© Senses of Cinema
1999–2006



 

November–December 2001

 


Raúl Quintanilla Alvarado

(in preferential order)

1.          (Federico Fellini, 1963)
I'm in love with this movie, each time I see it is like a dream state. I don't know why, but I identify with it totally. And it's the first time I cry at the end of a movie, for no good reason.

2.  Taxi Driver        (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
Portrait of the loneliness in the world. And the best performance ever.

3.  La Dolce Vita        (Federico Fellini, 1960)
For similar reasons to . At the end, we still feel empty.

4.  Vivre sa vie        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)
I don't know why I love it. Please tell me.

5.  Stalker        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
I had to choose one Tarkovsky, but in general, he's immaculate.

6.  Five Easy Pieces        (Bob Rafelson, 1970)
For personal reasons mainly, but great and realistic character study.

7.  Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
What's it worth to own the whole world, if you get lost in it?

8.  McCabe & Mrs. Miller        (Robert Altman, 1971)
A fuzzy, obscure, emotional poem.

9.  Amarcord        (Federico Fellini, 1974)
The childhood I never had until I saw this movie. Thanks Fellini for giving me a second childhood.

10. Ed Wood        (Tim Burton, 1994)
A very strange selection, but this is the greatest comedy of all, and so dramatic as well, I can watch it forever. Martin Landau is great.

It's very painful doing this list. I wish I could mention other 90 pictures more. And directors! I mean, I'm missing Woody Allen, Alfred Hitchcock, Coppola, Herzog, Kubrick, Coen, Jarmusch, Leone, Bergman, Kurosawa... I'll stop now. I hope this lists motivates some of you who haven't seen some of the movies to go buy or rent them now. If you are in this site, you'll probably like them.

Raúl Quintanilla Alvarado is a young Mexican student who loves movies and wishes someday to work on one.

back to lists, Nov-Dec 2001


Damien Bona

My only (arbitrary) rules are no more than one film from any director – otherwise this list might consist of five Edwards and five McCareys – and no film less than ten years old.

(in preferential order)

1.  Breakfast at Tiffany's        (Blake Edwards, 1961)
40 years old and it still plays as the most incisive, contemporary and moving take on relationships committed on film.

2.  Make Way for Tomorrow        (Leo McCarey, 1937)
Simultaneously the most heartbreaking and the most sagacious movie I've ever seen. As usual, McCarey seems like an alchemist because of the ease and the subtlety with which he conveys human behavior and emotions.

3.  La Règle du jeu        (Jean Renoir, 1939)
What can you say? It is beyond cinema, it seems like life itself.

4.  The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance        (John Ford, 1962)
On another day, my top Ford might be She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, Two Rode Together or The Horse Soldiers. The film's sense of loss is not simply palpable, it is devastating.

5.  Imitation of Life        (Douglas Sirk, 1958)
A Sirk toss-up among There's Always Tomorrow, No Room For The Groom and this. If I choose Imitation of Life it's because this is the film in which the director most perfectly balances his impassioned concern for humankind and his benign contempt.

6.  Lola Montes        (Max Ophuls, 1955)
Its stoicism is gut-wrenching, its presentation of human foibles is painfully recognisable, the mise-en-scene is stunning.

7.  Kiss Me, Deadly        (Robert Aldrich, 1955)
Brutal, hilarious, groundbreaking and impudent. Both Aldrich's visual style and his send-up of American machismo are absolutely audacious. Irresistible.

8.  The Seventh Victim        (Mark Robson, 1943)
There's never been a more poignant examination of the loneliness of contemporary urban existence, and it's also unnerving as hell. Kim Hunter's brief shower sequence may surpass Janet Leigh's for sheer creepiness.

9.  The Band Wagon        (Vincente Minnelli, 1953).
This seems to me to be, by far, the greatest movie musical because of Minnelli's brilliance in having the numbers become the means by which the defenses of alienated, neurotic people are removed enabling them gradually to realise that they should be together, as lovers or friends or as members of a community – the musical sequences are characters in themselves in a way that I've seen in no other film.

10.  Portrait of Jennie        (William Dieterle, 1948)
What a fearless and glorious cinematic evocation of the overwhelming powers of love and of art!

Damien Bona is based in New York City and is the co-author of Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards (Ballentine Books, 1986-96), and the author of Inside Oscar 2, which will be published by Ballentine in February 2002.

back to lists, Nov-Dec 2001


Jay Bryant

(in chronological order)

City Lights        (Charles Chaplin, 1931)
La Règle du jeu        (Jean Renoir, 1939)
Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
Les Enfants du Paradis        (Marcel Carné, 1945)
Jeux Interdits        (René Clément, 1952)
I Vitelloni        (Federico Fellini, 1953)
Seven Samurai        (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
Smiles of a Summer Night        (Ingmar Bergman, 1955)
L'Avventura        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
Dr. Strangelove        (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)

Bubbling under: The Third Man (Britain, 1950); Sunrise (U.S., 1927); Les Quatre Cent Coups (France, 1959); Un Condamne a Mort s'est Echappe (France, 1956); Tokyo Story (Japan, 1953); Gycklarnas Afton (Sweden, 1953); Not to mention plenty more Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa, Renoir, etc. I guess this list leans toward the international classics of the Fifties, but these are the films I've seen and thought about the most. Repeated viewings of more recent masterworks will undoubtedly cause changes to future rankings.

Jay Bryant lives in Burbank, CA, where he writes television scripts that occasionally get produced and screenplays that don't – so far.

back to lists, Nov-Dec 2001


Helen Carter

(in no particular order)

Jules et Jim        (François Truffaut, 1962)
Little Women        (Gillian Armstrong, 1994)
My Life as Dog        (Lasse Hallström, 1985)
I've Heard the Mermaids Singing        (Patricia Rozema, 1987)
Happy Together        (Wong Kar-wai, 1997)
Casablanca        (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
Babette's Feast        (Gabriel Axel, 1987)
Three Colours: Blue        (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993)
Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse        (Agnés Varda, 2000)
Essene        (Frederick Wiseman, 1972)

Helen Carter is a cinematographer from Adelaide, currently studying at the Australian Film Television and Radio School.

back to lists, Nov-Dec 2001


Charles Davis

(in no particular order)

Amelie        (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)
Rear Window        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
        (Federico Fellini, 1963)
Vivre sa vie        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)
Bande à Part        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964)
Crumb        (Terry Zwigoff, 1994)
Il Postino        (Michael Radford, 1994)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof        (Richard Brooks, 1958)
Les Mistons / Antoine et Colette – Two Short Films by François Truffaut (1957/1962)
La Carrière de Suzanne / La Boulangère de Monceau – Two Short Films by Eric Rohmer (1963)

Charles Davis is a frequent volunteer for various film organisations and institutions in Los Angeles, California, a cinephile who patronises local movie arthouses weekly, with a fervent desire to find his niche in the vast motion picture industry.

back to lists, Nov-Dec 2001


Filipe Furtado

(in preferential order)

1.  Hatari!        (Howard Hawks, 1962)
2.  Make Way For Tomorrow        (Leo McCarey, 1937)
3.  In a Lonely Place        (Nicholas Ray, 1950)

and in no particular order:

Baisers Volés        (François Truffault, 1968)
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid        (Sam Peckinpah, 1973)
La Règle du jeu        (Jean Renoir, 1939)
São Paulo S.A.        (Luís Sérgio Person, 1965)
Singin' in the Rain        (Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1952)
Touch of Evil        (Orson Welles, 1958)
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?        (Frank Tashlin, 1957)

Honorable Mentions: The Shooting (Hellman), Assault at Precint 13 (Carpenter), Honkytonk Man (Eastwood), Sedutta alla sua Destra (Zurlini), The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (Cohen).

Filipe Furtado is a 20 year old film student in São Paulo.

back to lists, Nov-Dec 2001


Tim Holm

(in preferential order)

1.  Lawrence of Arabia        (David Lean, 1962)
2.  Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
3.  2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
4.  Star Wars        (George Lucas, 1977)
5.  E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial        (Steven Spielberg, 1982)
6.  Apocalypse Now        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
7.  Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
8.  The Searchers        (John Ford, 1956)
9.  The Treasure of the Sierra Madre        (John Huston, 1948)
10. Taxi Driver        (Martin Scorsese, 1976)

See also Tim's revised list: Jul–Aug 2002

Tim Holm is a 17 year old film lover and aspiring director from British Columbia, Canada.

back to lists, Nov-Dec 2001


Needeya Islam

(revised list, in no particular order)

Pather Panchali        (Satyajit Ray, 1955)
        (Federico Fellini, 1963)
Nashville        (Robert Altman, 1975)
Il Conformista        (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1969)
Stranger Than Paradise        (Jim Jarmusch, 1984)
Le Mépris        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
Minnie and Moskowitz        (John Cassavetes, 1971)
Mouchette        (Robert Bresson, 1967)
Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Splendor in the Grass        (Elia Kazan, 1961)

See also Needeya's previous list: May 2000

Needeya Islam is a freelance writer. Her essays have appeared in Kiss Me Deadly: Cinema and Feminism for the Moment and in RealTime/OnScreen.

back to lists, Nov-Dec 2001


Christian Keefe

(in preferential order)

1.  Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
2.  Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
3.  City of Sadness        (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1989)
4.  Midnight Cowboy        (John Schlesinger, 1969)
5.  The Searchers        (John Ford, 1956)
6.  Chungking Express        (Wong Kar-wai, 1994)
7.  Great Expectations        (David Lean, 1946)
8.  2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
9.  Lancelot du Lac        (Robert Bresson, 1974)
10. Crash        (David Cronenberg, 1996)

Christian Keefe is a person escaping Flinders University with little to no scarring.

back to lists, Nov-Dec 2001


Shane Lyons

I guess it's going against the spirit of these lists but I've decided to treat this revision opportunity as a way to create a top 20, 30, 40, etc list by simply adding ten new films every six months.

See my previous list for criteria for inclusion and other comments.

(revised list, in alphabetical order)

L'Âge d'or        (Luis Buñuel, 1930)
Bad Lieutenant        (Abel Ferrara, 1992)
The Navigator        (Buster Keaton and Donald Crisp, 1924)
Pickpocket        (Robert Bresson, 1959)
Le Rayon vert        (Eric Rohmer, 1986)
Repulsion        (Roman Polanski, 1965)
Le Samourai        (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)
Some Like It Hot        (Billy Wilder, 1959)
Vampyr        (Carl Dreyer, 1932)
Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

See also Shane's previous list: Apr–May 2001

Shane Lyons is a Melbourne filmmaker and photographer.

back to lists, Nov-Dec 2001


Andy McLellan

(in no particular order)

At Play in the Fields of The Lord        (Hector Babenco, 1991)
The Beyond        (Lucio Fulci, 1981)
Germinal        (Claude Berri, 1993)
Deep Red        (Dario Argento, 1975)
Once Upon a Time in America        (Sergio Leone, 1984)
Pi        (Darren Aronofsky, 1997)
The Night of the Hunter        (Charles Laughton, 1955)
Lord of the Flies        (Peter Brook, 1963)
Bad Lieutenant        (Abel Ferrara, 1992)
One False Move        (Carl Franklin, 1991)

Andy McLellan is an Operations Manager based in Edinburgh. He is currently resisting the temptation to switch from VHS to DVD - any support and counselling appreciated.

back to lists, Nov-Dec 2001


Stuart Moffat

(in no particular order)

The Manchurian Candidate        (John Frankenheimer, 1962)
Performance        (Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, 1970)
Point Blank        (John Boorman, 1967)
Night of the Living Dead        (George A. Romero, 1968)
Mad Max 2        (Dr George Miller, 1981)
Lost Highway        (David Lynch, 1997)
The Third Man        (Carol Reed, 1949)
The Big Heat        (Fritz Lang, 1953)
The Killing        (Stanley Kubrick, 1956)
Goodfellas        (Martin Scorsese, 1990)

Stuart Moffat is a filmmaker based in Perth, currently completing an Honours dissertation on the "dark" film in contemporary Australian cinema at Murdoch University.

back to lists, Nov-Dec 2001


Ewan Munro

These are basically in alphabetical order. Apart from the first two, the order and composition of my list is likely to change every time you ask. And although I usually like to contextualise my preferences, these are some of my favourites. I find it hard to talk about them, especially in under 100 words. Their existence is their only justification. So I shall merely list them.

Gertrud        (Carl Dreyer, 1964)
Lancelot du Lac        (Robert Bresson, 1974)
Anatahan        (Josef von Sternberg, 1953)
Hôtel Monterey        (Chantal Akerman, 1972)
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie        (John Cassavetes, 1975)
Les Parapluies de Cherbourg        (Jacques Demy, 1964)
Stalker        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
The Thin Red Line        (Terrence Malick, 1998)
Vivre sa vie        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
Zabriskie Point        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1970)

The only reason I have not been able to include any Jacques Rivette, Orson Welles or Alan Clarke (among others) is because I cannot choose. But they'd be there. Maybe I should have included some Verhoeven as well.

Ewan Munro, 23, is a lapsed film student who lives in Wellington, New Zealand and loves going to movies, whether good or bad. But film distribution being what it is here, he feels a vague longing to leave and go somewhere where they appreciate good cinema.

back to lists, Nov-Dec 2001


Marko Peric

-- list deleted at the author's request --


Joe Ruffell

(in no particular order)

Goto, Island of Love        (Walerian Borowczyk, 1968)
Borowczyk's first live action film is a strange and beautiful masterpiece. The final sequence is one of the most moving things I have seen in film.

Hitler, ein Film aus Deutschland        (Hans-Jurgen Syberberg, 1977)
Ceaselessly inventive 'historical' cinema.

El Dorado        (Howard Hawks, 1966)
Beautiful movie with one of John Wayne's finest performances.

Distant Voices, Still Lives        (Terence Davies, 1988)
Seldom have the experimental and the emotional come together to such effect.

Kikujiro        (Takeshi Kitano, 1998)
Kitano's best film yet.

Lancelot du Lac        (Robert Bresson, 1974)
My favourite Bresson, probably.

Fox        (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1975)
I wanted to include a Fassbinder and found it hard because his films are so numerous. I settled on this as it's pretty close to a portrait of RWF and another brilliant examinaton of class exploitation.

The Ballad of Cable Hogue        (Sam Peckinpah, 1970)
Maybe not such a brilliant achievement as Pat Garrett or The Wild Bunch but I love this humourous little Peckinpah movie.

Tetsuo II: Bodyhammer        (Shinya Tsukamoto, 1991)
I thought my list was getting a little too ''pantheon''-like so I thought I'd include this. I think Tsukamoto is one of the most interesting directors working today. Crazy body-horror with a nice line in black humour.

Big Wednesday        (John Milius, 1978)
A great movie about Vietnam, growing up and surfing. Marvellous.

Joe Ruffell is a film fan and student, and hopefully one day director, from Portsmouth U.K., currently spending time with family in Sydney, Australia.

back to lists, Nov-Dec 2001


TALLY at November–December 2001,
after 203 original lists, 28 revised lists, and 2 deleted lists:

By film:

La Règle du jeu
La Règle du jeu
 1.
 2.
 3.
 4.
 5.
 6.


 9.


Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
La Règle du jeu        (Jean Renoir, 1939)
2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Sunrise        (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
Seven Samurai        (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
The Thin Red Line       (Terrence Malick, 1998)
Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
Au Hasard, Balthazar        (Robert Bresson, 1966)
Mirror        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
The Searchers        (John Ford, 1956)
42
23
20
19
18
16
16
16
15
15
15

By director:

to Alan Pavelin's 'Great Directors' profile of Robert Bresson
Robert Bresson
 1.
 2.
 3.
 4.
 5.
 6.
 7.
 8.

10.
Alfred Hitchcock
Jean-Luc Godard
Robert Bresson
Andrei Tarkovsky
Orson Welles
Stanley Kubrick
Carl Dreyer
Ingmar Bergman
Martin Scorsese
Yasujiro Ozu
  65
  57
  55
  45
  44
  39
  36
  35
  35
  34

  back to the top of the page



 

September–October 2001

 


David Boxwell

(in chronological order)

Pandora's Box        (G.W. Pabst, 1928)
Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne        (Robert Bresson, 1945)
Notorious        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)
Gilda        (Charles Vidor, 1946)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes        (Howard Hawks, 1953)
Viaggio in Italia        (Roberto Rossellini, 1953)
Les Yeux sans visage        (Georges Franju, 1959)
Peeping Tom        (Michael Powell, 1960)
Full Metal Jacket        (Stanley Kubrick, 1987)
Dead Ringers        (David Cronenberg, 1988)

The ten greatest films of all time – or, at least, ten great films of exquisite perversity and/or cruelty from ten different directors, served up piping hot (Hawks, Powell) or stone cold (Kubrick, Bresson) or somewhere in between (the others).

David Boxwell teaches film studies at the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Andrew Bunney

(revised list, in preferential order)

1.  Hardcore Logo        (Bruce McDonald, 1996)
2.  Heavenly Creatures        (Peter Jackson, 1994)
3.  Memento        (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
4.  Les Vacances de M. Hulot        (Jacques Tati, 1953)
5.  American Beauty        (Sam Mendes, 1999)
6.  Les Quatre Cents Coups        (François Truffaut, 1959)
7.  Blue Velvet        (David Lynch, 1986)
8.  Don't Look Back        (DA Pennebaker, 1967)
9.  The Tin Drum        (Volker Schlöndorff, 1979)
10. Secrets and Lies        (Mike Leigh, 1997)

See also Andrew's previous list: Feb–Mar 2001

Andrew Bunney is an emerging film writer based in Adelaide.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Michelle Carey

(revised list, in no particular order)

Celine et Julie vont en bateau        (Jacques Rivette, 1974)
Terra Em Transe        (Glauber Rocha, 1967)
L'Uccello Dalle Piume de Cristallo        (Dario Argento, 1969)
In the Mood for Love        (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
Vivre sa vie        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)
Ikiru        (Akira Kurosawa, 1952)
Good Men, Good Women        (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1995)
Le Diable Probablement        (Robert Bresson, 1977)
Werckmeister Harmonies        (Béla Tarr, 2000)
Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)

A completely different list (bar one - Celine) for me, the result of my fortunate access to a wider variety of films over the past year. Each one of these films changed me in some subtle way.

See also Michelle's previous list: Nov 2000

Michelle Carey assists in exhibition at Mercury Cinema when she's not pushing 40 year old French films onto unsuspecting customers at Kino Video Library in Adelaide.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Thomas Comerford

This list reflects the ten films which I feel have had a dramatic impact on my relationship to cinema. Due to the various circumstances in which I first saw each of these films (as projected celluloid), they either completely changed my assumptions of what cinema is capable of and/or influenced my own approach to making films. Some of them (like the Bergman) I no longer consider to be great films, but the timing was right in the original viewing context. Others (like the Bresson) I have watched numerous times and continue to draw inspiration from.

The films are in the order in which I discovered them (year in parenthesis).

Red Sorghum        (Zhang Yimou, 1987)        (1989)
The Seventh Seal        (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)        (1990)
Battleship Potemkin        (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)        (1993)
The End        (Christopher Maclaine, 1953)        (1993)
Notebook        (Marie Menken, 1963)        (1993)
Mirror        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)        (1995)
Sans soleil         (Chris Marker, 1982)        (1996)
Vampyr        (Carl Dreyer, 1932)        (1996)
Arnulf Rainer        (Peter Kubelka, 1960)        (1998)
Mouchette        (Robert Bresson, 1967)        (1999)

Addtional things I wanted to fit in: Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, Christopher Sullivan, 1992 (1993) / The Navigator, Buster Keaton, 1924 (1993) / Numero Deux, Jean-Luc Godard, 1972 (1997) / Ugetsu Monogatari, Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953 (1998) / Beau Travail, Claire Denis, 1999 (2000) / Not Reconciled, Jean-Marie Straub/Daniele Huillet, 1965 (2001).

Thomas Comerford is a filmmaker and teacher based in Chicago.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Rick Curnutte

It's amazing what a difference time makes. Looking back on my first list, I was amazed at its insistence upon the Basics. But then I realised that no choice would be original, ever, and that I should just chill out already and get to it.

(revised list, in preferential order)

1.  La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc        (Carl Dreyer, 1928)
Dreyer's methodically paced tour de force is stunning in its ponderous dissection of dogma and oppression, and features the single greatest performance in film's history.

2.  Battleship Potemkin        (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
Praised for pioneering montage, Eisenstein's films have always felt claustrophobic to me at the outset, then burst with energy and spirit at some critical point. I've heard Eisenstein called a "mechanical" director, like his (in my estimation) successor, Stanley Kubrick. On the contrary, I feel his films are filled with passion, albeit extraordinarily well-photographed passion.

3.  The General        (Buster Keaton/Clyde Bruckman, 1926)

4.  Modern Times        (Charles Chaplin, 1936)
The two greatest screen comedies of all time, as well as two of the finest performances. Keaton, oft the anti-Chaplin, is stoic, yet lively. Chaplin, in his finest film, is so gut-wrenchingly funny, yet so heartbreaking and brave: not only did he point his finger at "technology", he willingly jabbed at his own culpability in the mess being created.

5.  Psycho        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
The blackest of black comedies, mistaken for a horror film. Hitchcock's masterful hand has never been more present or palpable, be it in the nuances (the first time a toilet was seen being flushed), or in the outrageous choices (killing off a major star a quarter of the way through the picture). Anthony Perkins is pitch-perfect, in every smirking, twitching, candy-chewing minute.

6.  The Night of the Hunter        (Charles Laughton, 1955)
Laughton's only foray into directing lays claim to the title of finest thriller. Robert Mitchum is menacing, and Lillian Gish is radiant and matronly as Mitchum's polar opposite.

7.  The Searchers        (John Ford, 1956)
Ford's spare poetry gets me every time I see this film. And John Wayne reminds me that he was, besides being a movie star, also an actor capable of enormous sorrow and pathos.

8.  The Truman Show        (Peter Weir, 1998)
A fable for the ages. Weir's fantasy/nightmare is an amazing portrait of the human condition. I love Jim Carrey's willingness to send up his own celebrity, as well as his ability to play the everyman to the tee. This film stimulates, enlightens and moves me like no other contemporary movie has.

9.  El Topo        (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1971)
Doesn't this film really defy explanation? It's a purely visceral and allegorical meditation on violence, sex and identity. Long a cult favourite, this film really deserves a wider audience, though the audience for a violent, revisionist Western with dwarves, lesbians and murderous undead cowboys may be very small. An epic of disturbed proportions.

10. Brief Encounter        (David Lean, 1945)
The most literate, passionate love story ever filmed, bar none. Lean's sparse compositions and tight framing make this a wonder to behold.

So what's new? My top four will likely always remain the same, so perfect are the members of the "elite". Gone are The Godfather II, Raging Bull, The Bride of Frankenstein, Un Chien Andalou, Citizen Kane, and A Bout de Souffle. On any given day, any of these films could be back on the list.

So could these: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Apocalypse Now, Au Hasard, Balthazar, Dawn of the Dead, Days of Heaven, Dead Man, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Exorcist, Freaks, In the Mood for Love, La Jetee, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Rosemary's Baby, Safe, Singin' in the Rain, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Weekend, and A Woman Under the Influence.

See also Rick's other lists: Feb–Mar 2001        Nov–Dec 2003

Rick Curnutte is a compulsive listmaker anyway, so this forum gives him great pleasure. He is 25 years old and has no formal training of any kind, other than watching every film he can get his hands on. He is, ultimately, a hopeless geek.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Patrick K. Dailey

(in preferential order)

1.  Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
Well, let's just say it's the only film that I would even consider entering into a contest, which debated the best artistic form: film, writing, theater, music or painting.

2.  Fantasia        (Ben Sharpsteen, et al, 1940)
Since our form of storytelling was started by native peoples drawing on cave walls, I felt a need to put an animated film on this list. So why not go with the only animated film with any legitimate artistic merit to it?

3.  Schindler's List        (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
The only film in which I find it almost sacrilegious to eat or drink while watching! It is also difficult for me to continue breathing while undertaking the experience!

4.  Nixon        (Oliver Stone, 1995)
One of the few films which captures the pure emotion of Shakespeare's writing, but also manages to flesh out the mystery of Richard M. Nixon perfectly.

5.  La Passion de Jeannne d'Arc        (Carl Dreyer, 1928)
Simply the best slient film ever made!

6.  (Tie) Battleship Potemkin        (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) / Greed        (Erich von Stroheim, 1925)
Two of the great early filmmakers and their two best films in my opinion. Wonderful editing in Potemkin and ahead of its time acting in Greed, help both films.

7.  The Godfather & The Godfather II        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972 & 1974)
If you're an American, these are the films that best represent the new American way of life after the turn of the century. Plus, they feature some of the best screen writing you'll find anywhere in the world.

8.  Lawrence of Arabia        (David Lean, 1962)
If my mind, the best example of good old-fashioned Hollywood filmmaking, combined with the French New Wave. Lean watched The 400 Blows and Breathless while editing Lawrence and it shows!

9.  2001: A Space Oddessy        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Leave it up to Stanley Kubrick to try and change the form in which films are told and viewed by the masses. Which, he accomplished with this film, as well as Barry Lyndon (1975).

10.  Raging Bull        (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
The ultimate non-fiction character study! Scorsese's masterpiece for the ages!

Runners-Up... Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman) The Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa) Olympia (Leni Riefenstahl) Modern Times (Charles Chaplin) Ran (Akira Kurosawa) The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick) Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick) JFK (Oliver Stone) North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock) Intolerance (D.W. Griffith) Sunrise (F. W. Murnau) Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa) High and Low (Akira Kurosawa) The Searchers (John Ford) The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin) City Lights (Charles Chaplin) Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton) Giant (George Stevens).

Patrick K. Dailey, 21, is an aspiring filmmaker and college student based in Springfield, Missouri, and has a movie web page.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Anne Démy-Geroe

(in alphabetical order)

Ascenseur pour l'echafaud        (Louis Malle, 1957)
Broken Blossoms        (D.W. Griffith, 1919)
Flowers of Shanghai        (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1998)
The Hustler        (Robert Rossen, 1961)
The Music Room        (Satyajit Ray, 1958)
Orphée        (Jean Cocteau, 1950)
La Règle du jeu        (Jean Renoir, 1939)
Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo        (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964)
The Wild Bunch        (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)

Anne Démy-Geroe is Artistic Director of the Brisbane International Film Festival.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Dog Breath

(in no particular order)

Good Morning        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1959)
A nice study of the importance of mundane communication in how people touch upon each other.

Walkabout        (Nicolas Roeg, 1971)
A study of the juxtaposition of humanity's existence within nature and civilised society.

La Passion de Jeannne d'Arc        (Carl Dreyer, 1928)
A human study of the mythic figure.

The Big Lebowski        (Joel Coen, 1998)
The greatest comedy ever written studies how we reconcile and perceive our own identities.

The Lady Vanishes        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1938)
The greatest of Hitchcock's films from his British era.

Contact        (Robert Zemeckis, 1997)
A worthy study of the juxtaposition between religion and science and how they can be reconciled with each other.

Tombstone for Fireflies        (Isao Takahata, 1988)
Animation is not about singing teapots, it can be serious forays into human nature.

Hidden Fortress        (Akira Kurosawa, 1958)
Not his most serious film, but the most fun, with all the Kurosawa trademarks.

Tokyo Drifter        (Seijun Suzuki, 1966)
Pop culture with an appropriately Japanese twist.

Mon Oncle        (Jacques Tati, 1958)
A humourous study of man and technological innovation; do the latest gadgets really improve our lives or complicate it?

Dog Breath is a film lover based in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and administrator of the DVD of the Month Club.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Geoff Gardner

(revised list, in chronological order)

A Dog's Life        (Charles Chaplin, 1918)
L'Atalante        (Jean Vigo, 1934)
Le Crime de Monsieur Lange        (Jean Renoir, 1936)
A Hen in the Wind        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1948)
Pickpocket        (Robert Bresson, 1959)
Muriel        (Alain Resnais, 1963)
Les Parapluies de Cherbourg        (Jacques Demy, 1964)
Il Conformista        (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1969)
Taipei Story        (Edward Yang, 1984)
After Life        (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 1998)

See also Geoff's previous list: Feb 2000

Geoff Gardner was once a founder of the company that evolved into Ronin Films and was once the director of the Melbourne Film Festival (retired hurt, 1982). These days he offers some program suggestions to the Brisbane International Film Festival.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Alexander Greenhough

(in no particular order)

Les Rendez-vous d'Anna        (Chantal Akerman, 1978)
Floating Weeds        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1959)
The Magnificent Ambersons        (Orson Welles, 1942)
Stalker        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
The Conversation        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
Le Mépris        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
The Shining        (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
L'Avventura        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
Pickpocket        (Robert Bresson, 1959)
The Ice Storm        (Ang Lee, 1997)

See also Alexander's revised lists: Jul–Aug 2002        Jan–Mar 2004

Alexander Greenhough is a graduate student and filmmaker living in Auckland, New Zealand.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Alexander Jacoby

(in chronological order - one film per director)

City Girl        (F.W. Murnau, 1930)
Murnau's late masterpiece, as beautiful as Sunrise, subtler and more spontaneous. The last great silent film.

Trouble in Paradise        (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932)
Hollywood's great comedy of romance and finance, Lubitsch's airiest and most down to earth concoction.

La Règle du jeu        (Jean Renoir, 1939)
Renoir's masterly dissection of a class and a nation on the verge of the abyss.

Utamaro and his Five Women        (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1947)
Objectively speaking, probably less perfect a film than Sansho Dayu or Ugetsu, but more surprising, with humour as well as tragedy, and one of the great artistic testaments.

Early Summer        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1951)
Again, not its director's most famous film, but as complex and perfect as Tokyo Story, with Ozu's style even more nuanced.

Ordet        (Carl Dreyer, 1954)
Dreyer's most sublime testament to the spiritual power of human love.

Un Condamné à Mort s'est Echappé        (Robert Bresson, 1956)
Again, the spiritual power of human love. Bresson's most redeeming film.

Home From the Hill        (Vincente Minnelli, 1959)
Minnelli's greatest melodrama, and the American cinema's most piercing critique of masculine values.

Le Mépris        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
Godard's masterpiece, a magnificent commentary on the decline of Western civilisation and the death of cinema.

A Short Film About Love        (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1988)
Kieslowski's aching study of loneliness and contact, the need for and fear of love.

Sadly omitted, anything by Ophuls! I couldn't choose between Liebelei, Letter from an Unknown Woman and Madame de...

Alexander Jacoby, 22, is a student at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and a film critic. He is currently working on a Critical Dictionary of Japanese Film.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Elric Kane

(in preferential order)

1.  Stalker        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
The zone is our own interpretation and Tarkovsky our stalker, this exposed me to a master filmmaker and the other level to which film can work on.

2.  Pickpocket        (Robert Bresson, 1959)
Non-actors, slow pacing, and extistentialism galore create an unforgettable experience that forces one to think beyond what is so minimally presented.

3.  L'Avventura        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
The spaces that separate people both physically and spiritually has never been portrayed better than here.

4.  The Exterminating Angel        (Luis Buñuel, 1962)
This film seems to sum up Buñuel's obsessions best. The manners of the upper class tested against an impossible situation.

5.  Pierrot le Fou        (Jean-luc Godard, 1965)
Godard's fairytale. Tough to choose only one film from such a varied artist, but Belmondo and dynamite can't be wrong!

6.  L'Année Dernière à Marienbad        (Alain Resnais, 1962)
The closest I've seen to cinematic poetry. Resnais' use of time and varying repetition is brilliant.

7.  Aguirre: the Wrath of God        (Werner Herzog, 1972)
Obsession personified. Herzog and Kinski doing a Spanish costume drama in the Amazon, their exploits make the real Aguirre look tame.

8.  Les Yeux sans visage        (Georges Franju, 1959)
Part fairytale, part horror, a one of a kind film with a truly beautiful finale.

9.  El Topo        (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1971)
"If you are great than El Topo is great, but if you are limited than the film is limited" - Jodorowsky. Nuff said!

10.  La Maman et la Putain        (Jean Eustache, 1973)
Perhaps the pinnacle of the new wave, frank sexuality discussed between JP Leaud and his two lovers.

Sadly a list like this is missing great works of Oshima, Kubrick, Hartley, Lynch, Cronenberg, Peckinpah, Bergman, Fassbinder, Polanski, Wenders, Carax, Argento, but that's the point of lists!

See also Elric's revised lists: Jul–Aug 2002        Jul–Sept 2004

Elric Kane is a 23 year old filmmaker who lives in Wellington, New Zealand, and travels back to his birthplace of New York as much as possible. Contact: elmohead@hotmail.com

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Zachary Michael Reno

(in no order)

M        (Fritz Lang, 1931)
Haunting...

Shadows        (John Cassavetes, 1959)
Maybe it's the soundtrack...it's just my favourite Cassavetes film...also the improv.

Branded to Kill        (Seijun Suzuki, 1967)
All I can say is...I watched it 3 days in a row...and I prefer it over the almost equal Tokyo Drifter.

Pierrot le Fou        (Jean-luc Godard, 1965)
I told myself only one Godard film...

Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Only one Hitchcock film?

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc        (Carl Dreyer, 1928)
Silence...

Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse        (Agnés Varda, 2000)
Hidden master of documentary...adding personal insight along the way...

L'Avventura        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
I'm still confused...

Rififi        (Jules Dassin, 1955)
First off...the famous robbery scene...but the kid in the car at the end!!!

The Last Laugh        (F.W. Murnau, 1925)
Simply beautiful...

(***SHINODA, BUNUEL, JARMUSCH, CHABROL, POLANSKI !!!, KOBAYASHI, WAKAMATSU, WONG KAR-WAI, VERTOV, OZU, KUROSAWA.....***)

And there are so many films I haven't seen!!!

Zachary Michael Reno is currently teaching himself film in Portland, Oregon ... He is watching, making, testing, playing ...

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Andy Sparks

(in no particular order)

Pierrot le Fou        (Jean-luc Godard, 1965)
Mirror        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
Boy Meets Girl        (Léos Carax 1984)
The Last Laugh        (F.W. Murnau, 1925)
L'Atalante        (Jean Vigo, 1934)
Intolerance        (D.W. Griffith, 1916)
Days of Heaven        (Terrence Malick, 1978)
Greed        (Erich von Stroheim, 1925)
The Seventh Seal        (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
Le Testament d'Orphée        (Jean Cocteau, 1959)

See also Andy's revised list: May–June 2002

Andy Sparks is an independent filmmaker who was a painter during 1994–1999 (Richmond, VA) and is currently (August 2001) shooting his first film (Savannah, GA) and moving to NY (November 2001).

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Steve Thorn

(in no particular order)

Un Condamné à Mort s'est Echappé        (Robert Bresson, 1956)
The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz        (Luis Buñuel, 1955)
Floating Weeds        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1959)
Pierrot Le Fou        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)
City Lights        (Charles Chaplin, 1931)
Les Quatre Cents Coups        (François Truffaut, 1959)
Brief Encounter        (David Lean, 1945)
Taxi Driver        (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
Greed        (Erich von Stroheim, 1925)
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly        (Sergio Leone, 1966)

I regret to not include such films as: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Seven Samurai, Ikiru, Double Indemnity, Der Bleu Angel, Sansho Dayu, Fitzcarraldo, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, and any other Godard, Buñuel, Truffaut, Hitchcock, Chaplin, Renoir, Scorsese, Wilder, Eisenstein, Ozu or Herzog film.

Steve Thorn is a film buff in Victoria, B.C. Canada.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Andy Todes

(in preferential order)

1.  The Thin Red Line        (Terrence Malick, 1998)
The score. The cinematography. The simplicity of the story.

2.  Seven Samurai        (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
The hostage scene. The sword duel. Toshiro Mifune.

3.  Ikiru        (Akira Kurosawa, 1952)
Takashi Shimura. The scene in the snow. The moral of the story.

4.  The Godfather        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
The wedding. The dialogue. The performances.

5.  Days of Heaven        (Terrence Malick, 1978)
The editing. The cinematography. The score.

6.  Rear Window        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
Grace Kelly. The entire window idea. Grace Kelly.

7.  The Wizard of Oz        (Victor Fleming, 1939)
The songs. The sets. The fun of it all.

8.  Raging Bull        (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
The editing. The cinematography. The performances.

9.  Ladri di Biciclette        (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)
The ending. The acting. The ending.

10. You Can Count on Me        (Kenneth Lonergan, 2000)
The screenplay. The editing. Mark Ruffalo.

Left on the cutting room floor: M, Star Wars, East of Eden, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Belle du Jour, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Gadjo Dilo, Dead Poets Society, The Big Lebowksi, Das Boot, Double Indemnity, Tokyo Story, Divided We Fall, Belle Epoque, Apocalypse Now (featuring the greatest cameo of all time – Robert Duvall's), Raising Arizona, Fargo, Baraka, Midnight Cowboy, Dog Day Afternoon, Palookaville, Magnolia, The Battleship Potemkin, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Aladdin, Toy Story 2, Singin' in the Rain, West Side Story, A River Runs Through It, Rashomon, Chinatown, The Conversation, The Celebration, Network, Betty Blue, Secrets and Lies, Hannah and Her Sisters, Manhattan. Boys Don't Cry, Yi Yi, Dial M for Murder, Election, Pulp Fiction, Do the Right Thing, The Mission, Dancer in the Dark, 12 Angry Men and Ran (featuring the most gutwrenching image ever committed to film: two women committing seppuku together.)

Andy Todes, 30, was born in Johannesburg, grew up in Melbourne, lived briefly in Jerusalem, then settled in Philadelphia. When he's not packing and unpacking his bags, he's writing ads, taking photos, reading books, and watching movies. (And if his wife's got anything to do with it – painting the house.)

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Alexandru Vitzentzatos

(in preferential order)

1.  Dead Man        (Jim Jarmusch, 1995)
Best movie ever! Maybe the first western which has power, mysticism and a lot of meanings in every shot. Jarmusch is a genius!

2.  Faces        (John Cassavetes, 1968)
Best movie ever about relationships & LOVE!

3.  Day of the Eclipse        (Aleksandr Sokurov, 1988)
Best movie ever about... about... no one knows!

4.  Ordet        (Carl Dreyer, 1954)
You will never see a movie with an atmosphere more transcendental!

5.  Pickpocket        (Robert Bresson, 1959)
Details are the most important things in our lives!

6.  Eraserhead        (David Lynch, 1977)
A personal & strange atmosphere.

7.  Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
You will find your family here, in this film!

8.  Mirror        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
You can't believe that this is an autobiographical film!

9.  I Hired a Contract Killer        (Aki Kaurismäki, 1990)
The most simple & tragi-comic film of our days!

10.  Wings of Desire        (Wim Wenders, 1987)
LOVE is the greatest thing in this life & Wenders knows this!

Here must be mentioned some other directors like: Jean Vigo, Truffaut, von Trier, Kitano, Béla Tarr, Angelopoulos, Ivens, Aleksei Gherman, Mizoguchi, Scorsese, Bruno Dumont, de Oliveira, Kanevsky, Bergman, Kiarostami, Lynch, Herzog, Wong, Lang, etc. And strange films like Baraka (Ron Frike) and Chant d'amour (Jean Genet).

Alexandru Vitzentzatos is a film student based in Bucharest.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Peter Wilshire

I must emphasise that this is my current top ten list of films. These ten films were chosen spontaneously, are subject to change, and are in no particular order!

The Ascent        (Larissa Shepitko, 1976)
An astonishing achievement. Two Russian partisans are captured by the Germans during the winter of 1942. These two men are faced with a horrific choice: collaboration with the enemy or death.

Sunrise        (F. W. Murnau, 1927)
A silent classic. This turbulent love story is wonderfully expressed with the use of ambitious and surreal sets, combined with great visual flair.

La Strada        (Federico Fellini, 1954)
This great film has a basic story, yet is emotionally powerful and ultimately tragic. Replete with religious imagery, the film also achieves a poetic and slightly surreal visual quality.

Umberto D.        (Vittorio De Sica, 1952)
A superlative work and the zenith of Italian neo-realism. A simple but very moving story about the survival of an old man and his dog. The film also contains an underlying commentary on post-war Italy and its treatment of the aged.

Kanal        (Andrzej Wajda, 1956)
This film is a gut-wrenching psychological exploration of a group of Poles who retreat to the city's 'Kanaly' or sewer system. You can smell the stench, taste the polluted water, and hear the rats!

Il Conformista        (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1969)
A stunning achievement. A magnificent and beautifully crafted melding of style and substance. Vittorio Storaro's wonderful cinematography combines perfectly with the detached psychological state of the central character.

Vampyr        (Carl Dreyer, 1932)
A masterpiece of horror. Not gory or shocking, but rather unsettling and disturbing: the stuff that nightmares are made of! A strange and eerie film, with atmospheric misty photography.

The Third Man        (Carol Reed, 1949)
A classic. The zither music is played by Anton Karas who apparently was discovered by Carol Reed playing in a Viennese bar, and the film has possibly the most memorable ending I've ever seen.

Seven Samurai        (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
An epic. The greatness of this film lies in the fact that collectively, these seven samurai seem to encompass almost every characteristic of the human condition (e.g. honour, bravery, strength, intellect, humour, fear, compassion ). It also has some of the greatest action sequences ever filmed.

Point Blank        (John Boorman, 1967)
I think this John Boorman film is still underrated and undervalued. Great use of technique (sound and visuals) and a terrific performance by Lee Marvin. A strange, disjointed, and dreamlike quality. Wonderfully innovative and experimental.

But hey! Wait! What about: The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Double Indemnity (1944), The Killers (1946), L'Atalante (1934), Citizen Kane (1941), Casablanca (1942), Dead of Night (1945), Brief Encounter (1945), Odd Man Out (1947),The Bicycle Thief (1948), In A Lonely Place (1950), The Lost Weekend (1950), Ace in the Hole (aka:The Big Carnival) (1951), Rashomon (1950), The Big Combo (1955), A Man Escaped (1956), The Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Peeping Tom (1960), Victim (1961), Dr.Strangelove (1964), Woman of the Dunes (1964), The Pawnbroker (1965), Repulsion (1965), Blow up (1966), Le Samourai (1967), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), The Conversation (1974), Apocalypse Now (1979), Prisoner of the Mountains (1996), Love is The Devil (1998), Hana-Bi (1998), Magnolia (1999), Amores Perros (2000).....and the list goes on....

Peter Wilshire is a Cinema Studies Honours Graduate at La Trobe University, a film writer, and life-long film enthusiast.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


TALLY at September–October 2001,
after 190 original lists, 26 revised lists, and 2 deleted lists:

By film:

2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey
 1.
 2.
 3.
 4.


 7.

 9.

Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
Sunrise        (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
La Règle du jeu        (Jean Renoir, 1939)
Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Au Hasard, Balthazar        (Robert Bresson, 1966)
Mirror        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
Seven Samurai       (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
The Thin Red Line       (Terrence Malick, 1998)
39
19
18
16
16
16
15
15
14
14

By director:

to Maximilian Le Cain's 'Great Directors' profile of Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky
 1.
 2.
 3.
 4.
 5.
 6.
 7.

 9.
10.
Alfred Hitchcock
Jean-Luc Godard
Robert Bresson
Andrei Tarkovsky
Orson Welles
Carl Dreyer
Stanley Kubrick
Yasujiro Ozu
Martin Scorsese
Ingmar Bergman
  62
  53
  52
  42
  39
  35
  34
  34
  33
  32

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July–August 2001

 


Greg Baker

My father went to school for twelve years to get his MS in library science, and so I cut my teeth on foreign films shown on campuses in the '50s, but the only two I remember vividly are Genevieve and Les Vacances de M. Hulot. Extracurricular cinematic activities included 25 cent admission and ten cent popcorn in '20s era Chicago theatre, really temple, balconies enfolded by long-past design esthetics of ornate filligrees, fluted columns, rococco sensibilities, and there might even have been a gargoyle or two, but it was probably just another case of Rapture of the Cinemas that I was prone to succumb to. I got my ticket for Forbidden Planet via a promotional tie-in with Quaker Oats - open the box and a ticket was on the inside of the lid. In the '60s I stumbled upon the Unicorn Cinema in La Jolla, California, which with its spiritual siamese-twin bookstore The Mithras, embodied the design zeitgeist equivalent to the older temples. A wonderful place. I still lament its passing in 1977, but am grateful for the cinematic treasure chest of memories I have from there, as it elevated my senses with a giddy array of sparkling jewels from the forges of the greats and to this day defines my assesment of film. For all the new wave, post-modern, deconstructionist (and these are not necessarily negative appellations) films to have poured out since the '50s and '60s, this golden era of art and foreign film is still referred to and seen as a standard to be measured up to or by. Distilling it all down to the finest nectar of film that I am able to, herewith my selections:

(in preferential order)

1.  Seven Samurai        (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
As close to perfect as it gets.

2.  Babette's Feast        (Gabriel Axel, 1987)
The true essence of sacrifice based in love.

3.  Wings of Desire        (Wim Wenders, 1987)
Transcendent.

4.  Koyaanisqatsi        (Godfrey Reggio, 1983)
Staggering, spellbinding, incomparable even now.

5.  El Espíritu de la colmena        (Victor Erice, 1973)
When I view this film, a quote from Tarkovsky's book Sculpting in Time comes to mind - "When I speak of poetry I am not thinking of it as a genre. Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality."

6.  Woman in the Dunes        (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964)
Profoundly moving, beautiful, and not a little scary.

7.  Aguirre: the Wrath of God        (Werner Herzog, 1972)
Madness and destruction. Don't follow leaders, watch your parking meters.

8.  Sherman's March/Time Indefinite        (Ross McElwee, 1991/1993)
Sublime. Genius. Hilarious. Poignant. Not to be missed!

9.  Fitzcarraldo/Burden of Dreams        (Werner Herzog/Les Blank, 1982)
A visionary director perseveres to bring a visionary character to life.

10. Dekalog        (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1988)
The Hand of God disguised as cinema.

RUNNERS-UP: Apocalypse Now/Hearts of Darkness, The Seventh Seal, Maborosi, Macbeth (Polanski,) Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau,) Walkabout, Before the Rain, Underground, O Lucky Man, Children of Paradise, The Stunt Man, Sorcerer, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, Black Narcissus, Marat/Sade, The Element of Crime, Black Orpheus, Melvin & Howard, The Day of the Locust, The Ninth Configuration, L'Avventura, Kwaidan, Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Andrei Rublev, The Scent of Green Papaya, Tokyo-ga, Wild Strawberries, Delicatessen, Tampopo, Gospel According to Saint Matthew, The Hidden Fortress, Last Year at Marienbad, Insignificance, Knife in the Water, The Last Waltz, Tristana, Medium Cool, Onibaba, Toto the Hero, Ugetsu, The Burmese Harp, Divertimento, Storm over Asia, The Duellists, Floating Weeds, Red Desert, Hunter in the Dark, Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting, if...., Cinema Paradiso, Il Postino, Raising Arizona, Cruel Story of Youth, The Kingdom, Arabian Nights, Dead-Alive, Freaks, Hour of the Wolf, Pather Panchali, Ordet, The Piano, Ivan the Terrible, The Pedestrian, Persona, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Blue, White, Red, The Singing Detective, Sleuth, The Loved One, The Bicycle Thief, The Train, Weekend, The Silence, The Insect Woman, La Dolce Vita, Stalker, In the White City, Dust, Ran, The Hudsucker Proxy, Alphaville...

I wish to note what a privileged and gifted era we live in – at no other time in human experience has there been the capability to incorporate the arts of sculpture, architecture, theatre, painting, literature and photography (have I missed any?) into one medium – cinema! Peter Greenaway, in an interview in Salon.com, says that all that can be done with cinema has been done; yet Andrei Tarkovsky says in his book Sculpting in Time that this is the first time in the history of art that an artist could capture time, and we don't yet realise what can be done with it, the art is too new. Who is right? Time will tell.

Greg Baker, 54, is a surfer/bicyclist/writer/photographer/desert rat/recovering fundamentalist/corporate burnout living an a small backcountry town east of San Diego with an Australian Cattle Dog. He built his video collection to fend off insanity during cold, lonely winter nights (he hates TV). He can be reached at gbake@mtnempire.net

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


Andres Bermudez

(in chronological order)

Battleship Potemkin        (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
The Third Man        (Carol Reed, 1949)
The Seventh Seal        (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
Smultronstället / Wild Strawberries        (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
        (Federico Fellini, 1963)
Persona        (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie        (Luis Buñuel, 1972)
El Espíritu de la colmena        (Victor Erice, 1973)

Andres Bermudez is a cinephile from Bogota, Colombia. He is 18 years old and starting Literature at Los Andes University this August; and he is planning to study Cinema in Paris or Madrid starting next year.

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


Gaston Cayman

I've tried to pin down the ten films, or at least ten of the films, that, while possessing my own terribly subjective view of "genuine artistic quality", also have commanded my attention and efforts so that I might view them repeatedly.

(in no particular order)

Sunset Boulevard        (Billy Wilder, 1950)
A tragedy of operatic proportions, a thriller, a satire... Wilder's best.

The Searchers        (John Ford, 1956)
This stark, beautifully photographed, brilliantly chracterised piece of, almost, poetry remains the master at his very finest. As powerful a film as has ever been made.

Persona        (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
Such a rich and complex work. So ahead of its time; or perhaps just out there on its own with other films being irrelevant to its timeliness.

        (Federico Fellini, 1963)
Well, it's , isn't it?

Black Narcissus        (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1947)
The sexiest and most blasphemous Disney film? Perhaps.

Cries and Whispers        (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)
Brutal, beautiful.

Nashville        (Robert Altman, 1975)
I was tempted to include a lesser known, or less often sighted, Altman film, but this, I feel, remains his best work. In my mind the ultimate "American" movie.

Crimes and Misdemeanors        (Woody Allen, 1989)
Everything Allen's ever tried to accomplish, or say, in film comes together in one cohesive whole; a tour de force, in that sense.

The Wild Bunch        (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)
A ferocious statement of purpose. A rich, dense, immensely beautiful, moving film.

A Woman Under the Influence        (John Cassavetes, 1974)
The most honest love story ever put on film? Regardless, a very real story, by one of the all-time great American filmmakers.

Of the hundreds of films I just as easily might have listed instead, I'd like to mention: La Dolce Vita, The Seven Samurai, Brewster McCloud, Duck Soup, The Bicycle Thief, Rushmore, West Side Story, Forbidden Planet, The Long Goodbye, Shame, Repulsion, 3 Women, Virgin Spring, Minnie and Moskowitz, The Last Picture Show, Nights of Cabiria, Limelight, The Apartment, A Clockwork Orange, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, A Knife in the Water, The Lost Weekend, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Safe, Hail The Conquering Hero, City Lights, The Red Shoes, Singing in the Rain, The Seventh Seal, Shadow of a Doubt, Sullivan's Travels, La Strada, Barry Lyndon... I better stop there.

Gaston Cayman, 30, is a fiction writer, essayist, and freelance journalist in New York City.

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


Anthony Easton

(in no particular order)

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg        (Jacques Demy, 1964)
Badlands        (Terrence Malick, 1973)
Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
Metropolis        (Fritz Lang, 1926)
The Bride of Frankenstein        (James Whale, 1935)
Peeping Tom        (Michael Powell, 1960)
October        (Sergei Eisenstein, 1927)
The General        (Buster Keaton/Clyde Bruckman, 1926)
Raise the Red Lantern        (Zhang Yimou, 1991)
A Bout de Souffle        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1959)

See also Anthony's revised list: Nov–Dec 2002

Anthony Easton is an art history student at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and tries to go to the movies once a week.

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


Brian Frye

(in alphabetical order)

The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes        (Stan Brakhage, 1971)
Centuries of June        (Stan Brakhage/Joseph Cornell, 1955)
Cotillion/Midnight Party/The Children's Party        (Joseph Cornell, 1940s)
The End        (Christopher Maclaine, 1953)
La Grande Illusion        (Jean Renoir, 1937)
The Hart of London        (Jack Chambers, 1969-'70)
Heaven and Earth Magic        (Harry Smith, 1962)
Wait        (Ernie Gehr, 1968)
Les Yeux sans visage        (Georges Franju, 1959)
Zefiro Torna, or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas        (Jonas Mekas, 1972)

I select these films based not on their special merit (though all are fantastically beautiful and profound films) but rather by virtue of their influence on my own filmmaking. I list them in alphabetical order as the viewing of each prompted an epiphany, and it is fundamentally impossible to gauge the intensity of an ecstatic moment. If one senses a common theme, it should not come as a surprise. Metaphysics is currently decidedly unfashionable, and likewise Kantian ethics. But one hardly chooses one's obsessions. Dreyer's Vampyr, Syberberg's Hitler, Dovzhenko's Earth, Buñuel's L'Âge d'or, Rouch's Les Maitres Fou, Gardner's Forest Of Bliss, Conner's Television Assassination, Ravett's Everything's For You and many others would certainly have found their way into a longer list. Their absence is sorely noted.

Brian Frye is a filmmaker, curator and freelance writer living in New York City.

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


Ian Haig

(in preferential order)

1.  Ed Wood        (Tim Burton, 1994)
2.  Videodrome        (David Cronenberg, 1982)
3.  Once Upon a Time in America        (Sergio Leone, 1984)
4.  Princess Mononoke        (Hayao Miyazaki, 1998)
5.  The Thing        (John Carpenter, 1982)
6.  Starship Troopers        (Paul Verhoeven, 1997)
7.  Carlito's Way        (Brian De Palma, 1993)
8.  La Jetée        (Chris Marker, 1962)
9.  The Nutty Professor        (Jerry Lewis, 1963)
10. Two-Lane Blacktop        (Monte Hellman, 1971)

Ian Haig is a Media Artist based in Melbourne.

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


Lindsay Anne Hallam

(revised list, in preferential order)

1.  Blue Velvet        (David Lynch, 1986)
2.  L'Âge d'or        (Luis Buñuel, 1930)
3.  Amateur        (Hal Hartley, 1994)
4.  Repulsion        (Roman Polanski, 1965)
5.  Wings of Desire        (Wim Wenders, 1987)
6.  The Night of the Hunter        (Charles Laughton, 1955)
7.  Aguirre: the Wrath of God        (Werner Herzog, 1972)
8.  Videodrome        (David Cronenberg, 1982)
9.  Pierrot le Fou        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)
10. The Big Lebowski        (Joel Coen, 1998)

I tried to keep to one film per director which made for some hard decisions – Belle du Jour (Buñuel, 1967), Chinatown (Polanski, 1974) Paris, Texas (Wenders, 1984), Crash (Cronenberg, 1996), any early Godard and anything by David Lynch or the Coen Brothers could also be in there. And unfortunately there wasn't enough room to include films by Wong Kar-wai, Takeshi Kitano, Kubrick, Burton, Hitchcock, Lang, Gilliam, Malick, Wilder, Hawks, Argento, Scorsese, Waters, Welles, von Trier, Tourneur or Kurosawa.

See also Lindsay's previous list: Dec 2000–Jan 2001

Lindsay Anne Hallam is a 21 year old student at Curtin University in Western Australia where she is majoring in Film and Television.

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


Adele Hann

(in no particular order)

Seven Samurai        (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)

Au Hasard, Balthazar        (Robert Bresson, 1966)

Ivan the Terrible        (Sergei Eisenstein, 1945 and 1958)
The first film I saw where the power of every shot, the framing, composition and lighting immediately stamped it as a masterpiece.

In the Realm of the Senses        (Nagisa Oshima, 1976)
An exquisite, shocking creation of a state of insatiable desire and excess with the inevitable castration that is as emotionally comprehensible as it is appalling.

La Jetée        (Chris Marker, 1962)
An utterly paradoxical film – the simplest of forms, a series of still images, yet it creates a haunting series of paradoxes about memory, time & the little death of time that is cinema.

Some Like It Hot        (Billy Wilder, 1959)
A perfect comedy with a perfect ending.

Belle de Jour        (Luis Buñuel, 1967)
After eleven years in convent schools Belle de Jour was an almost unbearable exposition of repressed sexuality that still rattles my cage.

The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting        (Raúl Ruiz, 1978)
My portal into the cinema of Ruiz and his wild intellectual games, art and Latin American fabulism.

When We Were Kings        (Leon Gast, 1996)
The audience, in a commercial cinema, stood up and cheered at the end of this, which I haven't experienced before in that context. It's hard to separate the greatness of the subject (Muhammad Ali) from the greatness of the film.

Goodfellas        (Martin Scorsese, 1990)

Adele Hann is a programmer and exhibitor who manages the Mercury Cinema for the Media Resource Centre in Adelaide.

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


Eric Henderson

(in chronological order)

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc        (Carl Dreyer, 1928)
"Duck Amuck"        (Chuck Jones, 1953)
Les Quatre Cents Coups        (François Truffaut, 1959)
Yojimbo        (Akira Kurosawa, 1961)
La Jetée        (Chris Marker, 1962)
Repulsion        (Roman Polanski, 1965)
Weekend        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre        (Tobe Hooper, 1974)
Nashville        (Robert Altman, 1975)
Rushmore        (Wes Anderson, 1998)

I've got a lot of films left to see in my life, and although this list at one level represents what I feel to be the highest points in my viewing life thus far, I can only hope that on another level it stands as a promise of a far more exciting journey ahead. As of right now, I have a lifetime to savor the vacant eyes of Renée Falconetti, the run for freedom of young Antoine, the deadpan snark of Wes Anderson, the cortex-meltdown of Repulsion, the vicious mother-rearing display in Yojimbo, the relentless unpredictability of Jean-Luc Godard, the rich Vienetta of Altman's masterpiece, the withering shock of Texas Chainsaw's snuff, Daffy Duck's mise-en-scène-destroying journey, and the muted underground Mobius-strip of Chris Marker's filmed poem.

My more traditional list of runners-up include: Chinatown (Polanski, 1974), Singin' in the Rain (Donen/Kelly, 1952), Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976), Sisters (De Palma, 1973), Shoeshine (De Sica, 1947), L'Atalante (Vigo, 1934), Straw Dogs (Peckinpah, 1971), Touch of Evil (Welles, 1958), Eraserhead (Lynch, 1978), and Showgirls (Verhoeven, 1995).

See also Eric's revised list: Nov–Dec 2002

Eric Henderson is a 21 year old, burgeoning film glutton without a substantial-enough buffet (although he just moved back to Minneapolis after graduating from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, so that should help). He has worked in various cinemas, including a stint assisting the film program at a restored art house.

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


Julien Humphreys

(in no particular order)

L'Âge d'or        (Luis Buñuel, 1930)
Il Bidone        (Federico Fellini, 1955)
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser        (Werner Herzog, 1974)
Ivan's Childhood        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1962)
Freeze, Die, Come to Life        (Vitali Kanevsky, 1990)
Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors        (Sergei Parajanov, 1964)
M        (Fritz Lang, 1931)
Les Quatre Cents Coups        (François Truffaut, 1959)
Autumn Sonata        (Ingmar Bergman, 1978)
Three Colours: Blue        (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993)

These are the films which I unfortunately had to leave out: Bergman's Cries and Whispers, Knife in the Water by Polanski, The Wind (Sjostrom), A Scene at the Sea (Takeshi Kitano), Jules et Jim (Truffaut), 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick), La Grande Illusion (Renoir), Le Samourai (Melville), Seven Samurai (Kurosawa), Opening Night (Cassavetes), Jean de Florette + Manon des Sources (Claude Berri) and Solaris (Tarkovsky). It was a very hard choice to make. Diolch yn fawr, Cymru am Byth!

See also Julien's revised list: Jul–Aug 2002

Julien Humphreys is a 17 year old film lover living in Bangor, Wales. He is studying English, French, Spanish and Welsh at school.

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


Ryan McGinley

(in alphabetical order)

An Autumn Afternoon        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1962)
Mr. Arkadin        (Orson Welles, 1955)
Fallen Angels        (Wong Kar-wai, 1995)
Flowers of Shanghai        (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1998)
Journal d'un curé de campagne        (Robert Bresson, 1950)
Limelight        (Charles Chaplin, 1952)
Masculin Féminin        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966)
Ordet        (Carl Dreyer, 1954)
Sansho Dayu        (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954)
The Searchers        (John Ford, 1956)

Ryan McGinley is an 18 year old film buff living in Victoria B.C. Canada.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Gawain McLachlan

(in no particular order)

Mad Max 2        (George Miller, 1981)
Blade Runner        (Ridley Scott, 1982)
Apocalypse Now        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
Taxi Driver        (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly        (Sergio Leone, 1966)
Seven Samurai        (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
Das Boot        (Wolfgang Peterson, 1981)
Pulp Fiction        (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
A Clockwork Orange        (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)
Annie Hall        (Woody Allen, 1977)

Gawain McLachlan is the editor/publisher of the internet zine Filmnet.

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


Kim Patterson

(in preferential order)

1.  Three Colours: Red        (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1994)
2.  2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
3.  Au Hasard, Balthazar        (Robert Bresson, 1966)
4.  Nosferatu        (F.W. Murnau, 1922)
5.  Once Upon a Time in the West        (Sergio Leone, 1969)
6.  Blood Simple        (Joel Coen, 1983)
7.  La Strada        (Frederico Fellini, 1954)
8.  Picnic At Hanging Rock        (Peter Weir, 1975)
9.  Taxi Driver        (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
10. Dead Man        (Jim Jarmusch, 1995)

I've tried to include films chosen on both technical/artistic merit and personal gratification merit. I've also tried really hard to exclude films I know are crap but which I am addicted to. The films chosen demonstrate a deep understanding of the medium, by their creators, as a synthesis of both emotional truth and cinematic veracity (i.e. they work for me!)

Kim Patterson teaches Media Studies to Victorian VCE students at Mildura Senior College in far North-West Victoria. He maintains a capsule film review website at www.milsen.vic.edu.au/kdp in between watching anything put in front of him and reading obscure film theories online.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Ingo Petzke

(first five in preferential order, the rest in constant movement)

1.  Apocalypse Now        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
2.  Andrei Rublev        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)
3.  Seven Samurai        (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
4.  Mare's Tail        (David Larcher, 1969)
5.  Local Hero        (Bill Forsyth, 1982)
One, Two, Three        (Billy Wilder, 1961)
Walkabout        (Nicolas Roeg, 1971)
The Man With a Movie Camera        (Dziga Vertov, 1928)
Scenes from a Marriage (the 281 min TV version)        (Ingmar Bergman, 1973)
Aguirre: the Wrath of God        (Werner Herzog, 1972)

Ingo Petzke is Associate Professor for Screen-Based Media at Bond University

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


Martin Plunkett

I've basically decided to stick to one film per director. I'm not sure if these are the greatest films of all time, but they're the ones that have moved me the most, and that have most profoundly affected the way I view the world and the cinema.

(in chronological order)

Sunrise        (F.W. Murnau, 1927)        - Could just as easily have been Tabu.
La Règle du jeu        (Jean Renoir, 1939)        - Or Grand Illusion.
The Magnificent Ambersons        (Orson Welles, 1942)        - Or Touch of Evil.
Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)        - Or Late Spring.
Ugetsu Monogatari         (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)        - Or The Loyal 47 Ronin.
Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)        - Or Rear Window.
Gertrud        (Carl Dreyer, 1964)        - Or The Passion of Joan of Arc.
Au Hasard, Balthazar        (Robert Bresson, 1966)           - Or A Man Escaped.
Barry Lyndon        (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)        - Or Eyes Wide Shut.
Flowers of Shanghai        (Hou Hsaio-hsien, 1998)        - Or The Puppetmaster.

It's ridiculous how many great filmmakers and films I ended up leaving off this list, including Jean Vigo (L'Atalante), John Ford (The Searchers), Roberto Rossellini (Voyage in Italy), Max Ophuls (The Earrings of Madame de...), Alain Resnais (Last Year at Marienbad), Michelangelo Antonioni (L' Avventura), Jean-Luc Godard (Contempt), Jacques Rivette (Celine and Julie Go Boating), Martin Scorsese (Kundun), and Abbas Kiarostami (The Wind Will Carry Us).

Martin Plunkett is a 20-year-old English and Philosophy student currently deciding which college to transfer to next semester from the University of Chicago. He currently lives in New Jersey.

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


Rad Rudd

(in preferential order)

1.  Taxi Driver        (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
Perhaps apart from the shootout at the film's conclusion, this provides for an accurate portrayal of 'the loner' within moi.

2.  Blade Runner        (Ridley Scott, 1982)
The same guy as in the above, really, only played by Harrison Ford.

3.  Star Wars Trilogy        (George Lucas/Irvin Kershner/Richard Marquand, 1977/80/83)
I hope that you allow me to include not only these films, but the three together. Lucas' film technology genius creates a fantastic escape, but I don't look to it for referencing personal difficulties.

4.  Fist of Fury (aka The Chinese Connection)        (Lo Wei, 1972)
Half-Asian boys growing up in a small Australian country town in the 1980s cannot help but be influenced by this charismatic and cool representation of their 'other half'.

5.  Blow-Up        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)
Viewed for the first time in 1999, it is secure in this relative film illiterate's memory of the history of film style. By the way, is it the first film to revolve around a clue found in a picture? This plot device is compulsory these days - usually video footage. Perhaps it was a subconscious reference to the power of the now prolific indirect communication of reality.

6.  Police Story 3: SuperCop        (Stanley Tong, 1992)
Jackie Chan & Michelle Yeoh are absolutely crazy people. He hung from the ladder from the helicopter as it swooped over the city, and she rode the trail-bike onto the moving cargo train. Such fun.

7.  Hard-Boiled        (John Woo, 1991)
John Woo over-the-top, balletic, ballistic brilliance.

8.  La Double vie de Véronique        (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1991)
A metaphysical statement that seems to cure ill-feeling by referring to the possibility of another plane of existence. Another escapism piece.

9.  Léolo        (Jean-Claude Lauzon, 1992)
A beautifully dysfunctional family.

10. First Blood        (Ted Kotcheff, 1982)
The first popular representation of a troubled Vietnam veteran that I saw. Believe me, if it had not been made 'big-budget' then I, in my ignorance as a dumb-ass teenager, would have had no inkling of this war issue. It was swept under the carpet was it not?

In closing, each film is really a link to certain other favourite films that I would love to list. Additionally, films seen at the Melbourne Super 8 Film Group monthly open screenings deserve a place here as well, eg, Linou's Dividing Link, Woods' Smak Sux, Mousoulis' Michelangelo's Dream, Kuznir's Revolution. Another time, another list.

Rad Rudd is... thinking a little too much about what he is, but generally assumes these various forms – independent filmmaker (Super 8 & video); committee member of the Melbourne Super 8 Film Group Inc.; sometime actor. Importantly, he is a self-proclaimed master of the new 'mish-mash' style (experimental, narrative, neo-narrative, action...) of filmmaking.

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


Max Scheinin

(revised list)

1.  Days of Heaven        (Terrence Malick, 1978)
2.  Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
3.  The Godfather        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
4.  2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
5.  Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
6.  Le Mépris        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
7.  Some Like It Hot        (Billy Wilder, 1959)
8.  Chinatown        (Roman Polanski, 1974)
9.  Close-Up        (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990)
10. Barton Fink        (Joel Coen, 1991)

This list is a bit of an experiment – can a film besides The Godfather, my favourite movie since I was eleven, reside in the No. 1 spot? We'll see how long this ordering of things lasts. In any case, these films represent me, and what I love in art, as much as any ten could, at least at this point in my life. And seeing as my core group of faves has shifted for the first time in ages, I'm going to add that favourite tag I have never included before: this list could change if compiled tomorrow.

See also Max's previous lists: June 2000        Dec 2000–Jan 2001

Max Scheinin is a teenage film buff and lover who writes a column on the movies for a local paper, the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


Craig Small

Over the past couple of years the rise of DVD technology (and the discovery of the Criterion Collection DVDs) has given me the opportunity to discover and enjoy a whole new world of film. Directors like Kurosawa, Kobayashi, Tarkovsky, Sokurov, Parajanov, Kieslowski, and Bava now reside on my DVD rack on equal standing with the Hollywood masters who once dominated the shelf-space. Through studying these films I've learned a few things about myself. I now know that I love films shot in ultra-widescreen (cinemascope, super panavision, etc.). I now know that I love highly stylised films in which great directors show off their grasp of technique (Scorsese, Michael Mann, Powell, Welles, etc.). Lastly, I've learned that I love directors and cinematographers who like to put the camera in motion.

(in preferential order)

1.  2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
The perfect film. Not a lot of dialogue and one breathtaking image after another.

2.  Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Incredible colors, incredible technique and the best score ever written.

3.  Blade Runner - Director's Cut        (Ridley Scott, 1982/1991)
The ultimate "style" film.

4.  Raging Bull        (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
Martin Scorsese throws restraint out the window and throws his love of cinema and its history directly in our faces.

5.  The Thin Red Line        (Terrence Malick, 1998)
The closest anyone has come to the cinematic poetry of Kubrick's 2001 in thirty years. A war movie that's not really about war.

6.  Apocalypse Now        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
Another war movie that's not about war. I've heard it described as high opera and that pretty much sums it up.

7.  Black Narcissus        (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1947)
Vertigo before Vertigo. Cardiff's cinematography dominates the film.

8.  Odd Man Out        (Carol Reed 1947)
That Odd Man Out and Black Narcissus could both come out of England in the same year is staggering. I'm a sucker for cinematic snowfall and Odd Man Out has some of the best. James Mason pulls a great performance from a pretty thankless role.

9.  The Human Condition trilogy        (Masaki Kobayashi, 1959-61)
Actually three films but to me it's just one ten hour epic. Another war movie that's not about war. More great snowfall, too! When I finished the trilogy I felt like I'd just been in a car wreck. Stunning.

10. The Trial        (Orson Welles, 1962)
The strangest great film ever made. Bravado camerawork and reckless performances make for a film experience that's often bewildering and always exciting.

Craig Small is a film fanatic and DVD addict from a small town in Maine, USA.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Julia Wilde

(in preferential order)

1.  Annie Hall        (Woody Allen, 1977)
2.  Duck Soup        (Leo McCarey, 1933)
3.  It's a Wonderful Life        (Frank Capra, 1946)
4.  The Searchers        (John Ford, 1956)
5.  Betty Blue        (Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1986)
6.  Kind Hearts and Coronets        (Robert Hamer, 1949)
7.  The Thin Red Line        (Terrence Malick, 1998)
8.  Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
9.  Paris, Texas        (Wim Wenders, 1984)
10. 2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

Julia Wilde teaches A-level Film Studies to 16-19 year old students in Manchester, England.

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


Wong Lung-Hsiang

(in no particular order)

2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Gabbeh        (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1995)
Hiroshima mon amour        (Alain Resnais, 1959)
Mirror        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
Pather Panchali        (Satyajit Ray, 1955)
The Suspended Step of the Stork        (Theo Angelopoulos, 1991)
Three Colours: Blue        (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993)
A Time to Live and a Time to Die        (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1985)
Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
Wings of Desire        (Wim Wenders, 1987)

Regret that I couldn't include the following films: A Moment of Innocence (Makhmalbaf), Rashomon (Kurosawa), The Puppetmaster (Hou Hsiao-hsien), Nostalgia (Tarkovsky), Ulysses' Gaze (Angelopoulos), Taste of Cherry (Kiarostami), Days of Being Wild (Wong Kar-wai), Citizen Kane (Welles), La Règle du jeu (Renoir), Wild Strawberries (Bergman), A Sunday in the Country (Tavernier), The Unvanquished (Ray), (Fellini) ...

Wong Lung-Hsiang is the secretary of the Singapore Film Society, a film festival organiser, and a freelance film critic of Lianhe Zaobao, Mediacorp TV8 and Czine.net.

back to lists, Jul-Aug 2001


TALLY at July–August 2001,
after 176 original lists, 22 revised lists, and 2 deleted lists:

By film:

Au Hasard, Balthazar
Au Hasard, Balthazar
 1.
 2.
 3.
 4.

 6.
 7.

 9.

Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
Sunrise        (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
Au Hasard, Balthazar        (Robert Bresson, 1966)
2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
La Règle du jeu        (Jean Renoir, 1939)
The Thin Red Line       (Terrence Malick, 1998)
Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
Mirror        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
Seven Samurai       (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
38
19
17
15
15
14
13
13
12
12

By director:

to Craig Keller's Jean-Luc Godard profile in 'Great Directors'
Jean-Luc Godard
 1.
 2.
 3.
 4.
 5.
 6.
 7.
 8.
 9.
10.
Alfred Hitchcock
Jean-Luc Godard
Robert Bresson
Orson Welles
Andrei Tarkovsky
Stanley Kubrick
Martin Scorsese
Ingmar Bergman
Carl Dreyer
Yasujiro Ozu
  57
  48
  44
  38
  37
  32
  31
  30
  28
  27

  back to the top of the page



 

June 2001

 


Lars Andersson

My idea of the top ten films would be:

(in preferential order)

1.  Fear Eats the Soul        (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1973)
2.  Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles        (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
3.  Imitation of Life        (Douglas Sirk, 1958)
4.  Hail the Conquering Hero        (Preston Sturges, 1944)
5.  India Song        (Marguerite Duras, 1975)
6.  Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
7.   Persona        (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
8.  Close-Up        (Abbas Kiarostami, 1989)
9.  Pather Panchali        (Satyajit Ray, 1955)
10. Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)

This would probably change slightly if you asked me in a couple of days, but these are films that I not only cherish on an emotional level, but also believe discuss complex and important political and/or social topics.

Lars Andersson is the film and video editor at www.girlplusboy.com, a feminist web site.

back to lists, June 2001


Richard Armstrong

(in no particular order)

Double Indemnity        (Billy Wilder, 1944)
Sunset Boulevard        (Billy Wilder, 1950)
The Last Days of Chez Nous        (Gillian Armstrong, 1990)
Les Visiteurs du Soir        (Marcel Carné, 1942)
Crimes and Misdemeanors        (Woody Allen, 1989)
In a Lonely Place        (Nicholas Ray, 1950)
The Best Years of Our Lives        (William Wyler, 1946)
Career Girls        (Mike Leigh, 1997)
Friendship's Death        (Peter Wollen, 1987)
Cactus        (Paul Cox, 1986)

See also Richard's revised list: Mar–Apr 2003

Richard Armstrong is a film writer and Associate Tutor with the British Film Institute. His first book, Billy Wilder: American Film Realist, appeared in 2000 from McFarland. He is currently Content Manager with the video/DVD outlet MovieMail.

back to lists, June 2001


Frank Bren

1.  The Girl Can't Help It        (Frank Tashlin, 1956)

- then, in no particular order ...

Wild Wild Rose        (Wang Tianlin, 1960)
Un drôle de paroissien        (Jean-Pierre Mocky, 1963)
Our Man in Havana        (Carol Reed, 1959)
Burnt by the Sun        (Nikita Mikhalkov, 1994)
A Foreign Affair        (Billy Wilder, 1948)
Love and Duty        (Bu Wancang, 1931)
Le Deuxième Souffle        (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1966)
Saragossa Manuscript        (Wojciech Has, 1964)
In a Lonely Place        (Nicholas Ray, 1950)

What a cruel exercise.

First, in having to scotch Hitchcock's Vertigo, then deleting the Marx Bothers' hits and films with Jean Arthur and Alec Guinness, which - as collections - are also top of the heap. Secondly, in having to invent rules like sticking only to feature movies (with actors) seen on the big screen; that means mainly Euro-American films.

Otherwise, one rule dictated the above: what package of ten movies would provide optimum filmgoing pleasure?

Ex-animator Frank Tashlin's great comedy, The Girl Can't Help It, is an automatic 'Best' having withstood 16 viewings with more to come. Jayne Mansfield, the screen's ultimate platinum blonde, not only had the perfect cartoonist's body but also, as Tashlin twice showed, a winning gift for comedy. Girl is also Hollywood's 'best' document of rock 'n' roll.

That leaves the follow-up Big Nine via: Melville's best policier; Nick Ray's great vehicle for Gloria Grahame and Humphrey Bogart; Has' amusing version of a great literary classic; Wang's film noir take on Bizet's Carmen (starring the stunning Grace Chang); Bu's superb silent showcase for the "Chinese Garbo" Ruan Lingyu; Mikhalkov's great humanist vision; Mocky's hilarious tale of a pious thief; Wilder's and Reed's wonderful, acidic comedies in "current event" settings.

Frank Bren is a Melbourne-based playwright and actor.

back to lists, June 2001


Mikita Brottman

(in preferential order)

1.  The Tingler        (William Castle, 1959)
2.  Psycho        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
3.  The Shining        (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
4.  Freaks        (Tod Browning, 1932)
5.  Nosferatu        (F.W. Murnau, 1922)
6.  Rosemary's Baby        (Roman Polanski, 1968)
7.  I Walked with a Zombie        (Jacques Tourneur, 1943)
8.  Night of the Living Dead        (George A Romero, 1968)
9.   The Texas Chainsaw Massacre        (Tobe Hooper, 1974)
10. Picnic at Hanging Rock        (Peter Weir, 1975)

Mikita Brottman is the author of three books on the horror film from Creation Books, and the forthcoming book Car Crash Culture (St. Martin's Press). She writes for various publications and teaches literature and film at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.

back to lists, June 2001


William Edwards

(in chronological order)

Sunrise        (F. W. Murnau, 1927)
The Night of the Hunter        (Charles Laughton, 1955)
Hiroshima, mon amour        (Alain Resnais, 1959)
Imitation of Life        (Douglas Sirk, 1958)
L'Avventura        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
Au Hasard, Balthazar        (Robert Bresson, 1966)
The Devils        (Ken Russell, 1971)
Badlands        (Terrence Malick, 1973)
3 Women        (Robert Altman, 1977)
Eureka        (Nicolas Roeg, 1982)

I haven't changed this list in six years and it's disappointing that I can't include at least one film from Godard, Bergman, Rohmer, Buñuel, Pasolini, Fassbinder, Almodóvar, Meyers, Waters, De Palma (pre 85), Ozu, Mizoguchi, Malle, Zinnemann, Imamura or Lynch amongst others.

William Edwards is a long time film fanatic who lives in Sydney.

back to lists, June 2001


Kieran Galvin

(in preferential order)

1.  La Haine        (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995)
2.  My Beautiful Laundrette        (Stephen Frears, 1985)
3.  What's Eating Gilbert Grape        (Lasse Hallström, 1993)
4.  Lawn Dogs        (John Duigan, 1997)
5.  Edward Scissorhands        (Tim Burton, 1990)
6.  Les Roseaux Sauvages        (André Téchiné, 1994)
7.  Boys Don't Cry        (Kimberly Peirce, 1999)
8.  Central do Brasil        (Walter Salles, 1998)
9.  The Talented Mr Ripley        (Anthony Minghella, 1999)
10. Once Were Warriors        (Lee Tamahori, 1994)

Story, character and emotional involvement are at the heart of my choices. This is what it all comes down to when the superficial gloss of fast editing and special effects limp into the forgotten. What good is a film if it doesn't take us on a very personal journey?

Kieran Galvin is a freelance writer and self-taught independent filmmaker based in Melbourne. His short films have screened at many festivals world-wide.

back to lists, June 2001


Ed Gonzales

Such a problematic thing to come up with a Top Ten list, especially when slots eight to ten could easily be filled with a good two dozen other gems like Sunrise (F.W. Murnau), The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton), Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa), Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini), Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee), Jeanne Dielman (Chantal Akerman), Safe (Todd Haynes) and a good couple of pictures from the likes of Polanski, Godard, Campion, Cassavetes, Dreyer, Antonioni, Tarkovsky, Roeg, Malick, Ophuls, Ferrara and Fassbinder.

So, here goes (in preferential order):

1.  Nashville        (Robert Altman, 1975)
2.  2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
3.  Underground        (Emir Kusturica, 1995)
4.  Dekalog        (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1988)
5.  Cries and Whispers        (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)
6.  In a Lonely Place        (Nicholas Ray, 1950)
7.  Portrait of Jennie        (William Dieterle, 1948)
8.  La Règle du jeu        (Jean Renoir, 1939)
9.  Freaks        (Tod Browning, 1932)
10. El        (Luis Buñuel, 1952)

Ed Gonzalez is an NYU film graduate and aspiring filmmaker. While awaiting his inevitable success in the industry, he is currently dispensing criticism on http://www.slantmagazine.com.

back to lists, June 2001


Paul Harrill

(in alphabetical order)

Au Hasard, Balthazar        (Robert Bresson, 1966)
The Awful Truth        (Leo McCarey, 1937)
The Best Years of Our Lives        (William Wyler, 1946)
I Don't Hate Las Vegas Anymore        (Caveh Zahedi, 1994)
Journal d'un Curé de Campagne        (Robert Bresson, 1950)
Tender Mercies        (Bruce Beresford, 1982)
Thirteen        (David Williams, 1997)
U.S. Go Home        (Claire Denis, 1994)
What Farocki Taught        (Jill Godmilow, 1998)
A Woman Under the Influence        (John Cassavetes, 1974)

It's probably unfair to give two slots to Bresson while films by Dreyer, Chaplin, Verhoeven, McElwee, Munch, Godard, Brakhage, Varda, and Bill Murray have to wait in the wings. Those are the breaks.

Paul Harrill's Gina, An Actress, Age 29 was awarded the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival.

back to lists, June 2001


Michael Helms

(revised list, in Widescreen order)

Fight Club        (David Fincher, 2000)
Am still punching myself for not having eyeballed this in a digital cinema. An in your face kind of freaking film by any standards. For any further description we will have to render you senseless.

Even Dwarfs Started Small        (Werner Herzog, 1971)
This is filmmaking gone berserk. An all dwarf and midget cast come out swinging. From metaphor to metonymy and all points in between, the size thirteen steel-caps always go for the head.

Blue Sunshine        (Jeff Leiberman, 1977)
Hilariously horrifying urban horror. From recycling old TV stars to snappy pop culture banter (including a Rodan impersonation, and we're talking giant flying creature), to drug dealing for fun and profit, political corruption, and the best known plot device to allow a director populate his film with bald and murderous maniacs (a bad batch of LSD), Blue Sunshine is on top of a lot of things.

God's Lonely Man         (Francis Zerneck, 1996)
Take Taxi Driver, turn left at Maniac, and somewhere in between, and to the right, you have the harrowing and equally bloody, God's Lonely Man. Our man goes off-line in a backstreet sex shop run by Justine Bateman. He eventually embarks on a kill mission targeting a band of local paedophiles led by Tom Towles.

The Beyond        (Lucio Fulci, 1981)
A woman visits her inheritance: a hotel built over the Seven Gates to Hell. After a spot of chain-whipping there's some literally eye-popping, trademark Fulci gore, but there's also zombies (care of minor German investors) and other agents of evil crawling all over the creepy New Orleans scenery. Put simply The Beyond is Fulci gone full-on spooky. A perfect nightmare movie.

Combat Shock        (Buddy Giovinazzo, 1986)
Back from 'Nam, Frank's life is filled with further shellshock. With no money, no hope of getting a job, no friends, no food, mewling mutant offspring, eviction imminent, 'Nam flashbacks, and dead bodies piling up in mounds, there's only one choice. You'll never blindly swig from a milk carton ever again.

Bad Lieutenant        (Abel Ferrara, 1992)
The day might start off doing coke on the dashboard while Harvey Keitel's bent cop drives the kids to school but as we collect the minutiae it soon gets interminable. Finally, things really go awry. Bring on Schooly D.

The Honeymoon Killers        (Leonard Kastle, 1969)
TV should promote The Honeymoon Killers as a new version of Survivor. Found footage of real murder. It's no joke that The Honeymoon Killers is seriously haunting. It's effect is always gut-wrenching.

Tonight, I'll Be Incarnated in Your Corpse        (José Mojica Marins, 1966)
As far as films actually made by maniacs go Tonight, I'll be Incarnated in Your Corpse, from Brazil, takes the cake. Essentially, a no budget cavalcade of degradation involving amateur actors, live bugs, creatures, cruelty, torture, Hell, and an all-powerful burning vision. The net effect is bound to stick in your skull longer than an extra in a Chinese regurgitator horror (a particularly magic subgenre) can hold down a 10cm centipede. Cheap, nasty, unearthly, unsettling, astonishing and undoubtedly shocking. See it now.

Mad Dog Morgan         (Philippe Mora, 1976)
Banishment, bashings, and ball-bag tobacco pouches. These are just some of the horrors that await Irishman Daniel Morgan in this brutal vision of Victoria and New South Wales circa 1845. Highlights include the splatter decimation of the Chinese camp and one of the best supporting casts ever!

Retain nearby: Faceless, Fitzcarraldo, Braindead, Aguirre, The Wrath Of God, Bullet In The Head, Satan's Sadists, I Spit On Your Grave, The Ugly, Love Camp, Jack Be Nimble, Ms. 45, Heaven, Ilsa, She Wolf Of The S.S., Body Melt, Meet The Feebles, Going Down, Yakkety Yak, Tokyo Decadence, Bloodsucking Freaks, Pure S..., The Killing Of America, The Thin Blue LIne, Stone, Freaks, Deadly Weapons, Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer, The Killer, Nekromantik, Tombs Of The Blind Dead, Serial Mom, Bloodlust, Pumpkinhead, A Better Tomorrow...

See also Michael's previous list: Sept–Oct 2000

Michael Helms roams Australia and New Zealand for Fangoria magazine. He regularly contributes to Crimson Celluloid and always fails to turn up at DVD Users Anonymous meetings.

back to lists, Sept-Oct 2001


Cerise Howard

(in no particular order)

The Tenant        (Roman Polanski, 1976)
Heavenly Creatures        (Peter Jackson, 1994)
The Exterminating Angel        (Luis Buñuel, 1962)
Tenebrae        (Dario Argento, 1982)
Cannibal Holocaust        (Ruggero Deodato, 1979)
Dead Man         (Jim Jarmusch, 1995)
Evil Dead II        (Sam Raimi, 1987)
Sherlock, Jr.        (Buster Keaton, 1924)
Seven Samurai        (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
Brazil         (Terry Gilliam, 1985)

See also Cerise's revised list: May–June 2003

Cerise Howard is a Melbourne Underground Film Festival Coordinator, an occasional writer on film, a video clip maker, musician, neologist and dabbler in the Beige Arts, and Senses of Cinema's webmaster.

back to lists, June 2001


Narain Jashanmal

(in no particular order)

Faces        (John Cassavetes, 1968)
Persona        (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
Videodrome        (David Cronenberg, 1982)
Coming Apart        (Milton Moses Ginsberg, 1969)
Taste of Cherry        (Abbas Kiarostami, 1997)
The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1952)
Masculin Féminin        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966)
Roma, Città Aperta        (Roberto Rossellini, 1945)
Maborosi        (Hirokazu Koreeda, 1995)
Identificazione di una donna        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1982)

I think, also, that the work of Jon Jost and Luis Buñuel deserve special mention.

Narain Jashanmal is an author and filmmaker who splits his time between New York, Europe and the Middle East

back to lists, June 2001


Kevin John

(in preferential order)

1.  Some Call It Loving        (James B. Harris, 1973)
2.  The Hart of London        (Jack Chambers, 1969-'70)
3.  Imitation of Life        (Douglas Sirk, 1958)
4.  Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles        (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
5.  Blow Job        (Andy Warhol, 1963)
6.  Thanatopsis        (Ed Emshwiller, 1963)
7.  Submit To Me Now        (Richard Kern, 1987)
8.  Illusions        (Julie Dash, 1984)
9.  Angel Face        (Otto Preminger, 1953)
10. The Rocky Horror Picture Show        (Jim Sharman, 1975)

Instead of lavishing praise on those films which stand out as perfectly controlled units, my top ten list is an attempt to reiterate cinema as an activity. Surely, there are more masterful films than, say, Submit To Me Now. But it's "seeing Submit To Me Now" which takes up the number seven slot rather than merely the film itself. And just to demonstrate that I'm not altogether ignorant of the text, I've omitted such terrible films as The Mod Squad, Happy, Texas and Spring Break, all of which have provided me with unforgettable, if unwitting, cinematic experiences.

Kevin John is the film critic for In Step, a gay and lesbian biweekly in Milwaukee.

back to lists, June 2001


Milo Kossowski

(in preferential order; films y'all must see)

1.  Vampyr        (Carl Dreyer, 1932)
2.  Celine et Julie vont en bateau       (Jacques Rivette, 1974)
3.  Les Parapluies de Cherbourg        (Jacques Demy, 1964)
4.  Salò        (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975)
5.  Repulsion        (Roman Polanski, 1965)
6.  Don't Look Now        (Nicolas Roeg, 1973)
7.  La Religieuse        (Jacques Rivette, 1966)
8.  Mother and Son        (Aleksandr Sokurov, 1997)
9.  3 Women        (Robert Altman, 1977)
10. Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

Other faves... A Woman Under the Influence (1974, John Cassavetes); Gloria (1980, John Cassavetes); Faces (1968, John Cassavetes); Clockwork Orange (1971, Stanley Kubrick); The Honeymoon Killers (1969, Leonard Kastle); Satyricon (1969, Federico Fellini); Death in Venice (1971, Luchino Visconti); Yellow Submarine (1968, George Dunning)

Milo Kossowski is a student at RMIT, Melbourne, and dabbles in art of many kinds.

back to lists, June 2001


Maximilian Le Cain

(revised list, in preferential order)

1.  Death in Venice        (Luchino Visconti, 1971)
2.  Mirror         (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
3.  L'Eclisse        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962)
4.  Le Berceau de cristal        (Philippe Garrel, 1975)
5.  2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966)
6.  Viaggio in Italia        (Roberto Rossellini, 1953)
7.  L'Argent        (Robert Bresson, 1983)
8.  Les Parapluies de Cherbourg        (Jacques Demy, 1964)
9.  The Age of Innocence        (Martin Scorsese, 1993)
10. Husbands        (John Cassavetes, 1970)

Writing the first list was like stating a theme; these revisions are a few variations, probably prompted more by mood than anything else... Nevertheless, it's a relief to be able to correct the error of Demy's initial exclusion!

See also Max's other lists: Nov 2000        Sept–Oct 2003

Maximilian Le Cain is a 22-year-old filmmaker and cinephile living in Cork City, Ireland. He has written for the magazine Film West.

back to lists, June 2001


Jonathon Oake

(in preferential order)

1.  Mean Streets        (Martin Scorsese, 1973)
2.  I Vitelloni        (Federico Fellini, 1953)
3.  Ghostbusters        (Ivan Reitman, 1984)
4.  Crimes and Misdemeanors        (Woody Allen, 1989)
5.  Le Samourai        (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)
6.  North by Northwest        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
7.  Ferris Bueller's Day Off        (John Hughes, 1986)
8.  Secrets and Lies        (Mike Leigh, 1996)
9.  Get Carter        (Mike Hodges, 1971)
10. The Big Lebowski        (Joel Coen, 1998)

Jonathon Oake is a postgrad in the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne, and he also write film reviews for the venerable Melbourne Uni newspaper, Farrago.

back to lists, June 2001


Alan Pavelin

(revised list, in chronological order)

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc        (Carl Dreyer, 1928)
Seen with a live full orchestra this is an unforgettable experience. In her only film, Renee Falconetti's performance is perhaps the best ever by an actress.

Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
An ordinary story about ordinary people, yet you become so totally involved that you forget you're reading subtitles and that it's all in Japanese.

Ugetsu Monogatari        (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)
Has been claimed (in Cahiers du Cinema) as "the most beautiful film in the world". I cannot demur. A magical ghost-story, culminating in a wonderful "special effect" requiring no technological trickery whatever.

Viaggio in Italia        (Roberto Rossellini, 1953)
A film in which nothing happens, yet everything happens. I'd rather have any minute of Ingrid Bergman in this, than the whole of the grossly over-rated Casablanca. A hugely seminal film whose influence can be seen in, for example, the French "new wave" of the early 1960s and the wonderful Iranian cinema of today.

Sansho Dayu        (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954)
One of the 2 films on this list I regard as utter perfection (which is not synonymous with being the "best"). Awsomely Shakespearian, with unforgettable cinematography. What puzzles me is the title: Sansho himself is a relatively minor character.

Gertrud        (Carl Dreyer, 1964)
The other "perfect" film. The profoundest meditation on love I have seen, and powerfully feminist.

Mouchette        (Robert Bresson, 1967)
I was bowled over by the recent re-issue, with its shimmering photography. Perhaps the greatest film about being an "outsider".

Stalker        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
It's so hard to leave out Andrei Rublev and Mirror, but this deeply spiritual masterpiece just sneaks ahead. Like Dostoevsky, Tarkovsky is a master at portraying the "holy fool" character.

The Sacrifice        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1986)
Seeing this for the first time was the most moving cinematic experience of my life, perhaps because Tarkovsky had died just days earlier. A timeless masterpiece, starting and finishing with breathtaking extended shots.

Yi yi: A One and a Two...        (Edward Yang, 2000)
A quite wonderful family saga which, like Tokyo Story, is of universal significance and not just about the professional classes of Taiwan. Just like Ozu's masterpiece, you soon forget it's all in Chinese (actually, key sections are in English) and become totally absorbed in the characters.

Edward Yang's wonderful Yi yi is, without doubt, the best new film I have seen for 15 years. It replaces the Kieslowski (Trois Couleurs: Rouge) in my list. Otherwise unchanged.

See also Alan's other lists: Apr 2000        Nov 2000        Jul–Aug 2003

Alan Pavelin is the author of the book Fifty Religious Films (1990), and has written for several U.K. magazines on this topic, including The Month and Media Development.

back to lists, June 2001


Mike Rollo

(in no particular order)

Vivre sa vie        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)
The Man With a Movie Camera        (Dziga Vertov, 1928)
I am Cuba        (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1964)
The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes        (Stan Brakhage, 1971)
passing through/torn formations        (Philip Hoffman, 1988)
The Silence        (Ingmar Bergman, 1963)
Walkabout        (Nicolas Roeg, 1971)
Let's Get Lost        (Bruce Weber, 1988)
Los Olvidados        (Luis Buñuel, 1950)
2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

Mike Rollo is a graduate cinema student at Concordia University.

back to lists, June 2001


Steve Russell

(in preferential order)

1.  The Third Man        (Carol Reed, 1949)
2.  Stalker        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
3.  The Night of the Hunter        (Charles Laughton, 1955)
4.  Pather Panchali        (Satyajit Ray, 1955)
5.  Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
6.  El Espíritu de la colmena        (Victor Erice, 1973)
7.  Sherlock, Jr.        (Buster Keaton, 1924)
8.  Chimes at Midnight        (Orson Welles, 1966)
9.  It Happened One Night        (Frank Capra, 1934)
10. Pierrot le Fou        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)

Notable omissions include...oh man, far too many to list, but I'll mention the ones most difficult to cut: Grand Illusion (Renoir), Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg), Breaking the Waves (von Trier), Forbidden Games (Clément), Children of Paradise (Carné), Raising Arizona (Coen)...and tons of Chaplin, Ozu, Polanski, Ford, Kurosawa, Welles, Bergman, Buñuel, Fellini, Tarkovsky, Wong Kar-wai, Mizoguchi, Godard, Kieslowski, Dreyer.

Steve Russell is a rabid 19 year old Californian cineaste currently eating up any and all decent repertory cinema that happens to play in his area – sadly, far too little. He has also written and co-directed short films and is eating up precious time at a community college in hopes of someday soon attending a decent film school.

back to lists, June 2001


Angelo Salamanca

(in preferential order)

1.  Il Conformista        (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1969)
Never has substance, style, politics, beauty and death been captured so absolutely as in this film.

2.  The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser        (Werner Herzog, 1974)
Innocence like it's never been explored before or since.

3.  The Conversation        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
Other-wordly and yet very much this-worldly. A delicious metaphor for the tricks life plays on us.

4.  Mouchette        (Robert Bresson, 1967)
Bleak as bleak can be - it goes straight to the heart because you want it to.

5.  Les Quatre Cents Coups        (François Truffaut, 1959)
When rite of passage isn't always right or alright.

6.  Chimes at Midnight        (Orson Welles, 1966)
Best Shakespeare adaptation ever. Welles loves all things fallible. His imagery is as much Shakespearean as the text is.

7.  The Five Senses        (Jeremy Podeswa, 1999)
Sinfully neglected film. Thankfully screened at the 1999 Melbourne Film Festival. Intelligent, witty, beguiling. You want to have dinner with Podeswa's characters......regularly.

8.  Cries and Whispers        (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)
Red for: blood, life, consanguinity, passion. White for: purity, cowardice, ghostliness, shroud. Blend red and white and you have dialectic on what it is the purpose of living.

9.          (Federico Fellini, 1963)
What isn't this film about?

10. Repulsion        (Roman Polanski, 1965)
Come, take a trip into the dark recesses of the mind - without a torch.

Angelo Salamanca has been professionally active in film and theatre in Melbourne for over twenty years. His debut feature film as writer/director, Hostage to Fate, is currently in post-production.

back to lists, June 2001


Glenn Sloggett

(in preferential order)

1.  Ladri di Biciclette        (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)
2.  Gummo        (Harmony Korine, 1997)
3.  Grey Gardens         (David & Albert Maysles, Ellen Hovde & Muffie Meyer, 1975)
4.  Stroszek        (Werner Herzog, 1977)
5.  In a Year of 13 Moons        (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1978)
6.  The Decline Of Western Civilisation (Part 1)        (Penelope Spheeris, 1980)
7.  The Elephant Man         (David Lynch, 1980)
8.  Pixote        (Hector Babenco, 1981)
9.  Wings of Desire        (Wim Wenders, 1987)
10.  D.O.A.        (Lech Kowalski, 1980)

Glenn Sloggett is a fine art documentary photographer living in Melbourne (in self-imposed exile from Brisbane). He once worshipped Francis Ford Coppola and settles now for "just" watching films and editing the occasional seedy video doco.

back to lists, June 2001


Andre Speldewinde

After spending hours looking back on reference books and old tapes I can only say that these are ten films I simply love the hell out of.

(in preferential order)

1.  Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!        (Russ Meyer, 1965)
2.  In Cold Blood        (Richard Brooks, 1967)
3.  Point Blank        (John Boorman, 1967)
4.  The Big Doll House        (Jack Hill, 1971)
5.  The Loved One        (Tony Richardson, 1965)
6.  Fireball Jungle        (Joseph P. Mawra, 1969)
7.  Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
8.  Branded to Kill        (Seijun Suzuki, 1967)
9.  The Manchurian Candidate        (John Frankenheimer, 1962)
10. Santa Sangre        (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1989)

Runners up: Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971), The Raven (Roger Corman, 1964), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Joseph Sargent, 1974), Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945), Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero, 1968), The Killer (John Woo, 1989), Il Confomista (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1969), Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962) Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976), Orgy of the Dead (Stephen C. Apostoloff, 1965), The Brain That Wouldn't Die (Joseph Green, 1960).

[Andre Speldewinde is a 14-year-old ginger movie nerd living in Melbourne.

back to lists, June 2001


Megan Spencer

This is the hardest thing you could ever ask me to do, short of murder... This list will evolve and change over my lifetime and if it didn't something would be very wrong. This is what I came up with today, the order's probably wrong and it took "yonks". But don't hold me to it...

(in preferential order)

1.  Sunset Boulevard        (Billy Wilder, 1950)
2.  Grey Gardens         (David & Albert Maysles; Ellen Hovde & Muffie Meyer, 1975)
3.  Blue Velvet        (David Lynch, 1986)
4.  Gummo        (Harmony Korine, 1997)
5.  Lessons In Darkness        (Werner Herzog, 1992)
6.  The Night of the Hunter        (Charles Laughton, 1955)
7.  Sans soleil        (Chris Marker, 1982)
8.  Midnight Cowboy        (John Schlesinger, 1969)
9.  The Nutty Professor        (Jerry Lewis, 1963)
10. The Thin Blue Line        (Errol Morris, 1988)

Megan Spencer is the resident film critic at Australian national broadcaster Triple J Radio and is an independent video documentary maker. She is based in Melbourne.

back to lists, June 2001


Dave Tacon

(in no partcular order)

Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
The Godfather        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
Paris, Texas        (Wim Wenders, 1984)
Annie Hall        (Woody Allen, 1977)
The Tenant        (Roman Polanski, 1976)
Fanny and Alexander        (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
Rear Window        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
Goodfellas        (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
Some Like it Hot        (Billy Wilder, 1959)
Bringing Up Baby        (Howard Hawks, 1938)

Films I wish I could cram into this list: Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise, Hellman's Two Lane Blacktop, Bergman's Smultronstället and Sommarnattens leende, Godard's A bout de souffle, Rivette's La Belle Noiseuse, Fellini's Otto e mezzo and La Dolce Vita, Sautet's Un Coeur en Hiver, Coppola's Apocalypse Now, Cassavetes' Opening Night, Polanski's Chinatown, Mike Nichols' The Graduate and Carnal Knowledge, etc. etc. etc, or The Sweet Smell of Success, The Godfather Part II, Branded to Kill, The 400 Blows and Der Himmel über Berlin and I didn't mention Altman, Ashby, Kubrick, Truffaut, Lubitsch, Lang, Antonioni, not to mention John Ford, but I'd better give it a rest now...

Dave Tacon is a 25 year old Melburnian living and working in Berlin. He did an Honours thesis at Melbourne uni called Road Movies: Wim Wenders and the American Dream and worked in Development at Road Movies (Wenders' production company) last year.

back to lists, June 2001


George Young

(in preferential order)

1.  The Godfather        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
2.  The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly        (Sergio Leone, 1966)
3.  Goodfellas         (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
4.  To Kill a Mockingbird        (Robert Mulligan, 1962)
5.  Barry Lyndon        (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
6.  Das Boot        (Wolfgang Peterson, 1981)
7.  Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources        (Claude Berri, 1986)
8.  Aguirre: the Wrath of God        (Werner Herzog, 1972)
9.  Le Notti di Cabiria        (Federico Fellini, 1957)
10. Down by Law         (Jim Jarmusch, 1986)

George Young is a chaplain at a Juvenile Detention Center in Ohio who has a strong interest in film.

back to lists, June 2001


Danny Younis

Unlike other contributors, I found this list surprisingly simple to compile – these are the films that I repeatedly return to (I have seen every one at least a dozen times each!) and provide many precious, joyous, exhilarating, profound and incandescent epiphanies and Proustian fragments that forever cascade around my mind and memory. Without them my life cannot possibly be.

(in chronological order)

Sherlock, Jr.        (Buster Keaton, 1924)
Sunrise         (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
La Passion de Jeannne d'Arc        (Carl Dreyer, 1928)
Journal d'un Curé de Campagne        (Robert Bresson, 1950)
Sansho Dayu        (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954)
Persona        (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
Once Upon a Time in the West        (Sergeo Leone, 1968)
Cries and Whispers        (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)
Mirror         (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
A Short Film About Killing        (Kryzstof Kieslowski, 1987)

Runners Up (listed chronologically): STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. (1928, USA, Charles F. Reisner, Buster Keaton [uncredited] ), CITY LIGHTS (1931, USA, Charles Chaplin), LA GRANDE ILLUSION (1937, France, Jean Renoir), PINOCCHIO (1940, USA, Walt Disney), THE ILLIAC PASSION (1948, USA, Gregory Markopolous), LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN (1948, USA, Max Ophuls), LA TERRA TREMA (1948, Italy, Luchino Visconti), LOS OLVIDADOS (1950, Mexico, Luis Buñuel), SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952, USA, Stanley Donen/Gene Kelly), SHANE (1953, USA, George Stevens), IKIRU (1953, Japan, Akira Kurosawa), CHIKAMATSU MONOGATARI/aka CRUCIFIED LOVERS (1955, Japan, Kenji Mizoguchi), PICKPOCKET (1959, France, Robert Bresson), SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959, USA, Billy Wilder), L'AVVENTURA (1960, Italy, Michelangelo Antonioni), PASSENGER (1960, Poland, Andrzej Munk), JULES ET JIM (1961, France, Francois Truffaut), VIVRE SA VIE (1962, France, Jean-Luc Godard), 8 1/2 (1963, Italy, Federico Fellini), LA RELIGIEUSE (1965, France, Jacques Rivette), ANDREI RUBLEV (1966, USSR, Andrei Tarkovsky), SHAME (1968, Sweden, Ingmar Bergman), DEATH BY HANGING (1968, Japan, Nagisa Oshima), A PASSION (1969, Sweden, Ingmar Bergman), TIMES FOR (1971, UK, Stephen Dwoskin), THE GODFATHER (1972, USA, Francis Ford Coppola), ALICE IN THE CITIES (1974, Germany, Wim Wenders), LA VILLE DES PIRATES/ CITY OF PIRATES (1983, France/Portugal, Raúl Ruiz), BELL DIAMOND (1985, USA, Jon Jost )

Top Shorts: ROSALIE (1966, France, Walerian Borowczwk), KARIN'S FACE (1986, Sweden, Ingmar Bergman)

Top Australian Film: WRONG WORLD (1986, Australia, Ian Pringle)

Top Film by a Woman: Depending on how I feel - DUET FOR CANNIBALS (1969, Sweden, Susan Sontag) or LES RENDEZ-VOUS D'ANNA (1978, Belgium, Chantal Akerman)

5 Most Desperately-Want-to-See Films (CAN ANYONE HELP ME PLEASE?): J'ACCUSE! (1919, France, Abel Gance), A PAGE OF MADNESS (1926, Japan, Teinosuke Kinugasa), WIFE, BE LIKE A ROSE (1935, Japan, Mikio Naruse), L'AMOUR FOU (1968, France, Jacques Rivette), OUT 1:SPECTRE (1970, France, Jacques Rivette)

Danny Younis has had over ten years experience in the film industry, as both a company director and in senior managerial positions, in private and publicly-listed companies. He has released such films as The Blair Witch Project, Scream, Two Hands and Passion. He is currently a stockbroker / equities analyst with an institutional stockbroker specialising in the media, entertainment, and tourism & leisure sectors of the Australian Stock Exchange.

back to lists, June 2001


TALLY at June 2001,
after 158 original lists, 20 revised lists, and 2 deleted lists:

By film:

The Thin Red Line
The Thin Red Line
 1.
 2.

 4.
 5.
 6.



10.

Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
Sunrise        (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
La Règle du jeu        (Jean Renoir, 1939)
Au Hasard, Balthazar        (Robert Bresson, 1966)
Mirror        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
The Thin Red Line       (Terrence Malick, 1998)
Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Le Mépris        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
The Night of the Hunter       (Charles Laughton, 1955)
35
16
16
13
12
11
11
11
11
10
10

By director:

Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
 1.
 2.
 3.
 4.
 5.
 6.

 8.

10.
Alfred Hitchcock
Jean-Luc Godard
Robert Bresson
Andrei Tarkovsky
Orson Welles
Stanley Kubrick
Martin Scorsese
Michelangelo Antonioni
Carl Dreyer
Yasujiro Ozu
  54
  45
  40
  34
  32
  26
  26
  25
  25
  24

  back to the top of the page



 

April–May 2001

 


Acquarello

(revised list, in preferential order)

1.  Stalker        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
2.  Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
3.  Life of Oharu        (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1952)
4.  Cries and Whispers        (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)
5.  Mouchette        (Robert Bresson, 1967)
6.  Le Notti di Cabiria        (Federico Fellini, 1957)
7.  Charulata        (Satyajit Ray, 1964)
8.  Dekalog        (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1988)
9.  Ordet        (Carl Dreyer, 1955)
10. The Blue Angel        (Josef von Sternberg, 1930)

Only minor revisions in this iteration, replacing Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors: Red for Decalogue and adding Satyajit Ray's Charulata at the expense of René Clément's Forbidden Games (Jeux Interdits). The decisive factor in the inclusion of the film was Madhabi Mukherjee's reverent recollections on working with Ray, and her agonizing decision to sever their association as a result of unfounded, vicious gossip surrounding the nature of their professional relationship. The void created by Madhabi Mukherjee's absence in the cinematic world of Satyajit Ray seems like a great, insurmountable injustice when seeing this exquisite film.

See also Acquarello's previous lists: Mar 2000        Sept–Oct 2000

Acquarello is a NASA Design Engineer and author of the Strictly Film School website.

back to lists, Apr-May 2001


Damien Cassar

There is always so much more to see and experience, but at this moment ten films that have bored into my soul include:

(in preferential order)

1.  Trois Couleurs: Rouge        (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1994)
2.  Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries)        (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
3.  Mirror        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
4.  Breaking the Waves        (Lars von Trier, 1996)
5.  The Thin Red Line        (Terrence Malick, 1998)
6.  2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
7.  Ladri di Biciclette        (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)
8.  The Straight Story        (David Lynch, 1999)
9.  Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
10. Rashomon        (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)

Damien Cassar is a student completing his Honours degree in Media at Macquarie University, Sydney. He has also directed several short films. His website is at www.damotank.com

back to lists, Apr-May 2001


Bill Craske

1.  Fat City        (John Huston, 1972)
2.  Love Streams        (John Cassavetes, 1984)
3.  The Shop Around the Corner        (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940)
4.  Raging Bull        (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
5.  Love Affair: or The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator        (Dusan Makavejev, 1967)
6.  The Naked Spur        (Anthony Mann, 1953)
7.  In a Lonely Place        (Nicholas Ray, 1950)
8.  The Hustler        (Robert Rossen, 1961)
9.  Un Coeur en Hiver        (Claude Sautet, 1991)
10. Paris, Texas        (Wim Wenders, 1984)

A forum for Estangement, Destruction, Hope, Desire, Alienation, Love, Death, Redemption and the struggle of being human. Doom and Gloom. Erggh. And still no room for: Raoul Walsh (White Heat), Sidney Lumet (The Verdict), Jean Renoir (French CanCan), Roman Polanski (Chinatown), Werner Herzog (The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser), Billy Wilder (Ace in the Hole), Jacques Rivette (La Belle Noiseuse), Victor Erice (Spirit of the Beehive), Preston Sturges (Miracle of Morgan's Creek), Robert Bresson (Mouchette).

Bill Craske is a regular contributor to Region 4 and Screen Print magazines. He is also a playwright, filmmaker and insomniac.

back to lists, Apr-May 2001


Mike DeJong

(revised list, in preferential order)

1.  Casablanca        (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
2.  The Third Man        (Carol Reed, 1949)
3.  Rear Window        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
4.  The Manchurian Candidate        (John Frankenheimer, 1962)
5.  Blade Runner - Director's Cut        (Ridley Scott, 1992)
6.  Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
7.  M        (Fritz Lang, 1931)
8.  Sunset Boulevard        (Billy Wilder, 1950)
9.  Manhattan        (Woody Allen, 1979)
10. Notorious         (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)

See also Mike's previous list: Sept–Oct 2000

Mike DeJong is a writer and communications/film student at York University in Toronto. His website is Mike's Cinema

back to lists, Apr-May 2001


Paul Gallagher

Here are ten films I love, ten films that overwhelmed me.

(in preferential order)

1.  Ugetsu Monogatari        (Kenji Mizoguchi. 1953)
2.  Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
3.  The River        (Jean Renoir, 1951)
4.  The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance        (John Ford, 1962)
5.  Yokihi        (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1955)
6.  Il Messia        (Roberto Rossellini, 1978)
7.  There Was a Father        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1942)
8.  Le Plaisir        (Max Ophuls, 1951)
9.  Chimes at Midnight        (Orson Welles, 1966)
10. Le Mépris        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)

Paul Gallagher lives in New York City and is fond of films.

back to lists, Apr-May 2001


Fergus Grealy

(in preferential order)

1.  La Dolce Vita        (Frederico Fellini, 1960)
The most significant masterwork of contemporary cinema. Innovative in terms of narrative structure, visually surreal and semiotically enriched.

2.  Dr Strangelove        (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
One of the very few (blacker than black) comedies that that still has me laughing out loud irrespective of the numerous times I have viewed it.

3.  Au Hasard, Balthazar        (Robert Bresson, 1966)
The most affecting film experience that I have ever encountered.

4.  Welcome to the Dollhouse        (Todd Solondz, 1996)
Made by one of the exceptionally few auteurs to establish themselves in the 1990s, this film had me in raptures and fits of tears.

5.  Manhattan        (Woody Allen, 1979)
The master himself at his most superlative.

6.  The Boys        (Rowan Woods, 1998)
A film that transcended the increasingly tiresome industry niches and served as a symbol of the unheralded Australian film revival (n.b Samantha Lang, Shirley Barrett, Vincent Giarrusso).

7.  Vivre sa vie        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)
Showcases an awe-inspiring performance and a dazzling manipulation of aesthetic features.

8.  Dead Man        (Jim Jarmusch, 1995)
Evocative and unforgettable.

9.  Gummo        (Harmony Korine, 1997)
Although I am bound to receive a considerable amount of flak for this, I must proclaim unabashedly and unreservedly that Gummo is nothing less than brilliant.

10. The Purple Rose of Cairo        (Woody Allen, 1985)
Pure entertainment from the outset, superbly written and Farrow's greatest role.

A quick shout-out to the masters: Woody Allen, Frederico Fellini, Orson Welles, Robert Altman, Robert Bresson, Jean-Luc Godard, Michelangelo Antonioni, Stanley Kubrick, Luis Buñuel, Andrei Tarkovsky, Roberto Rossellini.

Fergus Grealy is a crazed film fanatic, currently studying Screen Production at the Queensland College of Art.

back to lists, Apr-May 2001


Paul Jensen

I rank films for the impact they have on me, I think. That might mean my lists contain a lot of films displaying introversion, lyricism, and emotional power, as well as novelty in style, settings, colours. Hence a liking for Bergman, Kieslowski, the French New Wave, etc. Danish, French, Italian and Swedish are my thing, mainly mid-century. I keep a Top 100 (or try to), and most are European; only a dozen or so are English speaking.

Unmissable (in preferential order):

1.  Trois Couleurs: Rouge        (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1994)
2.  Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries)        (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
3.  Alphaville        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)
4.  Ma nuit chez Maud        (Eric Rohmer, 1969)
5.  Les parapluies de Cherbourg        (Jacques Demy, 1964)
6.  Cléo de 5 à 7        (Agnès Varda, 1962)
7.  Il sorpasso        (Dino Risi, 1962)
8.  The Remains of the Day        (James Ivory, 1993)
9.  Z        (Costa-Gavras, 1969)
10. Celine et Julie Vont en Bateau        (Jacques Rivette, 1974)

Just missing are: Winter Light (1962, Bergman), Le Samourai (1967, Melville), Baisers voles (1968, Truffaut), Judex (1963, Franju) and the charming and totally unknown Three Girls in Paris (1963, Denmark's Gabriel Axel). American? The Sound of Music! Followed by, of all things, Steve McQueen's Le Mans (1971), for its colour and trancelike detachment. And Heathers (1989).

Paul Jensen is a librarian at Griffith University, in Brisbane. A buff, not a professional.

back to lists, Apr-May 2001


Shane Lyons

These sorts of lists are totally subjective, of course, especially when you have to narrow it down to ten, so I decided on the following criteria: A film has to have 1) affected my understanding of what's possible in cinema (the films I've included by Bresson, Tarkovsky, Melville and Bunuel in particular - my first exposure to those particular directors); 2) affected my personal philosophy and view of life; 3) moved me emotionally in some deep and mysterious way; and/or 4) be a neglected masterpiece (what is a published list for if not to plug something?). So this list is made up of the first films that came to mind that fulfilled at least the first three criteria in varying degrees.

If the list was to be just made up of the films that affected me most deeply it would mainly consist of ones I saw as a kid, usually on TV (e.g. Star Wars, The Other, Dial M for Murder, the Friz Freleng cartoon where Tweety drinks the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde potion and, of course, Shane), so I guess there's a terribly bourgeois concern for quality and grown-up taste involved here as well. A bit.

(in alphabetical order)

Le Cercle rouge        (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1970)
Un Chien andalou        (Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali, 1928)
Mouchette        (Robert Bresson, 1967)
Ordet        (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1954)
Pure Shit        (Bert Deling, 1975)
Rear Window        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
Stalker        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo        (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964)
Vivre sa vie        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)
You Killed Me First        (Richard Kern, 1985)

See also Shane's revised list: Nov–Dec 2001

Shane Lyons is a Melbourne filmmaker, photographer, eternal part-time student, and co-curator of a super-8 retrospective for the next Melbourne Underground Film Festival.

back to lists, Apr-May 2001


Bill Mousoulis

(revised list, in preferential order)

1.  Viaggio in Italia        (Roberto Rossellini, 1953)
2.  Au Hasard, Balthazar        (Robert Bresson, 1966)
3.  Je vous salue, Marie        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1984)
4.  Seventh Heaven        (Frank Borzage, 1927)
5.  Salò        (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975)
6.  Toute une nuit        (Chantal Akerman, 1982)
7.  Happy Together        (Wong Kar-wai, 1997)
8.  Rush It        (Gary Youngman, 1976)
9.  Identificazione di una donna        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1982)
10. L'Âge d'or         (Luis Buñuel, 1930)

Buñuel's debut feature gave me such a blast when I saw it several times last year that I just had to include it. Also, the Wong film has risen from No.9 to No.7 – joining the films above it as not only a great film from a great director, but a distinctive and therefore special film in that director's oeuvre (to my mind anyway).

And outside my top ten? Classics like Tokyo Story, Gertrud, La Règle du jeu; more modern films like A Woman Under the Influence, Le Rayon vert; and Kiarostami, especially his last two films.

See also Bill's previous lists: Dec 1999        June 2000

Bill Mousoulis is an independent filmmaker and founding editor of Senses of Cinema.

back to lists, Apr-May 2001


Mark Savage

Not wanting to betray any film on this list, please understand that the numbers are always in flux.

(in no particular order)

In a Glass Cage        (Augustin Villaronga, 1988)
The Tin Drum        (Volker Schlöndorff, 1979)
Bullet in the Head        (John Woo, 1990)
Léolo        (Jean-Claude Lauzon, 1993)
Boko! Kirisaki Jack        (Yasuharu Hasebe, 1976)
Hard Times        (Walter Hill, 1975)
Full Contact        (Ringo Lam, 1992)
Cannibal Holocaust        (Ruggero Deodato, 1979)
The Fountainhead        (King Vidor, 1949)
Death of Honor        (Kinji Fukasaku, 1975)

And these I value also, like precious orphans (and can not breathe without them): Forbidden Games (Rene Clement), Freaks (Todd Browning), My Father's Glory (Yves Robert), King Kong (Merian C. Cooper), Runner (Amir Naderi), The Invisible Man (James Whale), La Strada (Federico Fellini), The Elementary School (Jan Sverak), Anima Mundi (Godfrey Reggio), At Close Range (James Foley), Blood and Black Lace (Mario Bava), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper), Ed Wood (Tim Burton), Lolita (Adrian Lyne), Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick), Pixote (Hector Babenco), Eastern Condors (Sammo Hung), Bitter Moon (Roman Polanski), Rape (Yasuharu Hasebe), The Razor (Masumura Yasuzo), Rapeman Series (Takao Nagaishi), Sunless (Chris Marker), 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut), All Night Long Series (Katsuya Matsumura), Aftermath (Nacho Cerda), A Fishy Story (Antony Chan), The Killer (John Woo), Star of David: Beautiful Girl Hunter (Noribumi Suzuki), Dr. Lamb (Billy Tang/Danny Lee), White Rose Campus: Then, Everybody Gets Raped (Koyu Ohara), Running out of Time (Johnny To), Violent Cop (Takeshi Kitano), Sonatine (Takeshi Kitano), Vengeance is Mine (Shohei Imamura), Dead and Buried (Gary Sherman), Deathdream (Bob Clark), Near Dark (Kathryn Bigelow), Vagabond (Agnés Varda), Baxter (Jerome Boivin), The Crazy Family (Toshihiro Ishii), The Hills Have Eyes (Wes Craven), Gaby: A True Story (Luis Mandoki), Talk Radio (Oliver Stone), Casino (Martin Scorsese), True Romance (Tony Scott), Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis), A Little Princess (Alfonso Cuaron), Walker in the Attic (Akio Jissoji), Raping (Yasuharu Hasebe), The Good The Bad and The Ugly (Sergio Leone), A Fistful of Dynamite (Sergio Leone), Keoma (Enzo Castellari), Freeway (Mathew Bright), Blow Out (Brian De Palma), Mad Max: The Road Warrior (George Miller), The Tit and the Moon (Bigas Luna), A Face in the Crowd (Elia Kazan), Dersu Uzala (Akira Kurosawa) And Dellamorte Dellamore (Michel Soavi).

Mark Savage is a Melbourne film director/writer with several features to his credit including Marauders, The Masturbating Gunman and Sensitive New Age Killers (about to be released).

back to lists, Apr-May 2001


Ian Stocks

(in preferential order)

1.  L'Atalante        (Jean Vigo, 1934)
2.  Stalker        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
3.  Lo Sceicco Blanco        (Federico Fellini, 1951)
4.  The Palm Beach Story        (Preston Sturges, 1942)
5.  Un Chien andalou        (Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali, 1928)
6.  El        (Luis Buñuel, 1952)
7.  Saragossa Manuscript        (Wojciech Has, 1964)
8.  Fargo        (Joel Coen, 1995)
9.  The Loyal 47 Ronin        (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1942)
10. The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1952)

Ian Stocks teaches film and TV in Brisbane and also makes documentaries.

back to lists, Apr-May 2001


Finn Szumlas

(in preferential order)

1.  Stalker        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
2.  Don't Look Now        (Nicolas Roeg, 1973)
3.  The Big Lebowski        (Joel Coen, 1998)
4.  The Thin Red Line        (Terrence Malick, 1998)
5.  Le Mépris        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
6.  Mean Streets        (Martin Scorsese, 1973)
7.  Mauvais Sang        (Leos Carax, 1986)
8.  The Godfather II        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
9.  La Règle du jeu        (Jean Renoir, 1939)
10. Touch of Evil        (Orson Welles, 1958)

This is a very preliminary list. I should add that I still have the good fortune of having seen one or less films of the following directors and thus have a lot to look forward to: Bresson, Bergman, Jarmusch, Griffith, Murnau, Dreyer, any Ray, Pasolini to name just very few. Nods of course also to Kusturica, Wenders, Mizoguchi, Kurosawa and Truffaut. See you in six months...

See also Finn's revised list: Oct–Dec 2004

Finn Szumlas is a film student and maker and lives in Amsterdam. Not unlike Paul Schrader, he saw his first film two years ago and hasn't stopped since.

back to lists, Apr-May 2001


Erik Ulman

Although I haven't changed much in my list, I remain very aware of the arbitrariness of my selections – maybe next time I'll change things more drastically...

(revised list, in chronological order)

Intolerance        (D.W. Griffith, 1916)
Still uniquely interesting formally, in its interweaving and counterpoint of stories, and animated by lovely performances (Mae Marsh, Bobby Harron, etc.), although these do not quite reach Gish's heights in Way Down East (1920)...

La Règle du jeu        (Jean Renoir, 1939)
Another polyphonic masterpiece.

Stromboli        (Roberto Rossellini, 1949)
For its mutually enriching integration of fiction and documentary (e.g. the tuna fishing sequence), its attentive camera, Ingrid Bergman...

Ordet        (Carl Dreyer, 1954)
Features perhaps the most beautiful ending in film – still, it's sad not to include Gertrud (1964) as well...

The Night of the Hunter        (Charles Laughton, 1955)
Its shifts of genre – horror film, fairy tale, regional period piece, musical – couple with its stunning images and performances (Mitchum and Gish foremost, but also Shelley Winters and Evelyn Varden, etc.) to make one of the strangest and loveliest of all films.

The Searchers        (John Ford, 1956)
For its extraordinary visual beauty, the complexity of its characterizations, its depth and warmth; I regret not also including The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and, especially for its funeral procession, The Sun Shines Bright (1953)...

Nicht Versoehnt (Not Reconciled)        (Jean-Marie Straub, 1965)
An exhilarating experience, of unmatched rhythmic vitality; the opposite and complement to Syberberg's Hitler (and with it one of the greatest cinematic analyses of Nazism). I wish I could also include here their Moses und Aron (1975), both a superb realisation and critique of Schoenberg's great opera.

2 ou 3 Choses que je sais d'elle        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966)
However flawed, still one of Godard's most open and exploratory films, still revelatory...

Hitler, ein Film aus Deutschland        (Hans-Jurgen Syberberg, 1977)
Gruelling, excessive – as is appropriate to its theme and its aesthetic (Wagner + Brecht); an overwhelming act of purgation.

L'Argent        (Robert Bresson, 1983)
With Nicht Versoehnt, one of the most precise movies ever – nothing superfluous, every sound and detail and characterization (however minimal) indelible and alive.

Regretted omissions: Greed, The Scarlet Empress, The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum, Monsieur Verdoux, Touch of Evil, Sans soleil; Hawks (for His Girl Friday and The Thing) and Murnau (for Sunrise and Tabu); short films (Le Voyage dans la lune, A Corner in Wheat)...but it's not fair to pile these on at the end, especially after slipping still more titles in above...

See also Erik's other lists: Sept 2000        May–June 2002        Jan–Mar 2004

Erik Ulman is a composer who teaches music at the University of California, San Diego.

back to lists, Apr-May 2001


TALLY at April–May 2001,
after 136 original lists, 17 revised lists, and 2 deleted lists:

By film:

 1.
 2.
 3.
 4.
 5.

 7.


10.
Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
Sunrise        (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
La Règle du jeu        (Jean Renoir, 1939)
Le Mépris        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)

The Thin Red Line       (Terrence Malick, 1998)
Au Hasard, Balthazar        (Robert Bresson, 1966)
Mirror        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
Ordet        (Carl Dreyer, 1954)
2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
31
15
14
12
11
11
10
10
10
  9
  9

By director:

 1.
 2.
 3.
 4.
 5.
 6.


 9.


Alfred Hitchcock
Jean-Luc Godard
Robert Bresson
Andrei Tarkovsky
Orson Welles
Michelangelo Antonioni
Carl Dreyer
Martin Scorsese
Jean Renoir
Stanley Kubrick
Yasujiro Ozu
  47
  42
  35
  32
  29
  23
  23
  23
  22
  22
  22

  back to the top of the page



 

February–March 2001

 


Martha Ansara

I couldn't compile a list based on mere opinion but given the truth that exists in action and measuring how I have actually voted with my feet, here is a list of films that I have spent considerable time, effort and money to see again and again and again on the big screen. It's rather embarrassing to realise that, even taking into account the availability of screenings, the films on this list are predominately those that first struck me so forcibly decades ago in the companionable days of youthful cinephilia, films which for idiosyncratic reasons continue to glow in a special, personal way. It's a list that reveals the emotional impact on my psyche, at least, of the film culture of the 1960s and this, I think, does make it thought-provoking. Some more recent features may eventually catch up to the others on the list, but they haven't had much of a chance yet as I don't usually watch films on video. It's sad for me that there are hardly any films by women on my list and that I still see Hitchcock's films most readily. Alas, truth in action does not lie! These are films that I'd walk a mile for – and I do, even today. They are so mesmerising for me that I couldn't tell you what's in them; watching the dramas especially is a primal act, fresh, private and familiar every time:

(in preferential order)

1.  Vertigo         (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
which I've seen 25 or 30 times, then followed by Notorious, Rear Window, North by Northwest and most of the others.

2.  The Searchers        (John Ford, 1956)
and other Ford films.

3.  Many films directed by Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray, Samuel Fuller and Billy Wilder.

4.  Singin' in the Rain        (Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1952)
5.  The Night of the Hunter        (Charles Laughton, 1955)
6.  High and Low        (Akira Kurosawa, 1963)
and many other Kurosawa films; also The Leopard and Rome Open City, despite the fact that I primarily like films which are in English.

7.  Le Joli mai        (Chris Marker, 1962) and Phantom India        (Louis Malle, 1968)
when I get a chance.

8.  Old films: The Sentimental Bloke        (Raymond Longford, 1919), Chaplin and Keaton
I've seen them often.

9.  Meshes of the Afternoon        (Maya Deren, 1943), some of Paul Winkler's films and certain other experimental films - also Corinne Cantrill's In This Life's Body.
10. And, unexpectedly, the work of Australian new media artists like John Tonkin which one has to see on video or via dLux media arts and I do.

There are also films photographed by certain cinematographers which I go to see if I can. But that's another kind of list.

Martha Ansara is an Australian independent filmmaker of many years standing.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Terry Ballard

(revised list, in preferential order)

1.  East of Eden        (Elia Kazan, 1955)
2.  Lawrence of Arabia        (David Lean, 1962)
3.  Conte d'hiver        (Eric Rohmer, 1992)
4.  O Lucky Man!        (Lindsay Anderson, 1973)
5.  La femme de l'aviateur        (Eric Rohmer, 1980)
6.  Sullivan's Travels        (Preston Sturges, 1942)
7.  Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu 1953)
8.  The Unbearable Lightness of Being        (Philip Kaufman, 1987)
9.  sex, lies and videotape        (Steven Soderbergh, 1989)
10. Hail the Conquering Hero        (Preston Sturges, 1944)

See also Terry's previous list: Apr 2000

Terry Ballard is the Automation Librarian at Quinnipiac University in Hamden Connecticut. He oversees the web site, Eric Rohmer, A highly unofficial web page.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Tait Brady

Just as the sad songs are always the best, I've gone not for my 'favourite' films, but ten which have moved me, affected me, the most and continue to haunt me.

(in some kind of order)

Love Streams        (John Cassavetes, 1984)
The Kingdom        (Lars von Trier, 1994)
Les Amants de Pont-Neuf        (Léos Carax, 1989)
Bad Lieutenant        (Abel Ferrara, 1992)
Gabbeh        (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1995)
The Puppetmaster        (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1993)
La Captive du désert        (Raymond Depardon, 1990)
Sunrise        (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
Il Deserto Rosso        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964)
A Canterbury Tale        (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1944)

Red Desert stands in for any number of early Antonionis; The Kingdom is technically a TV mini-series, but as I saw the first 4 hour version in a theatre and it remains one of the great cinema experiences of my life, I reckon it qualifies. Believe me, Captive (aka Prisoner) of the Desert is not a deliberately obscure choice - this little known feature is by renowned French documentary maker Depardon, and stars the astounding Sandrine Bonnaire. Almost without dialogue over its entire 100+ minutes, I will never forget seeing it almost alone at some festival in Europe. Can't believe I'm not able to fit in Sunless, any Mike Leigh, Bresson, Dazed and Confused or anything with Bob Mitchum!

Tait Brady is General Manager of Palace Films, a Melbourne based independent film distributor. He was Exhibition Programming Manager for the Australian Film Institute prior to being Director of the Melbourne International Film Festival from 1988- 96.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Andrew Bunney

(in preferential order)

1.  Hardcore Logo        (Bruce McDonald, 1996)
2.  American Beauty        (Sam Mendes, 1999)
3.  Heavenly Creatures        (Peter Jackson, 1994)
4.  Memento        (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
5.  Limbo        (John Sayles, 1999)
6.  Les Vacances de M. Hulot        (Jacques Tati, 1953)
7.  Secrets and Lies        (Mike Leigh, 1997)
8.  Les Quatre Cents Coups        (François Truffaut, 1959)
9.  Blue Velvet        (David Lynch, 1986)
10. Don't Look Back        (DA Pennebaker, 1967)

See also Andrew's revised list: Sept–Oct 2001

Andrew Bunney is an emerging film writer based in Adelaide.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


David Burns

(in no particular order):

Ran        (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)
Fargo        (Joel Coen, 1995)
Dr. Strangelove        (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
Zentropa/Europa        (Lars von Trier, 1991)
Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
Fearless        (Peter Weir, 1993)
Ladri di Biciclette        (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)
Babette's Feast        (Gabriel Axel, 1987)
The Godfather I & II        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972 & 1974)
Crimes and Misdemeanors        (Woody Allen, 1989)

David Burns is a film lover working as a librarian at Spring Arbor College in Michigan.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Paul Coughlin

Not the ten best films, rather my ten favourites.

(in chronological order)

A Matter of Life and Death        (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1946)
The Third Man        (Carol Reed, 1949)
Psycho        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Lolita        (Stanley Kubrick, 1961)
Dr. Strangelove        (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly        (Sergio Leone, 1966)
Le Samourai        (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)
Once Upon a Time in the West        (Sergeo Leone, 1968)
Mean Streets        (Martin Scorsese, 1973)
Miller's Crossing        (Joel Coen, 1991)

Paul Coughlin is undertaking postgraduate research in the Literary, Visual and Cultural Studies Department at Monash University.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Rick Curnutte

(in preferential order)

1.  La Passion de Jeannne d'Arc        (Carl Dreyer, 1928)
2.  Battleship Potemkin        (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
3.  The General        (Buster Keaton/Clyde Bruckman, 1926)
4.  Modern Times        (Charles Chaplin, 1936)
5.  The Godfather II        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
6.  Raging Bull        (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
7.  The Bride of Frankenstein        (James Whale, 1935)
8.  Un Chien andalou        (Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali, 1928)
9.  Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
10. A Bout de Souffle        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1959)

See also Rick's revised lists: Sept–Oct 2001        Nov–Dec 2003

Rick Curnutte is a 24-year-old unprofessional student of cinema. He studied fiilm at Ohio University, but now he works a monkey job and buys insane amounts of DVDs. See his web site, Cinema Greats.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Fergus Daly

It's hard to know whether to admit to what one feels to be the best or most important films ever made, or to those one loves and craves the most. Well maybe not that difficult after all. I confess...

(in alphabetical order)

An Autumn Afternoon        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1962)
Boy Meets Girl        (Léos Carax 1984)
Carousel        (Henry King, 1956)
Colour of Pomegranates        (Sergei Parajanov, 1969)
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir        (Joseph Mankiewicz, 1947)
Head Over Heels aka Chilly Scenes of Winter        (Joan Micklin Silver, 1979)
Histoire(s) du cinéma          (Jean-Luc Godard 1988-1998)
J'entends plus la guitare          (Philippe Garrel, 1990)
Mirror         (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo        (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964) / Journal d'un Curé de Campagne        (Robert Bresson, 1950)
Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

Fergus Daly is a Doctoral student and teacher at the Centre for Film Studies in University College Dublin, Ireland.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Chris Fujiwara

All the usual disclaimers, doubts, and qualifications apply, of course.

(in rough preferential order)

1.  Bigger than Life        (Nicholas Ray, 1956)
2.  La règle du jeu        (Jean Renoir, 1939)
3.  Playtime        (Jacques Tati, 1967)
4.  Beyond a Reasonable Doubt        (Fritz Lang, 1956)
5.  The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance        (John Ford, 1962)
6.  News from Home        (Chantal Akerman, 1976)
7.  Out 1: Spectre        (Jacques Rivette, 1972)
8.  La Voie lactée        (Luis Buñuel, 1968)
9.  Germania, anno zero        (Roberto Rossellini, 1947)
10. Mirror        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)

For the last three films on the above list, any three of the following could be substituted: To Be or Not To Be (Lubitsch), Advise and Consent (Preminger), 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle (Godard), Man's favourite Sport? (Hawks), Some Came Running (Minnelli), Chimes at Midnight (Welles), Experiment Perilous (Jacques Tourneur), Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur), The Birds (Hitchcock), Love Streams (Cassavetes), The Big Heat (Lang), M (Lang), Moonfleet (Lang), Fort Apache (Ford), Holiday (Cukor), The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles), The Big Mouth (Jerry Lewis), The Trial (Welles), Frankenstein Created Woman (Fisher), The Lusty Men (Nicholas Ray), Viaggio in Italia (Rossellini), Nazarin (Buñuel), Les anges du pêché (Bresson), The Devil Is a Woman (Sternberg), Gertrud (Dreyer), Silver Lode (Dwan), Objective, Burma! (Walsh), Osaka Elegy (Mizoguchi), L'Atalante (Vigo), Late Spring (Ozu), To Have and Have Not (Hawks), Le plaisir (Max Ophuls).

See also Chris' revised list: May–June 2003

Chris Fujiwara writes for Hermenaut, The Boston Phoenix, Mean, and other publications. His book Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall will be published in March by Johns Hopkins University Press. This semester he's teaching a seminar on film time and performance at Yale University. He's also working with A.S. Hamrah on a book on world cinema in the '70s, to be published by Basic Books. His home page has links to his online writing and lots more lists.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Dan Harper

Looking at my old list, I find it to be a tad "safe" and hopelessly 'Old Guard.' What follows is my revised version, with a heartier attempt at editorializing.

(revised list, in chronological order [excepting, purely for reasons of expediency, films prior to 1945 and any American film])

Ladri di Biciclette        (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)
Both triumph and transcendence of neo-realism. Humanism's post-war rebirth.

Sawdust and Tinsel         (Ingmar Bergman, 1953)
What would any list be without at least one Bergman film? This one came before his famous (and boring) crisis of faith.

The Human Condition         (Masaki Kobayashi, 1959-61)
Usually cited as the world's longest film, it wins from sheer conviction alone.

Les Quatre Cents Coups        (François Truffaut, 1959)
I suppose this settles the silly Godard vs.Truffaut argument. Sad that his best work was his first.

L'Avventura        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
Easily the most challenging film of the last fifty years.

Le feu follet        (Louis Malle, 1963)
A concentrated, heartbreaking search for a reason not to die.

La Battaglia di Algeri        (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1965)
Unprecedented recounting of one of colonialism's last stands.

Woman in the Dunes        (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964)
A miraculous, and peculiarly Japanese, nightmare.

Vengeance Is Mine        (Shohei Imamura, 1979)
Extremely modern hagiography of an extremely latter-day saint (who murdered his way to sainthood).

Porte aperte        (Gianni Amelio, 1989)
A beautiful, grave examination of one of the latest stages in human evolution (like the abolition of slavery or human sacrifice) - the urgent questioning of capital punishment.

See also Dan's previous list: Jul–Aug 2000

Dan Harper sits squarely – and happily – on the fringes of officialdom. Avoiding anything resembling credentials, he slouches his way toward one of the last respectable professions: teaching. Meanwhile...

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Paula Herlihy

Chosen on the basis of the films I re-watch at regular intervals and still enjoy:

(in preferential order)

1.  Seven Samurai        (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
2.  The Blues Brothers        (John Landis, 1980)
3.  Metropolis        (Fritz Lang, 1984 version)
4.  High and Low        (Akira Kurosawa, 1963)
5.  The Third Man        (Carol Reed, 1949)
6.  Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
7.  Scenes from a Marriage        (Ingmar Bergman, 1973)
8.  Local Hero        (Bill Forsyth, 1983)
9.  Blade Runner        (Ridley Scott, 1982)
10. Monty Python's Life of Brian        (Terry Jones, 1979)

Paula Herlihy is a teacher in the TAFE system. Her interests include anime, local history, and humour.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Alex Jackson

(in preferential order)

1.  Days of Heaven        (Terrence Malick, 1978)
2.  Taxi Driver        (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
3.  The Virgin Suicides        (Sofia Coppola, 2000)
4.  M        (Fritz Lang, 1931)
5.   The Thin Red Line        (Terrence Malick, 1998)
6.  2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
7.   Andrei Rublev        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)
8.   La Passion de Jeannne d'Arc        (Carl Dreyer, 1928)
9.   Pulp Fiction        (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
10. Magnolia        (P.T. Anderson, 1999)

Full length explanation of each choice is available here.

Following ten are runners up: Badlands, The First 100 Years (made-for-HBO documentary shown in 1995), Rain Man, 8 1/2, The Tin Drum, Boogie Nights, The Empire Strikes Back, The City of Lost Children, Gummo, and Metropolis

Alex Jackson is an amateur movie critic and "Advisor" at Epinions.com

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Shan Jayaweera

I have been working on the idea of a top ten for many years now and everytime I get there something pops up which you feel compelled to throw in. But here goes.

(In preferential order)

1.  The Searchers        (John Ford, 1956)
For sheer spectacle this has to be the film. Also socially and politically. Miscegenation and America just starting to go sour.

2.  Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
The master at his most manipulative, cunning and downright evil.

3.  Dr. Strangelove        (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
The other master giving us not only the most hilarious possible end of humanity but a lesson on how to use time and space in a film (most people go for 2001 but Strangelove is his finest)

4.  Nashville        (Robert Altman, 1975)
Biting social satire on everything that is wrong about America. Overlapping dialogue, improvised script, great songs written by the cast (AND I HATE COUNTRY AND WESTERN MUSIC), and the ending leaves you in disbelief.

5.  The Godfather        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
Study of the underworld also a handy metaphor for the corporation and a lesson in attention to detail and art design.

6.  Taxi Driver        (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
Like all the films above, has a deeper meaning relating to America and what has happened socially to the country.

7.  Annie Hall        (Woody Allen, 1977)
Easily his best film, makes me laugh and is very perceptive on the whole relationship thing.

8.  Three Kings        (Will O. Russell, 1999)
Yep, this one's going to throw a lot of people because it's a buddy action film with Clooney, Marky Mark and Ice Cube BUT an American studio film criticising America's involvement in the gulf war. Showing the Iraqis as people and the hyprocrisy of liberating Kuwait and leaving the Iraqi people to be slaughtered at the hands of the same dictator. Beautifully made and thought out.

9.  Sunset Boulevard        (Billy Wilder, 1950)
Goes into the film industry like no other film before it or since (with the possible exception of Barton Fink [Coen Bros 1991]).

10. Dead Man        (Jim Jarmusch, 1995)
Western shot in black and white and actually looking like how the west probably was. Also the Indian culture as a culture being overthrown but also incorporating many features of western culture into it to keep it alive. Poetic and beautiful.

There you have it apologies to the Coen Brothers, Fellini, Kurosawa, Hawks, Sturges, Ashby, Weir, Fincher and Jonze.

Shan Jayaweera is a cinema studies major from the University of Melbourne and a wannabe filmmaker.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Nick Russell

The Senses list is great, but it lacks some of the more modern masterpieces that also should get the respect they earnt. Here are my top ten films of the last few years.

(in no particular order)

Fight Club        (David Fincher, 1999)
The Thin Red Line        (Terrence Malick, 1998)
Eyes Wide Shut        (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels        (Guy Ritchie, 1998)
The Sixth Sense        (M. Night Shyamalan, 1999)
The Silence of the Lambs        (Jonathan Demme, 1990)
High Fidelity        (Stephen Frears, 2000)
Toy Story        (John Lasseter, 1995)
Ed Wood        (Tim Burton, 1994)
Fargo        (Joel Coen, 1995)

All these films deserve top ten listing, there are many more that didn't get a mention (most likely I just couldn't rememberr at the time). I understand most people that call themselves "critics" will probably shreak in horror at my top ten, but these films all deserve acclaim for being classic films of our generation.

Nick Russell is 23-year-old short film maker/film lover from Brisbane. He has produced & directed 3 multi-award-winning short films, and currently has a feature in development, slated for production in November 2001.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Andrew Slattery

(revised list, in disorder)

Mahjong        (Edward Yang, 1996)
Goodbye South, Goodbye        (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1996)
Vivre sa vie        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)
Kids Return        (Takeshi Kitano, 1996)
L'Avventura        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
Unforgiven        (Clint Eastwood, 1992)
Wild Strawberries        (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
The Thin Red Line        (Terrence Malick, 1998)
L'Argent        (Robert Bresson, 1983)
Do the Right Thing        (Spike Lee, 1989)

Favourite film that was never made: a docu-drama about food and friendship set in sunny Stockholm and starring Cary Grant, Bibi Andersson, Robert Downey Jr. and Katrin Cartlidge, co-written by David Mamet & Mike Leigh, with Hou Hsiaoi-hsien directing. And I need to mention Election (Alexander Payne, 1999) for its brilliant spin on human desire, Breaking the Waves (Lars von Trier, 1996) for poor lil' Bess McNeil, Down By Law (Jim Jarmusch, 1986) for its deadpan dynamic, and Naked (Mike Leigh, 1993) for having the most amount of great performances in a single reel.

See also Andrew's previous list: Jul–Aug 2000

Andrew Slattery is a film & video student at The University of Newcastle, Australia, where he is editor of Newcastle CinePost and festival producer of Newcastle Film Festival.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Daniel Smith

My top ten list, roughly in preferential order, without having seen nearly as many films as I should have. Limited to two films per director.

1.  Cries and Whispers        (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)
2.  Solaris        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)
3.  The Thin Red Line        (Terrence Malick, 1998)
4.  Nashville        (Robert Altman, 1975)
5.  Nuit et brouillard        (Alain Resnais, 1955)
6.  Shame        (Ingmar Bergman, 1968)
7.  L'Année Dernière à Marienbad        (Alain Resnais, 1962)
8.  The Godfather II        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
9.  Blow-Up        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)
10. Invasion of the Body Snatchers        (Don Siegel, 1956)

I wish I had room for: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966-Mike Nichols); The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928-Carl Theodore Dreyer); Man With A Movie Camera (1928-Dziga Vertov); Alphaville (1965-Jean-Luc Godard); Rashomon (1950-Akira Kurosawa); A Streetcar Named Desire (1951-Elia Kazan).

Daniel Smith is a film lover.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Mark Spratt

I've chosen ten films that had an enormous impact on my life as a cinephile at the time I first saw them. Each of these awakened me to the possibilities of cinema. (I appreciate the opportunity to alter these lists over time - there's more!)

(in no order):

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance        (John Ford, 1962)
Not a big Ford fan but at a tender age this film I was taken to as a 'star vehicle' astonished me for its construction and revelatory power of the flashback.

Citizen Kane         (Orson Welles, 1941)
Just dazzling whatever age you first see it.

The Honeymoon Killers        (Leonard Kastle, 1969)
Started by Scorsese who was fired for being too slow and painstaking, this is the darkest and blackest comedy of serial killing and amour fou in the wretched byways of lower middle America. Two actors moments - plump Shirley Stoler flopping on a couch to console herself with a box of chocolates and Tony Lo Bianco's bitter misery in regarding his suburban surroundings stay with me longer than anything done by Oscar(R)winners Tom Hanks or Gwyneth Paltrow!

The General         (Buster Keaton/Clyde Bruckman, 1926)
That first encounter with the beautiful filmmaking technique and comic genius of Buster.

Wavelength        (Michael Snow, 1966-67)
Not just a token inclusion of an 'experimental' film. All Snow's work is fascinating but this one invokes many daydreams of other narratives made as explorations of off-screen space.

Once Upon a Time in the West        (Sergeo Leone, 1968)
A 'horse opera' in the true sense of the word. Morricone's sweeping score with its leitmotifs, an iconographic cast acting out a fateful drama of a west becoming enclosed by capitalism as imagined by a cinephile group of European writers.

Mirror        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
Most of Tarkovsky really, but Mirror is one of the purest examples of cinema at its most poetic.

Out 1: Spectre        (Jacques Rivette, 1972)
One of Rivette's best explorations of his many obsessions - actors and theatre, multiple characters and narratives, some connecting, some not, paranoia and conspiracy. Makes Magnolia look puny.

McCabe and Mrs Miller        (Robert Altman, 1971)
Haunting and just magnificently achieved.

Le Mépris        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
Another film that leaves me speechless 20 years after first seeing it. Bardot, Capri, Delerue, Cinemascope, the apartment sequence, and 'the cinema is an invention without a future'.

Mark Spratt has a long working background in exhibition, cinema management, programming and freelance reviewing. The director of Potential Films, he has now been a distributor for over 10 years.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Anthony Stipanov

Films I have had or wish I had on Beta.

(in preferential order)

1.  Mean Streets        (Martin Scorsese, 1973) / Gummo        (Harmony Korine, 1997)
3.  A Day at the Races        (Sam Wood, 1937)
4.  The Killing of a Chinese Bookie        (John Cassavetes, 1976)
5.  A Bout de Souffle        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1959)
6.  Touch of Evil        (Orson Welles, 1958)
7.  Les Quatre Cents Coups        (François Truffaut, 1959)
8.  The Last Remake of Beau Geste        (Marty Feldman, 1977)
9.  Zabriskie Point        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1970)
10. The Boys        (Rowan Woods, 1997)

Others: Jamon Jamon (Luna, 1992), Kentucky Fried Movie (Landis, 1977), Sakura Killers (Ward, 1987).

Anthony Stipanov is studying Cinema at La Trobe University.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Keith Uhlich

(in preferential order)

1.  2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Where we're from, where we are, and where we're going - the perfect film.

2.  Playtime        (Jacques Tati, 1967)
The comedy of life rendered in painstaking and exquisite detail.

3.  The Limey        (Steven Soderbergh, 1999)
Transcending its "revenge story" trappings, Soderbergh's film uses cinema as memory, adding dimension to its characters and to movies themselves.

4.  Repulsion        (Roman Polanski, 1965)
Loss of self as a hypnotic nightmare - the scariest film I've ever seen.

5.  A Moment of Innocence        (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1996)
How human beings and their cultures change through time; the power of movies; the differences and similarities between life and art. The final shot is a perfect summation.

6.  Safe        (Todd Haynes, 1995) * (see below)
The characters become trapped in their situations and times, no one but the, complicit, viewer(s) the wiser. Heartbreaking for what is said about the individual (Safe) and art (Velvet Goldmine).

7.  Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me        (David Lynch, 1992)
As close to dream state as film can get.

8.  The Fury        (Brian De Palma, 1978)
Film as sexual experience. A ribald mix of genres that culminates in one of cinema's most satisfying endings.

9.  The Conversation        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
Examines human curiosity, voyeurism, the hunger for experience, etc, and the dangerous, yet titillating, paths they can lead us down.

10. The X-Files: Fight the Future        (Rob Bowman, 1998) ^ (see below)
I love Gillian Anderson (amazing how movies can cast Cupid's spell), but beyond that: the former is a wondrous mix of sci-fi, romantic comedy, thriller and melodrama, the latter is a devastating yet beautiful portrait of a human's societal and mental disintegration.

* Also included at #6 is Velvet Goldmine        (Todd Haynes, 1998)
^ Also included at #10 is The House of Mirth        (Terence Davies, 2000)

I must also mention The Rapture (Michael Tolkin, 1991) and Dark City (Alex Proyas, 1998), and apologise to all those films I have missed.

See also Keith's revised list: Sept–Oct 2003

Keith Uhlich is an insane film buff/writer/reader/piano player/listener/talker/thinker/ everything-else-life-has-to-offer. He is based in the suburbs of Manhattan.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


McKenzie Wark

For me a top ten should reflect the kinds of films one is nourished by, again and again. So I don't find my list changing all that much, although I find new reasons to like the same films.

(revised list, in preferential order)

1.  The Philadelphia Story        (George Cukor, 1940)
The performances are what work for me in this film at the moment. It's a preposterous story, but Cukor manages to make it emotionally plausible.

2.  North by Northwest        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
Maybe it's because I married an actor, that now I'm looking at the performances more. Here it's Eve Marie Saint, who doubles as a double agent and duplicitous lover. The love scene in the train is still hair-raising.

3.  Le Mépris        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
The failure of cinema to live up to its own precedents (in Greek drama) still strikes me as a marvellous theme. Of course Godard nursed infinite ambitions, but he is too cerebrall to pull that one off.

4.  Body Double        (Brian De Palma, 1983)
Craig Wasson, a so-so actor, is perfectly cast here as a so-so actor. The 'actor's studio' classroom scene is just so believably creepy.

5.  Unfaithfully Yours        (Preston Sturges, 1948)
Ah, Rex Harrison! His performance of the elaborate wording of the script is consummate. Particularly when he confronts Rudi Vallee over the detective's business.

6.  Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo        (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964)
What you might call spiritual realism. Pasolini's most enduring and revolutionary film.

7.  The Searchers        (John Ford, 1956)
Having seen a lot more westerns lately, the conventions of them are wearing a bit thin to me. It's not a genre that can support the weight attributed to it. But this is still a great film, regardless of the conventions of the material upon which it draws.

8.  Pickup on South Street        (Sam Fuller, 1953)
The gangster film seems to me the great American genre, not the western, and here's a great example of its wonderfully formal style of dialogue.

9.  Blade Runner        (Ridley Scott, 1982)
I'm really warming to Gattaca as a great film, but one that could never have existed without the precedent of Blade Runner, in which sci fi finally emerges as an enduring generic frame for cinematic art.

10. Throne of Blood        (Akira Kurosawa, 1957)
I put this in the VCR just to watch the witch spin her fabulous yarn.

See also McKenzie's previous list: Jul–Aug 2000

McKenzie Wark is senior lecturer in media studies at Macquarie University. His most recent book is Celebrities, Culture and Cyberpsace (Pluto Press) which includes a chapter on Australian cinema.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


Richard Wolstencroft

(in no particular order)

Salò        (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975)
A cute family film about four holidaying gentleman raping, mutilating and murdering a gaggle of victims set in fascist Italy. Pasolini's films are full of life and hope but this one paints a slightly different picture.

If...        (Lindsay Anderson, 1968)
A schoolboy revolution with Malcom McDowell opening fire on the house masters and principal. Fun.

Lord of the Flies        (Peter Brook, 1963)
Beautiful cinematic piece that shows the true nature of young boys.

Fitzcarraldo        (Werner Herzog, 1982)
A metaphor for creativity and a stunning film with Kinski at his manic best.

Blue Velvet         (David Lynch, 1986)
Dennis Hopper and his gas mask of magic juice certainly changed the way I looked at modern cinema. Still a disturbingly innocent masterpiece. See other Lynch classics - Twin Peaks series and movie, plus Lost Highway.

Marat/Sade        (Peter Brook, 1966)
Stunning adaption of the famous play that pits the philosophy of De Sade against the foolish ideas of the French revolution.

Dead Ringers        (David Cronenberg, 1988)
I could list most of the Canadian's work especially Videodrome, but this film strikes me as his best...mature and unsettling portrait of the dependency of two strange twins on each other.

A Clockwork Orange        (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)
All Kubrick's work is fucking brilliant but this affected me the deepest. A stunningly vicious portrait of the modern age that is more on the money in 2001 than 2001.

Manhunter        (Michael Mann, 1986)
The best Lecter movie so far. We'll see what Hannibal delivers. Tooth Fairy versus Will Graham with Mann's stunningly visual direction. I hear they are remaking it...hard to top this I dare say.

Orphée        (Jean Cocteau, 1950)
A marvellous dream film that inspired many later works by some of my favourite directors. Cocteau is an iconoclastic master.

Richard Wolstencroft is an independent filmmaker whose credits include Bloodlust (1991), The Intruder (1993) and Pearls Before Swine (1999). He is also a nightclub promoter, pornographer and Director of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival.

back to lists, Feb-Mar 2001


TALLY at February–March 2001,
after 122 original lists, 13 revised lists, and 2 deleted lists:

By film:

 1.
 2.
 3.
 4.
 5.
 6.



10.




Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
Sunrise        (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
La Règle du jeu        (Jean Renoir, 1939)
Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
Au Hasard, Balthazar        (Robert Bresson, 1966)
Le Mépris        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
Mirror        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
The Thin Red Line        (Terrence Malick, 1998)
Andrei Rublev        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)
Ordet        (Carl Dreyer, 1954)
The Searchers        (John Ford, 1956)
Singin' in the Rain        (Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1952)
2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
28
15
13
11
10
9
9
9
9
8
8
8
8
8

By director:

 1.
 2.
 3.
 4.

 6.

 8.

10.

Alfred Hitchcock
Jean-Luc Godard
Robert Bresson
Andrei Tarkovsky
Orson Welles
Michelangelo Antonioni
Carl Dreyer
Jean Renoir
Martin Scorsese
Stanley Kubrick
Yasujiro Ozu
  42
  37
  32
  28
  28
  22
  22
  21
  21
  20
  20

  back to the top of the page


Comment: This survey has now been operating over a year. As I mentioned about 6 months ago, it looks like Vertigo is the "Citizen Kane" of this generation – a totally successful art/mainstream crossover film, able to be appreciated by all types of people. But is it the greatest film ever? I must point out again that ONLY 28 out of 122 people have placed it in their Top Ten (and not necessarily at the No.1 spot in their Top Ten) – these lists offer a rich spectrum of films that this final tally is hopelessly inadequate in representing. This issue sees the publication of numerous lists from your average film punter out there (rather than highbrow or alternative critics) – resulting in a plethora of votes for directors such as Kubrick, Scorsese, Malick. Malick's The Thin Red Line has in fact bolted into the top ten films in this tally, again another perfect crossover film. But here's a question to ponder: will we ever see a period again (like that brief one in the '50s with De Sica's Ladri di Biciclette) where it is NOT an American film that is granted the nominal "collective No.1 film" spot? – Bill Mousoulis.

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