my "light my fire" canon
- Electrocuting An Elephant (Thomas Edison, 1903)
- San Francisco: Aftermath of an Earthquake (1906, newsreel)
- Les Vampires (Louis Feuillade, 1915)
- Ménilmontant (Dimitri Kirsanov, 1926)
- Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
- L’Âge d’Or (Luis Buñuel, 1930)
- M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
- Blonde Venus (Josef Von Sternberg, 1932)
- Love Me Tonight (Rouben Mamoulian, 1932)
- L’Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1934)
- The Scarlet Empress (Josef Von Sternberg, 1934)
- Make Way for Tomorrow (Leo Mccarey, 1937)
- The Roaring Twenties (Raoul Walsh, 1939)
- The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)
- The Mortal Storm (Frank Borzage, 1940)
- The Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles, 1942)
- The Leopard Man (Jacques Tourneur, 1943)
- The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson, 1943)
- Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944)
- Daisy Kenyon (Otto Preminger, 1947)
- Fireworks (Kenneth Anger, 1947)
- Le Tempestaire (Jean Epstein, 1947)
- Late Spring (Yasujiro Ozu, 1949)
- Long-Haired Hare (Chuck Jones, 1949)
- Un Chant d’amour (Jean Genet, 1950)
- Europa ‘51 (Roberto Rossellini, 1952)
- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953)
- Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954)
- All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk, 1955)
- The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)
- The Wrong Man (Alfred Hitchcock, 1956)
- Ivan the Terrible, Part Two (Sergei Eisenstein, 1958)
- Chronicle of a Summer (Jean Rouch & Edgar Morin, 1961)
- The Ladies’ Man (Jerry Lewis, 1961)
- Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961)
- Advise and Consent (Otto Preminger, 1962)
- Cléo from 5 to 7 (Agnès Varda, 1962)
- Confessions of an Opium Eater (Albert Zugsmith, 1962)
- La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962)
- To Beep or Not to Beep (Chuck Jones, 1963)
- Gertrud (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1964)
- Marnie (Alfred Hitchcock, 1964)
- Simon of the Desert (Luis Buñuel, 1965)
- Vinyl (Andy Warhol, 1965)
- Au hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)
- Breakaway (Bruce Conner, 1966)
- Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967)
- Weekend (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967)
- Hi, Mom! (Brian De Palma, 1970)
- Trash (Paul Morrissey, 1970)
- The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes (Stan Brakhage, 1971)
- Land of Silence and Darkness (Werner Herzog, 1971)
- Pink Narcissus (James Bidgood, 1971)
- Score (Radley Metzger, 1973)
- The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973)
- Earthquake (Mark Robson, 1974)
- Edvard Munch (Peter Watkins, 1974)
- It’s Alive (Larry Cohen, 1974)
- The Parallax View (Alan J. Pakula, 1974)
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)
- Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
- The Human Tornado (Cliff Roquemore, 1976)
- Jeanne Dielman (Chantal Akerman, 1976)
- The Tenant (Roman Polanski, 1976)
- Desperate Living (John Waters, 1977)
- 3 Women (Robert Altman, 1977)
- The Fury (Brian De Palma, 1978)
- All That Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979)
- Cannibal Holocaust (Ruggero Deodato, 1980)
- Cruising (William Friedkin, 1980)
- The Mystery of Oberwald (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1980)
- Lola (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1981)
- Mommie Dearest (Frank Perry, 1981)
- Ms. 45 (Abel Ferrara, 1981)
- Tenebrae (Dario Argento, 1982)
- L’Argent (Robert Bresson, 1983)
- Sans soleil (Chris Marker, 1983)
- Sleepaway Camp (Robert Hiltzik, 1983)
- Love Streams (John Cassavetes, 1984)
- Crime Wave (John Paizs, 1985)
- Day of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1985)
- Chat écoutant la musique (Chris Marker, 1988)
- Medea (Lars Von Trier, 1988)
- Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
- Elephant (Alan Clarke, 1989)
- Clown Ministry Video (Group, 1990)
- Bitter Moon (Roman Polanski, 1992)
- Too Funky (Thierry Mugler, 1992)
- Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven, 1995)
- first chapter of Spiritual Voices (Aleksandr Sokurov, 1995)
- Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997)
- Seventh Heaven (Benoît Jacquot, 1997)
- Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami, 1997)
- Uncle Sam (William Lustig, 1997)
- Outer Space (Peter Tscherkassky, 1999)
- A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
- Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001)
- Kings and Queen (Arnaud Desplechin, 2004)
- Light is Calling (Bill Morrison, 2004)
- Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)
Not so much a list of my top 100 films, in terms of either being my favorites or what I'd be inclined to defend as the best or more important (if I cared) -- although I'm sure that it correlates strongly to both of those hypothetical and impossible lists. Instead, this is just a canon more concerned with describing the character of cinema as I've come upon it. It's 100 titles' worth of "Kiarostami Canon," as described by Adrian Martin in this article, itself absolutely canonical.
Anyway, my methodology was pretty simple: reorganize every title on my yearly lists of favorite films alphabetically and erasing the color coding. Go through and highlight. Add a few titles beyond just for the hell of it. Try to ignore questions of which titles/directors/countries/eras I "should" include and just focus on which selections best reflected my own sensibilities. The results are therefore more self-consciously idiosyncratic than a more disciplined "best of" list might emerge, and is knowingly slanted towards films I've seen recently. Some of those "red" films don't appear here, and quite a few "purple" ones do. (Especially because "purple" = "homosexual.") There are some long films, a lot of short films, in one case just one short piece of a much (much) longer film. There are some documentaries, some non-narrative films, some T&A, cartoons, a video installment, a music video, a newsreel, an incredibly early snuff film, an instructional video.
One thing is certain: as I drop titles in the future to add others, the list will only get more freaky, not less.
I just recently watched Pulse and loved it. I also love Love Me Tonight, It's Alive, and Sleepaway Camp. Lots of films I want to see here, especially All That Jazz (Cabaret would make my similar version of this list) and Breakaway (Report would as well).
"Uncle Sam"?
"A George Michael video directed by a French fashion designer?!"
(Just to let you know, I had to clone this list. It's too eccentric and awesome not to.)
Can you tell me where you saw Jeanne Dielman? I've been trying to catch it for ages.
btw, I'm cloning this as well
More freakiness! Film lists in general need more freakiness.
But this is pretty fantastic, alot of titles from the 70s especially I need to check out.
Keep it real.
I shamelessly cloned your list. But my task will be more difficult, as I will include one film by each director I enjoyed so much that I want to see more of his/her work in the future. So it will take some time to ;-)
I guess here's as good a place as any to thank you personally for putting the Marker cat short (and the Clown Ministry clips) on YouTube. Some people have been adding gems to that site (the Anger shorts, some Bill Viola pieces, JLG getting a pie in the face), which keeps me going back (and also spares me from watching teenagers make bad home movies of themselves whining about life).
I did just get a digital still camera that has the potential to bring about me posting me whining. But I'm not as secretly pleased with myself on camera as they are.