TSPDT - The 1,000 Greatest Films: The Top 500 Films (301-350)

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The 1,000 Greatest Films The Top 500 (301-350)

• 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

301

302↑

303

All That Heaven Allows

DOUGLAS SIRK (287)

1955 | 89m | Col | USA | Melodrama, Romantic Drama

Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead, Conrad Nagel, Virginia Grey, Charles Drake, Gloria Talbott, William Reynolds, Jacqueline de Wit, Leigh Snowden

"A masterpiece by one of the most inventive and recondite directors ever to work in Hollywood, Douglas Sirk. The story concerns a romance between a middle-aged, middle-class widow (Jane Wyman) and a brawny young gardener (Rock Hudson)... Sirk's meaning is conveyed almost entirely by his mise-en-scene - a world of glistening, treacherous surfaces, of objects that take on a terrifying life of their own; he is one of those rare filmmakers who insist that you read the image." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

Selected by John Waters, Richard Dyer, Todd Haynes, Allison Anders, David Schwartz.

252 → 245 → 269 → 281 → 278 → 287 → 301

Amazon Criterion Collection Essay Film Reference

Yi yi

EDWARD YANG (321)

• A One and a Two... (English title)

2000 | 173m | Col | Taiwan-Japan | Family Drama, Urban Drama

Nien-Jen Wu, Elaine Jin, Issei Ogata, Kelly Lee, Jonathan Chang, Hsi-Sheng Chen, Su-Yun Ko, Michael Tao, Shu-shen Hsiao, Adrian Lin

"In Yi Yi, an intimate family drama set in contemporary Taipei, writer- director Edward Yang establishes himself as one of the premier filmmakers in the world today. Wise, delicate and impeccably performed, Yi Yi is a three- hour drama that looks at one middle-class family in transition -- and does so with such a kind and probing eye that we all see our lives reflected through Yang's lens." - Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle, 2001

Selected by Nick James, Chris Berry, Dan Fainaru, Edna Fainaru, Anne Keijser.

552 → 546 → 569 → 597 → 446 → 321 → 302

Amazon Metacritic The Criterion Collection

Paris, Texas

WIM WENDERS (289)

1984 | 150m | Col | USA | Drama, Road Movie

Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell, Aurore Clement, Nastassja Kinski, Hunter Carson, Bernhard Wicki, Viva, Socorro Valdez, Tom Farrell, John Lurie

"Paris, Texas is a movie with the kind of passion and willingness to experiment that was more common fifteen years ago than it is now. It has more links with films like Five Easy Pieces and Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy, than with the slick arcade games that are the box-office winners of the 1980s. It is true, deep, and brilliant." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1984

Selected by Cedric Kahn, Guillermo Arriaga, Gael Garcia Bernal, Roger Deakins, Martyn Auty.

386 → 370 → 299 → 299 → 313 → 289 → 303

Amazon The A.V. Club Kamera

304↑

305↑

306

Laura

OTTO PREMINGER (310)

1944 | 85m | BW | USA | Film Noir, Romantic Mystery

Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, Judith Anderson, Dorothy Adams, James Flavin, Clyde Fillmore, Ralph Dunn, Grant Mitchell

"Quietly Godardian before the fact—does a story's architecture matter as much as our ardor for imagery?—Laura is a hypnotic and deathlessly interpretable experience, what with Clifton Webb's sexually contradictory presence, Vincent Price (!) as a smug paramour, and Andrews gilding the tough-dick paradigm with his own distinct brand of grieving lostness." - Michael Atkinson, Village Voice, 2005

Selected by John Baldessari, Dan Georgakas, David Meeker, Albert Montagne, Frederic Vitoux.

310 → 317 → 320 → 304 → 288 → 310 → 304

Amazon Slant Magazine Film Reference

See Also: 250 Quintessential Noir Films

307↑

308↑

309

Five Easy Pieces

BOB RAFELSON (322)

1970 | 98m | Col | USA | Drama, Road Movie

Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Lois Smith, Billy Green Bush, Susan Anspach, Helena Kallianiotes, William Challee, Fannie Flagg, Sally Struthers, Marlena MacGuire

"Easy Rider proved in 1969 that Jack Nicholson was a great character actor. Five Easy Pieces proved in 1970 that he was a great actor and a star... Five Easy Pieces has the complexity, the nuance, the depth, of the best fiction. It involves us in these people, this time and place, and we care for them, even though they don't request our affection or applause." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 2003

Selected by Jonathan Demme, Scott Hicks, Rajko Grlic, Antonia Bird, Ralph Bakshi.

288 → 286 → 295 → 313 → 344 → 322 → 307

Amazon Filmsite Time Out

The 39 Steps

ALFRED HITCHCOCK (336)

• The Thirty-Nine Steps (alternative spelling)

1935 | 87m | BW | UK | Thriller, Spy Film

Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Godfrey Tearle, Lucy Mannheim, Peggy Ashcroft, John Laurie, Wylie Watson, Helen Haye, Frank Cellier, Peggy Simpson

"As an artist, Alfred Hitchcock surpassed this early achievement many times in his career, but for sheer entertainment value it still stands in the forefront of his work. Robert Donat is the dapper young man who stumbles across a spy ring; Madeleine Carroll is the cool, luminous blond with whom he shares a pair of handcuffs." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

Selected by Ken Russell, Jacques Lourcelles, Paul Bartel, Bruce Goldstein, Nicolas Saada.

309 → 328 → 306 → 309 → 328 → 336 → 308

Amazon Film Reference The Criterion Collection

The Thief of Bagdad

MICHAEL POWELL & LUDWIG BERGER & TIM WHELAN (306)

• The Thief of Bagdad: An Arabian Fantasy in Technicolor (alternative title)

1940 | 106m | Col | UK | Fantasy, Costume Adventure

Conrad Veidt, Sabu, June Duprez, John Justin, Rex Ingram, Miles Malleson, Mary Morris, Morton Selten, Bruce Winston, Hay Petrie

"This 1940 movie is one of the great entertainments. It lifts up the heart. An early Technicolor movie, it employs colors gladly and with boldness, using costumes to introduce a rainbow... It remains one of the greatest of fantasy films, on a level with The Wizard of Oz." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 2009

Selected by Peter Hames, Diego Galan, Fredric R. Jameson, Ivan Passer, Arturo Ripstein.

378 → 397 → 337 → 320 → 335 → 306 → 309

Amazon The Criterion Collection The A.V. Club

310

311↑

312

The Wind

VICTOR SJÖSTRÖM (299)

1928 | 88m | BW | USA | Drama, Psychological Drama

Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, Montagu Love, Dorothy Cumming, Edward Earle, William Orlamond, Leon Janney, Carmencita Johnson, Billy Kent Schaefer

"A silent classic, revived in recent years by producer/director Kevin Brownlow with a Carl Davis score, which gave the great Lillian Gish one of the finest parts of her career... No one would deny that The Wind is a work of art or, after seeing it, cavil much at the opinion of a French critic, who said that Sjostrom was capable of making "the most beautiful films in the world." - Derek Malcolm, The Guardian, 1999

Selected by Vincent Ward, Charles Barr, Tomas Perez Turrent, Judith Williamson, Dusan Stojanovic.

332 → 333 → 287 → 308 → 291 → 299 → 310

Amazon Senses of Cinema Museum of Modern Art

Top Hat

MARK SANDRICH (319)

1935 | 99m | BW | USA | Musical Romance, Romantic Comedy

Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Helen Broderick, Erik Rhodes, Eric Blore, Lucille Ball, Leonard Mudie, Donald Meek, Florence Roberts

"The third Astaire-Rogers movie (not counting Flying Down to Rio) and one of the best, with a superlative Irving Berlin score (it includes 'No Strings', 'Isn't This a Lovely Day?', 'Top Hat, White Tie and Tails' and 'Cheek to Cheek'), and equally superlative Hermes Pan routines which spark a distinct sexual electricity between the pair." - Tom Milne, Time Out

Selected by Richard Leacock, Pat Thomson, Julian Mateos, Gil Parrondo, George Perry.

368 → 344 → 338 → 307 → 316 → 319 → 311

Amazon Roger Ebert's Great Movies Slant Magazine

The Cameraman

BUSTER KEATON & EDWARD SEDGWICK (305)

1928 | 69m | BW | USA | Slapstick, Romantic Comedy

Buster Keaton, Marceline Day, Harry Gribbon, Harold Goodwin, Sidney Bracey, Edward Brophy, Richard Alexander, Ray Cooke, Vernon Dent, William Irving

"Buster Keaton's 1928 film on the problems and principles of making movies... it includes some of the best asides on the techniques and psychology of shooting films ever captured in a movie. In many ways it summarizes Keaton's career and makes a marvelous companion piece to his other film-about-film, Sherlock Jr." - Don Druker, Chicago Reader

Selected by Jim Jarmusch, Bruce Goldstein, Pupi Avati, Raymond Bellour, Jon Favreau.

375 → 349 → 331 → 338 → 353 → 305 → 312

Amazon Slant Magazine Time Out

313

314

315↑

Aliens

JAMES CAMERON (304)

1986 | 137m | Col | USA | Horror, Sci-Fi Action

Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, William Hope, Jenette Goldstein, Al Matthews, Mark Rolston

"The director, James Cameron, has been assigned to make an intense and horrifying thriller, and he has delivered. Weaver, who is onscreen almost all the time, comes through with a very strong, sympathetic performance: She's the thread that holds everything together." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1986

Selected by Ty Burr, Justine Elias, Jason Reitman, Jeremy Bolt, Paul Anderson.

315 → 306 → 302 → 319 → 303 → 304 → 313

Amazon Reel Views Time Out

The African Queen

JOHN HUSTON (296)

1951 | 105m | Col | USA | Romance, Adventure

Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Morley, Peter Bull, Theodore Bikel, Walter Gotell, Gerald Onn, Peter Swanwick, Richard Marner, Errol John

"Without two accomplished players, Mr. Huston could never have achieved his highly audacious purpose of a virtually two-character film, but Miss Hepburn and Mr. Bogart are entirely up to their jobs, outside of their lack of resemblance to the nationals they're said to be." - Bosley Crowther, New York Times, 1952

Selected by Ronald Neame, Nicholas Meyer, Jaime de Arminan, Annick Demeule, Iciar Bollain.

384 → 336 → 305 → 303 → 296 → 296 → 314

Amazon Film Reference Filmsite

Triumph of the Will

LENI RIEFENSTAHL (331)

• Triumph des Willens (original title)

1935 | 110m | BW | Germany | Propaganda Film, Documentary

Adolf Hitler, Max Amann, Martin Bormann, Walter Buch, Walter Darre, Otto Dietrich, Sepp Dietrich, Hans Frank, Josef Goebbels, Hermann Goring

"Riefenstahl's record of the sixth Nazi congress at Nuremberg in 1934, a massive documentary tribute to the German concept of the Aryan super-race. Technically brilliant, and still one of the most disturbing pieces of propaganda around." - Chris Peachment, Time Out

Selected by Dusan Makavejev, Denys Arcand, Stuart Klawans, Khosrow-Sinai, Nenad Polimac.

262 → 253 → 301 → 347 → 325 → 331 → 315

Amazon Roger Ebert's Great Movies DVD Savant Review

316↑

317

318

Doctor Zhivago

DAVID LEAN (330)

1965 | 197m | Col | USA | Romantic Epic, Period Film

Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Tom Courtenay, Alec Guinness, Siobhan McKenna, Rod Steiger, Ralph Richardson, Rita Tushingham, Adrienne Corri

"The sweep and scope of the Russian revolution, as reflected in the personalities of those who either adapted or were crushed, has been captured by David Lean in Doctor Zhivago, frequently with soaring dramatic intensity. Director has accomplished one of the most meticulously designed and executed films--superior in several visual respects to his Lawrence of Arabia." - A.D. Murphy, Variety, 1965

Selected by Floyd Mutrux, Jerry Bruckheimer, Mark L. Lester, Arthur Borman, Cherd Songsri.

594 → 496 → 541 → 476 → 394 → 330 → 316

Amazon Screen Online Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times)

Kings of the Road

WIM WENDERS (307)

• Im Lauf der Zeit (original title)

1976 | 176m | BW | Germany | Drama, Road Movie

Rudiger Vogler, Hanns Zischler, Lisa Kreuzer, Rudolf Schundler, Marquard Bohm, Dieter Traier, Franziska Stommer, Patric Kreuzer, Wim Wenders, Peter Kaiser

"The first masterpiece of the New German Cinema. Wim Wenders's existentialized road movie follows two drifters in a three-hour ramble through a deflated Germany, touching on their private pasts and their hopes for the future... An engrossing, enveloping film, made with great craft and photographed in highly textured black-and-white by Robby Muller." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

Selected by Hal Hartley, Phillip Noyce, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Michel Boujut, Shinji Aoyama.

240 → 251 → 284 → 268 → 294 → 307 → 317

Amazon Derek Malcolm's Century of Films Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times)

Salvatore Giuliano

FRANCESCO ROSI (309)

1961 | 125m | BW | Italy | Political Drama, Crime Drama

Frank Wolff, Salvo Randone, Frederico Zardi, Sennuccio Benelli, Giuseppe Calandra, Pietro Cammarata, Max Cartier, Nando Cicero, Giuseppe Teti, Cosimo Torino

"Salvatore Giuliano has never been bettered as an interpretation of history without resort to special pleading. It's as if the film-maker is standing back and providing clues that we have to interpret ourselves. This is something Hollywood would never do, and justifies European cinema as much as any other film of what now looks like a golden period." - Derek Malcolm, The Guardian, 2001

Selected by Michel Ciment, Gary Crowdus, Dan Georgakas, Jon Jost, Les Blair.

269 → 267 → 275 → 273 → 287 → 309 → 318

Amazon Criterion Collection Essay DVD Savant

319

320

321

Aparajito

SATYAJIT RAY (303)

1956 | 108m | BW | India | Coming-of-Age, Family Drama

Pinaki Sengupta, Smaran Ghosal, Karuna Banerji, Kanu Banerji, Ramani Sen Gupta, Charu Ghosh, Subodh Ganguly, Kali Charan Ray, Santi Gupta, K.S. Pandey

"In Aparajito (The Unvanquished), the second installment in his Apu Trilogy, Indian film maker Satyajit Ray created one of the screen's great family tales -- the story of a mother's love for her son, and the son's conflicting need for adventure and independence." - Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle, 1995

Selected by Mrinal Sen, Iqbal Masud, Bruce Beresford, Wong Kar-wai, Dennis Hopper.

286 → 277 → 286 → 289 → 295 → 303 → 319

Amazon Reel Views Strictly Film School

Rebel Without a Cause

NICHOLAS RAY (318)

1955 | 111m | Col | USA | Juvenile Delinquency Film, Family Drama

James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus, Ann Doran, Corey Allen, Edward Platt, Dennis Hopper, Nick Adams, William Hopper

"Nicholas Ray's moving 1955 tale of teenage romanticism thwarted by an adult world of televisions and atomic bombs established James Dean as America's first underage icon. Dean's alienation is perfectly expressed through Ray's vertiginous mise-en-scene: the suburban LA setting becomes a land of decaying Formica and gothic split-levels. An unmissable film, made with a delirious compassion." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

Selected by Matt Zoller Seitz, Brandon Judell, Constantine Giannaris, Alain Ferrari, Manuela Reichart.

363 → 323 → 360 → 293 → 300 → 318 → 320

Amazon Slant Magazine Film Reference

Miracle in Milan

VITTORIO DE SICA (301)

• Miracolo a Milano (original title)

1951 | 95m | BW | Italy | Fantasy Comedy, Satire

Francesco Golisano, Paolo Stoppa, Emma Gramatica, Guglielmo Barnabo, Brunello Bovo, Anna Carena, Alba Arnova, Flora Cambi, Virgilio Riento, Arturo Bragaglia

"Made the year after Bicycle Thieves, this is a less coherent but more exuberant film, with De Sica injecting a stiff dose of fantasy into what could have been another plangent tale of gentleman tramps and shantytown life... Outrageous sentimentality undercut by outrageous cheek." - Chris Auty, Time Out

Selected by Milos Forman, Yvette Biro, Ed Lachman, Manuel Antin, Ivan Passer.

271 → 295 → 271 → 251 → 280 → 301 → 321

Amazon Eye for Film Films de France

322

323↑

324

The Piano

JANE CAMPION (274)

1993 | 121m | Col | Australia | Romantic Drama, Period Film

Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, Anna Paquin, Kerry Walker, Tungia Baker, Genevieve Lemon, Ian Mune, Peter Dennett, Alison Barrett

"Judging from Campion's previous films, her primary affliction is femininity itself. In Sweetie, An Angel at My Table and now The Piano, her women are haunted creatures at the mercy of their emotions. Their blood runs with sadness, and it is out of this sexual despair that Campion forges her melancholy poetry. The Piano is dark, sublime music, and after it's over, you won't be able to get it out of your head." - Hal Hinson, Washington Post, 1993

Selected by Xavier Dolan, Sam Mendes, Yvonne Tasker, Anneke Smelik, Lizzie Francke.

445 → 475 → 345 → 261 → 265 → 274 → 322

Amazon Metacritic Variety

Chungking Express

WONG KAR-WAI (326)

• Chung Hing sam lam (original title)

1994 | 104m | Col | Hong Kong | Urban Drama, Romantic Drama

Brigitte Lin, Tony Leung, Faye Wong, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Valerie Chow, Piggy Chan, Guan Lina, Huang Zhiming, Liang Zhen, Zuo Songshen

"Wong Kar-wai's movie tells two loosely interlinked stories, both about lovelorn cops who get involved with women who are wrong for them... This is what Godard movies were once like: fast, hand-held, funny and very, very catchy. The year's zingiest visit to Heartbreak Hotel." - Tony Rayns, Time Out

Selected by Jessica Winter, Julian Graffy, Manohla Dargis, Anne Keijser, Hans Schifferle.

431 → 438 → 333 → 328 → 320 → 326 → 323

Amazon Time Slant Magazine

Strike

SERGEI EISENSTEIN (317)

• Stachka (original title)

1924 | 73m | BW | USSR | Propaganda Film, Political Drama

Maksim Shtraukh, Grigori Aleksandrov, Mikhail Gomorov, Alexander Antonov, Yudif Glizer, I. Ivanov, Ivan Klyukvin, Anatoli Kuznetsov, M. Mamin, Vladimir Uralsky

"Eisenstein's first feature also remains his most watchable; if his theories of montage and typage were already much in evidence, at least they had not yet turned into the over-emphatic academic tropes that marred so much of his later work... Its relentless energy and invention transform the whole thing into a raucous, rousing hymn to human dignity and courage." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out

Selected by Michael Sragow, Alexei Balabanov, David Hanan, Peter Greenaway, Goutam Ghose.

238 → 240 → 290 → 284 → 305 → 317 → 324

Amazon Derek Malcolm's Century of Films Films de France

325↑

326

327

All the President's Men

ALAN J. PAKULA (529)

1976 | 138m | Col | USA | Political Drama, Paranoid Thriller

Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Hal Holbrook, Jason Robards, Jane Alexander, Meredith Baxter Birney, Ned Beatty, Stephen Collins

"Directed by Alan Pakula from William Goldman's script, President's Men works as drama as well as thriller; fencing with each other like dogs in a pen, Redford and Dustin Hoffman's Carl Bernstein develop an uneasy (and, inevitably, temporary) truce between Democrat and Republican, Jew and Gentile, to bring down the common enemy. The movie that launched a thousand J-school admissions, All the President's Men does journalists the service of making them human." - Sam Adams, Philadelphia City Paper, 2006

Selected by Bruce Robinson, George Clooney, Morgan Neville, Rod Lurie, David Fincher.

0 → 739 → 486 → 624 → 496 → 529 → 325

Amazon The Telegraph Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times)

White Heat

RAOUL WALSH (314)

1949 | 114m | BW | USA | Gangster Film, Crime Thriller

James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly, Steve Cochran, John Archer, Paul [I] Guilfoyle, Fred Clark, Wally Cassell, Ford Rainey

"The film that can, perhaps, be read as an unannounced satire on the gangster genre, but it still leaves you breathless at the sheer anarchy of the crime wave he [James Cagney] and his mob loose on an innocent world." - Richard Schickel, Time, 2005

Selected by Michel Ciment, Jonathan Kaplan, Woody Allen, Richard Schickel, Bertrand Tavernier.

285 → 290 → 257 → 290 → 315 → 314 → 326

Amazon Film Reference Combustible Celluloid

See Also: 250 Quintessential Noir Films

Meshes of the Afternoon

MAYA DEREN (312)

1943 | 15m | BW | USA | Avant-garde/Experimental, Surrealist Film

Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid

"A still-startling 16mm work of surrealism and feminism, akin to, in its female-based paranoia and death-wish longing, Charlotte Perkins Gillman's late 19th century The Yellow Wallpaper. Floating gorgeously through the film was Deren herself, and who, male or female, seeing Meshes, hasn't been smitten by Maya's rescue-me-the-suffering-princess, slow-mo beauty?" - Gerald Peary, 2003

Selected by Chris Hegedus, Barbara Hammer, David Hanan, Lizzie Francke, Derek Jarman.

296 → 297 → 239 → 254 → 290 → 312 → 327

Amazon Strictly Film School Film Reference

328

329

330

Heat

MICHAEL MANN (313)

1995 | 174m | Col | USA | Crime, Thriller

Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Amy Brenneman, Wes Studi, Dennis Haysbert, Mykelti Williamson, Diane Venora

"Heat occupies an exalted position among the countless contemporary crime films. Stunningly made and incisively acted by a large and terrific cast, Michael Mann's ambitious study of the relativity of good and evil stands apart from other films of its type by virtue of its extraordinarily rich characterizations and its thoughtful, deeply melancholy take on modern life." - Todd McCarthy, Variety, 1995

Selected by Nick Love, Anke Sterneborg, Alistair Banks Griffin, Ralph Ziman, Angela Glaser.

0 → 0 → 574 → 381 → 354 → 313 → 328

Amazon Slant Magazine Washington Post

An Autumn Afternoon

YASUJIRO OZU (315)

• Sanma no aji (original title)

1962 | 115m | Col | Japan | Family Drama, Romantic Drama

Chishu Ryu, Shima Iwashita, Keiji Sada, Shinichiro Mikami, Mariko Okada, Nobuo Nakamura, Ryuji Kita, Eijiro Tono, Teruo Yoshida, Noriko Maki

"An Autumn Afternoon is not the director’s best-known film, nor is it the title that most of those familiar with his work would cite as his greatest achievement... Still, in its exquisite refinement of Ozu’s style and themes, and its general air of nostalgia and loss, An Autumn Afternoon does in fact feel like a summation of his career—and it is, after all, his final masterpiece." - Geoff Andrew, The Criterion Collection, 2008

Selected by John Powers, M.K. Raghavendra, Olivier Smolders, Jacques Aumont, R. Emmett Sweeney.

361 → 331 → 372 → 396 → 292 → 315 → 329

Amazon Midnight Eye Strictly Film School

Carrie

BRIAN DE PALMA (316)

1976 | 97m | Col | USA | Horror, Supernatural Thriller

Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, William Katt, John Travolta, Nancy Allen, Betty Buckley, P.J. Soles, Sydney Lassick, Stefan Gierasch

"Brian De Palma's Carrie is an absolutely spellbinding horror movie, with a shock at the end that's the best thing along those lines since the shark leaped aboard in Jaws. It's also (and this is what makes it so good) an observant human portrait." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1976

Selected by Nancy Savoca, Quentin Tarantino, Edgar Wright, Yojira Takita, Tom Tykwer.

369 → 365 → 348 → 316 → 308 → 316 → 330

Amazon Bright Lights Film Journal Reverse Shot

331

332↑

333↑

The Time to Live and the Time to Die

Hou Hsiao-hsien (320)

• Tong nien wang shi (original title)

1985 | 137m | Col | Taiwan | Drama, Family Drama

Ann-Shuin Yiu, Feng Tien, Mei-Feng, Yu-Yuen Tang, Shufen Xin, Xiao Ai

"The style of this family saga is spare and simple but eloquence itself... Hou went on to make more audaciously structured films like the magisterial The Puppetmaster, the true story of a famous old folk artist. And Flowers of Shanghai was certainly one of the most visually satisfying you could wish to see. But his style is now more minimalist and more introspective. The Time to Live and the Time to Die is one of his simplest films, and one of his most universal." - Derek Malcolm, The Guardian, 2000

Selected by John Powers, Derek Malcolm, Ann Hui, Heddy Honigmann, Yiwen Chen.

237 → 254 → 282 → 287 → 302 → 320 → 331

Amazon Reverse Shot Senses of Cinema

Killer of Sheep

CHARLES BURNETT (337)

1977 | 83m | Col | USA | Drama, Family Drama

Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore, Charles Bracy, Angela Burnett, Eugene Cherry, Jack Drummond

"A dollar really means something in Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep, a milestone of eloquent understatement that captures the daily life of have-nots as few American movies have... The film he [Burnett] made is a major landmark in American moviemaking: a vivid ballad for life as it was lived by people whom movie cameras could rarely seem to find." - Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe, 2007

Selected by Sukhdev Sandhu, Raoul Peck, Marco Williams, Manthia Diawara, Isaac Julien.

470 → 467 → 508 → 350 → 326 → 337 → 332

Amazon Village Voice Images Journal

Reservoir Dogs

QUENTIN TARANTINO (350)

1991 | 99m | Col | USA | Crime Thriller, Gangster Film

Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Christopher Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Randy Brooks, Kirk Baltz, Edward Bunker, Quentin Tarantino

"If Quentin Tarantino's gritty, bone-chilling, powerfully violent new film, Reservoir Dogs, doesn't pin your ears back, nothing ever will... [It's] as caustic as battery acid. It's brutal, it's funny and you won't forget it. Guaranteed." - Hal Hinson, The Washington Post, 1992

Selected by Tian Zhuangzhuang, Habib Azar, Angela Pope, Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger, Mike D'Angelo.

400 → 298 → 326 → 398 → 372 → 350 → 333

Amazon Metacritic Time Out

334

335↑

336↑

The Hustler

ROBERT ROSSEN (324)

1961 | 135m | BW | USA | Psychological Drama, Sports Drama

Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott, Piper Laurie, Myron McCormick, Murray Hamilton, Michael Constantine, Stefan Gierasch, Jake LaMotta, Gordon B. Clarke

"Newman is Fast Eddie, doing his best to convince the world that he can take on Minnesota Fats (Gleason) at pool and walk away with the world title... Rossen allows much space to the essentially concentrated, enclosed scenes of the film, and so it rests solidly on its performances. A wonderful hymn to the last true era when men of substance played pool with a vengeance." - Chris Peachment, Time Out

Selected by Montxo Armendariz, Bruce Ricker, Hans Schifferle, Luis Alberto de Cuenca, Lluis Bonet Mujica.

463 → 480 → 382 → 336 → 311 → 324 → 334

Amazon Film Reference Roger Ebert's Great Movies

Great Expectations

DAVID LEAN (351)

1946 | 118m | BW | UK | Period Film, Romantic Drama

John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Martita Hunt, Bernard Miles, Francis L. Sullivan, Finlay Currie, Jean Simmons, Anthony Wager, Alec Guinness, Freda Jackson

"A director adapting a Dickens novel finds that much of his work has been done for him. Certainly that's the case with David Lean's Great Expectations, which has been called the greatest of all the Dickens films, and which does what few movies based on great books can do: Creates pictures on the screen that do not clash with the images already existing in our minds. Lean brings Dickens' classic set-pieces to life as if he'd been reading over our shoulder." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1999

Selected by Bryan Forbes, James Mangold, Anthony Quinn, Ingmar Bergman, Kevin Altieri.

266 → 274 → 311 → 360 → 363 → 351 → 335

Amazon BFI Screen Online Senses of Cinema

Wavelength

MICHAEL SNOW (338)

1967 | 45m | Col | Canada | Abstract Film

Hollis Frampton, Amy Taubin

"Wavelength describes a single zoom movement for three quarters of an hour across an almost empty New York loft... The decisiveness with which Snow staked out a territory for investigation, the simplicity and clarity of the film's overall gesture, and the intricacy of its details, were factors in the immediate and continuing attention this film has claimed." - P. Adams Sitney, Film Reference

Selected by Atom Egoyan, Michael Sicinski, Peter Tscherkassky, Keith Griffiths, Annette Michelson.

337 → 324 → 297 → 339 → 317 → 338 → 336

Amazon AllMovie Cinepassion

337↑

338↑

339↑

A Canterbury Tale

MICHAEL POWELL & EMERIC PRESSBURGER (381)

1944 | 124m | BW | UK | Comedy Drama, Road Movie

Eric Portman, Sheila Sim, Sgt. John Sweet, Dennis Price, Esmond Knight, Hay Petrie, George Merritt, Edward Rigby, Charles Hawtrey, Freda Jackson

"If the most important subjects of film are light and time, I can’t think of a more poignant work than A Canterbury Tale. As seen by the Archers—the writing-directing-production team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger—light and time are the basis of our identity, which happens to be the theme of this film... A Canterbury Tale achieves that rare synthesis. Unbearably moving at times, it touches the heart as well as the soul." - Peter von Bagh, The Criterion Collection, 2006

Selected by Sukhdev Sandhu, Kim Newman, Peter von Bagh, Charles Barr, Xan Brooks.

387 → 428 → 434 → 334 → 366 → 381 → 337

Amazon Screen Online Film International

The Big Lebowski

JOEL COEN & ETHAN COEN (390)

1998 | 113m | Col | USA-UK | Crime Comedy, Screwball Comedy

Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid, Peter Stormare, John Turturro, David Thewlis

"Maybe it's the way the Coen brothers tie everything together with bowling that makes this Los Angeles-based tale of burnouts, gun buffs, doobies, tumbleweeds, art, nihilism, porn, pissed-on rugs, severed toes, Saddam Hussein, attack marmots, Teutonic technopop and Bob Dylan — not to mention extortion, kidnapping and death — such a hilarious pop-culture hash. The Big Lebowski is the best movie ever set mostly in a bowling alley." - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone, 1998

Selected by Sam Raimi, Richard Kelly, Antony Burns, Diego Luna, Jurgen Egger.

0 → 0 → 885 → 777 → 404 → 390 → 338

Amazon Variety Pop Matters

Point Blank

JOHN BOORMAN (356)

1967 | 92m | Col | USA | Crime Thriller, Gangster Film

Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn, Carroll O'Connor, Lloyd Bochner, Michael Strong, John Vernon, Sharon Acker, James B. Sikking, Sandra Warner

"John Boorman's modernist, noirish thriller is still his best and funniest effort... Boorman's treatment of cold violence and colder technology has lots of irony and visual flash—the way objects are often substituted for people is especially brilliant, while the influence of pop art makes for some lively 'Scope compositions—and the Resnais-like experiments with time and editing are still fresh and inventive." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

Selected by Andrew Haigh, Nick Schager, Chris Rodley, Elaine Paterson, Les Bernstien.

481 → 473 → 400 → 380 → 378 → 356 → 339

Amazon Senses of Cinema Slant Magazine

340↑

341

342

This is Spinal Tap

ROB REINER (357)

1984 | 82m | Col | USA | Mockumentary, Showbiz Comedy

Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner, R.J. Parnell, David Kaff, June Chadwick, Ed Begley Jr., Tony Hendra, Bruno Kirby

"The children born at Woodstock are preparing for the junior prom, and rock 'n' roll is still here to stay. Rock musicians never die, they just fade away, and This is Spinal Tap is a movie about a British rock group that is rocketing to the bottom of the charts. It also is one of the funniest, most intelligent, most original films of the year." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1985

Selected by Michael Moore, Trey Parker, Jasper Sharp, Marke Andrews, Bill Plympton.

362 → 402 → 435 → 458 → 421 → 357 → 340

Amazon Pop Matters The Criterion Collection

High and Low

AKIRA KUROSAWA (325)

• Tengoku to jigoku (original title)

1963 | 142m | BW | Japan | Post-Noir (Modern Noir), Urban Drama

Toshiro Mifune, Kyoko Kagawa, Tatsuya Mihashi, Tatsuya Nakadai, Isao Kimura, Kenjiro Ishiyama, Takeshi Kato, Takashi Shimura, Jun Tazaki, Yutaka Sada

"Based on Ed McBain's novel, King's Ransom, High and Low illuminates its world with a wholeness and complexity you rarely see in film. As Akira Kurosawa weaves together character study, social commentary and police procedure, he combines what might have been a whole series of movies for another, lesser director." - Paul Attanasio, Washington Post, 1986

Selected by David Siegel, Fredric R. Jameson, Joel Coen, Lodge Kerrigan, Chuck Stephens.

280 → 301 → 309 → 310 → 327 → 325 → 341

Amazon Senses of Cinema Criterion Collection Essay

Eraserhead

DAVID LYNCH (329)

1976 | 90m | BW | USA | Avant-garde/Experimental, Surrealist Film

Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Allen Joseph, Jeanne Bates, Judith Anna Roberts, Laurel Near, V. Phipps-Wilson, Jack Fisk, Jean Lange, Thomas Coulson

"By now, the most interesting thing about Lynch’s cult-classic debut may be the evidence it offers of how fully his sensibility was formed... No matter where he went, however, he never made another movie with a mutant baby or a radiator creature. Those pleasures are all Eraserhead’s own." - Ben Kenigsberg, Time Out New York, 2007

Selected by Olivier Smolders, Claire Binns, A. Hans Scheirl, Luke Y. Thompson, Jean-Claude Romer.

544 → 628 → 479 → 406 → 318 → 329 → 342

Amazon Senses of Cinema The Village Voice

343

344

345

F for Fake

ORSON WELLES (332)

• Vérités et mensonges (original title)

1973 | 85m | Col | France-Iran-West Germany | Avant-garde/Experimental, Essay Film

Orson Welles, Oja Kodar, Elmyr de Hory, Joseph Cotten, Francois Reichenbach, Richard Wilson, Paul Stewart, Clifford Irving, Edith Irving, Laurence Harvey

"Orson Welles's underrated essay film—made from discarded documentary footage by Francois Reichenbach and new material from Welles—forms a kind of dialectic with Welles's never-completed It's All True... Alternately superficial and profound, the film also enlists the services of Oja Kodar, Welles's principal collaborator after the late 60s, as actor, erotic spectacle, and cowriter." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

Selected by James Toback, Glenn Myrent, Dan Fainaru, Jorge Gorostiza, Ry Russo-Young.

326 → 319 → 316 → 318 → 340 → 332 → 343

Amazon Bright Lights Film Journal Criterion Collection Essay (Jonathan Rosenbaum)

El Verdugo

LUIS GARCÍA BERLANGA (323)

• Not on Your Life (English title); Executioner (alternative title)

1963 | 90m | BW | Spain-Italy | Comedy Drama, Black Comedy

Nino Manfredi, Emma Penella, Jose Isbert, Jose Luis Lopez Vazquez, Angel Alvarez, Guido Alberti, Julia Caba Alba, Maria Luisa Ponte, Maria Isbert, Erasmo Pascual

"Berlanga's finest film, El Verdugo, is a somewhat Buñuelian black tragicomedy about a mild-mannered undertaker's assistant who, through a bizarre series of circumstances, becomes a public executioner. Formally Berlanga's most elegant film, it was shot by Pasolini and Leone's cinematographer, the great Tonino Delli Colli." - Elliott Stein, Village Voice, 2001

Selected by Alejandro Amenábar, Carmelo Romero, Antonio Isasi Isasmendi, Javier Angulo, Horacio Valcarcel.

0 → 0 → 358 → 277 → 304 → 323 → 344

Amazon Film Reference Shooting Down Pictures

Rebecca

ALFRED HITCHCOCK (334)

1940 | 130m | BW | USA | Romantic Mystery, Gothic Film

Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson, Nigel Bruce, Gladys Cooper, Reginald Denny, C. Aubrey Smith, Florence Bates, Melville Cooper

"Adapted from the Daphne du Maurier bestseller and created under the aegis of producer David O Selznick, it was Hitchcock's first American film, and a fascinatingly auspicious start to a legendary Hollywood career. The sheer, swooning pleasure that this film affords - its melodrama, its romance, its extravagant menace - makes it a must-see." - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Selected by Yvonne Tasker, Hideo Nakata, Sally Hibbin, Nebojsa Pajkic, Andres Berenguer.

508 → 392 → 343 → 312 → 314 → 334 → 345

Amazon A.V. Club Chicago Reader

346↑

347↑

348

Man of Aran

ROBERT FLAHERTY (355)

1934 | 77m | BW | UK | Anthropology, Documentary

Colman "Tiger" King, Maggie Dillane, Michael Dillane, Pat Mullin, Patch Ruadh, Patcheen Faherty, Tommy O'Rourke, "Big Patcheen" Conneely, Stephen Dirrane, Pat McDonough

"The photography is brilliant, the best of any of Flaherty's work. Though many reviewers have criticized the film for being overly picturesque and stagy, Flaherty's use of new (for 1934) long lenses allowed him to capture some of the most breathtaking imagery ever put into a documentary film." - Don Druker, Chicago Reader

Selected by Pervaiz Khan, Hans Gunther Pflaum, Vicente Antonio Pineda, Andrucha Waddington, Tata Amaral.

464 → 424 → 322 → 311 → 345 → 355 → 346

Amazon Screen Online Film Reference

Mad Max 2

GEORGE MILLER (366)

• The Road Warrior (alternative title)

1981 | 94m | Col | Australia | Action, Science Fiction

Mel Gibson, Bruce Spence, Vernon Wells, Emil Minty, Mike Preston, Kjell Nilsson, Virginia Hey, Syd Heylen, Moira Claux, David Slingsby

"Mad Max 2 is a film of pure action, of kinetic energy organized around the barest possible bones of a plot. It has a vision of a violent future world, but it doesn't develop that vision with characters and dialogue. It would rather plunge headlong into one of the most relentlessly aggressive movies ever made... This is very skillful filmmaking, and Mad Max 2 is a movie like no other." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1981

Selected by Guillermo del Toro, Zack Snyder, David Fincher, Harlan Jacobson, Jurgen Egger.

455 → 479 → 399 → 391 → 347 → 366 → 347

Amazon Culture Vulture Time

LUIS BUÑUEL (333)

• This Strange Passion (English title)

1952 | 91m | BW | Mexico | Black Comedy, Satire

Arturo de Cordova, Delia Garces, Luis Beristain, Aurora Walker, Carlos Martinez Baena, Manuel Donde, Rafael Banquells, Fernando Casanova, Jose Pidal, Roberto Meyer

"Released at the pinnacle of his prolific Mexican period, Él remains one of Luis Buñuel's crowning achievements... Though set in Mexico and ripe with authentic details from daily life, Él is less a portrait of machismo gone awry than it is a brutal and absurd glimpse at one man's runaway paranoia." - Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine, 2001

Selected by Charles Tesson, David Meeker, Tomas Perez Turrent, Francisco Llinas, Gene Moskowitz.

397 → 412 → 327 → 315 → 333 → 333 → 348

Amazon Strictly Film School Chicago Reader

349↑

350

• To 351-400

Monty Python's Life of Brian

TERRY JONES (378)

1979 | 93m | Col | UK | Parody/Spoof, Religious Comedy

Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Carol Cleveland, Kenneth Colley, Gwen Taylor, Terence Bayler

"Life of Brian is the best of the Pythons’ handful of movies, presenting their characteristic lunacy within a fully-developed story structure. Monty Python and the Holy Grail was compromised by budgetary limitations, often giving it the appearance of an extended version of their television work. Such constraints did not apply to Life of Brian, which benefits from magnificent locations, sets, and costumes, and effectively corrals large numbers of extras in several spectacular crowd scenes." - George Perry, The Criterion Collection

Selected by Nancy Savoca, Michel Chion, Trey Parker, Havana Marking, Lenny Borger.

425 → 450 → 424 → 481 → 435 → 378 → 349

Amazon Pop Matters The Village Voice

How Green Was My Valley

JOHN FORD (328)

1941 | 118m | BW | USA | Family Drama, Rural Drama

Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Roddy McDowall, Donald Crisp, Anna Lee, John Loder, Barry Fitzgerald, Patric Knowles, Sara Allgood, Morton Lowry

"John Ford's Oscar winner is an immensely moving study of stresses, changes, and heroism in a Welsh coal-mining family as it passes from the blissful 19th century to the grim 20th. As in all the best Fordian cinema, though everything changes and most things die or disappear, what remains in memory and in spirit triumphs—and what on the surface is a tender and sad film becomes instead joyous and robust." - Don Druker, Chicago Reader

Selected by Peter Bogdanovich, Hideo Nakata, Paul Morrissey, David Schwartz, Hans Gunther Pflaum.

407 → 394 → 367 → 355 → 307 → 328 → 350

Amazon Filmsite Undercurrent (Adrian Martin)

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