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© Senses of Cinema |
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Raúl Quintanilla Alvarado
(in preferential order)
1. 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
2. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
3. La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960)
4. Vivre sa vie (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)
5. Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
6. Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson, 1970)
7. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
8. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)
9. Amarcord (Federico Fellini, 1974)
10. Ed Wood (Tim Burton, 1994) 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. 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)
2. Make Way for Tomorrow (Leo McCarey, 1937)
3. La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939)
4. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962)
5. Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1958)
6. Lola Montes (Max Ophuls, 1955)
7. Kiss Me, Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955)
8. The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson, 1943)
9. The Band Wagon (Vincente Minnelli, 1953).
10. Portrait of Jennie (William Dieterle, 1948) 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. Jay Bryant
(in chronological order)
City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931) 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. Helen Carter
(in no particular order)
Jules et Jim (François Truffaut, 1962) Helen Carter is a cinematographer from Adelaide, currently studying at the Australian Film Television and Radio School. Charles Davis
(in no particular order)
Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001) 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. Filipe Furtado
(in preferential order)
1. Hatari! (Howard Hawks, 1962) and in no particular order:
Baisers Volés (François Truffault, 1968) 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. Tim Holm
(in preferential order)
1. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) See also Tim's revised list: JulAug 2002 Tim Holm is a 17 year old film lover and aspiring director from British Columbia, Canada. Needeya Islam
(revised list, in no particular order)
Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray, 1955) 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. Christian Keefe
(in preferential order)
1. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) Christian Keefe is a person escaping Flinders University with little to no scarring. 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) See also Shane's previous list: AprMay 2001 Shane Lyons is a Melbourne filmmaker and photographer. Andy McLellan
(in no particular order)
At Play in the Fields of The Lord (Hector Babenco, 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. Stuart Moffat
(in no particular order)
The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer, 1962) Stuart Moffat is a filmmaker based in Perth, currently completing an Honours dissertation on the "dark" film in contemporary Australian cinema at Murdoch University. 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) 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. Marko Peric
-- list deleted at the author's request --
Joe Ruffell
(in no particular order)
Goto, Island of Love (Walerian Borowczyk, 1968)
Hitler, ein Film aus Deutschland (Hans-Jurgen Syberberg, 1977)
El Dorado (Howard Hawks, 1966)
Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davies, 1988)
Kikujiro (Takeshi Kitano, 1998)
Lancelot du Lac (Robert Bresson, 1974)
Fox (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1975)
The Ballad of Cable Hogue (Sam Peckinpah, 1970)
Tetsuo II: Bodyhammer (Shinya Tsukamoto, 1991)
Big Wednesday (John Milius, 1978) 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. |
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David Boxwell
(in chronological order)
Pandora's Box (G.W. Pabst, 1928) 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. Andrew Bunney
(revised list, in preferential order)
1. Hardcore Logo (Bruce McDonald, 1996) See also Andrew's previous list: FebMar 2001 Andrew Bunney is an emerging film writer based in Adelaide. Michelle Carey
(revised list, in no particular order)
Celine et Julie vont en bateau (Jacques Rivette, 1974) 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. 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) 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. 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)
2. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) 3. The General (Buster Keaton/Clyde Bruckman, 1926)
4. Modern Times (Charles Chaplin, 1936)
5. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
6. The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)
7. The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
8. The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998)
9. El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1971)
10. Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945) 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: FebMar 2001 NovDec 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. Patrick K. Dailey
(in preferential order)
1. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
2. Fantasia (Ben Sharpsteen, et al, 1940)
3. Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
4. Nixon (Oliver Stone, 1995)
5. La Passion de Jeannne d'Arc (Carl Dreyer, 1928)
6. (Tie) Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) / Greed (Erich von Stroheim, 1925)
7. The Godfather & The Godfather II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972 & 1974)
8. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
9. 2001: A Space Oddessy (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
10. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980) 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. Anne Démy-Geroe
(in alphabetical order)
Ascenseur pour l'echafaud (Louis Malle, 1957) Anne Démy-Geroe is Artistic Director of the Brisbane International Film Festival. Dog Breath
(in no particular order)
Good Morning (Yasujiro Ozu, 1959)
Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg, 1971)
La Passion de Jeannne d'Arc (Carl Dreyer, 1928)
The Big Lebowski (Joel Coen, 1998)
The Lady Vanishes (Alfred Hitchcock, 1938)
Contact (Robert Zemeckis, 1997)
Tombstone for Fireflies (Isao Takahata, 1988)
Hidden Fortress (Akira Kurosawa, 1958)
Tokyo Drifter (Seijun Suzuki, 1966)
Mon Oncle (Jacques Tati, 1958) Dog Breath is a film lover based in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and administrator of the DVD of the Month Club. Geoff Gardner
(revised list, in chronological order)
A Dog's Life (Charles Chaplin, 1918) 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. Alexander Greenhough
(in no particular order)
Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (Chantal Akerman, 1978) See also Alexander's revised lists: JulAug 2002 JanMar 2004 Alexander Greenhough is a graduate student and filmmaker living in Auckland, New Zealand. Alexander Jacoby
(in chronological order - one film per director)
City Girl (F.W. Murnau, 1930)
Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932)
La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939)
Utamaro and his Five Women (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1947)
Early Summer (Yasujiro Ozu, 1951)
Ordet (Carl Dreyer, 1954)
Un Condamné à Mort s'est Echappé (Robert Bresson, 1956)
Home From the Hill (Vincente Minnelli, 1959)
Le Mépris (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
A Short Film About Love (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1988) 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. Elric Kane
(in preferential order)
1. Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
2. Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, 1959)
3. L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
4. The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, 1962)
5. Pierrot le Fou (Jean-luc Godard, 1965)
6. L'Année Dernière à Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1962)
7. Aguirre: the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972)
8. Les Yeux sans visage (Georges Franju, 1959)
9. El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1971)
10. La Maman et la Putain (Jean Eustache, 1973) 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: JulAug 2002 JulSept 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 Zachary Michael Reno
(in no order)
M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
Shadows (John Cassavetes, 1959)
Branded to Kill (Seijun Suzuki, 1967)
Pierrot le Fou (Jean-luc Godard, 1965)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (Carl Dreyer, 1928)
Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (Agnés Varda, 2000)
L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
Rififi (Jules Dassin, 1955)
The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau, 1925) (***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 ... Andy Sparks
(in no particular order)
Pierrot le Fou (Jean-luc Godard, 1965) See also Andy's revised list: MayJune 2002 Andy Sparks is an independent filmmaker who was a painter during 19941999 (Richmond, VA) and is currently (August 2001) shooting his first film (Savannah, GA) and moving to NY (November 2001). Steve Thorn
(in no particular order)
Un Condamné à Mort s'est Echappé (Robert Bresson, 1956) 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. Andy Todes
(in preferential order)
1. The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998)
2. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
3. Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa, 1952)
4. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
5. Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978)
6. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
7. The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)
8. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
9. Ladri di Biciclette (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)
10. You Can Count on Me (Kenneth Lonergan, 2000) 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.) Alexandru Vitzentzatos
(in preferential order)
1. Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch, 1995)
2. Faces (John Cassavetes, 1968)
3. Day of the Eclipse (Aleksandr Sokurov, 1988)
4. Ordet (Carl Dreyer, 1954)
5. Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, 1959)
6. Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1977)
7. Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
8. Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
9. I Hired a Contract Killer (Aki Kaurismäki, 1990)
10. Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987) 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. 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)
Sunrise (F. W. Murnau, 1927)
La Strada (Federico Fellini, 1954)
Umberto D. (Vittorio De Sica, 1952)
Kanal (Andrzej Wajda, 1956)
Il Conformista (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1969)
Vampyr (Carl Dreyer, 1932)
The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967) 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. |
TALLY at SeptemberOctober 2001,
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By film: |
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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: |
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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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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)
2. Babette's Feast (Gabriel Axel, 1987)
3. Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987)
4. Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1983)
5. El Espíritu de la colmena (Victor Erice, 1973)
6. Woman in the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964)
7. Aguirre: the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972)
8. Sherman's March/Time Indefinite (Ross McElwee, 1991/1993)
9. Fitzcarraldo/Burden of Dreams (Werner Herzog/Les Blank, 1982)
10. Dekalog (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1988) 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 Andres Bermudez
(in chronological order)
Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) 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. 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)
The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
Black Narcissus (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1947)
Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)
Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975)
Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen, 1989)
The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)
A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavetes, 1974) 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. Anthony Easton
(in no particular order)
Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964) See also Anthony's revised list: NovDec 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. Brian Frye
(in alphabetical order)
The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes (Stan Brakhage, 1971) 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. Ian Haig
(in preferential order)
1. Ed Wood (Tim Burton, 1994) Ian Haig is a Media Artist based in Melbourne. Lindsay Anne Hallam
(revised list, in preferential order)
1. Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986) 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 2000Jan 2001 Lindsay Anne Hallam is a 21 year old student at Curtin University in Western Australia where she is majoring in Film and Television. 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)
In the Realm of the Senses (Nagisa Oshima, 1976)
La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962)
Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)
Belle de Jour (Luis Buñuel, 1967)
The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (Raúl Ruiz, 1978)
When We Were Kings (Leon Gast, 1996) Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990) Adele Hann is a programmer and exhibitor who manages the Mercury Cinema for the Media Resource Centre in Adelaide. Eric Henderson
(in chronological order)
La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (Carl Dreyer, 1928) 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: NovDec 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. Julien Humphreys
(in no particular order)
L'Âge d'or (Luis Buñuel, 1930) 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: JulAug 2002 Julien Humphreys is a 17 year old film lover living in Bangor, Wales. He is studying English, French, Spanish and Welsh at school. Ryan McGinley
(in alphabetical order)
An Autumn Afternoon (Yasujiro Ozu, 1962) Ryan McGinley is an 18 year old film buff living in Victoria B.C. Canada. Gawain McLachlan
(in no particular order)
Mad Max 2 (George Miller, 1981) Gawain McLachlan is the editor/publisher of the internet zine Filmnet. Kim Patterson
(in preferential order)
1. Three Colours: Red (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1994) 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. Ingo Petzke
(first five in preferential order, the rest in constant movement)
1. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) Ingo Petzke is Associate Professor for Screen-Based Media at Bond University 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. 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. Rad Rudd
(in preferential order)
1. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
2. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
3. Star Wars Trilogy (George Lucas/Irvin Kershner/Richard Marquand, 1977/80/83)
4. Fist of Fury (aka The Chinese Connection) (Lo Wei, 1972)
5. Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)
6. Police Story 3: SuperCop (Stanley Tong, 1992)
7. Hard-Boiled (John Woo, 1991)
8. La Double vie de Véronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1991)
9. Léolo (Jean-Claude Lauzon, 1992)
10. First Blood (Ted Kotcheff, 1982) 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. Max Scheinin
(revised list)
1. Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978) 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 2000Jan 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. 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)
2. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
3. Blade Runner - Director's Cut (Ridley Scott, 1982/1991)
4. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
5. The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998)
6. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
7. Black Narcissus (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1947)
8. Odd Man Out (Carol Reed 1947)
9. The Human Condition trilogy (Masaki Kobayashi, 1959-61)
10. The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962) Craig Small is a film fanatic and DVD addict from a small town in Maine, USA. Julia Wilde
(in preferential order)
1. Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977) Julia Wilde teaches A-level Film Studies to 16-19 year old students in Manchester, England. Wong Lung-Hsiang
(in no particular order)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) 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), 8½ (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. |
TALLY at JulyAugust 2001,
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By film: |
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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: |
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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 |
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Lars Andersson
My idea of the top ten films would be:
(in preferential order)
1. Fear Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1973) 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. Richard Armstrong
(in no particular order)
Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944) See also Richard's revised list: MarApr 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. Frank Bren
1. The Girl Can't Help It (Frank Tashlin, 1956)
- then, in no particular order ...
Wild Wild Rose (Wang Tianlin, 1960) 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. Mikita Brottman
(in preferential order)
1. The Tingler (William Castle, 1959) 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. William Edwards
(in chronological order)
Sunrise (F. W. Murnau, 1927) 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. Kieran Galvin
(in preferential order)
1. La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995) 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. 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) 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. Paul Harrill
(in alphabetical order)
Au Hasard, Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966) 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. Michael Helms
(revised list, in Widescreen order)
Fight Club (David Fincher, 2000)
Even Dwarfs Started Small (Werner Herzog, 1971)
Blue Sunshine (Jeff Leiberman, 1977)
God's Lonely Man (Francis Zerneck, 1996)
The Beyond (Lucio Fulci, 1981)
Combat Shock (Buddy Giovinazzo, 1986)
Bad Lieutenant (Abel Ferrara, 1992)
The Honeymoon Killers (Leonard Kastle, 1969)
Tonight, I'll Be Incarnated in Your Corpse (José Mojica Marins, 1966)
Mad Dog Morgan (Philippe Mora, 1976) 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: SeptOct 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. Cerise Howard
(in no particular order)
The Tenant (Roman Polanski, 1976) See also Cerise's revised list: MayJune 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. Narain Jashanmal
(in no particular order)
Faces (John Cassavetes, 1968) 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 Kevin John
(in preferential order)
1. Some Call It Loving (James B. Harris, 1973) 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. Milo Kossowski
(in preferential order; films y'all must see)
1. Vampyr (Carl Dreyer, 1932) 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. Maximilian Le Cain
(revised list, in preferential order)
1. Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971) 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 SeptOct 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. Jonathon Oake
(in preferential order)
1. Mean Streets (Martin Scorsese, 1973) 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. Alan Pavelin
(revised list, in chronological order)
La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (Carl Dreyer, 1928)
Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
Ugetsu Monogatari (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)
Viaggio in Italia (Roberto Rossellini, 1953)
Sansho Dayu (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954)
Gertrud (Carl Dreyer, 1964)
Mouchette (Robert Bresson, 1967)
Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
The Sacrifice (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1986)
Yi yi: A One and a Two... (Edward Yang, 2000) 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 JulAug 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. Mike Rollo
(in no particular order)
Vivre sa vie (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962) Mike Rollo is a graduate cinema student at Concordia University. Steve Russell
(in preferential order)
1. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949) 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. Angelo Salamanca
(in preferential order)
1. Il Conformista (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1969)
2. The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Werner Herzog, 1974)
3. The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
4. Mouchette (Robert Bresson, 1967)
5. Les Quatre Cents Coups (François Truffaut, 1959)
6. Chimes at Midnight (Orson Welles, 1966)
7. The Five Senses (Jeremy Podeswa, 1999)
8. Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)
9. 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
10. Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965) 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. Glenn Sloggett
(in preferential order)
1. Ladri di Biciclette (Vittorio de Sica, 1948) 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. 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) 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. 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) 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. Dave Tacon
(in no partcular order)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) 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. George Young
(in preferential order)
1. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) George Young is a chaplain at a Juvenile Detention Center in Ohio who has a strong interest in film. 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) 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. |
TALLY at June 2001,
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By film: |
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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: |
| ||||
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 |
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Acquarello
(revised list, in preferential order)
1. Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979) 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 SeptOct 2000 Acquarello is a NASA Design Engineer and author of the Strictly Film School website. 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) 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 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. Mike DeJong
(revised list, in preferential order)
1. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) See also Mike's previous list: SeptOct 2000 Mike DeJong is a writer and communications/film student at York University in Toronto. His website is Mike's Cinema Paul Gallagher
Here are ten films I love, ten films that overwhelmed me.
(in preferential order)
1. Ugetsu Monogatari (Kenji Mizoguchi. 1953) Paul Gallagher lives in New York City and is fond of films. Fergus Grealy
(in preferential order)
1. La Dolce Vita (Frederico Fellini, 1960)
2. Dr Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
3. Au Hasard, Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)
4. Welcome to the Dollhouse (Todd Solondz, 1996)
5. Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979)
6. The Boys (Rowan Woods, 1998)
7. Vivre sa vie (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)
8. Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch, 1995)
9. Gummo (Harmony Korine, 1997)
10. The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen, 1985) 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. 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) 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. 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) See also Shane's revised list: NovDec 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. Bill Mousoulis
(revised list, in preferential order)
1. Viaggio in Italia (Roberto Rossellini, 1953) 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. 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) 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). Ian Stocks
(in preferential order)
1. L'Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1934) Ian Stocks teaches film and TV in Brisbane and also makes documentaries. Finn Szumlas
(in preferential order)
1. Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979) 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: OctDec 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. 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)
La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939)
Stromboli (Roberto Rossellini, 1949)
Ordet (Carl Dreyer, 1954)
The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)
The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
Nicht Versoehnt (Not Reconciled) (Jean-Marie Straub, 1965)
2 ou 3 Choses que je sais d'elle (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966)
Hitler, ein Film aus Deutschland (Hans-Jurgen Syberberg, 1977)
L'Argent (Robert Bresson, 1983) 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 MayJune 2002 JanMar 2004 Erik Ulman is a composer who teaches music at the University of California, San Diego. |
TALLY at AprilMay 2001,
|
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 |
|
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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)
2. The Searchers (John Ford, 1956) 3. Many films directed by Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray, Samuel Fuller and Billy Wilder.
4. Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1952)
7. Le Joli mai (Chris Marker, 1962)
and Phantom India (Louis Malle, 1968)
8. Old films: The Sentimental Bloke (Raymond Longford, 1919),
Chaplin and Keaton
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. 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. Terry Ballard
(revised list, in preferential order)
1. East of Eden (Elia Kazan, 1955) 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. 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) 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. Andrew Bunney
(in preferential order)
1. Hardcore Logo (Bruce McDonald, 1996) See also Andrew's revised list: SeptOct 2001 Andrew Bunney is an emerging film writer based in Adelaide. David Burns
(in no particular order):
Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985) David Burns is a film lover working as a librarian at Spring Arbor College in Michigan. 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) Paul Coughlin is undertaking postgraduate research in the Literary, Visual and Cultural Studies Department at Monash University. Rick Curnutte
(in preferential order)
1. La Passion de Jeannne d'Arc (Carl Dreyer, 1928) See also Rick's revised lists: SeptOct 2001 NovDec 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. 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) Fergus Daly is a Doctoral student and teacher at the Centre for Film Studies in University College Dublin, Ireland. Chris Fujiwara
All the usual disclaimers, doubts, and qualifications apply, of course.
(in rough preferential order)
1. Bigger than Life (Nicholas Ray, 1956) 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: MayJune 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. 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)
Sawdust and Tinsel (Ingmar Bergman, 1953)
The Human Condition (Masaki Kobayashi, 1959-61)
Les Quatre Cents Coups (François Truffaut, 1959)
L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
Le feu follet (Louis Malle, 1963)
La Battaglia di
Algeri (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1965)
Woman in the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964)
Vengeance Is Mine (Shohei Imamura, 1979)
Porte aperte (Gianni Amelio, 1989) See also Dan's previous list: JulAug 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... 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) Paula Herlihy is a teacher in the TAFE system. Her interests include anime, local history, and humour. Alex Jackson
(in preferential order)
1. Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978) 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 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)
2. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
3. Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
4. Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975)
5. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
6. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
7. Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)
8. Three Kings (Will O. Russell, 1999)
9. Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)
10. Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch, 1995) 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. 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) 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. Andrew Slattery
(revised list, in disorder)
Mahjong (Edward Yang, 1996) 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: JulAug 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. 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) 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. 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)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
The Honeymoon Killers (Leonard Kastle, 1969)
The General (Buster Keaton/Clyde Bruckman, 1926)
Wavelength (Michael Snow, 1966-67)
Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergeo Leone, 1968)
Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
Out 1: Spectre (Jacques Rivette, 1972)
McCabe and Mrs Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)
Le Mépris (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) 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. 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) Others: Jamon Jamon (Luna, 1992), Kentucky Fried Movie (Landis, 1977), Sakura Killers (Ward, 1987). Anthony Stipanov is studying Cinema at La Trobe University. Keith Uhlich
(in preferential order)
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
2. Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967)
3. The Limey (Steven Soderbergh, 1999)
4. Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965)
5. A Moment of Innocence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1996)
6. Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995) * (see below)
7. Twin Peaks:
Fire Walk with Me (David Lynch, 1992)
8. The Fury (Brian De Palma, 1978)
9. The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
10. The X-Files: Fight the Future (Rob Bowman, 1998) ^ (see below)
* Also included at #6 is Velvet Goldmine (Todd Haynes, 1998) 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: SeptOct 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. 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)
2. North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
3. Le Mépris (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
4. Body Double (Brian De Palma, 1983)
5. Unfaithfully Yours (Preston Sturges, 1948)
6. Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo (Pier Paolo
Pasolini, 1964)
7. The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
8. Pickup on South Street (Sam Fuller, 1953)
9. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
10. Throne of Blood (Akira Kurosawa, 1957) See also McKenzie's previous list: JulAug 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. Richard Wolstencroft
(in no particular order)
Salò (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975)
If... (Lindsay Anderson, 1968)
Lord of the Flies (Peter Brook, 1963)
Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982)
Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
Marat/Sade (Peter Brook, 1966)
Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg, 1988)
A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)
Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986)
Orphée (Jean Cocteau, 1950) 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. |
TALLY at FebruaryMarch 2001,
|
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 |
|
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