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  The 1,000 Greatest Films The Top 500 (251-300)  
  • Introduction  • The Top 500 Films  • The Full List  • The Top 250 Directors  • PDF Companion  • Links  
  The Top 500: •1-25  •26-50   •51-75   •76-100  •101-150  •151-200  •201-250  •251-300  •301-350  •351-400  •401-450  •451-500  
     
     
     
 
251   252   253
Germany, Year Zero
ROBERTO ROSSELLINI (243)
• Germania anno zero (original title)
1947 | 74m | BW | Italy-West Germany | War Drama, Childhood Drama
Edmund Moeschke, Ernst Pittschau, Barbara Hintz, Ingetraud Hinze, Franz-Otto Kruger, Erich Guhne, Alexandra Manys, Babsi Schultz-Reckewell, Hans Sangen, Hedi Blankner
"To the critics of the time, it seemed that Rossellini had betrayed the tenets of neo-realism by introducing melodrama, an elliptical narrative, and intimations of a Christian consciousness. It now appears as Rossellini's first mature work, pointing to his masterpieces of the 50s." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Michael Haneke, Bernardo Bertolucci, Claire Denis, Wally Hammond, Jean-Max Mejean.
206 → 224 → 223 → 236 → 251 → 243 → 251
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Strictly Film School
 
Senso
LUCHINO VISCONTI (251)
• The Wanton Countess (USA title)
1954 | 115m | Col | Italy | Period Film, Melodrama
Alida Valli, Farley Granger, Massimo Girotti, Heinz Moog, Rina Morelli, Marcella Mariani, Christian Marquand, Tonio Selwart, Sergio Fantoni, Cristoforo De Hartungen
"Like other Visconti melodramas, sumptuous in its Technicolor expressionism, Senso sees heterosexual love through homosexual eyes... Visconti, using English dialogue by Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles, generates emotions so violent that even his operatic vision can barely contain them." - Tony Rayns, Time Out
Selected by Richard Dyer, Pedro Almodóvar, Freddy Buache, Roberto Nepoti, Hans Gunther Pflaum.
301 → 302 → 276 → 262 → 249 → 251 → 252
Amazon  Eye for Film  All-Movie Guide
 
Zero for Conduct
JEAN VIGO (252)
• Zéro de conduite (original title)
1933 | 41m | BW | France | Drama, Childhood Drama
Louis Lefevre, Gilbert Pluchon, Gerard de Bedarieux, Jean Daste, Constantine Goldstein-Kehler, Robert Le Flon, le nain Delfin, Louis de Gonzague-Frick, Du Verron, Leon Larive
"Jean Vigo's 1933 masterpiece charts the rebellion of three young French boys in a sordid little provincial boarding school. A wholly original creation, the film walks a narrow line between surrealist farce and social realism." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Yvonne Rainer, James Naremore, Lindsay Anderson, Penelope Gilliatt, Orlando Lubbert.
219 → 211 → 263 → 239 → 247 → 252 → 253
Amazon  Film Reference  Films de France
 

         
254   255   256
Wings of Desire
WIM WENDERS (259)
• Der Himmel über Berlin (original title)
1987 | 130m | Col-BW | France-West Germany | Fantasy, Romantic Fantasy
Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Curt Bois, Peter Falk, Lajos Kovacs, Hans Martin Stier, Elmar Wilms, Sigurd Rachmann, Beatrice Manowski
"Wings of Desire works hard to be both an essay and a love story, a mural and an intimate portrait. To savor this film, the viewer must work hard too. But when the artists behind the screen and the angels in the audience meet, it's like a smoke and coffee: fantastic!" - Richard Corliss, Time, 1998
Selected by Shawn Levy, Jorge Gorostiza, Alain Masson, Stanley Kwan, Jane Bartlett.
215 → 214 → 237 → 247 → 257 → 259 → 254
Amazon  Strictly Film School  Pop Matters
 
A Night at the Opera
SAM WOOD (253)
1935 | 92m | BW | USA | Anarchic Comedy, Farce
Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones, Margaret Dumont, Sig Ruman, Walter Woolf King, Edward Keane, Robert Emmett O'Connor
"It's a top budget job, opulent and meticulous, with its fair share of vices: this is the first Marx Brothers film where you really feel like strangling the romantic leads. But it has even more virtues: there's no Zeppo, the script's generally great (Kaufman and Ryskind), Dumont's completely great, and the Brothers get to perform some of their most irresistible routines - the stateroom scene and all." - Geoff Brown, Time Out
Selected by Ken Russell, Frederick Wiseman, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Martyn Auty, John Siegel.
223 → 223 → 196 → 202 → 237 → 253 → 255
Amazon  Derek Malcolm's Century of Films  Film Reference
 
Two or Three Things I Know About Her
JEAN-LUC GODARD (250)
• 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle (original title); Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'ellee (original title/alternative spelling)
1966 | 95m | Col | France | Essay Film, Psychological Drama
Marina Vlady, Anny Duperey, Roger Montsoret, Joseph Gehrard, Raoul Levy, Jean Narboni, Yves Beneyton, Juliet Berto, Christophe Bourseiller, Marie Bourseiller
"Two or Three Things I Know About Her is one of the most beautiful films of the young Jean-Luc Godard... All of Godard's various roles and grand illusions fuse in this ironic and passionate 1967 work: a largely improvised examination into 24 hours in the life of a young, working-class woman." -  Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune, 2007
Selected by Amy Taubin, Laura Mulvey, Gavin Smith, James Naremore, James Quandt.
135 → 154 → 191 → 224 → 252 → 250 → 256
Amazon  The New York Sun  Strictly Film School
 
 
 
 
 
257   258   259
Midnight Cowboy
JOHN SCHLESINGER (275)
1969 | 113m | Col | USA | Urban Drama, Buddy Film
Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes, Jennifer Salt, Ruth White, Gil Rankin, Gary Owens
"Long after it was first released, Midnight Cowboy remains one of a handful of films that stay in our memory after the others have evaporated. Its love story between two drifters, the naďve Joe Buck and the street-savvy Ratso Rizzo, is a reference point for other films. Some of its moments, like the one where Ratso pounds on a nudging taxi and shouts, "I'm walking here!" have entered into the folklore." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1994
Selected by Jack Stevenson, Michael Caton-Jones, Nick Love, Robert Siegel, Fernando Leon de Aranoa.
306 → 309 → 351 → 285 → 289 → 275 → 257
Amazon  Film Reference  Washington Post
 
Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom
PIER PAOLO PASOLINI (256)
• Salň o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (original title)
1975 | 117m | Col | Italy | Drama, Political Drama
Paolo Bonacelli, Giorgio Cataldi, Umberto Paolo Quintavalle, Aldo Valletti, Caterina Boratto, Helene Surgere, Sonia Saviange, Elsa De Giorgi, Ines Pellegrini, Rinaldo Missaglia
"Pasolini's last feature is a shockingly literal and historically questionable transposition of the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom to the last days of Italian fascism... It's certainly the film in which Pasolini's protest against the modern world finds its most extreme and anguished expression. Very hard to take, but in its own way an essential work. " - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by David Ehrenstein, Michael Haneke, Catherine Breillat, Joel David, John Greyson.
243 → 248 → 240 → 244 → 253 → 256 → 258
Amazon  BFI Feature  Senses of Cinema
 
Fargo
JOEL COEN & ETHAN COEN (267)
1995 | 97m | Col | USA | Crime Comedy, Black Comedy
Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, William H. Macy, Harve Presnell, Kristin Rudrud, John Carroll Lynch, Steve Reevis, Larry Brandenburg, Jose Feliciano
"The Coens are at their clever best with this snowbound film noir, a crazily mundane crime story set in their native Midwest. Purportedly based on real events, it brings them as close as they may ever come - not very - to everyday life and ordinary people... Fargo has been hauntingly photographed by Roger Deakins with great, expressive use of white-outs that sometimes make the characters appear to be moving through a dream." - Janet Maslin, New York Times
Selected by Tom Hanks, Philip Kemp, Glenn Myrent, Hulya Ucansu, Frank Schnelle.
349 → 332 → 292 → 288 → 268 → 267 → 259
Amazon  Washington Post  Metacritic
 

         
260   261   262
The Terminator
JAMES CAMERON (264)
1984 | 108m | Col | USA | Science Fiction, Action
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton, Paul Winfield, Lance Henriksen, Rick Rossovich, Bess Motta, Earl Boen, Dick Miller, Shawn Schepps
"The pacing and the action are terrific, revelling in the feral relentlessness which characterised Assault on Precinct 13 and Mad Max 2; even the future visions of a wasted LA are well mounted. More than enough violence to make it a profoundly moral film; and Arnold's a whizz." - Chris Peachment, Time Out
Selected by Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Jancovich, Shinya Tsukamoto, Justine Elias, Anita Chaudhuri.
308 → 304 → 324 → 294 → 259 → 264 → 260
Amazon  Eye for Film  Ozu's World Movie Reviews
 
In the Realm of the Senses
NAGISA OSHIMA (262)
• Ai No Corrida (original title); Empire of the Senses (alternative title)
1976 | 108m | Col | France-Japan | Erotic Drama, Psychological Drama
Tatsuya Fuji, Eiko Matsuda, Aoi Nakajima, Yasuko Matsui, Meika Seri, Kanae Kobayashi, Taiji Tonoyama, Kyoji Kokonoe, Naomi Shiraishi, Hiroko Fuji
"Nagisa Oshima's depiction of the obsessive lovemaking between a prostitute and the husband of a brothel keeper, which leads ultimately to the death of the man (with his own consent), is one of the most powerful erotic films ever made, but it certainly isn't for every taste." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by Catherine Breillat, Linda Williams, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Colin MacCabe, Callisto Cosulich.
254 → 242 → 272 → 257 → 269 → 262 → 261
Amazon  Midnight Eye  Reel Views
 
Dawn of the Dead
GEORGE A. ROMERO (271)
1978 | 126m | Col | USA | Horror
David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger, Gaylen Ross, David Crawford, David Early, George A. Romero, Tom Savini, James A. Baffico, Howard Smith
"George Romero's sequel to Night of the Living Dead is a more accomplished and more knowing film, tapping into two dark and dirty fantasies—wholesale slaughter and wholesale shopping—to create a grisly extravaganza with an acute moral intelligence... Romero's sensibility approaches the Swiftian in its wit, accuracy, excess, and profound misanthropy." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Peter Jackson, Mark Borchardt, Bruce LaBruce, Doris Kuhn, Claudius Seidl.
319 → 310 → 365 → 353 → 276 → 271 → 262
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Rolling Stone
 

         
263   264   265
The Life of Oharu
KENJI MIZOGUCHI (260)
• Saikaku ichidai onna (original title)
1952 | 146m | BW | Japan | Melodrama, Period Film
Kinuyo Tanaka, Tsukie Matsuura, Ichiro Sugai, Toshiro Mifune, Toshiaki Konoe, Kiyoko Tsuji, Hisako Yamane, Jukichi Uno, Eitaro Shindo, Masao Shimizu
"What made the film so exceptional was the camera perspective which was omniscient yet sympathetic. As Oharu descends from a privileged life at court down the ladder to the untouchable, nameless, mendicant nun at the end, she achieves nobility and wisdom... Long and solemn, The Life of Oharu is an immensely mature work of art." - Dudley Andrew, Film Reference
Selected by Julian Graffy, Joan Mellen, Howard Feinstein, Edward Buscombe, Jacques Aumont.
234 → 228 → 248 → 258 → 258 → 260 → 263
Amazon  Bright Lights Film Journal  Senses of Cinema
 
Cabaret
BOB FOSSE (273)
1972 | 128m | Col | USA | Musical, Drama
Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem, Joel Grey, Fritz Wepper, Marisa Berenson, Elisabeth Neumann-Viertel, Sigrid von Richthofen, Helen Vita, Gerd Vespermann
"A great movie musical. Taking its form from political cabaret, it's a satire of temptations. We see the decadence as garish and sleazy; yet we also see the animal energy in it - everything seems to become sexualized. The movie does not exploit decadence; rather, it gives it its due." - Pauline Kael
Selected by Iciar Bollain, Michael Koresky, David Fincher, David Ansen, Edward Margulies.
345 → 341 → 357 → 270 → 281 → 273 → 264
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Kamera
 
The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums
KENJI MIZOGUCHI (255)
• Zangiku monogatari (original title)
1939 | 143m | BW | Japan | Period Film, Romantic Drama
Shotaro Hanayagi, Kokichi Takada, Gonjuro Kawarazaki, Kakuko Mori, Tokusaburo Arashi, Yoko Umemura, Nobuko Fushimi, Kikuko Hanaoka, Kisho Hanayagi, Ryotaro Kawanami
"Not the best known of Kenji Mizoguchi's period masterpieces, but conceivably the greatest... Never before nor after (with the possible exception of The 47 Ronin) would Mizoguchi's refusal to use close-ups have more telling effect, and the theme of female sacrifice that informs most of his major works is given a singular resonance and complexity here." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by Jonathan Rosenbaum, Ian Christie, Derek Malcolm, Pierre Rissient, Gilbert Adair.
168 → 184 → 212 → 228 → 254 → 255 → 265
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Derek Malcolm's Century of Films
 

         
266   267   268
Shane
GEORGE STEVENS (266)
1953 | 118m | Col | USA | Western, Psychological Western
Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon de Wilde, Jack Palance, Ben Johnson, Edgar Buchanan, Elisha Cook Jr., Emile Meyer, John Dierkes
"What makes Shane so good a film is its combination of simplicity and warmth of feeling with grandeur of composition. The human figures with their humble show of courage and loyalty are set against a magnificent panorama of plain and mountain." - Dilys Powell
Selected by Charles Burnett, Roger Corman, Paul Morrissey, Woody Allen, Antonio Gimenez-Rico.
241 → 252 → 247 → 249 → 266 → 266 → 266
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Images Journal
 
The Crime of Monsieur Lange
JEAN RENOIR (257)
• Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (original title)
1936 | 90m | BW | France | Drama, Crime Drama
Rene Lefevre, Jules Berry, Odette Florelle, Marcel Levesque, Nadia Sibirskaia, Sylvia Bataille, Henri Guisol, Odette Talazac, Maurice Baquet, Marcel Duhamel
"The movies' great humanist made more famous and warmly received films than this one, but none that was more intricate or insinuating... A lovely, totally engaging portrait of ordinary people pressed down by the Depression but lifted up by their passionate decency." - Richard Schickel, Time
Selected by Tom Charity, David Bordwell, Todd McCarthy, Gilberto Perez, Charles Barr.
190 → 205 → 198 → 238 → 277 → 257 → 267
Amazon  Film Reference  Slant Magazine
 
The Blue Angel
JOSEF VON STERNBERG (261)
• Der Blaue Engel (original title)
1930 | 103m | BW | Germany | Melodrama, Psychological Drama
Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, Kurt Gerron, Rosa Valetti, Hans Albers, Eduard von Winterstein, Reinhold Bernt, Hans Roth, Rolf Muller, Robert Klein-Lork
"A tragedy? A comedy? It's actually a surprisingly complex morality play: a celebration of Lola's sexuality (it was Dietrich's first major role) and an ironic observation of Rath's repression and masochism (Jannings never suffered more or better). The film looks and sounds its age, but remains enthralling." - Tony Rayns, Time Out
Selected by Seijun Suzuki, Barthelemy Amengual, Jovan Jovanovic, Nancy Berthier, Steven Bach.
316 → 281 → 285 → 255 → 261 → 261 → 268
Amazon  Kamera  Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times)
 

         
269   270   271
To Have and Have Not
HOWARD HAWKS (258)
1944 | 100m | BW | USA | Drama, Romance
Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Dolores Moran, Hoagy Carmichael, Dan Seymour, Marcel Dalio, Walter Molnar, Sheldon Leonard, Walter Sande
"Howard Hawks's 1944 answer to Casablanca (which he was originally set to direct but lost to Michael Curtiz) is a far superior film and every bit as entertaining... In many ways the ultimate Hawks film: clear, direct, and thoroughly brilliant." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Peter Bogdanovich, Kim Newman, Todd McCarthy, Mercedes Frutos, Mark Jancovich.
292 → 296 → 319 → 300 → 260 → 258 → 269
Amazon  Bright Lights Film Journal  Filmsite
 
Ninotchka
ERNST LUBITSCH (265)
1939 | 110m | BW | USA | Romantic Comedy, Sophisticated Comedy
Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire, Sig Ruman, Felix Bressart, Bela Lugosi, Alexander Granach, Gregory Gaye, Richard Carle, Edwin Maxwell
"A sparkling, witty political fairy tale from 1939, about a cold but beautiful lady commissar (Greta Garbo) who melts to the bourgeois charms of Paris and Melvyn Douglas... The satire may be mostly a matter of easy contrasts, but the lovers inhabit a world of elegance and poise that is uniquely and movingly Lubitsch's." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Carrie Rickey, Marc Cerisuelo, Jean Dutourd, Marta Balletbo Coll, Simon Relph.
229 → 243 → 249 → 282 → 256 → 265 → 270
Amazon  Time Out  Combustible Celluloid
 
Day of Wrath
CARL DREYER (263)
• Vredens dag (original title)
1943 | 110m | BW | Denmark | Period Film, Psychological Drama
Thorkild Roose, Lisbeth Movin, Sigrid Neiiendam, Preben Lerdorff, Albert Hoeberg, Anna Svierkier, Olaf Ussing, Sigurd Berg, Harald Holst, Preben Neergaard
"Day of Wrath is about the persecution of witches in the 17th century and is sometimes seen as an allegory of the German occupation of Denmark... Dreyer's measured pace and stark visuals, long, horizontal pans and close-ups of riven faces, accompanied as they are by acting of intense realism, make this a morality play of enormous power." - Derek Malcolm, The Guardian, 2000
Selected by Tom Gunning, Shinozaki Makoto, Gary Morris, Zivojin Pavlovic, Tote Trenas.
242 → 231 → 280 → 266 → 267 → 263 → 271
Amazon  Criterion Collection Essay  Strictly Film School
 

         
272   273   274
The Big Sleep
HOWARD HAWKS (282)
1946 | 114m | BW | USA | Mystery, Film Noir
Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Elisha Cook Jr., Martha Vickers, Dorothy Malone, Regis Toomey, Louis Jean Heydt, Sonia Darrin, Bob Steele
"Hawks never allows the plot to get in the way of his real interest: the growing love, based on remarkably explicit sexual attraction, between Bogie and Bacall... In fact, the story is virtually incomprehensible at points, but who cares when the sultry mood, the incredibly witty and memorable script, and the performances are so impeccable?" - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Selected by Thomas Elsaesser, Andrew O'Hehir, Sheila Whittaker, David Ansen, James Monaco.
260 → 241 → 258 → 263 → 279 → 282 → 272
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Images Journal
See Also: 250 Quintessential Noir Films
 
Yojimbo
AKIRA KUROSAWA (279)
• The Bodyguard (English title)
1961 | 110m | BW | Japan | Samurai Film, Costume Adventure
Toshiro Mifune, Eijiro Tono, Kamatari Fujiwara, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yoko Tsukasa, Isuzu Yamada, Daisuke Kato, Seizaburo Kawazu, Takashi Shimura, Hiroshi Tachikawa
"Akira Kurosawa has any number of dramatic and cinematic clichés to overcome—and does so brilliantly—in this action-packed, highly comic translation of Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest to the samurai movie tradition. Toshiro Mifune is again incomparable as the masterless samurai who wanders into a small war between two rival gangs and proceeds to set things right by further stirring them up." - Don Druker, Chicago Reader
Selected by Darren Aronofsky, John Sayles, Jonathan Demme, Duncan Jones, Dominic Wells.
354 → 373 → 339 → 363 → 336 → 279 → 273
Amazon  The Criterion Collection  Roger Ebert's Great Movies
 
West Side Story
ROBERT WISE & JEROME ROBBINS (276)
1961 | 151m | Col | USA | Musical, Juvenile Delinquency Film
Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, George Chakiris, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno, Tucker Smith, Simon Oakland, Tony Mordente, Eliot Feld, David Winters
"So the dancing is remarkable, and several of the songs have proven themselves by becoming standards, and there are moments of startling power and truth. West Side Story remains a landmark of musical history." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 2004
Selected by Gurinder Chadha, John Woo, Ngozi Onwurah, Scott Meek, Gilles Gressard.
275 → 255 → 259 → 250 → 275 → 276 → 274
Amazon  Film Reference  AFI
 

         
275   276   277
Harold and Maude
HAL ASHBY (354)
1971 | 90m | Col | USA | Black Comedy, Coming-of-Age
Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, Vivian Pickles, Cyril Cusack, Charles Tyner, Ellen Geer, Eric Christmas, G. Wood, Judy Engles, Shari Summers
"A box office failure upon its initial release in 1971 which slowly but surely amassed a global cult following, Harold and Maude is one of those cinematic oddities that is hard to imagine being made within the confines of today's film industry... Harold and Maude works because it takes a stylized screwball comedy approach to the characters but grounds them in a believable milieu." - Jeff Stafford, TCM
Selected by George Clooney, Jason Reitman, Fred Durst, Garth Jennings, Arthur Borman.
486 → 418 → 439 → 493 → 415 → 354 → 275
Amazon  The New York Times  MUBI
 
Mulholland Dr.
DAVID LYNCH (293)
• Mulholland Drive (alternative spelling)
2001 | 146m | Col | France-USA | Mystery, Psychological Thriller
Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, Laura Elena Harring, Ann Miller, Dan Hedaya, Mark Pellegrino, Brent Briscoe, Robert Forster, Katharine Towne, Lee Grant
"While watching Mulholland Drive, you might well wonder if any film maker has taken the cliché of Hollywood as "the dream factory" more profoundly to heart than David Lynch. The newest film from the creator of Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks is a nervy full-scale nightmare of Tinseltown that seizes that concept by the throat and hurls it through the looking glass." - Stephen Holden, The New York Times, 2001
Selected by Shunichi Nagasaki, Jeff Goldblum, Sophie Barthes, Sam Wigley, Ed Gonzalez.
589 → 650 → 588 → 654 → 374 → 293 → 276
Amazon  Metacritic  Bright Lights Film Journal
See Also: The 21st Century's Most Acclaimed Films
 
The Asphalt Jungle
JOHN HUSTON (288)
1950 | 112m | BW | USA | Crime Thriller, Film Noir
Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore, Sam Jaffe, John McIntire, Marilyn Monroe, Marc Lawrence, Barry Kelley, Anthony Caruso
"With The Asphalt Jungle, John Huston laid down the definitive pattern of the heist movie... Huston's spare, uncluttered style conveys tension and urgency, but no sense of spurious excitement. Violence is staged without ceremony; shots are fired at close quarters in sudden, edgy confusion, and death strikes more by accident than by design." - Philip Kemp, Film Reference
Selected by Dusan Makavejev, Philip Kaufman, John Baldessari, Ralph Bakshi, Andrzej Wajda.
283 → 294 → 315 → 314 → 306 → 288 → 277
Amazon  Filmsite  Film Noir of the Week
See Also: 250 Quintessential Noir Films
 

         
278   279   280
The Tree of Wooden Clogs
ERMANNO OLMI (268)
• L'Albero degli zoccoli (original title)
1978 | 185m | Col | Italy | Rural Drama, Family Drama
Luigi Ornaghi, Francesca Moriggi, Omar Brignoli, Antonio Ferrari, Teresa Brescianini, Giuseppe Brignoli, Carlo Rota, Pasqualina Brolis, Massimo Fratus, Francesco Villa
"By showing peasant exploitation as neither triumphant Calvary nor action-packed drama, Olmi refutes both 1900 and Padre Padrone, and creates a near-perfect hermetic universe, punctured only in those rare moments when, as tautologous as the film's English title, he dots the 'i's on the amply demonstrated Marxist message. Still, a near faultless and major film." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Selected by Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, Charles Burnett,  Robert Benton, Sheila Whittaker.
231 → 232 → 243 → 246 → 262 → 268 → 278
Amazon  Derek Malcolm's Century of Films  Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
 
Day for Night
FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT (269)
• La Nuit américaine (original title)
1973 | 120m | Col | France | Comedy Drama, Showbiz Drama
Jacqueline Bisset, Valentina Cortese, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Francois Truffaut, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Dani, Alexandra Stewart, Jean Champion, Nathalie Baye, Bernard Menez
"Day for Night is a hilarious, wise and moving chronicle about the members of a crew who come together for seven weeks at the Victorine Studios in Nice to manufacture a movie, an illusion that is, for the period of its production, more important than life itself... Day for Night is Truffaut's fondest, most compassionate film." - Vincent Canby, The New York Times, 1973
Selected by Roger Michell, Alan Rudolph, Michael Dwyer, Jean-Max Mejean, Steven Spielberg.
270 → 268 → 278 → 274 → 263 → 269 → 279
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  Senses of Cinema
 
Easy Rider
DENNIS HOPPER (340)
1969 | 94m | Col | USA | Road Movie, Biker Film
Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Antonio Mendoza, Phil Spector, Jack Nicholson, Warren Finnerty, Mac Mashourian, Tita Colorado, Luke Askew, Luana Anders
"This is the movie by which Hollywood discovered the commercial power of “youth culture.” Fonda and Hopper’s now-classic film hit the old guard with the force of a rifle shot to the head. Today, Easy Rider may be seen as an old hippies’ road movie, but once upon a time it was the road least traveled." - Marjorie Baumgarten, The Austin Chronicle, 2000
Selected by Mario Van Peebles, Roger Donaldson, Shinji Aoyama, Jan Schulz-Ojala, Ralph Umard.
0 → 386 → 361 → 331 → 343 → 340 → 280
Amazon  Roger Ebert's Great Movies  LA Weekly
 

         
281   282   283
Night and Fog
ALAIN RESNAIS (286)
• Nuit et brouillard (original title)
1955 | 32m | Col-BW | France | Military & War, Documentary
Michel Bouquet
"Certainly it is one of the two or three most powerful and intelligent nonfiction films ever made; and it is also, among those many movies that have taken on the loaded subject matter of the Holocaust, perhaps the most aesthetically sophisticated and ethically irreproachable." - Phillip Lopate, The Criterion Collection, 2003
Selected by Alex Gibney, Veronique Godard, Srinivas Krishna, Sanjeev Verma, Patricia Rozema.
352 → 381 → 364 → 372 → 284 → 286 → 281
Amazon  Pop Matters  Strictly Film School
 
Dog Day Afternoon
SIDNEY LUMET (377)
1975 | 130m | Col | USA | Crime Drama, Urban Drama
Al Pacino, John Cazale, Sully Boyar, Charles Durning, Chris Sarandon, Penelope Allen, Beulah Garrick, Carol Kane, James Broderick, Sandra Kazan
"It's an actor's picture. Lumet and his editor, Dede Allen, take the time to allow the actors to live within the characters; we forget we're watching performances. Although the movie contains tragedy and the potential for greater tragedy, it is also tremendously funny. But Frank Pierson's Oscar-winning screenplay never pauses for a laugh; the laughter grows organically out of people and situations." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 2008
Selected by Bruce Robinson, Bong Joon-ho, Nancy Savoca, R.J. Cutler, David Dobkin.
496 → 472 → 523 → 472 → 427 → 377 → 282
Amazon  Wikipedia  Allmovie
 
1900
BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI (277)
• Novecento (original title)
1976 | 311m | Col | France-Germany-Italy | Political Drama, Rural Drama
Burt Lancaster, Robert De Niro, Gerard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda, Francesca Bertini, Laura Betti, Sterling Hayden, Donald Sutherland, Stefania Sandrelli, Romolo Valli
"A well-plotted history play studded with artful sequences and Bertolucci's particular brand of earthiness, bordering on vulgarity. 1900 may seem too conventional compared to the blazing fire of Bertolucci's previous films, but as the film rambles toward its beautifully symbolic final shot of a man on train tracks, it takes its place at the center of the director's career-long, fragmentary 20th-century mosaic." - Noel Murray, The A.V. Club, 2006
Selected by Alan Parker, Stig Bjorkman, Angela Baldassare, Oliver Stone, Jan-Olov Andersson.
250 → 258 → 251 → 267 → 270 → 277 → 283
Amazon  Film Reference  Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times)
 

          
284   285   286
Floating Clouds
MIKIO NARUSE (272)
• Ukigumo (original title)
1955 | 123m | BW | Japan | Psychological Drama, Urban Drama
Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori, Mariko Okada, Isao Yamagata, Chieko Nakakita, Daisuke Kato, Mayuri Mokusho, Roy H. James, Haruna Kaburagi, Nobuo Kaneko
"The elegance and indisputable hard punch of Naruses's storytelling become immediately clear the moment the lovers kiss and the director cuts, mid-clinch, to an almost identical shot of them kissing in the past, an edit that suggests this is a passion that transcends even time and space." - Manohla Dargis, New York Times
Selected by Ann Hui, Shunichi Nagasaki, Edna Fainaru, Li Cheuk-To, Edward Yang.
245 → 256 → 242 → 259 → 271 → 272 → 284
Amazon  Strictly Film School  Slant Magazine
 
Halloween
JOHN CARPENTER (291)
1978 | 93m | Col | USA | Horror, Slasher Film
Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Loomis, P.J. Soles, Charles Cyphers, Kyle Richards, Brian Andrews, John Michael Graham, Nancy Stephens, Arthur Malet
"Halloween is an absolutely merciless thriller, a movie so violent and scary that, yes, I would compare it to Psycho... We see movies for a lot of reasons. Sometimes we want to be amused. Sometimes we want to escape. Sometimes we want to laugh, or cry, or see sunsets. And sometimes we want to be scared. I'd like to be clear about this. If you don't want to have a really terrifying experience, don't see Halloween." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1979
Selected by John Singleton, Dane Cook, Kevin Williamson, Tom Tykwer, Edgar Wright.
479 → 474 → 386 → 465 → 367 → 291 → 285
Amazon  Metacritic  The A.V. Club
 
Lola Montčs
MAX OPHÜLS (278)
• The Sins of Lola Montes (alternative title)
1955 | 110m | Col | France | Period Film, Biography
Martine Carol, Peter Ustinov, Anton Walbrook, Ivan Desny, Will Quadflieg, Oskar Werner, Lisa Delamare, Pauline Dubost, Henri Guisol, Helena Manson
"There are films that demand undivided attention, Lola Montčs is one of them. The film is constructed rigorously; if it throws some viewers off, it’s because for 50 years most films have been narrated in an infantile way. From this point of view, Lola Montčs is not only like Citizen Kane, but also The Barefoot Contessa, Les Mauvaises Recontres, and all these films that turn chronology around for poetic effect." - Andrew Sarris, The New York Observer, 2008
Selected by David Ehrenstein, Kevin Thomas, Mike Hodges, Juan Cobos, Dominik Graf.
327 → 265 → 256 → 276 → 273 → 278 → 286
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  LA Weekly
 

         
287   288   289
Make Way for Tomorrow
LEO MCCAREY (280)
1937 | 92m | BW | USA | Family Drama, Marriage Drama
Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi, Fay Bainter, Thomas Mitchell, Porter Hall, Barbara Read, Maurice Moscovich, Elisabeth Risdon, Minna Gombell, Louise Beavers
"With the possible exception of Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story, this 1937 drama by Leo McCarey is the greatest movie ever made about the plight of the elderly... It's a profoundly moving love story and a devastating portrait of how society works, and you're likely to be deeply marked by it. Hollywood movies don't get much better than this." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by Carlos Diegues, Errol Morris, Tom Luddy, Peter von Bagh, Robin Wood.
295 → 289 → 304 → 280 → 286 → 280 → 287
Amazon  Slant Magazine  Culture Cartel
 
The Kid
CHARLES CHAPLIN (281)
1921 | 60m | BW | USA | Comedy Drama, Melodrama
Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Jackie Coogan, Baby Hathaway, Carl Miller, Granville Redmond, May White, Tom Wilson, Henry Bergman, Lita Grey
"The most Dickensian of Chaplin's features, with a Victorian street atmosphere and a sentimentality to match... It was Chaplin's first full-length film, and the action is perhaps too episodic; he hadn't yet mastered the structural demands of the long form. But several of the episodes -Charlie and Coogan in the plate-glass business, the poor boy's dream of heaven, which comes out nicely tattered and tacky -are sublime." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by David Robinson, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Wayne Wang, Jean-Max Mejean, Ralph Ziman.
278 → 291 → 261 → 291 → 297 → 281 → 288
Amazon  Combustible Celluloid  Bright Lights Film Journal
 
Mouchette
ROBERT BRESSON (285)
1966 | 80m | BW | France | Psychological Drama, Childhood Drama
Nadine Nortier, Marie Cardinal, Paul Hebert, Jean Vimenet, J-C Guilbert, Suzanne Huguenin, Raymonde Chabrun, Marie Susini, Marine Triche
"Mouchette, one of the purest Bressons, is the story of a teenage outcast (Nadine Nortier) so abused by everyone in her village that death seems like God's caress, and so maladroit that she must try three times before she succeeds in drowning herself. Its effect as you watch it is beautifully unforgiving; as you recall it, brutally radiant." - Richard Corliss, Time, 2005
Selected by Jim Jarmusch, Jon Jost, Veronique Godard, John Siegel, Olivier Smolders.
207 → 218 → 260 → 269 → 272 → 285 → 289
Amazon  Strictly Film School  TCM (Michael Atkinson)
 

         
290   291   292
Shadows
JOHN CASSAVETES (298)
1959 | 87m | BW | USA | Drama, Ensemble Film
Lelia Goldoni, Ben Carruthers, Hugh Hurd, Anthony Ray, Rupert Crosse, Dennis Sallas, Tom Allen, David Pokitillow, David Jones, Pir Marini
"Cassavetes's first feature was a one-film American new wave; with his aggressive sincerity and swaggering integrity, Cassavetes became the prototype for the American independent director—the Method actor turned filmmaker. Shadows can be bracketed with Breathless, completed the same year, as a low-budget, post-neorealist, pre-cinema-verité Something New." - J. Hoberman, Village Voice, 2003
Selected by Carlos Diegues, Eva Zaoralova, Rajko Grlic, Pam Cook, June Givanni.
304 → 271 → 293 → 302 → 309 → 298 → 290
Amazon  Slant Magazine  Criterion Collection Essay
 
Strangers on a Train
ALFRED HITCHCOCK (290)
1951 | 101m | BW | USA | Psychological Thriller, Crime Thriller
Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G. Carroll, Patricia Hitchcock, Laura Elliott, Marion Lorne, Howard St. John, Jonathan Hale, John Brown
"Strangers on a Train is not a psychological study, however, but a first-rate thriller with odd little kinks now and then. It proceeds, as Hitchcock's films so often do, with a sense of private scores being settled just out of sight... The movie is usually ranked among Hitchcock's best (I would put it below only Vertigo, Notorious, Psycho and perhaps Shadow of a Doubt), and its appeal is probably the linking of an ingenious plot with insinuating creepiness." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 2004
Selected by Albert Maysles, Karel Reisz, Derek Adams, Jonathan Lynn, Whit Stillman.
232 → 246 → 273 → 253 → 293 → 290 → 291
Amazon  Slant Magazine  Bright Lights Film Journal
See Also: 250 Quintessential Noir Films
 
Network
SIDNEY LUMET (348)
1976 | 121m | Col | USA | Media Satire, Black Comedy
Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Wesley Addy, Ned Beatty, Arthur Burghardt, Bill Burrows, John Carpenter, Jordan Charney
"So the movie's flawed. So it leaves us with loose ends and questions. That finally doesn't bother me, because what it does accomplish is done so well, is seen so sharply, is presented so unforgivingly, that Network will outlive a lot of tidier movies." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Selected by George Clooney, Bennett Miller, Tim Robbins, Danny Cannon, David Roland.
293 → 270 → 267 → 283 → 324 → 348 → 292
Amazon  Village Voice  Reel Views
 
 
 
 
         
293   294   295
Come and See
ELEM KLIMOV (300)
• Idi i smotri (original title)
1985 | 142m | Col | Russia | War Drama, Coming-of-Age
Aleksei Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Lauciavicius, Vladas Bagdonas, Juris Lumiste, Viktor Lorents, Kazimir Rabetsky, Yevgeni Tilicheyev, Aleksandr Berda, G. Velts
"Klimov's prowess is his visual poetry, muscular and animistic... Come and See, an impassioned, pastoral indictment of the Nazis, haunts us with its painterly after-images of World War II as seen through a 14-year-old farm boy's eyes." - Rita Kempley, Washington Post, 1987
Selected by Ari Folman, Gillies MacKinnon, Dina Iordanova, Roger Deakins, Fernando Leon de Aranoa.
398 → 340 → 391 → 357 → 312 → 300 → 293
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Reverse Shot
 
Black God, White Devil
GLAUBER ROCHA (308)
• Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (original title)
1964 | 110m | BW | Brazil | Road Movie, Crime Drama
Yona Magalhaes, Geraldo Del Rey, Othon Bastos, Sonia Dos Humildes, Mauricio do Valle, Joao Gama, Marrom, Antonio Pinto, Milton Rosa, Lidio Silva
"Widely regarded as the first major film by Glauber Rocha, one of the key figures of the cinema nuovo, this exciting 1964 Brazilian feature draws on myth and folklore in exploring the sertao in 1940. Strongly recommended." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by Arturo Ripstein, Klaus Eder, Teshome Gabriel, Alfredo Guevara, Fernando Solanas.
287 → 305 → 300 → 323 → 342 → 308 → 294
Amazon  Time Out  Film Reference
 
Red Desert
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI (284)
• Il Deserto rosso (original title)
1964 | 118m | Col | France-Italy | Drama, Psychological Drama
Monica Vitti, Richard Harris, Carlo Chionetti, Xenia Valderi, Rita Renoir, Lili Rheims, Aldo Grotti, Valerio Bartoleschi, Emanuela Paola Carboni, Bruno Borghi
"Perhaps the most extraordinary and riveting film of Antonioni's entire career; and correspondingly impossible to synopsise. Monica Vitti is an electronics engineer's neurotic wife, wandering in bewilderment through a modern industrial landscape (the film is set in Ravenna) which Antonioni has coloured in the most startling and original way imaginable." - David Pirie, Time Out
Selected by Marc Forster, Yomota Inuhiko, Park Kiyong, Chris Chang, Alistair Banks Griffin.
402 → 427 → 421 → 358 → 310 → 284 → 295
Amazon  Bright Lights Film Journal  Strictly Film School
 

         
296   297   298
My Night at Maud's
ERIC ROHMER (283)
• Ma nuit chez Maud (original title); My Night with Maud (alternative title)
1969 | 105m | BW | France | Comedy Drama, Romantic Drama
Jean-Louis Trintignant, Francoise Fabian, Marie-Christine Barrault, Antoine Vitez, Leonide Kogan, Anne Dubot, Guy Leger, Marie Becker, Marie-Claude Rauzier
"Eric Rohmer's droll and delicate comedy of language... Number three in Rohmer's series of Six Moral Tales, it is probably the most pure: the plotline transpires entirely in the central character's mind and is never explicitly acknowledged by Rohmer's direction, which concentrates instead on the elaborate gambits of a style of speech meant to do anything but communicate." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Selected by Geoff Andrew, Krzysztof Zanussi, Susan Sontag, Robert Benton, Chris Fujiwara.
261 → 282 → 254 → 278 → 282 → 283 → 296
Amazon  Senses of Cinema  Strictly Film School
 
The King of Comedy
MARTIN SCORSESE (294)
1983 | 109m | Col | USA | Showbiz Comedy, Black Comedy
Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, Diahnne Abbott, Sandra Bernhard, Ed Herlihy, Lou Brown, Whitey Ryan, Doc Lawless, Marta Heflin, Katherine Wallach
"The King of Comedy guarantees a split even at the level of expectations: it's definitively not a comedy, despite being hilarious; it pays acute homage to Jerry Lewis, while requiring of the man no hint of slapstick infantilism; its uniquely repellent prize nerd is De Niro himself... Creepiest movie of the year in every sense, and one of the best. " - Paul Taylor, Time Out
Selected by Bryan Singer, Kim Newman, Wim Wenders, Mike Hodges, Edward Norton.
411 → 442 → 370 → 415 → 330 → 294 → 297
Amazon  Salon  David Ehrenstein
 
In a Lonely Place
NICHOLAS RAY (292)
1950 | 91m | BW | USA | Psychological Drama, Film Noir
Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid, Robert Warwick, Jeff Donnell, Martha Stewart, Art Smith, Morris Ankrum, William Ching
"As ever, Ray composes with symbolic precision, confounds audience expectations, and deploys the heightened lyricism of melodrama to produce an achingly poetic meditation on pain, distrust and loss of faith, not to mention an admirably unglamorous portrait of Tinseltown. Never were despair and solitude so romantically alluring." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Selected by Tom Charity, Lizzie Francke, Ed Gonzalez, Tom Ryan, Ry Russo-Young.
330 → 315 → 253 → 286 → 301 → 292 → 298
Amazon  Bright Lights Film Journal  Film Reference
See Also: 250 Quintessential Noir Films
 

         
299   300  

• To 301-350

The Scarlet Empress
JOSEF VON STERNBERG (295)
1934 | 110m | BW | USA | Historical Film, Period Film
Marlene Dietrich, John Lodge, Louise Dresser, Sam Jaffe, C. Aubrey Smith, Gavin Gordon, Maria Sieber, Ruthelma Stevens, Olive Tell, Jameson Thomas
"The Scarlet Empress was the penultimate work in the series of six films Josef von Sternberg made with Marlene Dietrich for Paramount. The series must stand, taken in toto, as one of the most remarkable achievements within the Hollywood cinema, and The Scarlet Empress as one of its peaks, yet its relationship to that cinema is highly ambiguous." - Robin Wood, Film Reference
Selected by Todd McCarthy, Jean-Louis Leutrat, Scott Meek, Callisto Cosulich, Claude Beylie.
376 → 359 → 291 → 298 → 299 → 295 → 299
Amazon  Bright Lights Film Journal  Criterion Collection Essay
 
Le Million
RENÉ CLAIR (297)
1931 | 85m | BW | France | Musical, Musical Comedy
Rene Lefevre, Annabella, Jean-Louis Allibert, Raymond Cordy, Vanda Greville, Paul Ollivier, Constantin Siroesco, Odette Talazac, Pedro Elviro, Jane Pierson
"The Clair style, most brilliantly exemplified in Le Million, is a synthesis, a perfect fusion of sound, dialogue, camera placement and editing. The mood may be ironic, sad or happy, but music and song are never far away... While a good deal of European cinema of the 1930s has not stood the test of time, Le Million hasn’t aged a bit—seeing it today, nearly 70 years after its release, one still cannot help feeling exhilarated by its sheer audacity and grace." - Elliott Stein, Criterion Collection
Selected by D.A. Pennebaker, Raymond Chirat, Leslie Halliwell, Dilys Powell, Richard Barkley.
424 → 448 → 277 → 275 → 285 → 297 → 300
Amazon  Bright Lights Film Journal  Film Reference
 
 
     
     
     
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