100 favorite films

Submitted by wshogren on Fri, 06/26/2009 - 13:57
Tags: 
  • Delicious
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Technorati
  1. Orson Welles: Touch of Evil (1958)
  2. Andrei Tarkovsky: Stalker (1979)
  3. Kenji Mizoguchi: Street of Shame (1956)
  4. Alfred Hitchcock: Rear Window (1954)
  5. Carl Dreyer: Day of Wrath (1943)
  6. Stanley Kubrick: Barry Lyndon (1975)
  7. Yasujiro Ozu: Tokyo Story (1953)
  8. Roman Polanski: Chinatown (1973)
  9. Orson Welles: Citizen Kane (1941)
  10. Edward Yang: Yi Yi (2000)
  11. Michael Powell: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
  12. Krzysztof Kieslowski: Rouge (1994)
  13. Riddley Scott: Blade Runner (1982)
  14. FW Murnau: Faust (1926)
  15. Jean Renoir: The Grand Illusion (1937)
  16. Stanley Kubrick: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
  17. Robert Altman: Nashville (1975)
  18. Robert Aldrich: Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
  19. Josef von Sternberg: The Shanghai Gesture (1941)
  20. Robert Bresson: Mouchette (1967)
  21. Buster Keaton: Sherlock Jr. (1924)
  22. David Lynch: Mulholland Dr. (2001)
  23. John Boorman: Point Blank (1967)
  24. Takashi Kitano: Sonatine (1993)
  25. David Cronenberg: Dead Ringers (1988)
  27. Next 75 in chronological order:
  28. DW Griffith: Broken Blossoms (1919)
  29. FW Murnau: Nosferatu (1922)
  30. Erich von Stroheim: Greed (1924)
  31. Fritz Lang: Metropolis (1926)
  32. Buster Keaton: The General (1927)
  33. Carl Dreyer: The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
  34. Fritz Lang: M (1931)
  35. Fritz Lang: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
  36. Leo McCarey: Duck Soup (1933)
  37. John Ford: Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
  38. Kenji Mizoguchi: Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (1939)
  39. Jean Renoir: Rules of the Game (1939)
  40. Preston Sturges: The Lady Eve (1941)
  41. Ernst Lubitsch: To Be or Not to Be (1942)
  42. Jacques Tourneur: Cat People (1942)
  43. Alfred Hitchcock: Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
  44. Jacques Tourneur: I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
  45. Sergei Eisenstein: Ivan the Terrible (1946)
  46. Michael Powell: A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
  47. Orson Welles: The Lady from Shanghai (1948)
  48. Carol Reed: The Third Man (1949)
  49. Billy Wilder: Sunset Blvd. (1950)
  50. Akira Kurosawa: Ikiru (1952)
  51. Kenji Mizoguchi: Ugetsu (1953)
  52. Jules Dassin: Rififi (1954)
  53. Akira Kurosawa: The Seven Samurai (1954)
  54. Carl Dreyer: Ordet (1955)
  55. Nicholas Ray: Rebel without a Cause (1955)
  56. John Ford: The Searchers (1956)
  57. Don Siegel: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
  58. Alfred Hitchcock: Vertigo (1958)
  59. Ingmar Bergman: The Virgin Spring (1959)
  60. Robert Bresson: Pickpocket (1959)
  61. Georges Franju: Eyes without a Face (1959)
  62. Michael Powell: Peeping Tom (1960)
  63. Alfred Hitchcock: Psycho (1960)
  64. Alain Resnais: Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
  65. Luis Bunuel: The Exterminating Angel (1962)
  66. Akira Kurosawa: High and Low (1963)
  67. John Sturges: The Great Escape (1963)
  68. Sergio Leone: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
  69. Andrei Tarkovsky: Andrei Rublev (1966)
  70. Luis Bunuel: Belle De Jour (1967)
  71. Jacques Tati: Playtime (1967)
  72. Roman Polanski: Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
  73. Bernardo Bertolucci: The Conformist (1970)
  74. Robert Altman: McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)
  75. John Cassavetes: A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
  76. Francis Ford Coppola: The Godfather part II (1974)
  77. Jacques Rivette: Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)
  78. Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
  79. Andrei Tarkovsky: The Mirror (1975)
  80. George Romero: Dawn of the Dead (1978)
  81. Shohei Imamura: Vengeance is Mine (1979)
  82. Samuel Fuller: White Dog (1982)
  83. Werner Herzog: Fitzcarraldo (1982)
  84. Hiyao Miyazaki: Nausicaa of the Valley of Winds (1983)
  85. Wim Wenders: Paris, Texas (1983)
  86. James Cameron: The Terminator (1984)
  87. Jim Jarmusch: Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
  88. Theo Angelopoulos: Landscape in the Mist (1988)
  89. Krzysztof Kieslowski: The Decalogue (1988)
  90. John Woo: Hard-Boiled (1992)
  91. Harold Ramis: Groundhog Day (1993)
  92. Peter Jackson: Heavenly Creatures (1994)
  93. Wong Kar-Wai: Chungking Express (1994)
  94. Michael Mann: Heat (1995)
  95. John Sayles: Lone Star (1996)
  96. Emir Kusturica: Black Cat White Cat (1998)
  97. Stanley Kubrick: Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
  98. Johnny To: The Mission (1999)
  99. Tsui Hark: Time and Tide (2000)
  100. Christopher Nolan: Memento (2001)
  101. Alejandro González Iñárritu: 21 Grams (2003)
  102. Michel Gondry: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Elston07/18/2009

Brilliant list. I still need to personally see many of your choices, but it's delightful to see you like Life & Death of Blimp. How do you feel about Godard? Seen any of his films?

wshogren07/19/2009

Thanks! Colonel Blimp is a pretty underrated film; I've always liked how it maintains a carefree, almost campy surface while at the same time delving into profound themes of aging, memory, regret and friendship.
I've seen a few Godard movies from the 60s and haven't been that impressed by them. I can appreciate the influence they've had on future film-makers, but to me they're a little too sloppily directed and self-absorbed. I liked "Breathless" and "My Life to Live" pretty well, though. Would you recommend any of his films? It's been a while since I've seen any of them, so I should probably catch some out to see if my tastes have changed.

Elston07/19/2009

Hmm...a Godard film that isn't self-absorbed let me see...uh...that's not easy, but I'd recommend Masculin, Feminin. A pretty conventional and very charming work. In my opinion you can't go wrong with Breathless, really the best introduction to Godard and coincidentally his first film. I think his two masterpieces are Contempt & Pierrot le fou, though the latter is quite wispy and stream of conscious, sort of like a Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlandes. Weekend is right up there as well, not to mention Passion. Pierrot & Weekend demand at least 2 viewings to digest what is going on, but they will be a lot better 2nd time around. Both of those are also technically impeccable, so if you can't relate to the stories there's still some dazzling film making. I'm pretty confused why more people (on listology anyway) don't love this guy, but it seems like he is sort of on the fringes. All I know is I think he's one of, if not the greatest film maker I've seen. But if you don't like him, you don't like him. I'm sure there are a lot of good reasons not to!

wshogren07/21/2009

Pierrot Le Fou, I'll have to check that out. For the longest time that was on my to-see list, but I never got around to it for some reason. I've not even heard of Passion, but I'll try to track that down too. Thanks for the recommendations.

Elston07/21/2009

Passion is wonderful, although I'd recommend Sauve qui peut (la vie)/aka Slow Motion over it. They are both as incredible as each other, but the latter is somewhat more accessible.

Marquee07/21/2009

Amazing list. It's not everyday you see Welles, Hitchcock, Dreyer, Tarkovsky and Mizoguchi in the top five. Really, so many favorites here... Tokyo Story, Faust, The Grand Illusion, Greed, Sherlock Jr, The Conformist, Rosemary's Baby, Mulholland Drive, The Third Man, M, Dead Ringers, etc... I'd like to echo Elston's remark about Godard; definitely see a few more of his films. Week End is the one I recommend you see next. Also, a bit more Lynch? Inland Empire, Blue Velvet and Eraserhead are all films that beat out Mulholland Drive for me (although I like it a whole lot). Seeing Buster Keaton up there made me somewhat surprised by the lack of Chaplin. Not a fan of Modern Times, or City Lights?

Oh yeah, last recommendation (although looking at the range of your list, odds are you've already seen it): L'Atalante. I think you'd like it.

wshogren07/22/2009

Thank you. You're right about Lynch, this list could use more of him. Blue Velvet and Eraserhead both would probably be in my top 150, maybe even Lost Highway. I might consider bumping up Blue Velvet to the top 100, actually.
I've never really been a huge fan of Chaplin, simply because I don't think he's that funny. To me, Keaton's acting and style of film-making is more relevant to this day and age. Although I actually did think of adding one of his later movies, like The Great Dictator or Monsieur Verdoux.
I really need to see L'Atalante again. I saw it when I was around 13 or 14 and was kinda bored by it (1930s French films weren't really my thing back then). Hopefully my tastes have matured since then...