
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1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. |
Alfred Hitchcock Jean-Luc Godard Stanley Kubrick Orson Welles Robert Bresson Andrei Tarkovsky Martin Scorsese Ingmar Bergman Carl Dreyer Akira Kurosawa |
133 95 89 88 77 75 73 65 59 58 |
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Peg Aloi
(in order, generally...)
1. Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975) Honorable mention: Winged Migration (Jacques Perrin, 2001); The Seventh Seal (Bergman); Blow-Up (Antonioni); Portrait of a Lady (Campion); Interiors (Allen); The Player (Altman); Chinatown (Polanski); A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick). I tend to enjoy films which are either purely visual or purely about characters and thus performance. Some of these films combine both: like the Greenaway film, so rich with color and sensuality and so lushly photographed, and with amazing portrayals from Helen Mirren and Michael Gambon. I like films which are not obvious in their storytelling, leaving some mystery still unravelled at the end. I also seem to have a preference for darker tales, but, that said, I also am a sucker for romance. Peg Aloi is a freelance film critic (mostly for The Boston Phoenix) and a lecturer in the Department of Visual and Media Arts at Emerson College, where she teach courses on film history and theory, creative writing, and assorted topics including a seminar on Australian cinema.
Ricardo Luis Alvarez
(in alphabetical order)
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) Special Mentions go to: L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960) and McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971). Ricardo Luis Alvarez, 20, lives in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where he is majoring in Economics (soon Business). In his spare time he likes to watch movies and make short films. At his homepage, Images & Sounds, he writes comments on a film every week (Film Of The Week).
David Archer
(in chronological order)
The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) And a mention for Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder, two of the most prolific and entertaining of filmmakers. David Archer is a 32 year-old Media student from Melbourne.
baaab
Here goes, although I would refer to this as the "list of the day," with masterpieces a wee more underseen than most, or stuff I've seen pretty recently and am still high on, or movies by directors I would list among my favourites... but I mean all these movies are really great, basically:
(in preferential order)
1. Puce Moment (Kenneth Anger, 1949) baaab is a high school student/gradually progressing film buff living in Portland, OR. He occasionally/obsessively writes on his site.
Mike Bartlett
(in no particular order)
Viaggio in Italia (Roberto Rossellini, 1953) Ten great films by ten filmmakers who continue to act as a benchmark for others in my mind. But if I'm allowed a stash of five more, then let's hear it for: The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969), I Walked With a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943), Le Mépris (Godard, 1963), The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973) and a great late night double bill: John Carpenter's The Fog (1980) and The Thing (1982). See also Mike's revised list: Jan–Mar 2005 Mike Bartlett subtitles films and TV programmes for the deaf and hard of hearing in the UK. Oh, and he loves movies!
Kian Bergstrom
(in purely chronological order)
The Man With a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1928) Lists like this are always exercises in frustration, and this is no exception. Mercifully having been allowed five alternates, I'll also list: By the Law (Lev Kuleshov, 1926), The Crowd (King Vidor, 1928), Aguirre: The Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972), and Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978). I have also followed the unofficial practice here of limiting myself to one film per director, and have deliberately excluded any films made after 1990. I was sorely tempted at first to submit a deliberately perverse list consisting only of Kubrick's ten major features. Similarly, Tarkovsky's seven features could form the backbone of another possible list, with the addition of, say, Battleship Potemkin, Dog Star Man, and Pulp Fiction. These two hypothetical lists are both, for me, entirely acceptable, and yet also entirely beside the point. This is all to say that any "ten best" must encompass not just preference and aesthetic judgment, but also a certain degree of history – not in that those included should have been historically of note, though that is important, but rather that the list should indicate in its totality an awareness of and inclusiveness towards the history of the art. Ten films could never do that, but the attempt to (impossibly) serve all these different masters is part of the teeth-gritting pleasure making this list has brought me. Kian Bergstrom is a graduate student at the University of Chicago.
Jaime N. Christley
(revised list, in chronological order)
Make Way for Tomorrow (Leo McCarey, 1937) Anyone who's lived the life of a cinephile long enough knows that their personal top ten list can include anywhere from twenty to a hundred or more titles. Combine this notion with the one that the Top Ten phenomenon represents a mixture of deeply personal movie love and outright polemics, and stands at such a distance from the inscrutable monolith of film history as to be excused from omitting all major periods, directors, and countries, then, respectfully, you have my humble submission. Ten titles that have knocked me for a loop in the last eighteen or so months, all of them worthy of the ultimate canon, whatever that is. For trivia's sake, my "real" favourite films are: Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967); Sans soleil (Chris Marker, 1982); Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958); Floating Clouds (Mikio Naruse, 1955); and The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949). See also Jaime's previous list: Mar 2002 Jaime N. Christley is a New York-based critic and cinephile.
Janis El-Bira
(in preferential order)
Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966) Runners-up: Ordet (Dreyer, 1954), Shoah (Lanzmann, 1985), L'Argent (Bresson, 1983), Dekalog (Kieslowski, 1988), Au Hasard, Balthazar (Bresson, 1966), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Altman, 1971), Close-Up (Kiarostami, 1989). Too bad, I had to omit all the great ones by Nicholas Ray, Max Ophüls, Jacques Rivette, Akira Kurosawa, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Michelangelo Antonioni, Chris Marker, Luchino Visconti, Béla Tarr, and Howard Hawks – amongst many others. Well, maybe next time... Janis El-Bira is a 17-year-old cinephile living in Germany. He's one of the critics at online film magazine MovieMaze.de.
Adam Hart
(in no particular order)
Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967) It breaks my heart not to include anything by Cronenberg, Denis or Almodovar, and it actually seems strange to me that on this particular day I chose not to include the Italians – Fellini's 8½ and Antonioni's L'Avventura – on the list. For me, a list like this is constantly changing according to... I don't know, what side of the bed I wake up on I suppose. Adam Hart is a freelance writer and filmmaker based in Seattle, WA. He is the assistant film programmer at Consolidated Works, the Pacific Northwest's only multi-disciplinary contemporary arts center, and has written film criticism for such publications as indieWIRE, Res, The Stranger, 24framespersecond and the newly-launched ReallyGoodFilms.com.
Marios Karidis
(in hmm... preferential order)
1. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) These are the films I keep watchin' all the time, films I find everytime more 'n more penetrating. These honestly are my favourite films, and not the best films ever made in my opinion at all. Better films than my favourites have surely been made. This list changes at times, but the No. 1 masterpiece never changes, and it never will (probably). It could also be completed with almost ANY of the films of Scorsese, Kubrick, Tarantino, Hitchcock, Coens etc. Films that ought to be in my top ten but are in my top 20 or whatever, include: Raging Bull (Scorsese, 1980), The Godfather Parts I & II (Coppola, 1972–1974), Easy Rider (Hopper, 1969), The Shining (Kubrick, 1980) and Scarecrow (Schatzberg, 1973) among many others. I tried really hard to keep within the site's rules, so I didn't mention other films, older than these and very important to me, so I apologise to my self for that. See also Marios' revised list: Jul–Sept 2007 Marios Karidis is a Greek film buff, obsessed with Scorsese 'n Kubrick and trying to take his degree in Statistics, some day!
Tim Lightell
10. All that Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979)
9. Aguirre: The Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972) 8. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) 7. Il Conformista (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1969) 6. Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen, 1989) 5. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) 4. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980) 3. Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975) 2. Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975) 1. Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990) Breaking the Waves, The Idiots and Dancer in the Dark (Von Trier, 1996, 1998 and 2000); JFK and Nixon (Stone, 1991 and 1995); Cabaret (Fosse, 1972), and Husbands and Wives and Hannah and Her Sisters (Allen, 1992 and 1986) deserve mention because of their heavy influence on my own movies. Tim Lightell has a BFA in Film Production from NYU and an MFA in Screenwriting from Chapman University. His first experimental digital feature, The Lauren Epic, is currently playing in festivals around the country. He will write & direct for food.
Alan Pavelin
Here is my (slightly) revised list, in chronological order.
La Passion de Jeanne D'Arc (Carl Dreyer, 1928)
The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1939)
Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
Viaggio in Italia (Roberto Rossellini, 1953)
Sanshô dayû (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954)
Gertrud (Carl Dreyer, 1964)
Au Hasard, Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)
Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
The Sacrifice (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1986)
Yi yi: A One and a Two (Edward Yang, 2000) Five more that almost made it: Journal d'un curé de campagne (Bresson), Ikiru (Kurosawa), Vertigo (Hitchcock), A City of Sadness (Hou), Werckmeister Harmonies (Tarr). Yang and Tarr prove that cinema is alive and well in the 21st century! See also Alan's previous lists: Apr 2000 Nov 2000 June 2001 Alan Pavelin has been interested in international cinema since the 1960s, and has been writing about it since the 1980s. He has a particular interest in the portrayal of religious themes in film.
Nicholas Searle
(in no particular order)
The Last Days of Chez Nous (Gillian Armstrong, wr. Helen Garner, 1991)
The Sting (George Roy Hill, wr. David S. Ward, 1973)
Toy Story 2 (Ash Brannon, John Lasseter & Lee Unkrich, wr. many more, 1999)
My Dinner with André (Louis Malle, wr. Andre Gregory & Wallace Shawn, 1981)
Naked Lunch (dir. & wr. David Cronenberg, 1991)
Crumb (Terry Zwigoff, 1994)
Zelig (dir. & wr. Woody Allen, 1983)
The Elephant Man (David Lynch, wr. Christopher De Vore & Eric
Bergren, 1980)
Blazing Saddles (dir. & wr. Mel Brooks, wr. Andrew Bergman, 1974)
North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, wr. Ernest Lehman, 1959) Right now I wish I'd included Playtime & La Jetée & Metropolis & The Red Shoes & Monty Python's Meaning of Life and I just realised there is no Marx Brothers or Kurosawa. Such is the cruelty of the top ten. Nicholas Searle is an up-and-coming Australian screenwriter whose credits include the short films The Other Son (Venice Film Festival 2000, Cannes Cinema du Antipodes 2000), Placement (London Film Festival 2003, Tribeca Film Festival 2003) and The Bottom Line (St Kilda Film Festival 2003), which he also directed.
Itay Sharon
Well, I'm taking the dare, even though it's incredibly cruel to make someone do this. I guess you could call me a film enthusiast and an aspiring film student/scholar. All my friends say that I'm crazy because I dedicate so much of my time/life to cinema. Whether it is reading/researching or watching films I am obsessed with the art form. Anyway here is my list (I know I've cheated a bit, but Ray's “Apu Trilogy” is more like one six hour film split into three sections):
(in no particular order)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994) The list is likely to change on any given day, but honourable mentions go to: Hitchcock's Vertigo, Lang's M, Kassovitz's La Haine, Visconti's La Terra trema and Renoir's La Règle du jeu. Itay Sharon is 21 and from Hong Kong, and is currently studying business at UTS in Sydney.
Jason Sound
(revised list, in preferential order)
1. Lost Highway (David Lynch, 1997) Honorable mentions: Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962), Onibaba (Kaneto Shindô, 1964), The Mother and the Whore (Jean Eustache, 1973), Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1976). See also Jason's previous list: Jul–Aug 2002 Jason Sound is a filmmaker and artist from Seattle, WA.
Susan Swenson
1. Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)
and in no real order:
Le Notti di Cabiria (Federico Fellini, 1957) And the next ten in no real order: Aguirre: The Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972) / La Grande Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937) / Los Olvidados (Luis Buñuel, 1950) / Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982) / The Red Shoes (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1949) / Memories of Underdevelopment (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1968) / Le Genou de Claire (Eric Rohmer, 1971) / Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1963) / Orfeu Negro (Marcel Camus, 1959) / Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (Pedro Almodóvar, 1990). Susan Swenson is a budding cinéaste living in San Diego, California shortly to be relocating to San Francisco.
Erik Syngle
(in alphabetical order)
Before Sunrise (Richard Linklater, 1995) All apologies to historical and geographical balance, tempting as they are, but this is truly a list of films I'd take to the moon with me. Though I look forward to spending the rest of my life catching up with the history of film, that fact is I grew up in the 1990s, so it's only natural that certain films from the last decade or so have especially left their mark on me – some that others may baulk at, others certain to find a place in the Canon of decades to come. It's unthinkable that nothing by Tarkvosky figures into my list, but even more unthinkable would be the task of selecting only one or two. The same goes for Kubrick, Welles, Renoir and half a dozen others, but blame those artists for repeatedly creating aesthetic experiences so imaginatively complete that they transcend the hierarchies of individual films and become worlds unto themselves. The ten films above, on the other hand, much as they all may be pieces of something larger, can stand alone. Erik Syngle is a graduate student in Film Studies. He is a co-founder and co-editor of Reverse Shot and has also written for Film Comment.
Nathan Tyler
(in chronological order; forever subject to change)
Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) Nathan Tyler is a 22 year-old Canadian writer, journalist, and editor. A lifelong aficionado of the horror genre, his articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in magazines such as Fangoria and Rue Morgue. He lives in Toronto, and is currently working on his first book.
Paul Verhoeven
(in no particular order)
Pierrot le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965) Time for some judicious name dropping. I neglected to put these films in order, because I refuse to put one over any other. I was torn by many choices; for example, I wanted to include works by Kurosawa, Linklater, Tarkovsky, Jarmusch, Hartley, gah! Will it never stop?!? Well, I guess I've made my bed, and now I have to sleep in it. Ergh. Stupid itchy sheets. Paul Verhoeven is a film studies major at UNSW Sydney, and a writer for Filmink magazine, and he regrets his namesake.
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