Greatest Films of All-Time
Submitted by joannajewsom on Tue, 03/24/2009 - 09:21
Tags:
- The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)- Victor Erice
- The Kid (1921)- Charlie Chaplin
- Breathless (1960)- Jean-Luc Godard
- The Shop on Main Street (1965)- Jan Kadar, Elmar Klos
- Dancer in the Dark (2000)- Lars von Trier
- Annie Hall (1977)- Woody Allen
- Paper Moon (1973)- Peter Bogdanovich
- The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)- Carl Theodor Dreyer
- Notorious (1946)- Alfred Hitchcock
- Rosetta (1999)- Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
- Husbands and Wives (1992)- Woody Allen
- Vagabond (1985)- Agnes Varda
- The Man With a Movie Camera (1929)- Dziga Vertov
- Psycho (1960)- Alfred Hitchcock
- Citizen Kane (1941)- Orson Welles
- City Lights (1931)- Charlie Chaplin
- Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)- GW Pabst
- The Great Dictator (1940)- Charlie Chaplin
- Manhattan (1979)- Woody Allen
- Persona (1966)- Ingmar Bergman
- Vertigo (1958)- Alfred Hitchcock
- M (1931)- Fritz Lang
- Ghost World (2001)- Terry Zwigoff
- All the Real Girls (2003)- David Gordon Green
- Forbidden Games (1952)- Rene Clement
- Happiness (1998)- Todd Solondz
- Breaking the Waves (1996)- Lars von Trier
- The Celebration (1998)- Thomas Vinterberg (uncredited)
- Cries and Whispers (1972)- Ingmar Bergman
- The Children's Hour (1961)- William Wyler
- Rope (1948)- Alfred Hitchcock
- The Exorcist (1973)- William Friedkin
- Les Bonnes Femmes (1960)- Claude Chabrol
- This Is Spinal Tap (1984)- Rob Reiner
- The 400 Blows (1959)- Francois Truffaut
- The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)- Luis Bunuel
- Charade (1963)- Stanley Donen
- Cleo From 5 to 7 (1962)- Agnes Varda
- Ivan's Childhood (1962)- Andrei Tarkovsky
- Amelie (2001)- Jean-Pierre Jeunet
- A Clockwork Orange (1971)- Stanley Kubrick
- My Fair Lady (1964)- George Cukor
- North by Northwest (1959)- Alfred Hitchcock
- Magnolia (1999)- Paul Thomas Anderson
- A Woman Is a Woman (1961)- Jean-Luc Godard
- Zelig (1983)- Woody Allen
- A nos amours (1983)- Maurice Pialat
- La Ceremonie (1995)- Claude Chabrol
- A Face in the Crowd (1957)- Elia Kazan
- Au revoir les enfants (1987)- Louis Malle
- Carnival of Souls (1962)- Herk Harvey
- Or (2004)- Keren Yedaya
- Rear Window (1954)- Alfred Hitchcock
- Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? (1970)- Rainer Werner Fassbinder
- Battleship Potemkin (1925)- Sergei Eisenstein
Interesting list. I've only seen a couple of these. There's quite a few here that sound very appealing. I've been meaning to check out Breathless for a long time. Beehive sounds intriguing.
Breathless is a must-see from the French New Wave, as a lot of those films are. The Spirit of the Beehive is a subtle and deep film. I'm sure someone with your taste would appreciate it.
We'll have to see about this French New Wave scene; if they actually made films that were sincere, genuine, well-crafted, have an honest outlook of Man, & are subtle enough to reward repeated viewings. All I've seen is 2 films by Godard, one which blew me the away (Contempt) and the other I thought was quite silly (Band of Outsiders). Contempt was made on a big budget and from what I've read this is very uncommon for French New Wave films. The fact that many of these movies were made at a very low cost makes me suspicious of their technical quality. I imagine a lack of funds would noticeably impact every facet of the work, though perhaps being outside the dictates of studio indoctrination could redeem it. From what I've heard, Last Year at Marienbad & Hiroshima Mon Amour are supposed to be very good (along with Breathless).
The Resnais films you mention are masterpieces, but they're sort of in a more experimental sub-section of the French New Wave known as the Left Bank. They're not really in the same vein as the directors commonly associated with French New Wave, mainly Godard and Truffaut.
Breathless is a must-see film with similar motifs as Contempt, but I personally think Breathless is a hell of a lot better. If you loved Contempt, I think you'll probably love Breathless as well. Truffaut's work is quite great too, especially The 400 Blows and Jules and Jim.
P.S. I really need to see Spirit of the Beehive!
French New Wave films are steeped in realism, but at the same time very much experimental and technical film exercises. I think that most of the films I've seen have all of those attributes that you name, although a director as self-conscious as Godard can come off as insincere, even detached, at times. They were influenced by classical Hollywood filmmaking, but also made a point to break from the formulaic and traditional filmmaking techniques. They weren't very expensive films, but they were very innovative in their own right (for example, Godard's use of jump cuts), in terms of both technical and narrative aspects of film.
A few must-see films from the French New Wave:
Breathless, 400 Blows, Cleo From 5 to 7, Les Bonnes Femmes, Rohmer's Six Moral Tales.
For me, the two key films to see are Breathless (for the technical excellence) and 400 Blows (for the existentialism and realism, and subtlety you're looking for).
Looking forward to your music list (:
Yeah, I'm working on the music list. I'm going to do try to do around 125-150 albums. Really need to think about that one. This movie list was just off the top of my head, and I limited myself to one per director. I'm going to updated and expand this list soon, and allow multiple entries.
joanna, can you take a quick, superficial glance at my movie list and this list and tell me which one is easier to read and nicer to look at. I think the writing in the 2nd list is distracting so try to imagine it without that.
I prefer your layout. It's perfectly fine.
Are you sure? The italics and bold don't cause you to sort of glaze over the information in the article?
I think the bold works, since I always associate directors with their films. I'm not so big on the italics, but it doesn't necessarily make me glance over it.
Perhaps not, but you're right, it looks better without it.